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coyo7e
Aug 23, 2007

by zen death robot

WarLocke posted:

I'm on the last book of the Star Force series and this poo poo is dire. At this point I'm just taking a perverse pride in the fact that this poo poo is not gonna beat me, I am gonna bull through. :smithicide:
I got like 20% into the first book and knew it was going to be horrific shite. Perhaps it was because of my getting through two or three novels of the undying mercenaries series where the protagonist is an enormous unlikeable dickbag who still fucks everything with a vagina at will and ruins everything he touches but still wins

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90s Cringe Rock
Nov 29, 2006
:gay:

Kesper North posted:

After reading the John Ringo thread in TFR, I've started writing a pinko liberal milSF novel as a sort of self-administered unicorn chaser. I just can't handle the sheer :911: -ness any longer.
Please publish this, as I am excited to read the adventures of Star Carrier FULL COMMUNISM NOW I MEAN IF EVERYONE IS OK WITH THAT WE CAN JUST GO FOR SOCIALISM IF YOU LIKE.

But less depressing than the Culture's more military episodes.

coyo7e
Aug 23, 2007

by zen death robot

chrisoya posted:

Please publish this, as I am excited to read the adventures of Star Carrier FULL COMMUNISM NOW I MEAN IF EVERYONE IS OK WITH THAT WE CAN JUST GO FOR SOCIALISM IF YOU LIKE.

But less depressing than the Culture's more military episodes.
I'm literally working on a liberal pinko historicall-ish pirate novel. It's historically-based fiction.

Internet Wizard
Aug 9, 2009

BANDAIDS DON'T FIX BULLET HOLES

Hughlander posted:

I was trying to... Was the c fractional fighter recon mode with a long tail too?

Yup

WarLocke
Jun 6, 2004

You are being watched. :allears:

Internet Wizard posted:

Don't forget the ship is dick-shaped, and launches fighters from the tip of the mushroom head.

Not as bad as the sentient (female 'AI') ship from one of Ringo's books, which has a pair of disintegration beams up front that just happen to be shaped like tits, and the entrance to the fighter bay is around back in the shape of a vulva. :catstare:

chrisoya posted:

Please publish this, as I am excited to read the adventures of Star Carrier FULL COMMUNISM NOW I MEAN IF EVERYONE IS OK WITH THAT WE CAN JUST GO FOR SOCIALISM IF YOU LIKE.

But less depressing than the Culture's more military episodes.

Would buy/read this.

Internet Wizard
Aug 9, 2009

BANDAIDS DON'T FIX BULLET HOLES

WarLocke posted:

Not as bad as [...] one of Ringo's books[...]

Could be said about almost everything.

Miss-Bomarc
Aug 1, 2009

thetechnoloser posted:

That's not to say there's not GREAT Space Opera and galaxy-spanning stuff still being written, but maybe it's just me that I've seen a growing trend of more pessimism when it comes to reaching outside the Solar System in the last 15-20 years by some of SF's brightest stars.
I'm sure they'd say that it's more realism than pessimism; less willingness to just go "wibbly-wobbly, wormhole-wimey" when someone asks how we get anywhere outside the Solar System in less than two hundred years.

Cythereal posted:

For a dark, heavy space opera story, my pick for a good one is Greg Bear's Anvil of Stars. The mood whiplash of reading that after the previous book The Forge of God is incredible.
I loved how the bad guys in that book create an entire multiracial civilisation, with a fully-functioning genetically-engineered ecosystem, just as a decoy so the humans will destroy it and think "that's it, we killed 'em".

Cythereal
Nov 8, 2009

I love the potoo,
and the potoo loves you.

Miss-Bomarc posted:

I loved how the bad guys in that book create an entire multiracial civilisation, with a fully-functioning genetically-engineered ecosystem, just as a decoy so the humans will destroy it and think "that's it, we killed 'em".

Odd, my impression of that had been they were created both to distract and avert suspicion, but also to make Ships of the Law ask if they're willing to become the very thing they set out to destroy. To avenge billions of people and the death of a civilizations, they must kill billions and destroy a civilization, a moral paradox no Ship of the Law before mankind was able to overcome.

Subjunctive
Sep 12, 2006

✨sparkle and shine✨

Cythereal posted:

a moral paradox no Ship of the Law before mankind was able to overcome.

:smug:

Kesper North
Nov 3, 2011

EMERGENCY POWER TO PARTY

chrisoya posted:

Please publish this, as I am excited to read the adventures of Star Carrier FULL COMMUNISM NOW I MEAN IF EVERYONE IS OK WITH THAT WE CAN JUST GO FOR SOCIALISM IF YOU LIKE.

But less depressing than the Culture's more military episodes.

Heh. It's a near-future SF thing. In the future year of 2046, the Second American Civil War has broken out. Ever since the Greater Riots left thousands dead following the impeachment of President not-Trump in 2019, the escalating extremist rhetoric has made violent incidents common. But when a variant Stuxnet strain introduces a microsecond delay on every high-frequency trade on Wall Street, the economy collapses and a popular uprising takes place across the country (concentrated in the red states, of course) that is lead by the demagogues of the Greater movement (they're Great people who are going to Make America Great Again) finally resulted in open warfare between the populace and law enforcement.

The National Guard gets called in, but with the banking system basically not working, keeping people fed and watered is a big challenge, and that magnifies the incidents between the authorities and the Greaters. By 2046 there's a full-on civil war going on between the Greaters and the federal government, with most people caught in between them. Our protagonists are members of a private military company that had gone to ground in a quiet town where one of them has family ties... but now the war is coming to them, and I'm going to have them do the Magnificent Seven thing as the Greater army raids coastal towns for supplies and, well, entertainment, with some Afghanistan-style militia training and community-building to bring a diverse group of people together and overcome race, class, religion, etc, etc, kumbaya my lord, kumbaya. And there's no help coming from Europe, because Putin is still running Russia with an iron fist and he's out to retake the SSRs while the US is occupied with its domestic crisis.

WarLocke
Jun 6, 2004

You are being watched. :allears:
You should write that, but literally use Trump and Putin as characters. Don't do the 'President John Smith totally not Reagan wink wink' thing.

Kesper North
Nov 3, 2011

EMERGENCY POWER TO PARTY

WarLocke posted:

You should write that, but literally use Trump and Putin as characters. Don't do the 'President John Smith totally not Reagan wink wink' thing.

I'd be more than a little worried about Trump suing me :v:

mallamp
Nov 25, 2009

Seriously though.. Military sf is niche within niche (sf) within niche (lol books), I think you can write pretty much anything and no one will even know unless it's bestseller

Hasseltkoffie
Nov 22, 2006
** removed, I know nothing about American law.

Hasseltkoffie fucked around with this message at 14:24 on Mar 20, 2016

WarLocke
Jun 6, 2004

You are being watched. :allears:

Hughlander posted:

It's really bad. Like lost fleet bad. But they go by so fast that as long as you aren't spending money on it, it's not bad. (Also the bad Europeans was just a small part of one book, but STAR CARRIER AMERICA is in the whole thing.

For some reason I didn't get that the ship was literally named America until I started reading. :911:

And then the first book starts out with a quandary, we can't evacuate this entire planet - but it's okay because all the colonists are muslims!

This is like if Chris Roberts had consulted with Tom Clancy when coming up with Wing Commander. :stare:

Pash
Sep 10, 2009

The First of the Adorable Dead

Kesper North posted:

I'd be more than a little worried about Trump suing me :v:

Call the president Drumpf then.

Edit: Lol, SA changes D-rumpf to Trump when posted?

Pash fucked around with this message at 14:53 on Mar 23, 2016

90s Cringe Rock
Nov 29, 2006
:gay:

Pash posted:

Call the president Drumpf then.
President Trump sighed as his long, strong fingers drew his katana.

pork never goes bad
May 16, 2008

Kesper North posted:

I'd be more than a little worried about Trump suing me :v:

Does your state have an anti-slapp law, if you're in the US?

Kesper North
Nov 3, 2011

EMERGENCY POWER TO PARTY

pork never goes bad posted:

Does your state have an anti-slapp law, if you're in the US?

We did, but it looks like it was struck down last year:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...-trial-by-jury/

:negative:

pork never goes bad
May 16, 2008

Kesper North posted:

We did, but it looks like it was struck down last year:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...-trial-by-jury/

:negative:

Don't write that book. Do write your congressman and ask for a new anti slapp law, this time following best practices! Then write that book!

Lankiveil
Feb 23, 2001

Forums Minimalist

mallamp posted:

When I think of 90's space opera I think of Gap Cycle, haven't even read it since reviews made it sound so disgusting, but I guess early Alastair Reynolds was pretty bleak? His new series is fairly positive but there aren't many FTL novels these days that's true

The Gap cycle is intensely bleak, but it all comes together relatively well in the end. The conclusion of Angus' story was excellent.

Zeppelin Insanity
Oct 28, 2009

Wahnsinn
Einfach
Wahnsinn

Kesper North posted:

Heh. It's a near-future SF thing. In the future year of 2046, the Second American Civil War has broken out. Ever since the Greater Riots left thousands dead following the impeachment of President not-Trump in 2019, the escalating extremist rhetoric has made violent incidents common. But when a variant Stuxnet strain introduces a microsecond delay on every high-frequency trade on Wall Street, the economy collapses and a popular uprising takes place across the country (concentrated in the red states, of course) that is lead by the demagogues of the Greater movement (they're Great people who are going to Make America Great Again) finally resulted in open warfare between the populace and law enforcement.

The National Guard gets called in, but with the banking system basically not working, keeping people fed and watered is a big challenge, and that magnifies the incidents between the authorities and the Greaters. By 2046 there's a full-on civil war going on between the Greaters and the federal government, with most people caught in between them. Our protagonists are members of a private military company that had gone to ground in a quiet town where one of them has family ties... but now the war is coming to them, and I'm going to have them do the Magnificent Seven thing as the Greater army raids coastal towns for supplies and, well, entertainment, with some Afghanistan-style militia training and community-building to bring a diverse group of people together and overcome race, class, religion, etc, etc, kumbaya my lord, kumbaya. And there's no help coming from Europe, because Putin is still running Russia with an iron fist and he's out to retake the SSRs while the US is occupied with its domestic crisis.

I know that's just the setup and not the point, but I strongly urge you to just have the Stuxnet mess with the stock market in more random and different ways than just that. A microsecond delay is not a big deal, every major exchange has delays that are larger than that unless you pay for co-location (then you have a specific delay that other people also have, achieved through coiling cables).

There's also an exchange trying to get approved as a public exchange that has a 350 microsecond speedbump as part of its normal operation (with its own router skipping the bump in certain circumstances). NYSE is also experimenting with a speedbump as its a popular idea. The effect of HFT on the economy is also widely misunderstood. By far the largest effect it has is that it provides liquidity - that is, makes it easier for you to sell shares if you have some, or buy shares if you want some. HFT also lowers spread - the difference in price between buying a selling a share (the sell price might be $9.99 and buy price might be $10.01 for example).

Sorry to nerd out, but financial markets are a really fascinating and immensely nerdy subject. There may not be a big cross-section between financial market nerds and sci-fi nerds, but I figure if you're writing sci-fi, you either want to be vague or plausible. A microsecond delay (especially if applied to all transactions equally) having any noticeable effect on the economy is kind of the financial equivalent of a worldwide panic because a single person got the common cold.

I hope that doesn't sound too dickish - I think your novel sounds cool as hell, just trying to help with a nerdy detail.

Kesper North
Nov 3, 2011

EMERGENCY POWER TO PARTY
Actually, that is hugely helpful, and I thank you for the suggestion. :)

Miss-Bomarc
Aug 1, 2009
Financial markets are like magic. Some people have a talent for it, some don't. The ability to understand what's going on and benefit from it has little to do with moral strength (and even, some say, the less moral you are the better.) And loving up what you do in financial markets can have consequences that screw over way more people than just you.

coyo7e
Aug 23, 2007

by zen death robot

Zeppelin Insanity posted:

I know that's just the setup and not the point, but I strongly urge you to just have the Stuxnet mess with the stock market in more random and different ways than just that. A microsecond delay is not a big deal, every major exchange has delays that are larger than that unless you pay for co-location (then you have a specific delay that other people also have, achieved through coiling cables).

There's also an exchange trying to get approved as a public exchange that has a 350 microsecond speedbump as part of its normal operation (with its own router skipping the bump in certain circumstances). NYSE is also experimenting with a speedbump as its a popular idea. The effect of HFT on the economy is also widely misunderstood. By far the largest effect it has is that it provides liquidity - that is, makes it easier for you to sell shares if you have some, or buy shares if you want some. HFT also lowers spread - the difference in price between buying a selling a share (the sell price might be $9.99 and buy price might be $10.01 for example).

Sorry to nerd out, but financial markets are a really fascinating and immensely nerdy subject. There may not be a big cross-section between financial market nerds and sci-fi nerds, but I figure if you're writing sci-fi, you either want to be vague or plausible. A microsecond delay (especially if applied to all transactions equally) having any noticeable effect on the economy is kind of the financial equivalent of a worldwide panic because a single person got the common cold.

I hope that doesn't sound too dickish - I think your novel sounds cool as hell, just trying to help with a nerdy detail.
Nobody from the gubmint would ever think to search for a rural mercenary clique where their friends and family are from. Totes believable

Zeppelin Insanity
Oct 28, 2009

Wahnsinn
Einfach
Wahnsinn

coyo7e posted:

Nobody from the gubmint would ever think to search for a rural mercenary clique where their friends and family are from. Totes believable

Maybe I misinterpreted, I read the summary as the gubmint not being out to get the protagonists. The faction the gubmint is fighting is.

That said, I really don't see how the government couldn't just crush everything. It's hard to stand up to tanks, planes, drones, warships and a surveillance system without heavy gear of your own. The Greaters would probably have to have foreign state support (gives you a theme of irony I suppose), or hire lots of foreign PMCs that have been much more militarised than they are nowadays (again the irony).

You might also find some inspiration from the 2006 series Jericho, if you haven't seen it. I don't think the start is very good, but it has good bits.

Sulphagnist
Oct 10, 2006

WARNING! INTRUDERS DETECTED

Miss-Bomarc posted:

Financial markets are like magic. Some people have a talent for it, some don't. The ability to understand what's going on and benefit from it has little to do with moral strength (and even, some say, the less moral you are the better.) And loving up what you do in financial markets can have consequences that screw over way more people than just you.

It's not space opera but Max Gladstone's Craft sequence is built on this idea (financial markets are magic).

Mars4523
Feb 17, 2014

Zeppelin Insanity posted:

Maybe I misinterpreted, I read the summary as the gubmint not being out to get the protagonists. The faction the gubmint is fighting is.

That said, I really don't see how the government couldn't just crush everything. It's hard to stand up to tanks, planes, drones, warships and a surveillance system without heavy gear of your own. The Greaters would probably have to have foreign state support (gives you a theme of irony I suppose), or hire lots of foreign PMCs that have been much more militarised than they are nowadays (again the irony).

You might also find some inspiration from the 2006 series Jericho, if you haven't seen it. I don't think the start is very good, but it has good bits.
It looks like things would have just escalated into a shooting conflict, with the National Guard just having been activated. Anyways, the government wouldn't be able to crush everything for much the same reasons that the government can't crush any of the other insurgencies it's been fighting for the past decade. Double that with the problem of the civilians the militia are hiding among being obstensibly American civilians, even if they might be sympathetic to or actively aiding the the right wing militia, and the political problems inherent in deploying heavy munitions against American cities.

Plus, there's also the concern that the American government would have no idea which military personnel (who are generally assumed to skew right in their politics) remain loyal, while some might have militia sympathies. How can you be sure that your conventional forces will obey your orders, or that they won't defect to the militia? And not only would there be issues with loyalty in the armed forces, but also among state and local authorities including law enforcement. If some red state governor declares for the militia, then all of a sudden you have a civil war,, not just an insurgency. And what if that governor tries to bring over his/her national guard as well? That would be an utter mess.

Also I want to read this book too.

Mars4523 fucked around with this message at 09:41 on Mar 28, 2016

shrike82
Jun 11, 2005

Zeppelin Insanity posted:

By far the largest effect it has is that it provides liquidity - that is, makes it easier for you to sell shares if you have some, or buy shares if you want some. HFT also lowers spread - the difference in price between buying a selling a share (the sell price might be $9.99 and buy price might be $10.01 for example).

I hope that doesn't sound too dickish - I think your novel sounds cool as hell, just trying to help with a nerdy detail.

Nah, it's illusory liquidity with HFT spoofing quotes for their own purposes.

Kassad
Nov 12, 2005

It's about time.

Mars4523 posted:

It looks like things would have just escalated into a shooting conflict, with the National Guard just having been activated. Anyways, the government wouldn't be able to crush everything for much the same reasons that the government can't crush any of the other insurgencies it's been fighting for the past decade. Double that with the problem of the civilians the militia are hiding among being obstensibly American civilians, even if they might be sympathetic to or actively aiding the the right wing militia, and the political problems inherent in deploying heavy munitions against American cities.

Plus, there's also the concern that the American government would have no idea which military personnel (who are generally assumed to skew right in their politics) remain loyal, while some might have militia sympathies. How can you be sure that your conventional forces will obey your orders, or that they won't defect to the militia? And not only would there be issues with loyalty in the armed forces, but also among state and local authorities including law enforcement. If some red state governor declares for the militia, then all of a sudden you have a civil war,, not just an insurgency. And what if that governor tries to bring over his/her national guard as well? That would be an utter mess.

Also I want to read this book too.

But it's already supposed to be a civil war between the government and an organised movement that has an actual army (or something close to that, as opposed to a glorified militia) that's going around looting towns. In that situation, any restraint about bombing US cities would have already gone out the window. And yeah, it'd be a godawful mess. That's what civil wars are.

I mean, I went and looked up the American Civil War on Wikipedia and the death toll for civilians is really low, I have to say (50,000). To give you an idea, the Taiping Rebellion in China ended the year before the Civil War did, and the death toll for that was between 20 and 30 million (over 15 years instead of 5, but still...). Or you can look at Syria in the last 5 years.

Kesper North
Nov 3, 2011

EMERGENCY POWER TO PARTY
I agree that the notion of an armed revolution, no matter how well-funded, -equipped, and -organized, has a low probability of triumphing against the full force of the United States military as it stands today. However, consider the following:

- If our national politics grow more divisive, rather than less, we might see more ongoing budget sequestration issues. The last round of sequestration actually hit the military particularly hard. With the national economy crashed and the global economy in sheer chaos, what happens when troops' paychecks start bouncing - and then they're start being asked to defend the same federal government that hasn't been paying them for six months while those fatcat Establishment lawmakers in Washington argue over scraps and their families starve? Remember, Greater rhetoric revolves around how the Establishment has been loving the people for decades.

- With the economy shredded, the Greater movement regards Establishment assets - both police and military - to be spoils of war, and will confiscate them without hesitation. Likewise, with the economy shredded, the notion of raiding your enemy's soft underbelly for supplies rather than using up your own stockpile.

- The Establishment/feds are still trying to participate in the community of nations and avoid the shame of becoming the world's biggest failed state. They are unwilling to commit the war crimes that the Greaters have called for since the movement began (kill the enemy's family members, et cetera). So their ROE is very strict, even though the Greaters are committing atrocities. This gives the Greaters a significant tactical and psychological advantage. The ROE will eventually go out the window, but at this stage of the conflict the federal forces are struggling with confused orders and uncertain loyalties.

- The poster who called out the fact that loyalty of various units will be uncertain is thinking along the same lines I am. Yes, the military leadership tries to be nonpartisan and maintains that its first loyalty is to America and the Constitution, not to the commander in chief or any particular line of political belief. In practice, I am unconvinced. Servicemembers trend strongly conservative and authoritarian, two traits also shared by the Greater movement. Sure, the officer class is probably loyal to the Establishment, but are the troops as a whole? Especially when, as noted above, they haven't been getting paid or resupplied?

- The federal government wants to preserve as much infrastructure as possible; the Greaters won't hesitate to burn it down if they can't hold it. They'll also hold priceless antiquities and artifacts of historical significance hostage.

tl;dr Yes it's unlikely, but it's more likely than faster than light travel and artificial gravity :v:

Zeppelin Insanity
Oct 28, 2009

Wahnsinn
Einfach
Wahnsinn

Kesper North posted:

I agree that the notion of an armed revolution, no matter how well-funded, -equipped, and -organized, has a low probability of triumphing against the full force of the United States military as it stands today. However, consider the following:

- If our national politics grow more divisive, rather than less, we might see more ongoing budget sequestration issues. The last round of sequestration actually hit the military particularly hard. With the national economy crashed and the global economy in sheer chaos, what happens when troops' paychecks start bouncing - and then they're start being asked to defend the same federal government that hasn't been paying them for six months while those fatcat Establishment lawmakers in Washington argue over scraps and their families starve? Remember, Greater rhetoric revolves around how the Establishment has been loving the people for decades.

- With the economy shredded, the Greater movement regards Establishment assets - both police and military - to be spoils of war, and will confiscate them without hesitation. Likewise, with the economy shredded, the notion of raiding your enemy's soft underbelly for supplies rather than using up your own stockpile.

- The Establishment/feds are still trying to participate in the community of nations and avoid the shame of becoming the world's biggest failed state. They are unwilling to commit the war crimes that the Greaters have called for since the movement began (kill the enemy's family members, et cetera). So their ROE is very strict, even though the Greaters are committing atrocities. This gives the Greaters a significant tactical and psychological advantage. The ROE will eventually go out the window, but at this stage of the conflict the federal forces are struggling with confused orders and uncertain loyalties.

- The poster who called out the fact that loyalty of various units will be uncertain is thinking along the same lines I am. Yes, the military leadership tries to be nonpartisan and maintains that its first loyalty is to America and the Constitution, not to the commander in chief or any particular line of political belief. In practice, I am unconvinced. Servicemembers trend strongly conservative and authoritarian, two traits also shared by the Greater movement. Sure, the officer class is probably loyal to the Establishment, but are the troops as a whole? Especially when, as noted above, they haven't been getting paid or resupplied?

- The federal government wants to preserve as much infrastructure as possible; the Greaters won't hesitate to burn it down if they can't hold it. They'll also hold priceless antiquities and artifacts of historical significance hostage.

tl;dr Yes it's unlikely, but it's more likely than faster than light travel and artificial gravity :v:

You make some good points, but I still think you're underestimating the power of a few individuals in modern warfare (with equipment and support infrastructure).

You wouldn't need the whole army loyal to you. All it takes for devastating drone strikes are a few loyal people.

If you order the army to fire on the Greaters, many might hesitate or rebel. But if you order a single loyal air wing to make a few precision strikes, those same people might rebel, or they might not, because they were put under less pressure.

I'm not from the US so I might be entirely wrong, but I would think that the air force and navy would have a higher proportion of the educated officer class (before anyone gets offended, educated doesn't necessarily mean smarter) which as you've mentioned you think would be more loyal to the Establishment.

I also think that if the Greaters got their hands on heavy gear, they wouldn't know how to use it. It's easy to use a rifle, and it's fairly simple to figure out an ATGM, but you won't teach someone to drive a tank or fly a combat jet very quickly, at least not if you want them to be effective. Plus you need all sorts of logistics for that to function. Though I suppose if any significant portions of the military do rebel, that's partially solved.

I suppose what I'm getting at is that to me the word "Civil War" implies something a lot more equal and less asymmetric. But that might just be me.

Kesper North
Nov 3, 2011

EMERGENCY POWER TO PARTY

Zeppelin Insanity posted:

You make some good points, but I still think you're underestimating the power of a few individuals in modern warfare (with equipment and support infrastructure).

You wouldn't need the whole army loyal to you. All it takes for devastating drone strikes are a few loyal people.

If you order the army to fire on the Greaters, many might hesitate or rebel. But if you order a single loyal air wing to make a few precision strikes, those same people might rebel, or they might not, because they were put under less pressure.

I'm not from the US so I might be entirely wrong, but I would think that the air force and navy would have a higher proportion of the educated officer class (before anyone gets offended, educated doesn't necessarily mean smarter) which as you've mentioned you think would be more loyal to the Establishment.

I also think that if the Greaters got their hands on heavy gear, they wouldn't know how to use it. It's easy to use a rifle, and it's fairly simple to figure out an ATGM, but you won't teach someone to drive a tank or fly a combat jet very quickly, at least not if you want them to be effective. Plus you need all sorts of logistics for that to function. Though I suppose if any significant portions of the military do rebel, that's partially solved.

I suppose what I'm getting at is that to me the word "Civil War" implies something a lot more equal and less asymmetric. But that might just be me.

Just getting drone strikes authorized on American soil would take some serious gyrations. Perhaps Congress is too gridlocked and the executive branch too hamstrung to get it authorized?

Regarding the American officer class, the USAF actually has a huge contingent of fundamentalist evangelical whackjobs, to the point where there have been serious accusations that officers have been sidelined from promotion for not following Christian (and specifically evangelical Christian) beliefs - and what's more, they are expected to proselytize to their ranks despite there officially being rules against it. (Which, by the way, the USAF is currently reviewing.) The Evangelicals are pretty firmly on the side of the Greaters in this one, because the Greaters are rounding up Muslims and killing them, and the Evangelicals think this is the apocalypse they've been dreaming of for so long kicking off at last. You would think the high-tech, high-flying, cyber-warring, Space Command-having branch would be the closest to what I think of as "internet liberal" politics; sadly this is far from the case.

My impression of the USN - and this is just based on my anecdotal interactions with USN servicemembers, I am not nor have I ever been in the military - is that it tends to be less inherently conservative than any of the other branches. But the USN is tied up in the South China Sea, trying to keep the sealanes open while China flexes its regional muscles during this time of crisis in the US. No one is shooting at anyone else yet, but between the fact that it's really drat hard to get authorization for regular military units to be deployed on American soil against American citizens, the need to actually defend against foreign threats makes the USN perhaps less of a factor than one might expect.

I think that any "civil war" at this point in just about any country will have aspects of both conventional and asymmetric warfare; Syria is going down that way now, and I don't expect my notional Second American Civil War to be any different. Some National Guard forces will defect or be ordered into action by Greater governors; some ex-servicemembers might be hired as trainers - likewise not all the PMCs out there will be bastions of liberal inclusiveness, and training foreign militias is half of what PMCs do.

Lastly, I'm not sure I agree with your contention that overpowering drone strikes would only require the loyalty of a few. It takes an incredible amount of support staff to manage a military unit; it's not just getting the drone pilots to their trailers and taking off, it's fueling and transport, intelligence and maintenance. All of that needs people, and indeed money, to make happen. Even if they could, the international community would lose their poo poo if we started doing decapitation strikes on our own people. The cries of American hypocrisy would shake the rafters at the UN even as Mexico screams about the Greater menace on their border.

You also raise some good points, but as I look at the state of my country, I can't help but go "Holy loving poo poo, this is all going to end in blood and fire if something doesn't change soon". So it feels all too plausible to me. :smith:

Mars4523
Feb 17, 2014
It's worth noting that the military's current drones aren't really designed to be used against a conventional force. Loitering above a -stan and hunting down militants with no real air defense network is one thing, while going toe to toe with the Alabama Air National Guard is an entirely different animal.

Another thing to think about is what happens to minority groups and progressive enclaves in traditionally red states. Would these people be allowed to live peacefully? Would the militia purge them or exile them to government held territory? Would they be the core of an anti-militia insurgency within Greater territory? Various US Special Forces groups have extensive experience in fostering insurgent militias in hostile territory, and depending on which side those personnel choose they can be deployed to forge loyal civilians into an insurgency within the insurgency or they could train Greater militiamen to be more effective against regular US Army troops.

Bolow
Feb 27, 2007

Kesper North posted:

- The poster who called out the fact that loyalty of various units will be uncertain is thinking along the same lines I am. Yes, the military leadership tries to be nonpartisan and maintains that its first loyalty is to America and the Constitution, not to the commander in chief or any particular line of political belief. In practice, I am unconvinced. Servicemembers trend strongly conservative and authoritarian, two traits also shared by the Greater movement. Sure, the officer class is probably loyal to the Establishment, but are the troops as a whole? Especially when, as noted above, they haven't been getting paid or resupplied?


tl;dr Yes it's unlikely, but it's more likely than faster than light travel and artificial gravity :v:

Like I don't want to poo poo in your corn flakes or anything but this is largely bullshit. The enlisted in the US is by and large a microcosm of the greater US population. The contribution from states, wealth, race are drat near 1:1 ratio wise. That statement actually has some weight behind it when you look at the officer corps, as there's a real big evangelical slant, and has some major racial disparities in their ranks.

The enlisted are basically the same people you'd run into at a community college. A bunch of 18-25 year olds that just happen to have disposable income and don't need to worry about food or shelter.

Kesper North
Nov 3, 2011

EMERGENCY POWER TO PARTY

Mars4523 posted:

It's worth noting that the military's current drones aren't really designed to be used against a conventional force. Loitering above a -stan and hunting down militants with no real air defense network is one thing, while going toe to toe with the Alabama Air National Guard is an entirely different animal.

^^ This. Not to mention the fact that drones can be spoofed; we've been able to get away with using them because we've been fighting relatively technologically unsophisticated groups who have to scrounge for high-tech equipment, not first-world vigilante hackers who grew up immersed in networked communications. Lest you think this is unrealistic, it's actually happened in the wild over in Gaza:

http://www.israelnews.net/index.php/sid/242490043

quote:

Another thing to think about is what happens to minority groups and progressive enclaves in traditionally red states. Would these people be allowed to live peacefully? Would the militia purge them or exile them to government held territory? Would they be the core of an anti-militia insurgency within Greater territory? Various US Special Forces groups have extensive experience in fostering insurgent militias in hostile territory, and depending on which side those personnel choose they can be deployed to forge loyal civilians into an insurgency within the insurgency or they could train Greater militiamen to be more effective against regular US Army troops.

Sure. I was planning to have the Greaters rounding them up and killing or enslaving minority groups; I alluded to that a little in my last post. Honestly this is kind of the core of what my protagonists will be doing in the first book: defending a couple of towns and training just such an insurgency, then trying to retake control of regional strategic assets like airports and power plants.

I'm loving the input and ideas, guys, this is great!

Cythereal
Nov 8, 2009

I love the potoo,
and the potoo loves you.
I just finished another recent sci-fi book, Saturn Run by John Sandford. It's a planetary scale one, tech-wise: humanity is about to start a permanent Mars colony when telescopes detect an alien starship at Saturn, leading the US and China to launch expeditions. I felt it was very ho-hum for the most part, the aliens are oddly pedestrian and uninteresting, while most of the characters are pretty shallow and the political intrigue boils down to "Protagonists good, President rear end in a top hat, Chinese assholes." It was an okay read, but left me with the feeling of waiting for a shoe to drop that never did.

Internet Wizard
Aug 9, 2009

BANDAIDS DON'T FIX BULLET HOLES

It's a comforting fallacy that an insurrection couldn't withstand the full might of a Western nation's military, but there are scores of examples that disprove this. Heck, half of the countries in the Middle East are case studies in how a popular insurrection can't be put down easily, no matter how advanced the government forces are.

Mexico's cartels, Libya both before and after the death of Gaddafi, the FSA vs al-Assad's government in the early years of the civil war, the Saudis and their constant failures in Yemen, Egypt's difficulties in the Sinai Peninsula, Hamas, the fact that the Taliban and al-Qaeda are still well and kicking in Afghanistan after 15 years of American occupation, the failure of the Iraq invasion, etc.

sourdough
Apr 30, 2012

Internet Wizard posted:

It's a comforting fallacy that an insurrection couldn't withstand the full might of a Western nation's military, but there are scores of examples that disprove this. Heck, half of the countries in the Middle East are case studies in how a popular insurrection can't be put down easily, no matter how advanced the government forces are.

Mexico's cartels, Libya both before and after the death of Gaddafi, the FSA vs al-Assad's government in the early years of the civil war, the Saudis and their constant failures in Yemen, Egypt's difficulties in the Sinai Peninsula, Hamas, the fact that the Taliban and al-Qaeda are still well and kicking in Afghanistan after 15 years of American occupation, the failure of the Iraq invasion, etc.

You didn't list many Western nations. There is also a major difference between a domestic rebellion and resistance to invading foreigners. You may (or may not) be right in your overall point, but none of those are great examples of a strong, stable, modern government being unable to put down a domestic insurrection.

Edit: Although I haven't really been paying attention. If the fictional USA is supposed to have been destabilized and weakened and you're saying the military alone couldn't hold everything together, then fair enough.

sourdough fucked around with this message at 12:24 on Mar 29, 2016

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Take the plunge! Okay!
Feb 24, 2007



You can't defeat a freedom fighting nation. Unless you're willing to commit genocide, that is.

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