_______________________________________________
Gzg-l mailing list
Gzg-l@vermouth.csua.berkeley.edu
http://vermouth.csua.berkeley.edu:1337/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/gzg-lG'd
ay,
John's little comment the other day did raise some interesting GZGverse
questions for me.
1) Of those smaller nations that John pointed to as punching above their
weight all/most have compulsory military service (which Canada and
Australia don't*). I don't know whether this conscript troops are being sent
to the middle east or not (though my guess would be not), but does the very
fact they exist backfill holes at home that 100% volunteer forces would find
it difficult to fill. I know that between Iraq, Afghanistan, Timor and our
other Pacific postings Australia now has as many troops on rotation as it has
had at any point since WWII (recently had the biggest returning soldier march
since WWII) and that is stretching the army very tightly.
2) This brings me round to point 2 of interesting implications for GZGverse
background. What are the efficiencies of scale that you see once you reach a
US (and presumably) UK troop size.
* Just for future reference - or maybe as a plot fiction point for the
NAC - its not exactly a tension free event to mix up members of the
Commonwealth, because like siblings we see greater differences between us than
outsiders would... Canada for instance isn't an ANZAC member, whinging or
otherwise.
Cheers
_______________________________________________
Gzg-l mailing list
Gzg-l@vermouth.csua.berkeley.edu
http://vermouth.csua.berkeley.edu:1337/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/gzg-l2)
This brings me round to point 2 of interesting implications for GZGverse
background. What are the efficiencies of scale that you see once you reach a
US (and presumably) UK troop size.
Also you'd have to take into consideration what time period in NAC history
we're talking about. I'd think the difficulties and unit differences would be
greater earlier on.
I wonder whether the use of peacetime conscription changes a country's culture
appreciably? I'm inclined to say it should, but I haven't seen anything on it.
Of course, in a setting where you have strong transhumanist elements, you
could well see conscription from birth (kind of like genetic Janissaries),
which would probably introduce a whole new dimension of complexity to the
question.
> On Sun, Jul 27, 2008 at 9:06 PM, <Beth.Fulton@csiro.au> wrote:
> 1) Of those smaller nations that John pointed to as punching above
_______________________________________________
Gzg-l mailing list
Gzg-l@vermouth.csua.berkeley.edu
http://vermouth.csua.berkeley.edu:1337/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/gzg-lWou
ld it not be worse when there are loads of planetary units from different
colonies, each with their own divergent culture, separated by non
instantaneous travel and communications. Before the advent of national TV and
what was to become known as the BBC accent there was a huge amount of
regionalism in the dialects and accents and that was in a small country like
England. Stick them on whole different planets and the accents might diverge
sufficiently that they need subtitles on movies shipped between planets. It
happens today for the US market (and this isn't a US bashing) music artists
and flim stars from the UK or other commonweath countries learn to speak in US
accents so they don't sound foreign to their audiences.
----- Original Message ----
From: Don M <dmaddox1@hot.rr.com>
To: gzg-l@vermouth.csua.berkeley.edu
Sent: Monday, 28 July, 2008 2:03:57 PM
Subject: Re: [GZG] Troop potential
2) This brings me round to point 2 of interesting implications for GZGverse
background. What are the efficiencies of scale that you see once you reach a
US (and presumably) UK troop size. Â Also you'd have to take into
consideration what time period in NAC history we're talking about. I'd think
the difficulties and unit differences would be greater earlier on.
_______________________________________________
Gzg-l mailing list
Gzg-l@vermouth.csua.berkeley.edu
http://vermouth.csua.berkeley.edu:1337/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/gzg-l
----- Original Message ----
From: Robert Mayberry robert.mayberry@gmail.com
I wonder whether the use of peacetime conscription changes a country's culture
appreciably? I'm inclined to say it should, but I haven't seen anything on it.
Yes, the unemployed gang members now have military tactics training, more
experience with weapons and possibly more reason to hate society. Now they
have the skills to do something about it. Definately a culture change for the
better.
Of course, in a setting where you have strong transhumanist elements, you
could well see conscription from birth (kind of like genetic Janissaries),
which would probably introduce a whole new dimension of complexity to the
question.
Even without the use of transhuman genetics, is a clone soldier grown in a lab
a human member of society or are they a smart bio weapon? What happens to such
weapons when you are not at war, do you just pop them in a suspended animation
bunker and thaw them out the next time you need them?
[quoted original message omitted]
Isn't it possible in some countries to get hold of military grade vehicles
including MBTs. I don't know what the heaviest weapon a
civilian is allowed to have but a bunch of ex-army techs with a mind to
cause trouble might be able to do so,
Who remembers that new footage of the National guardsmans who stole an MBT and
joyrid it down th e motorway.
In themsleves they may not be much of a threat but if they're hired but
organised crime......
> KH.Ranitzsch@t-online.de wrote:
27/07/2008 16:16
> [quoted text omitted]
I'd add that the potential gang members also learn to be part of something
bigger and better than just a local gang. The "Green Machine" can be a great
method of acculturation into national society.
Michael Brown mwsaber6@msn
--------------------------------------------------
From: <KH.Ranitzsch@t-online.de>
Sent: Monday, July 28, 2008 4:56 AM
To: <gzg-l@vermouth.csua.berkeley.edu>
Subject: Re: [GZG] Troop potential
> -----Original Message-----
And there is always the case of missing items from various armories sold old
off to various underworld figures, or souvenireed by 'collectors' and then
getting stolen and modified.
One of the big things lately in Australia was missing Rocket Launchers being
sold off to some underworld figures.
Robyn Stott
[quoted original message omitted]
_______________________________________________
Gzg-l mailing list
Gzg-l@vermouth.csua.berkeley.edu
http://vermouth.csua.berkeley.edu:1337/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/gzg-lAno
ther problem with small contingents irregardless of how professional and
capable they may be is trying to integrate them effectively and efficiently
into a larger operation. While it might be easier when you have one large
force (say div or larger with a few attached independant battalions, it
becomes a larger hassle when the entire force is made up of a hodgepodge of
bn-brigade sized units.
Units may have potentially different supply requirements, different cultural
requirements and different levels of commitment that are agreed upon by their
political leadership. (i.e. some contingents are to avoid major combat
operations). As the level of intensity of the operation rises, so does the
ability of the hodgepodge force to effectively operate, thus potentially you
lose some of the benefit of having a load higher quality but smaller units...
Los
> At 1:09 PM +0100 7/28/08, Adrian1 wrote:
Tanks, Armoured cars, artillery. In the UK, the Firearm's Owners Card for a.22
is about the same as it is for a 155mm Long Tom from WWII. The fact is though,
that the ammo is rare and hard to get and you need more than one person to run
one.
Tank ammo is easier but still quite hard to get.
> From a factual standpoint, the worst thing people
documents.
> Who remembers that new footage of the National guardsmans who stole an
Yeah, that was a stolen vehicle. And he screwed that tank up pretty good.
You'd never see me doing that to my ferret.
Organized crime could buy it's own armoured cars (think money dellivery).
They've yet to do that.
> KHR wrote:
> >Yes, the unemployed gang members now have military tactics training,
AT4s, not Bazookas; and none of the bikers involved had done any military
service (they had all managed to evade the conscription, most of them due
to various medical reasons) - with the result that even though they
fired several of the weapons at one another they never actually managed to
kill anyone.
Which only goes to prove that no matter how hard you work to design a weapon
even an idiot could use effectively, it won't take long until nature
comes up with an even worse idiot... :-/
Later,
> On 7/28/08, Beth.Fulton@csiro.au <Beth.Fulton@csiro.au> wrote:
Sarcasm detection is left as an exercise for the reader.
> 2) This brings me round to point 2 of interesting implications for
Let's start with the obvious:
With a Navy the size of Australia's (We won't even mention Canada's, which is
now significantly smaller than a WWII convoy escort), you'd have a hard time
manning an aircraft carrier even if you didn't bother manning any other ships
at all. In GZG terms, small nations need to figure out whether they want one
big task force of capital ships, or a bunch of little TFs of tin cans.
For land forces, armored and mechanized units require more support
units than light infantry. That's why something like 2/3 or more (I
used to know off the top of my head, I don't anymore) of the brigades in the
US Army are heavy, whereas if Australia or Canada tried to do
that, they'd have to shut down a brigade (1/3 of Canada's army, not
much less of Australia's) to provide the support weenies.
With a bigger army you can afford to have more specialized support units
which, if they aren't needed, don't go. You can also afford to have a larger
slice of 'tail' to support your allies that don't have the manpower to provide
those sort of troops.
Having larger formations allows you to buy better toys since you're
seriously buying in bulk--and since you're the lion's share of the
defense orders, it forces defense industry to take seriously your requirements
documents. You also get to decide almost unilaterally what calibers of
ammunition your alliance uses.
> On 7/28/08, Oerjan Ariander <orjan.ariander1@comhem.se> wrote:
> AT4s, not Bazookas; and none of the bikers involved had done any
Were they too intoxicated to look at the little pictures on the side that
literally show illiterates how to use the damn thing? I bet blood tests would
answer the question of how they didn't kill anyone.
That's OK. Half the RPGs I've seen in my life don't have the safety pin
removed, even though they've been fired 'at' me (using 'at' in the loosest of
senses). It's not THAT much more complicated.
_______________________________________________
Gzg-l mailing list
Gzg-l@vermouth.csua.berkeley.edu
http://vermouth.csua.berkeley.edu:1337/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/gzg-lOn
Mon, Jul 28, 2008 at 12:06 AM, John Tailby
<john_tailby@xtra.co.nz>wrote:
> ----- Original Message ----
How did Lucas handle this in Star Wars?
Mk
> On 7/28/08, Robert Mayberry <robert.mayberry@gmail.com> wrote:
Don't know about the country's culture, but it changes the Army's culture, and
not in a positive way. Professionals do things differently than a bunch of
folks who don't want to be there. A lot
comes down to how conscription is viewed--if it is hated and the
population attempts to avoid it, it degrades the quality of your lower
enlisted very badly, attitude-wise. It also has very negative effects
on your NCO Corps in the long run.
> Of course, in a setting where you have strong transhumanist elements,
Oh, yuck. That's lovely. Please tell me your idea of the genetically perfect
Soldier isn't limited imagination, blind obedience, and great physical
strength. Most of the authors that play with this theme seems to think that's
the goal.
It's telling that few of them have military service.
Unless you can gene-engineer attitudes, a good long-service
professional is not going to be something you can breed for. And I'll take
attitude any day.
> On 7/28/08, John Tailby <john_tailby@xtra.co.nz> wrote:
> Even without the use of transhuman genetics, is a clone soldier grown
More importantly, as an issue of long-term stability, what do you do
when your military is composed of clone soldiers grown in labs, and they tell
you to go fuck yourself, not only are they NOT climbing back in the suspended
animation bunker, they are going to take over your country, so you'd better
hop to and bring them some good whiskey, a bevy of concubines, and a
microphone so they can inform the populace of the change in political
administrations?
Any group without the requisite intelligence, imagination, and aggressiveness
to stage an effective coup does not have the requisite traits to be an
effective military force. The question of how society
controls the armed elements thereof has been a long-standing issue in
human history. In general terms, the more an armed force feels that it is a
valued part of society, the better off all parties are. It
helps if said armed force has a strong code of self-enforced
professional ethics--which implies a degree of professionalism among
the officers and senior NCOs (many African dictators started out as
sergeants, Idi Amin being one of them). Otherwise, your Yeni-ceri or
Mamlukes or whatever you end up calling them end up running your country as
they please until someone invites some new mercenaries to slaughter them all,
and the cycle starts over again. Or you can demobilize them and kick them out
on the street like dogs, but then
they all buy color-coordinated shirts (brown, black, whatever) or red
armbands, and that never turns out well.
Answering a couple responses at once:
Indy:
> How did Lucas handle this in Star Wars?
Answer: the handwaving solution of soldiers with limited imagination, etc etc
that John mentions next. Though for all its flaws, Lucas does bring up the
essential point that I hinted at by calling them Genetic Janisaries: that if
you outsource your security you outsource your
liberties. In other words, gene-tailored soldiers are a tremendous
threat to your political stability.
John Atkinson:
> Oh, yuck. That's lovely. Please tell me your idea of the genetically
It isn''t. Though physical strength might have a specialist role in certain
situations (police, for example).
> Unless you can gene-engineer attitudes, a good long-service
Actually, engineering attitudes is precisely what I'm talking about.
Or at least 3/4ths of it. Heightened alertness. Less disfunction under
stress. Reduced reaction to fatigue. More aggressiveness. Probably some kind
of social adaptation to improve teamwork (though, along with increased
creativity and intelligence, you'd likely see most people already have those
adaptations).
Basically, any trait that you can screen for now, you will someday be able to
manufacture in a test tube or indoctrinate in a school.
That has strong implications for the society that employs them. John raises
the possibility of a coup; either a hard coup like we've seen in the 20th
century or a "soft coup" as slowly happened with the real Janisaries. Most of
the PSB protections you could imagine (drugs the soldiers must use, etc etc)
aren't really that viable unless they're so effective that you've created a
glaring, easily exploited weakness that your enemies can take advantage of.
More likely, you create that weakness AND leave open the coup threat, plus you
create the grievance that kicks off the coup.
Now, the Janisaries were more than just soldiers. They were an entire slave
bureaucracy that became the trusted administrators of an empire. Would
something similar happen? Yeah, it probably would. On the other hand, if the
entire population is being genetically manipulated for their roles, then the
questions become: "how tolerable is genetic predestination?" and "what roles
can and can't compete?".
OK separate point, related to predestination: some of these adaptations will
have physiological or psychological costs to the person being engineered, who
of course doesn't get a vote. Let's say that maturation in 10 years instead of
18, complete with accelerated learning to get their training done in time,
requires changes that leave your life expectancy around 30 years old. That's a
fantastic
deal for the policy-maker who engineered you. For you, the engineered,
it sucks. You could imagine other tradeoffs (impotence, for example) but they
all embody the same idea: that you're "parents" have fundamentally different
motives and goals than you, and though you have to live day and night with the
consequences, by definition you don't get any say whatsoever.
It's a horrifying and very common theme in transhumanist science fiction
precisely because it makes for interesting plotlines.
_______________________________________________
Gzg-l mailing list
Gzg-l@vermouth.csua.berkeley.edu
http://vermouth.csua.berkeley.edu:1337/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/gzg-l
----- Original Message ----
From: Indy <indy.kochte@gmail.com>
How did Lucas handle this in Star Wars?
I think Lucas completely ignored the moralistic implications of creating a
slave race of organic war droids to fight the metal war droids of their
opponents. The clones were treated as expendable smart munitions without any
of the rights expected by other republic citizens. As John Atkinson wrote; if
you have highly trained and capable soldiers that are disenfranchised from the
society they are supposed to be fighting for you have a risk of such troops
deciding to take over and remake the society. If you take a conscript out of
his society, subject them to intensive indoctrination and then treat them
badly (as many soviet conscripts were rumoured to have been) how much of a
part of society will they feel when they are released back to civilian
unemployment?
--NextPart_Webmail_9m3u9jl4l_1767_1217276940_2
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Content-Disposition: inline
_______________________________________________
Gzg-l mailing list
Gzg-l@vermouth.csua.berkeley.edu
http://vermouth.csua.berkeley.edu:1337/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/gzg-l
--NextPart_Webmail_9m3u9jl4l_1767_1217276940_2--
_______________________________________________
Gzg-l mailing list
Gzg-l@vermouth.csua.berkeley.edu
http://vermouth.csua.berkeley.edu:1337/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/gzg-lI
found it very odd in the prequels that even Obi Wan seemed to buy into
the disposable trooper idea. That seemed very un-Jedi to me. He makes a
couple of remarks to Annikan about not helping clones who are in trouble
because they are doing their job. I read this as don't waste your time, they
are supposed to die.
-Eli
-------------- Original message --------------
From: John Tailby <john_tailby@xtra.co.nz>
----- Original Message ----
From: Indy <indy.kochte@gmail.com>
How did Lucas handle this in Star Wars?
I think Lucas completely ignored the moralistic implications of creating a
slave race of organic war droids to fight the metal war droids of their
opponents.
The clones were treated as expendable smart munitions without any of the
rights expected by other republic citizens.
As John Atkinson wrote; if you have highly trained and capable soldiers that
are disenfranchised from the society they are supposed to be fighting for you
have a risk of such troops deciding to take over and remake the society.
If you take a conscript out of his society, subject them to intensive
indoctrination and then treat them badly (as many soviet conscripts were
rumoured to have been) how much of a part of society will they feel when they
are released back to civilian unemployment?
> At 8:29 PM +0000 7/28/08, emu2020@comcast.net wrote:
Probably part of the decadence of the Old Republic. Even the Jedi didn't have
their eye on the ball when Senator Palpatine made his power play.
Though, in part, I'd put a lot of the details down to Lucas not having his eye
on the ball of properly detailed drama and consistency.
It's possible to go the other way.
Look at the various game system attempts at making "expendable troops".
Rifts turn out "dogboys" - dogs genetically upgraded in intelligence and
humanoid body but the genetics that made them pack animals was left in making
them consider humans their natural alpha leaders. This always made a certain
degree of sense since its easier to use whats there than add it.
Kryomek uses cyclo's, penal troops dosed up with combat drugs, etc. Not
exactly elites but still effective and numerous.
Star wars used droids
The list goes on but the point is that none of these soldiers would ever
be in a position to affect the society they serve since society most likely
doens't care what happens to them.
> emu2020@comcast.net wrote:
28/07/2008 06:55
> [quoted text omitted]
On Mon, Jul 28, 2008 at 4:20 PM, Ryan Gill <rmgill@mindspring.com> wrote:
> Though, in part, I'd put a lot of the details down to Lucas not having
This! This! A thousand times THIS!
Bill
_______________________________________________
Gzg-l mailing list
Gzg-l@vermouth.csua.berkeley.edu
http://vermouth.csua.berkeley.edu:1337/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/gzg-lYou
have to understand the Jedi mindset to understand their relationship to the
Clone Troopers. They were pretty unhappy with the whole choreographed march
towards war, but recognized they couldn't stop it and the Jedi could not be an
army. They were not comfortable with cloning.
But once they were in the war, and by the time you get deep into the third
movie, you really are deep into the war's timeline, they'd gotten pretty used
to seeing battles lost to the separatists at high cost. The Clones were
well-trained soldiers, patterned after one of the greatest warriors of
the age (Jango was feared by many and was a good physical specimen). The
thought was, with some tweaks, they would make excellent soldiers. They were
extensively trained.
The expanded universe made good use of them in a number of books which were
actually better than the run of the mill for Star Wars books. The Republic
Commando series was particularly interesting - seeing what happens when
you leave more of the initiative and spirit in the Clone. Better soldiers to
be sure, but with a will of their own.
Anyway, back to the Jedi: The Clones were bred to be soldiers, which wasn't
what the Jedi would have preferred. But the war was costing many lives and
threatened the Republic and a bigger catastrophe. So they were a necessary
evil. The Jedi didn't, for the most part, shed a lot of tears for their own
loses. They were accepting that this was just the way things were in this
tumultuous time. The Jedi had to do their part as battlefield commanders and
as potent strikers - if they became obsessed with trying to help out
Clones, they were not doing *their* job. And if they did that, more people
would get killed.
In one of the Republic Commando books, two Jedi who are operating with the
Clone Troopers eventually end up going native because they do spend a lot of
time finding out that the Clones aren't just mindless weapon systems, but
actual people with an intense sense of duty and brotherhood (and we have a
resurgent Mandalorian tradition as a result).
One of the mistakes people make in interpreting the Jedi is in assuming they
are 'good' or somehow 'pro-life'. They remind me more of your
balance-oriented D&D true neutral character (or a druid). They're also
quite aware of the struggles of different forces in nature and this is the way
of the Force. They can be quite ruthless when circumstances require it.
Ultimately, Lucas' movie vision was a bit two-dimensional and a bit
ridiculous. Some of the authors in the expanded universe have cleaned up the
basic concepts in ways that make the Clones actually fairly interesting (they
remind me a bit of Maoris in some ways).
TomB
_______________________________________________
Gzg-l mailing list
Gzg-l@vermouth.csua.berkeley.edu
http://vermouth.csua.berkeley.edu:1337/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/gzg-lJoh
n A said:
More importantly, as an issue of long-term stability, what do you do
when your military is composed of clone soldiers grown in labs, and they tell
you to go f*** yourself, not only are they NOT climbing back in the suspended
animation bunker, they are going to take over your country, so you'd better
hop to and bring them some good whiskey, a bevy of concubines, and a
microphone so they can inform the populace of the change in political
administrations?
----
I've seen a few approaches that might work to dealing with a large, dangerous
military machine when you are done with them at the war.
One of them is negotiating your peace without letting on this was happening,
then just checking them into cold sleep between missions as usual, and putting
them all in a deep, dark hole. Break glass in case of apocalypse.
The second was one explored by Timothy Zahn in his Cobra series. These very
dangerous, very capable guys become your very capable, very highly survivable
colonists for new worlds. Still gives them a role they can serve in, keeps
them from ending up in dishonour and incarceration in your jails, and moves
them off to a spot where, if they do stage a coup (and the books do address
this situation), the coup is not on a key homeworld. Now, in his
case, it was the uber-special forces, so there were never all *that*
many of them. Harder to do if this constitutes 90% of your military.
Staying involved in brushfire wars that won't threaten your empire but will
gradually attrit the ranks of these Ubermensch is another approach -
slowly bleed them out and don't make more, but make sure the conflicts are the
sort you can restaff with normal folks or else just negotiate your way out of
as you start to get short on the Ubersoldaten.
In the case of the Clones in Star Wars, the very prime consideration was
loyalty. That was wired in at a genetic level. It was reinforced by
conditioning. You could have initiative, but only in the context of your
missions, not in the context of whether you should serve or not. Additionally,
most clones had *very* limited life experience and that meant
they were really not that familiar that there were *other* ways to be -
something that was heightened by the isolation they were kept in and the
intense focus on brotherhood over anything but loyalty to superiors.
The Clones that (in the novels) get away are the ones bred to be the elite,
with more of Jango's true nature in them. They eventually do decide that
they're sick of getting killed for the Emperor and that it is time to make a
life for themselves somewhere else. So they just pack up and disappear,
knowing that they want to avoid the notice of the real dark suited
force-wielders.
T.
My answer for what to do with your clones, is A, not to have them as the whole
army, but just a part, maybe 50% and B: Preprogram the Clones to die "early".
I'm in GURPS game where my version of could be "CBT Clan Elementals", bodies
start to breakdown about age 37 and the clones are 99.9% sterile
In Memory of Russ Manduca 7/22/67-1/8/08
Certainly there is no hunting like the hunting of man and those who have
hunted armed men long enough and liked it, never really care for anything else
thereafter. Â Â Â Â ~ Ernest Hemmingway
From: "John Atkinson" <johnmatkinson@gmail.com>
> On 7/28/08, John Tailby <john_tailby@xtra.co.nz> wrote:
> Even without the use of transhuman genetics, is a clone soldier grown
More importantly, as an issue of long-term stability, what do you do
when your military is composed of clone soldiers grown in labs, and they tell
you to go fuck yourself, not only are they NOT climbing back in the suspended
animation bunker, they are going to take over your country, so you'd better
hop to and bring them some good whiskey, a bevy of concubines, and a
microphone so they can inform the populace of the change in political
administration
s?
--NextPart_Webmail_9m3u9jl4l_8262_1217289784_2
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Content-Disposition: inline
_______________________________________________
Gzg-l mailing list
Gzg-l@vermouth.csua.berkeley.edu
http://vermouth.csua.berkeley.edu:1337/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/gzg-l
--NextPart_Webmail_9m3u9jl4l_8262_1217289784_2--
_______________________________________________
Gzg-l mailing list
Gzg-l@vermouth.csua.berkeley.edu
http://vermouth.csua.berkeley.edu:1337/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/gzg-lThe
books and comics may be good, but none of them are canon except for a few. I
find this kind of uncharacteristic behavior in the character the issue, not
that Obi Wan was a Jedi so much. He just seems to good for that.
-Eli
-------------- Original message --------------
From: "Tom B" <kaladorn@gmail.com>
You have to understand the Jedi mindset to understand their relationship to
the Clone Troopers. They were pretty unhappy with the whole choreographed
march towards war, but recognized they couldn't stop it and the Jedi could not
be an army. They were not comfortable with cloning.
But once they were in the war, and by the time you get deep into the third
movie, you really are deep into the war's timeline, they'd gotten pretty used
to seeing battles lost to the separatists at high cost. The
Clones were well-trained soldiers, patterned after one of the greatest
warriors of the age (Jango was feared by many and was a good physical
specimen). The thought was, with some tweaks, they would make excellent
soldiers. They were extensively trained.
The expanded universe made good use of them in a number of books which were
actually better than the run of the mill for Star Wars books. The
Republic Commando series was particularly interesting - seeing what
happens when you leave more of the initiative and spirit in the Clone. Better
soldiers to be sure, but with a will of their own.
Anyway, back to the Jedi: The Clones were bred to be soldiers, which wasn't
what the Jedi would have preferred. But the war was costing many lives and
threatened the Republic and a bigger catastrophe. So they were a necessary
evil. The Jedi didn't, for the most part, shed a lot of tears for their own
loses. They were accepting that this was just the way things were in this
tumultuous time. The Jedi had to do their part
as battlefield commanders and as potent strikers - if they became
obsessed with trying to help out Clones, they were not doing *their* job. And
if they did that, more people would get killed.
In one of the Republic Commando books, two Jedi who are operating with the
Clone Troopers eventually end up going native because they do spend a lot of
time finding out that the Clones aren't just mindless weapon systems, but
actual people with an intense sense of duty and brotherhood (and we have a
resurgent Mandalorian tradition as a result).
One of the mistakes people make in interpreting the Jedi is in assuming
they are 'good' or somehow 'pro-life'. They remind me more of your
balance-oriented D&D true neutral character (or a druid). They're also
quite aware of the struggles of different forces in nature and this is the way
of the Force. They can be quite ruthless when circumstances require it.
Ultimately, Lucas' movie vision was a bit two-dimensional and a bit
ridiculous. Some of the authors in the expanded universe have cleaned up the
basic concepts in ways that make the Clones actually fairly interesting (they
remind me a bit of Maoris in some ways).
TomB
G'day,
> The second was one explored by Timothy Zahn in his Cobra series.
While not genetically engineered this is the approach taken with at least some
components of the Napoleonic troops who were resettled in areas such as
Tasmania (got the problem "away" from home turf and gave you combatants in the
conflict with the indigenous population).
Cheers
_______________________________________________
Gzg-l mailing list
Gzg-l@vermouth.csua.berkeley.edu
http://vermouth.csua.berkeley.edu:1337/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/gzg-lYes
Demobilising and downsizing the military after the hundred year war led to a
rise in banditary, extortion and brigandage. Also you probably can't demob the
war veterans and turn them into local law enforcement or back into the farmers
and factory workers they were before the war started. What happens if you send
your warmachines into the wilderness (including both war droids and organic
troopers) and they take over the area and render it uninhabitable. War
machines could be self repairing and if using a long life power supply could
continue to fight for a very long time.
----- Original Message ----
From: "Beth.Fulton@csiro.au" <Beth.Fulton@csiro.au>
To: gzg-l@vermouth.csua.berkeley.edu
Sent: Tuesday, 29 July, 2008 12:50:32 PM
Subject: Re: [GZG] Troop potential
G'day,
> Â The second was one explored by Timothy Zahn in his Cobra series.
While not genetically engineered this is the approach taken with at least some
components of the Napoleonic troops who were resettled in areas such as
Tasmania (got the problem "away" from home turf and gave you combatants in the
conflict with the indigenous population).
Cheers
BethÂ
Didn't the Romans do it with retired legionaries - give them a parcel
of land in whatever country they were and wish them well.
Kev
---- Original Message ----
From: Beth.Fulton@csiro.au
To: gzg-l@vermouth.csua.berkeley.edu
Subject: Re: [GZG] Troop potential
Date: Tue, 29 Jul 2008 10:50:32 +1000
> G'day,
The romans did have this problem, and it didn't go well for them. The Marian
reforms are another great analogy for the "warrior caste" approach to
genetics. Better military? Certainly, and precisely when the world was getting
dangerous and the Romans needed a professionalized army. It also lead directly
to replacing the republic with a dictatorship. The intervening factor was that
roman social and economic policy was a mess, making the whole country ripe for
revolution.
> On Tue, Jul 29, 2008 at 5:04 AM, hott <hott@haynes.it> wrote:
> John Atkinson wrote:
> > AT4s, not Bazookas; and none of the bikers involved had done any
Blood samples were taken on at least one occasion, and on that one you'd
lose the bet. Not sure about the others, but I'd be surprised if the
perpetrators had been very drunk on those occasions either. They just hadn't
looked closely enough at the weapon to notice the cartoon in question...
...but they *had* taken pains to cut the (very flimsy) plastic muzzle cover
away since they didn't want the grenade to explode when it hit said
cover...
Like I said, nature came up with even worse idiots :-/
> Date: Mon, 28 Jul 2008 15:12:09 -0400
> Actually, engineering attitudes is precisely what I'm
> Probably some kind of social adaptation to improve
John Ringo toys with both paths in his 'Council Wars' series;
I believe his light-side path explicitly disagreed at the "More aggro"
point, as the uplifted chimps were wired to be dead calm in the most chaotic
battle.
(And re: integrating with society, after the war to end all wars, the chimps
and humans agreed that even "neighboring countries" wouldn't
work, so the chimps build a off-earth xanadu)
The series' opinion on slave bureaucracies is "and then the toasters and tivos
unanimously rebelled, excluding a statistically nonexistent handful of
loyalist AIs."
I'm doubtful you can call it 'an AI' if it _can't_ get around any "3
laws" instincts as a four year old rationalizing the cookie jar, much less 'a
combat AI' (Of course, I might be biased as being from a species whose fear of
falling is so thorough that we take the plane up just so we can jump out of
them.)
Ringo's third example disagrees on loyalty, but possibly only under the
condition that the result is also a: too dumb to run from a train at a 90
degree angle.
b: containing what _should_ have been a crippling security
hole, like you mentioned. (but Ringo's good guys have never thought of donning
a captured officer poncho, covered in runes of "I haz authority, dumb orc
grovel now!")
G'day,
> What happens if you send your warmachines into the wilderness
I think the Brits may argue that's exactly what they did with the same result
culturally speaking;P
Well, I would hope you would make them better than that. I mean, the first
thing to do if that happens is really to fire/shoot the designer and go
with the guy with the next to lowest bid next time.
-Eli
[quoted original message omitted]
I think the Brits may argue that's exactly what they did with the same result
culturally speaking;P
Beth
Yeah, but we got better....)
> John Tailby wrote:
> What happens if you send your warmachines into the wilderness
If they render the area that supports them uninhabitable, they die. Since the
main reason they got shuffled into said wilderness in the first place was to
make sure they don't cause any trouble when the war is over, having them kill
themselves off by starvation doesn't seem like an entirely unwelcome outcome
for the central government...
Regards,
_______________________________________________
Gzg-l mailing list
Gzg-l@vermouth.csua.berkeley.edu
http://vermouth.csua.berkeley.edu:1337/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/gzg-lRic
hard Morgan posed exactly this situation in his book Woken Furies. The machine
based warmachines all have self repair facilities on board and either use
energy weapons or can make their own munitions through some kind of Nano
machine factories.
There are also caniballisers / repairer machines that can convert any
kind of usable material into more warmachine materials. In the story the left
over warmachines rendered an island continent uninhabitable for 300 years.
With so many systems on warmachines becomming computrised and then linked to
the command net a whole new level of information warfare takes over. Can I
subvert your computerised warmachine either by downloading a virus or simply
by altering orders or target parameters? Information warfare isn't something
that many wargames seem to cover. It's completely left out of the GW scifi
games and I am not sure of a game which really covers it.
----- Original Message ----
From: Eli Arndt <emu2020@comcast.net>
To: gzg-l@vermouth.csua.berkeley.edu
Sent: Wednesday, 30 July, 2008 10:48:14 AM
Subject: Re: [GZG] Troop potential
Well, I would hope you would make them better than that. I mean, the first
thing to do if that happens is really to fire/shoot the designer and go
with the guy with the next to lowest bid next time.
-Eli
[quoted original message omitted]
_______________________________________________
Gzg-l mailing list
Gzg-l@vermouth.csua.berkeley.edu
http://vermouth.csua.berkeley.edu:1337/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/gzg-lI
think it is touched on a bit in âInfinityâ. They have hackers in that
game, though I havenât done a detailed reading on what they do. Information
warfare is cool in stories or TV drama, but hard to manage on the battlefield.
In a lot of ways, it comes down to something like magic spells.
Player One â I have a Class 3 Hacker trying to manipulate you targeting
network.
Player Two â Alright. Iâve got Class 4 countermeasures. Roll to try and
beat my firewall and get past my defense programs.
Player One â Alright, I got by. I now control your artillery and aim you
battery at your tanks.
This is very similar toâ¦
Player One â I cast Charm Monster on your ogre.
Player Two â Alright, my mage attempts to dispel.
Player One- You failed your dispel, alright, your Ogre barrels into your
cavalry.
-Eli
Information warfare isn't something that many wargames seem to cover. It's
completely left out of the GW scifi games and I am not sure of a game which
really covers it.
G'day,
> Yeah, but we got better....)
Touché;)