A discussion on the true nature of the Nephilim

Fishbone: There's nothing new about prototypes crashing. By 2060 NASA will have something. But yes like you I too will probably be gone by 2060.

pendell: I don't care about the losing track. The bugs got at least 2 ship killers, 1 dreadnought and a multitude of other stuff into our space and we stopped them. OK maybe I do care a little bit about the losing track but I refuse to believe that we'd lose that quickly to the buggies.
Secondly if we can make it ultra hard for the bugs to invade our space why do we need to reach an accomodation with them?

mpanty: I deliberately left those 2 out because A) it was the marines that stopped the ceremony correct? B) I honestly don't think the Mandarins were that big a deal. They're just a bunch of traitors afterall. Finally aren't the Firekkans in SM2 not SM1?

Bandit LOAF: True, but for a single guy, Blair sure has achieved a lot.
 
Originally posted by mpanty

(...)[/B]
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(...)
And Secret Ops after Prophecy, but I don't want to hear about that, haven't played it yet! <G>

[Edited by mpanty on 06-05-2001 at 13:57] [/B][/QUOTE]

Its worth the countless hours spent on the millions of zillions of trillions of bugs after you :)
 
Originally posted by Penguin

pendell: I don't care about the losing track. The bugs got at least 2 ship killers, 1 dreadnought and a multitude of other stuff into our space and we stopped them. OK maybe I do care a little bit about the losing track but I refuse to believe that we'd lose that quickly to the buggies.
Secondly if we can make it ultra hard for the bugs to invade our space why do we need to reach an accomodation with them?
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1. Think not? Yeah, we stopped a bunch of stuff, but
it was a RIF, *not* a main battle fleet. Casey's good,
but he has only so much afterburner fuel and so
many decoys. If we had not succeeded in shutting the
wormhole it'd been like the Battle of Earth at the
losing end of WC3 -- infinite waves of enemies, and
the most we would be able to do would be to die well.

2. I'm operating on the assumption that *if* the
Nephilem want to they will be able to overrun Confed.
No ifs, ands, or buts. If they are willing to invest
the time and energy, they can open *many* wormholes
in Confed space and flood Confed from multiple directions.
Even if they only open one -- The Kilrah and Proxima
wormholes were close-run things as it were. Each one
nearly resulted in Confed's destruction. Even as it was,
the Proxima one at any rate resulted in very severe damage
to Confed's infrastructure and warmaking capability.

How many more of those attacks can we survive? How many
times can we roll the dice before 7 comes up?


THus, we need to reach accomodation because we cannot, ultimately,
win a straight-out battle of attrition against the
Nephilem. *If* they are willing to, they can eventually
overwhelm Confed. Barring
an Achille's heel (and of course they'll have one!)
The most we can do is make it *very* expensive for them to do it. That would be the basis for accomodation: *Sure*
they can conquer us, but at a cost of time, treasure and
lives that could be put to better use fighting someone else. Don't they have better things to do? So we give
them some concession -- hired soldiers, raw material,
whatever -- in exchange for them leaving us alone.

This has been done time and again in human history. When
England was invaded by Vikings, they were paid Danegeld
since the English did not have the capability to drive
them off. Rome bought off barbarians in the same
way.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

PS. On the Steltek intervening -- currently there is
no reason why they SHOULD, but that just requires
some clever writing. Here's an idea for a Wing Commander
spinoff -- send a ship off into the galaxy to find the
Steltek and beg for their aid. It'd certainly have
the makings of an adventure serial.

-- BDP.
 
We dont know that the bugs were just a recon in force. (though i strongly believe it so) Its a small point but still one we dont know for sure.

What makes you sure they would even take an accomodation? They have been prophicized to come and utterly destroy the KIlrathi and the race that beat them. I wouldnt think they have any intention of stopping until they do just that.

Theres no way now, that the bugs would win against Confed. YOu know why? Because humans are spunky. You kick them down they get back up and punch you in the face back. You make them face utter annihation they dont just lie down, they chomp down on your leg and dont let go until they're dead and your left with a bloody stump. They will fight and fight and die until there is no one left to fight. They will rage, RAGE against the dying of the light! The bugs will tremble at the sight of their very nightmares made reality!

That and the fact the bugs made it into Sol sector and made all the pissy tightwad senators shit their pants and will now give ConFleet whatever they want.
 
pendell: All right. I'll concede the first point. As for the accomodation, well if the bugs have the ability to waste us quickly then they don't need to cut a deal. If they need to invest a lot of resources they may very well decide to forget about us. Afterall we can't get at them.
As for your snippet about Rome, ghrrr. Only the lousy emperors bought off their enemies. The great ones conquered them.

Supdon3: Considering how fast Confed disarmed during the false truce, I wouldn't count on any gifts from the Confed Grand Assembly.
 
Sure and look what happened to them then. The Kilrathi almost wiped them out. Now we have a threat that was knocking on voters doors. They will move to arm Confed fast.
 
Lets see... A bug fleet was flying through the home systems. People in the home systems (the most populated systems in Confed BTW) are scared. They want protection. A politician says no, we're going to leave you unprotectced so you can die. Election time comes. Do people vote for those guys? No. Senator can say he will build ships, but if he hasnt backed up his word with proof, he doesnt have a leg to stand on.
 
Even if they do get more money the politicians will probably squander it on some fancy bug spray rather than putting it where its needed.
 
AND im just supposed to automatically assume a politician is going to screw over everyone EVERY single time?
 
I think the military in WC is smart enough to put resources to proper use most of the time. Especially when they are preparing for a threat they KNOW is coming.
 
In my country the politicians are deliberately screwing over their constituents militarily.
OK its probably likely that the brass will put the money to good use. But everyone seems convinced that the bugs outnumber us and as a result we have no chance of winning. Do you buy into that view?
 
I definitly think they outnumber us but I still dont think they would win. If one of our fighters can shoot down ten of theirs, we're doing good. Plus I beleive that with its past history Confed will take steps to upgrade its military to handle this threat. Not to mention that the situation might actually unit factions of the Kilrathi with Confed to work together to stop the Nephielem. There are stormy clouds on the horizon but that by no way means its the end.
 
Ah. But don't you think there's something wrong with that?
Look at it this way:
Wing Commander: "All right pilots. In order for us to have a shot at winning this war, you each have to shoot down 10 bugs per mission."
The odds are looking a bit steep, particularly since I reckon the bugs will learn from their past mistakes and start deploying more Devil Rays and less of their other fighters.
 
I didnt mean every mission a pilot has to or will kill ten bugs. But i mean in fleet engagments, it is an average of ten of theirs for every one of ours (i am making that ratio up just to make a point) until one fleet is destroyed. And it is very likely one of our pilots would die with one or two kills, but it is also likely one of ours will kill thirty bugs.

As for deploying more Devil Rays, let them. Confed will already be at work studying the bug's shields and armor, looking for weaknesses, developing technology from the bug fighter that just weakens sheilds. We will adapt. More Devil Rays im sure would take slightly more resources to build, therefore meaning a drop in the number of bug fighters altogether. Plus they are slower. Lighter fighters could fly circles around them and Wasps could be past them in seconds, taking out the weaker escort fighters letting bombers do their thing against cap ships.
 
Originally posted by Bandit LOAF
Vesuvius class carriers, perhaps?
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Whoops. The old "If the enemy gets within range of your carrier, you deserve to die" thing. :) So how did the Nephilim get that close then?
 
Originally posted by Supdon3
I definitly think they outnumber us but I still dont think they would win. If one of our fighters can shoot down ten of theirs, we're doing good. Plus I beleive that with its past history Confed will take steps to upgrade its military to handle this threat. Not to mention that the situation might actually unit factions of the Kilrathi with Confed to work together to stop the Nephielem. There are stormy clouds on the horizon but that by no way means its the end.
Click to expand...

This is kind of the approach I'm taking with the HTL storyline as well. Basically, everyone (Confed, Border Worlds, Kilrathi, private interests) banding together in the face of the Alien threat, and throwing everything that they have into stopping the enemy.

Of course, we don't know how long that unity will last once the threat is over (if past history is anything to go by, not all that long), but while it *is* there, everyone is going to be doing their utmost to stop the Nephilim.

As for tactics, the HTL sitaution is a little differant from what Confed would face after SO, but the assumptionI'm working on is that human ingenuity (new tactics, new ways of using old weapons, our ability to fight dirty) would go a *very* long way towards matching Nephilim numbers. The big differance is that my guys *have* to fight dirty (ambush, hit and run, divide and conquer type tactics), as only a third of them have the state of the art weapons we see in Prophecy and SO. The rest of them are using WC3/WC4 era equipment. A force that is fully equipped with new ships and fighters would be able to fight on much more conventional war on more even terms.

Best, Raptor
 
I dislike the line "one of our fighters can
shoot down ten of theirs". That applies to
ace pilots like Casey, Maestro, Blair and a
very few others. But those are *aces*. The average
Confed pilot is far less capable. If you watch
the combat sequences in SO between standard Confed
pilots and Nephilem (Excaliburs vs. Mantas), the
contest is much more even. And Alien Ace pilots
in their Devil Rays just *thrash* standard Confed
pilots.

That's why Casey et al are HEROES! Because
very few people can do what they do! If everyone
could gun down dozens of Nephilem apiece they
wouldn't give out medals for it!

Thus, the Nephilem have the following advantages:

1. Overwhelming numbers.
2. Ability to enter Confed space from unexpected
directions without warning.
3. Krakens, which can rapidly eliminate carrier
groups if they can successfully target them.

Against this humans set what -- courage? Raw
skill?

The last historical example I can find of this kind
of conflict is the American Civil War. The South
in that battle faced overwhelming material challenges
but had brilliant military leaders in Lee, Jackson
et al. What happened was that the brilliant leaders
couldn't be everywhere at once. While the good
leaders successfully held off the North in one theatre
(Virginia) the North overran the other theatres (Mississippi river, Tennesse, Georgia) and came upon them from behind,leaving Lee with an insoluble military problem. The South lost.

Here is how I would envisage a future conflict happening,
barring a miracle:

1. Another wormhole opens, and a huge alien fleet comes
through. It causes severe damage, and Confed diverts
most of its navy and its best pilots to contain the
damage. They contain the fleet, and begin to push it
back.

2. Just when they are fully engaged, and just when the
tide starts to turn, two MORE wormholes open up,
each disgorging an alien fleet as large or larger
than the first one. While Confed is still engaged
with the first group, the other two devastate the
populated planets and take the engaged Navy from
behind. The cannon fodder Confed pilots die instantly.
The ace pilots such as Casey hold on, taking literally
hundreds of aliens with them before, out of decoys and
missiles, they are eventually overwhelmed by infinite
waves of fighters and salvo after salvo of missiles.

Game over.

How do we stop this?

1. Achille's heel (of course there will be one!)
2. Survey the potential anomalies and fortify them,
so that when the aliens try to open their wormholes
they get a nasty surprise.

Why do we need to try to reach an accommodation? Because,
barring the heel, the aliens will just keep coming. Eventually they'll find wormholes that we aren't guarding,
or they'll break through the fortifications by continued,
incessant pounding (nothing to stop THEM from sending nukes through the wormhole at the fortications, is there?). We have to stop them coming, and short of an achilles heel causing them all to fall over
the only way to do that is to *talk* them out of it,
since we lack the resources to *force* them to stop.

Also: Even Augustus had to reach an accommodation with
the Parthians, after they beat the sh*t out of Crassus.

Also: Yes, we are studying and adapting to THEM, but
THEY are also studying and adapting to US. Place your
bets as to which will be more effective.

Respectfully,

Brian P.
 
Er, before everyone commmits Zu'Kara in the belief that we absolutely positive cannot beat the Nephilim in straight out battle, it should be remembered that we *did* do it, twice. The only way we got to the two wormholes was by cutting through their fleets.

Also, we're really speculating on the belief that what we saw was just a tiny portion of their fleet and that they have massive waves still left to throw at us. We don't *know* that they have unlimited resources to throw at us. For most militaries, having two fleets wiped out in a matter of months would be a massive loss, one that it would take years to recover from.

Best, Raptor
 
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