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Kesper North
Nov 3, 2011

EMERGENCY POWER TO PARTY

twistedmentat posted:

How'd I forget the slow zone stuff?

Well, to be fair, it was pretty slow.

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Babysitter Super Sleuth
Apr 26, 2012

my posts are as bad the Current Releases review of Gone Girl

the fact that in the Expanse's world of gribled up sci-fi designs and grungy tech, the super-advanced protogen troopers are dressed in doofy tinfoil spacesuits like something out of The Day the Earth Stood Still is still extremely funny to me.

Kesper North
Nov 3, 2011

EMERGENCY POWER TO PARTY
Yeah, sadly they couldn't get the budget for Starship Troopers hardsuits until the next season. IIRC Bobby's suit was expensive to make happen.

GodFish
Oct 10, 2012

We're your first, last, and only line of defense. We live in secret. We exist in shadow.

And we dress in black.
I think the Donnager would have been able to take them in a fight even with the surprise, but they were able to get close enough to launch boarding parties and the stealth ships had a LOT of boarders. That was the impression I got anyway.

Eej
Jun 17, 2007

HEAVYARMS

CommanderApaul posted:

As Yao said, "I didn't think we could lose." Hubris that they were the biggest, baddest navy in the system. Reminds me a bit of the Millennium Challenge combat exercise.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennium_Challenge_2002

This isn't hubris this is some guy who tried to win at all costs by using teleporting motorcycle couriers to send orders, cruise missile armed rowboats and completely wasting everyone's time and taxpayer money messing up a training wargame.

CPColin
Sep 9, 2003

Big ol' smile.
Blue Team member spotted

Babysitter Super Sleuth
Apr 26, 2012

my posts are as bad the Current Releases review of Gone Girl

Kesper North posted:

Yeah, sadly they couldn't get the budget for Starship Troopers hardsuits until the next season. IIRC Bobby's suit was expensive to make happen.

No no, I was saying this unironically, advanced technology being coded as 50s sci fi space men owns

twistedmentat
Nov 21, 2003

Its my party
and I'll die if
I want to
also when ever i tell someone to watch the Expanse, I always tell them to watch at least until they get the Tachi because that's when the series really gets going.

I'm going to have to move back in with my parents at the end of the month as i'm moving back to my hometown because Covid is such a shitshow here, and i'm going to make them watch the Expanse.

Mu Zeta
Oct 17, 2002

Me crush ass to dust

Put on the captions. Lingua Belta is super rough for beginners.

etalian
Mar 20, 2006

Eej posted:

This isn't hubris this is some guy who tried to win at all costs by using teleporting motorcycle couriers to send orders, cruise missile armed rowboats and completely wasting everyone's time and taxpayer money messing up a training wargame.

Yeah the whole Millennium Wargame gets cited but the winner of the "game" used unrealistic tactics like motor bike couriers who could instantly deliver messages.

Better real world examples are things like how the US got wrecked during the Vietnam War like how After Action Reports found 80% of the firefights were initiated by the Vietnamese

Zorak of Michigan
Jun 10, 2006

I haven't heard of anyone hearing that metric, ordering troops to get their stats up, and being shocked that it resulted in troops just going around shooting people. I just feel certain it happened somewhere.

As Nero Danced
Sep 3, 2009

Alright, let's do this

CommanderApaul posted:

As Yao said, "I didn't think we could lose." Hubris that they were the biggest, baddest navy in the system. Reminds me a bit of the Millennium Challenge combat exercise.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennium_Challenge_2002

gently caress's sake this is like when little kids are play fighting and one of them is dictating what the other one is supposed to do so he can win. Only with actual military equipment.

Warmachine
Jan 30, 2012



etalian posted:

Yeah the whole Millennium Wargame gets cited but the winner of the "game" used unrealistic tactics like motor bike couriers who could instantly deliver messages.

Better real world examples are things like how the US got wrecked during the Vietnam War like how After Action Reports found 80% of the firefights were initiated by the Vietnamese

Do you have a source for this? I've never read a single piece on MC02 that suggested Van Riper's tactics were unrealistic. Especially with the benefit of forever-war hindsight. If I haven't been looking in the right place, please correct me.

fartknocker
Oct 28, 2012


Damn it, this always happens. I think I'm gonna score, and then I never score. It's not fair.



Wedge Regret
I don’t know if the instant communications thing is true or just part of the legend of that whole thing, but it was heavily discussed in the old Cold War thread.

Quick and dirty phone posting link to some of it, but if search that thread there’s more:

https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?noseen=1&threadid=3373768&pagenumber=1945&perpage=40&highlight=Van,Riper#post500390442

As Nero Danced
Sep 3, 2009

Alright, let's do this

fartknocker posted:

I don’t know if the instant communications thing is true or just part of the legend of that whole thing, but it was heavily discussed in the old Cold War thread.

Quick and dirty phone posting link to some of it, but if search that thread there’s more:

https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?noseen=1&threadid=3373768&pagenumber=1945&perpage=40&highlight=Van,Riper#post500390442

Ok after reading that thread the whole thing was a complete waste of time, from both sides of the simulation. I still stand by it sounding like kids on a playground saying "now you're dead" and "no I'm not I'm psychic" a whole bunch.

Sash!
Mar 16, 2001


No, it is more like "these are the rules of Monopoly" and someone busting out 2d8 to play because the rules only say "2 dice" and doesn't actually say "six sided" or that every player must use the same dice.

etalian
Mar 20, 2006

As Nero Danced posted:

Ok after reading that thread the whole thing was a complete waste of time, from both sides of the simulation. I still stand by it sounding like kids on a playground saying "now you're dead" and "no I'm not I'm psychic" a whole bunch.

The wargame was similar to using video game exploits like using various glitches and tricks in Morrowind to get your athletics up to 1000 so you can hop across continents.

wilderthanmild
Jun 21, 2010

Posting shit



Grimey Drawer

Warmachine posted:

Do you have a source for this? I've never read a single piece on MC02 that suggested Van Riper's tactics were unrealistic. Especially with the benefit of forever-war hindsight. If I haven't been looking in the right place, please correct me.

For what it's worth, the forever war isn't very good evidence against the concepts that MC02 tried to validate. If anything, the beginning of the Iraq forever war, which the MC02 was likely specifically planning for, proved MC02 to be an accurate portrayal of the United States invading a gulf state.

The problem is a thing that the MC02 didn't try to test at all and that leaders at the time handwaved away like it was a simple. That a large portion of the country would never view the new government we installed as legitimate. Basically we can't really just invade, install our own friendly government and walk away. We go through steps 1 and 2, but then found that the new situation was incredibly unstable, and that if we left it was likely that government would collapse and be replaced with one that probably hates us even more than the last one. So we had to stay there in force for a decade or so and continue to have involvement there to this day. That's the kind of thing that we should have learned in Vietnam, that propping up a government with military might is folly.

wilderthanmild fucked around with this message at 19:14 on Apr 29, 2021

twistedmentat
Nov 21, 2003

Its my party
and I'll die if
I want to
I could have sworn I remembered that the GW Bush WH honestly believe in the BS about being welcomed as liberators and that by kicking out Saddam and his cronies the Iraqi people would just fall into a western friendly democracy.

The whole "we didn't think we could lose" sounds very British; in WW1 they were constantly making plans just assuming the Germans or the Turks would fold as soon as the superiority of the BEF was seen, because they're British. Constantly assuming the Germans were on their last legs as early as 1915, old men and boys filling the trenches rather than hardened, well trained and equipped fresh soldiers. I've read stuff from officers who lead men into battle and were confused by facing resistance, because the higher up had assured them that the 3 weeks of barrage that the artillery had laid down would have destroyed the Germans, when in reality it had done nothing but churn up the ground to make it harder for the BEF troops to advance.

Assuming your opponent is at a disadvantage is never going to work out well for you.

wilderthanmild
Jun 21, 2010

Posting shit



Grimey Drawer

twistedmentat posted:

I could have sworn I remembered that the GW Bush WH honestly believe in the BS about being welcomed as liberators and that by kicking out Saddam and his cronies the Iraqi people would just fall into a western friendly democracy.

That's basically what I'm saying. The US and friends thought all the stuff that comes after the invasion would be easy.

They were very wrong.

gfarrell80
Aug 31, 2006
Phew, took a long break from the thread but way back somebody mentioned Frantz Fanon's 'The Wretched of the Earth' as one of the anti-colonial books partially behind Marco's ideology.

Gave it a read, and wow, strong recommend. Especially the psychological studies and last chapter.

Phi230
Feb 2, 2016

by Fluffdaddy

gfarrell80 posted:

Phew, took a long break from the thread but way back somebody mentioned Frantz Fanon's 'The Wretched of the Earth' as one of the anti-colonial books partially behind Marco's ideology.

Gave it a read, and wow, strong recommend. Especially the psychological studies and last chapter.

Now read Discourse on Colonialism by Cesaire, friend and mentor of Fanon

Farmer Crack-Ass
Jan 2, 2001

this is me posting irl

twistedmentat posted:

I could have sworn I remembered that the GW Bush WH honestly believe in the BS about being welcomed as liberators and that by kicking out Saddam and his cronies the Iraqi people would just fall into a western friendly democracy.

I remember reading years after the fact that the initial plan was just to kick in the door, grab Saddam, then congratulate the Iraqi people on their newfound democracy on the way home; then some jackass convinced Bush that no actually we should totally stick around and carry out a half-assed occupation.

Corbeau
Sep 13, 2010

Jack of All Trades
I assumed that the Donnager lost because the Mertians never expected ships as small as the Anubis class to mount railguns. Presumably any small pre-Anubis ship closing to railgun range without first knocking out the battleship's railguns would have been totally smashed by the Donnager in short order. Instead the Donnager was crippled before being able to take out all of the corp. vessels. Given what we see popping up later in the show, that engagement definitely changed some shipbuilding minds (at least on Tycho) about what was possible.

gfarrell80
Aug 31, 2006

Phi230 posted:

Now read Discourse on Colonialism by Cesaire, friend and mentor of Fanon

g&^#$mmit, I already have a half dozen books in the pipe... only 102 pages? alright, ordered.

Farmer Crack-rear end posted:

I remember reading years after the fact that the initial plan was just to kick in the door, grab Saddam, then congratulate the Iraqi people on their newfound democracy on the way home; then some jackass convinced Bush that no actually we should totally stick around and carry out a half-assed occupation.

It was a bamboozle from the start. Blowback podcast season 1 is quite entertaining and an easy listen.

Infidelicious
Apr 9, 2013

Corbeau posted:

I assumed that the Donnager lost because the Mertians never expected ships as small as the Anubis class to mount railguns. Presumably any small pre-Anubis ship closing to railgun range without first knocking out the battleship's railguns would have been totally smashed by the Donnager in short order. Instead the Donnager was crippled before being able to take out all of the corp. vessels. Given what we see popping up later in the show, that engagement definitely changed some shipbuilding minds (at least on Tycho) about what was possible.

My take was that the MCRN just wasn't anticipating an engagement against a technological peer. The UNN was basically a known quantity, and the Donnenger was built to fight lots of individuality inferior combatants.

jeeves
May 27, 2001

Deranged Psychopathic
Butler Extraordinaire
I can't get over how much the main character from the excellent Beforeigners show looks like a less-punchable Holden.

Mu Zeta
Oct 17, 2002

Me crush ass to dust

I was unfamiliar with Norwegian and Swedish (or whatever the old norse is) so the language in that show sounded so alien and bizarre to me. It could have totally been the Belter language in an alternate universe.

Orange Devil
Oct 1, 2010

Wullie's reign cannae smother the flames o' equality!

twistedmentat posted:

I could have sworn I remembered that the GW Bush WH honestly believe in the BS about being welcomed as liberators and that by kicking out Saddam and his cronies the Iraqi people would just fall into a western friendly democracy.

I feel like in hindsight the populations of western Europe greeting US troops as liberators during WW2 (which obviously they also were) was a mistake, since it seems to have broken US brains in perpetuity, thinking civilians the world over would always welcome their troops in this way no matter what they were up to.

PeterWeller
Apr 21, 2003

I told you that story so I could tell you this one.

Orange Devil posted:

I feel like in hindsight the populations of western Europe greeting US troops as liberators during WW2 (which obviously they also were) was a mistake, since it seems to have broken US brains in perpetuity, thinking civilians the world over would always welcome their troops in this way no matter what they were up to.

I think it's less our success in Western Europe and more our success in Japan that broke our brains with regard to nation building.

twistedmentat
Nov 21, 2003

Its my party
and I'll die if
I want to

Orange Devil posted:

I feel like in hindsight the populations of western Europe greeting US troops as liberators during WW2 (which obviously they also were) was a mistake, since it seems to have broken US brains in perpetuity, thinking civilians the world over would always welcome their troops in this way no matter what they were up to.

They forgot that when you liberate a country, it needs to be occupied by a hostile foreign power, if you invade without that, you're the hostile foreign power.

PeterWeller posted:

I think it's less our success in Western Europe and more our success in Japan that broke our brains with regard to nation building.

That was probably due to spending tons of money and working hand in hand with people in those countries. Not just using it to give contacts to your buddies.

gfarrell80
Aug 31, 2006

twistedmentat posted:

That was probably due to spending tons of money and working hand in hand with people in those countries. Not just using it to give contacts to your buddies.

Also Imperial Japan was virulently anti-communist and worried about the Soviets and Chinese. 1945 pretty easy to get them on board with being set up as a bulwark against the Chinese/Soviets.

Kraftwerk
Aug 13, 2011
i do not have 10,000 bircoins, please stop asking

gfarrell80 posted:

Also Imperial Japan was virulently anti-communist and worried about the Soviets and Chinese. 1945 pretty easy to get them on board with being set up as a bulwark against the Chinese/Soviets.

There was a period of aggressive socialist and labour union activity in Japan. To say the entire country was virulently anti-communist isn't exactly right. The US Occupation attempted to democratize the gently caress out of Japan including importing New Deal style trade unionism. It wasn't until the iron curtain started to come down and the Korean war picked up that the US realized they went overboard with this whole new deal era democracy stuff. By then they'd already started installing govt officials from the imperial era into positions of power. A couple brazen assassinations of socialists leaders later and Japan hit its right wing market liberal stride.

gfarrell80
Aug 31, 2006

Kraftwerk posted:

There was a period of aggressive socialist and labour union activity in Japan. To say the entire country was virulently anti-communist isn't exactly right. The US Occupation attempted to democratize the gently caress out of Japan including importing New Deal style trade unionism. It wasn't until the iron curtain started to come down and the Korean war picked up that the US realized they went overboard with this whole new deal era democracy stuff. By then they'd already started installing govt officials from the imperial era into positions of power. A couple brazen assassinations of socialists leaders later and Japan hit its right wing market liberal stride.

All true good added context.

tokin opposition
Apr 8, 2021

The dialectical struggle of history has always, essentially, been a question of how to apply justice to matter. Take away matter and what remains is justice.

Kraftwerk posted:

There was a period of aggressive socialist and labour union activity in Japan. To say the entire country was virulently anti-communist isn't exactly right. The US Occupation attempted to democratize the gently caress out of Japan including importing New Deal style trade unionism. It wasn't until the iron curtain started to come down and the Korean war picked up that the US realized they went overboard with this whole new deal era democracy stuff. By then they'd already started installing govt officials from the imperial era into positions of power. A couple brazen assassinations of socialists leaders later and Japan hit its right wing market liberal stride.

but what about my animes?

twistedmentat
Nov 21, 2003

Its my party
and I'll die if
I want to
Yea all true, but in the basic thought of letting the defeated power build themselves up and also profit off that economic recovery was pretty successful.

Anyways, I was thinking the Cant was destroyed simply because it was a water hauler and to stir up poo poo in the Belt, nothing specific about the ship, like there wasn't some knowlage that Holden was going to become someone important or anything else specific.

Slashrat
Jun 6, 2011

YOSPOS
It wasn't even a pre-planned "We need to stir up some poo poo"-action. Looking back at the full sequence of events, the Anubis was simply on its way to deliver the protomolecule when the Scopuli intercepted it and unexpectedly got its rear end kicked by the Anubis. Really feels like what happened afterward with the Cant was just the Anubis crew thinking it was a good opportunity to set some vague future plans of creating chaos in the system into motion already, and they picked the Cant because it happened to be the closest ship to where they fought the Scopuli.

Kesper North
Nov 3, 2011

EMERGENCY POWER TO PARTY

Slashrat posted:

It wasn't even a pre-planned "We need to stir up some poo poo"-action. Looking back at the full sequence of events, the Anubis was simply on its way to deliver the protomolecule when the Scopuli intercepted it and unexpectedly got its rear end kicked by the Anubis. Really feels like what happened afterward with the Cant was just the Anubis crew thinking it was a good opportunity to set some vague future plans of creating chaos in the system into motion already, and they picked the Cant because it happened to be the closest ship to where they fought the Scopuli.

Maybe it was a roll of the Random Encounter Dice in the original RPG sessions :v:

gfarrell80
Aug 31, 2006

Slashrat posted:

It wasn't even a pre-planned "We need to stir up some poo poo"-action. Looking back at the full sequence of events, the Anubis was simply on its way to deliver the protomolecule when the Scopuli intercepted it and unexpectedly got its rear end kicked by the Anubis. Really feels like what happened afterward with the Cant was just the Anubis crew thinking it was a good opportunity to set some vague future plans of creating chaos in the system into motion already, and they picked the Cant because it happened to be the closest ship to where they fought the Scopuli.

I originally had an issue with 'why the heck are the Protogen boarding teams going aboard the Donnager?' Somebody in this thread pointed out that the Donnager was(?) on its way back from the original protomolecule discovery site at Phoebe Station(?). The Protogen boarding teams may have been trying to locate/acquire any samples.

So the Donnie was the prime target of the Protogen stealth fleet. In order to divert the Donnie into an ambush, they figured blowing up something big maybe was the best way(?). So The Cant may not have been random, it may have just been the biggest available nearby commercial vessel that happened to be in a relatively close response area to the Donnie.

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Slashrat
Jun 6, 2011

YOSPOS

gfarrell80 posted:

I originally had an issue with 'why the heck are the Protogen boarding teams going aboard the Donnager?' Somebody in this thread pointed out that the Donnager was(?) on its way back from the original protomolecule discovery site at Phoebe Station(?). The Protogen boarding teams may have been trying to locate/acquire any samples.

So the Donnie was the prime target of the Protogen stealth fleet. In order to divert the Donnie into an ambush, they figured blowing up something big maybe was the best way(?). So The Cant may not have been random, it may have just been the biggest available nearby commercial vessel that happened to be in a relatively close response area to the Donnie.

It doesnt quite track because Protegen had no need to be hunting for a new PM sample until the Anubis fell to the infection and dropped off the grid (along with the sample it was carrying), which happened after they decided to take out the Cant.

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