Month: August 2015

Trope-a-Day: Rape, Pillage, and Burn

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Rape, Pillage and Burn: Happens in various places with various less-disciplined armies, much as it ever does in history (well, probably with less rape, since there are rather more cross-species wars).

The Imperial Military Service, on the other hand, is extremely rigorous about averting this particular trope, to the point of giving any one of their own they catch playing it straight a public field execution right there (see: Kill It With Fire) and being sure to pay the market price for any materials they need to acquire locally.  (The reason being, ethics aside, that even back in the day when the Empire was going out conquering its own world, it knew perfectly well that the asset value of its conquest was very dependent on it being annexed in a not-wrecked state and with a population that at the very least hasn’t been provided with many, many reasons why they shouldn’t consider cooperation and assimilation.)

This is a military tradition now, of course, and one which they’re happy to share with anyone on the other side who forgets that War Has Rules (see: Laws and Customs of War).  Something that’s particularly important to remember if you hire one of those mercenary companies that promises to sell you the Glorious Military Traditions of Eliéra… because those may just include setting fire to commanders who seem a little too fond of atrocities.

Trope-a-Day: Rape Is A Special Kind Of Evil

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Rape Is A Special Kind of Evil: Not quite played straight; possibly because it’s significantly less common, the eldrae (for example) lacking that peculiar messiness in the human brain where lust and power-lust get tangled up together into a peculiarly vicious kind of squick.

It’s slaving, rather, that is their particular Berserk Button, Moral Event Horizon, etc.  But this isn’t strictly an aversion, inasmuch as to their worldview, rape is committing slaving in one of its most personal, brutal, and invasive forms, somewhere well past murder, somewhat past non-consensual experimentation on sophont subjects, and at roughly the same level as deliberate torture.  And being captured, tried, and Killed with Fire subsequently really is the best that one can hope for, thereafter.

Going To War With The Army You Have

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Self-quoted from a G+ discussion in which the following Rumsfeldian aphorism came up:

You go to war with the army you have, not the army you might want.

It is a truth I think greatly underappreciated (especially by politicians, alas) that unless you have paid the ridiculous-even-by-the-standards-of-US-defense-budgets amount of money necessary to have a genuinely omnicompetent army, then it would behove you to go to war in a manner befitting the capabilities of the army (or space navy) you have. Otherwise bad things will ensue… as we have seen a lot in reality, including thanks to Mr. Rumsfeld drawing exactly the wrong conclusion from his above-quoted aphorism.

(In the Eldraeverse, for example, the Imperial Military Service is a finely optimized instrument for patrolling, raiding in force, special operations, and glassing things from orbit. It is, consequentially, pretty much pessimal for tasks like “occupation”, and/or “nation-building”, and if the Minister President asks for that sort of thing, it’s the job of the First Lord of the Admiralty to look him in the eye and say “no can do, sir, unless you give us the budget and the time to develop doctrine and new units for the job”.

…this does occasionally result in more glassing of things from orbit than might be ideally required, but, y’know, it’s a resource-constrained universe and it’s not like they weren’t quite clear up front as to what the steps of this dance were, belike.

Although it is occasionally convenient that the chaps over at State & Outlands can point at the IMS and say, “Well, obviously we’re not out to conquer anybody; just look at our force mix. We couldn’t if we wanted to1.”

1. Spoiler alert: they could, but it would be expensive, inconvenient, and inelegant, thus unthinkable unless really provoked. Glossing over this sort of subtlety is what they pay the diplomats for.

Trope-a-Day: Ramming Always Works

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Ramming Always Works: Mostly averted.  At the distances at which most space combat happens, you’re lucky to be able to set a course with accuracy enough to make ramming work, and the other ship has plenty of time to either evade you or explode you.  This makes it a tactic most useful to AKVs (see Action Bomb) which have run out of ammunition and as such are working as k-kill missiles, right then.

Could be played straight in some limited-range encounters, as seen in planetary orbit or at choke points (meaning, primarily, stargates), but then the other problem results which is, well, it does actually work too well – the usual result is a total kill of both ships involved in the collision, extravagant fireballs included, and lots of highly dangerous debris moving in unpredictable vectors, right next to the asset defining the choke point.  This is rarely an economic or admiralty-approved tactic, since starships are expensive, starship crews more so, and cleanup most of all – and let us not even mention Kessler Syndrome.

Meddling In The Affairs of Wizards

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1.1.1: I don’t like this. I don’t like this at all.

1.1.2: Relax, will you? It’s just a –

1.2.1: Would you both shut up? I’m trying to record.

1.1.2: Sorry, Ish. What’s your progress?

1.2.1: The maintenance hatch opened. It looks like the codes the Group got from Bellaq’s agent were real after all. I’m in what looks like an airlock. Standard controls. I’ve commanded it to cycle, but there isn’t air on the other side, I don’t think.

1.1.1: Be careful. We don’t know if those are the only security codes.

1.2.1: The inner door is opening now.

1.1.2: Roger that, Ish. We’re getting great images.

1.2.1: There’s no passage beyond. It’s just one big space. Machines the size of skyscrapers clinging to the walls. Cables – or pipes – big enough to walk down. I’m not seeing a command –

1.1.2: Look straight ahead, down the spindle. Can you turn up the zoom? That dot on the far wall, I think it might be another airlock.

1.2.1: I think so, yes. Shall I attempt to reach it?

1.1.2: Go for that, yes. Secure your tether first.

1.2.1: Roger, securing tether… and pushing off. I’ll save the thruster pack for now.

1.1.1: Pan the camera, get us some images of the machinery.

1.2.1: Will do. Looks fuzzy around the edges, like rust or mold growing on the surfaces.

1.2.1: Hey, it’s getting misty in here.

1.1.2: Probably just some discharges from the piping, if there’s –

1.1.1: In a vacuum? That’s not mist –

1.2.1: The tether just went slack. I’m attempting –

1.1.1: Ish, abort! Get back here! Get back here now!

1.2.1: – spcchhh mists are all around me now, tingle a bit –

1.1.1: That’s not mist! Get the hell out of there!

1.2.1: – heat, suit vlcchk burning, dissolving cchee jush lid shulll [liquid sounds] –

1.1.2: Ish? Ish! Respond!

1.1.1: It’s too late. We’re dead.

1.1.2: We might just have lost his signal –

1.1.1: No, Commander. We’re dead. Look outside.

1.1.3 [computer]: PROXIMITY WARNING. PROXIMITY WARNING.

1.1.1: The mists have come for us, too.

1.1.2: R-negative translation, maximum thrust!

1.1.1: They’re here –

1.1.3 [computer]: HULL BREACH, FORWARD SECTION. ELECTRICAL FAILURE, FORWARD SECTION. EMERGENCY SYSTEMS INOPERATIVE. CHECK OXYGEN LEVELS –

Transcript ends.

– security systems transcript,
Charach-Mintak stargate,
Mintak (“New Territories”),
recorded at Kalcír Station,
early 7125