Foes that are a credable and interesting military threat

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Foes that are a credable and interesting military threat

Post by Zor »

Basically this is on the same note as the "Zombieville vs Xenotown" thread.

It has been well established that against a modern military force, Xenomorphs and Zombies (to name two common example) are no match unless they unfamilier with the threat in an enviroment where their are lots of places in the dark for them to hide or swarmed in tight quarters. Basically, this thread is comming up with a threat that, when up against a force of soliders that know what they are up against, is a crediable threat, but on a level in which action is not a one sided slaughter-a-thon of grunts.

What i came up with is a roughly human sized quadrapedal robot armed with a top mounted turret mounted gun (several types for various missions) and a spike, as well as bottom mounted manipualtor. Said robot is fast, steathy and is capable of deploying bugs (in the sense of small sensor packages) to moniter activity in a certain area, as well as being able to instantly and sighlently co-ordinate with other robots via radio and is fairly intelligent in doing it's job. As well it can not be snuck on because of camera mounts giving it a 360 degree with a snakelike fiber optic probe for seeing around obstacles like corners. Alongside them well as working with small, lightly armed (something like a pistol) UAVs for recon. Quite deadly, but can be brought down easily enough if cornered or by a lucky shot. Fairly basic, not hard to understand and can fit to work to several types of backstory but still something quite legitiamately dangerous.

What would be your crediable and formidable but still not unconcquerable threat?

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Post by Nephtys »

The Combine's occupation forces seem like they'd be an interesting challenge for modern soldiers, given that half their gear is near-human technology applied differently. Not to be confused with their (not shown on screen) super invasion force that wiped out Earth's military in seven hours.
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Post by Peptuck »

The Scrin from Command and Conquer field a solid alien combined arms arsenal, though they can be beaten by the less esoteric technology of Nod and GDI. Though I wonder, are the human troops here current-day forces or near future human militaries? because GDI and Nod have some advantages over current militaries, what with their railguns and cloaking devices and orbiting death satellites.
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Post by PeZook »

Rioters. Extra points if they are fighting for a just cause, and the soldiers aren't evil, either.

If you want a story with non-humans, then make them non-human rioters. Like alien slaves supplied with arms by a shadowy group of independence-seeking Earth colonists who will enslave them later anyway.
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Post by MJ12 Commando »

Replicas. They're not invulnerable, but due to incredible coordination, high competence, and their supersoldierness, are going to be a stone bitch trying to get out of an urban arena without just bombing the place to rubble.

The Combine Overwatch isn't a bad choice either.

Project Snowblind's Republic also fields some credible threats, but against a fully mobilized world I'd believe that hypertech goodies wouldn't quite make up for their smallish numbers.
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Post by Rye »

Nephtys wrote:The Combine's occupation forces seem like they'd be an interesting challenge for modern soldiers, given that half their gear is near-human technology applied differently. Not to be confused with their (not shown on screen) super invasion force that wiped out Earth's military in seven hours.
They need not have been that impressive really, they could've just been forces like we saw in HL1 plus with a few spotters to give coordinates on where to break through the dimensional barriers, then they could dump bombs/gargs through.
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Post by Illuminatus Primus »

The Xen forces from HL1 have nothing to do with the Combine military.
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Post by MJ12 Commando »

Illuminatus Primus wrote:The Xen forces from HL1 have nothing to do with the Combine military.
Yeah, two different races of aliens. The Combine military has its own biological death-creatures, which are apparently unrelated to the Xen aliens in any way shape or form besides analogous capabilities (incredibly tough and strangely capable biologically based things).

Combine Overwatch are just cyborgs in very thick body armor.
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Post by VT-16 »

The Combine, as their name suggests, combine biological and mechanical technologies of the species they conquer, thus forming highly diverse units mostly tailored to policing their own homeworlds. Even the Overwatch are genetically modified humans that almost form a sub-species in their own right. The Xen creatures and the Vortigaunts from HL1 were just some of the many slave-species the Combine gathered over the course of their campaigns.

Then there's that third faction in Opposing Force, Race X. I dunno what those guys were up to. Other than alien abduction. :P
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Post by Darth Smiley »

I actually liked the Xen aliens as enemies. What made them difficult was that they could literally appear out of nowhere, making it impossible to truly secure an area. You can't use choke points, you can't wear their numbers down, and you can never assume you are safe. It makes them dangerous, but not in an Xeno-biowank way. Instead, the danger lies in becoming fatigued or running out of ammo. A large, competent military force could hold out against the Xenians - for a time. But if you don't enter Xen and close the portal, you are in serious trouble.
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Post by Zor »

Peptuck wrote:The Scrin from Command and Conquer field a solid alien combined arms arsenal, though they can be beaten by the less esoteric technology of Nod and GDI. Though I wonder, are the human troops here current-day forces or near future human militaries? because GDI and Nod have some advantages over current militaries, what with their railguns and cloaking devices and orbiting death satellites.
While i am using the Modern Military as a basic model on which our enemy force will square off, this can apply to near future militaries as well, but this is a greyscale measure depending on how far they are from modern warfare.

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Post by Rye »

Illuminatus Primus wrote:The Xen forces from HL1 have nothing to do with the Combine military.
On the contrary, they have a lot of similar technology and the Nihilanth states that the Xen armies are "their slaves". While this could be referring to another controlling organisation we've not seen (or the Nihilanth feels compelled to lie for some reason), I don't see any particular reason to invoke that given the superficial resemblance of Nihilanth's armour and combine technology and the fact the combine have a huge Gonarch sac to produce weaponised headcrabs. Also, at the start of HL2, there's a vortigaunt sweeping up with a control collar around its neck like the vorts in HL1.

The Nihilanth's chamber was apparently where the richest sample of "xenium" that caused the resonance cascade in the first place, and one of its attacks is a portal it throws at you, implying that the combine's main means of invasion was through the enslaved Nihilanth in Xen, which tore down the dimensional barriers and supplied the initial invading force to accomplish that.
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Post by Junghalli »

Something like the Flood, cause it takes your technology and knowledge and uses it against you.
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Post by Nieztchean Uber-Amoeba »

The Race, from Turtledove's Worldwar series. A glacial-paced Reptilian 3-world empire, with ground weaponry basically equivalent to modern Earth tech.
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Post by Darth Smiley »

No. The Race, had they tried to invade modern earth, would have gotten their asses kicked, if they refrained from orbital bombardment.

They were fought to a standstill be WWII era technology. It is even stated in the novel ( I forget which one ) that had The Race come any later, it would have failed.

The biggest reason is that their starship are hideously vulnerable when on the ground. In the first World War novel, the Germans sneak an artillery piece into range and one hit KO one of their main ships. Modern artillery would quickly demolish the starships, long before they could deploy significant amounts of troops.
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Post by Rye »

Zuul wrote:
Illuminatus Primus wrote:The Xen forces from HL1 have nothing to do with the Combine military.
On the contrary, they have a lot of similar technology and the Nihilanth states that the Xen armies are "their slaves". While this could be referring to another controlling organisation we've not seen (or the Nihilanth feels compelled to lie for some reason), I don't see any particular reason to invoke that given the superficial resemblance of Nihilanth's armour and combine technology and the fact the combine have a huge Gonarch sac to produce weaponised headcrabs. Also, at the start of HL2, there's a vortigaunt sweeping up with a control collar around its neck like the vorts in HL1.

The Nihilanth's chamber was apparently where the richest sample of "xenium" that caused the resonance cascade in the first place, and one of its attacks is a portal it throws at you, implying that the combine's main means of invasion was through the enslaved Nihilanth in Xen, which tore down the dimensional barriers and supplied the initial invading force to accomplish that.
Actually, according to the wiki, this is wrong:
Until recently, many players speculated that the Combine may have possibly controlled Xen, based on the similarities to some practices and technologies used by the Nihilanth. However, Valve Software marketing director Doug Lombardi has stated that the Combine had, in fact, invaded a different homeworld from which Nihilanth's race was forced to escape. The defeated Nihilanth, along with the other Xen creatures, sought refuge in Xen, where the Combine could not (or would not) follow.

"We had a glimpse of the larger threat when we were working on Half-Life 1. In other words we knew that once you cleared out the Nihilanth, you were going to discover something worse beyond it. We knew that some immense threat had chased the Nihilanth and its creatures out of their own world and into Xen, from which location [i.e. the world beyond Xen] they were all too glad to seize the opportunity to continue on to Earth with suppression through the citadels. But the exact nature of the threat was left to be solved in Half-Life 2."

This does, however, establish that Nihilanth and the Combine are former enemies who would have had knowledge of each other. When contacted, Marc Laidlaw provided more information:

"I'm pretty sure Doug was restating something I'd told him; I [am not] clarifying it, since it's the foundation on which the series continues. What we saw in HL1 was the very end of a long struggle between the Combine and the last of the Nihilanth's race ... The Nihilanth's "world" (if it could be said to have) was long since in the past as far as the Nihilanth was concerned; Xen was their final retreat, and they had their back to the wall, as it were, when the fissure appeared that let them spill into our dimension. Xen itself is sort of a dimensional transit bottleneck--an area of continual contention."
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Post by DrMckay »

Darth Smiley wrote:No. The Race, had they tried to invade modern earth, would have gotten their asses kicked, if they refrained from orbital bombardment.

They were fought to a standstill be WWII era technology. It is even stated in the novel ( I forget which one ) that had The Race come any later, it would have failed.

The biggest reason is that their starship are hideously vulnerable when on the ground. In the first World War novel, the Germans sneak an artillery piece into range and one hit KO one of their main ships. Modern artillery would quickly demolish the starships, long before they could deploy significant amounts of troops.
For the record, that was a Railroad Gun And the shell hit a ship loaded with unsafed nuclear weapons.

:roll:

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He should come up with the ideas, and Stirling or Drake should write them.
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Post by Sidewinder »

Keep it simple. Use a well trained, well equipped, well supplied military force, consisting of HUMAN SOLDIERS/MARINES supported by air, armor, and artillery. Leave the wanked alien bullshit to people with money to burn.
Please do not make Americans fight giant monsters.

Those gun nuts do not understand the meaning of "overkill," and will simply use weapon after weapon of mass destruction (WMD) until the monster is dead, or until they run out of weapons.

They have more WMD than there are monsters for us to fight. (More insanity here.)
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Post by Sidewinder »

Speaking of people with money to burn, the producers of the 'Terminator' movies seem to have given Skynet a well balanced military, with air, armor, infantry, and Special Forces.
Please do not make Americans fight giant monsters.

Those gun nuts do not understand the meaning of "overkill," and will simply use weapon after weapon of mass destruction (WMD) until the monster is dead, or until they run out of weapons.

They have more WMD than there are monsters for us to fight. (More insanity here.)
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Post by DPDarkPrimus »

If you're going to have Half-Life enemies, Race X would make a better foe than Nihilith's crew.
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Post by Setzer »

But Skynet was dumb enough to make laser weapons after Judgement Day. Considering what normal guns do to Terminators, i.e., nothing, phasing them out was the height of stupidity for Skynet.
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Post by NecronLord »

Setzer wrote:But Skynet was dumb enough to make laser weapons after Judgement Day. Considering what normal guns do to Terminators, i.e., nothing, phasing them out was the height of stupidity for Skynet.
The original (1984) concept was that they were made by humans before judgement day. Skynet's stupidity in that regard is the result of 1997 coming and us not having zapp guns.

By comparison, Allston's made Skynet's forces use firearms almost exclusively in his books.
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Post by Lord of the Abyss »

I liked the Starfire Arachnids, especially in the first book In Death Ground. Yes, warlike swarm species aren't rare in sci-fi, but these critters use guns and missles and starships, not claws and fangs and bioguns and bioships and biothis and biothat. They were capable of both cleverness and indifferent-to-casualties mass assaults, often at the same time.
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Post by Admiral Valdemar »

Zuul wrote: On the contrary, they have a lot of similar technology and the Nihilanth states that the Xen armies are "their slaves". While this could be referring to another controlling organisation we've not seen (or the Nihilanth feels compelled to lie for some reason), I don't see any particular reason to invoke that given the superficial resemblance of Nihilanth's armour and combine technology and the fact the combine have a huge Gonarch sac to produce weaponised headcrabs. Also, at the start of HL2, there's a vortigaunt sweeping up with a control collar around its neck like the vorts in HL1.

The Nihilanth's chamber was apparently where the richest sample of "xenium" that caused the resonance cascade in the first place, and one of its attacks is a portal it throws at you, implying that the combine's main means of invasion was through the enslaved Nihilanth in Xen, which tore down the dimensional barriers and supplied the initial invading force to accomplish that.

Actually, according to...

*Snip*
The US military had some success in Xen though, from what I recall. We saw the G-Man show us images of human activity there after Gordon killed the head honcho Nihilanth and gave him a choice for employment. I also remember that the Combine invasion shortly after was triggered by the original Black Mesa experiment mishap that was like a signalling flare across space-time to all with the capability (the Xen creatures may have accidentally passed through, but the Combine and Race X seemed intent on invasion). Of course, the Combine were by far the more superior species given their adaptability not unlike Roman forces, and they made short work of us before placing police garrisons to subdue and Breen - from Black Mesa - in charge at City 17's Citadel.

I've yet to play Episode 2, though I imagine the Combine would easily come back and finish off any resistance if they found the Overwatch units were having difficulty. The Vortigaunt assistance is a bonus.
NecronLord wrote: The original (1984) concept was that they were made by humans before judgement day. Skynet's stupidity in that regard is the result of 1997 coming and us not having zapp guns.

By comparison, Allston's made Skynet's forces use firearms almost exclusively in his books.
I thought the Westinghouse designs were already in the pipeline for DARPA in the original time-line and Skynet traded off superior defence in matching the human firepower with its own phased-plasma fusion weapons.

It could simply be that Skynet wasn't thinking strategically about that decision, and saw a superior weapon system as being mandatory, even if traditional projectile weapons would be sufficient and afford better protection even for later hyperalloy T-800s.
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Post by 18-Till-I-Die »

There is some indication that the Combine used some kind of weapon that had more effect on humans than our buildings, since if City 17 is any indication most of the buildings are still standing and the cities still livable...but the streets are practically empty 90% of the time. Now, of course, this is because of programing limitations in RL. But in-universe, combined (no pun intended) with the Combine's ability to "stop" human breeding somehow, indicates that they may have some kind of "deathwand" stuff like in the Hegemony novels. If they can just flip a switch and screw around with our biochemical processes enough to prevent humans from being able to cary a baby to term (it was some kind of energy field, they say it outright, plus it "shut down" when their reactor went boom) then they have a very advanced grasp of biological functions. Supposedly the energy field prevented certain protein chains required to conceive were "prevented" from activating.
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