Best/Worse Troops in Sci-Fi

[Ghost Rider]

Worse: 'blind' Stormtroopers, Klingons, Feds, Jedi, Sith ... hmm... almost anything from ST and SW.

What the hell? I'll agree about the Klingons and Feds, but "blind" stormtroopers? Jedi and Sith? Care to clarify?

Asking him to clarify will get you a barrage of bullshit.

As for best: I'd give actually Stormtroopers or the Space Marines.

For worst: Signs aliens defeat even the mighty Borg in terms of abject stupidity.

[Anomie]

Best - most Lem-verse ground forces - imagine big science droid with enough weapons to turn Mount Everst into golf course. They dont need soliders, they need more scientists.

Sounds interesting. What series is the Lem-verse?

Another for the best is the Doom marines. In the first novel alone, it was first just one, then two marines against a small planetoids worth of zombies and alien demons.

Actually, I'm only mentioning them because I'm rereading the series now. I don't think they anywhere near qualify for 'best troops'.

[SirNitram]

As for best: I'd give actually Stormtroopers or the Space Marines.

Gotta contest the Marines. For all that one can wank to their physical prowess or equipment, they are shit for actual discipline in many, many cases. Come on! Kidnapping civilians around you and killing them? Heroic charges?

[Guardsman Bass]

As for best: I'd give actually Stormtroopers or the Space Marines.

Gotta contest the Marines. For all that one can wank to their physical prowess or equipment, they are shit for actual discipline in many, many cases. Come on! Kidnapping civilians around you and killing them? Heroic charges?

I'd second that. Space Marine tactics seem kind of crude, especially since there are so few of them, and each has enormous capabilities; I'd give them the Potential Best Force in Sci-Fi.

[18-Till-I-Die]

As for best: I'd give actually Stormtroopers or the Space Marines.

Gotta contest the Marines. For all that one can wank to their physical prowess or equipment, they are shit for actual discipline in many, many cases. Come on! Kidnapping civilians around you and killing them? Heroic charges?

Heroic charges tend to work though when you have the armor to survive miniRPGs and the enemy can barely hurt you without heavy weapons. Mostly though, the iconic symbol of the Space Marines is them fighting at range or from armored vehicles like land raiders and rhinos. They do have close quarters troops, but those have jet packs allowing them to fly and swords that can cut through even power armor, sometimes plasma pistols that are very powerful too. Also Marines employ whole squads with nothing but heavy weapons and even squadrons of low-aircraft with tankbuster capabilities, land speeders. They're hardly what i'd call lacking in teh sheer power department. Also most of them are extremely well disciplined, only the Blood Angels kidnap and kill people really, and it's not their fault i think i read it was because their Primarch died against Horus and the psychic backlash (probably caused by Chaos forces) is slowly killing them.

[Morat]

I'm not sure who's the best, but the High Guard are pretty good, and they haven't been mentioned yet. They've got good training and tactics (basically equivalent to modern day armies, but with greater integration of all types of units).

Technology wise, they've got extremely advanced sensors and ECM. They've got 40 MT missiles and variable-yield gigaton range beam weapons as standard vehicle weaponry. Their equivalent to autocannons are 200 mm rapid-fire gauss guns, launching hypersonic smart rounds. They can coordinate fire from multiple platforms onto a target the size of a nanobot. The sidearm of their troops are highly versatile smart guns, which launch guided, explosive rounds at hypersonic velocities (with enough power and accuracy to intercept incoming hypersonic bullets or mortar rounds).

[Lord of the Abyss]

Gotta contest the Marines. For all that one can wank to their physical prowess or equipment, they are shit for actual discipline in many, many cases. Come on! Kidnapping civilians around you and killing them? Heroic charges?

That's why I chose the Cadre instead. I thought about Space Marines, but they're just so ... unprofessional ( at least from my limited knowledge of them ). By comparison Cadre Drop Commandos are barely enhanced at all, but they are being portrayed as very professional indeed.

For Black Ops, I like Mantis Section from the Sten series. They aren't enhanced at all, but they are very good and very clever. These guys send in a half dozen agents to overthrow governments, and tend to succeed.

[Lancer]

allow me to restate what 18 said:

Not all space marine chapters are complete lunatics like the Blood Angels.
It's just that the BA's are one of the more well-known chapters.

[Anomie]

allow me to restate what 18 said:

Not all space marine chapters are complete lunatics like the Blood Angels.
It's just that the BA's are one of the more well-known chapters.

Figure's that people would think that the Blood Angels are crazy, they are my favorite chapter.

Gotta contest the Marines. For all that one can wank to their physical prowess or equipment, they are shit for actual discipline in many, many cases. Come on! Kidnapping civilians around you and killing them? Heroic charges?

I assume that all that is from the novels. I've only read the army and chapter rule books and White Dwarf, and the stories they give in those make the armies of the IoM seem like they are pretty bad-ass, Marines included.

Of course, nothing is more bad-ass than these guy's

[NecronLord]

It really depends on which space marines. The Wolves, Blood Angels, and others are a farce. On the other hand, the Raven Guard are somewhere beyond professional.

As for why the Jedi/Sith are abominable soldiers. Easy. They're not soldiers. They're cops and terrorists respectively. Jedi in all the battles we've seen them in are begging to be taken out by some heavy firepower. They're frequently given the role of general, and still lead from the front, wandering around in robes just hoping the CIS was too dumb to gas them.

[Kruk]

Jedi/Sith - not soliders at all.

'blind' (shuld be and stupid) Stormtroopers - elite force not able to hit their targets sucks. elite force trying to capture someone and forget about stun - also sucks.

Clonetroopers - quite good I must say. If CT=ST then the cloning process degradate somewere between Ep1-3 and 4-6


Lem-verse are books writtne by Stanislaw Lem. They are great and show how a first coontact should be made - send science ship. Science ship is atacked by native - blow them a moon (done by said science ship). They still attack, blow them up.

[Shroom Man 777]

Or maybe because the training shifts from fighting an all out war to just trying to kill pussy rebel scum.

BTW, watch the Tantative IV boarding scene. The Stormies kill obscene amounts of ass whenever there's no heroic character shielded hero around.

[NecronLord]

BTW, watch the Tantative IV boarding scene. The Stormies kill obscene amounts of ass whenever there's no heroic character shielded hero around.

Amd forget about their grenades too.

[Kruk]

That's true. But at least Klingons were able to hurt one of heavily shielded characters when they were boarding DS9 - Kira. And O'Brian I think.

[Noble Ire]

That's true. But at least Klingons were able to hurt one of heavily shielded characters when they were boarding DS9 - Kira. And O'Brian I think.

What about the Stormtrooper that nicked Leia in the shoulder?

Character shields aside, Stormtroopers are excellent soldiers, well trained, very well equipt, and highly disciplined. However, they might not operate as well in an open battlefield situation, considering they primarily function as anti-terrorist units, guards, enforcers, MPs, and boarding troops. However, specialized units like Snowtroopers seem more adapted for the battlefield.

[Peregrin Toker]

As for best, I will have to say the Krikkit war-robots from Life, The Universe And Everything, considering what they are armed with (essentially one-in-all combi-weapons) and that they are considered the best troops around in one of the most overpowered universes of the genre. Also, the Krikkitbots have been trained for, like, destroying the entire material universe.

[jack cloudy]

What about the soldiers from X-com? Do games count here? Anyway, these people start out wimpy and have to do everything themselves, no combined-arms ideas here. The only help they get is from small robotic tanks and they don’t have to do air intercepts (they use the X-com pilots for that). Another disadvantage is that they are so rare! I mean, they get a handful of people from all over the world, a budget that’s less than the U.S. pays for toilet paper, and still they are expected to beat back an alien invasion that beats the regular military around like it’s nothing! However, they’ve got some damn impressive support from the guys wearing the white jackets with the light bulbs above their heads back at base. Figuring out how the OMG this is so weird and different alien technology works and then making their own duplicates and even make some new stuff based on it (including spaceships and stuff) within a few months is pretty impressive in my book. Thanks to that, they just keep getting better and better and beat back the bugs with their own toys. To my current knowledge, they’ve done this three times, always ending with a surgical strike to take out the main bug (the effect seems similar to that of a torpedo in the Death Star’s reactor, in that way, aliens are damn freaking vulnerable.) The only stupid thing after that is that the government disbands 99,99% of the whole organization (leaving only a small automated radar post) and then throw away all the captured technology or put it in a museum. Though definitely not the best, for long wars against a far superior force they’re quite good.

The worst? That’s hard, the only good example I have is that of the federation. I mean, even if they know that their captain is in serious trouble down on that planet and has to face an army of evil aliens with bumpy foreheads carrying guns, they still send in maybe five guys wearing pyjama’s holding an overpowered flashlight. I know that X-com has a much too low number of troops for REAL usefulness (say, the number of soldiers in an average country and you get a force that can take on the entire world and laugh at their enemies.) But at least they actually try to put up a good fight without just standing there in the open and phasering everything in sight. This is simply ridicilous.
Second would be the Klingons. Who cares about honour, just whip out those guns and replace those old Bird of Preys with modern ships and beat up the damn feddies . They're not good, but despite their weird tendency to go berserk with an oversized non-throwable boomerang and the fact that they love flying old rustbuckets, they still seem to be a feared force. And worsed of all, everybody I've seen in the series seems to be scared like hell at the thought of a small group of klingons and their swords running around. Imagine what they could do with good tactics, weapons and the idea that honour should only be cared about when fighting other Klingons in a fight with some practical restrictions to keep the number of your troops high (you know, like no killing or hacking off limbs and stuff).

[Kruk]

What about the Stormtrooper that nicked Leia in the shoulder?

I thought that that was some sort of solider in green uniform. Could be mistaken

Character shields aside, Stormtroopers are excellent soldiers, well trained, very well equipt, and highly disciplined. However, they might not operate as well in an open battlefield situation, considering they primarily function as anti-terrorist units, guards, enforcers, MPs, and boarding troops. However, specialized units like Snowtroopers seem more adapted for the battlefield.

Yes, as long as you keep stormers away from open battlefield and character shielded guys (and girls and walking carpets... and teddy bears) then they are quite good. The example with Karrade people makes it quite clear. But it's about soliders - not special force unit or MP's.

[Civil War Man]

I thought that that was some sort of solider in green uniform. Could be mistaken

You are. It was quite clearly a stormtrooper.

Yes, as long as you keep stormers away from open battlefield

Yeah. Like Hoth.

...oh wait.

and character shielded guys

Do better than Klingons or Jem'ha'dar in that regard.

(and girls

Who are force sensitive.

and walking carpets...

That can almost effortlessly rip off human limbs.

and teddy bears)

Who had time to prepare ambushes, have innate knowledge of the terrain, and physical strength comparable to a chimpanzee, but still managed to be losing until they captured one of the Imperial armored vehicles.

[The Grim Squeaker]

Best: Pax swiss guards, they had weapons and armour a near magnitude better than FORCE troops, were well trained and co-ordinated.

However I still prefer Grey knights (Space marines with better training, terminator armour and psyker abilities) for coolness (Although I love spartans they would be slaughtered here).
On the other hand wouldnt the Shrike count as an army .

Worst: the Sign aliens didnt look like soldiers to me so I'd probably say EU stormtroopers (the ones that the average scout team/hacker can slaughter as opposed to more rigid versions of clonetroopers that are shown in the movies)

[SirNitram]

It really depends on which space marines. The Wolves, Blood Angels, and others are a farce. On the other hand, the Raven Guard are somewhere beyond professional.

Oh, there's always exceptions. But on the other hand, let's throw out discipline as an occasional problem. We have a few other problems to consider.

Numbers. Sure, each Space Marine is badass. But there's only one thousand in an entire Chapter, which is supposed to cover multiple systems. Even if each Marine is worth dozens of other troops in a battle, he's going to be outnumbered horrifically most of the time. Quantity can have a quality all it's own, let's remember.

Over-specialized. They're great at assaulting, advancing, taking ground. Everything else tends to fall apart with that whole 'numbers' thing.

Command structure. You've got hundreds of Chapters around, but I only really know of one that's not essentially on it's own and able to tell those in need to fuck off.

Now, most of these are helped by the fact they work alongside the Imperial Guard, which complements them in many ways. But the Marines on their own.. Not so hot as a full military.

[NecronLord]

Now, most of these are helped by the fact they work alongside the Imperial Guard, which complements them in many ways. But the Marines on their own.. Not so hot as a full military.

Yep. That's why the Raven Guard are more professional than their rivals. They basically consider themselves to be special forces, and act that way, barely, if ever, engaging in missions that aren't sabotage/assassination and the like. They're certainly not an entry for this, of course, because they operate as specialist forces.

[18-Till-I-Die]

Well i dont attempt to say the Space Marines are good at holding ground or attrition fighting but they kind of ARE equal to a lot more than dozens of the other guy's dudes, put bluntly. What was it one Imperial commander said, give me a hundred space marines or, failing that, a thousand of anything else? In most of the stories i've read it does come down to massive numerical superiority or massive firepower to take out a SM force. And the Space Wolves and Blood Angels are still very effective, very effective, soldiers, crazy though they might be.

But remember my other choice for best soldiers, i said was a toss up, was the Clones, who are an extremely well equipped force for occupation and long attrition combat. In fact i'd think Clones would be better than conscripts in many ways, and i always did kind of--just my opinion but breeding soldiers and controling their upbringing and envrionment, and basically training them from 'birth', is practically manufacturing soldiers and it's a brillant idea on the GAR's part. With better cloning techniques, faster ones like seen later, it could basically replace conscription, good for the citizens and the army.

[Trytostaydead]

My nominations for the some of the best (in no particular order):

1) Book MI from SST. They are a real volunteer army, but vigorously trained and weeded as soon as they sign up for service. On a whole, I think they are the most believable best army.

2) Sardaukar. Sure, they don't use much ranged weapons, but that's just the limitation of the technology, not any reflection on their abilities as soldiers. But they are described as soldier fanatics, and are weeded and selected from birth with no personal regard to their safety. According to the Dune Appendix, they are not only skilled in combat worth at least any ten of any other army in the universe (which means probably a lot more in comparison to most) in what amounts mainly to melee or short ranged combat, but also politically savvy (though this is contradicted in the books).

[Guardsman Bass]

2) Sardaukar. Sure, they don't use much ranged weapons, but that's just the limitation of the technology, not any reflection on their abilities as soldiers. But they are described as soldier fanatics, and are weeded and selected from birth with no personal regard to their safety. According to the Dune Appendix, they are not only skilled in combat worth at least any ten of any other army in the universe (which means probably a lot more in comparison to most) in what amounts mainly to melee or short ranged combat, but also politically savvy (though this is contradicted in the books).

I wouldn't call them one of the best, but they are pretty fucking tough for unaltered humans; the glossary in the back of Dune said that they were trained on Salusa Secundus, and that only (I'm pretty sure) 4 out of 13 survived the training.