Re: [GZG] [OT] The myth of inevitable victory. (Was: [OT] Books (Weber/White/Meier) )

-----Original Message-----
>From: John Atkinson <johnmatkinson@gmail.com>
>Sent: Jul 22, 2008 3:15 AM
>To: gzg-l@vermouth.csua.berkeley.edu
>Subject: Re: [GZG] [OT] The myth of inevitable victory. (Was: [OT]
Books	    (Weber/White/Meier) )

>There are some exceptions:  The Starfire universe which began this
>conversation is purely attritional, with little or no room for
>tactical innovation.  All combat essentially boils down to overcoming
>warp point defenses, which due to the game mechanics, generally boils
>down to throwing enough ships through it to do enough damage, and
>having enough of a reserve to defeat the enemy's remaining forces in
>the system.

Yeah... this is kind of my biggest complaint about StarFire in general,
which is why I don't have all that much interest in the game beyond
borrowing the random galaxy generators and then if I keep the warp
chains at all, it'll be as a much more vague "this might be how you
could theoretically travel FTL in the easiest fashion, but if you're
willing to shoulder a little more risk, fuel expense, or physics
calculations, you can come out of FTL just about anywhere you damn well
please".

>It's a Weber-ism to ignore political consequences of
>casualties measured in the millions or billions.  It is also a
>Weberism to ignore questions of morale, or will.

Better yet, it's a Weberism to lampoon the political consequences by
piping them through straw man idiot politicians that are portrayed as
bleating, foaming-at-the-mouth, warmed-over hippies who are completely
unaware of the real world because they've been removed from it for
centuries in a completely safe place.  (see also Bettina Wister and
every other "Heart World" politician in the StarFire books who are
repeatedly described as "mush-minded"...)  Weber, of course, is
OBVIOUSLY not carrying any issues over Vietnam or anything... *sarcasm*

>And Weber's
>universes tend towards massive shipbuilding programs and recruit
>training programs happening off-screen and via handwaving.  In
>reality, navies which are forced to replace massive casulties have a
>significant decrease in capability due to loss of trained cadre.  See
>Japanese Naval Aviation in WWII.

Excellent point and example.  This (as well as the previous examples) is
the kind of thing where the books could have turned the Bug Wars in
particular into a much more interesting scenario.  Humans' only major
advantage in the war was their monopoly on carriers; what happens when
they have to repeatedly replace the bulk of the pilots?  How often do
the pilots really want to charge head on into a dreadstar's point
defense when they know that maybe 10% of them are going to survive? 
Meanwhile, the Bugs are perfectly happy to throw any number of warm
bodies and might or might not have much capability loss since they're
just growing new warriors in pods, the warriors have no biological
motivation to survive, and the later ones are little different than the
earlier ones.  How would this change the dynamics of the war when the
humans have to replace and train their warriors while the Bugs simply
grew new ones that don't care if they live or die?  Changes a lot.

E

_______________________________________________
Gzg-l mailing list
Gzg-l@vermouth.csua.berkeley.edu
http://vermouth.csua.berkeley.edu:1337/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/gzg-l