: First off, SD: thanks for responding so thoroughly and so
: coherently, as you always do. All your points are well
: thought-out, even the ones that make me sound like a
: jerk... aw, just kiddin'.
Yeah, yeah, I know the score with you...soften him up with flattery, then hope he won't feel bad when you annihilate his arguments. You won't fool me twice, pal!
: While the Berserks in the snowy levels are still
: half-naked one imagines that has to be a condition
: that only pertains during battle. On the march they
: would almost certainly wrap themselves in whatever
: blankets or extra coats they could find. It still
: wouldn't keep them from dropping like flies,
: however--look at what happened at Valley Forge, or
: during Napoleon's campaigns in Russia.
Actually, we have a few pictures of Zerks on the march in the snow--the pregame pics from "Stair of Grief" and "Deceiver," for instance--and apparently they don't wrap themselves up at all (unlike the less manly--or smarter--Legionnaires). Also, judging from the admittedly small amount of data we have, Zerks die from the cold in disproportionate amounts. Reiftyr is the only one of the hypothermia casualties to be named in Myth II; and the only picture of a casualty of the cold (I'm not sure where it is in the games, or if it is at all, but it's on page 108 of GURPS) shows a Berserk. My inference from all this is that Myth armies are unaccustomed to carrying spare garments, so that units who tend to wear very little clothing don't have any extra garments to put on when they hit the snow (and the more heavily-clothed Legionnaires don't have any spares to lend them), and therefore tend to freeze to death easily.
: Well, as usual the arguments against this are cop-outs:
: Bungie wouldn't have put looters in because it would
: make the Legion unsympathetic, or the journal writer
: wouldn't have been proud of this behavior enough to
: put it in the records. It's also possible that because
: war is so popular in the Mythworld, there's already an
: institutionalized penalty for looting, i.e., hanging,
: which would keep it from happening on an individual
: level. On the larger scale, however, I tend to think
: those gifts of food are also institutionalized: it's
: clear the Legion was going to skip town unless they
: got those pigs, and I'm sure the civilians knew the
: name of that game from countless previous experiences.
That's certainly true. The Legion's definitely used to accepting the hospitality of the residents of wherever they happen to be--not just food, but shelter, medical care and alcohol (at least, these are the ones we've seen). But as I said, they're also quite capable of going for months in harsh, completely unpopulated realms where there's little chance of finding food even by hunting and gathering. This points to a considerable degree of self-sufficiency, which is (it seems to me) most easily explainable by magic. They can live off the land, but they don't have to.
: I'm not very comfortable with these unseen
: food-clothing-shelter producing mages; it strikes me
: as a little too easy, something GURPS might have put
: in to fill a realism gap in the game. I suppose I have
: to let it slide since this is a fantasy game but it
: does raise one interesting point: camp followers.
: Where you have an entire food-producing industry
: (magic or otherwise) that follows the Legion around,
: you're going to have other, less savory professionals
: on the march as well. Specifically, prostitutes and
: bootleggers, all of whom are going to create enormous
: medical problems. No matter how well-disciplined your
: army or how fervently they believe in their cause,
: your men are going to cut loose every time they get a
: good whiff of thrall--it's just human nature when you
: risk your life every day to play hard, as well. The
: Crusades are a good example of this--no matter how
: devout the crusaders were they still had a small army
: of... friends to come home to at night.
And the crusaders weren't very devout in the first place. :-)
I certainly can't argue with you that Myth armies have their share of camp followers--especially when Myrdred is apparently well-acquainted with the term. For that matter, I think that girl clinging to the soldier in the "Salvation" pregame pic may have some ulterior motives. I would say that there are probably fewer (though I couldn't guess at how much fewer) prostitutes and drug runners and whatnot following along than there would be in a comparable Earth army, for 3 reasons.
First, most real-life camp followers are more or less neutral to the actual conflict, and can therefore switch sides as necessary without much fear of reprisal (barring the violence and rape which a prostitute suffers in any situation). If the Lithuanian army annihilates a battalion of Estonians--well, the girls that were servicing that battalion probably feel a bit bad about their favorite boys getting killed, but they can always drift on over to the Lithuanian camp and be reasonably well-received. If a Myth battalion is slaughtered by a troop of Ghols and Myrmidons, on the other hand, there's not going to be much need for the attendant ladies, except as torture victims and food. For this reason, being a camp follower (or any sort of noncombatant) is a more dangerous lifestyle in a Myth army (at least, one which regularly fights nonhumans) than in an Earth army of the same period.
Second, the Mythworld is fairly equal-opportunity. This means that there probably aren't as many prostitutes, since women who don't want to be housewives have other and more legitimate methods of independent living available to them. It also means that Legionnaires looking for action have comrades-in-arms of the opposite sex to turn to, lessening their interest in prostitutes (who would in general be less desirable and would also have to be paid somehow). BTW, we know there are real female Zerks also. Bungie made them but left them out for reasons unknown (but easily guessed at).
Third, the more exotic methods of transportation used (Mage-assisted teleportation, World Knots) require small numbers of people to be transported at a time and/or close monitoring of the process by the mage and/or commander. As such, an army's retinue of followers would tend to get left behind as such a point; the commanders certainly aren't going to go out of their way and expend time and energy to bring along non-enlisted hangers-on (except for personal favorites, of course). Admittedly, such transports are rare.
: The World Knots definitely change the complexion of
: warfare, though I tend to think they're too few and
: far apart to alleviate all the problems of the Legion.
: You have a good point about mages as intelligence
: processors, though I don't remember seeing an Archmage
: at the head of every military division. If there's
: some intermediary stage between Avatara (who can be
: counted on one's fingers even after losing one to a
: thrall's axe--unless the Nine are just the best of a
: large bunch) and warlocks, who are essentially just
: very useful grunts, we never get to see it. Mages take
: decades to train and will therefore not, I think, be
: as readily available as all that. Berserk runners
: would probably be plentiful but unreliable; with the
: exception of a few heroes they probably don't make it
: through as often as they do. Since some of the most
: important information in TFL had to be gathered
: personally by Alric, and all the disinformation came
: directly from the head, I'm guessing that significant
: intelligence is still a major problem for the Legion,
: especially after the Head is deposed.
Oh, certainly it's a problem. But by that time supply lines would be useless anyway; against the vast forces of the Leveller, the Legion was essentially fighting a guerilla war in which any stationary concentration of personnel or supplies would be prohibitively vulnerable.
And to judge from GURPS, there's definitely intermediate mages. There are archmages (doubtless less powerful) other than the Avatara and the Fallen Lords, and there are lots of circles and schools and guilds of magic other than the Warlocks and Heron Guards. In fact, GURPS speaks of *thousands* of students mastering magery at any one time, which implies that there could be, oh, as many as ten thousand practicing mages in the land of Myth. And no, we don't see them in-game (although we hear about them vainly fighting the Watcher), so there must be a reason why they aren't on the front lines. The most plausible reason, it seems to me (aside from the hassle and engine problems with adding another unit to the game), is that their powers are needed elsewhere, to make food and clothing and transport information and provide medical care and all that good stuff. GURPS does note that there was probably a type of magical healer in the army who had more powerful spells than the Journeyman, but who wasn't seen on the front line due to his lack of combat skillz.
: Again, this seems a little too easy. In these modern
: times we tend to think of winter as a minor
: inconvenience. For people of the Middle Ages it was
: always a time of death, disease, and
: decimation--whether you lived in the temperate zone in
: a house or huddled in a drafty tent (no subzero
: sleeping bags, mind you) out on campaign. Food
: disappears, frostbite takes its toll, even water is
: harder to get... but again, I'll have to let this
: slide since we never see the deprivations of the
: Legion in winter except, as you mention, those of the
: poor saps guarding the passes.
Well, you gotta think about what geographical region of the Middle Ages you're referring to. Winter in England was very different than winter in Italy. Thanks to the Cloudspine becoming impassable, the Legion's free to slope off to the Myth equivalent of the Riviera and spend its winters (I'm talking about the big wars, of course, not the internal policing missions) in the most comfortable region possible.
Regardless, judging from the journal entries the Legion does view winter during wartime as a time of rest, not of excessive hardships (unless you're clambering up the Cloudspine). Shall we say they're kept warm and well-watered and sleeping-bagged by...MAGIC? :-)
: Hmm... dodgy centralized economy backed up by convenient
: wizardry... I'm not doubting you but it just sounds so
: unrealistic. Still, TFL was grim enough. Sufficient
: unto the game is the evil thereof.
I don't think the centralized part is particularly unrealistic. Again, it actually happened in the Middle Ages. And much the same reasons apply to Myth. You gave to the Church because it was the guardian of social stability and the savior of your soul; you give to Alric because he's the one man on whom depend your continued possession of all your limbs and freedom not to be eaten by Myrkridia. What sane person wouldn't contribute food and money to the army, in a land where Ghols and Myrmidons are harassing your village daily and a horde of undead tries to eat your brain every few decades? We live in relative safety here and the Pentagon still manages to rake in enormous sums of money for not-always-justifiable undertakings. I think the Myth army could easily be fed off a bearable and understandable tithe.
: Major disclaimer: I was talking specifically about
: pre-20th Century armies. Current and past living
: members of the armed forces of the US and other
: countries were not included in this--all of the
: ex-soldiers I know are decent, upstanding folk who
: also got manners and decency drilled into them while
: they were being trained to kill. This is, however, a
: recently new phenomenon. As recently as the Napoleonic
: wars one of the major recruiting ploys for army life
: was the promise that one could get all the raping and
: pillaging one wanted while out in the field.
Well, I can't say that *all* the ex-soldiers I know are decent, upstanding folk; I'm afraid that based on my (biased bleeding-heart-Berkeley-liberal) experience they're slightly more likely to be bastards than the general public. But of course I know quite a few paragons of humanity in the military as well; a number of Pax Nimbus guys, among others.
But I think you overgeneralize if you claim (not that you did so explicitly) that most soldiers in earlier times were recruited and trained as villains. This was largely true in Europe, granted, from (about) 1400-1900, but only because the armies of that time were essentially mercenary in nature. A given powerful person, be he a lord or a king or an emperor, wanted an army and basically advertised for men. There have been plenty of other armies in history where such ploys were unnecessary. For instance, in Rome or Greece or Switzerland, where a given subset of the citizenry was expected to serve in the military, they tended to at least try to hold the soldiers to a higher standard than the civilians. And, again, this is the case with the Legion. They don't have to persuade; they can draft. Which makes it a lot easier (though obviously there will still be some difficulty, what with the threat of defection) to keep the soldiers in line.
: See my point about the Crusaders above. There will always
: be bad apples, at any rate.
Again, the Crusaders weren't actually all that devout--nor were they selected on the basis of virtue, or trained to behave decently. I'm certainly not saying that there are *no* unsavory types in the Legion--we know for a fact that there are--I'm just saying that there will be fewer bad apples than in past Earth armies where recruiting was more catholic (with a lower-case "c") and character training was less rigorous (or even reversed, as you say, and the soldier's conscience was trained out of him).
: You make such important and intelligent points here that
: I feel arguing with you would just be an exercize in
: warrior-bashing.
Yeah, leave that exercise to the Mauls. Bad joke, bad joke...
...but thanks. :-)
: True enough--though a captain who leans too hard on his
: men and has them flogged if they don't hold their
: pinky correctly while drinking their wizard-generated
: tea is going to get fragged--the Legion seems to
: operate pretty autonomously and spend a great deal of
: time in the field away from direct supervision of
: higher-ups. Maybe that's where all the pirates and
: brigands come from--battalions whose commanders were
: TOO noble to be borne.
Indeed. A canny commander--the sort of fellow Cruniac probably was--would stamp on his men for important crimes (like attacking civilians or looting) but wouldn't mess around with matters of etiquette. It's pretty clear that the Legion is a lot more informal in its general demeanour than, say, the US Army. I think they've learned to dispense with matters of decorum (not that I'm saying the US Army *should* learn likewise) so that they can concentrate on the essentials.
: But that's the problem. With the Dark periodically
: practicing genocide all over the continent, quickly
: enough one is left with nobody but career soldiers.
: One imagines the farms of the Mythworld run entirely
: by children, women, and elderly men who are too old to
: carry a sword. While this model works for a number of
: RL cultures it isn't likely to generate a lot of
: surplus. It seems to me that even in peacetime the
: Light is going to depend pretty heavily on those
: food-producing wizards.
Well, three things to keep in mind:
1. Due, again, to the equal-opportunity nature of the human lands, you aren't going to have much of a young-men-in-the-army/everyone-else-making stuff society at any time (even though, as you say, this is fairly common in real life). There are plenty of women in the army, and plenty of able-bodied men in the fields even during war-time. OK so they're able-bodied men with bad posture and squeaky voices, but they're still able to produce food with the best of them.
2. Who says career soldiers have a higher survival rate than the civilians? The army was practically exterminated in TFL, and in Soulblighter they seemed to lose at least as large a fraction of their members as the population at large. So sure, after a war there aren't going to be many farmers, but there aren't going to be many soldiers who need that food. I think there's probably always enough agriculture going on to sustain a surplus for the army, at whatever size it may be.
3. If the economy *can't* sustain the army, then as you say, it's gotta be down to the wizards. And you don't like that theory, so we'd better make sure the army can be sustained. ;-)
: Sure, and they get hunted down pretty ruthlessly--though
: enough survive to become pirates or brigands that they
: represent a real problem, real enough to be commented
: on in flavor texts.
Well, the majority of Brigands are not of Legion origin, and I don't remember off-hand any flavor text which refers specifically to a Legion defector. But yes, the ex-soldiers form the core of the Brigand threat.
: So, anyway, the one point you didn't bring up, and which
: the game mentions pretty frequently, is disease.
: Cholera killed more soldiers than Napoleon ever
: did--and I would imagine that "disease of the
: blood" and water unfit to drink and the like are
: a MASSIVE problem for the Mythworld.
Yeah, I meant to talk about this but it slipped my mind. I'm thinking that, in a land of Jmen and even more powerful healers, stuff like cholera and the clap doesn't have a chance. There's major trouble when a magically-enhanced disease like Wight fever or Myrdred's diseases of the blood gets into the population--I wouldn't have liked to be in Covenant when the water was poisoned--but these are special cases of biological warfare. More ordinary diseases can probably be dealt with easily through magic. As GURPS says, if you can survive something long enough to get to a mage, you can usually be healed--even if it's something like losing a limb. Of course, it'll be harder for peasants and poor folk to convince a mage to heal them--but in times of plague, when a disease becomes a major threat to the state, I'm sure Alric would have the healers out there curing folks gratis. We don't know of any non-Dark-caused plagues, after all. Do we?
: My apologies :)
He did a smiley! Wellington did a smiley! This is a first, isn't it?
--SiliconDream
