The Chiron Chronicle: Discussions 2

[Natan]

Well, I would be willing to write some things for the Believers if no one else can, but maybe we should get someone to actually run their affairs?

I think we should have a discussion of what warfare on Planet is like, so that we're on the same page both in terms of battle resolution and story writing. Also, it might be fun and interesting in its own right. Anyone interested? If so, just post away.

[DarkCloud]

...Sounds good... Natan you may run the Believers
...Warfare on the planet? I think tank warfare and armored would be much the same as on earth. But for infantry and mindworm, perhaps we should agree on some basic rules for those war types.

I'm not an expert on war, but here is my idea.
Mindworms are stealthy and sneak up and grab onto people they war against.

In the early days (before atmosphere), if the air bubbles above the soldiers are breached, they die of asyphixation.

Any other ideas?


--

When I get caught up, I will have the Perfect Society and University experience tensions.

Daniel Jakhobs-Howell will trouble the new University Government as he realizes his true history (but the cyborgs will still have minimal control over him due to an embedded chip.)

The Planet Health Service will become an underground organization and fight the Anarchists (Jakhobs-Howell) in a war of words, but the Anarchists will attack them, the University will ban them.

Zakharov will make political machinations... and eventually discover the Perfect Society's true goal.

The leader *may* resign.

War may occur with the new Perfect Society leaders in Morganite territory. The university will be supported by morgan, and there will be general civil war.

[Guardian]

U.N. News Network

Today's headline: Guardian going on holiday!

Reliable sources in U.N. Headquarters indicate that Guardian will be out of town for about a month from today. The Peacekeepers are not expected to get involved in anything big during this time, although some minor action can not be ruled out. Guardian refused to comment the matter any further, but indicated that something big would be in store for his return...

[Natan]

My analysis of warfare on Planet:

I think I should start by discussing general economic and political aspects. Since all factions have more or less self contained economies, with no need to gain natural resources from others, direct economic factors such as the desire for more land will have little impact on wars. More subtle considerations, such as protecting trade partners, defending the rights of movement on the seas, raiding enemies for plunder, or forcing trade relationships on other factions may, however, be a factor. The min factor however, I think, will be the desire of almost all factions to make their own ideology supreme, or at the very least, to maintain their situation against other factions wishing to do the former. Therefore, wars are likely to be extremely brutal and destructive, with very little respect for human life or economic resources.

Now for land warfare: I think that planet's geography will make warfare on it very different from warfare on earth. The basic fact of planet's geography is that there is a great amount of open space with a few patches of artificial forest and a number of almost impassable fungal blooms and rocky areas. Tanks and aircraft will be extremely effective in the open areas, but infantry carefully placed in "impassable" terrain will be able to beat them easily. Therefore, wise faction leaders will continue the already prevelant practice of erecting large defensive lines on their borders to stop the rovers. Thus, warfare will be characterized by slow, grueling attempts to break enemy lines, which, if successful, will be followed by vast sweeping maneuvers by rovers over open ground. The only way around this is an amphibious landing. Many will surely be attempted, and this may lead some faction leaders to develop defenses against it, consisting of air patrols, coastal artillery, and fleets of small fast craft capable of destroying larger vessels or smaller landing craft. These arrangements would probably be cheaper than a large ocean going Navy.

Some other things:

Unarmored rovers would not be literally unable to defend themselves if a large unit of them were attacked by another large unit. They would however, be at a serious disadvantage in several kinds of combat. Specifically, they would be vulnerable in any prolonged engagement against an enemy with heavy mobile firepower in the form of aircraft, artillery, other rovers, or even infantry if the engagement occured in a difficult terrain. Due to their greater spead, unarmored rovers would have the advantage though when attacking infantry in the open, in any situation when they have the benefit of surprise, or when engaging in operations where mobility is the most needed element of battle. But these situations are much rarer than the ones in which armored rovers can perform best.

Special operations: Special operations are likely to be very common on planet. Defense forces may spend much of their time trying to guard against infiltrators.

Artillery: Artillery will mostly be used to break defensive lines and fortified bases. It may also be used to defend against incoming ships.


So what does everyone else think? How far off base am I?

[Cyber]

Ahh! Finally back... d*mn, that vacation did good. Sorry for leaving without a notice, but as I don´t have much part of the story now, it didn´t matter.

Natan, your description about the warfare on Chiron is, I must say, quite good and accurate.
Except for one thing. The part about defensive lines, and the slow battles for breaching those lines. The first defensive line erected on planet was on the Hive-Drone border, mainly to stop the then mostly raids and small attacks. But no defense lines, even the 10000 km miracle "chinese wall" erected by the peacekeepers, can stand a full-scale blitzkrieg assault. So, although Spartans did erect defense lines, in my opinion they never turned them so solid, meaning they inversted into mobility and detection of the enemy rather than to hundreds of concrete bunkers, not wanting to make the same mistake like so many Allied countries at the beginning of WW2. I hope Sprayber will continue the same line.
Also, just think how much a defensive line eg. the size and scale of the peacekeeper mammoth wall, would cost in support. My god!
If one square has lets say, 6-7 bunkers, and each bunker has somewhere about 500 soldiers, one square needs 3000-3500 soldiers. multiply that by ten, and you get 30000-35000 soldiers! Not a pretty number considering the factions current infrastructure, and thats just the soldiers. If you count the huge heaps of equipment and supplies needed to support one heavy gatling infantry soldier and multiply that by 35000, you´ll get wild numbers
Not to mention the huge time scale and dedication needed to build that kind of defensive line, finally to be breached from two place, and almost from a third. That means only three squares saw any action, and the rest weren´t needed at all.

[[LordLMP]]

OKay, about warfare and before Cyber exagerates. Wars on Chiron, especially with the wonders of Missile Technology now, as become a total carnage. The Peacekeeper/Spartan war was the most devastating compare to the rest on chiron...also about the first war where Missile Weaponry was effectively used. Because of Missile Weaponry, Artillery is more effective as it does more damage and bit better accuracy.

I have just almost completed reading Centauri Dawn. The battles in there is i think perfect example...of course, in 2180s with Missile Technology with way bigger military, it is 10 to 20 times bigger than ones described in the book. Anyway, the description of how they used rovers and infantry in the book is good example to base this games warfare on, including Natan's simulations.

We shouldn't take example of the PK/Spartan war as it is two big armies that practicly annihilated each other from the ghetto and the defence lines experience its first war. So i am sure the PKs would improve the defence line from now on.....

Bunkers are not easy to destroy by artillery....as they are BUNKERS! thats what they are designed for, to protect from artillery and ground fire....and in chiron, to sort of block the Rovers too. Cyber's description of the PK Defence Line is a bit silly, ain't a long chinese wall. Just a series of Bunkers across a long stretch of territory defended by Gatling Infantry Units with ECM. And they don't get easily destroyed by Rovers firepower either, unless they succeeded in clearing the infantry out of the bunkers, which requires infantry to do so, not rovers, and than spend time to destroy a bunker, which ain't done in a day or few hours. Blitzkrieg will not always be effective, especially now. Battles don't always last in few hours and or a day, they can take weeks, especially batteling through defensive positions and trying to conquer a properly defended base. The Cult of War troops succeeded in capturing one bunker of a cluster in one square, but had more trouble after that, batteling Bunker command style, Infantry vs Infantry (with some PK artillery too). I may end up describing the various styles of combat i know off, could possibly think of and base on types of battles in some sci-fi books and some RTS games.


A typical Rover Unit is probebly comprised of 75 to 150 rovers, about a crew of 3-5 each. Rovers are big giant vehicules just to say, like we seem to make it...more like the size which Centauri Dawn is giving the impression. Also, Rovers are a lot more mobile than Earth Tanks, else, i am sure the factions would of stuck building tanks instead. Even now on earth, US Military realize that they need a fast resonse mobile force and currently developing various ATVs and APCs type vehicules, and easy to ship quickly wherever in the world unlike the Abram Tanks. I read many sci-fi stuff where they mention using ATVs or/and rover like military vehicules for war. Mobility is a big thing, especially in chiron terrain. but in some terrain and places, they are not so effective like where infantry can easily overwhelm them. Rovers also require more resources than a typecal Infantry Unit.

Infantry Units is still important and they can still create trouble for rovers and so on. They are also easy to make and train. Hive at the moment makes the best of use of infantry, Doctrine and style wise in my opinion :P Where Spartans focus more into Rover Combat.

Air Force saw some action in the past war, but haven't 100% effectively been use. In time, Air will definatly be a serious factor on Chiron. especially now where most factions are rally starting to build up their air forces.

Practicly all of the Factions units are base on the original Unity designs, which is why i would think Rovers of both factions almost look completly alike.

anyway, will later make a list of various military combat styles, doctrines and so on.

[[LordLMP]]

The size of a typecal unit of any type would vary per faction, but we need a standard thought atleast. The PK/Spartan war develop many arguments and unreallistics stuff.

Rover Unit: Rover Regiment of about 75-150 rovers, or smaller
so with about a crew of 3-5 per rover, thats about 225-750 people.
Infantry unit: Infantry Regiment of about 500-1000 troops, or smaller
Air Unit: Needlejet Wing of about 36-45 aircrafts
Naval Unit: One ship

Units don't always have to operate in a regiment/wing, they can be splitted in into Battalions, Plattoons, Squads/Flights, Squadrons and so on.

[Natan]

That's good [LordLMP], but I think infantry regiment should have about ten times as many people. Since I assume that we're talking about foot-infantry, they would need many more people to defend or attack on the same size line or with the same force as a much more mobile rover regiment. Also, factions who are more interested in getting cheap firepower than keeping their people alive, who are the main users of infantry, would organize them in large units for human rwave assaults on fortified areas, or as shock troops to absorb the brunt of an enemy force. So I think an infantry unit should be 3,000-10,000 men.

As for bunkers, I think that they would bristle with sensors and installed gun positions. The only way to beat them, imho, would be to use sensor disruptors (chaff, flares, smoke shells) combined with a thick barrage, preferably containing nerve gas, to let the attacker's troops get in close and use flamethrowers on the bunkers. Even with these measures, enemy sensors and guns might still function, and a first wave of cannon fodder (infantry) might be necessary to screen for the main attack force.

I'm wondering if we could have APCs and IFVs, and how they would work.

Darkcloud: I was just kidding you.

[Desert Journeyman]

May I join ... ?

I've been leafing through many of the SMAX discussions for quite some time now, and invariably, they catch my attention. Not only is the writing an example of high quality, but the storylines are also dynamic and excellent. They appeal to me far more than the standard "kill-the-other-guy" scenarios in which players tend to get at eachother more than they do the game.

If there's room, I'd like to join. And if possible, I'd like to introduce my own faction. Is this acceptable?

[Sprayber]

Your welcome to join as far as I'm concerned and I don't think the other would have any problems with it. As far as your own custom faction, that would be up to the others. It would be difficult to start one up. What do you have in mind?

[Desert Journeyman]

Well, actually, I'm afraid I'd need a quick summary or five-sentence overview of the story. I have a few ideas that I could embellish into full-fledged factions with relative ease - so long as I know the plot-line.

[[LordLMP]]

Desert: There is always room in Chiron Chronicles... As for a full fledge custom faction isn't exactly possible, but can be a sub-faction of one of the 7 originals or 5 crossfire ones. May eventually evolve into a new complete faction, who knows but cannot simply go poof, theres a new faction.

as for an overview, someone can do it or I when i can tommorrow after work. right now i just got back from and late at night, so i am tired

can go through the the last few game threads.

Natan:

10 000 may make sence earth wise.... but in Chiron Chronicles, the world population of chiron is about quarter to half a billion.
Hive may be able to support such large infantry units, but doubt it will be to support dozen of them or more, else putting a huge dent in your factions population. Like Cyber pointed out, to have a large military would put a dent in the faction's bases population level. Maybe in the future of Chiron Chronicles factions can support bunch of 10k infantry units, but a 1000-5000 infantry regiment is bit more realistic. if you want to overwhelm, jus have multiple infantry units to combine and assault together.

[Desert Journeyman]

Actually, my idea was for a sort of military contengient to form, independant of either the Spartans or the Hive.

The storyline assumes that a scattering of regular combat soldiers were aboard the Unity - imbued with special genetic materials and neural stapling - and that the descendants of these origional units remain. At some point, they will begin to break from the Spartans and Hive in large numbers. For now, they're simply likely to be distributed into elite or special units within those two factions.

[DarkCloud]

Hello again Desert- I remember your last proposal.

You may join, but you are probably going to have to take over a 'real' faction and 'convert' it into the one you want... or start out as a Real Faction leader, then have a bit of the faction break off.

Here is a recent overview of Page 1 of the Current Chronicles posts:

2183

January

-Svensgaard writes to Roze that the Chiron Alliance does not need help to attack the Spartans (LL)

-General Kessel of the Spartans implores Chairman Yang of the Hive to ally against the Chiron Alliance (Consisting of Peacekeepers, Pirates, Free Drones, Data Angels, Cyborgs) (SP)
-General Kessel implores Priest Breinmann of the Cult of War that they should not violate the general Spartan war orders, and should declare peace with others and follow the Spartan governing authority (SP)

-The Cult of War announces they are only a religion, and part of the Spartans (CY)

-Commissioner Lal of the Peacekeepers feels betrayed by the world because he does not receive a response from Planetmind and only the Data Angels sided with them in the vote (GU)

-Yang sends 81 Hive personnel to Colonel Santiago of the Spartans (NA)
-Yang fortifies the border between his empire and the Free Drones (NA)
-Yang begins work on the Human Genome Project (NA)
-Yang implores Aki Zeta-Five of the Cyborgs for an exchange of ambassadors (NA)

-Lal asks Planetmind for help (GU)
-Lal accuses General Kessel of faking a video showing Peacekeeping forces exacting vengeance on Spartans (GU)
-Poulos killes General Halzburg, leader of the Spartan revolt (SP)

-Sir Cloud of The Perfect Society implores the Data Angels and Cyborgs for materials and support (DC)
-Daniel Jakhobs-Howell of the Perfect Society rescued from the Cyborgs by Neil Duncan-Howell (DC)
-The D-Citz, supporters of Daniel Jakhobs-Howell attack a Cyborg café (DC)
-The Perfect Society conspires to depose CEO Morgan of the Morganites (DC)
-Morgan pleads for regulation of industries, namely The Perfect Society's monopolies (DC)

-----
At this point in the story the Perfect Society has taken over the University, but Zakharov protests. The Perfect Society (a political group) is attempting to take over Morgan, but the Free Trade Summit will soon foil their plans when all other factions can invest in the Morgan Stock Exchange (MSE)

The University is in a mess right now and not ready for a war (they have the troops but morale is low because Zakharov isn't leading)

Morganites are in disarray as Morgan wants to regulate the stock market.

---
Spartans have a religious movement, the Cult of War (cyber can tell you more about that if you need)

The Pirates, Peacekeepers, Data Angels, Free Drones, Cyborgs are allied in The Chiron Alliance and have just made peace with the Spartans. The alliance threatens to break up.
---
Good luck if you join.

[Desert Journeyman]

I assume this is primarily story-motivated, and therefore, I shouldn't expect to be fighting for my life at every turn - correct?

Also - where would a new faction concievably fit in? It is feasible, or for that matter permissable, that I could have one of two of my characters commandeer a splinter group from the Hive? I find it highly probable that my proposed faction - that is, one composed entirely of the Unity regulars and combat troops - were likely willing to stand by Yang, the Unity XO, during the disaster of planetfall, and have remained since then.

A final question concerning technology:

How far along are we? Have the factions continued to salvage and construct rudimentary facilities, or would the cities seen in some SMAX cutseens be more fitting?