SDN Worlds 4 Commentary Thread I

[Simon_Jester]

The Imperial Army, regardless what type, has armored units as part of the Order of Battle, even on Battle Barges or assorted Astartes transports.

Well, naturally. What I'd expect is that (for example) one Baneblade is worth many many of the infantry normally attached to it. I'm not sure which tanks your Marines use, but again, one tank is worth several Marines, more than are required to crew it. Though possibly not more than would be required to crew and maintain it...

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Widebeam hypercast, Channels 87A98B776F765BAA989-12A9876B4DE7A32BF20E

Initial Thought: Interest in galactic situation perked
Query: Pendleton Situation, No material gain for participants apparent, Reasons for engagement?
Awaiting: Explanation of hostilities
Current Declaration: Neutrality
Future Declaration: Favors Pendleton
Reasoning: Weakness of state against Opposition, Question ability of Opposition to work in unity after operation
Emotion: Confusion
Musing: If the alliance of the Opposition cannot find a common ground after Pendleton's defeat the fracture of the alliance could spin the galaxy into chaos. This is unacceptable. Existence of a common enemy state provides more incentive for cooperation than the destruction of said state.
Response: Emissary will be sent
Request: Safe passage and allowance of observation
Final Thought: When perched upon the precipice one must not shout too loudly or invite an avalanche.

Hmm. XylyX (I assume this is him thinking, for the sake of argument) isn't as bright as I'd hope.

For example, Umeria is present in large part for the sake of watching the others in action, and getting large scale live-fire training for a (small element of) their own forces.

Also, I'm not sure what, if anything, you mean to communicate by "favors Pendleton." Is it supposed to be cryptic from the point of view of the readers (as in, your fellow players)? Or is it supposed to mean something clear, and I'm not seeing it?

[Dark Hellion]

For the most part the central processor of the Emissaries doesn't understand why you would go to war with a small country where there is going to be minimal material gain. Why would an AI actually give a shit about slavery? It isn't that it is not intelligent enough to understand, it just does not care to understand some nuanced biological's argument about dignity, freedom, the sanctity of sentient rights, blah blah blah... It sees the continued existence of Pendleton as a target of unified scorn to be more useful to its long term goals of galactic alliance than the political and diplomatic fallout that will likely accompany an invasion.

If everyone hates the despicable Pendleton slavers its gives them something in common that you can always refer back to and keep alliances together. The task of destroying Pendleton will probably turn into a military dick-waving contest and the misplaced pride of biologicals will cause this to spiral out of control into chaos.

I am a heartless empire of space robots. I don't care what you do to your own people as long as you play well with others.

[K. A. Pital]

Oi, Coyote sent his folks into the Commune. I have some work on my hands, but everyone should know I'll tackle it all when I'm a little more free.

[Steve]

No rest for the wicked (Commies)!

If you post enough, though, maybe I'll proclaim you an STGOD Stakhanovite.

[Steve]

For the most part the central processor of the Emissaries doesn't understand why you would go to war with a small country where there is going to be minimal material gain. Why would an AI actually give a shit about slavery? It isn't that it is not intelligent enough to understand, it just does not care to understand some nuanced biological's argument about dignity, freedom, the sanctity of sentient rights, blah blah blah... It sees the continued existence of Pendleton as a target of unified scorn to be more useful to its long term goals of galactic alliance than the political and diplomatic fallout that will likely accompany an invasion.

If everyone hates the despicable Pendleton slavers its gives them something in common that you can always refer back to and keep alliances together. The task of destroying Pendleton will probably turn into a military dick-waving contest and the misplaced pride of biologicals will cause this to spiral out of control into chaos.

I am a heartless empire of space robots. I don't care what you do to your own people as long as you play well with others.

I'm actually okay with this because it betrays the XylyX Emissaries' complete ignorance as to the local situation, and given their recent total isolation and being on the other side of the map that is reasonable. Pendleton is not a state that can actually become a perpetual thorn in someone's side; they're not even populous enough to inhabit their entire planet, at a population of only 200 million, and the only reason they weren't crushed long ago is because the Bannerman-Acker Gap acts as an annoyance/difficulty multiplier in maintaining a presence there.

Nor, really, would their defeat lead to some widespread galactic chaos from bickering among the states participating in the beatdown. The worst that might happen is some quarreling between Westminster and Gotham over the Anglian plans at annexation - again, Pendleton is too small to matter beyond the quick PR boost of "blowing up slavers, and the difficulty of maintaining an occupation would prompt most states to happily see New Anglia do it.

[Steve]

BTW, Hellion, did the Emissaries just make a public broadcast backing Pendleton or wanting passage there?

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

The Imperial Army, regardless what type, has armored units as part of the Order of Battle, even on Battle Barges or assorted Astartes transports.

Well, naturally. What I'd expect is that (for example) one Baneblade is worth many many of the infantry normally attached to it. I'm not sure which tanks your Marines use, but again, one tank is worth several Marines, more than are required to crew it. Though possibly not more than would be required to crew and maintain it...

Well, the Marines use a Nihilus SuperTank that looks like a Baneblade/Shadowsword/Stormblade/etc. but with a higher grade of armor and weaponry befitting something wiht 20x equipment multiplier.

[Simon_Jester]

Right. I figure that at the low end my armored corps looks like Upgraded Abrams (tracked vehicles relying mostly on kinetics and hoping they don't run into anything with handwavium armor); in the mid-range you get stuff with considerably more advanced defenses- tougher to kill but not necessarily all that much more heavily gunned. At the high end I've got a relative handful of vehicles that look like something out of Hammer's Slammers, with the crews to match- hovertanks with big nasty plasma cannon.

But I didn't slap the sheer scope of equipment modifiers on my troops that you did on yours.

[Steve]

Shinn, you need to get rid of the time thing, because it is impossible for that ship to get from the Tau sectors to Pendleton in 2 days; 2 days alone would be required to cross the Bannerman-Acker Gap.

Also, heh, not all those ships might make it. Without the engineering crews free to do emergency maintenance and active repair during the 2 days in shoal space, a number of the ships might have ended up having their hyperdrives fail on them; if their emergency systems succeed, they'd get stranded in deep interstellar space, if not, well, even one ship going boom probably takes out all seven others.

[Simon_Jester]

Can't speak to the speed issue (except to note that we had long debates about nailing down ship speeds before), but one point of mitigation on the hyperdrive: nations native to shoal space, or who operate around it, are going to be really careful about building hyperdrives that are rugged and have good failsafes, even at the expense of performance.

A Pendleton-flagged ship may suck in almost every capacity, being a third world nation (so to speak), but it's probably going to have a very tough hyperdrive. Also, if some of the ships don't make it, well... sometimes you only manage to kill one bird with one stone.

[Darkevilme]

Just as something to consider, my own thought up guidelines for time taken to cross a sector under specific circumstances.
basic:
Military hyper drive, 1 day.

Civilian hyper drive, 2 days.

modifiers:
on a hyperlane, half the time.
In schoals, double the time (impassable without maps)

[Simon_Jester]

Well, I'm not going to commit to that, but I can *live* with that.

Also, a question to the mods: I assume that any actual military action for the Coalition against Pendleton is going to take place in February or March, just because of the time constraints in assembling and working up the Coalition fleet. Ships dispatched in late January will probably arrive some time in February, and may not be ready to fight until March if they spend any time performing joint exercises.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Right. I figure that at the low end my armored corps looks like Upgraded Abrams (tracked vehicles relying mostly on kinetics and hoping they don't run into anything with handwavium armor); in the mid-range you get stuff with considerably more advanced defenses- tougher to kill but not necessarily all that much more heavily gunned. At the high end I've got a relative handful of vehicles that look like something out of Hammer's Slammers, with the crews to match- hovertanks with big nasty plasma cannon.

But I didn't slap the sheer scope of equipment modifiers on my troops that you did on yours.

It's pretty much the idea that my Astartes could just use their fists and kill a few lesser men with a single punch.

My supertanks and tanks are too heavily armored to hover. They use inertial dampners to lower their mass just so they can move on tracks. Armament wise, for supertanks, it can range from a rail gun, to a plasma gun to a warp gun.

Of course, if you are too fast, we'd just zap you with one of the lance guns on the ponsoons. Those ought to be powerful enough to slow you down at least.

[Simon_Jester]

Fin, I'm not trying to pick a fight here, OK?

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Fin, I'm not trying to pick a fight here, OK?

Erm... I wasn't under the impression...

[Simon_Jester]

I dunno. It felt like we were getting locked into a war of competing definitions.

Given what the relative "training" and "equipment" values look like for your Astartes and my Strike troops, I'd argue that almost the entire difference is made up by the quality of the men. My super-elites are fairly normal human special forces, and the armored units are fairly normal "best of the best" armored formations (again, much of the inspiration comes from Hammer's Slammers).

Yours are century-old (or older!) genetically engineered supermen who are designed on every level to be utterly deadly, and who do practically nothing but train for war. They'd get vastly more out of the same equipment than normal humans would in any case, and that's what's largely responsible for their margin of superiority over most of the rest of the galaxy's super-elites.

[DarthShady]

Luckily for me, I have been fighting the Emperors Finest for centuries. We know how to...handle them.

EDIT:

Sidney! Auch. What a way to go, cut down in your moment of triumph.

[Siege]

If by 'handle' you mean 'bury them in bodies', then you sure do know how to handle them .

Sidney! Auch. What a way to go, cut down in your moment of triumph.

That's what you get for growing too big an ego .

[Simon_Jester]

Luckily for me, I have been fighting the Emperors Finest for centuries. We know how to...handle them.

Well, Siege said it first, but I like my version better:

And... by "handle" you mean "keep attacking them in gigantic waves until the vaporized flesh of your bioforms condenses over their armor into a massive cocoon of carbon frost, rendering them immobile," right?

EDIT:
Sidney! Auch. What a way to go, cut down in your moment of triumph.

He really should have known better than to bastardize some of the most famous last words in cinema history... I mean, that's right up there with "they couldn't hit an elephant at this dist..."

[Dark Hellion]

BTW, Hellion, did the Emissaries just make a public broadcast backing Pendleton or wanting passage there?

They are requesting safe passage for an ambassadorial unit to observe the proceedings. They haven't backed the Pendletons yet, but are simply informing people that they look favorably upon the continuance of Pendleton existence for the reasons given. When the ambassador arrives and sees the real picture it'll probably see what you have observed about Pendleton's size and ability and start some other "fun" diplomatic argumentation.

[Coyote]

Um, folks--

I understand that people mean well and want to help, but please, if there have been several "edits" and changes to a Wiki entry in the last several minutes, then obviously someone is working on that page at the moment.

Can we please wait until at least 2 hours have gone by with no updates before jumping into someone else's page?

[Darkevilme]

Um, folks--

I understand that people mean well and want to help, but please, if there have been several "edits" and changes to a Wiki entry in the last several minutes, then obviously someone is working on that page at the moment.

Can we please wait until at least 2 hours have gone by with no updates before jumping into someone else's page?

Okay my bad Coyote, though i only saw the last edit i'll abide by the 2 hours thing in future.

[Coyote]

No biggie, Darkevilme, I didn't lose much in the "battlin' edits" (I'm editing from work and we have clunky old browsers). And you did catch some spelling I'd hosed up.

There's probably a lot more spelling errors now since I've eagerly rushed in and added a buttload of info to the Central Star Navy page. I'll put in more later, but I think I'll be done for now.

[Dark Hellion]

Put up the first part of my wiki page. I should have it done tonight or tomorrow.

[Simon_Jester]

BTW, Hellion, did the Emissaries just make a public broadcast backing Pendleton or wanting passage there?

They are requesting safe passage for an ambassadorial unit to observe the proceedings. They haven't backed the Pendletons yet, but are simply informing people that they look favorably upon the continuance of Pendleton existence for the reasons given. When the ambassador arrives and sees the real picture it'll probably see what you have observed about Pendleton's size and ability and start some other "fun" diplomatic argumentation.

Wow. That's going to make them... unpopular.

They'll be the diplomatic equivalent of the creepy kid with the limp handshake wandering around saying things that don't make sense.