Alien Wars review in Pyramid

[teh bunneh]

Just FYI: Pyramid (http://www.sjgames.com/pyramid) has a mostly-positive review of Alien Wars this week (June 18 2004). A few quotes (from a considerably longer writeup):

 

"Physically Alien Wars is a solidly done softback, well written and profusely illustrated. Unfortunately, it is these illustrations that let the supplement down. Some of them are too clean for the setting's gritty feel, while the maps are often too small and too dark to use with ease. Worse still, the setting's equipment is under-illustrated, and when it is depicted, the illustrations are all-too-frequently placed away from the actual write-ups."

 

"If there is one thing that a bug hunting military Science Fiction game is going to stand or fall on, it is the nature of its enemy. ... the Xenovores in Alien Wars play up to the expectations of the sub-genre -- the implacable faceless foe, their vile acts, the indomitable spirit of mankind being the key to victory, and so on."

 

"Apart from the woeful use of its illustrations, Alien Wars presents everything needed to run a military science-fiction campaign across the whole of the 24th century."

 

Bill.

[Chuckg]

Re: Alien Wars review in Pyramid

 

I... missed the original debate, so I didn't have a chance to mention then that I thought the idea of the Logistics Computers was something that simply wouldn't be happening.

 

After all, Earth military science /has/ previously encountered the exact same communications lag problem that the Alien Wars-era military had.

 

In the Napoleonic Wars.

 

So we have a body of prior operational art available to work from on this problem. The answer was to grant *increased* sovereignty to ship and squadron captains, and bump up fleet strength so that a presence could be maintained in many separate places at once, and I'm sure our resident military history boffins can explain in detail far better than I.

 

But the idea of the Logistics Computers requires as its first, most basic assumption, that everything will be going according to plan for everybody else.

 

.. and the first, most basic assumption of any War College graduate in any military in the past umpteen centuries has been "No battle plan survives contact with the enemy".

 

Sorry, just had to say that.

[Jhamin]

Re: Alien Wars review in Pyramid

 

I can easily see something like Logistics computers happening.

 

Remember that one of humanities biggest problems in the early part of the war was a lack of experience in intersteller conflicts.

If a few commanders at the top had a pet theory about how these things should work then they could claim that military history up to that point didn't apply because this was a new kind of conflict.

When you have spent a few hundred years contemplating theoretical wars you probably think you have it right regardless of what historical comparisons a few namby-pamby historians make.

[Chuckg]

Re: Alien Wars review in Pyramid

 

> Remember that one of humanities biggest problems in the early part of the

> war was a lack of experience in intersteller conflicts.

 

Of the three most widely used treatises on strategy -- one was written in ancient China, one was written in feudal Japan, and one was written in the 19th century.

 

(Sun Tzu's _Art of War_, Musashi's _Book of Five Rings_, and von Clausewitz's _On War_, of course.)

 

*Tactics* changes with the technology. *Strategy* has a very solid core of timeless basics, adaptable to all environments.

 

The solidest of all those cores -- whether it be Sun Tzu's dictim about plans, Musashi's Zen commentary, or Von Clausewitz' "friction" -- is that you can never, ever, ever, ever assume that everything will go according to plan. And that doing so is Certain Route To Disaster #1.

 

> If a few commanders at the top had a pet theory about how these things

> should work then they could claim that military history up to that point

> didn't apply because this was a new kind of conflict.

 

.. mmmmm... no.

 

I know, it sounds counter-intuitive, but it's the truth. If you walked into any Army staff meeting today and said that the new technology had progressed to the point where Von Clausewitz' comments about 'fog of war' and 'friction' no longer applied, they'd look at you like you were the stupidest newbie who ever crawled out of a modem.

 

(Source -- my dad, who is a Command & General Staff school graduate and a former OCS instructor.)

 

> When you have spent a few hundred years contemplating theoretical wars

> you probably think you have it right regardless of what historical

> comparisons a few namby-pamby historians

 

Ummm... try "99+% of every military historian or strategist who ever lived long enough to finish writing a book".

 

To quote Eric Flint -- "The First Law of Battles is, everything gets fucked up as soon as the enemy arrives. That's why he's called the enemy."

 

That's just a restatement of a timeless axiom that is, literally, as old as warfare itself.

 

> make.

 

The theory of the Logistics Computers requires you to assume that Murphy's Law will give you a miss.

 

I can't think of anything less likely to be assumed by any professional military officer in any universe at any time. No matter /what/ the shiny new technology is.

[Metaphysician]

Re: Alien Wars review in Pyramid

 

My thoughts: I think they were trying to portray the military establishment of that time as inept.

 

They just tried too hard, and succeeded too well to be credible.

[BobGreenwade]

Re: Alien Wars review in Pyramid

 

It could also be that the Logistics Computers were supposedly programmed to take the inevitability of battlefield chaos into account. It's been a while since I read through the history section of the book, but seems to me that the programmers simply hadn't taken into account the very unexpected motivations and worldview of the Xenovores, and the differences in strategy and tactics these would create.

[GamePhil]

Re: Alien Wars review in Pyramid

 

The computers made perfect sense to me. While history tells us what a bad idea it is, multiple times, history also tells us that boneheaded mistakes are very often made by people who should know better. All it would require in this case is that politicians or bureaucrats are making the decisions (rather than making policy and letting someone else work out the details) rather than skilled military strategists. This happens on a regular basis. It would only be a surprise if the requirement for tactical computer use was not stridently objected to by the actual warriors, something that is never stated or implied to be happening.

[Metaphysician]

Re: Alien Wars review in Pyramid

 

Actually, the reverse is stated: basically, all the field commanders hate the things.

[Chuckg]

Re: Alien Wars review in Pyramid

 

Yes, I know, but this wasn't on the order of 'the political strategists had a great idea'.

 

This was a blunder on the order of 'the political strategists had a great idea -- let's not buy ammo! then our military will be more cost effective!'

 

Cause seriously, the Logistics Computers were about as stupid as empty clips. *agggh*

[GamePhil]

Re: Alien Wars review in Pyramid

 

Or sending another group of young men over the wall. Maybe it will work this time.

 

It happens.

[Chuckg]

Re: Alien Wars review in Pyramid

 

Yes, but after World War I, that habit started really getting itself broken.

 

You can't lose that much of an entire generation and fail to learn from it. I can't believe in a story where people *do* fail.

 

And before the 'why should they care about moldy old history?' argument comes out again, ummm, there's a reason why history is the most popular major at military academies...

[GamePhil]

Re: Alien Wars review in Pyramid

 

However, there is a sufficiency of historical precedent to indicate that incompetence, even gross incompetence, is possible in the military. It just doesn't happen with the frequency that the popular media portrays it.

 

Among other things, military organizations are often influenced or even controlled by people who don't have the types of training that you are referring to, or by people who have other agendas. Remember that humanity was grossly underestimating the power of their opposition, so many of their decisions were made without really taking the threat seriously. The war basically turned around when a man like the ones you are talking about took over.

[Chuckg]

Re: Alien Wars review in Pyramid

 

.. which should've happened in twenty months, not twenty years... (or however long it took)

 

Sorry, I just can't get my head around a mistake so dumb that even a second lieutenant can't make it, but which *all* the allied human powers of known space consistently made over and over again for years on end, even after the first few times it didn't work. It's like mashing your nutsack with a tack hammer, and then doing it again five more times 'cause you don't think the first test run was enough to confirm the results.

[BobGreenwade]

Re: Alien Wars review in Pyramid

 

.. which should've happened in twenty months, not twenty years... (or however long it took)

 

Sorry, I just can't get my head around a mistake so dumb that even a second lieutenant can't make it, but which *all* the allied human powers of known space consistently made over and over again for years on end, even after the first few times it didn't work. It's like mashing your nutsack with a tack hammer, and then doing it again five more times 'cause you don't think the first test run was enough to confirm the results.

Well, by the time the stupidity of the plan was clear to most of the old decision-makers, the only person making decisions (First Magistrate Krutch) was trying to use the Xenovores to his own political ends.

[Chuckg]

Re: Alien Wars review in Pyramid

 

Well, that ticks me a bit for another way, 'cause just because you're nasty and evil doesn't mean you have to be stupid.

 

After all, it's supposedly in Krutch's interests as anyone elses to bring the war to a victorious conclusion -- then it's Hail Lord Krutch, Savior Of Humanity time. As well as, natch, preventing the entire extermination of your species and you personally embarking on a new career as Xenovore excrement.

 

Just because you're the bad guy doesn't mean you're immune to extinction level events...

 

The idea that anybody in the middle of a war of survival for his very species would deliberately handicap his own side in return for political power is... ummm, remember Baltar from "Battlestar Galactica"? Yeah, about that stupid. It means the guy's a blithering idiot of the first order, and man, does it not say nice things about Known Space if they can be effectively conquered by that big an idiot.

 

So the 'Krutch let it happen to consolidate power' theory hurts my head too.

 

 

Oh, and while I was out, I had another thought:

 

The motivation for most of the huge-ass historical mistakes above -- WWI trench warfare, etc, etc. -- were non-pragmatic ones. The honor and glory of France demanded elan in attacking those trenches! The rejection of the Maxim gun was because, dammit, such a thing didn't belong in wars, those were an affair of gentlemen!

 

In short -- completely non-pragmatic, non-gritty, highly impractical motivations.

 

Such motivations are, IMO, highly inconsistent thematically with the Alien Wars setting -- which is supposed to be about humanity's fight for its very survival, in the most pragmatic and down-to-Earth of terms, with the specter of grim and total war overshadowing the very destiny of mankind, complete w/ high-tech bang-bang and Obregon Kaine(*)-like warfighting.

 

Now I consciously know why some of the prior arguments were hitting the big 'This just feels wrong!' button in my head.

 

 

 

 

(*) CrossGen, "Negation". When it came to dirty tricks and pragmatic thinking, he made Batman look like an idealistic dreamy wuss. Whatta guy.

[bobrunnicles]

Re: Alien Wars review in Pyramid

 

Of course SF is FULL of this kind of thing, which may be where the roots of the Logistics Computers come from - remember the Classic Trek episode 'The Ultimate Computer'? Even high-ups in Starfleet saw Daystrom's machine as 'a good thing' until Kirk proved it was screwed up.

 

Remember the Buck Rogers series from the 80s? In the pilot episode, all Earthforce fighters followed programmed tactics, that the enemy had got hold of - it took someone un-indoctrinated in the period (ie Buck) to demonstrate that this was a REALLY BAD IDEA. Perhaps the logic behind it was that Earth's forces had been screwed up and there were a lot of inexperienced pilots having to fight; it probably started small like 'this computer will advise you of the best tactics' and evolved to 'this computer will tell you what to do'.

 

Don't forget the WOPR from the movie Wargames, or even Skynet from the Terminator movies - SF is literally FULL of plotlines where humanity has given up it's decision making tasks to machines. Alien Wars is no different in that regard.

[proditor]

Re: Alien Wars review in Pyramid

 

Real life has enough of those "Darn, I thought that was gonna work..." ideas as well. Not just trench warfare, but gross underestimations of the enemy beforehand (The US opinion of Japan before WW2 springs instantly to mind), improper equipment (The light machinegun whose name I can't remember in WW1 that we issued to US troops instead of the BAR for security reasons), etc. etc.

[Talon]

Re: Alien Wars review in Pyramid

 

I was bothered by lots of other stuff in AQ -- Krutch holding back for political reasons, the lack of depth concerning Xenovore culture, the fact that humanity really wasn't on the verge of extinction like we had thought they were, the treatment of hyperspace beacons, etc. -- but the logistics computers thing didn't bother me a ton. I guess I feel that I could make up enough plausible excuses as GM (say, examples of commanders screwing up, added complexities of interstellar maneuver, etc.) to cover it.