Talk:The Magnate War

Meeting outcomes

• Principle of League side of war history: Highlight the human element. Personality clashes, heroism, idiocies, chance what-ifs that could have changed history.

First Wave

• Invasions of Dogma (Van der Teega), Miranda and Melian's Hope.

Second Wave

• Invasions of Chatham's World, Sarreva and Finnegan's Folly. Solomon sits out behind laser stations.
• Invasion of Ares assisted by quislings.

The Long War

• Finnegan's Folly central government collapses, insurgency begins
• Meat grinder on Sarreva.
  • How did it avoid running out of people and stuff?
    • Nanobots. More seriously, futuristic medical tech and cybernetics make survival rates extremely high among casualties that aren't outright killed. That doesn't mean there weren't a lot of casualties, but keep in mind that Sphere colonies wield industry disproportionate to their populations, and fabricators only require a design to start churning things out. Sarreva was heavily industrialized and in particular was big on mechanized forces, not human wave attacks. Over 15 years it's assumed that 10% of the original population was lost, including those who suffered under Magnate occupation. Maybe during the early war years they stemmed the tide by spamming knockoffs of Russian 2134 model export tanks and Czech exosuits, before actually getting better at tactics and creating their own designs. My working assumption is that Sarreva was the wealthiest and strongest of the front line worlds and was able to put together a much better equipped and organized resistance than the Magnate planners counted on. Rather than C&C style warfare, it's also assumed that the Magnate ground effort was kept going by reinforcements from the home worlds, since it collapsed rather quickly following victory in space. Use of captured local industry seems to be most logically for upkeep, not producing new weapons or clones since it was incapable of using more sophisticated Magnate tech. Also it may have been a wise strategic move to keep that kind of technology away from where it could be captured. The use of captured civilians seems to be another matter, though.
• Pseudo-civil war on Ares.
  • Quislings on Ares
• Barracuda Swarm arrives in Minkowski inner system. Massive pile of drone guts jumpstarts leeg xenotech.

Late War

• Chatham's World comet-dropped. Who was doing what during this incident?

Climax

• Here to Help refurbished over Outremonde?
• Magnates forced off Ares, HTH leads liberation of Chatham's World.
• Battle of Midway. Behemoth driven off.
  • Both sides suffer relatively heavy losses, but not crippling.
• Abortive invasion of Dogma.
  • League forces land on Dogma and discover massive resistance on the part of indoctrinated citizens. Eventually with arrival of Magnate reinforcements the League High Command withdraws. Prolly a several week effort.
• Retreat via Billy's Stand to Sarreva.
  • Rear Guard lead by Fleet Admiral Williams.
• Shock drives both sides to the negotiating table.

Characters

• Rex & Peel ideas
  • Fleet Admiral Williams: Refugee from Van der Teega/Dogma. Magnate lies abound that his/her sacrifice was death wish, not heroic rearguard.
  • Fleet Admiral Zhang: Minkowskan star commander. Badly injured at Midway and sent back from the front.
  • Lord High Admiral A. V. Lebekin: Outremondian space fleet commander. Served through the liberation of Chatham's World to Dogma.

Brainstorming

A collection of random thoughts to be tabled before the big meeting. --Shrike 16:56, 24 August 2011 (PDT)

Solomon

Solomon was originally colonized by a collection of abrahamics who were part of the late-21st century unified testament re-syncretization effort. Its position at the 'mouth' of what became known as the Sea of Solomon made it into a substantial trade hub for the area, a regular stop for many fartraders.

Solomon has a number of orbital forts, constructed mostly out of ferrosilicon slag and armed with extremely large-bore lasers. It also has several former EU early-model Drake battleships, stranded in-system during the Breakdown. The defenses of Solomon have not been strongly tested, but they were enough to deter aggression during wartime.

Chatham's World

Light gravity (0.7g) arid world that was being terraformed via comet drop. Fiercely battled over as one of the major front lines, late during the war one of the comets that had been set in motion years before was used as a forward base and struck by kinetic ordnance. Unable to make final course-corrections, the comet slammed into the surface at a vastly steeper angle. In retaliation hoarded NBC weapons were used by both sides.

Today Chatham's World is barely inhabited, its former cities slowly weathering away and its people evacuated to other worlds.

Dawnies

The dawnies were ideologically committed to the concept of light infantry, leading the use of replicants as opposed to drones as the main 'shooters' on the ground. The replicants were not as tied to supply lines but were also slower to gestate than drones.

The initial Dawn assistance in the war was using repurposed agricultural equipment and somewhat problematically-trained volunteer units, and until the recruitment of exhuman insurgency veterans and the finalization of the Dawn military itself a few years later there were significant tactical-level problems with Dawn soldiers that were apparent when they faced organized and heavy resistance from professional soldiers.

League ground troops

League ground formations had ecclectic makeups, ranging from hastily-prepared infantry formations to modern 22nd century style drone-shooter organization.

High Command

The Magnates were better at coordination across all sectors and had a more unified war effort, however their command structure dealt poorly with unexpected changes and shocks. By contrast the League's high command was much more disunited, though the localization also meant that individual units were not as wedded to preplanning.

• Example of an unexpected shock: War not over by Christmas. Peel 06:35, 26 August 2011 (PDT)

The League also had greater ability to bring its industry to bear on the defense and often times they were forced to compensate for a less efficient command structure with attritionary tactics, normally via infantry drones.

Misc

[21:28] <Proteus> the magnate word for 'war' translates to 'eliminate counterproductive disagreements'

[21:29] <Proteus> So say the apologists

Trial of Possession at Solomon between League Armies and Magnate contingents. Magnates won the fights for the world they currently have clearly.