bluepencil said:
B.B. Rain, I think I may see a fatal flaw in the Kennys deployment. The tried-
and-tested way to get rid of swarm attacks has always been area-of-effect
weaponry. If the flashcloned troops can be teleported that precisely back into the
fray, why not a bomb? Schlock-smart Munitions can tear through massed enemy
formations with ease, and will be absurdly cheap to replace. They're vastly more
disposable than humans with weapons that barely even work.
Consider the resources allocated for this concept:
cloning/nanite goo tanks
advanced replicators
teleporters
neuron imprinting
a ship in orbit or a mobile facility
That's a lot of logistics. And the troops aren't really immortal anyway. All that's
needed is to destroy the Respawn ship. Sure, it's under a cloaking device.
But then if we have a cloaking device that can't be detected, don't we have better
uses for them than to be put in a ship that sits around behind or apart from the
fleet? Torpedo boats, scouts, insertion of really elite troops into hostile territory...
and so on. Failpile? Or a bunch of Khornate Chaos Marines? Which one really has a
higher chance of success? The Chaos Gods can bring their warriors back anyway.
If they're intended for low-intensity duty for most of the time, then they don't NEED
the flashcloning facilities.
If the battlefield is so dire that any army sent into the fray will be chewed up by the
enemy swarms? Nuke it from orbit. If you need to capture it intact? Virus bomb. If
the virus bombs don't work? Send in one-man armies. The Inverse Ninja/Heroic
Protagonist Law ensures that one person will be able to do what whole hordes can't.
If there's teleporting around, and I was the general, the first thing I'd do is to
DISABLE it, if not just for the other side then jam it both ways so the enemy
doesn't 'port a nuke into my command center. Or in the middle of my armored
column. Or chokepoints. Or mobile AA/artillery lines. Etc, etc.
Teleporting is a hideous, hideous advantage.
I see them more useful in breaching and infighting conditions. Or, forget about
mechanical teleportation. Give them each the equivalent of an auto-resummoning
contract... divine intervention tends to trump technological barriers. In any case,
if the Rule of Cool applies, then there are some things that don't need any more
finagling.
So, if you will, take and write this mission for me:
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The Bolo "Luminance" is assaulting the Stormfortress Karnal, but is prevented from
getting to it by the reinforced mountain region in the way. It could simply push
through, but that's rather too simplistic. It's a good thing actually that there's a
Failpile around.
Your mission is to break into the tunnels and hollowed-out spaces into the mountain
and destroy the Hellbore and heavy artillery emplacements set into the cliffs
covering the only approach into the valley. It will be dirty, bloody, corridor-to-
corridor fighting. It is perfect for your disposable troops.
The Luminance will breach a gate with its main guns. Then, several Tie-Crawlers
packed to the brim with explosives will be sent in to further open the way for the
24th Failpile. Choose two platoons, led by sargeants in Appleseed-grade Powered
Armor and troops in IG standard flak suits. You will most likely face Infection Forms,
droids, mutons, and a whole heap of traps (both types).
Statistical notations:
Code:
Failpile Squaddie ? ? ? ? ? ?Failpile Corporal ? ? ? ? ? ? ? Failpile Sarge
HP 600 ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?HP 700 ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? HP 1400 ?
MP 10 ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? MP 30 ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? MP 50
Weapons: ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
Lasgun ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?Rocket Revolver ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?Bolt Pistol
Vibroblade Bayonet ? ? ? ? ? ? or HE Autocannon ? ? ? ? ? ? ? Ion Drill
Plasma Grenade ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? Plasma Grenade ? ? ? ? ? ? ?Plasma Grenade
Flashbang grenade ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? Acid Grenade
Seriously, if they're meant to DIE, stop turning them into line troops and let them DIE. You're squeezing the tragicomic out of the concept with your wrangling. ^_~
Pierce the aliens with your drill!
edit:
Why not just consider yourselves elite troops, then? As in, -our- Immortals. The
Kennys, Failpile, etc... would just be self-referencing irony. As long as you don't face
any of the -enemy's- Spartans.
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Here's your response, Bluepencil.
Taking points as I see them...First off, Area-effect weaponry, on a large scale, seems a bit too dsetructive to casually use. Yeah, we're all psychos with a big ol' yen for mass destruction on both sides of the line, but we also have a modicrum of rationality and sanity...for a given value of both rationality and sanity, admittedly. This is a great, big, multi-universe spanning war. Lots of resources and places to draw from, sure, but it'll drag on. And on. And on. So, eventually (probably by this point, if we swing by the 30,000 years of experience Simonbob's pulling, or if we rate it as low-ball/post start of war.), resources, territory and infrastructure will count. And Generals on both sides of the line will be pissed if you waste valuable resources on waves of relatively easy to axe troops.
That doesn't even get into the possibilities of our troops being intermingled with theirs, and despite the fact that they're all pricks and we're easily regrown with personalities stored on backup floppies in triplicate, it'll still take time and resources to regrow the troops you nuke. Eventually, some penny-pincher's gonna get on their case about that. Plus, enemy troops are zombie fodder, possible converts, intel resources, not to mention cheap, disposable guinea pigs...to both sides of the line. Plus, those YAOI freaks are always interested in more vict-...
playmates. Not to mention the real estate/infrastructure might be a valuable mission objective, and non-atomized tech can always be pulled apart/reverse engineered by the Madboyz on both sides of the line. Plus, capturing developed resources saves time and effort, compared to building/refining from scratch. Especially atomized scratch.
Finally, there's the key fact. All the bosses are authors, characters, and Sues. We like action. We like drama, combat, and lording it over the other guy. Yeah, occaisonally just nuking the shit out of your enemies is cool, but tossing off a snappy one-liner is a lot better when the audience is, y'know, capable of appreciating it, much less actually noticing it. The YAOI/CANON guys, who would be the prime enemies of the Kennys, and thus likely to use area-effect weaponry on us, are particularly fanatic drama queens.
And there's always the chance they'll suffer from "Not invented here," syndrome when it comes to big, expensive bits of weaponry. Not likely, but still a good chance to avoid Schlock-smart Munition.
Secondus...Y'know, I don't think I seriously suggested...Oh. Wait. Yeah, I mentioned teleports once, as a list of options for bringing resources to the Vita-Rans. They were actually pretty low on the list, and I was leaning more towards, in this order:
1) Stable portals, ala Stargate.
2) Nannite/spell "tentacles," sucking resources down conduits back to the Vita-rans.
3) Vitality-absorbing area-effect spells/energy-fields.
4) Some kind of combination of the above.
As for the troops getting to battle, I always figured they'd, y'know...March. Walk, run, hitch a ride,
roll/wheel/hover, in the case of vehicles, but generally get their under their own power, or failling that, find some other way. Teleports, I figured, would be majorly resource and energy intensive, not to mention reserved for V.I.P.s and High-Priority deliveries, not casual troop use. Plus, as you said, Teleport Blocks. Figured both sides would automatically throw up full-spectrum, planet/sector-wide blocks, y'know, anti-tech, anti-magic, anti-god, anti-mutant, anti-creature...Plus secondary fields/wards to redirect, divert, distort, splinch, prematurely rematerialize, prematurely detonate, overload, reverse, explode, and generally screw up a teleporters day.
Respawn Ships? Man...Pulling this arguement makes feel like I'm back in Pre-K...Oh well, here goes...
Nuh-uh! YOU said that, not me!
Now that that's out of the way, I may have led you to believe that when I talked about setting up Vita-Rans in the hanger bays of ships during my list of possible strategies for taking the orbital infrastructure of Alexis, okay, but I was talking about the hanger-bays of dedicated warship/carriers. Not dedicated respawn ships.
Vita-Rans, as I picture them, are relatively small, easy to assemble/dissassemble, prefabricated structures roughly the size of, say, a large-ish 7-11. Or something. I dunno, not too big, okay? Anyway, using pattented TARDIS technology, they're bigger on the inside then the outside, they pack more stuuf in there then you'd believe with Hammerspace capacitors, and the tech needed is fairly compact, anyhow. Say one's capable of creating a short Infantry company at a time, and...Wiataminute. This is is something I was thinking on, and should probably mention. I was picturing some kind of robotic assembly line thing, as opposed to rows of tanks, so that, depending on need, a Vita-Ran could manufacture a few small tanks/craft, a short company, a big tank, surplus supplies, or a prefab building as needs must. Or possibly mix-and-match if the boss is so inclined. Anyway, they're mostly factory, with needed resource processing/storage, that eject finished products out of one selectively-impermeable/intagible wall.
In addition, I pictured them as having decent snap-together armor, shields, and point-defense turrets which can double as short-range/mid-range offensive weaponry. These facilities would be very stable, and easily capable of working while zipping around on wheels...or treads, or mech-back, or springs, or jets, or hoverplatforms, whatever they can get, be it comandeered or manufacured. I also pictured them deploying in groups of say, a dozen, with the controlling intelligences fighting/producing through a variation of the Bolo TSDS/Battlenet, and availing of local defenses, as well as their just deployed products, whenever possible.
Also, back-tracking to the original space-reference, I view them as capable of functioning in hanger bays, airlocks, on hulls (should needs must), in place of commisaries, armories, stores, barracks, and infirmaries (nothing beats a full body replacement for quality service!) on starships, space stations, orbital platforms, asteroid installations, land/sea/air bases, hover-fortresses, land-fortresses, really really REALLY big mecha, Bolos...The list goes on and on.
Same disregard I have for dedicated Respawn ships goes for dedicated mobile facilities, item 5-B on your list of allocated resources. Improvised mobile facilities, okay...But nothing really obvious and vulnerable.
Next up, something I originally skipped over. Your list of resources. First, Replicators and nanite goo seem redundant, and neuron imprinting doesn't seem like it'd be seperate from cloning tanks. Nanites can do the basic work of replicators (and possibly cloning tanks/neron imprinters), if not with the same degree of speed, dedication, and general coolness of those flash-done devices, then with a certain degree of precision, individuality, and adaptability that generic replicators just lack.
Neuron imprinting wouldn't be seperate from cloning tanks. I mean, I'm talking Spaarti cylinders, which would churn out capable clones in a matter of days (or possibly hours, with our capabilities.) Those are singular, multi-function, devices. They churn out clones who don't need to go elsewhere or submit to aditional procedures to learn their functions and skill sets, much less how to walk, talk, or chew bubblegum and take names. Totally integrated, removing a level of complication and layer of resources.
NOTE: No Kenny is decanted with bubblegum or access to bubblegum.
Plus, we might just use nanites to build dupes from the ground up, with the memories/personality/mental what-not hard-coded in as they're being built at the right age and level of wear-'n'-tear.
Okay. On the bounce, we come to cloaking devices. A big strike against this is the fact that I said no dedicated ships/mobile facilities, which takes some of the wind out. Another strike would be me never
mentioning assigning cloaking devices to the Vita-Rans. That should imply that no such device/allocation hybrid exists, but then agian, I never mentioned being an eight-foot tall snake-phile Swedish belly dancer. Also not true, but still not outside the realm of possibility.
Taking this point seriously, I'm going to lead back to my earlier reference to the various Covenant Shield devices. They also had cloaking devices a-plenty. Not as much as shields, yeah, but they still had a fair amount. And Yautja, although you never see more then a handful at a time in the movies...Anywho, those cloaking devices seemed fairly common/easy to make and reuse, if a bit small-scale. Wouldn't be impossible to replicate them fleet-wide...And even if you focus on the Star Wars cloaks, which run on rare/near-non-existant crystals, we could still find a fair amount those, given the scope of our reality-playground.
But this is really just dancing around the issue, namely, how valuable cloaking devices would be on Vita-Rans. The answer? They'd be useful, yeah, but they'd be more useful on transport/spy/sabatoge/scout vessels. No arguement with you there. I totally agree that they shouldn't go on
non-existant goddamned respawn ships.
EDIT INSERT: Whoops. Got a bit touchy. Sorry.
Now, I'm not sure how you go from using cloaking devices on...Failpiles...And I
will return to that nick-name...To Khornate Chaos Marines, both since ones a facility and the others a force, and since Chaos Marines in general, not just Khornate ones, respawn. But I'll contest this point, as well, on two basic fronts.
Primarily, my problem with this point is the basic fact: Those are Chaos Marines, belonging to the Chaos Gods, who are our
allies, and allies of conveniance at that. As in, that capability isn't ours, is at our disposal only at another's whims, and more to the point, could one day very well be turned against us.
There really isn't much more to say without moving in to my second point, so I'll just dive in head first.
The Chaos Gods are flakes. They're dribbling, drooling, scheming, manipulative, underwear-tinted glasses-wearing astrology-spouting whackjobs, who can't be relied upon to say two plus two equals four, much less consistenly and honestly aid us in a war against enslavement, extinction, and non-fun perversion. Hell, the random, chaotic, untrustworthyness is in their them-damned names. No WAY am I leaving any skill, power, resource, ability, or knowledge in their hands without at least being able to match it. Nuh-uh. Fuggeddaboutit.
Now that we're back in the non-obvious troubles, where were we? Oh. Right. Low-intensity stuff. I admit, I did suggest that was a more obvious capability of my plucky boys in red, aye, but the important part of that statement was
second-tier of importance stuff. As in, four seconds 'till Armageddon, we damn well better be able to hold the line with waves of cloned and re-animated dead because, get this, the Big Damn Heroes and crack troops we can't spend like water are all busy with the
three seconds to armageddon stuff, and this'll just have to wait for them to finish or clear up on its own. This also means stuff that isn't cool enough to rate a main story or entire chapter, but still rocks enough to get a sidestory/footnote. That's a very important distinction.
Onward to yon tri-part arguement, Patsy! And I shall take it in three parts.
Firstly, dealing with swarms of enemies via nukes. For the most part, referring you back to the arguemnets I made earlier in this post about Schlock-smart munitions could suffice. Could suffice. I think I'll take the time to go over some other aspects in more detail. First off, we aren't all thirty-millenium veterans. There are always rookies. And what better way to blood them a little, get them to polish those skills they've been taught, then throwing them head-first into the screaming maws of a slavering enemy horde, rife with slavering, drooling Princes getting big rubbery ones at the thought of fresh me-I should stop now. Anyway, back 'em up, toss 'em in, rub out the fact that they were slaughtered, rinse and repeat a few dozen times, and you've got the makings of a lean, mean, bloodthirsty CANON-killing machine.
This kind of scuffle is also useful for both keeping and honing the edges of veterans, who can eventually go soft, riding around and playing guard to civvies all the time. Also, combat is a great oppurtunity to gather intel about enemy units, gear, tactics, plots, agendas, and notable individuals, either through direct observation, or capture and interrogation. Intel is always useful, when it isn't crap.
Plus, pitched combat tempts them to try out new superweapons and innovations almost as much as defenseless civillian populations tempt supervillians. I'd damn well prefer to know about a new weapon or anti-redshirt development sooner as opposed to later, especially if we can goad or panic some sap of an enemy commander into letting slip one of those prematurely. It helps, of course, that before, during, and after every engagement, Kenny personality/experience profiles are backed up to multiple repositories, with very secure anti-tamper and enemy-denial mechanisms. So, y'know, if they field an anti-download weapon and kill the most recent deployment, or corrupt the active Kenny, we only lose up to a day's worth of experience, before the others (both victem-clones and redshirts) track down and
brutalize the sunovabitch dumb enough to try and fuck with or unit-basis.
Viral weapons? That shit just...doesn't square up. I wanna get this out of the way, first off. I do, in fact, have valid and rational arguements against viral weaponry, which I'll get to. This may be societal conditioning, or just my own personal major taboo, but Viral weapons piss me off and creep me out. Yeah, a bit hypocritical, considering the whole T-Virus/Cyborg troop thing, but...I dunno, the fact that my fictional boys-in-red are volunteer-victems and they can just get up, healthy whole and hale in new bodies, helps. Doesn't square it, but it helps. Doesn't matter. Viral weapons are a no-go/null program with me, both in fiction and real life.
Moving on to sane, rational, persuasive arguements...Okay. Much potential for things to go wrong with virii. There's the realworld troubles, like blowback, mutation, adaptation, premature release devestating friendlies, circumstances adding up to allow those virusy buggers to survive longer then planned/wanted and spread right back to us, there's the fic-verse ones, which are all too likely in a 'verse like this one. You know what I'm talking about. Unstoppable superhumans, the virii evolving sentiance and plotting to wipe us out, the virii releasing/triggering/fueling an ancient powerful evil to horrible to speak of...The usual drill, in a fictional reality.
Then there's all the effort it'd take to sterilize the property/stuff we wanted intact, not to mention much safer, nicer, happier alternatives. Like advanced neutron bombs. Big, destructive amounts of nuclear hellfire are much safer and funner then creepy gross mutating mutilating virii. Not to mention, with both this and the previous option, that still leads to us destroying something important or useful that we don't know about. Not just talking intel or tech or Big Name Enemies, either. I'm thinking about secret jails, or guys from our side who've been taken prisoner that we don't know about. And, of course, there's always PR to think about, even if we'd rather just shoot those whiney critics.
This brings me (Sort of...Kind of...Eh, what do you care.) to the third and final point. One-man armies. Or more specifically, the Inverse Ninja/Heroic Protagonist Law.
I'm sorry. I have to pause, look back at what I just typed, and shake my head in disbelief. This old chestnut? Okay, there's some validity to the concept. It's even been sucessfully applied, in not only established canon and fandoms, but in the real world as well. Not to mention varients, like the Nelson touch, which allows single, charismatic leaders to influence their subordanites, superiors, and contemporaries to aspire to greater levels of skill and competence then they would have otherwise applied to the situation at hand. But really. There ARE limits. There are situations where groups of soldiers, or in this case, entire armies, simply squash their outnumbered and worn-down opponent(s).
This becomes especially true in semi-serious, quasi-realistic fiction, such as (I believe) this 'fic-verse is shaping up to be. Otherwise, why would even be arguing about feasability and limitations? The Inverse Hero law is not absolute. It does not hold supreme sway. In short, it is not a truly valid replacement or alternative to an army, much less an effectively infinite force like the Redshirts Capable of More Than Sucking and Dying.
Or, as a voice in my head put it, one-man-armies and small squads of gritty heroes can do truly awesome shit...But so can REAL fucking armies, you sky-eyed dreamer. Hell with that law. We're risking Sue-dom already with an instant re-incarnation non-suck army without literally creating Sues. Didn't that punk Rack already get dropped in the shit for pulling-See? That smart mouth is why you're just a voice in my head, and not the voice controlling my mouth, you rude jackas-...I should move on.
Next point...Oh, a short one. I already agreed with you about the teleport block thing. Problem solved, easy.
Hmmm...Breaching and infighting are high-casualty work, yeah...Pretty perfect for Kennys. This actually forced me to conceptualize/visualize something I'd been toying around with. Specifically, highly specialized re-embodiement and production of the Redshirt forces.
Space Combat? Multiple options, depending on how we feel about the fighting environs and explosive decompresion, but in general, equip a troop with physical boost mogifications, slap some Vac armor on, and give them frangible, low-velocity, weapons which don't go through walls, with a special self-destruct option if we need an emergency breaching.
Massed combat, traditional style? Possible environmental hazards/objectives conflicting with mass destruction, or some variation of anti-gun or anti-explosion physics, ala the first world of Glory Road, the future desribed in The Council Wars, or maybe just a pissy god throwing his weight around. Anyway, slap assault powerups (physical-boost, telekinesis, finger-lasers) on, forge some loricated plate, give 'em a shield, spear, sword and bow, then tromp out there like good little Spartans or Blood Lords.
Defense? Heavy armor, lots of shields and portable generators, precision weapons with large clips capable of drilling missiles out of the sky, not to mention loads of fortification equipment.
Mass forces against one opponent? Again, precision weapons and power-ups, good reflexes and senses, and something to specifically keep the bugger from turning your gun on you and your mates, beyond the general anti-theft protections.
Anti-Godzilla/Giant Monster work? Rockets. Lots of rockets, speedy hover platforms of your choice, area-effect gene-mods like fireball, lightning, and sonic weapons, and forget about heavy, speed-taking armor.
Aerial battle? Extra jetpacks, maybe wings and grappling guns.
Sith? Pack lightsabers and pocket-ysalimiri.
Demons? Holy water, mass blessings, and some kind of divine fire super-power.
Cyborgs? Ion/electric weaponry, and logic puzzles. Giant Mecha? Bigger Ion cannons.
Zombies? Good blades, single-shot weapons, bite-proof armor, and some kind of freezing-electric superpower.
Civilian pacification? Stun weapons, low-level (tazer) lightning powers, and duct tape. Lots of duct tape.
The possibilities and permutations are virtually endless. For those of us who've been around for a couple millenia, we can get the training needed to fit such a wide variety of roles, opponents, and equipment, not to mention bodies and superpowers. For those who haven't? Good training, implanted skills, universal controls, and the chance to do it over and over until they do it
right, with pain and death, however temporary, as one hell of a motivator.
Auto-resummoning...Hmm. Something to take up in magic/jutsu specific/only universes, but...I think I'll stick with the techno/divinity-blessed side of the equation.
And I've been trying to say, I get your arguement and agree, to a point, but given the levels of unbelievable shit thrown around, not to mention the resources we can draw upon, that we can do better then T-shirt, jeans, and a dynamite vest or revolver. No major levels, but gimme something, at least. Also, I feel you're over-stating the resource intensity, but...Even if you are, there's enough territory/stuff to draw on, and efficient enough methods, to make it work. Oh, and I don't know what the Rule of Cool is.
EDIT: Also, failpile? Starting to get on my nerves...Curses! That means it's a nickname that'll stick long after we are but dust!
