War in the Future! - Anvil Discussion

Burning Empires General Questions
61

Finally, someone who sees reason! His Grace John is an ally I would like at my back. I would deploy him as my banner bearer on any crusade. He would subjugate planets quickly and efficiently.

Lord Freedburg is still too gentle and cautious. Populace can be cowed with a show of force. Planetary potentates can be replaced with more tractable personalities. Allowing them to arm themselves and govern themselves is dangerous and subversive.

^^^
I agree with John. Forged Lords would have no time for this nonsense. Populations would be subjugated in the most brutal ways possible. Leave governance to the Lord Stewards, Chief Executives and Governors. If they can’t control their people, eliminate them and replace them.

I also feel that the numbers being bandied back and forth are too small to represent even a supremely high tech ground force.

62

If I am cautious, sire, it is out of consideration for my lord’s interests alone. There is neither glory nor profit in nuking peasants – and the Forged Lord whose campaigns are attended neither by glory nor by profit reigns not long. Lord Johnstone’s approach may conquer worlds swiftly, but how lastingly? How many years will it take before tax revenues are restored to their full pre-invasion levels? How many years before the vagabonds and bandits created from an ill-policed peasantry are exterminated and proper order restored?

By all means, let the rabble be cowed into submission by bloody, brutal, and above all well-publicized reprisals against those who withold their taxes or their allegiance: Culling the herd inspires a useful terror in the rest. By all means, let Stewards, Chief Executives, Governors, and even Archcotares who cannot or will not do as my lord requires be dispatched with whatever mix of discretion and terror is most expedient: Everyone has younger sons or landless cousins waiting to take on such offices.

But every planet has its own customary measures for the maintenance of public order and the extraction of revenue. When my lord’s agents buy him a horse, if the beast comes with a sadle and bridle that fit, why throw out good harness? When my lord’s captains conquer him a world, if the planet already posseses local police and bureaucrats well fitted to its particular circumstances, why eradicate them? It is a waste of my lord’s time and resources, and, I dare say, somewhat beneath his dignity, to worry about who patrols the streets at night or who collects the taxes, as long as the streets are free of riot and the taxes come in full measure. The institutions that served the lords who came before us can serve us as well.

Let the commoners manage their own day-to-day affairs, and my lord will be spared the tedium of dealing with them. Those who are reluctant or defiant can be dealt with, swiftly; those who prove eager to serve should be allowed to serve in whatever peculiar way local custom and planetary tradition prescribes. There will be time a-plenty to change those customs and traditions once my lord’s control is firmly established. Until then, a show of magnanimity costs little – for the little people are grateful for little things – and saves a world of inconvenience.

63

Until then, a show of magnanimity costs little – for the little people are grateful for little things – and saves a world of inconvenience.

There’s a line in A Distant Mirror that emphasizes this, but I can’t find it off-hand. The nobles in the middle ages attacked one anothers’ peasantry in order to cripple their rivals’ economy. There was no lack of brutality, but the lords understood that a happy, servile, hard-working labor pool was the source from which all of their wealth sprang. Like the Vaylen, our Lords would be loathe to destroy their labor base en masse (especially their own), without a desperate reason.

As for numbers, there’s no real way to test any of this out, is there? We can look at historical figures (the 1 cop/1000 locals = stability figure), and we can speculate. Beyond that, we enter the realm of the imagination. And I hold the rod of command in that realm (well, for IE canon anyway).

The Ravilar sweeps off his plumed hat, bows low, and makes his dramatic exit.

Chris

64

There was in fact a specific term and tactic, developed to a low art in the Hundred Years War, called the “chevauchée” – literally “gamboling about on horses,” but practically “riding through the countryside burning and killing to terrorize the enemy’s peasants and send them fleeing to his castles, destroying his productive economic base and turning his labor force into a burdensome refugee problem at the same time.”

The Iron Empires equivalent would be a hit-and-run raid by Hammer assets dropping nukes or asteroids on population centers: Anti-Hammer defenses that would crumble under a determined attack would still be well worth having in order to interfere with this kind of raiding. On a planetary scale, you’d be talking about highly mobile grav sleds (Hussars, anyone?). If a planet were very weakly defended, Hammer forces could drop Anvil grav sleds into the upper atmosphere for a raid.

65

P.S.: But this kind of destruction is very much a means to an end, not an end in itself. “The object of war is not a pile of skulls” (Maurice de Saxe, I believe). Devasting the enemy’s productive capacity in one place is only useful if it allows you to attack him elsewhere and seize productive capacity intact for your own use – or, as a defensive measure, if it prevents him from attacking your production, population, or institutions.

66

… or to goad him into action, or force him to negotiate terms.

-Chris

67

Quite. All of which must ultimately serve one of the three great objectives: to preserve and extend one’s control over population, production, and institutions. The destruction of the enemy is not an end in itself: It is only a means to an end. Every operation must keep that ultimate end in view.

“War is the continuation of politics with an admixture of other means” – Carl von Clausewitz (correctly translated).

68

Another day or two, and this will be longer than the last thread about the Magic Burner!

Har! My “Incite” action worked! He reveals his plans!

Either one is fine. Everyone calls me John in real (spoken) life. I think it’s actually spelled “Jon” in your comic. “Dread Lord” is nice, too.

Actually, that’s somewhat true. I can champion your moral position just as well as you can. As for military theory, though - compared to you, my skills are weak.

Okay, brass tacks - I have another point to make.

First, I have to give some props to Sydney. His position is by no means unrealistic, and certainly embodies the high point of egalitarian monarchy (of course in real life, you will never - never - hear me support a dictatorship, no matter how nice the dictator is) - the feudal system of the IE at it’s best. Like a good gardener, Lord, excuse me, Baron Sydney seeks to cultivate and nurture the population, in order to best reap the rewards of a productive population.

The kind of Forged Lord me and Luke have represented is the easy path (ie The Dark Side). It’s easy to ignore the peasants, to bomb them into oblivion, to crush them under your heel. Effective management takes work. REAL. HARD. WORK.

Exactly the same reason why there are so few Communes. The noble dictatorship perpetuates itself easily, but the state founded on co-operation, consensus, compromise, and democracy is hard work. Not just hard work for one man, or a few people - it takes a large number of people to really give a shit, year after year after year - generation after generation. All it takes is as little as one generation of lazy-ass dog-fuckers to destroy the commune. Conquered from within, or conquered from without - by a noble, a church, a freebooter, or the Vaylen.

Ah, the Vaylen. And here it is: the whole crux of the Iron Empires. Humanity is doomed - not because the Vaylen are so much better - with enough Sydneys, humanity could rise unto it’s finest hour, and in those trying times that bring out the best and worst in men, the best would triumph and our race would pass through the fires of alien aggression stronger, better and wiser.

But no, humanity gets me and Luke - brutal opressors squabbling amongst themselves over pride. The empires can only collapse, knowledge of science and technology is only lost (in said squabbles), never expanded. Religion is the triple hammer of tradition, obedience, and conformity.

For the average Forged Lord, war is NOT a continuation of politics - it is a continuation of HIMSELF. His populations, productions and institutions likewise exist to serve his own ego, his own social standing, and his own desire for more of the same. The destruction of his enemy is no longer a means to an end, it has become the end. War has become the end.

That is how we lose - that is why we lose.

69

::embraces Dread Lord John and kisses him on the cheek::

As for the rest of you – especially you, Ravilar! – I think that the past 100 years history on our planet has demonstrated not one, but three military superpowers which have arisen on the backs of their slaughtered and enslaved populace. Three such superpowers on one world, with countless other petty and brutal dictatorships at play murdering and oppressing their subjects and citizens.

I think Forged Baron Sydney and his Ravilar are speaking in exceptions, and not the human mean. As Dread Lord John said, they are most exquisite exceptions, but far from the rule.

Why do I dote on this? Because all of this was in my head when I wrote the game. And I’d like for some of the memes to be carried forward and reinforced.

A world ruled by the Iron Empires nobility without the mediating influence of a Commune, the Church, a Foundation or even a libertarian League would be an awful, oppressive place to live. (And last I checked, Mrs Tuchman was unambiguous about the peasantry in the Hundred Years war: They suffered the worst.)

Chris’ world is a dark, dark place. The hope is that the characters might see the darkness of their own souls, the impending threat of extinction and have enough hope and strength left to fight on and create a better place.

EDIT: Now get back to discussing war!

-L

70

(And last I checked, Mrs Tuchman was unambiguous about the peasantry in the Hundred Years war: They suffered the worst.)

Excellent post Jon. Luke, of course the peasants suffered. They were born to suffer. They were ground underfoot by their lords (though not so underfoot that their usefulness was destroyed). But peasants WERE destroyed by the armies of their overlords’ rivals, who knew how valuable they were to their owner. While Forged Lord Crane sat safe in his tower, eating roast quail and drinking his blood red wine, his peasants were impaled, raped and burned in the countryside around him. Did he shed a tear for them? Of course, who would bring in his crops in the fall?

Lord Crane slammed his mailed fist on the table in rage. My people will be avenged! Sound the call to arms! That scum’s peasants will burn for this!

-Ravilar Moeller, Honey Tongued and Golden Haired, will sing next about the Free Companies…

71

“Did you hear something?”

“Just the cries and lamentations of the peasants, milord.”

“Ah, send some child soldiers to dispatch them and fill my chalice with blood. . . rrred. . . um . . . wine. Yes. Blood red wine.”

72

I’ll make one last case for my fortifications and then I’ll shuttup about them.

What is the symbol of the medieval period, even more than the knight? The castle! What I’m suggesting, with clusters of interlocking fortifications, is precisely what medieval rulers did to cement control over their territory. What was the first thing William did after he defeated Henry at Hastings? What did Edward do in Wales? The crusaders? Wherever medieval nobles traveled, they threw up defensive works. I am fairly confident that Q-beam armed subterranean fortresses that use entire watertables as heat sinks and have nearly a kilometer of earth as armour will be more than capable of swatting whatever Hammer might try to interfere. Militarily, strong defensive fortifications been proven time and time again to be one of the most effective methods of controlling territory and fighting wars. For all that it is maligned, only one section of Maginot blockhouses ever fell to assault. I can see many Anvil lords looking at the expense of keeping a company of grav-mobile lord pilots in iron online compared to stationary bastions of simple poured concrete. Fortifications are a constant reminder of their lord’s presence to the peasants, and of the consequences of rebellion, whereas a peasant might go his entire life without seeing an actual assault sled. What egotistical maniac could ever withstand the temptation of grandiose building projects?

73

It’s amazing the things I can say in this forum (killing peasants is okay, as long as you leave enough to work, since “they do not feel pain as we do”) and still be considered a big bleeding-heart softie. I’m just calling for a little more efficiency in our ruthless efficiency.

I think the fundamental difference in outlook is that other people are thinking of a bad society being the result of bad people, whereas I think of a bad society being the result of bad systems, specifically socio-political feedback loops that incentivize destructive behavior – for which we humans always have plenty of potential, even in our brightest golden ages – and disincentivize constructive behavior – for which we always have potential, too, even at our darkest moments.

So let me construct something that I consider more horrifying than a civilization of tens of thousands of worlds sunk into barbarism and war by human folly: a way for that civilization to sink into barbarism and war with everyone rationally pursuing their enlightened self-interest.

(Don’t worry, Luke: We’ll get to war soon enough).

Here is the critical fact: The civilization of the Iron Empires has been in economic decline for centuries.

This is such a fundamental, all-encompassing difference from our experience that it is easy to overlook. Anyone from North America or Western Europe – i.e. the vast majority of people reading this – has experienced net economic growth as normal over their entire lifetimes’, and their parents’ lifetimes, and their grandparents’. A slowdown in economic growth is cause for comment and concern. Actually economic decline is remarkable, a “recession,” worth ousting your current elected leaders over, and the worst “depression” in modern memory lasted at most 20 years (1929 to 1949, assuming your country got hit by the U.S. stock market crash and never recovered until after World War II).

Prolonged economic growth tends to make people optimistic about their future, demanding in their expectations of their leaders, and willing to compromise. You can grow your way out of most conflicts: If Group A wants a larger share of the wealth, Group B doesn’t have to give up anything it currently has – it just has to agree to share more of the future increases in the society’s wealth. And growing your way to wealth is a more attractive option than stealing or plundering your way to wealth: Sure, you could smash someone else over the head and take his stuff, but it’d be much safer to just make more stuff of your own. It’s a positive-sum game.

But prolonged economic decline brings out the worst in people. They become pessimistic, they expect little from their leaders, and most of all they cling desperately to what little they have. (Psychological studies have shown that people value what they already possess much more highly than what they’re going to get, even if they’re certain to get it, and will tolerate much less risk or sacrifice now compared to risk or sacrifice in the future). Not only can’t you grow your way out of conflicts, but conflicts become worse over time: If Group A’s share of the wealth stays constant, then, because the wealth to be shared is shrinking, Group A actually gets poorer – the only way to maintain your old standard of living is by increasing your share of the pie, which means taking resources from someone else! It’s a zero-sum game at best, more likely a negative-sum game, where everyone is worse off at the end of the day, and the fight is over who will have the privilege of suffering least.

Apply this kind of pressure to the specific technological situation of the Iron Empires, where not only is production decreasing, but the knowledge of how to produce things is fading away. What’s more, at the same time, the technology of warfare has become so highly specialized that it requires an elite trained from childhood to operate properly. Now, if I’m a member of that elite, I can’t simply stand guard against “enemies foreign and domestic” and expect that the tax base backing me up will grow over time, or even stay healthy: It’s going to shrink.

But if I just reach out and grab – if I go take productive assets currently belonging to someone else – I can stave off the decline, for a while. And since I’m part of the small Corvus & Crucis elite that knows how to use Iron, Hussars, Hammer, and other high-tech weapons, the odds are that the “someone else” won’t be able to stop me.

Unless, of course, someone else with Corvus & Crucis grabs their productive assets before I get there. I have to strike first! It’s only a matter of self-defense! I’m sorry, poor little Commune; my apologies, juicy sweet Merchant League; I hate to have to seize control of your economy by force, but if I don’t do it, it’ll be someone else, which is no better for you and a lot worse for me.

A few generations of this process and you have feudalism: Every productive asset is either directly controlled by highly trained hereditary warriors or sworn to serve them in return for protection.

Of course, in the process of all this fighting over a declining pool of productive assets, the warring factions have made the economy decline even faster: A lot of skilled people and irreplaceable technology is going to get blown up instead of captured. But from each individual contender’s point of view, so what? If it’s not mine, it’s at least not somebody else’s to use against me! It’s always in my interest to destroy what I can’t take, and if I kill nine million peasants in order to enslave one million, or if I smash ten High Index factories beyond repair in order to capture one, or even if I merely raid a world instead of conquering it and blow up one thousand high-quality fusion engines to carry off ten, I and the people who depend on me are still better off than we were.

And I can justify it in the highest moral terms, as well: I must defend the people of the realm I already have, and if that requires killing people from outside that realm on whose behalf I have sworn no oaths, or even sacrificing some fraction of my own people, I am only doing what duty and conscience demand.

74

If it were me invading, and some idiot had dug in to a fancy-schmancy hole in the ground, I would render the planet uninhabitable for a generation or two, leaving it ready for occupation by my successors and their serfs. My planetary extinction event beats your pitiful subterranean fortress every time.

75

Sure. You can do that, assuming my fortifications don’t dismantle the asteroid. But if you do so, what have you gained? You’ve expended a great deal of energy, risked your Hammers against my Hammers, and spent a few weeks or months away from your fief where god only know what’s happening… and for what? You’ve killed a lot of people. There’s no profit or honour in slinging rocks at C-fractional speeds. You’ve destroyed whatever resources you might gain. And now all the other lords around you know that you are willing to do this sort of thing… very likely they’ll gang up and glass you, just to ensure that they aren’t next. Raids are one thing. Raids are fun. Everyone enjoys raids, and even the loser has a bit of fun fighting and gets to plot revenge. Extermination of planets, entire noble family lines, irreplaceable technology, and millions of workers is likely to be frowned upon, especially by the Vaylen, who’s entire purpose in invading is to capture people, not land.

76

Personally I think this notion captures Chris’ future=past “dark ages in spaaaaace” vibe much better than all the practical considerations that keep getting dredged up in this thread.

Symbols are important. They are perhaps all-important in a medieval-type setting. Nobles are merely symbols; they hold power only because they’re granted power by their symbols and how their people respect those symbols (and, of course, some institutional momentum – but nothing like the institutional momentum of a democracy, a bureaucracy, a senate, etc.).

Personally, in my games, I think my wars are going to be fought largely along those lines. Yes, I can render an enemy’s defenses moot by dropping multi-kiloton nuclear payloads all over their bases, but that’s both crass and detrimental to my ultimate goals. OTOH, I can take over the entire planet if I can seize the Lord’s castle, throw his head from the ramparts, and declare myself the new Lord.

I also don’t have to wait a century for the fallout to settle down. I don’t see anyone in power in the Iron Empires thinking more than a year or two ahead, seriously. European kings thought about their immediate successor, their immediate threats, and immediately filling their coffers, and left thoughts of life beyond that to the church.

p.

77

::rises in applause to Forged Baron Freedberg::

::assembles Iron Companies::

::assembles Hammer Assets::

===

Alexander inspired me for a great BE invasion phase game: An assault fleet launches from a desperate and fading planet – there’s no hope going back. The fleet is to launch a surprise attack on its nearest neighbor and capture his world. It’s VERY far away. Upon arrival, the fleet finds, much to its delight there are no Hammer assets picketing the world. However, the planet is a completely self-sufficient fortress world. They can destroy it, but then they all die – this world and the one they came from.

What are your orders, Hammer Lord?

78

Ah, again Lord Freedberg makes some excellent points.

Alexander, Iron Empires fortresses are not designed to protect the worlds they’re on (“This isn’t a garden world, Carcajou. It’s supposed to be ruined.”), but to provide a strategic strongpoint for sheltering overwhelmed Hammer forces during an interstellar invasion. The invader has two choices when confronting a fortified world, both of them unappetizing. Will you go in against dug-in Q-beams and Hammer Assets that you can’t fire back at, in the desperate hope of nuking/asteroiding the world into glass? Or will you bypass the fortified world and leave enemy warships astride your line of communications?

Either way, the fortified side wins. In an assault, even if successful, the invader is stalled, laying siege to the fortress world and losing ships and men in a lopsided fight (the non-military people who live on a fortified world know they’re dead if the invaders choose this option, but that’s the price you pay…).

-Chris

79

As Sydney points out, it is important to remember that the Iron Empires is not a working civilization. It is a profound and utterly broken dystopia that is in the midst of its last, dying gasps. The Face of Collapse is no joke.

The simple truth of the matter is that life under the Vaylen might simply be better. In as much as the human species will at least continue to exist under the Vaylen, that is.

80

Thanks, all. This discussion is teaching me a great deal, even about what I think.

As for fortifications, I believe there’d be a use for defenses short of a “fortress world” like Hotok, because there are Hammer attacks short of a full-scale invasion. If all your world can afford is a few vehicular-scale weapons around the spaceport – not even artillery-scale – it’s still worth having them, even though a single Hammer Patrol Ship can smash them easily from orbit, since having those few guns at least prevents one bold pirate [EDIT: equipped with, say, a mere tricked-out Mercator or a few stolen Assault Sleds,] from crashing in and stealing stuff. So there’s room for everything from the flimsy gun turrets around the CHOT temple in Faith Conquers on the low end, to a globe-spanning, mostly-buried, hardened-and-shielded fortress complex armed with Q-beams like Hotok (again in Faith Conquers) on the high end.