weirdly enough, the firepower displayed in the final clip by the 3 venators in the clone wars is actually respectable, destroying kamino in short order.
and also live-action isn't any better. the first-order siege dreadnought, a 7-kilometer long super-ship (ISDs are only 1.6), with 2 gigantic cannons made blasts maybe on par with modern nuclear weapons.
Hey guys!
I’ve been seeing, hearing, and feeling this sort of generational bleakness we’ve had going on for a little while now. Shit sucks. It’s hard to imagine things get better one day. But I think they will, and I spent a little time this evening with the AI overlords looking at comparable timeframes.
Fascism is on the rise, apparently roughly half of us were seething with barely-contained bigotry our first couple of decades, and there’s no job security anywhere. Healthcare is evaporating. Regulations are evaporating. Billionaires have more concentrated wealth than ever in history. It’s hard to see it getting better.
But I believe that it does. And I hope for a few minutes while you try to figure out whether I’m AI (you’ve also probably been accused), you believe it does too.
Imagine being a black American between 1890 and 1920. There was the whole civil war thing, slavery, protections, etc. And then Jim Crow. State governments started dismantling those protections while the federal government stood by. It was nightmarish, but also something we only read about in history books.
World War 1 was just the Great War at the time and was unprecedented. It sucked for everyone everywhere. Worse, the 1918 influenza killed like 50 million people worldwide. Being a human at any stage of life during that few years was pure hell. By comparison, we have it easy.
The years of the actual Great Depression had to have been soul crushing. We’re under paid and under employed, sure. But actual unemployment was like 24% by 1933. There was no unemployment benefits, no food stamps, no Medicare, no safety net of any kind. I’m not sure I can fathom how hopeless those few years must have been.
World war 2. By summer 1940 Poland, France, Norway, and Denmark had fallen. Japan was tearing through Asia. USSR had a non aggression pact. Britain was teetering on collapse. For Western civilization and minorities within the axis powers, it looked like the bad guys might actually win. Then it took significant time after the Americans joined before things actually started turning around.
The scandals in the 70’s. The recession of 1981-82 before the 80’s bounced back. And lots, and lots, of other windows in the last few years. And that’s leaving out the thousands of worldwide hopeless windows my narrow American mind hasn’t taken in.
The point of all this is, that we’re not special. We don’t have the market cornered on generations that got fucked. We took some hard knocks, make no mistake, but so did our parents and our grandparents and on back. They got through it, and we’ll get through it.
All those moments in history passed. The moral arc of the universe is long, but it bends towards justice.
It’s gonna be ok!
A lot of these are about finding the victor with one force vs. another. I’d like to turn that on its head and work backwards from the outcome.
An Imperium fleet loaded with Astra Militarum and a contingent of Adeptus Astartes gets lost in a warp storm and pops out unexpectedly above an unknown planet. On the planet’s surface they detect an energy signature pointing to a relic of immense power. They deem they must have it.
A UNSC fleet vanishes mysteriously and appears above the same planet. For their own reasons, they decide they too must have this relic.
Both fleets engage and commit their ground forces to the snatch and grab. Once the landings are committed, an energy storm whips up and drives the fleets off. They lose contact with each other and while they try to make contact with the surface, the battle rages.
When the storm clears, only the barest handful of survivors of your preferred faction remain. As soon as they vanquish their foe and secure uncontested control of the relic for long enough that the fight has ceased, an energy pulse surges and wipes out the other fleet entirely.
Who wins (i.e. who do you prefer lol)
More importantly and I think the conversation here—what forces can the Imperial Guard, Space Marines, and UNSC deliver to the ground that would generate such a closely fought contest with the other side?
I saw what might be a potential leak on upcoming rules changes, where instead of OOM we’ll get the tactical doctrines Gladius currently has.
My centurions don’t need assault due to our Into the Shadows strat, and they can already fallback and shoot with Feint and Thrust. My 2x6 plasma inceptors like to advance and shoot, but they already have assault.
I only have one serious melee unit, Shrike and his 10 vets. They can also already advance and charge with Feint and Thrust.
None of these doctrines jives with what RG likes to do, at least as I understand them.
On top of the nerfs to stealth and our detachment rules, it feels like we’re about to get a second middle finger to the whole approach to fighting from the shadows.
How are you guys thinking to handle this? Or am I prematurely dooming and we think this isn’t likely?