SF don'ts

[Death from the Sea]

Eh, I wasn't talking about massacres done by the bad guys. I'm talking about massacres and other acts of exceptional brutality committed by "good guys" - not antiheros, but characters who are displayed as sympathetic and moral.

There are some instances where that is not the case, as an example in Star Trek DS9 when they invaded Cardassia, the Klingons were celebrating and then there was Capt Sisko and I forget the admiral with him that were too disgusted by the loss of life to celebrate.

[Nyrath]

While it’s not always a don’t, I get really sick about reading tales which involve super soldiers raised from birth to fight. Aside from the fact that this would produce a pack of psychopaths, it’s utterly unnecessary and horrendously expensive in the age of firearms+.

There was an amusing throwaway line in Joe Haldeman's THE FOREVER WAR. The protagonist mentioned that a few years back, the army experimented with making a team of psychopathic super soldiers. They proved to be ineffective in battle, mostly being slaughtered before they could inflict casualties on the enemy.

Not surprising considering the heavy handed anti-war nature of that novel.

[Lord of the Abyss]

Actually, you have hit on a reason why a society would raise soldiers from birth, however inefficient and expensive that would be. Soldiers willing to follow the most absurd or suicidal orders, because they've been raised and probably brainwashed from birth to do just that.

Actually, no that’s still no real reason to do it.

It may not be a good reason, but it is a real reason. Just because it's a bad idea doesn't mean that some tyranny won't decide that it's a cool/ideologically correct idea and go for it.

[Coalition]

I admit, i've used all of the Super-Soldier cliches here at one time or another in my stories, sometimes more than one in the same universe.

That being said...they're not shown to be outright GODS of warfare, but still massively superior to any normal human soldiers. However they can be, and many times are, defeated by such things as massive firepower, overwhelming numbers, equal forces or the like.

One option would be to state that it takes 10 times the resources of a normal soldier to create a super-soldier, but they are only 2-3 times more effective. So in a full-scale war, you want to minimize the number of super-soldiers. But if you need a small team, for a specific job, then you bring in the specialists. Put them outside their specialization, or force them to engage regular troops over and over, and they will die.

One example might be the movie "Tears of the Sun", where Bruce Willis' team of specialists gets steadily ground down by regular troops while protecting refugees.

[Coalition]

One example might be the movie "Tears of the Sun", where Bruce Willis' team of specialists gets steadily ground down by regular troops while protecting refugees.

bad edit:

Earlier in the movie they saw a group of rebels attacking a village. Dueing the night BW's team moved through the village, killing every rebel and not taking any casualties. But later on, they get steadily ground down by human waves.

(can a mod merge this with my post above please?)

[Sea Skimmer]

It may not be a good reason, but it is a real reason. Just because it's a bad idea doesn't mean that some tyranny won't decide that it's a cool/ideologically correct idea and go for it.

I guess; but look at the Hitler Youth division, fanatical effectiveness after Hitler had been in power only 10 years, not enough time to grow new troops from scratch. The division was formed starting in early 1943 and went into action in mid 1944.

[Peptuck]

I think part of the reason why there's this "trained from birth super soldiers" brain bug is due to Sparta-wanking. Everyone knows how badass the Spartans were and how tough their society was, and they latch on to the whole idea of the warriors trained from birth to become the most effective fighters.

[Sea Skimmer]

No doubt about that one, but its also just part of a wider ‘cult of the warrior’ brain bug. The Spartans had a very useful advantage of mostly fighting small scale battles; I don’t think they ever fielded more then 10,000 men and could normally raise only a few thousand men in an army, fighting like sized forces.

[Peptuck]

No doubt about that one, but its also just part of a wider ‘cult of the warrior’ brain bug. The Spartans had a very useful advantage of mostly fighting small scale battles; I don’t think they ever fielded more then 10,000 men and could normally raise only a few thousand men in an army, fighting like sized forces.

Not to mention that the main method of Greek city-state warfare - the phalanx - was so heavily dependant on having highly disciplined troops who wouldn't break in combat. Those are readily supplied by that kind of raised-to-fight-from-birth environment, but they got their "elite" asses handed to them by the much more flexible Romans who didn't limit themselves to phalanxes and used more ordinary soldiers.

[Falkenhayn]

No doubt about that one, but its also just part of a wider ‘cult of the warrior’ brain bug.

Well, nothing like a eugenics fap and bronze aged infant mortality to trim the numbers.

But what good is the "cult of the warrior" without the "Charlie Mansion Military Academy" brainbug? George RR Martin's Unsullied train all their lives, are castrated "root and branch", fed nerve deadening poisons, and are, no joke, made to strangle a puppy. Of course they are the perfect robotic professional soldiers, rather than the frothing sociopaths they should be.

The Spartans had a very useful advantage of mostly fighting small scale battles; I don’t think they ever fielded more then 10,000 men and could normally raise only a few thousand men in an army, fighting like sized forces.

You are essentially correct. The Spartan Army very rarely committed something the size of a Mora to battle (3000-5400), and the whole army contained six Morae. At Platea, Sparta pulled out a levee en mass, fielding ~35000 Hoplites, Peltasts and other auxiliaries. These numbers are from John Warry's Warfare in the Classical World, p.36.

[Adrian Laguna]

No doubt about that one, but its also just part of a wider ‘cult of the warrior’ brain bug. The Spartans had a very useful advantage of mostly fighting small scale battles; I don’t think they ever fielded more then 10,000 men and could normally raise only a few thousand men in an army, fighting like sized forces.

It's not just the Spartans, there's also medieval knights. Both started training at about the same age. In fact, the Spartans were a lot like European knights. Consummately dedicated to warfare, and lording over inherited lands worked by third-class citizens.

Not to mention that the main method of Greek city-state warfare - the phalanx - was so heavily dependant on having highly disciplined troops who wouldn't break in combat. Those are readily supplied by that kind of raised-to-fight-from-birth environment, but they got their "elite" asses handed to them by the much more flexible Romans who didn't limit themselves to phalanxes and used more ordinary soldiers.

Actually, they got their asses handed to them by Thebans using unorthodox tactics. Typical doctrine was to put more men on one side of the formation than the other (there was a good reason for this). The Theban commander had the brilliant idea of switching the sides. The Thebans themselves were defeated by one Philip II of Macedon, and their city later burnt to the ground by his heir.

By the time the Romans were around, the Spartans had been long in decline.

[Androsphinx]

Actually, they got their asses handed to them by Thebans using unorthodox tactics. Typical doctrine was to put more men on one side of the formation than the other (there was a good reason for this). The Theban commander had the brilliant idea of switching the sides. The Thebans themselves were defeated by one Philip II of Macedon, and their city later burnt to the ground by his heir.

Well, it was less the switching of sides as the concentration of force on the one side - instead of the traditional ten to twelve ranks deep, the Thebans drew up fifty ranks on the left, and were able to turn and disrupt the Spartan ranks and trample them to death.

[Norseman]

No doubt about that one, but its also just part of a wider ‘cult of the warrior’ brain bug.

Well, nothing like a eugenics fap and bronze aged infant mortality to trim the numbers.

But what good is the "cult of the warrior" without the "Charlie Mansion Military Academy" brainbug? George RR Martin's Unsullied train all their lives, are castrated "root and branch", fed nerve deadening poisons, and are, no joke, made to strangle a puppy. Of course they are the perfect robotic professional soldiers, rather than the frothing sociopaths they should be.

Gah yes! That and the style of training the heroes in Freehold and The Weapon get! Just once I'd like to see one of these Super-Elite Generalist forces crushed by a mediocre fighting force whose only real accomplishment is an excellent combined arms doctrine.

[MJ12 Commando]

The only supersoldiers I support are the ones created from proper augmentation and stuff beyond training. Training is nice and all but the human body still has limits, and unless you take those away with mystical psychic powers or something, the rookie with two months of training with a two million credit cyborg body will probably beat the crap out of your trained-from-birth soldier and cost less besides.

Actually, how much DOES it cost to train a modern soldier per year? Because I'm betting in most SF would, as aformentioned, be cheaper just to give someone a million dollars (equivalent) of awesome science fiction gear.

I heard from anecdotes that the average American costs about 1.8 million or so to their parents including college, and I doubt that training someone from birth will cost less than that.

But generally, there aren't too many surefire don'ts. An author with very good writing skills can make almost anything appealing, while an author who just sucks can take the awesomest idea and ruin it. The biggest don't, then would probably be "never write out of your element." This goes no matter if it's sci-fi or romance or a technothriller or historical fiction. Or some deformed combination of the above.

[NecronLord]

The Schola Progenium is a system of church run orphanages. Of course they take children very young. It is after they graduate that they are sent for further training to serve in sensitive positions in the Empire, such as in the Comissariat or the Officio Assassinorum.

I'm pretty certain the Scholae also train stormtroopers en-site, while other groups, as mentioned above, do of course, have their own facilities.

Of course, it's not unreasonable, err, at all.

But what good is the "cult of the warrior" without the "Charlie Mansion Military Academy" brainbug? George RR Martin's Unsullied train all their lives, are castrated "root and branch"

Wait... What? How does that make them better soldiers?

[18-Till-I-Die]

Well again it depends on what kind of "trained from birth" were talking about.

For example, i doubt anyone here on modern Earth would survive ten seconds on Catachan, let alone from childhood to manhood. Yet generations, over many centuries, have lived there and survived. Obviously whatever training they have there must begin at extremely young ages, and must be very good, since literally every rock, tree and creature on the planet has dedicated it's existence to killing any human it sees.

Or like in the movie Solider where the sole point WAS to make them emotionless sociopathic killers, because their mission, from what was shown, appears to be some kind of special ops "black operation" stuff that has to be "deniable".

And while it may have been strange, it DID work for the Spartans for many, many years and for the European knights and indeed for many warrior races. As much as our modern society decries such a culture, the reality is they thrived for centuries before falling, basically, for the same reason every race eventually dies out...good old cultural decline. Just like Rome, which was as far from a warrior race as you can get.

The process "works", in that it does create functional soldiers who are dedicated to their fellow warriors and highly skilled at what they do. The thing is that sci-fi authors sometimes take it too far.

Same with other types of super-soldiers. But i find that 40k tends to balance things out rather well, like having warriors raised from birth be excellent soldiers but not outright gods, or genetically engineered warriors who are vastly superior to ten or twenty normal men but not a thousand, etc etc. I think this is because 40k has to balance things out for gameplay issues, whereas stand alone sci-fi does not. The "wank" in 40k tends to be balanced by enemy forces of equal or better power available too.

[18-Till-I-Die]

But what good is the "cult of the warrior" without the "Charlie Mansion Military Academy" brainbug? George RR Martin's Unsullied train all their lives, are castrated "root and branch"

Wait... What? How does that make them better soldiers?

Yeah i', curious about that too.

WTF, i mean, wouldnt that fuck up their hormones or something?

[MJ12 Commando]

Except that's, again, training wank. A Catachan will, definitely, due to the hostile environment, be very skilled, probably have excellent genetics, and... then what?

Special ops already select the best they can find in the military. A Catachan, assuming they don't actually have any funky germline mods they got several millenia before, just by sheer human limitation, likely won't be too much better than a Delta or SEAL overall. Sure, in specific environments, yes, but put all three of them in equivalent gear, get all three of them equally familiar, and tell them to run through an assault course or something similar?

The Catachan may come out on top the majority of the time, but I somehow doubt that sheer pluck and training will allow the best of the Catachan to be significantly superior to the best modern earth can offer. This may be wrong assuming they have augmentation. If we are doing that let's take it away for the purposes of this thought experiment.

Now, since Catachan is such a hostile environment, what you'd expect to see is the bell curve being much narrower. Overall, they'll be massively superior to you and I at fighting, but that's because of essentially Darwinian selection, since there's an environment that's out to actually kill them. Bob the average Catachan is probably going to be very very good at hunting and killing, and be able to give a good accounting of himself against a special forces dude.

But at the high end of the spectrum, the difference is going to be far less pronounced, because our society has Larry the Fatass who wouldn't be able to survive without his weekly dialysis trips and an automobile. Their society doesn't. I'm perfectly willing to accept soldiers trained from birth are superior to what modern special ops training regimens create. What I'm doubtful on is if such a soldier would be superior enough to justify the sheer cost.

[NecronLord]

Yeah i', curious about that too.

WTF, i mean, wouldnt that fuck up their hormones or something?

They'd also lose muscle (especially upper body) mass, and probably become incontinent with the removal of the penis.

[NecronLord]

Except that's, again, training wank. A Catachan will, definitely, due to the hostile environment, be very skilled, probably have excellent genetics, and... then what?

They're most commonly used in jungle terrains where their extensive fieldcraft is of use. Another example would be the Harakoni Warhawks, who come from a hive world with low gravity where the use of gravitic devices for movement is common. They've a lot of skills that make them into very good drop troops. They're (Catachans, Harakoni, being from hives, probably are) not any better at, say, urban warfare, than the average guardsman, though.

Special ops already select the best they can find in the military. A Catachan, assuming they don't actually have any funky germline mods they got several millenia before, just by sheer human limitation, likely won't be too much better than a Delta or SEAL overall. Sure, in specific environments, yes, but put all three of them in equivalent gear, get all three of them equally familiar, and tell them to run through an assault course or something similar?

Catachans probably are genetically modified, from looking at them...

[18-Till-I-Die]

Yeah i', curious about that too.

WTF, i mean, wouldnt that fuck up their hormones or something?

They'd also lose muscle (especially upper body) mass, and probably become incontinent with the removal of the penis.

Yeah thats what i was thinking too. Well i didnt think about the incontinence part (i try not to think to hard about castration) but now that you mention it, that would also be a problem. Overall it seems like a stupid idea, seeing as i cant imagine any benefits.

But it would be funny though.


Mickey Mouse Voice: "C'mon you apes! You wanna' live forever!"

[Stuart]

Actually, how much DOES it cost to train a modern soldier per year? Because I'm betting in most SF would, as aformentioned, be cheaper just to give someone a million dollars (equivalent) of awesome science fiction gear.

According to the U.S. budget documentation, the average annual cost of maintaining a soldier in the US Army is USD0.7 million with hsi personal equipment (one outfit) costing US$27,000.

The ultimate argument about the genetically-modified super-soldier is this. How will all that conditioning and modification help them when an MLRS battery takes out the entire grid square they happen to be standing in?

[MJ12 Commando]

And in that case we'd need no other military branch but SAC.

If it comes down to having to fight on the ground, if the attacker's doing it it's probably something they want, and if you have defenders it means it's worth enough that they won't be blowing it up themselves unless they have no other choice.

The most common environments that combat of this sort will occur in are the places where neither side particularly wants an artillery barrage dropped onto, and where twenty men often have the problem that only four guys will be effective before they start tripping over themselves due to numbers.

What's silly is having super-duper-training be the cause of supersoldiers, not supersoldiers themselves.

[Norseman]

Yeah i', curious about that too.

WTF, i mean, wouldnt that fuck up their hormones or something?

They'd also lose muscle (especially upper body) mass, and probably become incontinent with the removal of the penis.

On the other hand Eunuchs keep growing throughout their lives, take a look at old pictures and see how freakishly long their arms and legs could get. There's also a reason that Eunuchs were used as bodyguards etc. Still...

[speaker-to-trolls]

I think the idea with the Unsullied is that you cut off their masculine apparatus so they don't get distracted, I think the theory is that, since so much of human desire and drive can be linked to sex then by removing it you get rid of most of the things which could divert attention from the important business of killing things. Well, it works in theory.

Super-soldiers are one of those things which sound really cool but which make less sense the more you think about them. Yeah, you could probably make more effective soldiers if they were genetically engineered and trained from childhood, but honestly, would it be worth it? It's telling that the super-soldiers which make the most sense come from Warhammer 40,000, one of the most shamelessly outlandish and unrealistic universes out there (well, in relatively mainstream sci fi, anyway).