Assault rifles

[avianmosquito]

The rifle, in 5.56mm and under the designation of M36, fully replaced the M16 and FAMAS in the arsenals of the United States Marine Corps and NATO within a few years. In 6.8mm it became the standard designated marksman rifle of the US ARMY, and in 5.45mm it was quickly adopted by the spetsnaz.

Is there precedence for this?
Are the new rifles going to be used by Humans to kill Kokomes or the short giant angry lizzard guys with the long name?

Sorry I never noticed this comment before.

Simply put, it's a good weapon, and we weren't *technically* enemies of the Russian Federation at this time. Later, the weapon was used against the Yutani Empire (Yutani Serenity being one of the primary antagonists in the series) and worked beautifully, particularly when Yutani seemingly pulled transhumans out of her ass and started using them. How she did this is a major spoiler, it's not going here, but the point is she did, and actually made the technology better by coming up with a way to induce the grade-one mutation via clustermunition.

As for anti-alien usage, you seem to be asking if this is the purpose of the weapon. It's a bit more complicated than that.

Short answer: no. This gun is a man-stopper, it was designed to use specialized ammunition (HTAP) and do so much damage so fast the target will slip into shock before it hits the ground, this making retaliation impossible.

Long answer: as the marksman's rifle of multiple military forces for 40+ years, it did, of course, see action against the Empire of Kakara, one of the two kokome factions. It just wasn't very useful with the standard HTAP, but with other forms of ammunition, SAPHEI and API being good examples, the weapon performed admirably. (I'd still take an FAL any day if I'm to fight that kind of foe.)

As far as the ferroningen, no. The ferroningen were part of the Coalition of Lestria, and were therefore one of our major allies. (Of course, by this time ferroningen were more advanced than us, so this alliance was a logical move.)

Other enemies: Best weapon against necros, immensely overpowered when dealing with simini, supremely underwhelming results against vehicles.

Anything else?

[avianmosquito]

There is no precedence for an assault rifle being adopted by nearly all (it's just missing China and India, really) major world powers, no. Similar designs, yes, but not the same damn rifle.

By this time, there were two much greater world powers than those to worry about, (Third World Union and Yutani Empire) and India had been annexed by China and the 3WU. Neither of these powers used the weapon. Also, North Korea didn't use it at all, and the russians only used it as a DMR for the spetsnaz. (And quickly dropped it in favour of the carbine)

[CaptainChewbacca]

Third-world Union? What? All the broken-down crap piles got together and became strong enough to annex a country like India?

That's insane.

[avianmosquito]

Third-world Union? What? All the broken-down crap piles got together and became strong enough to annex a country like India?

That's insane.

Not quite. It's more like "A corporation pretending to be a church, (not that there's much difference) managed to annex 30+ countries in a few years and get away with it."

[Purple]

So something like a runaway version of the Non-Aligned Movement with a bit of the Brotherhood of Nod thrown in betwen?

[Thanas]

Third-world Union? What? All the broken-down crap piles got together and became strong enough to annex a country like India?

That's insane.

Not quite. It's more like "A corporation pretending to be a church, (not that there's much difference) managed to annex 30+ countries in a few years and get away with it."

That's insane.

[avianmosquito]

So something like a runaway version of the Non-Aligned Movement with a bit of the Brotherhood of Nod thrown in betwen?

Yeah, kinda. Except without Kane's weirdness.

[avianmosquito]

Third-world Union? What? All the broken-down crap piles got together and became strong enough to annex a country like India?

That's insane.

Not quite. It's more like "A corporation pretending to be a church, (not that there's much difference) managed to annex 30+ countries in a few years and get away with it."

That's insane.

So's Wal-mart.

[CaptainChewbacca]

Not quite. It's more like "A corporation pretending to be a church, (not that there's much difference) managed to annex 30+ countries in a few years and get away with it."

Like they wouldn't get blasted off the face of the earth after the second country. Why do your ideas all suck?

[Zixinus]

Like they wouldn't get blasted off the face of the earth after the second country. Why do your ideas all suck?

Probably because he thinks details like exact calibre are important to anyone but gun-nuts and thinks that the actual story and background of the story is second-note.

Assault rifles haven't changed much since the second world war, the most notable changes being what they put around the actual weapon-defining mechanism (plastics, optics, accessories, accessors for accessories, etc).

He probably thinks that the weapon is important, when its not. It's the warfare that's important. It's the psychology of the soldiers entering the battlefield that's important. It's boring stuff like economics and logistics that's important. Who has the ultimate assault rifle is a minute detail compared to things like air superiority, how much water and food the soldiers have, what weather is it, etc.
He's focusing on one individual aspect of a story. As established, if people don't care which way a rocketship is built up or where the propellent is, they won't care what calibre ammunition both soldiers are using.

But what do I know? I'm only been studying how to write a novel for only a year or so now and only read like, two books on the subject.

[avianmosquito]

Like they wouldn't get blasted off the face of the earth after the second country. Why do your ideas all suck?

Probably because he thinks details like exact calibre are important to anyone but gun-nuts and thinks that the actual story and background of the story is second-note.

Assault rifles haven't changed much since the second world war, the most notable changes being what they put around the actual weapon-defining mechanism (plastics, optics, accessories, accessors for accessories, etc).

He probably thinks that the weapon is important, when its not. It's the warfare that's important. It's the psychology of the soldiers entering the battlefield that's important. It's boring stuff like economics and logistics that's important. Who has the ultimate assault rifle is a minute detail compared to things like air superiority, how much water and food the soldiers have, what weather is it, etc.
He's focusing on one individual aspect of a story. As established, if people don't care which way a rocketship is built up or where the propellent is, they won't care what calibre ammunition both soldiers are using.

But what do I know? I'm only been studying how to write a novel for only a year or so now and only read like, two books on the subject.

No. The reason they got away with it is they took over these nations economically. (Not that anyone would really care what they did to third world nations anyway.) After that, once they had their goal of 50 countries, they finally took official control. At this point they took a few years of time to prep their military, than took another 30 countries that had resisted them. In the end, they had two entire continents, (still technically misding two countries out of africa) and another 30 or so spare countries.

They actually brought up the standard of living in these countries to what we consider a first-world level.

[CaptainChewbacca]

No. The reason they got away with it is they took over these nations economically. (Not that anyone would really care what they did to third world nations anyway.) After that, once they had their goal of 50 countries, they finally took official control. At this point they took a few years of time to prep their military, than took another 30 countries that had resisted them. In the end, they had two entire continents, (still technically misding two countries out of africa) and another 30 or so spare countries.

They actually brought up the standard of living in these countries to what we consider a first-world level.

A corporate entity annexed two continents (I'm guessing Africa and south america) and nobody cared?

WHAT?

[avianmosquito]

Not quite. It's more like "A corporation pretending to be a church, (not that there's much difference) managed to annex 30+ countries in a few years and get away with it."

Like they wouldn't get blasted off the face of the earth after the second country. Why do your ideas all suck?

You don't get it, do you? As long as they don't threaten members of the UN or NATO, we couldn't care less what they did.

We left them alone, they were legally annexing these countries, after all, and doing so with coin, not steel. They did NOTHING Illegal, and more importantly nothing wrong. They improved the economy of over 50 countries and standard of living for well over one billion people, the UN actually gave them funding to help them along until they invaded the 3rd-world countries that had refused them. (which were 18 in number.) There was no conflict between us and them even then, it was (temporarily) settled diplomatically.

[avianmosquito]

No. The reason they got away with it is they took over these nations economically. (Not that anyone would really care what they did to third world nations anyway.) After that, once they had their goal of 50 countries, they finally took official control. At this point they took a few years of time to prep their military, than took another 30 countries that had resisted them. In the end, they had two entire continents, (still technically misding two countries out of africa) and another 30 or so spare countries.

They actually brought up the standard of living in these countries to what we consider a first-world level.

A corporate entity annexed two continents (I'm guessing Africa and south america) and nobody cared?

WHAT?

You guessed right. The thing is that as long as these takeovers were done through economic, not military, means, this was perfectly legal.

[Serafina]

You don't get it, do you? As long as they don't threaten members of the UN or NATO, we couldn't care less what they did.

We left them alone, they were legally annexing these countries, after all, and doing so with coin, not steel. They did NOTHING Illegal, and more importantly nothing wrong. They improved the economy of over 50 countries and standard of living for well over one billion people, the UN actually gave them funding to help them along until they invaded the 3rd-world countries that had refused them. (which were 18 in number.) There was no conflict between us and them even then, it was (temporarily) settled diplomatically.

How the bloody hell is a corporation going to "legally annex" a country?
Bribe their way to victory and buy votes? That costs a lot of money - why would they do that?
With military power? That's hardly legal - and costs even more money.
Bribe the leadership? That'S not "taking controll".

Besides, how do they get the money to "improve the economy of 50 countries"?
Oh, right, the UN magically gives them funds

And at the point were they invade other countries, they ARE going to be in deep, deep shit.
You don't even need the military to bring them down. Simply cut down their legal status (as a corporation) in your country.
If enough countries do that, you win.


Besides, corporations are interested in making money.
Ruling a country is not a good way to make money - unless you want to rob it. Corporations have done that before, but they don't need to rule these countries for that - simply bribe the leadership.

This idea is just as dumb as your others.
Nay, it's worse - your other ideas merely demonstrated ignorance in biology and physics. This one betrays your ignorance of the real world.

[Norade]

No. The reason they got away with it is they took over these nations economically. (Not that anyone would really care what they did to third world nations anyway.) After that, once they had their goal of 50 countries, they finally took official control. At this point they took a few years of time to prep their military, than took another 30 countries that had resisted them. In the end, they had two entire continents, (still technically misding two countries out of africa) and another 30 or so spare countries.

They actually brought up the standard of living in these countries to what we consider a first-world level.

A corporate entity annexed two continents (I'm guessing Africa and south america) and nobody cared?

WHAT?

You guessed right. The thing is that as long as these takeovers were done through economic, not military, means, this was perfectly legal.

Of course ignoring that even a giant corporation such as the people that own Walmart don't have the desire, nor the money to take over a nation, and uplift it to anywhere near 1st world status. If they wanted more control over the world they would do it by slowly buying out other chains in other important nations, not annexing shit holes and building a military.

Can we title this guy already?

[CaptainChewbacca]

You guessed right. The thing is that as long as these takeovers were done through economic, not military, means, this was perfectly legal.

If by 'perfectly legal' you mean 'idiotic' then you're right. Raising africa to a first-world standard of living looked profitible enough for some company to BUY the continent? The shareholders would've booted out the leadership after 6 months. NO FIRST WORLD COUNTRY RUNS ON A PROFIT. There's no economic incentive to taking over countries directly when you can just use mercs and bribes to keep its' resources tied down, which is what people do now.

Seriously, how old are you? Did you get all your ideas from Civilization: Call to Power?

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

Not quite. It's more like "A corporation pretending to be a church, (not that there's much difference) managed to annex 30+ countries in a few years and get away with it."

Like they wouldn't get blasted off the face of the earth after the second country. Why do your ideas all suck?

You don't get it, do you? As long as they don't threaten members of the UN or NATO, we couldn't care less what they did.

Why, oh why must you persist in talking about things you have no understanding of? Biology, weapons design, international politics . . . is there any field that you've not yet shit upon in your time here? It reads like some sort of horrible collision of libertarian wanking, left-wing ZOMG TEH EBBIL CORPORATIUNZ and right-wing ZOMG TEH BROWN PPLZ scare-mongering.

We left them alone, they were legally annexing these countries, after all, and doing so with coin, not steel.

Only buying influence with public officials is bribery. Which is illegal in most countries. It's also very costly to buy off enough of a country's leadership that they're willing to shoot their countrymen for you. The only way your scheme would be workable is if first world nations are implicitly involved. Corporate multinationals don't exist in a vacuum. Their funding flows through the global economy and through first world banks, by extension. Yes, a corporation can build parks and facilities. That's not going to magically give them a military. And even if it did, it's not going to magically give them a military with better equipment than rusty Soviet-era tanks and beat up old Toyota pickups with machine guns welded onto the beds. Going on a spree of conquest of African nations isn't going to net you a military capable of taking on India. In fact, it's probably going to run into trouble with nations with reasonably modern American, European, Russian, and Chinese equipment.

Furthermore, global intelligence services would have to be truly, breathtakingly stupid not to grasp that your 3WA is a threat.

[Norade]

You guessed right. The thing is that as long as these takeovers were done through economic, not military, means, this was perfectly legal.

If by 'perfectly legal' you mean 'idiotic' then you're right. Raising africa to a first-world standard of living looked profitible enough for some company to BUY the continent? The shareholders would've booted out the leadership after 6 months. NO FIRST WORLD COUNTRY RUNS ON A PROFIT. There's no economic incentive to taking over countries directly when you can just use mercs and bribes to keep its' resources tied down, which is what people do now.

Seriously, how old are you? Did you get all your ideas from Civilization: Call to Power?

He's old enough to have a daughter, how scary is that?

[Purple]

Somehow I think it would be better if you just say the Nonaligned Movement got a new and charismatic leader that united them... but thats just me.

[Norade]

Somehow I think it would be better if you just say the Nonaligned Movement got a new and charismatic leader that united them... but thats just me.

Even then how do they become a threat to anybody? They can't invade even a relatively shitty nation like Pre-Dessert Storm Iraq with their resources and good luck ever getting in place to attack anything major like Europe, the US, or China. If Russia has signed on your mass hordes of AK-47 wielding soldiers with converted civilian vehicles will be an exercise in target practice.

[avianmosquito]

Even then how do they become a threat to anybody? They can't invade even a relatively shitty nation like Pre-Dessert Storm Iraq with their resources and good luck ever getting in place to attack anything major like Europe, the US, or China. If Russia has signed on your mass hordes of AK-47 wielding soldiers with converted civilian vehicles will be an exercise in target practice.

How about hokum and rooivalk gunships? Fantans? Migs? Entire lines of brand-new tanks? Millions of soldiers with cost-effective weapons, equipment and armour? There's no questioning the power of two entire continents worth of people, especially once they've been well armed and VERY well trained.

As for why and how they did this, nearly 80% of the corporation was held by a single family. That family recognized money is a means, not an end, the end they had in mind was power. They started simple. They bought out all local businesses, rigged the elections to put their smiling sycophants in power, and then started making the people dependent on them. They provided jobs working for them in ripping the resouces out of their countries, selling these at a substantial profit due to the low overhead of a third world country. This, in turn, improved the nation's economy (as providing jobs and external trade tends to do) until these nations were at their capacity. This money was then used to amass more power by starting in on another country. Also, although the people who worked for them were paid well, they then spent their money on the company immediately afterwards. (As there was nothing else to spend it on)

In other words, they had a deathgrip on the economies of all these countries. They also had a deathgrip on the people through the usage of organized religion, and had long-since bought the government. (Similarly to how the US congress is owned by american corporations.)

[Artemas]

And how long did this take? Two, maybe three hundred years?

[Serafina]

How about hokum and rooivalk gunships? Fantans? Migs? Entire lines of brand-new tanks? Millions of soldiers with cost-effective weapons, equipment and armour? There's no questioning the power of two entire continents worth of people, especially once they've been well armed and VERY well trained.

So they are just magically conjure this out of thin air?

Where do they GET these weapons?
Ok, firearms are not that difficult. But Tanks? Military aircrafts? Guided missiles, artillery, military radar and so on?
Where do they get the blueprints for those? How can they build these factories? Where do they get their resources?
Or do you think that they will buy billions of military equipment off the free market? You know that such products are highly controlled, do you? Their manufacturers need the approval of their goverment to export those.

And even IF they had all this stuff - do you honestly expect them to beat a modern military with it?
At the very best, you will get an army comparable to pre-Desert Storm Iraq. Which got curb-stomped in their own territory by modern military forces without any actual sweat.

Technology is the decisive factor in warfare. If the difference is too big, numbers won't do squat.


Oh, and care to explain how they motivate their populace for this war of conquest?
Even under a dictatorship, people are not mindless drones. You'll need to do better than "organized religion!!" - because a newly-conjured religion rarely suffices in turning a large number of people.
Not to mention that the majority of people in these countries are catholics

This, in turn, improved the nation's economy (as providing jobs and external trade tends to do) until these nations were at their capacity. This money was then used to amass more power by starting in on another country.

Sooo...where do they get their skilled workforce? Where do they get the infrastructure that is so crucially absent in thes third-world countries?

Sure, pumping a lot of captical into an economy tends to improve it - but if you have to spend billions on infrastructure, you don't have that much left for factories.

Also, although the people who worked for them were paid well, they then spent their money on the company immediately afterwards. (As there was nothing else to spend it on)

So the company has to produce and/or buy EVERYTHING the populace of several countries needs?
You don't make money that way - either you run factories that just drain resources for no revenue, or you have to buy stuff to pay your workers.

Your biggest problem is:
Where does the company get the friggin capital for all these stunts?
They would need tens of billions to raise infrastructre per country, then billions more to build factories.
Then they need to get an educated workforce - billons on either education and bringing in skilled people.
And then they have to prodcue their stuff dirt-cheap, while importing everything their populace needs for many billions more. You will most likely make losses when selling oversea - and even if not, your whole scheme could be devastated if either the USA or the EU raise import taxes.


So here you are. Your dumbass-family (gee, that could almost be a personal attack ) spent the most gigantic fortune ever and is nearly bankrupt - all to controll some third-world shitholes that continue to suck their wallets dry.
Now what are they going to do with that? Who could possibly have an interest in that?
There is NO CHANCE in hell that their inbred asses are going to conquer any worthwhile nation - they would get crushed.
Neither will it get them political influence in any other part of the world. And it will take decades until they will see an economical plus - meanwhile, anyone with half a brain would have used their gigantic fortune to cement their position in first or second-world contries, seeing revenue after months or a few years.

In short:
Avianmosquito is about as intelligent, usefull or pleasant as his namesake-animal. Chances are good that your average mosquito knows more about the world - and while avianmosquito doesn't spread malaria, he is no less deserving of chemical attacks.
Please, someone - find a good title for him. Village Idiot doesn't really cut it.

[CaptainChewbacca]

How about hokum and rooivalk gunships? Fantans? Migs? Entire lines of brand-new tanks? Millions of soldiers with cost-effective weapons, equipment and armour? There's no questioning the power of two entire continents worth of people, especially once they've been well armed and VERY well trained.

Weapons, armor, and gunships are not cost effective. They're expensive ways of killing people.

As for why and how they did this, nearly 80% of the corporation was held by a single family. That family recognized money is a means, not an end, the end they had in mind was power.

If they're powerful enough to buy two continents, why not just rig the US election? Then they'd get a country with real power.

They started simple. They bought out all local businesses, rigged the elections to put their smiling sycophants in power, and then started making the people dependent on them. They provided jobs working for them in ripping the resouces out of their countries, selling these at a substantial profit due to the low overhead of a third world country.

this has already happened! It was called colonialism, and it devastated nations. YOUR colonialism is somehow immune to all the pitfalls, problems, and difficulties that brought down the European empires because... quantum?

This, in turn, improved the nation's economy (as providing jobs and external trade tends to do) until these nations were at their capacity. This money was then used to amass more power by starting in on another country. Also, although the people who worked for them were paid well, they then spent their money on the company immediately afterwards. (As there was nothing else to spend it on)

To take a country from a rural-agrarian resource to a net exporter of skilled labor takes about 150-200 years. You plan on doing it in 30? Also, you don't think the people are going to resent the HELL out of the fact that they're indebted wage-slaves to white businessmen?

In other words, they had a deathgrip on the economies of all these countries. They also had a deathgrip on the people through the usage of organized religion, and had long-since bought the government. (Similarly to how the US congress is owned by american corporations.)

Good CHRIST you're retarded if you think something as complex as American politics boils down to 'congress is owned by corporations'. If anything, the government is buying out more and more businesses. I didn't realize Verizon/McDonald's/Time-warner had the power to deploy the US military, but clearly I've been mistaken.

Just... do you ACTUALLY think these are good ideas which you've thought-out well and researched thoroughly, or do you just smack your dick on a keyboard and check for spelling?

I think 'Nearsighted self-wanker' is a great title for you. You ask for criticism, ignore it, and continue to explain how awesome your stuff is despite evidence to the contrary.