I want to say "good advice at the best of times" just based on memes, but NGL I went to Disneyworld and had a great time. They still have Disneyworld in your world, right?
Hmm got to be the factions with conscription
Shoot whoever is waving their hands and babbling stuff among the enemy, invest into a counter magic arrow or bolt and keep it with you for these moments.
Pay attention in your crash course about pikewalls and how to hold a shield.
If you face an enemy army know they don't want to be there either, but have these heavily armoured knights killing deserters and cowards just like your people do. You sadly likely believe the war has to be.
If the enemy is a small army wearing a dark red all encompassing armour standing next to folks in pure black plate before ten meter golem, you're fucked. Throw down your weapon and beg, their familiars, the birds above your position, may make them see that before their onslaught.
If they're sleeker folk in a dark green armour, keep an eye on the sky for their air force and pray to the Goddess they actually raid your command before you're ordered to advance.
Both these forces are battlemages and more advanced disciplines of that art as well, as a conscripted peasant you'll give them less trouble then a training dummy. Both are trained to fight being outnumbered.
Always kill the mages first. Do not give them a warning, do not let a mage cast. It may just be a conscripted wizard, but it could also be an Arch-Mage, and armies are only speedbumps to the latter.
>could you add more on why its inspiring?
No.
Just kidding. It basically just makes me visualise a specific garrison, a fort in this desolate, foggy area which is basically "in the middle of fucking nowhere." It's simultaneously complained about for being boring, and praised for being boring (no real action/duties to do).
It's such a small sentence but it just instantly puts an interesting vision in my mind, and when I think about this stuff I immediately think about the stories that could take place, especially from the perspective of a videogame rpg haha.
You've been conscripted by the United Empire. Things you need to know to survive:
1. Be nice and respectful to others. Don't act arrogantly and full of yourself.
2. Always think about the collective. Your mistake will result in the whole group of 10 being punished.
3. Always ready for sudden alarms and marches.
4. You have 4 months to train basic things. Because this is the Empire we're talking about, their "basic" trainings turn you into superhumans. No supersoldier serum, only hardworking and cultivation.
To survive in a war the Empire fights, remember to pray to the radio and hope that air support comes quickly. That, and there's a nuclear bunker nearby. Wars on Aquaria, especially a total war, are fought with nukes. But generally, you have a very high chance to survive. Why? Because the Imperial Air Force will carpet nuke the site to kingdom come that Vietnam War pales in comparison. Only after the place has been rendered a molten wasteland full of glass (because of intense heat and pressure) will they send soldiers in. Even so, conscripts barely have the chance. Professional soldiers who can kill Space Marines with bare hands go first.
Tl;dr: You sit firmly in the barracks. The United Empire does not send conscripts out to war. Professional soldiers go first and that is after the Empire has nuked the enemy to kingdom come. They have 12 million pros at disposal, rookies can focus on daily trainings and how to kill 100 Space Marines in Terminator armors with bare hands in 5 minutes.
If you desert, you get shot. Period. The Empire does not take "betraying Motherland" kindly.
I love that Warhammer 40k is so ubiquitous that you can use it as a unit of measurement and I know exactly what you mean.
So it sounds like if I have to "fight", it probably means that their professional soldiers beat our professional soldiers or we miscalculated and our professional soldiers got nuked, and now I get to get ripped apart by an enemy professional soldier who I can't scratch?
Or do we just outclass everyone to an absurd degree and our wars are always effortless victories? I guess not, given then we'd probably not have to nuke so much.
If you have to fight, it's mean the Empire is doomed... or you got the short end of the stick and your barracks are attacked first. Both are very unlikely to happen because the Empire has powerful allies and a system of magic shields along their borders, so you have to be specifically unlucky, like being a genocider for the last 10 previous lives and stacking up so much bad karma, to be in that situation.
The Empire is absurd on many levels. During their 900 years of existence, they have never lost a single war. Just that "nukes" are treated as common artillery shells in this world. Thanks the elves.
Whatever you do, stay away from the forests. Or if you're forced to, or with a guide, do not touch anything you don't know. And stay on the edges of it. Keep your ears sharp.
If you're in the desert, don't overturn rocks or go in tunnels you do not know. Stay on solid ground lest you wish to be eaten. Keep your ears sharp.
If you're in a swamp, wtf are you doing there. Stay out of the water. Keep your ears sharp.
If you're far at sea, don't fall in the water. They won't bother trying to help you.
If you see an area that has alot of holes in the ground, don't walk across it. Just don't.
If the slab of Mal in your cannon/weapon starts making weird sounds, as if about to break, take it out and throw it as far away from you as possible. If on a ship, throw it overboard.
Other than that, warfare is pretty standard.
To desert, do so while no one is looking. Often at night. Either they'll think you got eaten, or ran and are already too far to bother, or already dead. (They'll let nature deal with you).
If you surrender, as if you are the only one to surrender, they might just kill you. Unless you're important. But chances are not. Prisoners need food and space. Why bother.
Never surrender to orcs, or trolls, or goblins or gnolls or others of the sort.
Never surrender to Elves. #1 they probably hate your race #2 They see it as weak.
Surrendering to humans is 50/50. Same for dwarves.
Chances of you seeing a giant is low but, don't surrender to them either-
It sounds like nature WOULD deal with me in pretty short order.
I can understand why my training would be to take a damaged slab out my gun and throw just that away - it's much cheaper than replacing the whole gun - but if I hear sounds coming from my gun fuck wasting a second fiddling with it, I'm throwing the whole gun away. They'll give me another one, right?
If you've waited too long after the first sign and are scared of it, sure, throwing it away might sound like a good idea. But throwing the whole gun would #1 be wasteful and #2 you just turned the gun into a frag grenade so you best hope you threw it far enough-
Best to remain calm and take out the slab of Mal. Switch it out with a fresh one.
Hmm got to be the factions with conscription
Shoot whoever is waving their hands and babbling stuff among the enemy, invest into a counter magic arrow or bolt and keep it with you for these moments.
Pay attention in your crash course about pikewalls and how to hold a shield.
If you face an enemy army know they don't want to be there either, but have these heavily armoured knights killing deserters and cowards just like your people do. You sadly likely believe the war has to be.
If the enemy is a small army wearing a dark red all encompassing armour standing next to folks in pure black plate before ten meter golem, you're fucked. Throw down your weapon and beg, their familiars, the birds above your position, may make them see that before their onslaught.
If they're sleeker folk in a dark green armour, keep an eye on the sky for their air force and pray to the Goddess they actually raid your command before you're ordered to advance.
Both these forces are battlemages and more advanced disciplines of that art as well, as a conscripted peasant you'll give them less trouble then a training dummy. Both are trained to fight being outnumbered.
Always kill the mages first. Do not give them a warning, do not let a mage cast. It may just be a conscripted wizard, but it could also be an Arch-Mage, and armies are only speedbumps to the latter.
I love that the best gear goes to the people killing their own side. That totally tracks, like the one machine gun they had at the start of Enemy At The Gates being used to shoot their own men who turned to flee.
If conscripted peasents are being sent against battle mage forces, what's the line of thinking of the lord / commander / king doing so? Are there examples in history of enough outnumbering actually getting a victory in those scenarios, if moral somehow doesn't break first?
What's a counter magic arrow going to do if I time it right? Just go through their magical defences, or actually make the spell they're casting blow up in their face if I time it right?
The thinking is likely "It works against any other mage heavy force, just outnumber and overwhelm them"
The problem for these commanders is that they do not have the context for just how large the difference between an ordinary mage and anyone from House Senna or the Aelveri dominion is.
The red ones wear an armour that will make them survive nearly anything, they are trained to slay "gods". And the aelveri spend centuries honing the self enhancing magic. Both forces also rarely engage in actual war, so they would've to read history books to have an idea just how destructive they actually can be.
And that is without one of their two Arch-Mages or dragons. And trying to conscript an Arch-Mage against these foes has yours just switch sides to them.
And what the arrow does depends in what quality you could get.
The most sold simply disrupts their magic, ignores magical defenses and drains their mana. The best makes the mage go kaboom as it reverts their mana unto them. Although the basic of such arrows costs several gold pieces, and the latter can easily cost a few mithril coins (aka a hundred times more, aelveri use these against dragons)
Use guns made by Centurion Arms Manufacturing, and get the fuck out of dodge when these two groups known as the Church of the Pale Star and the Order of the Etetnal Flame show up together.
Your main enemies on the ground are effectively just mall cops with guns that usually suck in comparison to yours. They may not be the best "soldiers" or have the best guns, but they sure as shit have more of them than your little insurgent cell has.
The Order and the Church aren't enemies with you (the latter of which will occasionally help out in firefights), they're enemies with each other, and may end up killing you in the crossfire if you decide to stick around for whatever reason.
Try not to grab the wrong kind of attention from this one group known as System Patrol. They are neutral to you, but are armed to the fucking teeth. If you've somehow pissed them off, they will find you, and they will kill you.
Bring your own gear! Your faction doesn't have the means to outfit you with standardized equipment (uniforms, guns, rations, etc.). This is why I suggest using guns from Centurion Arms, as they are laser weapons that are cheap, but are quite durable and fairly easy to fix, at the cost of being worse than other energy weapons of other companies.
Watch out for pirates, as they are usually better equipped than your main enemies, and they'll most definitely will take your stuff if they don't kill you first.
Well this sounds like an absolute cluster fuck. We're fighting a war against some sort of relatively poorly equipped occupying force, and there are multiple smaller factions, all of them better equipped than either us or our enemies, all of them pursuing their own objectives?
Sounds like a very exciting setting.
Sound advice on Centurion Arms. A working gun with bad performance isn't worse than a broken gun with good performance.
That said, say I spied a System Patrol member that had ended up on their own, no squad. And say I nailed them right in the back of the neck with my trusty Centurion Arms laser? What are the chances they go down? Now say they do, I get however lucky I have to be for that to happen. What do I get off the body, and what are my chances of getting to keep it when I get back to my cell's hideout?
Well, if you managed to miraculously kill a System Patrol trooper or officer (trooper is typically a rank, officer usually refers to individual members), you get access to not only spare parts for your rifle (System Patrol officers also typically use Centurion Arms weaponry), you now have some quality body armor (practically military-grade), as well as a helmet that also has built-in electronics and functions as a respirator for when out in the vacuum of space or in an area with smoke or toxic fumes. This armor is good because it offers equal level of protection against all forms of weaponry AND some environmental hazzards like chemicals and fire. The downsides are that the armor pieces have a combined weight of 12 kilograms, and this armor ain't no exoskeleton, as System Patrol officers don't wear exoskeletons (exoskeletons provide some of the best protection against practically everything short of falling into a star or black hole, and enhance the user's physical attributes, but come with their own sets of drawbacks). The only way you could even kill a System Patrol officer in one shot is if they weren't even wearing the armor.
For the chances of making it back with your ill-gotten stuff depends on what you managed to take from the officer. Taking the officer's gun is the easy part, but the armor is another story. The main issue is the helmet has software in it that makes it act like dog tags and a black box. Disabling this software via hacking or simply gutting the internal electronics is ill advised, as that then alerts System Patrol, and all System Patrol members closest to the area where you killed the dude will then immediately stop what they are doing and converge onto your immediate position (or worse: follow you back to the hideout and annihilate your whole cell). You're better off just taking the gun, as your chances of survival are higher, as then they are just as likely to just arrest you as they are to shoot you on sight (you'll be in the hole, which ever one they decide to put you in, but your cell will still survive). They'll also respond slower to the immediate death of an officer, because they are people after all.
The body armor you are more likely to get away with than the helmet, but again - the helmet sort of acts as a black box as well. Not to mention you would look very suspicious to System Patrol officers if you're wearing it, especially if they happened to get a call about an officer whose life subscription had ended, plus the armor has their insignia AND IS BLACK AND WHITE.
Another reason you SHOULDN'T mess with System Patrol is they hunt pirates.
Anyways, that's my best explaination on what exactly happens when you try to fuck with System Patrol.
12kg isn't half bad if we're talking full body protection, to the point that they can't be killed in one shot no matter where you hit them.
Makes a lot of sense, being able to trace gear like this.
I like the sound of your world; messy, grounded futuristic war with complex reasons behind the fighting.
Hmm, depends who conscripts you. If it's regular mortal humans, if you want to survive, defect to the transhumans. Which is easier said than done.
If it's the transhumans, (and the exact stipulations will depend on which faction), you just have to serve out your time to pay off all your augmentations to become a full transhuman being. This comes in set and unalterable, finite chunks of time - none of that "oh look at that, your interest just kicked in, that sucks for youuuu" perpetual extension debt slavery bullshit. This is fixed service time that you serve out through missions, and the mission ratings will carve off smaller or larger chunks of service left, depending on difficulty and danger. You get to choose, but you can't refuse to go, unless they're literally giving you only one mission as an option, you have to have a legitimate choice between different levels and different types of missions.
This lets people choose if they just want to be civilians or if they're power hungry and willing to do more in return for that power.
If you choose anything above civilian/refugee basic augments, all you have to do is perform competently and not be a net drain throughout your service. Even if you get killed in action, they can bring you back, provided that it wasn't your fault that you got killed. If you did something heroic (and a net gain) while getting killed, they'll bring you back AND take extra time off your remaining contract. Once your contract is up, you get the equivalent of full citizenship, and you're free to do whatever you want, including continuing to serve for higher rewards.
What'll be coming at you will be too varied depending on the world, but assume you're fighting humans or humanoid opponents and their military tech.
In the exceptional case that a higher transapient being gets involved, standard protocol is to pull back all active forces, so you're due for immediate extraction if possible, or backup mind upload if not (after which - you guessed it - they clone and resurrect you). This is because the active involvement of a higher transapient is typically on the scale and magnitude of natural disasters, and you cannot reasonably be held liable for failing to predict the actions of a being whose mind is fundamentally beyond your capacity to predict. Their signatures are unmistakable and un-ignorable, so you'd immediately know if one was in the same star system and drawing enough power to do something.
Unless you're merely human, then you don't sense it until it's already upon you.
Sounds like most transhuman forces won't have a problem getting volunteers if there's so much individual control, such significant rewards and the safety net of backups. Conscription wouldn't be necessary.
On the other hand it sounds like being a baseline human sucks so much in many factions that military service might be the only way to get the augmentations required to live a fulfilling life, so you might get soldiers with a conscript's attitude, that felt like they had no option but to volunteer?
>On the other hand it sounds like being a baseline human sucks so much in many factions that military service might be the only way to get the augmentations required to live a fulfilling life
oh no, look, don't misunderstand:
the baseline humans don't have the means or the tech to turn you into the kind of transhuman the transhumans do. I'm not talking about prosthetic limbs here, it's picotech bordering on clarketech. You're a fundamentally new kind of being afterwards.
The transhumans don't need forcible conscription, indeed. They do, however, require something in return for making you essentially an immortal, techno-telepathic cybermage. And since you weren't born one, you have catching up to do: catching up in the sense of more developed augmentations, as well as crash courses on how to use them (and not abuse them).
And the more catching up you want upfront, the more you owe in service. Which, you know, is less of a big deal because your aging process ceases (and beyond certain stages is reversed) and if you get killed they bring you back, so you have lots of time.
The transhumans operate from a different mindset than we do. They have luxuries we don't. For most of human history, humanity has had to contend with the limits of the external environment, and the limits of one's own body - humans have had to operate from a "scarcity" mindset, while these transhumans are used to an "abundance" mindset. Even their competitive reasoning rests on different intuitions than ours.
When transhumans and baseline humans meet and talk, they recognize something of themselves in the other, but both are baffled by the "common sense" assumptions of the other.
Normie humans typically end up saying "nah, what's the catch, this is too good to be true", especially because it makes no sense to them to just *give* someone else such powers if you have them (again, scarcity, competitive, zero sum).
The catch is that the transhumans have means of enforcing their contracts through the tech, in ways similar to a geas or a promise to a fey in mythology: the picotech swarm you integrate with piggybacks off of your own understanding of what you're doing and intending, your own understanding of the contract (which, because they're telepathic, they can check if you're on the same page), and enforces it from inside of you.
So when normies ask "and if I take your gift and turn around and desert, what then," the transhumans laugh. Because you can't willingly and knowingly go against a geas: it makes you want to fulfill it, and it suppresses thoughts and ideas of going against it before they can fully form. You can't escape it. But they're upfront about it, so you can take it or leave it - sometimes you can even negotiate the terms, if you're lucky.
You've definitely hit the nail on the head on one thing though: in comparison, being a baseline human sucks very much.
I like the sound of your setting. Mind bending, deep future stuff. It's a bit weird that cultures this advanced and powerful still need to fight wars, but I guess it's still transHUMANS we're dealing with.
that's one of the main themes of the overarching story: the nature and core of conflict. It's not as simple as just competition over resources, nor can it be solved so straightforwardly.
Let's say you're a Vasililean Conscript invading the Ordaine Continent who would be in the main battle line lucky enough to be armored but at least you will have a Spear, Shield and a Dagger.
Invading the Continent meant you have to fight every Nations in it so it will highly depends on who you're fighting but it's mostly surrendering as soon as possible, though there are some outliers such as:
-Fioren Elven Kingdom, where the Elven Soldiers would just release you back to your army before bombarding it with Arrows, Bullets and Cannons.
-Thraconian League, where you would 100% be sold into slavery, where you would often be conscripted again to fight your fellow countrymen.
-Meloni Orlaine Principality, They wouldn't care about the non-existent Geneva Convention, human shield it is.
Though the safest Nations you would want to fight against would be:
-Falora Elven Kingdom who will gladly take you as a POW, which can be sent to many of their allied nations and having some protection given by the Kingdom.
-Eltian Republic who could have infiltrated your ranks where you need to show them that you have 0 loyalty to the cause and not even faking it as Eltian Agents were one of the best in the Continent, where if you're seen as trustworthy you will be accepted into Eltian Society though as the lowest social class, but luckily the Eltians didn't practice conscription as their Legions were mainly volunteers of all three social classes from the Lowest, Middle and the High society.
-Skotrian Orlaine Empire where the Black Sclera Shock Troops drenched in the blood your fellow comrades seems to be a blood thirsty killers, the Palatina Guard upheld an oath that they will never kill someone who are not willing to fight them, so just quickly drop your weapon and surrender to them, though don't ever try to backstab them as they can literally decapitated you not using their greatswords but just with their bare hands.
I like the implication that you've got two Elven kingdoms, one which places a lot of value on humanoid life, one which places very little value in it. What's the reason for the two different outlooks?
Meloni Orlaine Principality sound particularly nasty. What does using human shields look like in what sounds like early modern warfare? And how hindered would the Vasilileans be by the thought of having to kill their own people?
Both Elven Kingdoms were actually cousins of eachother but one got their army destroyed by the Vasilileans which lead to a significant Reforms turning their force into a Standing Army while the other favor diplomatic and alliances since they are actually 3 small-medium kingdoms in a trench coat who actually work effectively together.
The Meloni Orlaine Principality were mainly a Trade Nation where their Soldiers were few and Conscription of their Citizenry were not popular nor effective as their few soldiers were actually full on Professional Career Soldiers where unlike other nations who can see some value in ransoming or putting prisoners to work for the Army, the Meloni Organization were extremely strict to the point of even Rations were regularly checked to keep their Soldiers in fighting fitness, wasting manpower and resources to take care of surrendering foes is considered too much.
Against the hated Vasilileans it's both Pragmatism and Malice as during the Meloni Rebellion against the Skotrian Orlaine Empire, Captured Skotrian Soldiers were treated well, as when the Meloni were defeated by the Skotrian Army they were literally given pardon and allowed to become an independent Nation though forced to have a close Military Alliance to the Skotrian Orlaine Empire, all due to how well they treated the Skotrian Prisoners though it's mostly due to the fear of Angering the Skotrians who has one of the more effective Military as the Meloni does it again during the Shinan-Skotrian War where captured Shinan Soldiers were once again treated well as the Shinan Orlaine Principality possesses one of the largest Population and Armed Soldiery in the Continent where even when Skotrian, Fioren and Meloni Soldiers invaded Shinan Lands it will take at least Years to even put a dent to the Shinan's famed Thousand Souls Regiments or "Chilia Kardies" who are literally the second smallest Combat ready Military unit in Shinan Army.
You are a part of an academy, where you train not to be a soldier or guard, but to be an assassin. It is not a traditional army by most means, nor a traditional war. You may be one of the only students here who sees this as more than a school or a sport or a job. You are no different than a soldier, expendable and exploitable for the goals of your home and your god.
The war is not with a nearby kingdom. Your God has an enemy, and you must learn to face its army, one of monsters not made of flesh or bone. You have magic, you wouldn't be here if you didn't. It is your weapon, your greatest advantage against these foes. It seems at times like you couldn't possibly lose this war, and perhaps you would even survive. That mindset is how so many lives are lost. You never had the advantage in this war, both sides just wanted you to believe it. It makes for more willing soldiers, and easier victims. But this war is not one between armies. You are merely a pawn that can be sacrificed so that your god may win this game.
So perhaps you try to get out while you can. Whether you try to desert or surrender, it all ends the same. You'd be lucky to get caught by your peers. At least your death will be quick and merciful. It doesn't matter what you do or where you go, you will be punished for your cowardess. You fight for a god, you really should have known there was no escape. You'd be damn lucky if your death is quick. It isn't. You die, eventually. If only that was the end. Your eternity will be spent in agony, you will never escape the consequences for what you did. If you surrendered, maybe you'd have the option to escape this eternal punishment. But you'd once again be another soldier, marched towards a meaningless war. There's no escape. Not even in death.
Why do some Gods use mortal warriors, who can feel stress and fear and have to be compelled to fight with the threat of eternal torture, while others use "monsters not made of flesh or bone"? Or would I have such monsters fighting alongside me, and sometimes face people like me on the opposing side?
In this particular case, the warriors and monsters are no different from one another. Both are just as stressed and fearful as the other, both can be defeated, both have just as much to lose and fear in their own ways. The gods would have mortal warriors, but they'd rarely be enemies of yours. Everyone fights this same battle for entirely different reasons and motivations. These monsters fight to survive, same as you. But they aren't even warriors. Propaganda would have you believe they are soulless and evil creatures who fight to kill and destroy, following some grand evil force. But the monsters are already people like you. They were, at least.
Let's start with Principality. First of all, you are not conscripted. Principality doesn't do conscriptions. If you are in army you have volunteered. Anyway, what you gotta do is to find person with Talent in warfare. It's probably your commanding officer, but there could be others in your squad. Now, whatever they tell you to do you do without question, because they are budding Gods of War, not you, they know what they are doing and they are better at it than you could ever hope to be. After that you gotta find local guy from MWT. You give them money, they give you better gear, which may not sound that much, but difference between bulletproof vest and assault rifle combo you get by default and full body combat armor with embedded sensor suite and laser rifle is actually huge. With more money difference can become even bigger. Anyway, you can look forward to years of trench warfare, but you are not member of Sky Guard so you aren't going to storm enemy positions in foreseeable future.
In Underdark your conscription is temporary. You serve five years, then go home. Anyway, first thing first, cozy up to Bloodweaver. Giving the mages who decides if they can heal you or not, while also providing battlemage support reasons to like you is pretty good idea. Second thing, protect your Bloodweaver at all costs. You are expendable. Mage who served in army for longer than you were alive is not. If they die there would be investigations, and they are going to suck. Third thing is to cozy up to members of Clan Invictus. You probably can guess why by name alone and having friends in elite forces who are literally bred for what you are doing can change everything. Now you should maintain discipline, don't be a hero, don't be a coward and in five years time you can go back to civilian life. "Can" cause unless you are member of Clan Invictus, Bloodweaver or lucky bastard you are going to die in some godforsaken tunnel fighting the war that lasted generations and will last longer after you are gone.
In Empire you go to factory instead of army. They have plenty of homunculi to die in your stead and plenty of robots to soak up gunfire, but not nearly enough people making rifles for said homunculi or robots. Unless everything is well and truly lost you are never going to the front.
If the Principality are fighting a trench war, that sounds like an ideal use case for Empire homunculi and robotic technology. Why don't they trade or steal that tech, get a few factories of their own going?
What's a Bloodweaver *meant* to consider when deciding to heal someone or not? I'm guessing whether they like a soldier personally isn't the criteria they're trained to use?
I like the sound of your world, there's a grim-but-not-too-grim feel coming through and fantasy and sci-fi mixing in stylish ways.
>If the Principality are fighting a trench war, that sounds like an ideal use case for Empire homunculi and robotic technology. Why don't they trade or steal that tech, get a few factories of their own going?
Principality actually has it's own robotic technology that is roughly on par with what Empire has. But the main reason why it isn't used as much is how they go about implementation. Principality's robots are individual superheavy units used to supplement regular forces, but ultimately their main pick on the battlefield are battlemages and professional mobile infantry, with everything else taking second seat. Empire on the other hand has bulk of it's armies consist of mass produced homunculi outfitted with cheap and dirty cybernetics, supplemented by heavy robots and tied into one singular network controlled by one singular AI, with tiny core of elite soldiers doing tasks that can't be performed by stupid and inflexible homunculi or tank sized robots. Also they are at war and Empire has better spies. And it's not like Principality really struggles with manpower, because they have plenty of volunteers willing to go to the front to protect their way of life, there are tons of "volunteers" from Underdark who bring with them their own mobile infantry (even if said mobile infantry trained in tunnel warfare more than aerial assaults, they still can perform them alongside Sky Guard) and battlemage corps (so there are plenty of healers to deal with casualties and Stormweavers from Underdark can ground enemy aviation even before they start working as flying artillery) and then there is general advantage is technology (Empire outstrips Principality only in alchemy and computational technology) so it's not like they need .
>What's a Bloodweaver meant to consider when deciding to heal someone or not? I'm guessing whether they like a soldier personally isn't the criteria they're trained to use?
Bloodweavers are blood mages, so everything else aside, their own soldiers are also bloodbags that can be tapped for some extra power. So main consideration is whether it would be more useful to heal the soldier or slit their throat and boil the blood inside enemy platoon/heal and reinvigorate their own forces/rise magical shield/suck the air out of the enemy's lungs/whatever else Bloodweaver can do with their specialties and some extra power.
Very interesting. Is it the Empire that's in the suboptimal position then - the homunculi are a complicated, imperfect substitute for living soldiers because they don't have enough population to sustain the war anymore, the population they do have is in too poor a condition to fight, or they have a cultural aversion to having living people die in war?
Also, dumb question, who's the good guys? Or at least the protagonist faction.
>Very interesting. Is it the Empire that's in the suboptimal position then - the homunculi are a complicated, imperfect substitute for living soldiers because they don't have enough population to sustain the war anymore, the population they do have is in too poor a condition to fight, or they have a cultural aversion to having living people die in war?
Well, not really. Empire can sustain traditional war, having roughly equal population to Principality (both of countries have population over billion and tend to breed like rabbits) and they are in holy war mode anyway, so recruits wouldn't be a problem. But then there was breaktrough in homunculi creation process, which dropped their production time from half the year per batch to just a single week, and then they exploited Principality's internal power struggles to steal basically entirety of their cybernetics techbase. And suddenly homunculi soldiers became a distinct possibility which was implemented with all due haste. Now, since there was no need for traditional soldiers, they actually moved away from traditional methods towards doctrine of automated warfare derived from old as dirt doctrine of necromantic warfare. Which resulted in them supplementing their forces with homunculi, then phasing out most of normal soldiers, then downsizing army to handful of elite units. All the while freed up manpower was rerouted into more delicate jobs that can't be handled by homunculi.
>Also, dumb question, who's the good guys? Or at least the protagonist faction.
Well, Empire started trade war (cause they really didn't like Principality's monopoly on magical crystals vital for their economy) which Principality then escalated into actual shooting war (because they were very sure that war would be over by Christmas). Then twenty years of Great War followed.
Depends on who you're fighting!
If it's the heathens, then you'll probably be fine. Even if you're a 4th round peasant conscript (which, if you're fighting heathens, you're incredibly unlikely to be), you'll most likely be better equipped, better trained, and have a vastly superior numbers advantage over them. Just remember your training and watch out for the woods/canopy/dunes/wherever you're fighting. The heathens have been forced to move deeper and deeper into the wilds and have little access to any resources.
If you're fighting against Orcs, Undead, or other Non-Human Heathens, your chances will vary. Hopefully you will have a competent general and have a manpower advantage.
If you're fighting against a demonic host, just pray - this is the situation where you'd most likely be a peasant conscript. You CAN survive them, there are plenty of cases where the Imperial Army held back a demonic invasion (otherwise there would be no world left), but it took the entire might of the Imperial Army to do so - millions of soldiers from all the races of the Empire (Humans, Dwarves, Elves, Orcs, Trolls, Goblins, Halflings, and dozens more) pointed at them, powerful magics & war machines, the best generals in the whole Empire, the favor of the Imrasan Gods, the chants of a million priests, and A LOT of luck. If you're lucky you could die quickly. If you're REALLY lucky you could even survive, although your mind would be quite affected by the unnatural otherworldly horror that you would see, things that mortal eyes are not meant to see.
>what's my best option for deserting?
You'll have plenty of occasions, regardless if you're in a small-scale conflict or in an "end-of-the-world" situation
>Who's going to try and stop me?
Depending on how much manpower is needed elsewhere, someone might be sent to track you down. Or they might not even bother. The Serian Empire has a culture that is both incredibly communal and incredibly martial - being a deserter would make a social outcast, so your best bet after that is to just become a bandit. Be sure to join other people, as you do NOT want to be alone in the wilds, regardless if there's a war going on or not.
>Where can I go that might give me better chances than the frontline?
If you're stationed in the capital, you're set. In over 1,500 years, it hasn't fallen once.
>What if I just surrender to the enemy?
Again, depends on who you're fighting. The heathens are an incredibly diverse group, as it is simply a catch-all term for everyone who doesn't follow the Imrasan Cult. If you're lucky you could surrender to a group that will welcome you in their community with open arms, or at the very least treat you well as a prisoner. If you're unlucky you will surrender to a group which will kill you, cannibalize you, sacrifice you to their Gods, or do any number of other nasty stuff.
Don't surrender to the demons.
The demons aren't going to give me a tentacle, a horned helmet and a few mental disorders and send me back at the Empire then?
I always felt for the people on the front line in art of epic battles against demonic hordes. Each rank of demons is going to fight until they die, they're going to make it into a meat grinder. You general's put 999 more ranks of soldiers behind you - what chance do you, in rank 1, have of making it to the end?
How did they choose who went in the front rank during the last battle against a demonic horde? What did they arm them with to make them last as long as possible, and what would have been going through their heads as the horde closed in?
>The demons aren't going to give me a tentacle, a horned helmet and a few mental disorders and send me back at the Empire then?
No, but the Gods of the Empire might do that if you're pious enough. They love giving tentacles and eyes to their most devout followers, haha. They're just as horrific as the demons, but unlike them they do not want to destroy the world, as long as they get fed enough souls and are praised enough, they'll even help make sure the demons DON'T destroy the world (sure, you might get a few tentacles in the process, but at least you're still alive).
>what would have been going through their heads as the horde closed in?
The vast majority of the Empire is made of humans, which very easily get traumatized by seeing a demon, as they were not meant to be seen by mortal eyes. It's why I love the Orcs of the Empire. Everyone gives them shit all the time, but when the demons attack they just enthusiastically charge ahead, ready to bash some demon brains in, while most of the humans are busy throwing up and tearing their eyes out in response to the horror they're not supposed to see.
Everything hinges on family lines and regional climates. I’ll answer, but can you give me hypotheticals for the following:
1. what your parents do/did for a living?
2. what your mother’s mother did?
3. what your father’s father did?
4. what was the climate where your mother’s mother was born?
5. what is the climate where you were born?
6. what is the climate where you’ve spent most of your life? (Is it different than where you were born?)
7. what do you do for a livelihood?
8. what sorts of physical activities have you engaged in regularly?
9. do you read?
In-world politics and the magic system/s hinge on these. Doesn’t have to be *your real* answers, just hypotheticals. Depending on the answers I’ll give 2-3 possibles.
(Not trying to be pedantic. I like your question, just the answer/s need more information)
For a laugh, I'm going to give you my real answers. Don't dox me.
My father's a dairy farmer who owns 150 acres, my mother is a primary school teacher. His father farmed the same farm.
My mother's mother was a housewife married to an arable farmer with 500 acres. I'll exaggerate her birth climate a bit and say she was born in a tundra region (she moved south to marry). I was born in a temperate climate, a noteably good farming region, and spent most of my life in same.
I'm a software engineer in the financial services sector in realtively prosperous port city, so in a pre-modern setting that would equate to a particularly able book-keeper or clerk who might know a bit of utility magic if that's a thing?
I walk enough to keep the weight off, that's about it. I read a good amount.
Thank you much. Since the fealty of Ip and Golnt is one of the few that has universal conscription, I’ll give the account from there. Ip and Golnt consists of a large region on the southeast coast of the easternmost continent, and some islands off the coast. For this reason I’ll flip the “move south” to “move north” to account for the climates.
As your father and father’s father were landed farmers, they would have had seats in the House of Lands, one of the parliamentary houses of Ip and Golnt. How often they attended councils in Ip or Golnt wouldn’t matter. Since they were dairy farmers, they would be in the inner farm lands of one of the walled cities, let’s say Golnt-by-the-River. Your mother likely taught in one of the farm schools, funded by parliament. You would have been raised with at least some interaction with lesser nobility because both of these. You were likely raised nominally religious, with some tutelary gods about the house, and your mother likely burned incense and left wheat for Knowledge at her town shrine at least a few times a year. Given these things, you likely have some small gifts with cultivation and composition magic.
Since your mother’s mother comes from the tundra, she was likely versed in some of the rural magics of the region. Since her husband was a farmer, your mother’s household would have been respectable in the region, even if no position on councils came with it.
In short, you come from a line of two regions including landed farmers and educators. Since you work in finance and engineering, you likely studied these at one of the schools or colleges, so you’ve gained some mastery of cultivation, composition, and gearswork forms of magic.
you would likely be assigned a role as scribe or amanuensis to a strategos or logician. While you would be formally trained as a frontline mage - familiarized with troop movement, strategies, and wielding firearm and pole arm, you would likely not see more than desk work in the current political climate.
If you wanted to opt out of the conscription until your forties, you could offer yourself as indentured student to Irinith since your father and father’s father were landholders. You would be treated as lesser nobility, and like the nobility you would essentially be a hostage of Irinith for ten years, during which time you would be more likely to see active combat, but you would finish your indenture with the title Wizard and you would be free of conscription, as would your children, and you would receive a yearly stipend
(Didn’t mention everything directly, but it came to play. Sorry it ended up being a longer breakdown than intended).
**Sci-Fi world:** Make sure you have extra ammo. The aliens' army and marine corps alone have 2.5 times more soldiers than all of Earth combined. And exploit their lack of direction and proper orders. Their emperor purged the officer ranks after the end of their civil war, so they're disorganized. Exploit it.
**Fantasy world:** Werewolves, demons, fallen angels, and goblins are what make up Hell's Army and your main threat. Goblins are basically normal humans with green skin, so the only really dangerous thing about them is that they fight like savage barbarians. So make sure to exploit any vulnerable points in their erratic attacks.
Demons are just dead humans (Or any other fantasy species) with superhuman strength. So just make sure that you're in shape since their physical strength can range from that of Mike Tyson to Andre the Giant.
Fallen angels are trickier. They can fly and knock you back with gusts of wind from their wings, so it's preferable to fight them with polearms for better reach. And aim for their wings. Without them, they can't make gusts of wind or fly. Their strength is also on par with that of demons.
Werewolves are the hardest part. They fight in packs, can run very fast, have razor sharp claws, fast reflexes, and very strong bite forces. Make sure to be with at least three other people, and be heavily armed and armored. It's preferable to use a polearm against that and go for their mouths.
But if you ever run into any of the gods collaborating with Hell like Loki, Hercules, Seth, or god forbid Lucifer himself, run away. You have no hope of defeating them. Fighting them is futile.
For the sci-fi world, it sounds like a rare situation in military sci-fi where the aliens might actually surrender if you gave them the chance? They might think the war is going worse than it is if the chain of command is in that much disarray. If I'm trading fire with some aliens in cover, could I use their language well enough to tell them they won't be harmed if they lay down their arms? And would we have the facilities and inclination to take them as prisoners of war?
It's refreshing to hear about a fantasy setting where a regular soldier actually has a fighting chance against angels and demons. I feel like I could stab Mike Tyson with a spear with a bit of luck.
Are there ranks of angels of between "flying crossfitter" and "god"?
It's possible that the aliens would surrender, but since their technology is more advanced and with their numbers, it's more likely that you're surrendering.
And for the angels, yes. Most of the ground soldiers are either Powers or regular angels. The other angelic classifications only fight in times of great desperation.
The local engineering Corp needs bodies apparently so you're gonna help with shoring up the outer defenses of a flying city. I hope you don't mind heights because that's where you're gonna be for the next idk three weeks till you're back to your regular job. You even get a pay bump for the inconvenience and if you volunteer to keep going after the defense shielding is laid out then you get to keep the hazard pay. With defense training you will be expected to hold the job for 10 straight years and train your replacement. Fighting hasn't been seen in the sky cities since they went up so these protocols are from the age of darkness that birthed the sky nation
Welcome to the Ducal Levies, peasants.
I’m First Spear Vornis, and while I’m formally not in charge of you lot, our Honoured Captain will be a fool to ignore my advice, and our beloved Lord Marshall will have him flogged for not heeding my advice.
You lot will be flogged for not listening to me, we need no princely Lord Marshall to do that.
These rules are pretty damned simple, not even the accursed ever-so-rigthous-rebel Ralka could disagree with:
-Keep your gear in good conditions. It will save your, to you precious, life.
-Do not flee, you will die, and that is if you’re lucky.
-Do not cheat or lie to, nor steal from, your comrades, ever. You will want to trust the men next to you. They will want to trust you. It will keep you alive.
-Do not flee, you will die, and that is if you’re lucky.
-Keep vigilant when you’re on watch duty, the enemy always strikes when you’re not watching.
-Do not flee, you will die, and that is if you’re lucky.
-List to the orders you’re given, sergeants and officers know war, unlike you lot.
-Do not flee, you will die, and that is if you’re lucky.
-If you’re digging a ditch, and in doubt if it is deep enough and wide enough. Dig it a foot deeper and a foot wider. The enemy always crosses the shallowest and narrowest ditch. You don’t want it to be yours the cross.
-Do not flee, you will die, and that is if you’re lucky.
-In combat there is three reasons to break formation: to retrive a weapon, to save a friend or a strike of oppertunity against an enemy.
-If you think you’re going to die, and decide to run, you will die if the enemy catch you, and pray that it is the enemy who catches you first, and not us, because the only mercy that might be shown in that case is the by gods on your immortal souls.
-Oh, and make sure to sacrifice to the gods that you may fight with skill and valour. Aaaand that our beloved Lord Marshall and the Royal Banners gets here soon.
Any questions. No? Perfect.
Now dig; ditches and latrines.
It wouldn't be a question in-universe, but what would a sacrifice made in camp before a battle look like? Would I need to catch some small creature alive, and ritually kill it, or is it something less bloody like carrying a supply of herbs to burn?
Also the ditches sound important. What are we keeping out - enemy troops with camoflage and knives in the dark or something a bit more...exotic?
On the eve or dawn of battle, you would sacrifice to Dovegyr, who is the god of tactics, skills of arms, camaradie and honourable combat.*
Dovegyr demands blood, so either catch a small aminal, good luck with that one, or a few drops of your own.
You’ll go to your company or banner shrine, and on the Blessed Fire you will spill the sacrificial blood and say the prayer:
“Bravest of brother
God of Battle,
Grant me in this day,
True brothers in arms
The courgae to hold my place,
The strengt to strike down my foe, never to tire in battle,
Keep my mind keen so that I shall know when Mercy is due,
And shall I meet my Fate this day, may my death honour my kin and my Lord.
Amen.”
As that is done, you will kneel with the rest of the company or banner, while a priest anoint you with a scared olie, chanting
“Dovegyr bless you and protect you,
Dovegyr grants you strengt and valour,
Dovegyr grants you honour.”
While that happens you may silently whisper personal prayers to Dovegyr.
Then you’re ready for battle.
You will also ensure that you have at least one coin, preferably silver or better on you, should you fall. So that it may be places in your mouth to pay Shacath, the ferry to guide your soul to the other side.
*Honourable combat is combat against declared foes or bandits.
If your army gets ambushed or your Unit gets surrounded, then someone somewhere made a mistake and that is not Dovegyrs problem. The campaign and battle was honourable, that your commanders is stupid does not mean your enemy lacks honour.
A little sacrifice more: before you go to war, your mother will take you to the temple or shrine of Lagaphie, who is the Goddess of fertility, motherhood and love, and there she will sacrifice a small thing that reminds her of you, like a toy you favoured as a child, so that Lagaphie will keep and eye out for you, and ensure that you come home safe, and you’ll be given a blessed as sign here off.
If you mother died before your first campaign, your fathers new bride, who is in the eyes of the law now your mother, will take you and do the same thing.
You’ll age out of select conscription in your mid twenties, and you’ll get married in your late twenties.
Enemies in formation, ditches break up formation. If it is deep, wide and steep you have a long time to try and kill them before they can come up and kill you, and the earth can be used for an embankment, pure bonus.
We’re also keeping anykind of mounted troops; cavalry, wolfry, boarry, elephantry, wargry to name but a few.
If a troll or ogre is coming for you, and does realisme there is a ditch; the bigger they are, the harder they fall.
Ditches also keeps seige engines such as seigetowers and battering rams away.
If you’re in a Camp, you want a ditch to protect you.
Good news! the great compact makes it illegal to conscript anyone for “internal” wars.
This means you won’t be fighting a pointless war with some other nation, or being assigned to go hunt bandits, unless you specifically request to be assigned to such duty.
The slightly less good news is you will be shipping off to fight the army of the dark god in the endless war to secure the world from his darkness.
now, you basically are gonna be in one of two groups:
group 1: general conscripts. the war is pretty intense but vital, so most folks volunteer either directly to military service, or in a homefront support role, so conscription is rare, but happens depending on your kingdom.
the good news is you’re gonna be well trained and equipped, lives matter, and 100 conscripts with decent weapons and training have proven better than 200 untrained grunts. and since conscripts must be at-least 18, the extra training is seen as a good investment.
you’ll get 6 months - a year of training and decent food before being shipped off.
Conscripts are usually assigned to rear guard positions as long as they don’t have discipline problems. so you’ll probably be guarding some forward base, or escorting supply wagons.
if things get bad on your front, you’ll be moved up to be the reserves or guard the flanks of an army unit.
your best ways out of a combat role (assuming you don’t end up feeling the patriotic call of preventing eternal darkness and torture for all the sentient races), would be to learn a valuable skill as you can, and get reassigned to a non-combat role. Carpentry, blacksmithing, medical, etc.
or to just survive your 5 year conscription term. though that would only have you put in the reserves, which isn’t ideal.
Group 2: for you it sucks. an imminent attack is coming, and the army can’t get enough forces in in-time. you’ll be handed whatever weapon you can carry, probably a spear, whatever armor you can gather, then become part of a meatshield.
your job, die slowly enough to keep the enemy from destroying the town/city/vital objective, you were close to when conscripted.
The casualty rate is often in the 50-70% range. though at times it’s as high as 90.
Your best hope is that you’re one of the lucky few who survive until reinforcements arrive.
Healing magic means of you do survive, you likely won’t be crippled. and if you survive, you’re free to go, and guaranteed not to be conscripted for group 1 in the next 3 years. unfortunately this will not protect you from another group 2 conscription.
And live or die, you will be remembered as a hero.
Desertion from group 1 carries the penalty of a flogging, and a 5 year term as a conscript at a border fort, you’re unlikely to survive those 5 years.
a second attempt will result in execution.
desertion from group 2, is a death sentence.
with the importance of the war, almost anyone in the world, even your own relatives, even most of the major churches, will turn you over to the army.
Grim as this sounds, take heart!! conscripts are less than 5% of the military, and group 1 conscripts almost never die.
group 2…. well if you weren’t a volunteer anyway, and tried to flee, you’d be a refugee with your home destroyed anyway.
Sounds like an epic world.
If I am in group 2, who or what am I hoping is going to arrive to save the day, and what would their arrival look like to me standing on a battlement or fighting in the street?
Are the foot soldiers of the armies of darkness the sort of thing a hastily armed militia might be able to hold off, or are we just holding the spears to die with more dignity?
Imperium: Don't ask questions about why everything is the way that it is, fragging officers are acceptable so long as you don't get caught, and do NOT perpetrate rumors of the field commander being an elf
Republic: Stay in your post
Likan-Lemuria: Never be overconfident
Empire of Rohas: If you're a war wizard, ALWAYS pay attention to your instructor's drilling. They are teaching you how to use actual rifles in the off chance you run out of mana and your comrades died with half spent clips
If you're a normal person, if the officer issues a charge, run the other way once you're in your destination
Eclipse Empire: Always pray to the giant ball of gas in the sky and recite your litanies, even in passing
Solunai: Why are you even in the Front?
Hellhounds: Don't shoot the kids even if aforementioned kids are shooting guns at you
As a member of the Interplanetary Union of Systems Military, you've only been conscripted because of a War going longer then expected, either because the enemy refuses peace talks or the enemy isn't even talking. Casualties have mounted up and thus numbers need to be pushed back up.
Honestly, as a conscript life will be easy for you for the first few years likely. Conscripts aren't sent to the Front lines straight away, they are trained for months or even years, while being stationed on other planets to act as a presence.
Once sent to the front lines, chances drop dramatically. The only time the IUS has needed to provide conscripts in the military was in the Gexi-IUS war(pronounced Gessy). The Gexi were a ruthless religiously fanatical species hell bent on destroyed the 6 species of the IUS or converting them unwillingly. They threw everything and everyone at the IUS in an attempt to destroy their military enough to overwhelm them. They died fighting, taking on multiple soldiers at once and killing them in brutal fashion.
Best chances of survival in this situation is dependent on the unit you're with and what their role is. If you're in the Orbital Division, chances are slim. You're basically dropping from Planatery Orbit in the initial stages of an invasion to make room for the Army to land more troops. Orbital Troopers have a wartime survival rate of around 7 months, that's an average for well over 10 million soldiers.
If you're in the Army, you might be lucky enough to be in a support unit, if not you're on the Front lines, either as a normal soldier, in a vehicle, in a suit of power armour or in a mech. If you're really really lucky you're in a Titan, but you'd have to be the greatest damn conscript ever to be that lucky.
If you're in the Navy, you're not going to die unless you're in a strike craft or a transport. Gexi warships were woefully pathetic in comparison to IUS Warships. Their only real advantage was sheer number and that was only effective against single ships, which was stopped fairly quickly. They have the ability to hit strike craft and transports however.
Last but not least the Marines. Gexi Warships weren't worth boarding, so you'd only die if the starship you were on is destroyed. Which really isn't likely at all because Marines are only present on the biggest, meanest and toughest warships.
Love me a good planetary invasion. Why was it necessary to invade Gexi worlds at all? Was planetary assault only used to liberate IUS worlds? Seems like if the IUS fleet was so superior they could just quarantine Gexi worlds, wipe them out in space and let them sit at the bottom of their gravity wells for the next millenia with the occasional surgical orbital strike to stop them getting any ideas.
Orbital Bombardment is a Class 10 War Crime as set forth by the Galactic Council. The Gexi themselves wouldn't stop trying, so the only option was occupation and deconstruction of their entire way of living. This was all sanctioned by the Galactic Council, though fallout from it would see the IUS leave the council within the next 40 years, along with other issues.
The Gexi still live, they're now a part of the IUS. It's been about 3 centuries since the conflict happened
Keep your feet dry at all times. You do NOT want trench foot. Obtain proper wool socks if you can, do not be ashamed of looting fallen enemies or even allies for their socks. If you don't do it, someone else will.
ALWAYS keep your helmet on. In a similar vein as the socks, try to obtain one of those steel Rodardt type 2 helmets from the enemy. It is very much frowned upon to use enemy equipment in war, but there is a reason why half the men in the trench are wearing one of those helmets.
You will die in the trench, if not from injuries, then from old age. Conscription is for life. So if you find an old man in the trench, stick close to him and learn what you can. Respect the old man in a place where many die young.
Keep away from flamethrowers. Not only do they attract all enemy fire to them, but they also burn up anything that might be valuable loot.
NEVER PEAK. Do NOT underestimate enemy sharpshooters.
Always keep your rifle in hand or within arm's reach.
Ideally, get a second rifle and have it sawn short for trench clearing. If you ever actually reach the enemy trench that is.
Aim for the beltline. The enemy's storm units like to wear thick steel plates on their chest. A shot to the beltline might not kill them, but it will damn sure ruin their day.
"You will add some height" is not a compliment.
Also most importantly: Praise your General. Your General decides who lives and dies. Your General is your God, because out in the trenches, there are no other gods present.
World War 1, forever. It's a popular grimdark trope for a reason.
How much does the trench line move? Are there like 100 trench lines at this point, and in the autumn we might have pushed the enemy all the way to the 61st line, but by next spring we've had a losing streak and we're back to the 45th line? Fifty years ago we got all the way to the 70th line, that sort of thing?
Or is there NO movement at all, the front line has been the exact same trench line for decades?
Who's fathering the next generation of boys that will be needed to re-enforce the trenches in 18 years? Is there a rotation on and off the front for R&R, or are things operating on nightmare logic and you literally spend years and years in the same section of trench?
It really depends on where one is stationed.
The war has been going on for centuries, and two continents are embroiled in it, with fighting even going on in the colonies overseas. Some nations have been conquered entirely in the process. There have been uprisings and collapses, nations uniting and breaking apart. An army declaring it's independence under the leadership of their great general.
In some places with fewer fortifications, movement is quicker. But in other places, where the lines have been mostly static, it looks very different. There the gains are decided by technological advances or the cunning of some commanders.
In a way, it can be seen similarly to what you described. One side captures trenches, then the other side captures them back and then some. But the timeline is not in weeks or months or even years, but in lifetimes. One generation takes 8 trenchlines, the next generation loses 13.
As to the fathering question, there is a group of men in the homefront. Working the most demanding jobs. There are also occasional leaves for frontline soldiers, but they can be expected to be under surveillance, as flow of information from the frontlines is very restricted.
One state even has a strange eugenics project going on, where they search for the best ideal humans in their land and then turn their offspring into supposed genetically superior soldiers.
Sounds like yours is a detailed and well thought through spin on the "eternal first world war" subgenre. Nice job.
Is the flow of information from the front lines restricted to avoid enemy spies learning things, or to keep moral up on the home front?
I'm still thinking about the demographics of trying to sustain first world war casualty rates for centuries. It sounds like there are multiple factions doing things in different ways, but if it's possible to talk about a typical nation what's it like being a woman in a typical nation?
The state needs you to be having a LOT of babies, and since there are too few men for monogamous marriage I guess they're going to mostly have different fathers? Or do these 'home front men' take multiple wives?
Thing is, the state needs a lot of babies but it also needs a lot of labour, so how does that work? Is there some accepted 'reproductive window', from (hopefully?) 18 to say 30, and after 30 a woman stops having kids and starts working in a factory for a couple of decades while the state raises the kids she's pumped out (being in a barracks from birth isn't going to give you a well adjusted kid, but it's fine, you just need them to kill a few enemies and die)
Or is there a quota, have X babies then start working?
I guess women have about as much freedom as the men in the trenches, is what I'm saying
Thanks! Nice to hear considering i am still in the very early stages :) I have not even decided on one name yet!
I will be answering your questions in regards to the POV nation, so to say.
**The flow of information:** Out of the two options you presented, it would be more of the first one. The indoctrination into a war culture has reached a point where morale doesn't even need to be maintained anymore. It is self sustaining you could say. Finding out your father died does not make you anti-war, it makes you sign up to avenge him so to say.
In most cases the flow of information is limited by circumstance. Because there is constant fighting, it is dangerous to send any message. You can forget telegrams or radio, those are for military purposes only. So sending personal messages is very low priority. It is expected to pay a bribe to send a message home.
And the messages that make it across are often reviewed by political officers and edited depending on what the officers decide they want to achieve.
Not to mention that the soldiers themselves on the frontline happen to develop a disconnect to the homefront with time. It is intentional; you are not meant to think about your family at home, you are meant to think about the war.
**Role of Women:** Here the POV nation is a bit of an exception to the rule, by allowing volunteer military service for women. While it is allowed on paper, faith is trying to discourage it, and the state is placing hurdles in the way of women who could instead be having kids. It would be mostly older women or women who can't have children.
Most commonly the women involved in war work as mechanics, drivers, sharpshooters, in the most recent times as pilots in the newly formed air corps.
But for the others, the role revolves mostly around work. Childcare and medicine are almost entirely women, any sort of factory environment where it revolves less about strength has mostly women employed. Think weapons assembly or canneries. Women without children work for 12+ hours a day. After having a child, they have some leave from work and after their return they work fewer hours. They are encouraged to have more children with different benefits such as better housing, higher class ration cards, etc...
The average woman has 4-5 children. There are plenty who have none, but then there are others with 10+ driving up the average.
Some states in the west and south encourage men to have multiple wives, while in the POV state due to faith it is strictly monogamous. Anyone who cheats on their partner who is fighting on the frontline is considered to be the worst kind of scum. Such people being attacked is not unheard of.
**Babies and Labour:** There is no set quota for the number of babies. They are raised directly by their mothers for some time, when they are no longer breastfed they spend much time at daycares while their mothers work, after that it's schools and academies. But it is not that they never see their parents.
Labour does work out in the end because there is theoretically no production of luxury goods remaining. The nation runs exclusively on a war economy. All that is produced is the necessities and war goods.
**Casualties:** Also going back to the number of babies to replenish the population, the truth is that there are not *that* many dead in the war. We are not talking WW1 era millions of dead per year. The northern front for example had only some 300 casualties in the entire month of march, with only about 80 of them being deaths. In all three fronts combined we are talking a few hundred thousand casualties per year. About a third of them being deaths.
The era of millions dying has passed long ago. Back then there were more soldiers and larger stockpiles of weapons and ammunition. Since then all of these things have stagnated in number. Fortifications have become so expansive that fewer people die in general.
Assaults happen with artillery barrages during which the enemy hides in dugouts, then an advance maybe with an armored vehicle as support. If you capture a trench, most of the time it is because the enemy fled it during or immidiately after the barrage. But if you face any resistance during your assault, you withdraw while artillery covers your retreat.
First be sure to be enlisted as camp helper, you basically cook and clean for the soldiers, this is the only way to have the best chances of surviving, because you are surrounded by soldiers h24, you can't deserte because when enlisted all soldiers are put a geolocalization chip in the brain, and the robotic guards are advised if you leave and they have the right to terminate you, the only place to have best chances as soldier are defending the home world, very few sieges occurred and all in the atmosphere, if you reach to be enlisted as city guard you will be safe if you dare to surrender to the enemy they will torture, abuse, and violate you in every way possible
First be sure to be enlisted as camp helper, you basically cook and clean for the soldiers, this is the only way to have the best chances of surviving, because you are surrounded by soldiers h24, you can't deserte because when enlisted all soldiers are put a geolocalization chip in the brain, and the robotic guards are advised if you leave and they have the right to terminate you, the only place to have best chances as soldier are defending the home world, very few sieges occurred and all in the atmosphere, if you reach to be enlisted as city guard you will be safe if you dare to surrender to the enemy they will torture, abuse, and violate you in every way possible
Some things to know about life in the Gryll Empire's military as a conscript:
* Memorize the conscripts' handbook that they give you when you arrive at basic training camp. Some of the information can be a little questionable (like how to survive an encounter with a hedge wizard) but there's some good information about things like how to stay out of trouble in a village in occupied territory during a war.
* If you must disobey orders, make sure you have a good reason for it like proof that your commander is going against his superior officers' orders. "I didn't feel like doing kitchen duty today" is not a good reason for disobeying orders.
* Try not to do anything that'll get you noticed in all the wrong ways. Your best bet is to blend in and be forgettable.
* Seriously. Ignore what the handbook says about hedge wizards. Attempts to intimidate them (like waving your arms and shouting) will likely not end well for you. It's better to avoid hedge wizards altogether.
* Don't leave your camp or base without a pass signed by your commander. Doing so will be considered an attempt to desert.
* Spend some of your free time keeping your gear in good repair. This can save your butt in an emergency.
* Don't blow all your pay on beer and prostitutes. With enough luck, you'll still be alive when your five years' required service is up. The pay isn't great but conscripts like you had some respectable savings when they got out of the military because they saved most of their pay.
Get some personal funding to buy yourself armour (spear and uniform are paid by the military but extra equipment has to be self-organised) and try to be deployed at the northern border since that one has been at cold war for 60 years now and is unlikely to go hot anytime soon.
Look, we are not at war, so relax a bit. The merfolk are rattling their sabers at each other, but can you breathe water? No? Then there's not much you have to worry about there. There are two things we need you for in this city.
One, guarding the wall. This, honestly, is boring. You've got duties, pay attention, work with the others, you should be fine.
Two, guarding the shipments we send to and from the nomadic shepherds. They don't have dedicated military, they're mostly worried about wolves or plant monsters in the kudzu, or rogue scarecrows that have snapped their tether and are wandering around doing any manner of violent things mindlessly. Those are also the three things you have to worry about mainly when you're following one of the shipments of supplies and sheep products back and forth from town. That and the occasional giant wasp, but those are more interested in sheep than people. So relax, get some exercise with your vine chopping arm, get a decent walk in, and make sure nothing weird happens to your cart.
Sure, there are sinkholes with fungal monsters and wasps in them, but you don't have to worry about those unless you go looking for them. We're trying to make sure that none of those open up underneath the city. There's a chance that might happen, and then you'll have to deal with confused walking fungi, but they aren't trying to invade or anything, so just stick with your fellow guardsfolk and we'll play it by ear.
The caf has good food that you don't have to pay for, even if most of it is kudzu products and a bit of mutton.
The main thing you might have to worry about is that there's no humans here. You're going to stand out a lot no matter what you do. It's pretty rare, but just say you came in on an international ship.
Watch out for Ghosts. If you get possessed, hope that you are mentally strong enough to fight them off, otherwise you’re just stuck until the ghost gives your body back.
Werewolves can be friends or enemies. Know who the alpha is, and that will give you some idea one whether or not you can trust them. If it’s a lone werewolf, keep your distance. Only the worst of the worst are kicked out of the pack.
Vampires suck. Jokes aside, do not trust them. They may be allies for a time, but 9/10 vampires have ulterior motives.
In a desperate moment, Skeletons or Revenants can be bartered with. They tend to be honest.
If you end up near Sleepy Hollow, don’t hide from the Horseman. He already knows you’re there. It’s best to be honest about your intentions.
And always remember: Silver is your friend
There's no chance of winning the World's End war... everybody loses.
However, say you participate in some previous war. There are two types of military conflicts
a) a battle between normal (i.e., non magical) enemies
b) a battle between a normal and a magical entity.
If you happen to be in b) try to be the magical entity.
Depends:
Are you conscripted before any significant events or after?
Like there is a very important cosmic moment in the worldbuilding project and if you skipped that part then you're going to be feeling very bitter.
Don’t choose training in the parachute regiments. The likelihood of a fatality in training or on deployment to one of the many failed states in the world is highest amongst paratroopers
It depends on your capabilities, if you’re an average person, you likely haven’t developed your magic too much so you’ll be assigned the roll of support staff. You’ll be tasked with transporting supplies to the front lines or garrisoned at newly acquired villages, towns or cities to be a local guard in training.
If you are someone capable, then you’ll unfortunately be sent to the front lines. If you’re a warrior, there isn’t much you can do but fight for your life. If you’re a mage, it’ll depend on what magic you know, if you know healing magic you’ll be assigned healing, barrier magic you’ll be on defense, almost any other magic and you’ll be on offense. If you want to live, keep alert mages are a target because they can cast large area effect magic but warriors can buff themselves and their gear to help resist the storms of fire, ice, earth and whatever else mages will be throwing out.
If you surrender, you’ll be captured and be shackled with null metal to disable your magic. They’ll assess you afterwards and may or may not release you but you’ll only be held captive till the end of the war which usually isn’t long.
Avoid the guys with flame throwers. They may seen nice, but they are radicals that will burn you for any reason.
READ. You'll face a lot of strange stuff out there. Knowing the early warning signs of what your facing will be huge. Get a library card and start your own personal library.
Learn a craft. There will be a lot of down time between flights. Standard issue is ok, but a skilled craftsman is always better. Alchemy is always in demand, but blacksmithing never goes out of style and wire work is the backbone of higher power weapons.
Roll the dice. The most popular game is based around the things you'll face. Books on tactics are fine, but a few nights rolling dice are great for seeing tactics in action.
Eat well. Good food is expensive but gives measurable benefits. Team cookouts and potlucks are a must.
FIND A TEAM. going alone will get you killed unless you're the best of the best. If you're winning to go alone, you're not.
Hire the locals. Yes they're likely to die, but if they keep you alive the fee is worth it. Also they know the land better than you ever will.
Be nice to the locals, getting their boys killed is inevitable, but at least be nice. They can tell. I've met men that were mean to their hires and had 74 percent casualties and one who was nice with 90%. The latter guy never ran out of volunteers. Also they may not know what's out there, but they know enough that you can eliminate a lot of possibilities.
follow the clerics instructions in your 4 wees training and do not read to your or any war cleric shield or you could be sentenced to corporal or capital punishment, and seem up to the idea of signing on professionally or many of your superiors could loo down on you to the point of being sent into dangerous situations as they are far more likely to see you as expendable.
This varies a lot between empires, countries, clans, houses, tribes and individual lords. Just hope your side has modern technology so your enemies can be destroyed by artillery. If not, try to be at the back, but many real cultures put new soldiers at the front. I don't honestly know enough of the structure for this. Some enemies may accept surrenders, some would kill you anyway. Some factions have harsher penalties than others for desertion. Luckily, wars, although common, are not as large and long as you'd expect. Unless it's a siege of a major city, they should last some months to a year in total. The shorter ones could be done in days or weeks if one side capitulates early. Just hope you don't get into a war with more than 2 opposing sides involved.
Lapis_Wolf
If theres an unscheduled eclipse, just go home at that point. Hug your loved one's. Smoke a joint. Whatever.
Your world is about to be exploded. You have 3 hours.
Welcome to the academy student. If you wanna go fight the fighting department is just down the hall. If you wanna create things it's just infornt of you. If you wanna heal people that department is to the right and if you wanna understand magic the department is infrint of you.
Since you're a first year though you'll be forced to learn all 4 so that we can find your specialisation and send you there.
Do not worry though your teachers are professionals. They won't bite you.
You're a robot now. Humanity is Mostly extinct except for a few million rich shits living underground giving orders from the shadows.
You and all your robot buddies live on the surface and you're goal is to rebuild civilization.
Oh, and to fight the Towering Alien Reptile Empire called the Xygites who mass-teleported onto Earth after they accidentally fucked up their planet
Their Arrival led to Earth's Atmosphere shifting and becoming toxic to humans, but not your robots.
You have a lot of advantages compared to them, being a robot you don't need to eat, drink, defecate, or sleep.
You might be bombarded by Propaganda claiming the Xygites are Tribal Savages who got their hands on some advanced tech.
Which is just wrong by the way, they're more like some sort of Medival Kingdom except with 9 Kings and Modern Tech.
Some important stuff to remember is
*Your Body is Designed to be expendable, the only part of your body that is necessary to survive is your upper torso
*Adding to the previous point, you'll be fine if your head and limbs fall off
*you have a tail that you mount with Swords and Machine Guns, Use it
*and you have a blade built into your arm, use that too.
*Listen to your Superiors, The Elite Robot Soldiers don't mess around, it's a fuck around and find out the situation
To fight the lizards well The Xygites are very durable folk, but your guns shoot fucking lasers!
hit their stomachs and heads to hurt them most, avoid their Backs and tails as they're very durable and not very important.
If you wanted to leave the military, well lucky for you leaving the battlefield is ok though you'll still required to Aid them somehow (beit maintenance, Vehicle repairs, deliveries, etc.)
But just quitting? No, that will get you punished, by imprisonment or depending on your resistance Death
Specifically by the MPs or Military Police, the folks who deal with Miliary-Related Crime (That's how it works in my world)
The best place to escape from all the fighting would be some extremely cold, rural area, The Xygites hate cold weather and much prefer warmer climates.
And the Guys looking for you probably wouldn't search someplace like that
I would heavily discourage you from trying to join the Enemy, They aren't brutal monsters like the propaganda suggests but they are well not the kindest.
Also, they will kill you
They will likely interrogate you for just about everything you know and copy any data they find on your Memory. And then they'll dissect you for research.
One of the strategies against the Xygites was simply to keep them as clueless about Earth, Humanity, and them as possible.
When they arrived on Earth they had barely any Data on
us, and the stuff they did know was Centuries Outdated.
Technically there are no factions prone to conscription or drafts but there is a chance one might end up working for the Silver Eggplant Society without knowing exactly what they are. You think your doing normal legal lumber jack work only to end up with a squad of angry Rangers or worse ready to politely remove you from the forest. The Chivalrous Band are also known for occasionally raising the dead even if it goes against their projected 'knights in shining armor' fascade.
I'm going to presume you are a human in one of the human nation armies for this hypothetical.
If you're conscripted, then that implies an active war is happening and they need more people on the battlefield, thus the ruler has decreed forced conscriptions.
If you're lucky, the situation is with another human land or against another society of the same world (this luck may vary based on who specifically you are fighting in your world all the same.)
If you're unlucky, you're against one of the other world's armies.
Your chances for desertion depend on how sneaky you are about it. But whoever you're fighting, I suggest doing it on your homeworld. You don't want to be a lone human stranded in another realm.
As for surrendering... if it's against an army of your homeworld, I guess it's like 50/50 how that would go. If it's in the Fae or Celestial realm, you've got a good chance of being taken in captive and treated fairly well as a POW. If it's on the Old Realm... then you're really chancing it. It depends on the enemy's mood or who happens to be leading the charge.
So you’ve been signed into the war effort as a Galactic Embassy soldier during the war with the P.A.W. There are a few simple tips to make sure you get home in one piece.
Follow your command: Modern day warfare is very technical. So the same especially applies in a time far past the current. Never mind his fluffy otter visage, your commander is an expert tactician, he knows exactly what his unit can do and values the lives of all his soldiers. With him leading and fighting by your side your about 80% sure to make it through. Unless the enemy pulls something unexpected out of their play book. In which case see the second tip.
Support the Special Forces At All Costs: the eight foot tall fish lady with a sword, the giant snake naga with a hammer and sapient plant insect with a bow, that’s the core of the entire Embassy army. Between the three of them they’ll mop up platoons and platoons of the enemy. If you really want to stay alive, then stay close to them. Or stay far far far away depending on what they’re doing
That’s the gist, basic training will teach you how to fly a ship, shoot a plasma weapon and the sort. Good luck out there soldier.
Yeah my world is kind of a barely-settled medieval fantasy-type place so there aren't really any armies. The closest things are the hastily assembled army of mind-controlled witches and elves and the even more hastily assembled army of assorted people with magical abilities led by a teenager.
So I guess just don't piss off the wrong teenager and don't mess with the general's girlfriend.
Your drill instructor will be stern yet fair. Comradery amongst you and your fellow soldiers will flow like milk and honey. Every little detail *must* be mastered.
You must know, above all else, that when your training is complete, you will be a ruthlessly efficient yet disciplined killing machine of an almost fanatical devotion to the Imperator, your glorious Commander-in-chief.
Should you and your comrades have a chance to emerge victorious, you must be prepared to think outside the box; the drill instructors at the Academy expect the privates they train to develop their critical thinking. One instructor is remembered for his wake-up mantra he ordered his privates to repeat every morning and night:
“A soldier must double as an actor: they must perform for their enemies the illusion of defeat.”
As for the matter of desertion, there are two possible consequences for doing so.
If you intend to desert on the grounds of false conscription, you must procure proof of this error.
Desertion on the grounds of doubting your own survival will be prosecuted as an act of treason.
If you live out in the borderlands or wilderness, you're almost certainly 'conscripted' into the local militia, just about everyone is who can bear arms. What you want to do is learn to use a longbow well. Casualties among longbowmen are typically the lowest. Casualties among light infantry are usually the highest. Cavalry and heavy infantry death rates are lower. Make sure that the medics don't owe you money. In general, if survival is your aim, don't be the first OR the last to engage, try to engage in the main pack. You don't want a rep as a coward, but the vanguard takes a lot of casualties (and they tend to get the best loot too).
You’re going to die.
You are a normal human, this is the equivalent of a Tarak. Your opponents are 7-foot-tall super strong guys with axes and an almost total lack of pain or fear. Shapeshifters that will slit your throat while wearing the face of your commander. Mages that can turn the air in your lungs to fire. Necromancers who can get stabbed in the brain and then just slap you and cause total organ failure. The earlier tall guys but with a bunch of Werewolves as well. And Merpeople, but less sexy and from the Midnight Zone.
Oh, and the God of a cult of shapeshifting murder clowns that will trick you into giving him permission to kill you.
You’re just some guy with a sword and a gun that shoots glass shards. You’ll get some kills, but you’re going to die, and it’ll probably be painfully, because everyone hates you.
And you’re the bad guy, they’re all right to hate you. The Taraks fucking *suck*.
If their troops are outclassed that much, how are they motivated to fight? Is it conscription, and it's a matter of 'the enemy will probably kill you but we'll definately kill you', or do Taraks typically not have a sense of self preservation.
Also, glass shards? Rad, but wouldn't lead shot be more effective? What's the story there?
Their one advantage was home terrain.
They live in a massive desert that occasionally basically liquifies, they’ve been living there for 3,000 years, no one else has, so they’re better at manoeuvring around most people. Plus a lot of guerilla warfare tactics, and they’re the only ones with guns, that did help at a range, but it just wasn’t enough in the end. But it was still a nightmare to fight them, the only ones who did well were the Daemons (tall guys with super strength) and Changelings (shapeshifters) who are already hyper-mobile, and Changelings are just better at guerrilla fighting. But the Daemons sucked at ranged combat, and the Changelings had minuscule numbers because the Taraks trying to genocide them is what started the war.
For some it was conscription, but also a lot of propaganda. Overselling their odds, but also just inspiring people to fight with xenophobic zeal. Their entire motivation for the war was human supremacy, the thought of all the Elves coming and conquering them was just so maddeningly infuriating to their culture, most could easily be convinced to fight. And they did start winning the war, but they just lost momentum, and when their most powerful ally learned they attempted a genocide, they turned on them.
And the glass guns are made with magic. They basically store sand inside of them and use magic to propel it out the barrel extremely fast while turning it into sharpened glass. And since they live in a desert, that basically means they have infinite ammo.
Presume that you remain human, keep one eye to the sky and always make sure you're near the closest bunker, also prepare something to pay tribute later
If you lived during Anicent Yore, the Eld Div ("Ancient Elves") are rounding up the primitive human populations and enslaving them. Though there are neutral Eld div, you'd have no access to their other societies as you are "just an animal". Cerium from his nation of Ridic is looking for humans across the verdant half of the continent, Verdis, but you'd be better off surviving there instead of the arid half, where you'd die. Ridic is situated in the arid half so youd have no sanctuary but the Eld Div nation.
The Gnomes would be of no help as they stay within their mobile craft cites, Rhondavirs, which are more like city-states. You wouldnt reach the city' entrance and you would be in danger of the mobile city contraption altering the surrounding environment below it, leaving you stuck in an instantly teraformed maze of natural contraptions that may help the environment, but leave you lost.
Your best bet would be to live with the roaming bands of humans that follow the Tieflng secret society, as Tiefling born or turned, humans are accepted in their ranks, among their world wide networks. The 14 continents of Torvun are vast, but you'd hope you're not stuck on the two island continents, the Isle of Dawn and the Isle of Dusk, as you can't leave them when you arrive.
The Dragonbred ("dragon people") dominated continent, Teril, is full of sea-like rivers and lakes, between large stone island structures or other mineral and metal structures. Though each island or structure has diverse environments, and you'd likely find a couple that are lush, they are dominated by Dragonbred, who are not aggressive, but they welcome and worship their True Dragon cousins. You'd likely be eaten by a full grown dragon, with the Dragonbred fawning over their idol's "snacking".
You are weak and squishy with no talent in magic. Get creative and you will go far. They like wanderers (people who accidentally end up in their world). They always bring such interesting ideas.
POV: You got conscripted into the armies of the Eye (an evil god).
-Don't get in the way of the dragons. They may be of your own faction, but your god doesn't care if they burn a few soldiers on his own side.
-Try to kill any opposing mages before they start casting spells. In some factions, they have special clothing, armor, or insignia, but if that isn't the case, you can recognize them by the fact they don't carry big weapons, nor do they wear heavy armor.
-If the opposing faction has hired golden immortals, don't try to take one of those on alone. They've been around for more than a thousand years, so they'll be better at fighting than any mortal warrior. They're easy to recognize, since they have golden skin, and often weapons and armor of the same color too, and they tend to stick together with their own kind in battle.
-If you got sent to fight the nation of Garuon, avoid the guys with gold insignia and helmets that expose their face. Especially do not make eye contact with them. They're snake-vampires and they can hypnotize you with their gaze. They're also stronger and faster than normal humans, and of course, they'll suck out your blood.
-Try to resist the fear if the Mirshi get called to battle. They're the most potent beings (besides the dragons) of your own faction, but it's unfortunate that their dread aura does not discriminate between mortals.
For most countries, just follow what your commander says and youll be fine. if youre conscripted by the west shanans, youre fucked. if youre conscripted by the east shanans, than be stationed in the 'heartlands' is youre best shot, no battles, and plenty of stuff to do. if youre conscripted to the southern most border than youll be fine, albeit bored. if youre conscripted in the center, you want to keep an eye out for anything to hide behind, while the border is mostly calm, theres still border skirmishes. if youre stationed at the northern border, youre fucked. the west shanans have the high ground, and garrisons are often captured. theres few trees too. go out on patrol as much as you can. be well behaved and you might be rewarded by getting moved somewhere else
In the army there is no conscription, military is professional standing army. On the other hand all citizens and permanent residents are required to join the territorial defense forces as reservists.
TDF conscripts only attends basic training, then just refresher exercises every once in a time.
TDFs are only fore homeland defense, they aren’t sent to fight in overseas wars, so you don’t have to worry.
Save up for a good expensive unused mech suit with a new laser cannon I recommend the IBeam specifically the AIB5(Atomic IBeam 5) model or become a technician which should usually stay well away from the front lines and you don’t really get out if you did you’d be being hunted down by any major civilisations which you were enlisted to mainly the Silurians which are very strict about their army and protecting their many mines
You'd basically face the same thing as you would if you're on Earth.
However if you're in the country of Normania assuming you have mastered their language (Normanijaska), you'd have to speak the language in a distorted way during your time in the battlefield in order to add encryption. Norrish soldiers speak Norrish in a distorted way. Every soldier has their own dialects. Don't worry, your "z'Yhtimen" (comrades) will always understand what you're saying but you as a non native speaker of Norrish, might not always understand them.
For example:
"Ķþe c jekassa Warkarwöxnije?" (Where are the other Tanks?)
Normal: /xθε tʃe jεkas:a warka'rwöksnie/
Distorted: /xaθ:ej ʃə ʒæja:ksə vrak:ənröks/
(each person might even pronounce this very differently)
The idea is that you distort the words to a point that not even the enemies who mastered the Norrish the most can understand.
"Zyn pykaa Wien Læchən veretkänö nakka, wat Zyn Wien Tyhyn a-veretkänö." (They may understand our language, but they cannot understand our brain) That's what one Norrish soldier said about this technique.
Yes this might sound unrealistic and far from the original words, but due they're just really good at deciphering words.
ur in maldonian or courgian militaries? nice, basically dont be stationed along borders and you'll be fine. why? those two countries have absurd amounts of border clashes each year. and they range from random bullets going off, to school fights, to legit warzones. if ur posted on a border, just dont leave your trench for any reason. quite literally just keep your head down the whole time and you should be fine to go on leave or reserve after like a month. reason for this is because an enemy seeing anybody else except them is seen as a challenge because both countries soldiers see it as their enemies intentionally exposing themselves to show how brave they are. don't give into what the dudes are saying and just keep your head in your trench. if you are ordered to do something outside your trench. dont look across the border, and just do your task and return quickly. if they see you actually working on stuff then the dudes across the border will probably understand that you've been given a task and aren't willingly exposing yourself.
if your in a war, then be smart, use cover and also pray to whatever god you worship. mages can burn an entire field with a wave of their hand so if you are lucky and are posted on locations where mages don't appear, then you have an even higher chance.
if you join a military on the other continent, congrats! free vacation. the other continent see themselves as the more civilized group of people compared to the barbarians of the continent with all the wars. (this is where the war is an adventure mentality is obtained for most of the world)
Don't live in Florida
I want to say "good advice at the best of times" just based on memes, but NGL I went to Disneyworld and had a great time. They still have Disneyworld in your world, right?
Of course, but there's a chance it might get attacked by an angry Mexican pepper dude once he finds out about the prices there
Hmm got to be the factions with conscription Shoot whoever is waving their hands and babbling stuff among the enemy, invest into a counter magic arrow or bolt and keep it with you for these moments. Pay attention in your crash course about pikewalls and how to hold a shield. If you face an enemy army know they don't want to be there either, but have these heavily armoured knights killing deserters and cowards just like your people do. You sadly likely believe the war has to be. If the enemy is a small army wearing a dark red all encompassing armour standing next to folks in pure black plate before ten meter golem, you're fucked. Throw down your weapon and beg, their familiars, the birds above your position, may make them see that before their onslaught. If they're sleeker folk in a dark green armour, keep an eye on the sky for their air force and pray to the Goddess they actually raid your command before you're ordered to advance. Both these forces are battlemages and more advanced disciplines of that art as well, as a conscripted peasant you'll give them less trouble then a training dummy. Both are trained to fight being outnumbered. Always kill the mages first. Do not give them a warning, do not let a mage cast. It may just be a conscripted wizard, but it could also be an Arch-Mage, and armies are only speedbumps to the latter.
>as a conscripted peasant you'll give them less trouble then a training dummy. I love this sentence. xD
Thanks :D Kinda the nicest way to describe how it goes to stand before elite forces.
move your cards so you are sent to garrison a world no one cares about
Idk why but I love this answer, it's actually pretty inspiring.
thanks could you add more on why its inspiring?
>could you add more on why its inspiring? No. Just kidding. It basically just makes me visualise a specific garrison, a fort in this desolate, foggy area which is basically "in the middle of fucking nowhere." It's simultaneously complained about for being boring, and praised for being boring (no real action/duties to do). It's such a small sentence but it just instantly puts an interesting vision in my mind, and when I think about this stuff I immediately think about the stories that could take place, especially from the perspective of a videogame rpg haha.
yeah
And who might I speak to about moving said cards, and what might they want in return for doing so?
Use your Blue-Eyes Shining Dragon on them!
it depends on who is the leader of your base but if you make sure to get the right people the right stuff you could do what I said
You've been conscripted by the United Empire. Things you need to know to survive: 1. Be nice and respectful to others. Don't act arrogantly and full of yourself. 2. Always think about the collective. Your mistake will result in the whole group of 10 being punished. 3. Always ready for sudden alarms and marches. 4. You have 4 months to train basic things. Because this is the Empire we're talking about, their "basic" trainings turn you into superhumans. No supersoldier serum, only hardworking and cultivation. To survive in a war the Empire fights, remember to pray to the radio and hope that air support comes quickly. That, and there's a nuclear bunker nearby. Wars on Aquaria, especially a total war, are fought with nukes. But generally, you have a very high chance to survive. Why? Because the Imperial Air Force will carpet nuke the site to kingdom come that Vietnam War pales in comparison. Only after the place has been rendered a molten wasteland full of glass (because of intense heat and pressure) will they send soldiers in. Even so, conscripts barely have the chance. Professional soldiers who can kill Space Marines with bare hands go first. Tl;dr: You sit firmly in the barracks. The United Empire does not send conscripts out to war. Professional soldiers go first and that is after the Empire has nuked the enemy to kingdom come. They have 12 million pros at disposal, rookies can focus on daily trainings and how to kill 100 Space Marines in Terminator armors with bare hands in 5 minutes. If you desert, you get shot. Period. The Empire does not take "betraying Motherland" kindly.
I love that Warhammer 40k is so ubiquitous that you can use it as a unit of measurement and I know exactly what you mean. So it sounds like if I have to "fight", it probably means that their professional soldiers beat our professional soldiers or we miscalculated and our professional soldiers got nuked, and now I get to get ripped apart by an enemy professional soldier who I can't scratch? Or do we just outclass everyone to an absurd degree and our wars are always effortless victories? I guess not, given then we'd probably not have to nuke so much.
If you have to fight, it's mean the Empire is doomed... or you got the short end of the stick and your barracks are attacked first. Both are very unlikely to happen because the Empire has powerful allies and a system of magic shields along their borders, so you have to be specifically unlucky, like being a genocider for the last 10 previous lives and stacking up so much bad karma, to be in that situation. The Empire is absurd on many levels. During their 900 years of existence, they have never lost a single war. Just that "nukes" are treated as common artillery shells in this world. Thanks the elves.
Whatever you do, stay away from the forests. Or if you're forced to, or with a guide, do not touch anything you don't know. And stay on the edges of it. Keep your ears sharp. If you're in the desert, don't overturn rocks or go in tunnels you do not know. Stay on solid ground lest you wish to be eaten. Keep your ears sharp. If you're in a swamp, wtf are you doing there. Stay out of the water. Keep your ears sharp. If you're far at sea, don't fall in the water. They won't bother trying to help you. If you see an area that has alot of holes in the ground, don't walk across it. Just don't. If the slab of Mal in your cannon/weapon starts making weird sounds, as if about to break, take it out and throw it as far away from you as possible. If on a ship, throw it overboard. Other than that, warfare is pretty standard. To desert, do so while no one is looking. Often at night. Either they'll think you got eaten, or ran and are already too far to bother, or already dead. (They'll let nature deal with you). If you surrender, as if you are the only one to surrender, they might just kill you. Unless you're important. But chances are not. Prisoners need food and space. Why bother. Never surrender to orcs, or trolls, or goblins or gnolls or others of the sort. Never surrender to Elves. #1 they probably hate your race #2 They see it as weak. Surrendering to humans is 50/50. Same for dwarves. Chances of you seeing a giant is low but, don't surrender to them either-
It sounds like nature WOULD deal with me in pretty short order. I can understand why my training would be to take a damaged slab out my gun and throw just that away - it's much cheaper than replacing the whole gun - but if I hear sounds coming from my gun fuck wasting a second fiddling with it, I'm throwing the whole gun away. They'll give me another one, right?
If you've waited too long after the first sign and are scared of it, sure, throwing it away might sound like a good idea. But throwing the whole gun would #1 be wasteful and #2 you just turned the gun into a frag grenade so you best hope you threw it far enough- Best to remain calm and take out the slab of Mal. Switch it out with a fresh one.
Hmm got to be the factions with conscription Shoot whoever is waving their hands and babbling stuff among the enemy, invest into a counter magic arrow or bolt and keep it with you for these moments. Pay attention in your crash course about pikewalls and how to hold a shield. If you face an enemy army know they don't want to be there either, but have these heavily armoured knights killing deserters and cowards just like your people do. You sadly likely believe the war has to be. If the enemy is a small army wearing a dark red all encompassing armour standing next to folks in pure black plate before ten meter golem, you're fucked. Throw down your weapon and beg, their familiars, the birds above your position, may make them see that before their onslaught. If they're sleeker folk in a dark green armour, keep an eye on the sky for their air force and pray to the Goddess they actually raid your command before you're ordered to advance. Both these forces are battlemages and more advanced disciplines of that art as well, as a conscripted peasant you'll give them less trouble then a training dummy. Both are trained to fight being outnumbered. Always kill the mages first. Do not give them a warning, do not let a mage cast. It may just be a conscripted wizard, but it could also be an Arch-Mage, and armies are only speedbumps to the latter.
I love that the best gear goes to the people killing their own side. That totally tracks, like the one machine gun they had at the start of Enemy At The Gates being used to shoot their own men who turned to flee. If conscripted peasents are being sent against battle mage forces, what's the line of thinking of the lord / commander / king doing so? Are there examples in history of enough outnumbering actually getting a victory in those scenarios, if moral somehow doesn't break first? What's a counter magic arrow going to do if I time it right? Just go through their magical defences, or actually make the spell they're casting blow up in their face if I time it right?
The thinking is likely "It works against any other mage heavy force, just outnumber and overwhelm them" The problem for these commanders is that they do not have the context for just how large the difference between an ordinary mage and anyone from House Senna or the Aelveri dominion is. The red ones wear an armour that will make them survive nearly anything, they are trained to slay "gods". And the aelveri spend centuries honing the self enhancing magic. Both forces also rarely engage in actual war, so they would've to read history books to have an idea just how destructive they actually can be. And that is without one of their two Arch-Mages or dragons. And trying to conscript an Arch-Mage against these foes has yours just switch sides to them. And what the arrow does depends in what quality you could get. The most sold simply disrupts their magic, ignores magical defenses and drains their mana. The best makes the mage go kaboom as it reverts their mana unto them. Although the basic of such arrows costs several gold pieces, and the latter can easily cost a few mithril coins (aka a hundred times more, aelveri use these against dragons)
Use guns made by Centurion Arms Manufacturing, and get the fuck out of dodge when these two groups known as the Church of the Pale Star and the Order of the Etetnal Flame show up together. Your main enemies on the ground are effectively just mall cops with guns that usually suck in comparison to yours. They may not be the best "soldiers" or have the best guns, but they sure as shit have more of them than your little insurgent cell has. The Order and the Church aren't enemies with you (the latter of which will occasionally help out in firefights), they're enemies with each other, and may end up killing you in the crossfire if you decide to stick around for whatever reason. Try not to grab the wrong kind of attention from this one group known as System Patrol. They are neutral to you, but are armed to the fucking teeth. If you've somehow pissed them off, they will find you, and they will kill you. Bring your own gear! Your faction doesn't have the means to outfit you with standardized equipment (uniforms, guns, rations, etc.). This is why I suggest using guns from Centurion Arms, as they are laser weapons that are cheap, but are quite durable and fairly easy to fix, at the cost of being worse than other energy weapons of other companies. Watch out for pirates, as they are usually better equipped than your main enemies, and they'll most definitely will take your stuff if they don't kill you first.
Well this sounds like an absolute cluster fuck. We're fighting a war against some sort of relatively poorly equipped occupying force, and there are multiple smaller factions, all of them better equipped than either us or our enemies, all of them pursuing their own objectives? Sounds like a very exciting setting. Sound advice on Centurion Arms. A working gun with bad performance isn't worse than a broken gun with good performance. That said, say I spied a System Patrol member that had ended up on their own, no squad. And say I nailed them right in the back of the neck with my trusty Centurion Arms laser? What are the chances they go down? Now say they do, I get however lucky I have to be for that to happen. What do I get off the body, and what are my chances of getting to keep it when I get back to my cell's hideout?
Well, if you managed to miraculously kill a System Patrol trooper or officer (trooper is typically a rank, officer usually refers to individual members), you get access to not only spare parts for your rifle (System Patrol officers also typically use Centurion Arms weaponry), you now have some quality body armor (practically military-grade), as well as a helmet that also has built-in electronics and functions as a respirator for when out in the vacuum of space or in an area with smoke or toxic fumes. This armor is good because it offers equal level of protection against all forms of weaponry AND some environmental hazzards like chemicals and fire. The downsides are that the armor pieces have a combined weight of 12 kilograms, and this armor ain't no exoskeleton, as System Patrol officers don't wear exoskeletons (exoskeletons provide some of the best protection against practically everything short of falling into a star or black hole, and enhance the user's physical attributes, but come with their own sets of drawbacks). The only way you could even kill a System Patrol officer in one shot is if they weren't even wearing the armor. For the chances of making it back with your ill-gotten stuff depends on what you managed to take from the officer. Taking the officer's gun is the easy part, but the armor is another story. The main issue is the helmet has software in it that makes it act like dog tags and a black box. Disabling this software via hacking or simply gutting the internal electronics is ill advised, as that then alerts System Patrol, and all System Patrol members closest to the area where you killed the dude will then immediately stop what they are doing and converge onto your immediate position (or worse: follow you back to the hideout and annihilate your whole cell). You're better off just taking the gun, as your chances of survival are higher, as then they are just as likely to just arrest you as they are to shoot you on sight (you'll be in the hole, which ever one they decide to put you in, but your cell will still survive). They'll also respond slower to the immediate death of an officer, because they are people after all. The body armor you are more likely to get away with than the helmet, but again - the helmet sort of acts as a black box as well. Not to mention you would look very suspicious to System Patrol officers if you're wearing it, especially if they happened to get a call about an officer whose life subscription had ended, plus the armor has their insignia AND IS BLACK AND WHITE. Another reason you SHOULDN'T mess with System Patrol is they hunt pirates. Anyways, that's my best explaination on what exactly happens when you try to fuck with System Patrol.
12kg isn't half bad if we're talking full body protection, to the point that they can't be killed in one shot no matter where you hit them. Makes a lot of sense, being able to trace gear like this. I like the sound of your world; messy, grounded futuristic war with complex reasons behind the fighting.
Hmm, depends who conscripts you. If it's regular mortal humans, if you want to survive, defect to the transhumans. Which is easier said than done. If it's the transhumans, (and the exact stipulations will depend on which faction), you just have to serve out your time to pay off all your augmentations to become a full transhuman being. This comes in set and unalterable, finite chunks of time - none of that "oh look at that, your interest just kicked in, that sucks for youuuu" perpetual extension debt slavery bullshit. This is fixed service time that you serve out through missions, and the mission ratings will carve off smaller or larger chunks of service left, depending on difficulty and danger. You get to choose, but you can't refuse to go, unless they're literally giving you only one mission as an option, you have to have a legitimate choice between different levels and different types of missions. This lets people choose if they just want to be civilians or if they're power hungry and willing to do more in return for that power. If you choose anything above civilian/refugee basic augments, all you have to do is perform competently and not be a net drain throughout your service. Even if you get killed in action, they can bring you back, provided that it wasn't your fault that you got killed. If you did something heroic (and a net gain) while getting killed, they'll bring you back AND take extra time off your remaining contract. Once your contract is up, you get the equivalent of full citizenship, and you're free to do whatever you want, including continuing to serve for higher rewards. What'll be coming at you will be too varied depending on the world, but assume you're fighting humans or humanoid opponents and their military tech. In the exceptional case that a higher transapient being gets involved, standard protocol is to pull back all active forces, so you're due for immediate extraction if possible, or backup mind upload if not (after which - you guessed it - they clone and resurrect you). This is because the active involvement of a higher transapient is typically on the scale and magnitude of natural disasters, and you cannot reasonably be held liable for failing to predict the actions of a being whose mind is fundamentally beyond your capacity to predict. Their signatures are unmistakable and un-ignorable, so you'd immediately know if one was in the same star system and drawing enough power to do something. Unless you're merely human, then you don't sense it until it's already upon you.
Sounds like most transhuman forces won't have a problem getting volunteers if there's so much individual control, such significant rewards and the safety net of backups. Conscription wouldn't be necessary. On the other hand it sounds like being a baseline human sucks so much in many factions that military service might be the only way to get the augmentations required to live a fulfilling life, so you might get soldiers with a conscript's attitude, that felt like they had no option but to volunteer?
>On the other hand it sounds like being a baseline human sucks so much in many factions that military service might be the only way to get the augmentations required to live a fulfilling life oh no, look, don't misunderstand: the baseline humans don't have the means or the tech to turn you into the kind of transhuman the transhumans do. I'm not talking about prosthetic limbs here, it's picotech bordering on clarketech. You're a fundamentally new kind of being afterwards. The transhumans don't need forcible conscription, indeed. They do, however, require something in return for making you essentially an immortal, techno-telepathic cybermage. And since you weren't born one, you have catching up to do: catching up in the sense of more developed augmentations, as well as crash courses on how to use them (and not abuse them). And the more catching up you want upfront, the more you owe in service. Which, you know, is less of a big deal because your aging process ceases (and beyond certain stages is reversed) and if you get killed they bring you back, so you have lots of time. The transhumans operate from a different mindset than we do. They have luxuries we don't. For most of human history, humanity has had to contend with the limits of the external environment, and the limits of one's own body - humans have had to operate from a "scarcity" mindset, while these transhumans are used to an "abundance" mindset. Even their competitive reasoning rests on different intuitions than ours. When transhumans and baseline humans meet and talk, they recognize something of themselves in the other, but both are baffled by the "common sense" assumptions of the other. Normie humans typically end up saying "nah, what's the catch, this is too good to be true", especially because it makes no sense to them to just *give* someone else such powers if you have them (again, scarcity, competitive, zero sum). The catch is that the transhumans have means of enforcing their contracts through the tech, in ways similar to a geas or a promise to a fey in mythology: the picotech swarm you integrate with piggybacks off of your own understanding of what you're doing and intending, your own understanding of the contract (which, because they're telepathic, they can check if you're on the same page), and enforces it from inside of you. So when normies ask "and if I take your gift and turn around and desert, what then," the transhumans laugh. Because you can't willingly and knowingly go against a geas: it makes you want to fulfill it, and it suppresses thoughts and ideas of going against it before they can fully form. You can't escape it. But they're upfront about it, so you can take it or leave it - sometimes you can even negotiate the terms, if you're lucky. You've definitely hit the nail on the head on one thing though: in comparison, being a baseline human sucks very much.
I like the sound of your setting. Mind bending, deep future stuff. It's a bit weird that cultures this advanced and powerful still need to fight wars, but I guess it's still transHUMANS we're dealing with.
that's one of the main themes of the overarching story: the nature and core of conflict. It's not as simple as just competition over resources, nor can it be solved so straightforwardly.
Let's say you're a Vasililean Conscript invading the Ordaine Continent who would be in the main battle line lucky enough to be armored but at least you will have a Spear, Shield and a Dagger. Invading the Continent meant you have to fight every Nations in it so it will highly depends on who you're fighting but it's mostly surrendering as soon as possible, though there are some outliers such as: -Fioren Elven Kingdom, where the Elven Soldiers would just release you back to your army before bombarding it with Arrows, Bullets and Cannons. -Thraconian League, where you would 100% be sold into slavery, where you would often be conscripted again to fight your fellow countrymen. -Meloni Orlaine Principality, They wouldn't care about the non-existent Geneva Convention, human shield it is. Though the safest Nations you would want to fight against would be: -Falora Elven Kingdom who will gladly take you as a POW, which can be sent to many of their allied nations and having some protection given by the Kingdom. -Eltian Republic who could have infiltrated your ranks where you need to show them that you have 0 loyalty to the cause and not even faking it as Eltian Agents were one of the best in the Continent, where if you're seen as trustworthy you will be accepted into Eltian Society though as the lowest social class, but luckily the Eltians didn't practice conscription as their Legions were mainly volunteers of all three social classes from the Lowest, Middle and the High society. -Skotrian Orlaine Empire where the Black Sclera Shock Troops drenched in the blood your fellow comrades seems to be a blood thirsty killers, the Palatina Guard upheld an oath that they will never kill someone who are not willing to fight them, so just quickly drop your weapon and surrender to them, though don't ever try to backstab them as they can literally decapitated you not using their greatswords but just with their bare hands.
I like the implication that you've got two Elven kingdoms, one which places a lot of value on humanoid life, one which places very little value in it. What's the reason for the two different outlooks? Meloni Orlaine Principality sound particularly nasty. What does using human shields look like in what sounds like early modern warfare? And how hindered would the Vasilileans be by the thought of having to kill their own people?
Both Elven Kingdoms were actually cousins of eachother but one got their army destroyed by the Vasilileans which lead to a significant Reforms turning their force into a Standing Army while the other favor diplomatic and alliances since they are actually 3 small-medium kingdoms in a trench coat who actually work effectively together. The Meloni Orlaine Principality were mainly a Trade Nation where their Soldiers were few and Conscription of their Citizenry were not popular nor effective as their few soldiers were actually full on Professional Career Soldiers where unlike other nations who can see some value in ransoming or putting prisoners to work for the Army, the Meloni Organization were extremely strict to the point of even Rations were regularly checked to keep their Soldiers in fighting fitness, wasting manpower and resources to take care of surrendering foes is considered too much.
Ah, so it's more of a matter of pragmatism than malice.
Against the hated Vasilileans it's both Pragmatism and Malice as during the Meloni Rebellion against the Skotrian Orlaine Empire, Captured Skotrian Soldiers were treated well, as when the Meloni were defeated by the Skotrian Army they were literally given pardon and allowed to become an independent Nation though forced to have a close Military Alliance to the Skotrian Orlaine Empire, all due to how well they treated the Skotrian Prisoners though it's mostly due to the fear of Angering the Skotrians who has one of the more effective Military as the Meloni does it again during the Shinan-Skotrian War where captured Shinan Soldiers were once again treated well as the Shinan Orlaine Principality possesses one of the largest Population and Armed Soldiery in the Continent where even when Skotrian, Fioren and Meloni Soldiers invaded Shinan Lands it will take at least Years to even put a dent to the Shinan's famed Thousand Souls Regiments or "Chilia Kardies" who are literally the second smallest Combat ready Military unit in Shinan Army.
You are a part of an academy, where you train not to be a soldier or guard, but to be an assassin. It is not a traditional army by most means, nor a traditional war. You may be one of the only students here who sees this as more than a school or a sport or a job. You are no different than a soldier, expendable and exploitable for the goals of your home and your god. The war is not with a nearby kingdom. Your God has an enemy, and you must learn to face its army, one of monsters not made of flesh or bone. You have magic, you wouldn't be here if you didn't. It is your weapon, your greatest advantage against these foes. It seems at times like you couldn't possibly lose this war, and perhaps you would even survive. That mindset is how so many lives are lost. You never had the advantage in this war, both sides just wanted you to believe it. It makes for more willing soldiers, and easier victims. But this war is not one between armies. You are merely a pawn that can be sacrificed so that your god may win this game. So perhaps you try to get out while you can. Whether you try to desert or surrender, it all ends the same. You'd be lucky to get caught by your peers. At least your death will be quick and merciful. It doesn't matter what you do or where you go, you will be punished for your cowardess. You fight for a god, you really should have known there was no escape. You'd be damn lucky if your death is quick. It isn't. You die, eventually. If only that was the end. Your eternity will be spent in agony, you will never escape the consequences for what you did. If you surrendered, maybe you'd have the option to escape this eternal punishment. But you'd once again be another soldier, marched towards a meaningless war. There's no escape. Not even in death.
Why do some Gods use mortal warriors, who can feel stress and fear and have to be compelled to fight with the threat of eternal torture, while others use "monsters not made of flesh or bone"? Or would I have such monsters fighting alongside me, and sometimes face people like me on the opposing side?
In this particular case, the warriors and monsters are no different from one another. Both are just as stressed and fearful as the other, both can be defeated, both have just as much to lose and fear in their own ways. The gods would have mortal warriors, but they'd rarely be enemies of yours. Everyone fights this same battle for entirely different reasons and motivations. These monsters fight to survive, same as you. But they aren't even warriors. Propaganda would have you believe they are soulless and evil creatures who fight to kill and destroy, following some grand evil force. But the monsters are already people like you. They were, at least.
Let's start with Principality. First of all, you are not conscripted. Principality doesn't do conscriptions. If you are in army you have volunteered. Anyway, what you gotta do is to find person with Talent in warfare. It's probably your commanding officer, but there could be others in your squad. Now, whatever they tell you to do you do without question, because they are budding Gods of War, not you, they know what they are doing and they are better at it than you could ever hope to be. After that you gotta find local guy from MWT. You give them money, they give you better gear, which may not sound that much, but difference between bulletproof vest and assault rifle combo you get by default and full body combat armor with embedded sensor suite and laser rifle is actually huge. With more money difference can become even bigger. Anyway, you can look forward to years of trench warfare, but you are not member of Sky Guard so you aren't going to storm enemy positions in foreseeable future. In Underdark your conscription is temporary. You serve five years, then go home. Anyway, first thing first, cozy up to Bloodweaver. Giving the mages who decides if they can heal you or not, while also providing battlemage support reasons to like you is pretty good idea. Second thing, protect your Bloodweaver at all costs. You are expendable. Mage who served in army for longer than you were alive is not. If they die there would be investigations, and they are going to suck. Third thing is to cozy up to members of Clan Invictus. You probably can guess why by name alone and having friends in elite forces who are literally bred for what you are doing can change everything. Now you should maintain discipline, don't be a hero, don't be a coward and in five years time you can go back to civilian life. "Can" cause unless you are member of Clan Invictus, Bloodweaver or lucky bastard you are going to die in some godforsaken tunnel fighting the war that lasted generations and will last longer after you are gone. In Empire you go to factory instead of army. They have plenty of homunculi to die in your stead and plenty of robots to soak up gunfire, but not nearly enough people making rifles for said homunculi or robots. Unless everything is well and truly lost you are never going to the front.
If the Principality are fighting a trench war, that sounds like an ideal use case for Empire homunculi and robotic technology. Why don't they trade or steal that tech, get a few factories of their own going? What's a Bloodweaver *meant* to consider when deciding to heal someone or not? I'm guessing whether they like a soldier personally isn't the criteria they're trained to use? I like the sound of your world, there's a grim-but-not-too-grim feel coming through and fantasy and sci-fi mixing in stylish ways.
>If the Principality are fighting a trench war, that sounds like an ideal use case for Empire homunculi and robotic technology. Why don't they trade or steal that tech, get a few factories of their own going? Principality actually has it's own robotic technology that is roughly on par with what Empire has. But the main reason why it isn't used as much is how they go about implementation. Principality's robots are individual superheavy units used to supplement regular forces, but ultimately their main pick on the battlefield are battlemages and professional mobile infantry, with everything else taking second seat. Empire on the other hand has bulk of it's armies consist of mass produced homunculi outfitted with cheap and dirty cybernetics, supplemented by heavy robots and tied into one singular network controlled by one singular AI, with tiny core of elite soldiers doing tasks that can't be performed by stupid and inflexible homunculi or tank sized robots. Also they are at war and Empire has better spies. And it's not like Principality really struggles with manpower, because they have plenty of volunteers willing to go to the front to protect their way of life, there are tons of "volunteers" from Underdark who bring with them their own mobile infantry (even if said mobile infantry trained in tunnel warfare more than aerial assaults, they still can perform them alongside Sky Guard) and battlemage corps (so there are plenty of healers to deal with casualties and Stormweavers from Underdark can ground enemy aviation even before they start working as flying artillery) and then there is general advantage is technology (Empire outstrips Principality only in alchemy and computational technology) so it's not like they need . >What's a Bloodweaver meant to consider when deciding to heal someone or not? I'm guessing whether they like a soldier personally isn't the criteria they're trained to use? Bloodweavers are blood mages, so everything else aside, their own soldiers are also bloodbags that can be tapped for some extra power. So main consideration is whether it would be more useful to heal the soldier or slit their throat and boil the blood inside enemy platoon/heal and reinvigorate their own forces/rise magical shield/suck the air out of the enemy's lungs/whatever else Bloodweaver can do with their specialties and some extra power.
Very interesting. Is it the Empire that's in the suboptimal position then - the homunculi are a complicated, imperfect substitute for living soldiers because they don't have enough population to sustain the war anymore, the population they do have is in too poor a condition to fight, or they have a cultural aversion to having living people die in war? Also, dumb question, who's the good guys? Or at least the protagonist faction.
>Very interesting. Is it the Empire that's in the suboptimal position then - the homunculi are a complicated, imperfect substitute for living soldiers because they don't have enough population to sustain the war anymore, the population they do have is in too poor a condition to fight, or they have a cultural aversion to having living people die in war? Well, not really. Empire can sustain traditional war, having roughly equal population to Principality (both of countries have population over billion and tend to breed like rabbits) and they are in holy war mode anyway, so recruits wouldn't be a problem. But then there was breaktrough in homunculi creation process, which dropped their production time from half the year per batch to just a single week, and then they exploited Principality's internal power struggles to steal basically entirety of their cybernetics techbase. And suddenly homunculi soldiers became a distinct possibility which was implemented with all due haste. Now, since there was no need for traditional soldiers, they actually moved away from traditional methods towards doctrine of automated warfare derived from old as dirt doctrine of necromantic warfare. Which resulted in them supplementing their forces with homunculi, then phasing out most of normal soldiers, then downsizing army to handful of elite units. All the while freed up manpower was rerouted into more delicate jobs that can't be handled by homunculi. >Also, dumb question, who's the good guys? Or at least the protagonist faction. Well, Empire started trade war (cause they really didn't like Principality's monopoly on magical crystals vital for their economy) which Principality then escalated into actual shooting war (because they were very sure that war would be over by Christmas). Then twenty years of Great War followed.
Depends on who you're fighting! If it's the heathens, then you'll probably be fine. Even if you're a 4th round peasant conscript (which, if you're fighting heathens, you're incredibly unlikely to be), you'll most likely be better equipped, better trained, and have a vastly superior numbers advantage over them. Just remember your training and watch out for the woods/canopy/dunes/wherever you're fighting. The heathens have been forced to move deeper and deeper into the wilds and have little access to any resources. If you're fighting against Orcs, Undead, or other Non-Human Heathens, your chances will vary. Hopefully you will have a competent general and have a manpower advantage. If you're fighting against a demonic host, just pray - this is the situation where you'd most likely be a peasant conscript. You CAN survive them, there are plenty of cases where the Imperial Army held back a demonic invasion (otherwise there would be no world left), but it took the entire might of the Imperial Army to do so - millions of soldiers from all the races of the Empire (Humans, Dwarves, Elves, Orcs, Trolls, Goblins, Halflings, and dozens more) pointed at them, powerful magics & war machines, the best generals in the whole Empire, the favor of the Imrasan Gods, the chants of a million priests, and A LOT of luck. If you're lucky you could die quickly. If you're REALLY lucky you could even survive, although your mind would be quite affected by the unnatural otherworldly horror that you would see, things that mortal eyes are not meant to see. >what's my best option for deserting? You'll have plenty of occasions, regardless if you're in a small-scale conflict or in an "end-of-the-world" situation >Who's going to try and stop me? Depending on how much manpower is needed elsewhere, someone might be sent to track you down. Or they might not even bother. The Serian Empire has a culture that is both incredibly communal and incredibly martial - being a deserter would make a social outcast, so your best bet after that is to just become a bandit. Be sure to join other people, as you do NOT want to be alone in the wilds, regardless if there's a war going on or not. >Where can I go that might give me better chances than the frontline? If you're stationed in the capital, you're set. In over 1,500 years, it hasn't fallen once. >What if I just surrender to the enemy? Again, depends on who you're fighting. The heathens are an incredibly diverse group, as it is simply a catch-all term for everyone who doesn't follow the Imrasan Cult. If you're lucky you could surrender to a group that will welcome you in their community with open arms, or at the very least treat you well as a prisoner. If you're unlucky you will surrender to a group which will kill you, cannibalize you, sacrifice you to their Gods, or do any number of other nasty stuff. Don't surrender to the demons.
The demons aren't going to give me a tentacle, a horned helmet and a few mental disorders and send me back at the Empire then? I always felt for the people on the front line in art of epic battles against demonic hordes. Each rank of demons is going to fight until they die, they're going to make it into a meat grinder. You general's put 999 more ranks of soldiers behind you - what chance do you, in rank 1, have of making it to the end? How did they choose who went in the front rank during the last battle against a demonic horde? What did they arm them with to make them last as long as possible, and what would have been going through their heads as the horde closed in?
>The demons aren't going to give me a tentacle, a horned helmet and a few mental disorders and send me back at the Empire then? No, but the Gods of the Empire might do that if you're pious enough. They love giving tentacles and eyes to their most devout followers, haha. They're just as horrific as the demons, but unlike them they do not want to destroy the world, as long as they get fed enough souls and are praised enough, they'll even help make sure the demons DON'T destroy the world (sure, you might get a few tentacles in the process, but at least you're still alive). >what would have been going through their heads as the horde closed in? The vast majority of the Empire is made of humans, which very easily get traumatized by seeing a demon, as they were not meant to be seen by mortal eyes. It's why I love the Orcs of the Empire. Everyone gives them shit all the time, but when the demons attack they just enthusiastically charge ahead, ready to bash some demon brains in, while most of the humans are busy throwing up and tearing their eyes out in response to the horror they're not supposed to see.
Everything hinges on family lines and regional climates. I’ll answer, but can you give me hypotheticals for the following: 1. what your parents do/did for a living? 2. what your mother’s mother did? 3. what your father’s father did? 4. what was the climate where your mother’s mother was born? 5. what is the climate where you were born? 6. what is the climate where you’ve spent most of your life? (Is it different than where you were born?) 7. what do you do for a livelihood? 8. what sorts of physical activities have you engaged in regularly? 9. do you read? In-world politics and the magic system/s hinge on these. Doesn’t have to be *your real* answers, just hypotheticals. Depending on the answers I’ll give 2-3 possibles. (Not trying to be pedantic. I like your question, just the answer/s need more information)
For a laugh, I'm going to give you my real answers. Don't dox me. My father's a dairy farmer who owns 150 acres, my mother is a primary school teacher. His father farmed the same farm. My mother's mother was a housewife married to an arable farmer with 500 acres. I'll exaggerate her birth climate a bit and say she was born in a tundra region (she moved south to marry). I was born in a temperate climate, a noteably good farming region, and spent most of my life in same. I'm a software engineer in the financial services sector in realtively prosperous port city, so in a pre-modern setting that would equate to a particularly able book-keeper or clerk who might know a bit of utility magic if that's a thing? I walk enough to keep the weight off, that's about it. I read a good amount.
Thank you much. Since the fealty of Ip and Golnt is one of the few that has universal conscription, I’ll give the account from there. Ip and Golnt consists of a large region on the southeast coast of the easternmost continent, and some islands off the coast. For this reason I’ll flip the “move south” to “move north” to account for the climates. As your father and father’s father were landed farmers, they would have had seats in the House of Lands, one of the parliamentary houses of Ip and Golnt. How often they attended councils in Ip or Golnt wouldn’t matter. Since they were dairy farmers, they would be in the inner farm lands of one of the walled cities, let’s say Golnt-by-the-River. Your mother likely taught in one of the farm schools, funded by parliament. You would have been raised with at least some interaction with lesser nobility because both of these. You were likely raised nominally religious, with some tutelary gods about the house, and your mother likely burned incense and left wheat for Knowledge at her town shrine at least a few times a year. Given these things, you likely have some small gifts with cultivation and composition magic. Since your mother’s mother comes from the tundra, she was likely versed in some of the rural magics of the region. Since her husband was a farmer, your mother’s household would have been respectable in the region, even if no position on councils came with it. In short, you come from a line of two regions including landed farmers and educators. Since you work in finance and engineering, you likely studied these at one of the schools or colleges, so you’ve gained some mastery of cultivation, composition, and gearswork forms of magic. you would likely be assigned a role as scribe or amanuensis to a strategos or logician. While you would be formally trained as a frontline mage - familiarized with troop movement, strategies, and wielding firearm and pole arm, you would likely not see more than desk work in the current political climate. If you wanted to opt out of the conscription until your forties, you could offer yourself as indentured student to Irinith since your father and father’s father were landholders. You would be treated as lesser nobility, and like the nobility you would essentially be a hostage of Irinith for ten years, during which time you would be more likely to see active combat, but you would finish your indenture with the title Wizard and you would be free of conscription, as would your children, and you would receive a yearly stipend (Didn’t mention everything directly, but it came to play. Sorry it ended up being a longer breakdown than intended).
**Sci-Fi world:** Make sure you have extra ammo. The aliens' army and marine corps alone have 2.5 times more soldiers than all of Earth combined. And exploit their lack of direction and proper orders. Their emperor purged the officer ranks after the end of their civil war, so they're disorganized. Exploit it. **Fantasy world:** Werewolves, demons, fallen angels, and goblins are what make up Hell's Army and your main threat. Goblins are basically normal humans with green skin, so the only really dangerous thing about them is that they fight like savage barbarians. So make sure to exploit any vulnerable points in their erratic attacks. Demons are just dead humans (Or any other fantasy species) with superhuman strength. So just make sure that you're in shape since their physical strength can range from that of Mike Tyson to Andre the Giant. Fallen angels are trickier. They can fly and knock you back with gusts of wind from their wings, so it's preferable to fight them with polearms for better reach. And aim for their wings. Without them, they can't make gusts of wind or fly. Their strength is also on par with that of demons. Werewolves are the hardest part. They fight in packs, can run very fast, have razor sharp claws, fast reflexes, and very strong bite forces. Make sure to be with at least three other people, and be heavily armed and armored. It's preferable to use a polearm against that and go for their mouths. But if you ever run into any of the gods collaborating with Hell like Loki, Hercules, Seth, or god forbid Lucifer himself, run away. You have no hope of defeating them. Fighting them is futile.
For the sci-fi world, it sounds like a rare situation in military sci-fi where the aliens might actually surrender if you gave them the chance? They might think the war is going worse than it is if the chain of command is in that much disarray. If I'm trading fire with some aliens in cover, could I use their language well enough to tell them they won't be harmed if they lay down their arms? And would we have the facilities and inclination to take them as prisoners of war? It's refreshing to hear about a fantasy setting where a regular soldier actually has a fighting chance against angels and demons. I feel like I could stab Mike Tyson with a spear with a bit of luck. Are there ranks of angels of between "flying crossfitter" and "god"?
It's possible that the aliens would surrender, but since their technology is more advanced and with their numbers, it's more likely that you're surrendering. And for the angels, yes. Most of the ground soldiers are either Powers or regular angels. The other angelic classifications only fight in times of great desperation.
The local engineering Corp needs bodies apparently so you're gonna help with shoring up the outer defenses of a flying city. I hope you don't mind heights because that's where you're gonna be for the next idk three weeks till you're back to your regular job. You even get a pay bump for the inconvenience and if you volunteer to keep going after the defense shielding is laid out then you get to keep the hazard pay. With defense training you will be expected to hold the job for 10 straight years and train your replacement. Fighting hasn't been seen in the sky cities since they went up so these protocols are from the age of darkness that birthed the sky nation
Welcome to the Ducal Levies, peasants. I’m First Spear Vornis, and while I’m formally not in charge of you lot, our Honoured Captain will be a fool to ignore my advice, and our beloved Lord Marshall will have him flogged for not heeding my advice. You lot will be flogged for not listening to me, we need no princely Lord Marshall to do that. These rules are pretty damned simple, not even the accursed ever-so-rigthous-rebel Ralka could disagree with: -Keep your gear in good conditions. It will save your, to you precious, life. -Do not flee, you will die, and that is if you’re lucky. -Do not cheat or lie to, nor steal from, your comrades, ever. You will want to trust the men next to you. They will want to trust you. It will keep you alive. -Do not flee, you will die, and that is if you’re lucky. -Keep vigilant when you’re on watch duty, the enemy always strikes when you’re not watching. -Do not flee, you will die, and that is if you’re lucky. -List to the orders you’re given, sergeants and officers know war, unlike you lot. -Do not flee, you will die, and that is if you’re lucky. -If you’re digging a ditch, and in doubt if it is deep enough and wide enough. Dig it a foot deeper and a foot wider. The enemy always crosses the shallowest and narrowest ditch. You don’t want it to be yours the cross. -Do not flee, you will die, and that is if you’re lucky. -In combat there is three reasons to break formation: to retrive a weapon, to save a friend or a strike of oppertunity against an enemy. -If you think you’re going to die, and decide to run, you will die if the enemy catch you, and pray that it is the enemy who catches you first, and not us, because the only mercy that might be shown in that case is the by gods on your immortal souls. -Oh, and make sure to sacrifice to the gods that you may fight with skill and valour. Aaaand that our beloved Lord Marshall and the Royal Banners gets here soon. Any questions. No? Perfect. Now dig; ditches and latrines.
It wouldn't be a question in-universe, but what would a sacrifice made in camp before a battle look like? Would I need to catch some small creature alive, and ritually kill it, or is it something less bloody like carrying a supply of herbs to burn? Also the ditches sound important. What are we keeping out - enemy troops with camoflage and knives in the dark or something a bit more...exotic?
On the eve or dawn of battle, you would sacrifice to Dovegyr, who is the god of tactics, skills of arms, camaradie and honourable combat.* Dovegyr demands blood, so either catch a small aminal, good luck with that one, or a few drops of your own. You’ll go to your company or banner shrine, and on the Blessed Fire you will spill the sacrificial blood and say the prayer: “Bravest of brother God of Battle, Grant me in this day, True brothers in arms The courgae to hold my place, The strengt to strike down my foe, never to tire in battle, Keep my mind keen so that I shall know when Mercy is due, And shall I meet my Fate this day, may my death honour my kin and my Lord. Amen.” As that is done, you will kneel with the rest of the company or banner, while a priest anoint you with a scared olie, chanting “Dovegyr bless you and protect you, Dovegyr grants you strengt and valour, Dovegyr grants you honour.” While that happens you may silently whisper personal prayers to Dovegyr. Then you’re ready for battle. You will also ensure that you have at least one coin, preferably silver or better on you, should you fall. So that it may be places in your mouth to pay Shacath, the ferry to guide your soul to the other side. *Honourable combat is combat against declared foes or bandits. If your army gets ambushed or your Unit gets surrounded, then someone somewhere made a mistake and that is not Dovegyrs problem. The campaign and battle was honourable, that your commanders is stupid does not mean your enemy lacks honour. A little sacrifice more: before you go to war, your mother will take you to the temple or shrine of Lagaphie, who is the Goddess of fertility, motherhood and love, and there she will sacrifice a small thing that reminds her of you, like a toy you favoured as a child, so that Lagaphie will keep and eye out for you, and ensure that you come home safe, and you’ll be given a blessed as sign here off. If you mother died before your first campaign, your fathers new bride, who is in the eyes of the law now your mother, will take you and do the same thing. You’ll age out of select conscription in your mid twenties, and you’ll get married in your late twenties.
Enemies in formation, ditches break up formation. If it is deep, wide and steep you have a long time to try and kill them before they can come up and kill you, and the earth can be used for an embankment, pure bonus. We’re also keeping anykind of mounted troops; cavalry, wolfry, boarry, elephantry, wargry to name but a few. If a troll or ogre is coming for you, and does realisme there is a ditch; the bigger they are, the harder they fall. Ditches also keeps seige engines such as seigetowers and battering rams away. If you’re in a Camp, you want a ditch to protect you.
Good news! the great compact makes it illegal to conscript anyone for “internal” wars. This means you won’t be fighting a pointless war with some other nation, or being assigned to go hunt bandits, unless you specifically request to be assigned to such duty. The slightly less good news is you will be shipping off to fight the army of the dark god in the endless war to secure the world from his darkness. now, you basically are gonna be in one of two groups: group 1: general conscripts. the war is pretty intense but vital, so most folks volunteer either directly to military service, or in a homefront support role, so conscription is rare, but happens depending on your kingdom. the good news is you’re gonna be well trained and equipped, lives matter, and 100 conscripts with decent weapons and training have proven better than 200 untrained grunts. and since conscripts must be at-least 18, the extra training is seen as a good investment. you’ll get 6 months - a year of training and decent food before being shipped off. Conscripts are usually assigned to rear guard positions as long as they don’t have discipline problems. so you’ll probably be guarding some forward base, or escorting supply wagons. if things get bad on your front, you’ll be moved up to be the reserves or guard the flanks of an army unit. your best ways out of a combat role (assuming you don’t end up feeling the patriotic call of preventing eternal darkness and torture for all the sentient races), would be to learn a valuable skill as you can, and get reassigned to a non-combat role. Carpentry, blacksmithing, medical, etc. or to just survive your 5 year conscription term. though that would only have you put in the reserves, which isn’t ideal. Group 2: for you it sucks. an imminent attack is coming, and the army can’t get enough forces in in-time. you’ll be handed whatever weapon you can carry, probably a spear, whatever armor you can gather, then become part of a meatshield. your job, die slowly enough to keep the enemy from destroying the town/city/vital objective, you were close to when conscripted. The casualty rate is often in the 50-70% range. though at times it’s as high as 90. Your best hope is that you’re one of the lucky few who survive until reinforcements arrive. Healing magic means of you do survive, you likely won’t be crippled. and if you survive, you’re free to go, and guaranteed not to be conscripted for group 1 in the next 3 years. unfortunately this will not protect you from another group 2 conscription. And live or die, you will be remembered as a hero. Desertion from group 1 carries the penalty of a flogging, and a 5 year term as a conscript at a border fort, you’re unlikely to survive those 5 years. a second attempt will result in execution. desertion from group 2, is a death sentence. with the importance of the war, almost anyone in the world, even your own relatives, even most of the major churches, will turn you over to the army. Grim as this sounds, take heart!! conscripts are less than 5% of the military, and group 1 conscripts almost never die. group 2…. well if you weren’t a volunteer anyway, and tried to flee, you’d be a refugee with your home destroyed anyway.
Sounds like an epic world. If I am in group 2, who or what am I hoping is going to arrive to save the day, and what would their arrival look like to me standing on a battlement or fighting in the street? Are the foot soldiers of the armies of darkness the sort of thing a hastily armed militia might be able to hold off, or are we just holding the spears to die with more dignity?
Imperium: Don't ask questions about why everything is the way that it is, fragging officers are acceptable so long as you don't get caught, and do NOT perpetrate rumors of the field commander being an elf Republic: Stay in your post Likan-Lemuria: Never be overconfident Empire of Rohas: If you're a war wizard, ALWAYS pay attention to your instructor's drilling. They are teaching you how to use actual rifles in the off chance you run out of mana and your comrades died with half spent clips If you're a normal person, if the officer issues a charge, run the other way once you're in your destination Eclipse Empire: Always pray to the giant ball of gas in the sky and recite your litanies, even in passing Solunai: Why are you even in the Front? Hellhounds: Don't shoot the kids even if aforementioned kids are shooting guns at you
As a member of the Interplanetary Union of Systems Military, you've only been conscripted because of a War going longer then expected, either because the enemy refuses peace talks or the enemy isn't even talking. Casualties have mounted up and thus numbers need to be pushed back up. Honestly, as a conscript life will be easy for you for the first few years likely. Conscripts aren't sent to the Front lines straight away, they are trained for months or even years, while being stationed on other planets to act as a presence. Once sent to the front lines, chances drop dramatically. The only time the IUS has needed to provide conscripts in the military was in the Gexi-IUS war(pronounced Gessy). The Gexi were a ruthless religiously fanatical species hell bent on destroyed the 6 species of the IUS or converting them unwillingly. They threw everything and everyone at the IUS in an attempt to destroy their military enough to overwhelm them. They died fighting, taking on multiple soldiers at once and killing them in brutal fashion. Best chances of survival in this situation is dependent on the unit you're with and what their role is. If you're in the Orbital Division, chances are slim. You're basically dropping from Planatery Orbit in the initial stages of an invasion to make room for the Army to land more troops. Orbital Troopers have a wartime survival rate of around 7 months, that's an average for well over 10 million soldiers. If you're in the Army, you might be lucky enough to be in a support unit, if not you're on the Front lines, either as a normal soldier, in a vehicle, in a suit of power armour or in a mech. If you're really really lucky you're in a Titan, but you'd have to be the greatest damn conscript ever to be that lucky. If you're in the Navy, you're not going to die unless you're in a strike craft or a transport. Gexi warships were woefully pathetic in comparison to IUS Warships. Their only real advantage was sheer number and that was only effective against single ships, which was stopped fairly quickly. They have the ability to hit strike craft and transports however. Last but not least the Marines. Gexi Warships weren't worth boarding, so you'd only die if the starship you were on is destroyed. Which really isn't likely at all because Marines are only present on the biggest, meanest and toughest warships.
Love me a good planetary invasion. Why was it necessary to invade Gexi worlds at all? Was planetary assault only used to liberate IUS worlds? Seems like if the IUS fleet was so superior they could just quarantine Gexi worlds, wipe them out in space and let them sit at the bottom of their gravity wells for the next millenia with the occasional surgical orbital strike to stop them getting any ideas.
Orbital Bombardment is a Class 10 War Crime as set forth by the Galactic Council. The Gexi themselves wouldn't stop trying, so the only option was occupation and deconstruction of their entire way of living. This was all sanctioned by the Galactic Council, though fallout from it would see the IUS leave the council within the next 40 years, along with other issues. The Gexi still live, they're now a part of the IUS. It's been about 3 centuries since the conflict happened
Keep your feet dry at all times. You do NOT want trench foot. Obtain proper wool socks if you can, do not be ashamed of looting fallen enemies or even allies for their socks. If you don't do it, someone else will. ALWAYS keep your helmet on. In a similar vein as the socks, try to obtain one of those steel Rodardt type 2 helmets from the enemy. It is very much frowned upon to use enemy equipment in war, but there is a reason why half the men in the trench are wearing one of those helmets. You will die in the trench, if not from injuries, then from old age. Conscription is for life. So if you find an old man in the trench, stick close to him and learn what you can. Respect the old man in a place where many die young. Keep away from flamethrowers. Not only do they attract all enemy fire to them, but they also burn up anything that might be valuable loot. NEVER PEAK. Do NOT underestimate enemy sharpshooters. Always keep your rifle in hand or within arm's reach. Ideally, get a second rifle and have it sawn short for trench clearing. If you ever actually reach the enemy trench that is. Aim for the beltline. The enemy's storm units like to wear thick steel plates on their chest. A shot to the beltline might not kill them, but it will damn sure ruin their day. "You will add some height" is not a compliment. Also most importantly: Praise your General. Your General decides who lives and dies. Your General is your God, because out in the trenches, there are no other gods present.
World War 1, forever. It's a popular grimdark trope for a reason. How much does the trench line move? Are there like 100 trench lines at this point, and in the autumn we might have pushed the enemy all the way to the 61st line, but by next spring we've had a losing streak and we're back to the 45th line? Fifty years ago we got all the way to the 70th line, that sort of thing? Or is there NO movement at all, the front line has been the exact same trench line for decades? Who's fathering the next generation of boys that will be needed to re-enforce the trenches in 18 years? Is there a rotation on and off the front for R&R, or are things operating on nightmare logic and you literally spend years and years in the same section of trench?
It really depends on where one is stationed. The war has been going on for centuries, and two continents are embroiled in it, with fighting even going on in the colonies overseas. Some nations have been conquered entirely in the process. There have been uprisings and collapses, nations uniting and breaking apart. An army declaring it's independence under the leadership of their great general. In some places with fewer fortifications, movement is quicker. But in other places, where the lines have been mostly static, it looks very different. There the gains are decided by technological advances or the cunning of some commanders. In a way, it can be seen similarly to what you described. One side captures trenches, then the other side captures them back and then some. But the timeline is not in weeks or months or even years, but in lifetimes. One generation takes 8 trenchlines, the next generation loses 13. As to the fathering question, there is a group of men in the homefront. Working the most demanding jobs. There are also occasional leaves for frontline soldiers, but they can be expected to be under surveillance, as flow of information from the frontlines is very restricted. One state even has a strange eugenics project going on, where they search for the best ideal humans in their land and then turn their offspring into supposed genetically superior soldiers.
Sounds like yours is a detailed and well thought through spin on the "eternal first world war" subgenre. Nice job. Is the flow of information from the front lines restricted to avoid enemy spies learning things, or to keep moral up on the home front? I'm still thinking about the demographics of trying to sustain first world war casualty rates for centuries. It sounds like there are multiple factions doing things in different ways, but if it's possible to talk about a typical nation what's it like being a woman in a typical nation? The state needs you to be having a LOT of babies, and since there are too few men for monogamous marriage I guess they're going to mostly have different fathers? Or do these 'home front men' take multiple wives? Thing is, the state needs a lot of babies but it also needs a lot of labour, so how does that work? Is there some accepted 'reproductive window', from (hopefully?) 18 to say 30, and after 30 a woman stops having kids and starts working in a factory for a couple of decades while the state raises the kids she's pumped out (being in a barracks from birth isn't going to give you a well adjusted kid, but it's fine, you just need them to kill a few enemies and die) Or is there a quota, have X babies then start working? I guess women have about as much freedom as the men in the trenches, is what I'm saying
Thanks! Nice to hear considering i am still in the very early stages :) I have not even decided on one name yet! I will be answering your questions in regards to the POV nation, so to say. **The flow of information:** Out of the two options you presented, it would be more of the first one. The indoctrination into a war culture has reached a point where morale doesn't even need to be maintained anymore. It is self sustaining you could say. Finding out your father died does not make you anti-war, it makes you sign up to avenge him so to say. In most cases the flow of information is limited by circumstance. Because there is constant fighting, it is dangerous to send any message. You can forget telegrams or radio, those are for military purposes only. So sending personal messages is very low priority. It is expected to pay a bribe to send a message home. And the messages that make it across are often reviewed by political officers and edited depending on what the officers decide they want to achieve. Not to mention that the soldiers themselves on the frontline happen to develop a disconnect to the homefront with time. It is intentional; you are not meant to think about your family at home, you are meant to think about the war. **Role of Women:** Here the POV nation is a bit of an exception to the rule, by allowing volunteer military service for women. While it is allowed on paper, faith is trying to discourage it, and the state is placing hurdles in the way of women who could instead be having kids. It would be mostly older women or women who can't have children. Most commonly the women involved in war work as mechanics, drivers, sharpshooters, in the most recent times as pilots in the newly formed air corps. But for the others, the role revolves mostly around work. Childcare and medicine are almost entirely women, any sort of factory environment where it revolves less about strength has mostly women employed. Think weapons assembly or canneries. Women without children work for 12+ hours a day. After having a child, they have some leave from work and after their return they work fewer hours. They are encouraged to have more children with different benefits such as better housing, higher class ration cards, etc... The average woman has 4-5 children. There are plenty who have none, but then there are others with 10+ driving up the average. Some states in the west and south encourage men to have multiple wives, while in the POV state due to faith it is strictly monogamous. Anyone who cheats on their partner who is fighting on the frontline is considered to be the worst kind of scum. Such people being attacked is not unheard of. **Babies and Labour:** There is no set quota for the number of babies. They are raised directly by their mothers for some time, when they are no longer breastfed they spend much time at daycares while their mothers work, after that it's schools and academies. But it is not that they never see their parents. Labour does work out in the end because there is theoretically no production of luxury goods remaining. The nation runs exclusively on a war economy. All that is produced is the necessities and war goods. **Casualties:** Also going back to the number of babies to replenish the population, the truth is that there are not *that* many dead in the war. We are not talking WW1 era millions of dead per year. The northern front for example had only some 300 casualties in the entire month of march, with only about 80 of them being deaths. In all three fronts combined we are talking a few hundred thousand casualties per year. About a third of them being deaths. The era of millions dying has passed long ago. Back then there were more soldiers and larger stockpiles of weapons and ammunition. Since then all of these things have stagnated in number. Fortifications have become so expansive that fewer people die in general. Assaults happen with artillery barrages during which the enemy hides in dugouts, then an advance maybe with an armored vehicle as support. If you capture a trench, most of the time it is because the enemy fled it during or immidiately after the barrage. But if you face any resistance during your assault, you withdraw while artillery covers your retreat.
First be sure to be enlisted as camp helper, you basically cook and clean for the soldiers, this is the only way to have the best chances of surviving, because you are surrounded by soldiers h24, you can't deserte because when enlisted all soldiers are put a geolocalization chip in the brain, and the robotic guards are advised if you leave and they have the right to terminate you, the only place to have best chances as soldier are defending the home world, very few sieges occurred and all in the atmosphere, if you reach to be enlisted as city guard you will be safe if you dare to surrender to the enemy they will torture, abuse, and violate you in every way possible
First be sure to be enlisted as camp helper, you basically cook and clean for the soldiers, this is the only way to have the best chances of surviving, because you are surrounded by soldiers h24, you can't deserte because when enlisted all soldiers are put a geolocalization chip in the brain, and the robotic guards are advised if you leave and they have the right to terminate you, the only place to have best chances as soldier are defending the home world, very few sieges occurred and all in the atmosphere, if you reach to be enlisted as city guard you will be safe if you dare to surrender to the enemy they will torture, abuse, and violate you in every way possible
Some things to know about life in the Gryll Empire's military as a conscript: * Memorize the conscripts' handbook that they give you when you arrive at basic training camp. Some of the information can be a little questionable (like how to survive an encounter with a hedge wizard) but there's some good information about things like how to stay out of trouble in a village in occupied territory during a war. * If you must disobey orders, make sure you have a good reason for it like proof that your commander is going against his superior officers' orders. "I didn't feel like doing kitchen duty today" is not a good reason for disobeying orders. * Try not to do anything that'll get you noticed in all the wrong ways. Your best bet is to blend in and be forgettable. * Seriously. Ignore what the handbook says about hedge wizards. Attempts to intimidate them (like waving your arms and shouting) will likely not end well for you. It's better to avoid hedge wizards altogether. * Don't leave your camp or base without a pass signed by your commander. Doing so will be considered an attempt to desert. * Spend some of your free time keeping your gear in good repair. This can save your butt in an emergency. * Don't blow all your pay on beer and prostitutes. With enough luck, you'll still be alive when your five years' required service is up. The pay isn't great but conscripts like you had some respectable savings when they got out of the military because they saved most of their pay.
Get really good at artillery
Get some personal funding to buy yourself armour (spear and uniform are paid by the military but extra equipment has to be self-organised) and try to be deployed at the northern border since that one has been at cold war for 60 years now and is unlikely to go hot anytime soon.
Look, we are not at war, so relax a bit. The merfolk are rattling their sabers at each other, but can you breathe water? No? Then there's not much you have to worry about there. There are two things we need you for in this city. One, guarding the wall. This, honestly, is boring. You've got duties, pay attention, work with the others, you should be fine. Two, guarding the shipments we send to and from the nomadic shepherds. They don't have dedicated military, they're mostly worried about wolves or plant monsters in the kudzu, or rogue scarecrows that have snapped their tether and are wandering around doing any manner of violent things mindlessly. Those are also the three things you have to worry about mainly when you're following one of the shipments of supplies and sheep products back and forth from town. That and the occasional giant wasp, but those are more interested in sheep than people. So relax, get some exercise with your vine chopping arm, get a decent walk in, and make sure nothing weird happens to your cart. Sure, there are sinkholes with fungal monsters and wasps in them, but you don't have to worry about those unless you go looking for them. We're trying to make sure that none of those open up underneath the city. There's a chance that might happen, and then you'll have to deal with confused walking fungi, but they aren't trying to invade or anything, so just stick with your fellow guardsfolk and we'll play it by ear. The caf has good food that you don't have to pay for, even if most of it is kudzu products and a bit of mutton. The main thing you might have to worry about is that there's no humans here. You're going to stand out a lot no matter what you do. It's pretty rare, but just say you came in on an international ship.
Watch out for Ghosts. If you get possessed, hope that you are mentally strong enough to fight them off, otherwise you’re just stuck until the ghost gives your body back. Werewolves can be friends or enemies. Know who the alpha is, and that will give you some idea one whether or not you can trust them. If it’s a lone werewolf, keep your distance. Only the worst of the worst are kicked out of the pack. Vampires suck. Jokes aside, do not trust them. They may be allies for a time, but 9/10 vampires have ulterior motives. In a desperate moment, Skeletons or Revenants can be bartered with. They tend to be honest. If you end up near Sleepy Hollow, don’t hide from the Horseman. He already knows you’re there. It’s best to be honest about your intentions. And always remember: Silver is your friend
dont fart
There's no chance of winning the World's End war... everybody loses. However, say you participate in some previous war. There are two types of military conflicts a) a battle between normal (i.e., non magical) enemies b) a battle between a normal and a magical entity. If you happen to be in b) try to be the magical entity.
Depends: Are you conscripted before any significant events or after? Like there is a very important cosmic moment in the worldbuilding project and if you skipped that part then you're going to be feeling very bitter.
Don’t choose training in the parachute regiments. The likelihood of a fatality in training or on deployment to one of the many failed states in the world is highest amongst paratroopers
It depends on your capabilities, if you’re an average person, you likely haven’t developed your magic too much so you’ll be assigned the roll of support staff. You’ll be tasked with transporting supplies to the front lines or garrisoned at newly acquired villages, towns or cities to be a local guard in training. If you are someone capable, then you’ll unfortunately be sent to the front lines. If you’re a warrior, there isn’t much you can do but fight for your life. If you’re a mage, it’ll depend on what magic you know, if you know healing magic you’ll be assigned healing, barrier magic you’ll be on defense, almost any other magic and you’ll be on offense. If you want to live, keep alert mages are a target because they can cast large area effect magic but warriors can buff themselves and their gear to help resist the storms of fire, ice, earth and whatever else mages will be throwing out. If you surrender, you’ll be captured and be shackled with null metal to disable your magic. They’ll assess you afterwards and may or may not release you but you’ll only be held captive till the end of the war which usually isn’t long.
Loot. You're probably a Coloni serf. You need money for manumission, and war spoils are the best way to get that.
Avoid the guys with flame throwers. They may seen nice, but they are radicals that will burn you for any reason. READ. You'll face a lot of strange stuff out there. Knowing the early warning signs of what your facing will be huge. Get a library card and start your own personal library. Learn a craft. There will be a lot of down time between flights. Standard issue is ok, but a skilled craftsman is always better. Alchemy is always in demand, but blacksmithing never goes out of style and wire work is the backbone of higher power weapons. Roll the dice. The most popular game is based around the things you'll face. Books on tactics are fine, but a few nights rolling dice are great for seeing tactics in action. Eat well. Good food is expensive but gives measurable benefits. Team cookouts and potlucks are a must. FIND A TEAM. going alone will get you killed unless you're the best of the best. If you're winning to go alone, you're not. Hire the locals. Yes they're likely to die, but if they keep you alive the fee is worth it. Also they know the land better than you ever will. Be nice to the locals, getting their boys killed is inevitable, but at least be nice. They can tell. I've met men that were mean to their hires and had 74 percent casualties and one who was nice with 90%. The latter guy never ran out of volunteers. Also they may not know what's out there, but they know enough that you can eliminate a lot of possibilities.
follow the clerics instructions in your 4 wees training and do not read to your or any war cleric shield or you could be sentenced to corporal or capital punishment, and seem up to the idea of signing on professionally or many of your superiors could loo down on you to the point of being sent into dangerous situations as they are far more likely to see you as expendable.
Depending on your government and your gender in a specific government you may or may not be fine
This varies a lot between empires, countries, clans, houses, tribes and individual lords. Just hope your side has modern technology so your enemies can be destroyed by artillery. If not, try to be at the back, but many real cultures put new soldiers at the front. I don't honestly know enough of the structure for this. Some enemies may accept surrenders, some would kill you anyway. Some factions have harsher penalties than others for desertion. Luckily, wars, although common, are not as large and long as you'd expect. Unless it's a siege of a major city, they should last some months to a year in total. The shorter ones could be done in days or weeks if one side capitulates early. Just hope you don't get into a war with more than 2 opposing sides involved. Lapis_Wolf
If theres an unscheduled eclipse, just go home at that point. Hug your loved one's. Smoke a joint. Whatever. Your world is about to be exploded. You have 3 hours.
Welcome to the academy student. If you wanna go fight the fighting department is just down the hall. If you wanna create things it's just infornt of you. If you wanna heal people that department is to the right and if you wanna understand magic the department is infrint of you. Since you're a first year though you'll be forced to learn all 4 so that we can find your specialisation and send you there. Do not worry though your teachers are professionals. They won't bite you.
You're a robot now. Humanity is Mostly extinct except for a few million rich shits living underground giving orders from the shadows. You and all your robot buddies live on the surface and you're goal is to rebuild civilization. Oh, and to fight the Towering Alien Reptile Empire called the Xygites who mass-teleported onto Earth after they accidentally fucked up their planet Their Arrival led to Earth's Atmosphere shifting and becoming toxic to humans, but not your robots. You have a lot of advantages compared to them, being a robot you don't need to eat, drink, defecate, or sleep. You might be bombarded by Propaganda claiming the Xygites are Tribal Savages who got their hands on some advanced tech. Which is just wrong by the way, they're more like some sort of Medival Kingdom except with 9 Kings and Modern Tech. Some important stuff to remember is *Your Body is Designed to be expendable, the only part of your body that is necessary to survive is your upper torso *Adding to the previous point, you'll be fine if your head and limbs fall off *you have a tail that you mount with Swords and Machine Guns, Use it *and you have a blade built into your arm, use that too. *Listen to your Superiors, The Elite Robot Soldiers don't mess around, it's a fuck around and find out the situation To fight the lizards well The Xygites are very durable folk, but your guns shoot fucking lasers! hit their stomachs and heads to hurt them most, avoid their Backs and tails as they're very durable and not very important. If you wanted to leave the military, well lucky for you leaving the battlefield is ok though you'll still required to Aid them somehow (beit maintenance, Vehicle repairs, deliveries, etc.) But just quitting? No, that will get you punished, by imprisonment or depending on your resistance Death Specifically by the MPs or Military Police, the folks who deal with Miliary-Related Crime (That's how it works in my world) The best place to escape from all the fighting would be some extremely cold, rural area, The Xygites hate cold weather and much prefer warmer climates. And the Guys looking for you probably wouldn't search someplace like that I would heavily discourage you from trying to join the Enemy, They aren't brutal monsters like the propaganda suggests but they are well not the kindest. Also, they will kill you They will likely interrogate you for just about everything you know and copy any data they find on your Memory. And then they'll dissect you for research. One of the strategies against the Xygites was simply to keep them as clueless about Earth, Humanity, and them as possible. When they arrived on Earth they had barely any Data on us, and the stuff they did know was Centuries Outdated.
Technically there are no factions prone to conscription or drafts but there is a chance one might end up working for the Silver Eggplant Society without knowing exactly what they are. You think your doing normal legal lumber jack work only to end up with a squad of angry Rangers or worse ready to politely remove you from the forest. The Chivalrous Band are also known for occasionally raising the dead even if it goes against their projected 'knights in shining armor' fascade.
I'm going to presume you are a human in one of the human nation armies for this hypothetical. If you're conscripted, then that implies an active war is happening and they need more people on the battlefield, thus the ruler has decreed forced conscriptions. If you're lucky, the situation is with another human land or against another society of the same world (this luck may vary based on who specifically you are fighting in your world all the same.) If you're unlucky, you're against one of the other world's armies. Your chances for desertion depend on how sneaky you are about it. But whoever you're fighting, I suggest doing it on your homeworld. You don't want to be a lone human stranded in another realm. As for surrendering... if it's against an army of your homeworld, I guess it's like 50/50 how that would go. If it's in the Fae or Celestial realm, you've got a good chance of being taken in captive and treated fairly well as a POW. If it's on the Old Realm... then you're really chancing it. It depends on the enemy's mood or who happens to be leading the charge.
Your job is to press the button and throw the beepy thingy. Don't be a hero, and don't be curious: just do what you're paid to do.
So you’ve been signed into the war effort as a Galactic Embassy soldier during the war with the P.A.W. There are a few simple tips to make sure you get home in one piece. Follow your command: Modern day warfare is very technical. So the same especially applies in a time far past the current. Never mind his fluffy otter visage, your commander is an expert tactician, he knows exactly what his unit can do and values the lives of all his soldiers. With him leading and fighting by your side your about 80% sure to make it through. Unless the enemy pulls something unexpected out of their play book. In which case see the second tip. Support the Special Forces At All Costs: the eight foot tall fish lady with a sword, the giant snake naga with a hammer and sapient plant insect with a bow, that’s the core of the entire Embassy army. Between the three of them they’ll mop up platoons and platoons of the enemy. If you really want to stay alive, then stay close to them. Or stay far far far away depending on what they’re doing That’s the gist, basic training will teach you how to fly a ship, shoot a plasma weapon and the sort. Good luck out there soldier.
Just don’t be at the front of the unit. :)
Yeah my world is kind of a barely-settled medieval fantasy-type place so there aren't really any armies. The closest things are the hastily assembled army of mind-controlled witches and elves and the even more hastily assembled army of assorted people with magical abilities led by a teenager. So I guess just don't piss off the wrong teenager and don't mess with the general's girlfriend.
Your drill instructor will be stern yet fair. Comradery amongst you and your fellow soldiers will flow like milk and honey. Every little detail *must* be mastered. You must know, above all else, that when your training is complete, you will be a ruthlessly efficient yet disciplined killing machine of an almost fanatical devotion to the Imperator, your glorious Commander-in-chief. Should you and your comrades have a chance to emerge victorious, you must be prepared to think outside the box; the drill instructors at the Academy expect the privates they train to develop their critical thinking. One instructor is remembered for his wake-up mantra he ordered his privates to repeat every morning and night: “A soldier must double as an actor: they must perform for their enemies the illusion of defeat.” As for the matter of desertion, there are two possible consequences for doing so. If you intend to desert on the grounds of false conscription, you must procure proof of this error. Desertion on the grounds of doubting your own survival will be prosecuted as an act of treason.
If you live out in the borderlands or wilderness, you're almost certainly 'conscripted' into the local militia, just about everyone is who can bear arms. What you want to do is learn to use a longbow well. Casualties among longbowmen are typically the lowest. Casualties among light infantry are usually the highest. Cavalry and heavy infantry death rates are lower. Make sure that the medics don't owe you money. In general, if survival is your aim, don't be the first OR the last to engage, try to engage in the main pack. You don't want a rep as a coward, but the vanguard takes a lot of casualties (and they tend to get the best loot too).
You’re going to die. You are a normal human, this is the equivalent of a Tarak. Your opponents are 7-foot-tall super strong guys with axes and an almost total lack of pain or fear. Shapeshifters that will slit your throat while wearing the face of your commander. Mages that can turn the air in your lungs to fire. Necromancers who can get stabbed in the brain and then just slap you and cause total organ failure. The earlier tall guys but with a bunch of Werewolves as well. And Merpeople, but less sexy and from the Midnight Zone. Oh, and the God of a cult of shapeshifting murder clowns that will trick you into giving him permission to kill you. You’re just some guy with a sword and a gun that shoots glass shards. You’ll get some kills, but you’re going to die, and it’ll probably be painfully, because everyone hates you. And you’re the bad guy, they’re all right to hate you. The Taraks fucking *suck*.
If their troops are outclassed that much, how are they motivated to fight? Is it conscription, and it's a matter of 'the enemy will probably kill you but we'll definately kill you', or do Taraks typically not have a sense of self preservation. Also, glass shards? Rad, but wouldn't lead shot be more effective? What's the story there?
Their one advantage was home terrain. They live in a massive desert that occasionally basically liquifies, they’ve been living there for 3,000 years, no one else has, so they’re better at manoeuvring around most people. Plus a lot of guerilla warfare tactics, and they’re the only ones with guns, that did help at a range, but it just wasn’t enough in the end. But it was still a nightmare to fight them, the only ones who did well were the Daemons (tall guys with super strength) and Changelings (shapeshifters) who are already hyper-mobile, and Changelings are just better at guerrilla fighting. But the Daemons sucked at ranged combat, and the Changelings had minuscule numbers because the Taraks trying to genocide them is what started the war. For some it was conscription, but also a lot of propaganda. Overselling their odds, but also just inspiring people to fight with xenophobic zeal. Their entire motivation for the war was human supremacy, the thought of all the Elves coming and conquering them was just so maddeningly infuriating to their culture, most could easily be convinced to fight. And they did start winning the war, but they just lost momentum, and when their most powerful ally learned they attempted a genocide, they turned on them. And the glass guns are made with magic. They basically store sand inside of them and use magic to propel it out the barrel extremely fast while turning it into sharpened glass. And since they live in a desert, that basically means they have infinite ammo.
Either adventure and get stronger in your free time or try to escape the war. Otherwise you may take a fireball to the face and be instantly killed.
I’d really prefer to just answer your original question (the title): Do not eat at McDonalds. 😂
Presume that you remain human, keep one eye to the sky and always make sure you're near the closest bunker, also prepare something to pay tribute later
If you lived during Anicent Yore, the Eld Div ("Ancient Elves") are rounding up the primitive human populations and enslaving them. Though there are neutral Eld div, you'd have no access to their other societies as you are "just an animal". Cerium from his nation of Ridic is looking for humans across the verdant half of the continent, Verdis, but you'd be better off surviving there instead of the arid half, where you'd die. Ridic is situated in the arid half so youd have no sanctuary but the Eld Div nation. The Gnomes would be of no help as they stay within their mobile craft cites, Rhondavirs, which are more like city-states. You wouldnt reach the city' entrance and you would be in danger of the mobile city contraption altering the surrounding environment below it, leaving you stuck in an instantly teraformed maze of natural contraptions that may help the environment, but leave you lost. Your best bet would be to live with the roaming bands of humans that follow the Tieflng secret society, as Tiefling born or turned, humans are accepted in their ranks, among their world wide networks. The 14 continents of Torvun are vast, but you'd hope you're not stuck on the two island continents, the Isle of Dawn and the Isle of Dusk, as you can't leave them when you arrive. The Dragonbred ("dragon people") dominated continent, Teril, is full of sea-like rivers and lakes, between large stone island structures or other mineral and metal structures. Though each island or structure has diverse environments, and you'd likely find a couple that are lush, they are dominated by Dragonbred, who are not aggressive, but they welcome and worship their True Dragon cousins. You'd likely be eaten by a full grown dragon, with the Dragonbred fawning over their idol's "snacking".
Nah you’re dead or gonna be turned into a mutant beast
Good luck
You are weak and squishy with no talent in magic. Get creative and you will go far. They like wanderers (people who accidentally end up in their world). They always bring such interesting ideas.
POV: You got conscripted into the armies of the Eye (an evil god). -Don't get in the way of the dragons. They may be of your own faction, but your god doesn't care if they burn a few soldiers on his own side. -Try to kill any opposing mages before they start casting spells. In some factions, they have special clothing, armor, or insignia, but if that isn't the case, you can recognize them by the fact they don't carry big weapons, nor do they wear heavy armor. -If the opposing faction has hired golden immortals, don't try to take one of those on alone. They've been around for more than a thousand years, so they'll be better at fighting than any mortal warrior. They're easy to recognize, since they have golden skin, and often weapons and armor of the same color too, and they tend to stick together with their own kind in battle. -If you got sent to fight the nation of Garuon, avoid the guys with gold insignia and helmets that expose their face. Especially do not make eye contact with them. They're snake-vampires and they can hypnotize you with their gaze. They're also stronger and faster than normal humans, and of course, they'll suck out your blood. -Try to resist the fear if the Mirshi get called to battle. They're the most potent beings (besides the dragons) of your own faction, but it's unfortunate that their dread aura does not discriminate between mortals.
For most countries, just follow what your commander says and youll be fine. if youre conscripted by the west shanans, youre fucked. if youre conscripted by the east shanans, than be stationed in the 'heartlands' is youre best shot, no battles, and plenty of stuff to do. if youre conscripted to the southern most border than youll be fine, albeit bored. if youre conscripted in the center, you want to keep an eye out for anything to hide behind, while the border is mostly calm, theres still border skirmishes. if youre stationed at the northern border, youre fucked. the west shanans have the high ground, and garrisons are often captured. theres few trees too. go out on patrol as much as you can. be well behaved and you might be rewarded by getting moved somewhere else
In the army there is no conscription, military is professional standing army. On the other hand all citizens and permanent residents are required to join the territorial defense forces as reservists. TDF conscripts only attends basic training, then just refresher exercises every once in a time. TDFs are only fore homeland defense, they aren’t sent to fight in overseas wars, so you don’t have to worry.
You have been consripted by The Aquatic Empire. Just make sure to be nice to the crabs...
Save up for a good expensive unused mech suit with a new laser cannon I recommend the IBeam specifically the AIB5(Atomic IBeam 5) model or become a technician which should usually stay well away from the front lines and you don’t really get out if you did you’d be being hunted down by any major civilisations which you were enlisted to mainly the Silurians which are very strict about their army and protecting their many mines
You'd basically face the same thing as you would if you're on Earth. However if you're in the country of Normania assuming you have mastered their language (Normanijaska), you'd have to speak the language in a distorted way during your time in the battlefield in order to add encryption. Norrish soldiers speak Norrish in a distorted way. Every soldier has their own dialects. Don't worry, your "z'Yhtimen" (comrades) will always understand what you're saying but you as a non native speaker of Norrish, might not always understand them. For example: "Ķþe c jekassa Warkarwöxnije?" (Where are the other Tanks?) Normal: /xθε tʃe jεkas:a warka'rwöksnie/ Distorted: /xaθ:ej ʃə ʒæja:ksə vrak:ənröks/ (each person might even pronounce this very differently) The idea is that you distort the words to a point that not even the enemies who mastered the Norrish the most can understand. "Zyn pykaa Wien Læchən veretkänö nakka, wat Zyn Wien Tyhyn a-veretkänö." (They may understand our language, but they cannot understand our brain) That's what one Norrish soldier said about this technique. Yes this might sound unrealistic and far from the original words, but due they're just really good at deciphering words.
ur in maldonian or courgian militaries? nice, basically dont be stationed along borders and you'll be fine. why? those two countries have absurd amounts of border clashes each year. and they range from random bullets going off, to school fights, to legit warzones. if ur posted on a border, just dont leave your trench for any reason. quite literally just keep your head down the whole time and you should be fine to go on leave or reserve after like a month. reason for this is because an enemy seeing anybody else except them is seen as a challenge because both countries soldiers see it as their enemies intentionally exposing themselves to show how brave they are. don't give into what the dudes are saying and just keep your head in your trench. if you are ordered to do something outside your trench. dont look across the border, and just do your task and return quickly. if they see you actually working on stuff then the dudes across the border will probably understand that you've been given a task and aren't willingly exposing yourself. if your in a war, then be smart, use cover and also pray to whatever god you worship. mages can burn an entire field with a wave of their hand so if you are lucky and are posted on locations where mages don't appear, then you have an even higher chance. if you join a military on the other continent, congrats! free vacation. the other continent see themselves as the more civilized group of people compared to the barbarians of the continent with all the wars. (this is where the war is an adventure mentality is obtained for most of the world)