: 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!
Well, gee, you're much to smart for me. I'd better retire to a life of quiet contemplation and... hey, what's that on your shirt? Right there where I'm pointing?
: 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.
I could make the point that the pregame pics aren't exactly reliable, but that wouldn't be sporting. I can, to be fair, see the berserks being offered blankets and sneering--real men don't wear anything OVER their kilts either, and all that--but it just seems so suicidal. Another possibility is that the zerks just aren't human, that hailing as they do from the North, their body chemistry is different and therefore they don't require more in the way of clothes. I seem to remember something about the actual Scottish Highlanders using a multi-purpose garment that could be everything from bedroll to toga to parka but that's IRL so it's out of bounds. I don't know, I just don't see someone as smart as Alric letting this machismo cult go this far. Sure, I'll buy the bit about him not liking horses, but letting his best melee fighters freeze to death because they don't want to cover up their warpaint? It seems like a good commander would risk a little opprobrium by ordering his men to put on a sweater, for Wyrd's sake.
I've just realized that this completely fails to address the original point of several posts ago, but I've had three beers and I'm not ready to go digging through this enormous thread right now.
: 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.
You make a valid point here. I don't really know where my resistance to the whole food-providing-mage thing comes from. Maybe it just seems too vulnerable--you reach an area with relatively little mana and oops, sorry, we forgot to keep a supply line going, I guess it's eat grass or starve tonight. I just tend to think the journal writer would have mentioned these guys at least once. An army, after all, moves on its stomach and the journalist is smart enough to notice this fact.
As to self-sufficiency: like many of the points you make here, it's based on the idea that Mythworlders are stronger, smarter, and more resilient than RL human beings. Not that this is unacceptable: it's a fantasy and that covers a multitude of sins, plus the Mythworld, seeing far more warfare than ours does, would certainly select for the most flexible and cunning in the population. Chalk it up to evolution, then. And those awfully convenient wizards.
: And the crusaders weren't very devout in the first place.
: :-)
Depends on the crusade and your definition of "devout". The so-called Children's Crusade was all about walking the fine line between devotion and mania, while several of the early crusades were all about political gain. 8-x (not a skull and crossbones--instead think of a guy with glasses looking just painfully smug).
: 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.
Yeah--especially since she's hanging on a bowman. Maybe it's just the accent. ;)
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.
An excellent point. Once again, you have cut to the quick and found the flaw in my ironclad logic. But pray, do go on.
: 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).
I'm assuming you're basing this on GURPS, since all the female units in the game are Dark (and I still can't figure out why people think the Fetch are female). As to sex partners who are also comrades-at-arms I can imagine this being a real big no-no for the Light's generals. Sure, knowing that your husband in Scales just got eaten by a ghol might spur you on to bigger and better feats of valor, but watching your wife get her face lopped off by a myrmidon blade would be more likely to, well, distract you. Plus the company you're in needs to be a cohesive unit and sex tends to restrict group relationships, those soldiers unable to find dates will become jealous and resentful (therefore less likely to back up their squadmates) unless provided with a secondary outlet, etc. etc. Furthermore, gender equality actually doubles the number of prostitutes necessary to keep the Legion happy. I will, however, accept your answer if you add on the proviso that drug runners are unnecessary because the combatant dwarves are able to provide all the required recreational pharmaceuticals without resorting to non-combatant suppliers.
: 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.
But not so rare as to render your point less valid. My argument would be that the vast majority of world knots, at any rate, seem to be clustered in urban centers and therefore the first thing a warrior is likely to see when he steps out of one is a red light district. Enough of the fighting is urban that disease and food supplies will remain a significant problem. As to non-infrastructure teleportation, you have me there.
: 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.
But of course guerrila forces rarely have room for noncombatants of any kind, which would include food wizards. Do these useful fellows have some kind of attack strength, or is a significant portion of the Legion's efforts directed at keeping them alive?
: 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.
And of course there have to be plenty of avatara-in-training, since that particular job description probably has fewer openings per annum than even heron guard (but also pays better). Oh, sure, there has to be some kind of graduate assistant equivalent in the Scholomance. Perhaps part of my resistance is due to my inability to believe that anyone would major in Food Production at a school that also offers courses in Dispersal Dreams and Confusion. Then again, this is largely due to the fact that I never had the chance to learn any of these skills. I wasn't sure why anyone would major in business administration or animal husbandry when film school beckoned, but then I've since met people who thought film was dull and tedious but for whom accountancy was a lifelong dream. A useful skill is a useful skill, and plenty of people will jump at the chance. Conceded.
: 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.
I'd actually thought about winter in Italy while positing my argument but forgot to mention it (a leaky memory is awfully convenient, at times).
: 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? :-)
And presumably they'd have plenty of engineering corpsmen to build sod huts and revetments and all the rest. But we're getting to a point now where one must ask how much infrastructure they have. Either they're a guerilla army that lives by its wits (which is going to be very, very difficult by the seveneenth year of the war), or they're a well-financed, very well supported band of disciplined regulars. Either way, there remain massive problems of supply and public health, best explained away, as you say, by the use of magic. It's just so awfully convenient! So pat, so, so unrealistic. I suppose the willful suspension of disbelief will have to be invoked at some point here, lest the Asylum crash under the wait of endless posts.
: 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.
As I mentioned above accountancy is not my passion but I do know that a government which gets everything for free is in danger of runaway inflation and popular revolt. The top-heavy economies of the Middle Ages were due largely to a surplus of free labor in the form of serfs, kept docile by a powerful centralized religion. A verifiable threat on the order of Myrkridia might work as well. The current system is falling apart and nearly bankrupted us (and did in the Soviet Union completely). The Mythworld may well operate on a permanent wartime economy but it sounds pretty fragile to me. Weimar Germany comes to mind...
: 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.
A draft also means that they'll have to be less selective about who they take. Mandatory conscription has been a real boon for several cultures in peacetime but a wartime draft means having to actually rely on the dregs of humanity.
: 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).
I believe we've both made the point before that Light vs. Dark is more complex than it sounds, and I think this issue is a perfect example thereof. It's not so much that ancient soldiers were trained to be bastards, as much as they were removed from the normalizing structures which forced them to think of themselves as social beings and placed them in evironments where mores and folkways were almost absent, thereby allowing them to behave according to their desires rather than their expectations. However, the best argument against this devolves out of your suggestion about camp followers above. The Light troops have a very clear definition of what is wrong (they see it in the actions of their enemies who exist purely to despoil) and therefore are more likely to develop a strong sense of what is right. There are few truly senseless wars in the Mythworld; as a result the Light will tend to be better behaved. (the preceding was a very longwinded way of saying yeah, dude, that is sooo true, but for different reasons).
: Yeah, leave that exercise to the Mauls. Bad joke, bad
: joke...
: ...but thanks. :-)
You're welcome.
: 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.
Constant warfare will also tend to breed out the martinets and textbook generals. Cruniac was clearly set up as an example of what the Legion is NOT all about (specifically, precision drilling, protocol, and the like) and then made heroic by his final nobility in the face of his own incompetence (which sounds harsh, since he went up against SB with a handful of troops. The man had guts... um, bad jokes coming on... 1. a whole shield full of them... 2. for which we have documented evidence... 3. for a while, anyway...).
: 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.
If you like weeds, flowers, watermelons, and pumpkins... well, okay, there were potatoes and pickles and muck, too. Conceded.
: 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.
Whatever happened to the old thread about population implosion in the Mythworld? There just can't be that many people of any type left...
: 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. ;-)
By now I'm in love with the idea of food wizards. Yay, food wizards--you guys rock! We couldn't do it without you, man!
: 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.
I wouldn't exactly call it a threat... more of a vague menace...
: 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?
It seems to me to be a major question. Since disease killed more men in the nineteenth century than Napoleon and my namesake combined, not to mention the Bubonic Plague in the Middle Ages... there must be some kind of dispersal heal out there. I had actually contemplated a level for YOBS where you had to heal an entire village before they turned into ghasts but it just seemed too ugly. I would imagine something similar has shaped Bungie's thinking about disease.
: He did a smiley! Wellington did a smiley! This is a
: first, isn't it?
You're watching my evolution into a netgod while we post. To be fair, I think if you go back over all of our voluminous correspondence you're likely to find at least one prior instance... 8) used to be a favorite, since I wear glasses. How about this one: &^#
I call that one "Person trying to think of a workable response to SiliconDream's impregnable fortress of logic".
Yes, one day soon I will even master the fine art of acronyms... (remember my confusion over AFK?)
: --SiliconDream
A very tired Wellington
