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      Welcome, everyone, to the new 910CMX Community Forums. I'm still working on getting them running, so things may change.  If you're a 910 Comic creator and need your forum recreated, let me know and I'll get on it right away.  I'll do my best to make this new place as fun as the last one!
hkmaly

Story, Friday February 16, 2018

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On ‎2‎/‎18‎/‎2018 at 4:23 PM, CNash said:

I do stand by my notion that its parameters are programmed rather than something it chose itself. How can it judge how much widespread knowledge is too much when it can't directly observe the world and doesn't understand human motivations anyway? And yet it somehow knows that Pandora's final act caused X number of people to "notice" magic, and that this meets the criteria for "too much". It needs seers to advise it on what to do next, but has no problems making the initial decision to invoke them. It does sound like its threshold of "knowing" is forced upon it from somewhere else.

On ‎2‎/‎17‎/‎2018 at 4:24 AM, CNash said:

Instant percentage-based calculations (seemingly on-demand with zero latency), talk of spells being given to humans as part of an "automated flow".... just little bits and pieces of how Magic has been speaking.

I personally don't think Magic is an artificial entity. The drive to be used could easily be a natural occurrence, especially if magical energy is generated by individuals and then diffused into the surrounding environment (similar to body heat) instead of the ambient energy refilling magic users' personal energy supply. The need for secrecy could have been born of a concern of early humanity wiping itself out (Which would impair the ability to be used), or widespread fear limiting it further than secrecy would have (The various witch hunts of history and other bouts of paranoid prosecution of the supernatural happened with magic being secret. I imagine it would have gotten a lot worse if magic had been public at those times.)

Instant percentage-based calculations that are seemingly on-demand with zero latency is easy with enough processing power. It's difficult for humans, because our brains only have so much processing power to devote to cognitive processes like math. Magic is composed of all the (non-Uryuom) magical energies across the globe. Every human being has at least a little magical energy inside them, even if they aren't awakened. While it would be difficult to determine how much processing a given quantity of magical energy can do, if the amount in the average human has even half the information processing capability as the human brain, then Magic would have a lot of processing power at its disposal.

Automated flow isn't a concept restricted to computers. It simply means it's a continuous process without conscious control. Non-computerized machines can have automated flows, such water systems with pressure-controlled valves. Some of the involuntary systems in the human body could potentially be described as automated flows, like the circulatory system, with it's ability to dilate and constrict blood vessels.

It's explanation doesn't reveal how it knows when a person is at risk of knowing magic is real, but it obviously has some method of doing so (My guess would be that it's related to the spell potential Pandora was tapping into during the Marker storyline. When a person learns that magic might be real, potential spells start shaping, or at least become more defined, in-case the person is given a spell) and it would need to decide how much is too much. Magic using percentage-based thresholds allows for population growth (and decline) without necessarily needing to move the thresholds. And it doesn't need the seers advise on what to do next. There have certainly been times where there were no eligible seers at the time of a reset. Magic wants seers, because it understands its own limitation at understanding people at least to an extent. That spell books are hard to read still surprised it, but eldritch, near-omnipotent entities can still be fallible. Also, Magic would have to make the initial decision to call a meeting of eligible seers. The seers themselves couldn't call the meeting, because then they could try to abuse the capability and they might not even know about cases of magic becoming widespread in ages before world-wide communication.

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41 minutes ago, Vorlonagent said:

Personally I'd have said Ewoks. 

The horrible thing is, I feel the Gungans in general (not including Jar-Jar) are just so much better than the Ewoks. Yes, they are comparatively primitive but their weaponry makes sense. Instead of using stone age weaponry it is more like a late 19th century army (with an extremely tough defensive position) facing a WW2 army. Admittedly they get cut to shreds and rout as soon as their big shields collapse but at least that seems reasonable. In fact, the Gungans could potentially be far more dangerous to the Trade Federation if they had been able to fight them in wetlands, marsh or even on the shore of a lake. It is only because they are forced to go on the offensive to draw the Trade Federation forces out that they end up fighting on an open plain where the droids had all the advantage.

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1 minute ago, The Old Hack said:

The horrible thing is, I feel the Gungans in general (not including Jar-Jar) are just so much better than the Ewoks. Yes, they are comparatively primitive but their weaponry makes sense. Instead of using stone age weaponry it is more like a late 19th century army (with an extremely tough defensive position) facing a WW2 army. Admittedly they get cut to shreds and rout as soon as their big shields collapse but at least that seems reasonable. In fact, the Gungans could potentially be far more dangerous to the Trade Federation if they had been able to fight them in wetlands, marsh or even on the shore of a lake. It is only because they are forced to go on the offensive to draw the Trade Federation forces out that they end up fighting on an open plain where the droids had all the advantage.

Completely agreed, about gungans > Ewoks.  I never gave it much thought to be honest.  Jar-Jar sort of overshadows the rest of his race.

I'd suggest that the Trade Federation was more a late WW1 army.  There's no air cover worth noting and what armored units they have aren't organized in units of their own but dispersed through the infantry, as was common for WW1 and pre-WW2 tank doctrine.   The battle for Naboo never got bogged down to static battle lines, which is where the characteristic trench warfare of WW1 comes from.

In the case of the Empire, the design of walkers of both the "elephant" and "chicken" varieties are very reminiscent in function (though not form) of WW1 tanks.  Certainly their primary use in the movies was against enemy infantry.  I can only conclude that the Empire never faced armored resistance so there has been no evolution toward units that work like "tanks" as we understand them.

By having the First Order add air-cover to the big battle in Eps 7 and 8, Star Wars dips its toe into early WW2-style ground action, though I don't think their armor use has yet evolved as far as the blitzkrieg.

Getting back to Naboo, If you're the Gungans, why fight on the surface at all? They couldn't repel the Trade Federation if they stayed underwater, but they could make Naboo nearly impossible (and expensive!) to occupy.   Not that a Gungan asymmetric resistance would help Naboo's human population much. 

Conquering is much simpler than occupying.  Movies often forget this.  Star Wars as relatively light, fanciful fare can be forgiven, however.  (the unforgivable sins committed by the prequels tend to be those they inflict on themselves and Star Wars as a whole, not genre conceits)

As an aside, I found myself looking over Wikipedia's "History of the Tank" article and found a picture of the "Frot-Laffly Landship" (AKA the "Frot-Laffly Armoured Roller", which reminded me of the big Jawa thing from Ep 4.

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5 hours ago, Drasvin said:

Instant percentage-based calculations that are seemingly on-demand with zero latency is easy with enough processing power. It's difficult for humans, because our brains only have so much processing power to devote to cognitive processes like math

Meanwhile, our brains have LOT of processing power on image recognition and trajectory calculation. We can do image recognition MUCH more reliable than computers, and while  targeting software can predict trajectory better than people, it requires radar ; the task of identifying unknown moving object from video alone and predicting it's trajectory is hard for computers.

Yet we are not getting percentages from those. It's not NATURAL for humans to think that way, that's why math is considered hard.

5 hours ago, Drasvin said:

Automated flow isn't a concept restricted to computers. It simply means it's a continuous process without conscious control. Non-computerized machines can have automated flows, such water systems with pressure-controlled valves. Some of the involuntary systems in the human body could potentially be described as automated flows, like the circulatory system, with it's ability to dilate and constrict blood vessels.

That is true. We also have almost no control of our bowels (except their ends), yet they do lot of moving.

4 hours ago, The Old Hack said:
5 hours ago, Vorlonagent said:

Personally I'd have said Ewoks. 

The horrible thing is, I feel the Gungans in general (not including Jar-Jar) are just so much better than the Ewoks. Yes, they are comparatively primitive but their weaponry makes sense. Instead of using stone age weaponry it is more like a late 19th century army (with an extremely tough defensive position) facing a WW2 army.

However, Ewoks had BIG element of surprise on their side, and I suspect numerical advantage.

3 hours ago, Vorlonagent said:

In the case of the Empire, the design of walkers of both the "elephant" and "chicken" varieties are very reminiscent in function (though not form) of WW1 tanks.  Certainly their primary use in the movies was against enemy infantry.  I can only conclude that the Empire never faced armored resistance so there has been no evolution toward units that work like "tanks" as we understand them.

By having the First Order add air-cover to the big battle in Eps 7 and 8, Star Wars dips its toe into early WW2-style ground action, though I don't think their armor use has yet evolved as far as the blitzkrieg.

It's interesting how their technology is superior to ours but the way they are using it is extremely ineffective. Robot-based infantry requires very advanced technology but yes it's still tactic of first world war, and their starfighters, while obviously able to fly in atmosphere, are so sparely used ...

... but yes, it might be because they haven't got that style of war for centuries, if not thousand years. Pacification of primitive natives, yes. Space battles, yes. But war between armored units, no.

 

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5 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

However, Ewoks had BIG element of surprise on their side, and I suspect numerical advantage.

It also helped that Stormtrooper armor was purely decorative...

6 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

It's interesting how their technology is superior to ours but the way they are using it is extremely ineffective. Robot-based infantry requires very advanced technology but yes it's still tactic of first world war, and their starfighters, while obviously able to fly in atmosphere, are so sparely used ...

... but yes, it might be because they haven't got that style of war for centuries, if not thousand years. Pacification of primitive natives, yes. Space battles, yes. But war between armored units, no.

We know from watching the Rebellion that they often have bases discovered and have to run away.   (one wonders how the Rebel base on Dantooine [Ep 4] could ever have been abandoned without having been overrun by the Empire first).  Immobile Rebel base defenses seem only there to hold off a siege long enough for personnel and portable resources to escape, not actually hold territory against a determined attack.  At which point it's grab everything not nailed down and bug out.  It's a design requirement for X-wings to jump to lightspeed on their own, while TIE fighters can rely on capital ships.

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11 minutes ago, Vorlonagent said:
32 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

However, Ewoks had BIG element of surprise on their side, and I suspect numerical advantage.

It also helped that Stormtrooper armor was purely decorative...

... and that they have trouble hitting the correct side of planet, yes.

11 minutes ago, Vorlonagent said:

We know from watching the Rebellion that they often have bases discovered and have to run away.   (one wonders how the Rebel base on Dantooine [Ep 4] could ever have been abandoned without having been overrun by the Empire first).  Immobile Rebel base defenses seem only there to hold off a siege long enough for personnel and portable resources to escape, not actually hold territory against a determined attack.  At which point it's grab everything not nailed down and bug out.  It's a design requirement for X-wings to jump to lightspeed on their own, while TIE fighters can rely on capital ships.

To be fair, you can't really defend against orbital bombardment. The siege was likely so Empire can take captives and intelligence ; if the base would prove to be too well defended against that, they could always let the star destroyer fire at it from orbit or put some asteroid on collision course.

Hmmm ... apparently the shields CAN protect against orbital bombardment, but maybe can't be hold too long, at least when under attack. Surface attack could've been used as a quicker, not necessary only way to break them.

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2 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

... and that they have trouble hitting the correct side of planet, yes.

There's always an exception to be made if drama requires it.

3 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

To be fair, you can't really defend against orbital bombardment. The siege was likely so Empire can take captives and intelligence ; if the base would prove to be too well defended against that, they could always let the star destroyer fire at it from orbit or put some asteroid on collision course.

Hmmm ... apparently the shields CAN protect against orbital bombardment, but maybe can't be hold too long, at least when under attack. Surface attack was used as a quicker, not necessary only way to break them.

I doubt the Rebellion could have shielded an entire planet or would have wanted to if they could.  The technology is there.  The Empire shielded the archive planet in Rogue 1.  But I'm not sure the Rebels could ship in the tech to shield an entire planet.  moreover, they're on a tight budget and a planetary shield has to cost some big bucks to ship in, set up and operate. 

And the Rebels don't have remotely enough resources to actually repel an attack by the Empire/First Order in any case.   So why invest in shielding a planet when you plan to run at the first sign the Empire is coming, not fight them off and hold the planet against their attack?  Shielding the base makes sense.   So they don't drop a 100-ton rock on you and solve their problem that way.

I imagine the base shield could be worn down by continuous weapons fire, but as you say, it's not fast and the Empire puts a premium on getting things done NOW rather than correctly.  If the Empire were patient, they would need a more ships for a tighter orbital blockade that they could afford to leave in place over the span of a year or more.   Then drop an asteroid someplace ecologically catastrophic like an ocean or a polar ice cap.with the idea of making it impossible to ship in food or supplies and making it impossible to the Rebels to farm what they need.  And simply wait for the Rebels to starve to death or try a suicide breakout.  Correcting for technology difference, it's the way sieges have been handled on Earth for thousands of years.

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6 hours ago, Vorlonagent said:

Completely agreed, about gungans > Ewoks.  I never gave it much thought to be honest.  Jar-Jar sort of overshadows the rest of his race.

It would be a bit like an alien race making contact with us but the only human they got to interact with would be Jack Black on a perpetual sugar high.

6 hours ago, Vorlonagent said:

I'd suggest that the Trade Federation was more a late WW1 army.  There's no air cover worth noting and what armored units they have aren't organized in units of their own but dispersed through the infantry, as was common for WW1 and pre-WW2 tank doctrine.   The battle for Naboo never got bogged down to static battle lines, which is where the characteristic trench warfare of WW1 comes from.

I think you are right. Especially when one considers that during the initial phases of WW1, the troops actually moved fairly rapidly. It wasn't until the battle of the Marne that things really bogged down, and by then they stayed bogged.

6 hours ago, Vorlonagent said:

Getting back to Naboo, If you're the Gungans, why fight on the surface at all? They couldn't repel the Trade Federation if they stayed underwater, but they could make Naboo nearly impossible (and expensive!) to occupy.   Not that a Gungan asymmetric resistance would help Naboo's human population much. 

This was actually what the Gungans had planned until Amidala talked them into helping the humans. She offered a high-risk plan with a possible quick win as well as a more permanent alliance that the Gungans (and humans) would both profit from. But as you say, if this had not happened, the Trade Federation could still have spent forever trying to pacify the Gungans without succeeding.

In fact, even if the plan had failed, I suspect that enough Gungans would have escaped to still make Naboo a very bad bargain for the Trade Federation. Since they are all about profit, it is quite conceivable that they could turn Naboo into such a bad deal for the Federation that they might eventually have departed out of sheer despair at the constant red figures that would be all they ever got out of the planet. By then, the human population might well have been reduced to almost nothing but the Gungans could have cared less.

6 hours ago, Vorlonagent said:

Conquering is much simpler than occupying.  Movies often forget this.  Star Wars as relatively light, fanciful fare can be forgiven, however. 

Absolutely. They are fairy tales of heroic struggles, not actual attempts to describe a war of conquest. Oddly enough, the cartoon series "Rebels" does a very good job of portraying the occupied planet of Lothal and how life there would be, including how resistance gradually spread and the Empire clamping harder and harder down. Eventually Thrawn has the planet in an iron grip. But by then the Empire is committing so massive resources there compared to what they had there at first that from the viewpoint of an asymmetric warfare historian the resistance could be viewed as a resounding success in draining effort and tying resources down.

2 hours ago, hkmaly said:

However, Ewoks had BIG element of surprise on their side, and I suspect numerical advantage.

All true. It is just that... their weaponry was too primitive and the Ewoks themselves kind of runty. Also, those stormtroopers were supposedly elite units. Given that apart from what they captured the Ewoks only had muscle powered weapons it just doesn't seem convincing. Originally the plan was to have the residents be wookiees. If they had stuck to that, the battle would have been far more believable to me.

2 hours ago, hkmaly said:

... but yes, it might be because they haven't got that style of war for centuries, if not thousand years. Pacification of primitive natives, yes. Space battles, yes. But war between armored units, no.

Harry Turtledove's 'Worldwar' series postulated aliens invading Earth during WW2. They possessed superior weapons and tanks but the human opposition had numbers and the ability to not only replace losses but rapidly improve on their technology. Worst of all, these aliens had only ever conquered two other planets and neither had possessed technology worth speaking of, and they had not waged war among themselves for many centuries... so their doctrine had just not kept up with their technological advances. Their poor doctrine in particular hurt them badly when fighting humans.

2 hours ago, Vorlonagent said:

It's a design requirement for X-wings to jump to lightspeed on their own, while TIE fighters can rely on capital ships.

Also, the Empire believed in cheap fighters in large numbers. The basic TIE did not even have shields but relied on maneuverability to not get hit. Add in swarm tactics and they became a force to be reckoned with. The Rebels did not have as many pilots or ships but what they did have was a better resource proportion of pilot to fighter. As a result they had the X-Wing which individually was superior to the basic TIE and probably at least the equal of the TIE Interceptor. The Rebels could only be very, very relieved that neither the TIE Advanced nor Defender saw production in any large numbers.

1 hour ago, Vorlonagent said:

I imagine the base shield could be worn down by continuous weapons fire, but as you say, it's not fast and the Empire puts a premium on getting things done NOW rather than correctly. 

I also suspect the shield requires considerable power or why else would it have been down initially when the Empire arrived at Hoth? Once it was up it could repel 'any bombardment' but it probably took power from almost everything else the Rebels had.

In the season 3 finale of 'Rebels' Thrawn did manage to nearly destroy the Rebel base shield with continued bombardment but he broke off before annihilation so he could capture the leadership. Mind you, that was a jury-rigged shield generator they had scrounged from battle wreckage dating to the Clone Wars so was probably neither current nor performing at optimum capacity, and possibly not even intended to last against large scale orbital bombardment to begin with. A single battleship it might have been able to hold off for a while, but Thrawn had an entire fleet.

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2 hours ago, Vorlonagent said:

I imagine the base shield could be worn down by continuous weapons fire, but as you say, it's not fast and the Empire puts a premium on getting things done NOW rather than correctly.  If the Empire were patient, they would need a more ships for a tighter orbital blockade that they could afford to leave in place over the span of a year or more.   Then drop an asteroid someplace ecologically catastrophic like an ocean or a polar ice cap.with the idea of making it impossible to ship in food or supplies and making it impossible to the Rebels to farm what they need.  And simply wait for the Rebels to starve to death or try a suicide breakout.  Correcting for technology difference, it's the way sieges have been handled on Earth for thousands of years.

Making the rebels short on FOOD supplies would be possible but I would assume they can more quickly make them short on whatever they power the shield with.

1 hour ago, The Old Hack said:
3 hours ago, hkmaly said:

However, Ewoks had BIG element of surprise on their side, and I suspect numerical advantage.

All true. It is just that... their weaponry was too primitive and the Ewoks themselves kind of runty. Also, those stormtroopers were supposedly elite units. Given that apart from what they captured the Ewoks only had muscle powered weapons it just doesn't seem convincing. Originally the plan was to have the residents be wookiees. If they had stuck to that, the battle would have been far more believable to me.

... that would definitely be better.

However, I always suspected that stormtroopers were NOT elite units at that point. Like ... it's the weakest link that impossible chain ; it makes more sense to just assume it was unit of troublemakers who got the assignment as punishment and were not elite to begin with.

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1 minute ago, hkmaly said:

However, I always suspected that stormtroopers were NOT elite units at that point. Like ... it's the weakest link that impossible chain ; it makes more sense to just assume it was unit of troublemakers who got the assignment as punishment and were not elite to begin with.

Palpatine said that an entire legion of his finest stormtroopers were lying in ambush down there. My own headcanon is that some bureaucratic screwup sent that legion to the other end of the galaxy by mistake. Subsequently some terrified bureaucrat dispatched a couple battalions of green recruits barely able to tell their left feet from their right in their place, hoping no-one would notice the difference.

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47 minutes ago, The Old Hack said:
52 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

However, I always suspected that stormtroopers were NOT elite units at that point. Like ... it's the weakest link that impossible chain ; it makes more sense to just assume it was unit of troublemakers who got the assignment as punishment and were not elite to begin with.

Palpatine said that an entire legion of his finest stormtroopers were lying in ambush down there. My own headcanon is that some bureaucratic screwup sent that legion to the other end of the galaxy by mistake. Subsequently some terrified bureaucrat dispatched a couple battalions of green recruits barely able to tell their left feet from their right in their place, hoping no-one would notice the difference.

You are underestimating the situation. That legion of finest stormtroopers did never existed except on paper. It was created by bureaucrats reporting better results of training than what really happened because they feared they would be punished otherwise ... and unaware that their reports are exaggerated even more by others.

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3 hours ago, hkmaly said:

You are underestimating the situation. That legion of finest stormtroopers did never existed except on paper. It was created by bureaucrats reporting better results of training than what really happened because they feared they would be punished otherwise ... and unaware that their reports are exaggerated even more by others.

...that would explain a lot. :icon_eek:

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15 hours ago, The Old Hack said:

It would be a bit like an alien race making contact with us but the only human they got to interact with would be Jack Black on a perpetual sugar high.

Closer, I think to judging the intelligence and capabilities of the Human race exclusively from watching Barney the dinosaur.

15 hours ago, The Old Hack said:

I think you are right. Especially when one considers that during the initial phases of WW1, the troops actually moved fairly rapidly. It wasn't until the battle of the Marne that things really bogged down, and by then they stayed bogged.

I took an adult-ed American history class and was very surprised to find that trench warfare was used in the American Civil War.   It was one of Grant's go-to tactics against Lee.  Going through school, I assumed Grant vs. Lee was all movement and maneuver and the North finally had someone competent running the Army of the Potomac  Trhough most of the war, it had generals who commanded desks better than soldiers.  It's a problem with the US and extended periods of peacetime and I expect it's not just with the US.  The skills needed to advance in a wartime military vs the skills needed to advance during peacetime have very little to do with each other.  I think it's at the heart of a saying I once heard "no unit ready for battle is ever ready for inspection."

15 hours ago, The Old Hack said:

This was actually what the Gungans had planned until Amidala talked them into helping the humans. She offered a high-risk plan with a possible quick win as well as a more permanent alliance that the Gungans (and humans) would both profit from. But as you say, if this had not happened, the Trade Federation could still have spent forever trying to pacify the Gungans without succeeding.

In fact, even if the plan had failed, I suspect that enough Gungans would have escaped to still make Naboo a very bad bargain for the Trade Federation. Since they are all about profit, it is quite conceivable that they could turn Naboo into such a bad deal for the Federation that they might eventually have departed out of sheer despair at the constant red figures that would be all they ever got out of the planet. By then, the human population might well have been reduced to almost nothing but the Gungans could have cared less.

I thought the Gungans just said "why should we care?  This is all surface-world stuff that doesn't concern us."  But I could remember wrong.  I saw Ep 1 once, when it was first run and never wanted anything to do with it again. 

15 hours ago, The Old Hack said:

All true. It is just that... their weaponry was too primitive and the Ewoks themselves kind of runty. Also, those stormtroopers were supposedly elite units. Given that apart from what they captured the Ewoks only had muscle powered weapons it just doesn't seem convincing. Originally the plan was to have the residents be wookiees. If they had stuck to that, the battle would have been far more believable to me.

That's why I suggested Ewoks as a "small change with big consequences".  While Star Wars is as much fairy tale as science fiction there's only so far you can push suspension of disbelief...

15 hours ago, The Old Hack said:

Harry Turtledove's 'Worldwar' series postulated aliens invading Earth during WW2. They possessed superior weapons and tanks but the human opposition had numbers and the ability to not only replace losses but rapidly improve on their technology. Worst of all, these aliens had only ever conquered two other planets and neither had possessed technology worth speaking of, and they had not waged war among themselves for many centuries... so their doctrine had just not kept up with their technological advances. Their poor doctrine in particular hurt them badly when fighting humans.

Also, the Empire believed in cheap fighters in large numbers. The basic TIE did not even have shields but relied on maneuverability to not get hit. Add in swarm tactics and they became a force to be reckoned with. The Rebels did not have as many pilots or ships but what they did have was a better resource proportion of pilot to fighter. As a result they had the X-Wing which individually was superior to the basic TIE and probably at least the equal of the TIE Interceptor. The Rebels could only be very, very relieved that neither the TIE Advanced nor Defender saw production in any large numbers.

It's kind of weird to consider that the Empire lost following the same strategy that worked for Turtledove's humans.

I think TIE fighters were pure swarm tactics.  Quoting The Mighty Jingles, "Throw enough shit at the wall, some of it is bound to stick".  They really don't maneuver well enough to keep from getting shot, their accuracy is terrible, they can't take a hit and survive...gods...TIE fighters are the Stormtroopers of space.

15 hours ago, The Old Hack said:

I also suspect the shield requires considerable power or why else would it have been down initially when the Empire arrived at Hoth? Once it was up it could repel 'any bombardment' but it probably took power from almost everything else the Rebels had.

In the season 3 finale of 'Rebels' Thrawn did manage to nearly destroy the Rebel base shield with continued bombardment but he broke off before annihilation so he could capture the leadership. Mind you, that was a jury-rigged shield generator they had scrounged from battle wreckage dating to the Clone Wars so was probably neither current nor performing at optimum capacity, and possibly not even intended to last against large scale orbital bombardment to begin with. A single battleship it might have been able to hold off for a while, but Thrawn had an entire fleet.

...and yet nobody in the Empire even considered a "Yamato Gun" for Star Destroyers.  It's either high-volume plink-fire. or something so overblown as to destroy a planet, at least if you have the Lost Orb of Phantasmagoria handy.

14 hours ago, The Old Hack said:

Palpatine said that an entire legion of his finest stormtroopers were lying in ambush down there. My own headcanon is that some bureaucratic screwup sent that legion to the other end of the galaxy by mistake. Subsequently some terrified bureaucrat dispatched a couple battalions of green recruits barely able to tell their left feet from their right in their place, hoping no-one would notice the difference.

You are missing the real possibility that those WERE elite...for stormtroopers.  :)

13 hours ago, hkmaly said:

You are underestimating the situation. That legion of finest stormtroopers did never existed except on paper. It was created by bureaucrats reporting better results of training than what really happened because they feared they would be punished otherwise ... and unaware that their reports are exaggerated even more by others.

It is easier to tell Hitler things are going well (Re Goering) than to actually make them go well.  At least until Hitler finds out and force-chokes you or fries you with lightning...

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19 hours ago, The Old Hack said:

Harry Turtledove's 'Worldwar' series postulated aliens invading Earth during WW2. They possessed superior weapons and tanks but the human opposition had numbers and the ability to not only replace losses but rapidly improve on their technology.

In the Jenkinsverse, humanity definitively learns of the existence of aliens when a particularly bloodthirsty species (their preferred diet is sapient beings, ideally eaten while still alive) attacks a televised NHL game in Vancouver BC. This show of force will both get the aliens a serious feast, and show humanity how helpless we are.

There are no survivors of the attack.

That is, no alien survivors.

Some of the hockey players get minor bruises.

3 hours ago, Vorlonagent said:

...and yet nobody in the Empire even considered a "Yamato Gun" for Star Destroyers.  It's either high-volume plink-fire. or something so overblown as to destroy a planet, at least if you have the Lost Orb of Phantasmagoria handy.

Evil Overlord List #23: I will keep a special cache of low-tech weapons and train my troops in their use. That way -- even if the heroes manage to neutralize my power generator and/or render the standard-issue energy weapons useless -- my troops will not be overrun by a handful of savages armed with spears and rocks.

Evil Overlord List #150: I will provide funding and research to develop tactical and strategic weapons covering a full range of needs so my choices are not limited to "hand to hand combat with swords" and "blow up the planet".

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48 minutes ago, Don Edwards said:

In the Jenkinsverse, humanity definitively learns of the existence of aliens when a particularly bloodthirsty species (their preferred diet is sapient beings, ideally eaten while still alive) attacks a televised NHL game in Vancouver BC. This show of force will both get the aliens a serious feast, and show humanity how helpless we are.

There are no survivors of the attack.

That is, no alien survivors.

Some of the hockey players get minor bruises.

...mostly inflicted by each other on each other before the attack.

48 minutes ago, Don Edwards said:

Evil Overlord List #23: I will keep a special cache of low-tech weapons and train my troops in their use. That way -- even if the heroes manage to neutralize my power generator and/or render the standard-issue energy weapons useless -- my troops will not be overrun by a handful of savages armed with spears and rocks.

You don't cache the low-tech weapons. You make them standard-issue.  At least in the case of commonsense weapons like knives and bayonets.  That, plus decent hand-to-hand combat training should suffice nicely.  Keeping a reserve cache by definition means they will be "specialty" weapons the troops are less familiar with.  You want the bayonet in the soldier's kit from day 1.  And it gives the pulse rifle a dash of steampunk flair to boot.

Edit:  The Evil Overlord list is nearly as addicting as TV Tropes but fortunately much shorter.

#142: If I have children and subsequently grandchildren, I will keep my three-year-old granddaughter near me at all times. When the hero enters to kill me, I will ask him to first explain to her why it is necessary to kill her beloved grandpa. When the hero launches into an explanation of morality way over her head, that will be her cue to pull the lever and send him into the pit of crocodiles. After all, small children like crocodiles almost as much as Evil Overlords and it's important to spend
quality time with the grandkids.

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5 hours ago, Vorlonagent said:

I took an adult-ed American history class

... is that history class which includes stuff like who had sex with whom?

1 hour ago, Vorlonagent said:

You don't cache the low-tech weapons. You make them standard-issue.  At least in the case of commonsense weapons like knives and bayonets.  That, plus decent hand-to-hand combat training should suffice nicely.  Keeping a reserve cache by definition means they will be "specialty" weapons the troops are less familiar with.  You want the bayonet in the soldier's kit from day 1.  And it gives the pulse rifle a dash of steampunk flair to boot.

I would say training is the important part. If the pulse rifle is sturdy enough, it may be better weapon than rocks even unpowered and without bayonet ... IF the soldiers are trained to use it that way instead of being so confused by it not firing they stop even looking around.

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1 minute ago, hkmaly said:

... is that history class which includes stuff like who had sex with whom?

You'd want a class in that.  Some people's sexual history are terribly complicated...

3 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

... is that history class which includes stuff like who had sex with whom?

I would say training is the important part. If the pulse rifle is sturdy enough, it may be better weapon than rocks even unpowered and without bayonet ... IF the soldiers are trained to use it that way instead of being so confused by it not firing they stop even looking around.

The re's a huge difference in response time between

"Get to the locker and bring out the Old Weapons!"

and

"Fix Bayonets!"

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18 minutes ago, Vorlonagent said:
24 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

... is that history class which includes stuff like who had sex with whom?

You'd want a class in that.  Some people's sexual history are terribly complicated...

Obviously it would only include important people's sexual history ... like Cleopatra VII Philopator ... but yes even that would likely get complicated.

Probably not. It might be little more interesting hearing that, but actually learning it ... But history isn't my favorite subject, so saying that making it more complicated won't make it better isn't saying much ...

22 minutes ago, Vorlonagent said:

The re's a huge difference in response time between

"Get to the locker and bring out the Old Weapons!"

and

"Fix Bayonets!"

Agree.

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