(Super) Soldier

[Ahriman238]

Ok, Cobras, Zentradi and Meltrandi are all being considered. I remain skeptical about the Revyteils, first because they use song-magic, that seems pretty hard to quantify to me (what would you say are the abilities of an 'average' halfblood Revyteil?) second becaue if the OA guys were too powerful, the revyteils definitly are, third because in the one and only Ar Tolenico game I played the Revyteil was the one who stood in the back and threw heals and buffs at you while you did the fighting.

That Orion's Arm stuff sounds like a classic example of a science jargon-wanker. The name actually sounds vaguely familiar; wasn't it some sort of jargon-wank universe whose fanboys insisted it's "hard sci-fi"?

Short version: yes.

Long version: the alleged hardness of OA comes from their general hardline about not breaking the laws of physics as presently understood (no FTL, no teleports, no fucking with conservation of energy) or at least keeping these to theoretical possibilites. However, OA is pretty much the world headquarters for nanotech-wank (nanotech are common tools and weapons) turing singularity-wank (culminating in the Archailects, Culture Minds on steroids) and genetic engineering/transhumanism (in the future, humanity will have several thousand subspecies, including ones GEd to live their whole lives in hard vacuum, plus we'll engineer sentient monkeys, dolphins,whales, and pachyderms.)

Like 40K, it has it's own splendor in being so insanely-over-the-top it approaches self-parody. I admit to enjoying watching people backpedal and come up with ways to justify the six-inch-tall humans and other absurdities. Plus the schizo-tech that is Culture-level in some areas (there is a very short list given of the things Archailects can't do if they put their mind to it) while being behind B5 in others (mostly space-warfare.)

And, they cheat some. Technologies can be created by the Greater Minds that cannot be understood by lesser meat-creatures. They call this Clarketech, for Arthur Clarke (I'm not repeating the law. You know what it is.) Hence, Clarke-tech nanoseeds that give superpowers=Clarkekent seeds. This is just about the closest OA gets to being intentionally funny.

We had a Wars/OA debate just under a year ago. Nobody could agree on what would and wouldn't work, the Archailects were over-hyped the BDZ thing came up again and the thread got locked down.

[Ahriman238]

Taking off the OP hat for a minute, I think the Jaeger vs. Draka individual fight will end with the the Jaeger victorious, but after some time with neither party looking very pretty afterwards. The Draka are unlikely to make best use of their advantages in the group hunt/battle either, mostly because they'll consider the Jaegers stupid degraded beasts. The Draka have some nifty features, and are likely more versatile soldiers, if you can deal with their dietary requirements. It doesn't matter for my personal decision though, either way the Jaeger wins.

Victor: Jaegermonster (someday, I will learn how to type an umlat)

Astartes vs. Omega: single combat does not play to the Omegas' strengths, which are generally their guile and shapeshifting. Only once in my memory of the series did an Omega take a shape besides its natural one and a human's, that Omega became a sort of shark-like monster but was still the size of a man. So becoming something bigger and stronger seems to be out. The group battle offers more possibilities, but only if they can seperate the Space Marines or turn them against each other, both are pretty unlikely. The Space Marines are designed to fight in a wide variety of enviroments, as well as generalized upgrades. The omegas have some speed and strngth, but mainly NBC resistance and infiltration.

Winner: Adeptus Astartes.

Spartan vs. Battlefleet Officer: I expect to catch no end of hell from people who liked Halo more than I did but, the Battlefleet Officer is as good or better than the Spartan in every way save likely training. I can't really see them making up the difference either.

Winner: Battlefleet officer.

Posleen vs. Jem'hadar: Quite possibly the only one the Posleen would have a chance to beat. That the Jem'hadar will carry the group battle in a terrain that heavily disfavors the Posleen is a given. The Posleen could win the single-combat round. Ultimately, however, I do not believe the Posleen rate of reproduction is as great an advantage as invisibility.

Winner: Jem'hadar.

[Vehrec]

Well, aside from dying before she's forty, every half-breed Reyvateil can be reasonably expected to have a RPG in her pocket at all times in the form of song-magic. Depending on her exact level of emotions and cosmosphere, that could run up to the full on strategic arsenal of the tower for maybe one in a million. The Clusternian shock-troops on the other hand, the closest thing we see to an all reyvateil military, are all Betas who have cleared the fifth level of their cosmosphere. See one of their generals here, using her swordwork against some friends of hers. Note the damage of the individual hits-and the damage when the party Reyvateil gets off her butt and fires off a giant heart to crush the general.

[Sidewinder]

Question: For the team match, what weapons are allowed, besides the soldier's natural ones (hands, feet, teeth) or handmade tools (pointy stick, flint knife)?

It matters to the Zentradi, who, being 12 meters tall, will have a difficult time taking advantage of the cover and concealment the forest offers. If other weapons are allowed, the Zentradi may win due to the fact a human-sized (two meters tall) opponent needs comic book superpowers to seriously damage something that damn big. If they are allowed, the Zentradi are sitting ducks for a skilled sniper with an anti-materiel rifle.

Overall, the Zentradi are crappy soldiers, due to their inability to perform maintenance on their equipment. If forced to use something other than the incredibly reliable technology they have, they'd be unable to perform immediate action or field repairs on a jammed rifle, or other equipment. Their vulnerability to psychological warfare, also weakens them. But for frontline combat, it's hard to beat something that damn big, in the absense of anti-armor weapons.

[Connor MacLeod]

Do the Power Puff Girls count as super soldiers? Cuz they're like artificially created. And they're way cuter than Space Marines.

[Optimus Metallus]

Their vulnerability to psychological warfare, also weakens them.

Yeah, I really have to question the value of a super soldier that's reduced to a puddle of goo when it hears a pop star singing.

[Darth Wong]

When people imagine super-soldiers, they tend to imagine them romping over enemies who stupidly try to go toe-to-toe with them and get mowed down. Unfortunately, people who write sci-fi often forget that the opposing force will always develop countermeasures for an advantage you give yourself. When tanks were deployed, they sent opposing forces fleeing in terror until they developed countermeasures, which they did quite quickly. Even today, primitive opposing forces work hard to develop countermeasures against the tactical superiority of western military forces, such as the IED.

In an age of powerful long-ranged weapons, it seems to me that the biggest and most powerful super-soldiers would not necessary be the most dangerous ones, especially if they're the stereotypical raging hulking macho brutes popular in sci-fi. Instead, those who are best at concealment might be the most dangerous ones. Even a guy with huge muscles and great regenerative power isn't going to be walking around after someone puts a bullet into his brain.

This would seem to give the Jem'Hadar a huge advantage, except that they appear to be mindless charging melee fighters by nature. Also, we are assuming that they can see perfectly well when cloaked, but there is no reason to assume that. A cloaked individual is supposedly bending light around himself, so you have to ask yourself the question: if you are bending light around yourself, then how the hell can you see anything? A perfect light-bending cloak would render you completely blind. You would literally see nothing but darkness. Maybe only a small percentage of light actually reaches their eyes: enough for them to barely see, but certainly not enough for them to be combat-effective. Also, there's the infrared issue that Trekkies always try to write off but which is a serious thermodynamic problem (not that most Trekkies understand thermodynamics). Jem'Hadar might be quite easy to spot for the more advanced opposing forces.

Super-strength is also a double-edged sword: it requires much higher energy input, which means that super-strong soldiers would have to eat much more food in order to remain effective, and they would have to stop more often because of limited endurance (again, this is totally ignored by most sci-fi writers, but that doesn't make it any less true). There's a reason the really big strong animals tend to conserve their strength and use it in bursts.

Super-soldiers work best in fiction (like Halo) where the opposing force appears to be mentally retarded.

[Sidewinder]

Their vulnerability to psychological warfare, also weakens them.

Yeah, I really have to question the value of a super soldier that's reduced to a puddle of goo when it hears a pop star singing.

Fortunately for the Zentradi, very few of the other candidates in this contest, are capable of taking advantage of this- unless you're suggesting a Spartan II wear a skirt and start singing? (Considering how reliant the Draka are upon Authorial Fiat, I doubt they're smart enough to exploit the Zentradi vulnerability to psychological warfare.)

[Optimus Metallus]

Their vulnerability to psychological warfare, also weakens them.

Yeah, I really have to question the value of a super soldier that's reduced to a puddle of goo when it hears a pop star singing.

Fortunately for the Zentradi, very few of the other candidates in this contest, are capable of taking advantage of this- unless you're suggesting a Spartan II wear a skirt and start singing? (Considering how reliant the Draka are upon Authorial Fiat, I doubt they're smart enough to exploit the Zentradi vulnerability to psychological warfare.)

Hey, aside from all his other amazing talents, I'm told that Master Chief has a lovely singing voice, too.

[Simon_Jester]

In an age of powerful long-ranged weapons, it seems to me that the biggest and most powerful super-soldiers would not necessary be the most dangerous ones, especially if they're the stereotypical raging hulking macho brutes popular in sci-fi. Instead, those who are best at concealment might be the most dangerous ones. Even a guy with huge muscles and great regenerative power isn't going to be walking around after someone puts a bullet into his brain.

In many cases, the guys with extreme physical abilities are also presented as having a lot of training. Training makes you better at concealment.

For example, 40k Space Marines spend years training exhaustively before they're even allowed out on a battlefield. They may well be good at concealment, along with being hulking macho brutes.

Most settings that present genuinely impressive supersoldiers present them as being engineered for endurance, sensory capacity, reflexes, and the mental capacity it takes to profit from training. Raw physical strength is often part of the package, but I can't think of a lot of cases where it's the biggest part.

This would seem to give the Jem'Hadar a huge advantage, except that they appear to be mindless charging melee fighters by nature. Also, we are assuming that they can see perfectly well when cloaked, but there is no reason to assume that. A cloaked individual is supposedly bending light around himself, so you have to ask yourself the question: if you are bending light around yourself, then how the hell can you see anything? A perfect light-bending cloak would render you completely blind. You would literally see nothing but darkness. Maybe only a small percentage of light actually reaches their eyes: enough for them to barely see, but certainly not enough for them to be combat-effective.

Star Trek cloaking devices (like many others in fiction) do not seem to have this problem: cloaked ships and objects are aware of their surrounding, and we seldom if ever see them accidentally blunder into things because they can't see straight. Why this is so is an open question, but it's pointless to dispute that it is so.

Also, there's the infrared issue that Trekkies always try to write off but which is a serious thermodynamic problem (not that most Trekkies understand thermodynamics). Jem'Hadar might be quite easy to spot for the more advanced opposing forces.

Hard to say- I'd be happier not trying to make an assumption about that either way. If we can avoid having to ask the question in this particular versus debate, it will save a pointless argument that's damn hard to falsify either way.

Super-strength is also a double-edged sword: it requires much higher energy input, which means that super-strong soldiers would have to eat much more food in order to remain effective, and they would have to stop more often because of limited endurance (again, this is totally ignored by most sci-fi writers, but that doesn't make it any less true). There's a reason the really big strong animals tend to conserve their strength and use it in bursts.

Since super-strength is often posited to go with other enhancements to endurance, metabolic efficiency, and possibly the ability to store calories within the body, this can go either way. In the abstract, we can assume that engineering a man for stronger muscles and only stronger muscles would make him inferior in other ways. Comparing specific examples from different settings, you'd have to look at the setting to know.

Fortunately for the Zentradi, very few of the other candidates in this contest, are capable of taking advantage of this- unless you're suggesting a Spartan II wear a skirt and start singing? (Considering how reliant the Draka are upon Authorial Fiat, I doubt they're smart enough to exploit the Zentradi vulnerability to psychological warfare.)

Actually, the Draka might, although it depends on exactly what sort of vulnerability they have. The Draka would certainly try to 'master' anyone they interact with- do the Zentradi have some kind of built-in tendency to submit to designated overlords? They might be vulnerable to pheromones, in a fight that doesn't just involve some giant guy stepping on the enemy without so much as catching a whiff of him.

[Darth Wong]

In an age of powerful long-ranged weapons, it seems to me that the biggest and most powerful super-soldiers would not necessary be the most dangerous ones, especially if they're the stereotypical raging hulking macho brutes popular in sci-fi. Instead, those who are best at concealment might be the most dangerous ones. Even a guy with huge muscles and great regenerative power isn't going to be walking around after someone puts a bullet into his brain.

In many cases, the guys with extreme physical abilities are also presented as having a lot of training. Training makes you better at concealment.

Training might make you better at concealment, or it might not. That all depends on the nature of the training. And if you're huge or have some massive suit of power armour or something, you will have a very difficult time concealing yourself regardless.

For example, 40k Space Marines spend years training exhaustively before they're even allowed out on a battlefield. They may well be good at concealment, along with being hulking macho brutes.

Most settings that present genuinely impressive supersoldiers present them as being engineered for endurance, sensory capacity, reflexes, and the mental capacity it takes to profit from training. Raw physical strength is often part of the package, but I can't think of a lot of cases where it's the biggest part.

The writers focus on it quite heavily, though. A lot of people have an essentially medieval concept of what a superior soldier would look like.

This would seem to give the Jem'Hadar a huge advantage, except that they appear to be mindless charging melee fighters by nature. Also, we are assuming that they can see perfectly well when cloaked, but there is no reason to assume that. A cloaked individual is supposedly bending light around himself, so you have to ask yourself the question: if you are bending light around yourself, then how the hell can you see anything? A perfect light-bending cloak would render you completely blind. You would literally see nothing but darkness. Maybe only a small percentage of light actually reaches their eyes: enough for them to barely see, but certainly not enough for them to be combat-effective.

Star Trek cloaking devices (like many others in fiction) do not seem to have this problem: cloaked ships and objects are aware of their surrounding, and we seldom if ever see them accidentally blunder into things because they can't see straight. Why this is so is an open question, but it's pointless to dispute that it is so.

You do realize that starships have sensor systems and are known to construct visual images from sensor data, right? It is perfectly possible for a starship to create a nice visual image on its viewscreen without being able to take in so much as a single photon of actual visible-spectrum light, if it's gathering data in some other spectrum. A Jem'Hadar soldier's eyes, however, are a different matter.

Also, there's the infrared issue that Trekkies always try to write off but which is a serious thermodynamic problem (not that most Trekkies understand thermodynamics). Jem'Hadar might be quite easy to spot for the more advanced opposing forces.

Hard to say- I'd be happier not trying to make an assumption about that either way. If we can avoid having to ask the question in this particular versus debate, it will save a pointless argument that's damn hard to falsify either way.

Absolute bullshit. Seriously, how can you actually think we can't make a judgement either way on this? It's not an "assumption" to say that the laws of thermodynamics should apply to the fucking Jem'Hadar. Did you know that infrared sensors can see the warm footprints that people leave in the ground when they walk? Or even the puffs of warm air that come out of their lungs? Just how fucking magical are you going to make the Jem'Hadar cloak before you admit that infrared systems should pick them up? Do they refrigerate the air on the way out of their lungs now, and then dump the head into "subspace", the perennial go-to excuse for Trekkie wankers?

Infrared won't work too well in an extremely hot climate where the ambient temperature approaches body temperature, but in a colder environment, it will work.

Super-strength is also a double-edged sword: it requires much higher energy input, which means that super-strong soldiers would have to eat much more food in order to remain effective, and they would have to stop more often because of limited endurance (again, this is totally ignored by most sci-fi writers, but that doesn't make it any less true). There's a reason the really big strong animals tend to conserve their strength and use it in bursts.

Since super-strength is often posited to go with other enhancements to endurance, metabolic efficiency, and possibly the ability to store calories within the body, this can go either way. In the abstract, we can assume that engineering a man for stronger muscles and only stronger muscles would make him inferior in other ways. Comparing specific examples from different settings, you'd have to look at the setting to know.

Yeah, you can just make metabolic efficiency 200%, and solve that problem

[Optimus Metallus]

In many cases, the guys with extreme physical abilities are also presented as having a lot of training. Training makes you better at concealment.

For example, 40k Space Marines spend years training exhaustively before they're even allowed out on a battlefield. They may well be good at concealment, along with being hulking macho brutes.

Their training does begin with them as members of the Scout Company, but yeah, I have a hard time seeing 8 ft. tall hulking brutes in brightly colored power armor concealing themselves very effectively.

[Batman]

Are we ever told how exactly the Jem'Hadar cloak works? (Honest question, I sort of never really watched DS9). An honest lightbending cloak would render them blind (and not do beans about IR I'm afraid) but what if it's some sort of chameleon field instead? Like it doesn't make them invisible but instead makes them look like the background they're standing in front of? Still wouldn't do beans about IR (or Trek's vaunted lifesign detectors for that matter) but at least they wouldn't necessarily be blind.

[Sidewinder]

I have to ask: How well do infrared sensors work on cold-blooded animals? Is it possible the Jem'Hadar are cold-blooded, or are able to lower their body temperature to that degree, to minimize the effectiveness of infrared sensors?

[Darth Wong]

I have to ask: How well do infrared sensors work on cold-blooded animals? Is it possible the Jem'Hadar are cold-blooded, or are able to lower their body temperature to that degree, to minimize the effectiveness of infrared sensors?

Cold-blooded animals have a severe performance disadvantage, particularly in anything less than scorching hot climates. In cold climates, they have a severe survival disadvantage.

[Vehrec]

Their vulnerability to psychological warfare, also weakens them.

Yeah, I really have to question the value of a super soldier that's reduced to a puddle of goo when it hears a pop star singing.

Fortunately for the Zentradi, very few of the other candidates in this contest, are capable of taking advantage of this- unless you're suggesting a Spartan II wear a skirt and start singing? (Considering how reliant the Draka are upon Authorial Fiat, I doubt they're smart enough to exploit the Zentradi vulnerability to psychological warfare.)

On the other hand, it means that they auto-loose against Reyvateils, since their combat is all about singing and wearing skirts.

[Brother-Captain Gaius]

Their training does begin with them as members of the Scout Company, but yeah, I have a hard time seeing 8 ft. tall hulking brutes in brightly colored power armor concealing themselves very effectively.

This is a doctrinal issue, not an intrinsic one (beyond increased physical size imparting some inherent increased difficulty in being hidden, simply by virtue of being bigger). Yeah, most of the battle companies of most of the existing Chapters eschew most types (but not all) of battlefield concealment because a) they frequently don't need it and b) it is often counter-productive to their battlefield role. Space Marines don't win a lot of all-out wars on their own; they act as highly-visible "shock and awe", high-intensity assault forces within campaigns larger than themselves.

And there are Space Marines who do routinely favor true concealment-based doctrine, such as the Raven Guard and Alpha Legion. They strut their colors when it suits them, but more often than not they just slink around and behave much like modern special forces.

Also note that even in the case of the majority group above, concealment doesn't necessarily just mean wearing a ghillie suit and being a ghost-shadow darkness-sniper. It just means moving around the battlefield in such a manner that does not expose your profile to the enemy's line of fire. Walking below the rise of hills instead of silhouetted against the sky, or moving through a treeline instead of in the open. Even bright yellow Space Marines don't have a problem with simple measures like that (well, most. Black Templars are crazy, obviously).

[Block]

They're also modified to be able to eat almost anything, only have to sleep every couple of weeks, have extraordinarily low needs for food and water for extended periods of time. Plus they can spit acid.

[Shroom Man 777]

[lance]

I think they break the bunch of different guys with different powers rule.

Use the saiyans

[Gunhead]

Mega stealth through T3h skillz! Is a stupid concept anyway. Circumstances count a lot and so does tech used to hide and spot. If tech is about at par, circumstances count a lot. If you're outmatched in tech, you're in a disadvantage and if circumstances don't favor you either you're fucked. Basically you can say the more hitech your battlefield gets the more you'll be relying on your gear to spot things / hide and skill is the measure how well you can operate your tech. Basic stealth disciplines don't take that long to teach but after a point they stop reducing the noise and other emissions coming from you. Double so if you're stomping around in what amounts to a vehicle you're wearing.

-Gunhead

[Simon_Jester]

Right- but the point is that since "supersoldiers" usually are trained, it's fair to assume they're basically competent at the same stealth and infiltration tactics ordinary men would use, unless they're of a sort that's actively going out of their way to be showy, and you don't see those too often.

Being hulking roidasauruses that can bench-press a musk ox doesn't really help them with that part of their mission, it's true, but it doesn't necessarily hurt very much either. It's just irrelevant.

To me, the best reason to make a supersoldier very strong is so that they can carry more gear- more ammunition, heavier weapons, more consumables for a long-endurance mission if that doesn't hit diminishing returns. A soldier who's twice as strong and can carry 50 kg more gear without collapsing from exhaustion is good, as long as the extra weight of his equipment and the food that keeps him going doesn't start to approach 50 kg.

[Darth Wong]

Right- but the point is that since "supersoldiers" usually are trained, it's fair to assume they're basically competent at the same stealth and infiltration tactics ordinary men would use, unless they're of a sort that's actively going out of their way to be showy, and you don't see those too often.

You are assuming that their training is rational. Why would we assume that? The sci-fi landscape seems to be littered with "futuristic" societies that are arranged in tribal clans or feudal lordships, with bizarro religious beliefs or crazy-ass social customs that make no sense whatsoever. In fact, it seems to me that sci-fi writers tend to assume that a futuristic society will be considerably less rational than our own.

Being hulking roidasauruses that can bench-press a musk ox doesn't really help them with that part of their mission, it's true, but it doesn't necessarily hurt very much either. It's just irrelevant.

No, it does hurt. It makes the soldier a bigger target, and it increases his energy requirements. Writers can just hand-wave that way by simply writing that their precious super-soldiers can survive three months on a grain of rice because they're so HARDCORE, but that's just bad writing wankery.

To me, the best reason to make a supersoldier very strong is so that they can carry more gear- more ammunition, heavier weapons, more consumables for a long-endurance mission if that doesn't hit diminishing returns. A soldier who's twice as strong and can carry 50 kg more gear without collapsing from exhaustion is good, as long as the extra weight of his equipment and the food that keeps him going doesn't start to approach 50 kg.

Yeah, that must be why the elephants fared so well when Hannibal crossed the Alps.

[Alkaloid]

No, it does hurt. It makes the soldier a bigger target, and it increases his energy requirements. Writers can just hand-wave that way by simply writing that their precious super-soldiers can survive three months on a grain of rice because they're so HARDCORE, but that's just bad writing wankery.

Unless we are talking twelve feet tall, it's not that much harder to describe. An eight foot tall two hundred and fifty kilogram monster is still fully articulated and can crouch and lie down. Two feet is a big deal for a vehicle because it can't lie prone or crouch, its always got an eight foot profile, people and people like things not so much. If we add in the superior senses they all seem to have they may actually be 'stealthier' than bog standard humans simply because they are more likely to know someone is coming and less likely to be stuck out in the open when it happens.

Yeah, that must be why the elephants fared so well when Hannibal crossed the Alps.

Yeah, it cost more to feed an elephant than the elephants were able to carry. Jester covered that.

A soldier who's twice as strong and can carry 50 kg more gear without collapsing from exhaustion is good, as long as the extra weight of his equipment and the food that keeps him going doesn't start to approach 50 kg.

[Ahriman238]

As far as the Jem'hadar go, they demonstratably have no trouble navigating their enviroment while invisible. So either it isn't light-bending, or they can get around just fine using a different sense (echolocation, perhaps?) They are also hidden from tricorders when 'shrouded.' Tricorders that we know can detect heat. So either they stop exhausting heat and bake when shrouded (unlikely) or they're cold blooded (somewhat less unlikely) which should logically make them less active then we see them being.

It's a tough knot to justify, but you know what? Considering Voyager and Enterprise, I;m happy that DS9 could just throw something like 'invisible troops' out there and not try and provide a nonsensical explanation. They never tell us how the Jem'hadar become invisible, the characters on the show (to my knowledge) never find out either, they just have to deal with the possibility of a squad of Jem'hadar popping up out of nowhere.