Starcraft Vs. Posleen

[TheMuffinKing]

The Legacy of the Aldenata has spilled forth into the Terran Confederacy. The Posleen from John Ringo's various books have dispatched a force to Chau Sara consisting of 100 battle globes (each consisting of 200 B-Decs). They will arrive in orbit around Chau Sara the same time the Protoss arrive to destroy the Zerg. The Posleen mission is to defeat and consume the population of Chau Sara and use the planet to further their plans for invasion within the system.

The antagonistic nature of the Posleen forces the Protoss, Terrans, and Zerg to cooperate in pushing the Posleen off the planet. They four months to destroy the posleen fleet and neutralize planetside survivors before another, similarly sized posleen fleet arrives.

My questions to you; can the combined forces of Starcraft defeat the posleen on Chau Sara, and how do you think the posleen fare against each of the races? I'm dreadfully unfamiliar with Starcraft stuff.

Baen Glossary with B-Dec and battle globe description.

[Samuel]

The Protoss nuke it from orbit, like they did historically.

[Tanasinn]

Seperating Starcraft capabilities from game mechanics could be a trick (particularly since some of the material defers to and prominently displays game mechanics), but some observations could be made. The Protoss are hidebound dipshits that didn't realize they had a war on their hands until they had Zerg on the homeworld, and as of Starcraft 2 they're just NOW bringing some of their actual nasties out of mothballs. The Terran government is highly unstable and fundamentally corrupt (the Confederacy is eventually overthrown and taken over by a terrorist; General Duke, a (supposedly) skilled top-level Confederate general turns coats without so much as a backwards glance (and not over any particular moral outrage that might prompt that); the military's ground pounders consist of "neurally resocialized" criminals and (in the case of one of the books) brainwashed civilians press-ganged into service; etc.).

[Thanas]

Sorry, but this should be no contest. The Zerg are just as nasty (plus have the advantage of being able to throw away millions of them), wheras the Protoss can just nuke them from orbit. The terrans meanwhile suck the most, but they still have several dozens of heavy cruisers and can expend hundres/thousands of Interplanetary nuke missiles at will.

Meanwhile, the Posleen didn't even manage to overrun modern-day Germany without taking hideous losses and throwing their armies away.

But hey, how nice of the OP to have thought about this in detail - I bet Ghost Rider is going to love this.

[Batman]

Hey, TheMuffinKing, thanks for that link to the glossary THAT GIVES US NO USEFUL INFORMATION WHATSOEVER. We don't need to know what stuff is CALLED. We need to know what it CAN DO.

[Aaron]

Hey, TheMuffinKing, thanks for that link to the glossary THAT GIVES US NO USEFUL INFORMATION WHATSOEVER. We don't need to know what stuff is CALLED. We need to know what it CAN DO.

Well in the books the Posleen 1 mm railgun round can go through the Abrams from front to back and keep on going, and IIRC the HVM and plasma cannon basically vapourize the Abrams. Unfortunately that's all I can recall as I seem to have misplaced my novels.

[Batman]

Hey, TheMuffinKing, thanks for that link to the glossary THAT GIVES US NO USEFUL INFORMATION WHATSOEVER. We don't need to know what stuff is CALLED. We need to know what it CAN DO.

Well in the books the Posleen 1 mm railgun round can go through the Abrams from front to back and keep on going, and IIRC the HVM and plasma cannon basically vapourize the Abrams. Unfortunately that's all I can recall as I seem to have misplaced my novels.

Thanks, but that's the kind of information TheMuffinKing should have provided. And frankly that's rather massively incompatible with the Posleen having trouble taking over modern Germany as said by Thanas, which would make them infinitely LESS capable than Starfleet, hard as such a thing is to imagine.

[Aaron]

Thanks, but that's the kind of information TheMuffinKing should have provided. And frankly that's rather massively incompatible with the Posleen having trouble taking over modern Germany as said by Thanas, which would make them infinitely LESS capable than Starfleet, hard as such a thing is to imagine.

Well I haven't read as far as the German books but from what I remember the Posleen where hampered by the fact that the average one is basically retarded and they run around in swarms of hundreds to thousands controlled by one intelligent "God-King". They pretty much just swamp you with numbers and the only reason why they succeeded in the US was because the US was by magic equally moronic.

Not all of the horde members have those 1mm, HVM and plasma guns. A fair number just have a fancy shotgun or the less powerful 3mm railgun.

[TheMuffinKing]

Hey, TheMuffinKing, thanks for that link to the glossary THAT GIVES US NO USEFUL INFORMATION WHATSOEVER. We don't need to know what stuff is CALLED. We need to know what it CAN DO.

It gives numbers but as you said, not posleen capabilities. I should have posted some more informative links, sorry about that, give me some time to improve this.

[Thanas]

Thanks, but that's the kind of information TheMuffinKing should have provided. And frankly that's rather massively incompatible with the Posleen having trouble taking over modern Germany as said by Thanas, which would make them infinitely LESS capable than Starfleet, hard as such a thing is to imagine.

Well I haven't read as far as the German books but from what I remember the Posleen where hampered by the fact that the average one is basically retarded and they run around in swarms of hundreds to thousands controlled by one intelligent "God-King". They pretty much just swamp you with numbers and the only reason why they succeeded in the US was because the US was by magic equally moronic.

Not all of the horde members have those 1mm, HVM and plasma guns. A fair number just have a fancy shotgun or the less powerful 3mm railgun.

So...they are pretty much a variant of the Zerg. Colour me unimpressed. Considering the Zerg pretty much overrun the terrans, I doubt the Posleen are going to do anything but provide a new strain of DNA to the Zergs.

And then the Protoss glass the planet, as in the OTL.

[Aaron]

So...they are pretty much a variant of the Zerg. Colour me unimpressed. Considering the Zerg pretty much overrun the terrans, I doubt the Posleen are going to do anything but provide a new strain of DNA to the Zergs.

And then the Protoss glass the planet, as in the OTL.

Zerg with guns is a pretty accurate description of them.

[Thanas]

What are their numbers? Because even small Zerg broods number in the millions.

Do they use air support? Or underground warfare? How about both simultaneously?

[Aaron]

What are their numbers? Because even small Zerg broods number in the millions.

Do they use air support? Or underground warfare? How about both simultaneously?

IIRC the initial landing was above one million (in the US), with millions more in the follow up ones. They breed rather quickly as well.

Air support, not so much. Occasionally the odd God-King will use a lander for CAS but it doesn't seem to be something that occurs to them, in fact the main God-King character in Hell's Faire was regarded as something of an outcast because he adapted his tactics to deal with us.

I don't think they've used anything like underground warfare (I assume you mean tunneling, mines and such) besides getting into the underground cities and eating everyone.

[Thanas]

So...they use less advanced tactics, their weaponry might or might not be on par, they have fewer numbers and are less resistant - I doubt their hides can stand up to vacuum or machine gun bullets...so I'll conclude the Zerg will eat them.

[Thanas]

Ghetto edit - from what I recall, a single Zerg brood has up to 6 million zergs. So the Posleen are outnumbered 6-1 by one Zerg brood - and there are quite a few of those.

[Batman]

On the other hand, if the Cpls numbers are correct, the Posleen DO have a massive edge in firepower-Zerg could be dealt with by Confederation ground troops with not much more firepower than modern day military.

[Aaron]

So...they use less advanced tactics, their weaponry might or might not be on par, they have fewer numbers and are less resistant - I doubt their hides can stand up to vacuum or machine gun bullets...so I'll conclude the Zerg will eat them.

Their quite vulnerable to 7.62 NATO, one of the weapons to deal with them was an automated M-60 with a huge ammo box. They just take more then a human.

On the other hand, if the Cpls numbers are correct, the Posleen DO have a massive edge in firepower-Zerg could be dealt with by Confederation ground troops with not much more firepower than modern day military.

Keep in mind that I'm going off memory here, I haven't been able to find much on the net besides a small write up on Wiki.

[TheMuffinKing]

The wiki is pretty thin on information. This post has information pulled from the various Ringo novels and was constructed by members of this board in a Posleen Vs. Stargate thread. Special thanks to Gerald Tarrant for his footwork.

[avatarxprime]

The wiki is pretty thin on information. This post has information pulled from the various Ringo novels and was constructed by members of this board in a Posleen Vs. Stargate thread. Special thanks to Gerald Tarrant for his footwork.

Well then, as far as ground forces go it really depends on how rich the God-King involved are, maybe you should specify just how much they can afford to kit out their army. Still based on Gerald Tarrant's statement of 240 million per wave with 50-70 battle globes per wave we are looking, at the most, 480 million Posleen showing up on Chau Sara (based on 100 battle globes in OP) and it taking 2 years to get new Posleen. I'm not sure how fast Zerg breed, but considering what they accomplished in the game you can get a full Zerg (of any strain) ready to go in a matter of days if not hours. So, the Posleen might start with higher numbers but they'll get out-swarmed in short order. There is also the issue of space superiority. Posleen will get wasted by the Zerg (Scourges anyone?) let alone the Protoss who will have Arbiter support for perma-cloaking and dividing the incoming enemies to more manageable numbers.

[Samuel]

The Posleen have the following advantages in their series:

1) Numbers
2) Idiotic opponents
3) No MkSheppard inuniverse
4) Massed fire

That is it. They are essentially the Zerg, but both more and less retarded. Of course, given the Zerg are already there and the Posleen have ZERO understanding of logistics, starving the bastards out works as well a glassing the planet AND is more fun.

[hongi]

Ghetto edit - from what I recall, a single Zerg brood has up to 6 million zergs. So the Posleen are outnumbered 6-1 by one Zerg brood - and there are quite a few of those.

We don't know if the Zerg put an entire brood on Chau Sara.

We don't know enough about the Zerg. There's a line in one of the Starcraft cutscenes where 'billions' of Zerg are mentioned, but the combined Broods only number in the millions. What are we to make of that?

[Thanas]

Well, we hear ingame from at least two different broods iirc and the novel about it makes it very much sound like a full brood.

That said, I have no doubt that the Posleen are going to lose in this scenario. The Zerg seem to be quite tough (both handguns and machine guns have little effect on them). Meanwhile, the Terrans in this era should be exactly what the Posleens don't need - power armour, flamethrowers, grenades, minefields, trench systems etc. are all used indiscriminately. Posleen wave attacks should not have much success against that because the Zerg can outbreed them.

[consequences]

Just to clear up one minor mistake. Their light(1mm railguns) can't do much to an Abrams, their heavy(3 mm) can mission kill one, it's the obscenely overpowered grav guns that the human power armor ACS use that can go through one the long way. The weapons they have that can reliably kill an Abrams are actually fairly rare among the individual troops.

[Vendetta]

The Posleen just appear to be a particularly ponderous zerg rush anyway.

They get annihilated by bunker lines of marines/firebats with siege tank backup.

[Hawkwings]

Ahh, the siege tank. A double-wall of those, some missile turrets and bunkers, and you've got yourself a very solid defensive setup. Just gotta get targeting coordinated to the tanks don't fire on the same damn target... Oh! and science vessels!

As for the zerg, I'd love to see a scourge rush on the god-kings.