Calgary Kingdom of Monsters in Megaverse in Flames?

[SolCannibal]

Ok, i have heard that Megaverse in Flames finally gives us some actual info on the fabled but never described Calgary Kingdom of Monsters, though i have seen no details (nor do i have the book).

Is it true? How much info do we get? Could some charitable soul tell us what does the book talks of on the subject, is it hints and tidbits here and there or do we get some rundown of the place and some of its major figures like we get for Kingsdale in Juicer Uprising, for example?

Someone cares to give some details and spoilers? Just about Calgary per se and maybe its relation to the Minion War if it plays a major role in the place, but not the rest, please.

[Zamion138]

They tell you who runs it, the population generaly, describe one massive building and make cyber knights out to be the ultimate comando force in the megaverse....
But no map of the city and not anything about non hades allied forces.

[SolCannibal]

They tell you who runs it, the population generaly, describe one massive building and make cyber knights out to be the ultimate comando force in the megaverse....
But no map of the city and not anything about non hades allied forces.

And who would that be exactly?
Do they give something like a population breakdown?
Is the ruler related to the realm of Hades? That (and the book's focus in the Minion War) could certainly explain a lack of info on non-hades allied forces, ip to a point.

[Zamion138]

Yes the ruler is a demon from hades, they do give a population break down.

There are alot of non hades monster there as well.

The more interesting place described is havana honestly(imo). Its a solid book and i do suggest you get it

[Zamion138]

76k demons
33k other monsters
28k dbees (monsterus)
351k slaves

[SolCannibal]

76k demons
33k other monsters
28k dbees (monsterus)
351k slaves

So it is a sort of colony of Hades on Rifts Earth, or a melange of random demonic beings that happen to have an Hades-affiliated leadership?

Also, Havana? Now i'm really curious. Cuba being so close to the Devil's Triangle the city must be a pretty hardcore place to have survived in any form.

[SirRobin]

76k demons
33k other monsters
28k dbees (monsterus)
351k slaves

So it is a sort of colony of Hades on Rifts Earth, or a melange of random demonic beings that happen to have an Hades-affiliated leadership?

Also, Havana? Now i'm really curious. Cuba being so close to the Devil's Triangle the city must be a pretty hardcore place to have survived in any form.

Not a colony, just a hell hole that a bad guy ended up in charge of. Might be wrong though, I was more interested in other parts of the book than Calgary. I too liked what they did with Cuba more than finally getting details about Calgary.

Bunch of other stuff too. Definitely recommend picking it up when you can. The book "sets the stage" so well that I pondered if Palladium was going to take a break on Rifts and work on Chaos instead.

[DhAkael]

Just finished a 3-day slogg through the book (HORRIBLE editing but great material); and I'd have to give it a resounding 3 out of 5 stars cheer.
The situation really IS that much of a sphintcer shrinking potential catastrophe if either daemonic or infernal win. HOWever, until we get the plot-armoured 'Nazi's being good guys' book (which I will NOT be purchasing of even acknowledging exists), the metaplot is left open ended so yes, if the GM is that sadistic and the players that DUMB, the megaverse really COULD be reduced to ashes. Never gonna happen whilst K.S.'s favorite jack-booted Marry Sues and Marty Stus are still given "Plot immunity", but the potential choice is still there.

[Zamion138]

76k demons
33k other monsters
28k dbees (monsterus)
351k slaves

So it is a sort of colony of Hades on Rifts Earth, or a melange of random demonic beings that happen to have an Hades-affiliated leadership?

Also, Havana? Now i'm really curious. Cuba being so close to the Devil's Triangle the city must be a pretty hardcore place to have survived in any form.

More like the monsters and some demons were there and hades said " hey look ready made base with monster guards.....will just take that"

As for cuba, its dyval territory, cool stuff too.
I think dyvals deffintly thinking out their moves more than hades and that fits they thinking demons side of devils versus demons.
The hades generals are better to me than the dyval ones, dyvals generals are a bit of the under dogs comparedly. But all and all solid book, deffintly liking hell vs hell more than the fall of tolkeen over all.

[Zamion138]

Just finished a 3-day slogg through the book (HORRIBLE editing but great material); and I'd have to give it a resounding 3 out of 5 stars cheer.
The situation really IS that much of a sphintcer shrinking potential catastrophe if either daemonic or infernal win. HOWever, until we get the plot-armoured 'Nazi's being good guys' book (which I will NOT be purchasing of even acknowledging exists), the metaplot is left open ended so yes, if the GM is that sadistic and the players that DUMB, the megaverse really COULD be reduced to ashes. Never gonna happen whilst K.S.'s favorite jack-booted Marry Sues and Marty Stus are still given "Plot immunity", but the potential choice is still there.

Be cool if the splugorth and NE say quit jacking up the markets. Send in the massess and pull out leaving destruction everywhere and then NE sends earth a bill for the costs.

[HWalsh]

Just finished a 3-day slogg through the book (HORRIBLE editing but great material); and I'd have to give it a resounding 3 out of 5 stars cheer.
The situation really IS that much of a sphintcer shrinking potential catastrophe if either daemonic or infernal win. HOWever, until we get the plot-armoured 'Nazi's being good guys' book (which I will NOT be purchasing of even acknowledging exists), the metaplot is left open ended so yes, if the GM is that sadistic and the players that DUMB, the megaverse really COULD be reduced to ashes. Never gonna happen whilst K.S.'s favorite jack-booted Marry Sues and Marty Stus are still given "Plot immunity", but the potential choice is still there.

Much hate for the CS do I sense in you...

[SolCannibal]

Not really seeing the Coalition saving anyone's bacon in this scenario. They will probably try to contain Calgary but i doubt the Coalition would learn of Havana without some pretty good and trustworthy (for them) source of intel to warn them, considering how close Cuba is to the Devil's Triangle, that is basically the perfect smokescreen for any monstrous invader beachhead if you manage to hold it. If someone is going to deal with that problem spot, i would put my money on either Atlantis or the Shemarrians.

Beside, plot armor notwithstanding, i don't really think simply throwing an army or aerial bombardment - troops will be fodder into the meat grinder as we are talking of at least tens of thousands of demons before they bring reinforcements in and considering the infernal strategy is centered around a variant of the ley line fading effect, any destructive power of bombardments might flow through them with all the effectiveness of rain (read, not very worrisome at all).

Theoretically they could use it all as cover for some commando teams trying to make another "Holmes miracle" happen - but considering keeping the damn things protected and working is a key component of the forces of Hades invasion strategy, i don't really see a repeat of Tolkeen's folly happening anytime soon.

Not to mention that humans, mutant animals and psi-stalkers with no magical support whatsoever are far from the ideal options to effectively infiltrate and sabotage a demonic war camp... An all-dogboy unit might have some chance of mingling by passing themselves as a band of Alu, specially if they were enhanced into MDC beings with some process similar to the Psycho Juicer but i wouldn't really count on this.

[Pepsi Jedi]

The thing is, many different sources are purposefully giving the CS intel.

Lazlo purposefully is sening information out to everyone. Intel dumps on both Demons and Devils and their forces, their strengths and weaknesses. They made sure that the CS intercepted the information. The other forces are sharing the information the same way.

"Why are they helping the CS?" Because the CS has millions of troops and tech that can shoot the demons at range. The CS Has armies that were battled hardened against tolkeen. So many of them now have the advantage of being experienced against magic and supernatural foes.

There's also the fact that the Demons and Devils "Main enemies" are each other. I've not read the full book but in just the first 20 pages or so it goes into extreme detail about that. About how this war has been going on for 100s of years and part of the reason it hasn't been as bad on earth as it could have been, is when ever groups of one side come through the rifts, the other side tends to come through at the same time. Then they fight like cats and dogs, wiping out the majority of each other, which weakens the 'survivors' to the point where humanity has been able to mop up the remains.

The same thing is still happening. Yes there are 100s of thousands of baddies, but their primary enemy is each other and their main battle grounds are against each other. Not to mention there's plenty of standing supernatural forces that will fight them too (( the vamp kingdoms, the chinese hell groups (I forget what they call them selves) etc.

[SolCannibal]

The thing is, many different sources are purposefully giving the CS intel.

Lazlo purposefully is sening information out to everyone. Intel dumps on both Demons and Devils and their forces, their strengths and weaknesses. They made sure that the CS intercepted the information. The other forces are sharing the information the same way.

Lazlo is giving the 101 of demon-hunting & etc for whoever might interest and it's nice - but it's not the kind of intel i meant. I was talking about big, strategic stuff like knowing about a secret city-sized Deevyl beachhead in Cuba, for example, info that i don't see many of the regional powers actually knowing due to how out the way and/or disruptive the Devil Triangle/Bermuda Triangle can be.

And most regional powers with supernatural intel better than Tolkeen on either side, like Atlantis, Cibola in South America or the Yama Kings in China, will probably prefer to deal with the issue on their own instead of wasting time with talking shop with the CS or somesuch. Atlantis specially when they find out, as Havana is pratically in their porch.

[Pepsi Jedi]

Well I just got the book 2 days ago, the new WOW expansion hit, and I've got a new born baby, so I've only read a bit while in the bathroom. lol I haven't gotten to that yet.

I do remember it coming up previously though, here and from what I gather there's thousands if not tens of thousands or more baddies in Cuba. Cuba is RIGHT next door to NA, and the CS have a Blue Water Navy and bases on the Gulf. The distance is just a minor flight time from the US, so an overflight of Samus would pick up the baddies PDQ. You can't hide that much habitation from fly overs. That's if they were using the Samus to do it and not some of their supersonic assets.

It's one of those 'gray areas' that's not properly addressed in rifts. The CS should know ____ EVERY____ Major thing in the US. Their air assets can cover NA in a matter of hours if needed. But the writers act like if the CS flys out of their own turf they suddenly turn into vapor. Kinda sorta. Sometimes they're written smarter but still. Cuba is a short flight for the CS and once the island is found, the CS would at minimum do a fly over every once in a while to make sure... well. Noone's setting up a hostile base right there.

Again I haven't gotten to that point in the book, but if the CS do -not- know, it's for some weird reason. It's not like they just never thought to fly or sail over there and see if anyone is there.

[Braden Campbell]

I miss early-1990's-Fallout 3-style Rifts. The one where nations were small, and the world was a haunted, mysterious wildness.

[SolCannibal]

Well I just got the book 2 days ago, the new WOW expansion hit, and I've got a new born baby, so I've only read a bit while in the bathroom. lol I haven't gotten to that yet.

I do remember it coming up previously though, here and from what I gather there's thousands if not tens of thousands or more baddies in Cuba. Cuba is RIGHT next door to NA, and the CS have a Blue Water Navy and bases on the Gulf. The distance is just a minor flight time from the US, so an overflight of Samus would pick up the baddies PDQ. You can't hide that much habitation from fly overs. That's if they were using the Samus to do it and not some of their supersonic assets.

It's one of those 'gray areas' that's not properly addressed in rifts. The CS should know ____ EVERY____ Major thing in the US. Their air assets can cover NA in a matter of hours if needed. But the writers act like if the CS flys out of their own turf they suddenly turn into vapor. Kinda sorta. Sometimes they're written smarter but still. Cuba is a short flight for the CS and once the island is found, the CS would at minimum do a fly over every once in a while to make sure... well. Noone's setting up a hostile base right there.

Again I haven't gotten to that point in the book, but if the CS do -not- know, it's for some weird reason. It's not like they just never thought to fly or sail over there and see if anyone is there.

I can't say i agree with that, inspiration and technical basis notwithstanding, the Coaliton States are not the US. The usual stomping grounds and area of patrol would circunscribe itself to the Midwest, Great Lakes and parts of the Mississipi drainage system. It's presence in the Gulf probably counts as the equivalent pre-World War II US Navy bases in the other side of the Pacific, distant overseas territories across great expanses of uncharted territory and i would expect collecting intel from the Atlantic for the CS to be as slow, unreliable and prioritary as info in the Pacific Theater in the aforementioned period and circunstances. Worse actually, as the poor SOBs in these bases have to deal with the Dinossaur Swamp territories, Atlanteans, Horune and the The Bermuda Triangle/Demon Sea (sorry, have been misnaming the damn thing), possibly the largest permanently open nexus in the planet, smack dab in front of Cuba.

Seriously, i wouldn't be surprised if Atlantis only caught on to the Deevyls' presence when they are nearly crossing, due to the choice of location.

[Shark_Force]

sorry, are we seriously discussing "tens of thousands of demons" as being something that could stop the CS from facerolling the hell pits?

canonically, the CS has 1.6 million old-style SAMAS assigned to the ISS. which at least somewhat implies that they have something along those lines for total numbers of ISS, if not more.

the branch of the CS military that essentially deals purely with stuff inside the 'burbs, using inferior technology, could probably take on an army of at least a million minor demons without suffering substantial losses (they can fly faster, shoot farther, have similar MDC, and superior damage).

is anyone *really* suggesting that tens of thousands of demons will be more than a minor obstacle to a full-on attack in force by the CS military? *maybe* if every single one of those demons are full-blown casters or greater demons/demon lords they could slow the CS army down a bit more, but really the only thing they can hope to do is run away if the CS actually decides to actually use the force available to them. if the demons bring 20,000 to a fight, the CS can probably choose to fight them with close to 100 times as many soldiers as there are demons. and most of those soldiers can also be piloting old-style SAMAS, because the CS army has another 1.6 million of those in mothballs because they don't even need them any more.

[SolCannibal]

sorry, are we seriously discussing "tens of thousands of demons" as being something that could stop the CS from facerolling the hell pits?

canonically, the CS has 1.6 million old-style SAMAS assigned to the ISS. which at least somewhat implies that they have something along those lines for total numbers of ISS, if not more.

Yes, because having something like 5% of your population in SAMAS is a great sensible point where to start an argument...

[Shark_Force]

*shrug* I don't like the official numbers either, but that doesn't make them less official. even if we scale things back dramatically, and assume that the CS only has, say, 200,000 old-style SAMAS for the military, and 200,000 for the ISS... is anyone really going to suggest that "only" 400,000 SAMAS is *not* going to win by a landslide against 20,000 demons in a straight-up fight?

and that's just digging into their stockpile of old tech. if they decide to use their new (and generally more advanced) tech, and not limit themselves to using only SAMAS, how much of a fight do you think tens of thousands of demons will hold up to the CS army in practice when the CS has better range, almost always better speed (exception for some more powerful demons that can teleport), and almost always better firepower, with similar if not superior toughness?

simply put, tens of thousands of demons is not a credible threat. even hundreds of thousands of demons isn't generally much of a threat, unless we can presume that a very high proportion of them are greater demons or something like that.

[kaid]

The biggest problem for the CS is not going to be the hell pits in places like tolkeen that are close enough to them to be able to dump heavy reinforcements from them and the northern gun to suppress. The problem is going to be hell pits popping up in the wilderness of northern canada or in the south east or far west.

If a hell pit is left active to long you are getting tens of thousands of demons/devils coming in waves from them and spreading out and let enough get established and you wind up with millions of demons/devils you have to deal with.

The funny thing is even if the CS and company in north america "win" for whatever degree winning would entail there are a lot of areas of the rifts world that would not be able to fend off these kinds of demon uprisings and you could wind up with floods of demons/devils coming from those areas and being really difficult to ever fully remove.

[DhAkael]

Just finished a 3-day slogg through the book (HORRIBLE editing but great material); and I'd have to give it a resounding 3 out of 5 stars cheer.
The situation really IS that much of a sphintcer shrinking potential catastrophe if either daemonic or infernal win. HOWever, until we get the plot-armoured 'Nazi's being good guys' book (which I will NOT be purchasing of even acknowledging exists), the metaplot is left open ended so yes, if the GM is that sadistic and the players that DUMB, the megaverse really COULD be reduced to ashes. Never gonna happen whilst K.S.'s favorite jack-booted Marry Sues and Marty Stus are still given "Plot immunity", but the potential choice is still there.

Be cool if the splugorth and NE say quit jacking up the markets. Send in the massess and pull out leaving destruction everywhere and then NE sends earth a bill for the costs.

-SNRK-
They soooo would do that too.

[eliakon]

*shrug* I don't like the official numbers either, but that doesn't make them less official. even if we scale things back dramatically, and assume that the CS only has, say, 200,000 old-style SAMAS for the military, and 200,000 for the ISS... is anyone really going to suggest that "only" 400,000 SAMAS is *not* going to win by a landslide against 20,000 demons in a straight-up fight?

and that's just digging into their stockpile of old tech. if they decide to use their new (and generally more advanced) tech, and not limit themselves to using only SAMAS, how much of a fight do you think tens of thousands of demons will hold up to the CS army in practice when the CS has better range, almost always better speed (exception for some more powerful demons that can teleport), and almost always better firepower, with similar if not superior toughness?

simply put, tens of thousands of demons is not a credible threat. even hundreds of thousands of demons isn't generally much of a threat, unless we can presume that a very high proportion of them are greater demons or something like that.

And that unless the Demons have the spell Swallowing Rift (and casters on stand by to casting at need) then....well this is EXACTLY the sort of thing that the CS Navy keeps those nuclear cruise missiles around for......And has been mentioned before a city smasher nuke in a hell pit is going to kill permanently every demon in the blast radius. Poof that's tens of thousands, or millions of ex-demons. And for the bean counters out there.....the demon hordes are NOT just 'endless nigh infinite numbers of demons' They have finite troop numbers as well. Though I guess one can say 'well one side gets unlimited resources beyond what the books say, and no one else does'...but that's then not looking at what the situation in the books is now is it?

[SolCannibal]

*shrug* I don't like the official numbers either, but that doesn't make them less official. even if we scale things back dramatically, and assume that the CS only has, say, 200,000 old-style SAMAS for the military, and 200,000 for the ISS... is anyone really going to suggest that "only" 400,000 SAMAS is *not* going to win by a landslide against 20,000 demons in a straight-up fight?

and that's just digging into their stockpile of old tech. if they decide to use their new (and generally more advanced) tech, and not limit themselves to using only SAMAS, how much of a fight do you think tens of thousands of demons will hold up to the CS army in practice when the CS has better range, almost always better speed (exception for some more powerful demons that can teleport), and almost always better firepower, with similar if not superior toughness?

simply put, tens of thousands of demons is not a credible threat. even hundreds of thousands of demons isn't generally much of a threat, unless we can presume that a very high proportion of them are greater demons or something like that.

Uh, tens of thousands of demons, that might be associated with hundred of thousands of monsters/mortal followers, only constitute one beachhead, remember... Calgary, who's the closest big hell pit and whose going-ons and actual resources have been mostly ignored for decades, would certainly be the main target/front in such context and could turn out to be almost as hard an egg to crack as Tolkeen, with the added problem of urgency in eliminating the damn place, because if the demons manage to hold it, the number of monstrosities invading Rifts Earth through it could multiplicate pretty fast.

And that unless the Demons have the spell Swallowing Rift (and casters on stand by to casting at need) then....well this is EXACTLY the sort of thing that the CS Navy keeps those nuclear cruise missiles around for......And has been mentioned before a city smasher nuke in a hell pit is going to kill permanently every demon in the blast radius. Poof that's tens of thousands, or millions of ex-demons. And for the bean counters out there.....the demon hordes are NOT just 'endless nigh infinite numbers of demons' They have finite troop numbers as well. Though I guess one can say 'well one side gets unlimited resources beyond what the books say, and no one else does'...but that's then not looking at what the situation in the books is now is it?

Supposing the explosion per se doesn't get redirected to some other dimension due to how similar in mechanic the hell pits are to Fadetowns and such...
And i wouldn't put it beyond the realm of possibility either side having some soulmancy construct on standby exactly for the "detect and swallow rift" option - specially in the case of the Havana hell pit, that is much, much closer to Atlantis, who is much, much more capable of obliterating and/or zerg-rushing them than CS ever could.

[Shark_Force]

tens of thousands of demons is still hundreds of thousands of demons (and potentially even millions of demons) less than what they would need to make the CS even face a moderately difficult challenge. simply put, with the official numbers the CS has available, the demons are screwed. they picked the wrong planet to invade. they have barely any ranged weaponry, and they are for the most part quite slow.

yes, the tens of thousands may only be one location. but the CS doesn't have to attack every location at once. if they send a few hundred thousand SAMAS to one location, wreck everything there, and suddenly the demons realize the risk and abandon their other footholds... well, the CS kinda won that fight, now, didn't they. i mean, unless the demons are literally opening the portals faster than the CS can close them, bearing in mind that the CS can probably field 3-4 armies of 200,000 SAMAS officially at a time without breaking a sweat (again, using official numbers - we haven't even gotten close to forcing them to bring the ISS into things, which means they probably have one and a half million old-style SAMAS available to defend their territory, plus the rest of the regular army, which certainly consists of more than 800,000 soldiers canonically speaking), and each of those armies can probably strike at just about any one location in north america within a day's notice, well... let's just say that i for one would not like to be on the demon side of this situation once the CS gets rolling. and again, this is just with SAMA. we're not even tapping into the obscene number of dog boys and skelebots the CS has available, their air force, or their robot vehicles, their non-ISS police forces, and i very much doubt the 800,000 SAMAS i proposed deploying earlier would remotely come close to tapping out their regular infantry forces.

simply put, the demons do not have the numbers to be a threat in direct combat, as presented. they may be extremely scary in other ways; i mean, if they can get a few hundred powerful spellcasting demons into the various 'burbs, i imagine they could inflict some pretty serious damage before getting hunted down by dog packs and such. but in open combat? this isn't a fight. this is a turkey shoot.

[Tiree]

I miss early-1990's-Fallout 3-style Rifts. The one where nations were small, and the world was a haunted, mysterious wildness.

And that is how I run my games!

[SolCannibal]

tens of thousands of demons is still hundreds of thousands of demons (and potentially even millions of demons) less than what they would need to make the CS even face a moderately difficult challenge. simply put, with the official numbers the CS has available, the demons are screwed. they picked the wrong planet to invade. they have barely any ranged weaponry, and they are for the most part quite slow.

Uh, Tolkeen had an army of tens to low hundreds of thousands strong - need i say how much trouble it caused the CS? And i would guess their ratio of MDC monsters with teleport or regeneration to common was much inferior to the one we can expect in Calgary's forces.

Yes, the tens of thousands may only be one location. but the CS doesn't have to attack every location at once. if they send a few hundred thousand SAMAS to one location, wreck everything there, and suddenly the demons realize the risk and abandon their other footholds...

Hundred of thousands of SAMAS? So your sensible and practical answer to the problem is 5 to 10 whole divisions of soldiers of a kind of unit that is supposed to be something between specialist and elite? When among other things they lost the greater part of their forces during the Sorcerer's Revenge and had to make up the gap with quickly collected burb trash with barely any training? Really?

I miss early-1990's-Fallout 3-style Rifts. The one where nations were small, and the world was a haunted, mysterious wildness.

And that is how I run my games!

Way i prefer things too - in my games the CS to NGR pipeline is at its best like the diplomatic connections of the franco-ottoman alliance in the 16th century... reaching the Atlantic involves crossing lots of unknown territory and crossing it dealing with even more weird and dangerous crap like Atlantis, several "monsters states" it helps to support, the Phoenix Empire and pirate kingdoms of South America being just some of the most notorious among them.

[Shark_Force]

tolkeen had an army of a few hundred thousand, not tens of thousands, a crudload of casters (which are far more impressive than lesser demons on a 1:1 basis), something like 20 years to fortify and produce TW devices that made their non-caster forces much more like casters, and didn't fight very many straight-up battles. in fact, apart from the sorcerer's revenge (which, i hasten to point out, was a surprise attack) and the day tolkeen city got crushed, the whole thing was pretty much guerilla warfare. possibly because the outcome if they charged face-first into an enemy with several times their available forces was quite obvious for everyone involved. the entire tolkeen strategy basically hinged on making sure the CS never got a fair fight.

as to getting 800,000 SAMAS in action, turns out a regular CS grunt has robot combat:basic as a default skill, and are perfectly capable of learning to pilot power armour (and even to improve to elite robot combat) as an OCC related skill.

plus, i mean, you gotta figure that if they *had* 3.2 million stockpiled (which they did, before they gave half away to the ISS), they presumably must have had also an awful lot of available pilots... otherwise what's the point?

but hey, let's go crazy and cut those numbers to, oh, 4 armies of 25,000 SAMAS each. they still outrange the enemy. they still move faster than the enemy. they just don't have enough railguns to basically mow down 20,000 demons in a single action so easily any more... instead, they'll have to spend a whole minute or so for that. and they still have plenty of other people they can call on for help.

[Bood Samel]

I miss early-1990's-Fallout 3-style Rifts. The one where nations were small, and the world was a haunted, mysterious wildness.

I still play it like that.

[kaid]

The thing is, many different sources are purposefully giving the CS intel.

Lazlo purposefully is sening information out to everyone. Intel dumps on both Demons and Devils and their forces, their strengths and weaknesses. They made sure that the CS intercepted the information. The other forces are sharing the information the same way.

Lazlo is giving the 101 of demon-hunting & etc for whoever might interest and it's nice - but it's not the kind of intel i meant. I was talking about big, strategic stuff like knowing about a secret city-sized Deevyl beachhead in Cuba, for example, info that i don't see many of the regional powers actually knowing due to how out the way and/or disruptive the Devil Triangle/Bermuda Triangle can be.

And most regional powers with supernatural intel better than Tolkeen on either side, like Atlantis, Cibola in South America or the Yama Kings in China, will probably prefer to deal with the issue on their own instead of wasting time with talking shop with the CS or somesuch. Atlantis specially when they find out, as Havana is pratically in their porch.

I think the splugorth would wind up playing a roll in getting out information of "infestations" in areas like cuba especially if the dinosaur swamp demon lord is stupid enough to do his direct assault on atlantis. That will be a direct threat/affront and will give the splugorth a freer hand to interfere with the plausible excuse of well they started it.

[kaid]

One funny thing about the minion war is the CS is actually well positioned for fighting them more so than even tolkeen and the whole weird makeup of their anti magic but still using a lot of psi stalkers/dog boys makes them probably one of the best at fending off infiltration attacks.

The biggest danger from dyvals is them shape changing and tempting/corrupting your forces to fight for them. Places like lazlo are going to have some serious issues fending this off mainly because due to the large number of high PPE sources its a lot easier for a devil or demon to hide itself as some other DB. In the CS due to the constant roving patrols of psi stalkers and dog boys its going to be really hard for demons or devils to sneak in infiltrators to any key area. The burbs are going to get infiltrated but the actual fortress cities or army would be extremely challenging.

Oddly enough this is what makes free quebec very vulnerable and may wind up with them back in the fold of the CS states sooner rather than later. The FQ forces disdain psychics and psi stalkers and were totally opposed to dog boys. This leaves a mundane tech kingdom with almost no defenses vs infiltration by demons/devils.

The CS are human supremacists and facists but they have at least taken logical steps to offset via psi powers the power of magic users. VS demons who are in general not really that great of spell casters most having only a handful of spells having enough psychics to fend off the stealth/infiltration attacks the CS is pretty well setup to fight off hordes of demons. Their units are faster/longer ranged and as durable or more so than demon forces.

Triax who is even a bit larger than the CS and more tech advanced is going to have a MUCH harder time holding things together. They do use psychics but nowheres to the extant the CS does and have minimal experience with spell casters and what they can do via stealth/infiltration. Gargoyles are a punch you in the face type enemy they don't turn themselves into humans to seduce your officers and by the time triax realizes the danger it may be way to late for them. I think their only saving grace is the gargoyle kingdoms DO know about this kind of infiltration and want no part of being lackies and peons again and will likely fight against both the demons and devils tooth and claw.

[SolCannibal]

The thing is, many different sources are purposefully giving the CS intel.

Lazlo purposefully is sening information out to everyone. Intel dumps on both Demons and Devils and their forces, their strengths and weaknesses. They made sure that the CS intercepted the information. The other forces are sharing the information the same way.

Lazlo is giving the 101 of demon-hunting & etc for whoever might interest and it's nice - but it's not the kind of intel i meant. I was talking about big, strategic stuff like knowing about a secret city-sized Deevyl beachhead in Cuba, for example, info that i don't see many of the regional powers actually knowing due to how out the way and/or disruptive the Devil Triangle/Bermuda Triangle can be.

And most regional powers with supernatural intel better than Tolkeen on either side, like Atlantis, Cibola in South America or the Yama Kings in China, will probably prefer to deal with the issue on their own instead of wasting time with talking shop with the CS or somesuch. Atlantis specially when they find out, as Havana is pratically in their porch.

I think the splugorth would wind up playing a roll in getting out information of "infestations" in areas like cuba especially if the dinosaur swamp demon lord is stupid enough to do his direct assault on atlantis. That will be a direct threat/affront and will give the splugorth a freer hand to interfere with the plausible excuse of well they started it.

Dinosaur Swamp Demon Lord - where is that ugly described, would like to know.

[Tor]

They .. make cyber knights out to be the ultimate comando force in the megaverse

*insert laughter* not sure why this ongoing trend happens. They are decent enough, but of all the groups out there who would complicate the minion war, they never come to mind as major problems. I guess I could see them harassing Banshees or Labassu.

is anyone *really* suggesting that tens of thousands of demons will be more than a minor obstacle to a full-on attack in force by the CS military? *maybe* if every single one of those demons are full-blown casters or greater demons/demon lords they could slow the CS army down a bit more, but really the only thing they can hope to do is run away if the CS actually decides to actually use the force available to them.

I would suggest that, sure, numbers are not everything. The main reason the CS is a threat to these guys is because they can take pot-shots at them while they are distracted battling one another like idiots, not realizing that it would be more effective to retreat and co-opt the natives into their battles.

Even lesser-class demon/devil have the ability to turn invisible, does anyone recall if thermo-vision PA like SAMAS presumably have can allow the invisible to be detected?

I would also guess that if these forces wanted to prioritize the CS as an enemy, they would not fight them directly, but instead, sneak into bases which are too cramped for SAMAS to fight effectively using mass numbers and their long range. Not to mention the -beware our healing factor- attrition tactics of whittling down the damage capacity and ammo of PA.

tolkeen had
an army of a few hundred thousand
a crudload of casters (which are far more impressive than lesser demons on a 1:1 basis)
something like 20 years to fortify and produce TW devices that made their non-caster forces much more like casters.

High-level casters outclass lesser demons but I am not so sure about low-level ones. Demons also have had centuries to collect interesting gear. A big fail for Tolkeen is they were stuck defending a location so were limited in mobility, demons for the most part can just spread out and wreck you from all sides. Think trying to defend the D'Haran Empire versus ditching to assault the Old World.

[glitterboy2098]

unless otherwise specified, natural abilities to turn invisible are equal to Invis:simple. so thermovision and the like will reveal them.. though since thermovision is not going to be a vision mode you leave on all the time, the trick is going to be knowing you need to use it.

[FrankSerpico]

I think one of the main problems with people assuming the CS can or would engage in all out blitzkrieg against the Calgary Rift is the main problem with them engaging in an all-out blitzkrieg against any other power in NA: there's simply too many current threats out there for them to ever throw that much firepower at one single foe. A massive assault on Calgary would cause them to divert forces positioned against other threats like the True Federation, Xiticix, angry Tolkeen refugees etc. and also leave them exposed to actions by other threats they don't even know about like Soulharvest or the Shemarrians. It's simply not practical for the CS military to operate in that manner.

[Pepsi Jedi]

Ehh... the way the book/Minion war is presented, is that the Minion war is -The Event- of Rifts earth. More than just 'Right now' but there's some serious Retacon(Or.... could be seen more as "Clairifying spotty information we've had with precise information we had no clue of") that point out not only is it the big event 'now' but has been since the first day of the rifts and it's finally coming to a head like a nasty pimple.

Thus, while yes there are other things for the CS to worry about, if the Minion war isn't addressed, the other things won't matter because the CS will be dead and gone. (So will everyone/everything else.) Thus even with other things out there to worry about, they all pale in compairison to the Minion war, and the Minion war will be elevated to primary threat and allocate resources accordingly.

The "Official" Information in the Rifter this month (Which SHOULD HAVE MADE THE BOOK. Period) Even has Plato of Lazlo sending out a message to all the powers that be. CS, Fed, everyone. Saying straight up, "Hey guys, we gotta cut the crap. We have to band together or we're all going to die. Karl that means you gotta cut the crap. DUnscon. You -especially- have to cut the crap. and if you can't cut the crap, don't be an idiot and try and team up with these guys they'll make you their female dog!. If we're not going to stand together, please for the love of all that's holy don't get in each other's way. If we don't all fight the Minions we're ALL GONNA DIE"

So.. yeah, the Minion war is so big and bad that it makes threats like the Xiticix and Mechinoids look like footnotes.

While the CS isn't just going to rush in and try and defeat the minions by repeatedly bashing their faces on the Minions weapons, they are very much prioritizing the Minion war above other threats. Cuz, if they don't, the other threats won't matter. Everyone is dead.