Realism of Jericho Holmes survival in Xiticix territory

[Shark_Force]

It sounds like you agree that the text does not exclude the bugs from reacting that way with large groups.

the text doesn't support it either. there are a nigh-infinite number of things that the text neither explicitly makes impossible nor supports. it would be daft to presume that they're all intended to be canon statements about what the bugs will do, and this passage in particular has absolutely nothing about it to suggest that it is in any way different from all of the unwritten things that *might* describe the bug's behaviour except that it is written... but is only related to a situation that is not the one people are talking about.

imagine for a moment you have to go get something from a store, and your younger brother (who is legally just old enough to be allowed to stay home on their own) needs to stay home for some reason. you know this is their first time being home on their own, and so you tell them "be careful of strangers, and in particular if anyone knocks on the door don't answer it". should your younger brother conclude that "don't answer it" is intended to apply to the general statement of "be careful"? would you have said that with the intention that "don't answer the door" is the solution to a whole host of unstated situations that are explicitly different from "if anyone knocks on the door"?

i certainly wouldn't. it is calling something out specifically, yes, in that it is distinguishing that specific scenario from the stuff that came before. so yes, small groups and individuals in particular are treated in a certain way. but the fact that it singled out small groups and individuals rather than leaving it general means the following paragraph applies to those scenarios it specifically called out in particular, not to the general case.

sure, it doesn't explicitly rule out the possibility of other scenarios applying, just as the advice you imagined giving to your younger brother didn't rule out other possibilities. and there are probably other scenarios where your younger brother should even follow the same plan of "don't open the door". for example, if there is a wild bear on the front lawn, or if there is a combination of strong winds and rain blowing towards the door, or just if he's not planning on going outside. but "don't open the door" needs to be considered as a response in each of those cases on it's own merits, not based on the merits of not opening the door when someone knocks. you don't open the door when there's a wild bear on the lawn not because it has something to do with a person knocking on the door, but because the door provides some (limited) protection from the wild bear that would be lost if the door was opened... it is considered on its own merits, not on the merits of the particular situation you called out.

in like manner, the answer to the question of whether or not the xiticix will challenge individuals in very large groups needs to be considered on its own merits, not on the merits of whether they behave that way towards small groups and individuals. and we have no information that suggests they will act that way towards large groups, any more than we have information that suggests they will offer large groups a place to stay for the night in exchange for 50 credits each, complete with a complementary breakfast and a free ticket to watch the "So You Think You Can Dance Xiticix Hive" auditions live in the auditorium. we have no more information stating that they will do the former than that they will do the latter.

[eliakon]

If it was 100 soldiers, surrounded by 10,000 enemy soldiers who would slaughter ALL of them if anybody fought back, would that change the picture any?

Not really.

A Principled character might not fight to save himself, he would likely fight to save someone else.

Even if fighting would mean that the person he was fighting to save, they Principled character himself, and all 98 of his other comrades in arms would be killed?

Sometimes? Yes.

Okay. Sometimes.

Also, remember, these guys don't KNOW this will work. Holmes has a theory regarding this.

Also, I noticed you didn't address the other alignments...

I'm not sure that alignment matters much when the alternative to the plan is 100% death for everybody.
Well, actually, a Diabolic or Miscreant might not go with the plan in that case, just for the lulz.

So... Put yourself in the shoes of the CS guys here:

You have been under attack for hours, this has gone on for, say, I don't know... 6 hours... You have lost 50,000 of your friends, who have been ripped apart by Xiticix... Holmes says, "Don't worry men! Don't fight back! Don't defend yourselves! Don't defend your friends! I think this might work."

It sounds like:
-I'm part of a fanatical army where I've been brainwashed by propaganda my entire life
-I'm following the orders of my commander, whether or not I think they're insane orders.
-Me and something like 250,000 of my friends are still alive six hours longer than I imagined was possible.

The guy standing right next to you goes down, a Xiticix on top of him, ripping at his flesh and eviscerating him. A few minutes ago, you saw it happen to another guy. It isn't letting up, it isn't slowing down, this has been the same pace for hours. All Holmes has to say is, "I have an idea, eventually, I think the Xiticix will stop."

Are all the other bugs surrounding us also flying down and killing everybody?
Or are they holding back from making a massive attack and wiping us all out at once, the way they've been mostly holding back for the past 6 hours, as Holmes predicted?

I am going to have to call BS here
Sorry.
If you can find a single shred of evidence in a single book that suggests that the CS has such a high Esprit de corps that, following a hunch an entire army corps will lay aside their entire combat doctrine and, instead of regarding the command as either treason or suicide by bug, but simply stand down the entire army and meekly allow 100,000 human beings to be killed and eaten
then I am sorry you are simply trying to justify the book by saying that "since the book said it, then it can't be bogus"
The books are rife with examples of CS soldiers fighting to the death. Of CS soldiers refusing to surrender. Of the CS killing their own on the slightest suspicion of mind control...
...but here, we are to believe that they will take an order that is, quite bluntly high treason, with out qualm or question and carry it out with not a single person in a 400,000 man force dissenting?
Give me a break.

[Killer Cyborg]

It sounds like you agree that the text does not exclude the bugs from reacting that way with large groups.

the text doesn't support it either.

Perhaps.
Right now, I'm trying to make sure we're all on the same "Holmes' survival does not conflict with the canon material."

[Killer Cyborg]

Also, remember, these guys don't KNOW this will work. Holmes has a theory regarding this.

Also, I noticed you didn't address the other alignments...

I'm not sure that alignment matters much when the alternative to the plan is 100% death for everybody.
Well, actually, a Diabolic or Miscreant might not go with the plan in that case, just for the lulz.

So... Put yourself in the shoes of the CS guys here:

You have been under attack for hours, this has gone on for, say, I don't know... 6 hours... You have lost 50,000 of your friends, who have been ripped apart by Xiticix... Holmes says, "Don't worry men! Don't fight back! Don't defend yourselves! Don't defend your friends! I think this might work."

It sounds like:
-I'm part of a fanatical army where I've been brainwashed by propaganda my entire life
-I'm following the orders of my commander, whether or not I think they're insane orders.
-Me and something like 250,000 of my friends are still alive six hours longer than I imagined was possible.

The guy standing right next to you goes down, a Xiticix on top of him, ripping at his flesh and eviscerating him. A few minutes ago, you saw it happen to another guy. It isn't letting up, it isn't slowing down, this has been the same pace for hours. All Holmes has to say is, "I have an idea, eventually, I think the Xiticix will stop."

Are all the other bugs surrounding us also flying down and killing everybody?
Or are they holding back from making a massive attack and wiping us all out at once, the way they've been mostly holding back for the past 6 hours, as Holmes predicted?

I am going to have to call BS here
Sorry.
If you can find a single shred of evidence in a single book that suggests that the CS has such a high Esprit de corps that, following a hunch an entire army corps will lay aside their entire combat doctrine and, instead of regarding the command as either treason or suicide by bug, but simply stand down the entire army and meekly allow 100,000 human beings to be killed and eaten
then I am sorry you are simply trying to justify the book by saying that "since the book said it, then it can't be bogus"
The books are rife with examples of CS soldiers fighting to the death. Of CS soldiers refusing to surrender. Of the CS killing their own on the slightest suspicion of mind control...
...but here, we are to believe that they will take an order that is, quite bluntly high treason, with out qualm or question and carry it out with not a single person in a 400,000 man force dissenting?
Give me a break.

I'm still trying to wrap my mind around why you think that "everybody gets killed by the bugs" is a more desirable result for the soldiers than "25% of us get killed by bugs."

Also, I'd love to see some book citations that not a single person in that 400k force dissented.
Hell, ANY RELEVANT BOOK CITATIONS would be just downright spiffy.
So far, I seem to be the only one bringing any to the party, and it's starting to get awkward.

[eliakon]

Also, remember, these guys don't KNOW this will work. Holmes has a theory regarding this.

Also, I noticed you didn't address the other alignments...

I'm not sure that alignment matters much when the alternative to the plan is 100% death for everybody.
Well, actually, a Diabolic or Miscreant might not go with the plan in that case, just for the lulz.

So... Put yourself in the shoes of the CS guys here:

You have been under attack for hours, this has gone on for, say, I don't know... 6 hours... You have lost 50,000 of your friends, who have been ripped apart by Xiticix... Holmes says, "Don't worry men! Don't fight back! Don't defend yourselves! Don't defend your friends! I think this might work."

It sounds like:
-I'm part of a fanatical army where I've been brainwashed by propaganda my entire life
-I'm following the orders of my commander, whether or not I think they're insane orders.
-Me and something like 250,000 of my friends are still alive six hours longer than I imagined was possible.

The guy standing right next to you goes down, a Xiticix on top of him, ripping at his flesh and eviscerating him. A few minutes ago, you saw it happen to another guy. It isn't letting up, it isn't slowing down, this has been the same pace for hours. All Holmes has to say is, "I have an idea, eventually, I think the Xiticix will stop."

Are all the other bugs surrounding us also flying down and killing everybody?
Or are they holding back from making a massive attack and wiping us all out at once, the way they've been mostly holding back for the past 6 hours, as Holmes predicted?

I am going to have to call BS here
Sorry.
If you can find a single shred of evidence in a single book that suggests that the CS has such a high Esprit de corps that, following a hunch an entire army corps will lay aside their entire combat doctrine and, instead of regarding the command as either treason or suicide by bug, but simply stand down the entire army and meekly allow 100,000 human beings to be killed and eaten
then I am sorry you are simply trying to justify the book by saying that "since the book said it, then it can't be bogus"
The books are rife with examples of CS soldiers fighting to the death. Of CS soldiers refusing to surrender. Of the CS killing their own on the slightest suspicion of mind control...
...but here, we are to believe that they will take an order that is, quite bluntly high treason, with out qualm or question and carry it out with not a single person in a 400,000 man force dissenting?
Give me a break.

I'm still trying to wrap my mind around why you think that "everybody gets killed by the bugs" is a more desirable result for the soldiers than "25% of us get killed by bugs."

Because I don't metagame?
No seriously. step away from the outside omniscient view and look at it from the inside view.
Sure, we as players know that fighting back gets everyone killed. But no one in the force knows that. All they know is that they have just been ordered to violate a huge number of laws and commit suicide because, supposedly, it will get the force through...

Also, I'd love to see some book citations that not a single person in that 400k force dissented.
Hell, ANY RELEVANT BOOK CITATIONS would be just downright spiffy.
So far, I seem to be the only one bringing any to the party, and it's starting to get awkward.

Because XI makes it bloody clear that if anyone fights back they trigger the whole death scent swarm thing?
That is why?
The entire premise of the argument is that some how no one triggers any deathscents. And to do that no one has to fight back.
Which is beyond absurd.

[Killer Cyborg]

I'm still trying to wrap my mind around why you think that "everybody gets killed by the bugs" is a more desirable result for the soldiers than "25% of us get killed by bugs."

Because I don't metagame?
No seriously. step away from the outside omniscient view and look at it from the inside view.
Sure, we as players know that fighting back gets everyone killed. But no one in the force knows that. All they know is that they have just been ordered to violate a huge number of laws and commit suicide because, supposedly, it will get the force through...

So they don't notice the 800k Xiticix darkening the sky overhead?

Also, I'd love to see some book citations that not a single person in that 400k force dissented.
Hell, ANY RELEVANT BOOK CITATIONS would be just downright spiffy.
So far, I seem to be the only one bringing any to the party, and it's starting to get awkward.

Because XI makes it bloody clear that if anyone fights back they trigger the whole death scent swarm thing?
That is why?

The passage I cited allows for fighting back.
I'll re-cite that part, in case you missed it the first time:
XI 11
...such an unwanted intruder or group may be challenged by one particular Warrior or Hunter while the rest of his squad (and probably scores of other Xiticix) watch from above. This may, or may not be, a fight to the death, but even if it is, the others will not join the battle unless they too are attacked or other humanoids join the battle. When one-on-one battle is done, the others fly away. If the Warrior lost, they depart with the corpse of their fallen comrade in their arms, and the travelers are allowed to continue their journey.

The entire premise of the argument is that some how no one triggers any deathscents.

Source?

[Jefffar]

I think the odds of not having a significant number of individuals freak out and disobey out of a sample size of 400 000 individuals placed in an extremely high stress situation is the issue that Eliakon is having.

I think we can safely assume that some did freak out. But enough of them held their fire that, though suffering heavy losses, the force managed to emerge.

[Killer Cyborg]

I think the odds of not having a significant number of individuals freak out and disobey out of a sample size of 400 000 individuals placed in an extremely high stress situation is the issue that Eliakon is having.

I think that he's underestimating the cowing impact that 800,000 xiticix blotting out the sun would have on morale, but mostly I'm asking for his source that nobody possibly freaked out and disobeyed.

I think we can safely assume that some did freak out. But enough of them held their fire that, though suffering heavy losses, the force managed to emerge.

That is my assumption as well.

[dreicunan]

Argh, I just lost a longer post. Long story short, SoT books 5 and 6 sure make it sound like no soldiers fired off a shot; they talk about Holmes being an incredible leader: "Few leaders anywhere in the world could get their troops to trust in them so strongly that they would literally follow him into the jaws of death, and once gripped in those jaws, to hold together under such perilous conditions." - SoT 6 p. 13.

They also talk in SoT 5's epilogue about how the bugs swarmed them for 72 hours and had Holmes at the breaking point and ready to order his troops to fire when 60% of the swarm broke off and from then on almost all the "attacks" from the bugs over the rest of the three weeks were non-lethal, which means that the vast bulk of the losses occurred in the first 72 hours. Since the whole strategy was predicated on grounding all fliers, moving slow, and not shooting, that sure makes it sound like no one fired a shot. If they had, that would have made the plan not work.

And that is the rub; if a man as disciplined as Holmes was at the breaking point after 72 hours of watching his troops get slaughtered, it is beyond ludicrous to think that the soldiers getting ripped to shreds or watching their friends get ripped to shreds were all so disciplined that no one fired a shot. It would have been more plausible if the writers had said that Ursakar E. Creed suddenly showed up with 12 Imperator titans, a 1000 baneblades, and 100,000 Imperial Guardsmen (all from behind bushes) to obliterate the Xiticix before they knew what hit them; and I mean that - a bunch of guys with giant robots that have freaking gothic cathedrals on their backs from an entirely different gaming system suddenly showing up and saving Holmes would have made more sense than what was written.

[Axelmania]

One thing about Jericho... Could he have given orders to kill any troops who fought back?

This would diminish the amount who did, and if any did lash out, immediately turning on them would make it clear to the Xiticix that their attacker wasn't part of that group (since it was treated as enemy) and so their actions would not be attributed to a group.

Sort of like, if a CS slaver stabbed a a Xiticix then his dozen Troll slaves beat him to death, even if they had been traveling together the Xiticix would esikynoecsive the slaver was not part of the Troll group, it instead their enemy.

Jericho may also have kept the deaths semi secret to minimize panic. Maybe he fed his guys the Intel about Buzzing and made them inclined to think it was innocent Intel. Their friends weren't getting turned into Sludge, some warriors were just knocking them around to show who is boss and woukdnlet them go! The occasional death is an accident, a rare aberration if an excssiveky aggressive one.

Which is actually the truth... The amount of deaths could simply reflect a small portion of buzzes that turned into duels that turned into death matches. If 25% died, perhaps 50% had to duel and 75% were buzzed.

Here is another idea: do we know what the mobile troops were armed with? If Holmes was concerned about a guy flying off the handle and shooting, he could just take away their ranges weapons.

A guy with just vibro blades would be less inclined to come to the rescue of a teammate being killed, since melee combat against a xiticix warrior is suicidal. It would also mean more time for superiors to react to the disobedience... They could shoot them with a net gun to stop them before they interfered.

You would want to leave them a decent VibroSword so they stood SOME chance if challenged to a duel though.

If a commander saw a guy getting challenged he could also throw him a weapon. That wouldn't necessarily be seen as "cheating" so long as you did none of the fighting yourself.

The quote KC brings about carrying the fallen comrade off suggests Xiticix do not go berserk from the death scent. I don't know sure that idea came from. Everything I recall is that it just prompts them to come investigate. In the case of duels there is no point since they already know what happened.

Difficulty might come if you won a duel you were challenged to but did so by killing and then a second group who didn't win the duel came along.

For that reason I expect that Jericho would instruct soldiers challenged to duels to cripple rather than kill. Although I'm not sure if you can do called shots with VibroSword blades.

A good tactic would be to toss a heavy duty plasma gun to whoever gets challenged but otherwise keep everyone unarmed.

.
He had all of this other troops cluster into a large single group shoulder to shoulder. (This precludes the small group theory.)
.

I would like to refresh myself on the source material. Anyone have a page number for this?

[Killer Cyborg]

Argh, I just lost a longer post.

Man, I hate it when that happens!
SO frustrating!!

Long story short, SoT books 5 and 6 sure make it sound like no soldiers fired off a shot; they talk about Holmes being an incredible leader: "Few leaders anywhere in the world could get their troops to trust in them so strongly that they would literally follow him into the jaws of death, and once gripped in those jaws, to hold together under such perilous conditions." - SoT 6 p. 13.

"Hold Together" does not equal "not one soldier every breaks from orders," or "Not one soldier ever fires a shot."

They also talk in SoT 5's epilogue about how the bugs swarmed them for 72 hours and had Holmes at the breaking point and ready to order his troops to fire when 60% of the swarm broke off and from then on almost all the "attacks" from the bugs over the rest of the three weeks were non-lethal, which means that the vast bulk of the losses occurred in the first 72 hours. Since the whole strategy was predicated on grounding all fliers, moving slow, and not shooting, that sure makes it sound like no one fired a shot. If they had, that would have made the plan not work.

Do you have a quote that details the plan itself?
"Not shooting" and "ready to order his troops to fire" could well cover a lack of orders for everybody to open fire, more than "not one person is capable of breaking orders, or the entire plan falls apart."
Is there a source for the plan specifically failing in its entirety if a single soldier broke orders and fired?

And that is the rub; if a man as disciplined as Holmes was at the breaking point after 72 hours of watching his troops get slaughtered, it is beyond ludicrous to think that the soldiers getting ripped to shreds or watching their friends get ripped to shreds were all so disciplined that no one fired a shot.

Well, that's part of things. I don't think it's reasonable to expect that literally not ONE CS soldier panicked and opened fire. I would in fact expect that to be part of the 100k that were killed.
As I've said though, I don't have the books that go over the details of the plan, so I might be missing some key passages that describe the plan failing entirely if a single person deviates from it.

[Freemage]

I think folks are misinterpreting the timing a bit. They weren't "months" in Xitixic territory. Even with the slow travel speed, they should've been able to get out of Xitixic territory in about a week or so. (Think of it this way--they got to the point where they turned around in less than a day when they were traveling at full speed. I sincerely doubt their ground units were traveling faster than 70 miles per hour over rough terrain. And they were traveling pretty close to round-the-clock (presumably rotating drivers, having marching troops swap into the vehicles and so on). Even if the fact that they were angling out to the SW (instead of just retreating directly south) added to the distance significantly, it's still less than a week. During the remainder of that time (roughly 6-7 weeks), then, Holmes was regrouping, and in borderland territory to the north of Tolkeen.

As I noted earlier, this region was noted for being heavily de-populated, as troops were drawn to the southern front, and civilian decided to hole up in the capital triad cities. De-populated, it should be noted, is not the same as 'abandoned'. Residents of the small settlements would've been under the impression that the war was all but won, so they'd be returning to their homes in due course. This is important, because it means they weren't fleeing the villages with everything they could carry; instead, they took what they were likely to need during that time period, and items of great value or personal significance.

If I had to come up with an explanation for how Holmes' troops were in fighting condition when they got to Tolkeen proper, it lays in that 'downtime'. I would suspect that Holmes spent much of that time having his field command staff identifying soldiers who were having trouble coping, and then personally visiting them (probably in a small group fashion), bolstering morale directly, praising their courage and loyalty, and vowing revenge upon the cowardly Tolkeenites who pushed them into bug territory to being with.

There are marksmen in Rifts (even those without cyberware) who can hit a shot that no real-world sniper would ever waste a bullet on. There are non-enhanced martial artists who make Bruce Lee's movie characters look more like Mr. Bean. Holmes? Holmes is to command and morale building what these individuals are to personal combat. A super-genius, not at dueling, but at getting his troops to obey, and to buck up under strain.

Meanwhile, those troops who'd come through psychologically intact would be put immediately on scavenging duty. Find a small, largely empty town? Scout carefully, eliminate any remaining residents. Go to every cellar, and pull up any long-term foodstuffs that were left behind by people who expected to return in a couple months. Canned goods, dry goods, etc. Pump water from the wells (which wouldn't have been poisoned, the way an actual evacuation might've forced).

Kevin, unfortunately, glossed over that time period, so the above is not 'canon' in print. However, it contradicts nothing that IS in print, which makes it viable as an explanation.

[Eagle]

The Xiticix book allows for people to fight back. If the bug is on you, you are allowed to shoot it and kill it. The Xiticix swarming above are impressed by your manliness (or whatever) and don't react to the death scent. You just can't help your buddy. If Carl gets grabbed by a bug and carried off into the sky, you can't go "you blankety-blank bugs, I'll kill you all!" and blast into the sky with your rail gun. You gotta let him go.

I think it's as plausible as anything else in the Seige of Tolkeen books that Jericho had this crazy idea, and sold his troops on it before they went in. Everybody goes in knowing that they can't engage the enemy unless they're attacked directly. So when Carl is grabbed and carried away, and Joe starts freaking out and grabs his rifle, everybody around him goes "no way man, you'll kill us all!" and they dogpile him. Even then, a handful of people shooting wild doesn't necessarily trigger the entire massive swarm coming down on them. We don't know how much of a response is required to trigger that.

Having a single Xiticix death bring out the entire colony is a recipe for disaster (for the Xiticix). It's an evolutionary handicap. Rub some dead bug on your SAMAS armor and just fly by the hive, the whole swarm will chase you for days and leave their home undefended. There has to be some degree of proportionality there to prevent such a tactic from working.

[Shark_Force]

The Xiticix book allows for people to fight back. If the bug is on you, you are allowed to shoot it and kill it. The Xiticix swarming above are impressed by your manliness (or whatever) and don't react to the death scent. You just can't help your buddy. If Carl gets grabbed by a bug and carried off into the sky, you can't go "you blankety-blank bugs, I'll kill you all!" and blast into the sky with your rail gun. You gotta let him go.

I think it's as plausible as anything else in the Seige of Tolkeen books that Jericho had this crazy idea, and sold his troops on it before they went in. Everybody goes in knowing that they can't engage the enemy unless they're attacked directly. So when Carl is grabbed and carried away, and Joe starts freaking out and grabs his rifle, everybody around him goes "no way man, you'll kill us all!" and they dogpile him. Even then, a handful of people shooting wild doesn't necessarily trigger the entire massive swarm coming down on them. We don't know how much of a response is required to trigger that.

Having a single Xiticix death bring out the entire colony is a recipe for disaster (for the Xiticix). It's an evolutionary handicap. Rub some dead bug on your SAMAS armor and just fly by the hive, the whole swarm will chase you for days and leave their home undefended. There has to be some degree of proportionality there to prevent such a tactic from working.

first off, i must repeat: the books give precisely ZERO indication that the bugs challenge individuals when those individuals are in large groups. none. zip. zilch. nada. there is no passage of text which even remotely implies that the behaviour of the bugs towards small groups and individuals (which are by nature going to be much less threatening than large groups) applies to anything other than small groups and individuals. this behaviour that you're describing, as far as large groups is concerned, is being made up from scratch.

secondly, holmes had maybe minutes before going into bug territory to explain that they were going into bug territory. he hadn't been spending the last few months planning on randomly marching through bug territory and briefing the troops on it. it was a response to an overwhelming assault that was specifically designed to force them into bug territory. it's going to take an awful lot to sell anyone on anything as crazy as "just let the xiticix kill us, eventually they might arbitrarily decide to stop instead of just using their millions of warriors to harvest us all". selling a few hundred thousand soldiers on that in mere minutes, and with zero logistical support (i hope you weren't planning on eating or drinking anything during your trip), based on a theory he came up with, is just not plausible.

as far as the death scent being a recipe for disaster, you don't seem to appreciate how many bugs there are in those hives. the army they sent to shadow holmes? that was a drop in the ocean. that's like the CS sending a couple of seek and destroy squads. the xiticix can afford to send several hundred thousand bugs to chase down something that attacked them.

@ freemage: you don't just "get better" from PTSD after a few weeks. and it doesn't leave you in fighting condition. the problem isn't bad morale. it's psychological damage that requires extensive treatment to deal with, *if* treatment even works at all. and traveling at full speed in xiticix territory with an army is going to get you right back on their kill list real quick, so if they were supposed to have left at full speed, that's another stupid thing. furthermore, there was no "turning back". holmes didn't come back out where he came in. he travelled *through* xiticix territory and came out on the other side. tolkeen was watching for an army from their front. the whole point of the attack was supposedly that it was a flank attack from a direction tolkeen wasn't looking. there would be no surprise element if holmes just attacked from the same direction the coalition states were already attacking from. furthermore, the "cowardly" tolkeenites pushing the CS into bug territory only works as a narrative if holmes didn't *order* his men to fall back into bug territory. which he did. yes, the attack was designed to drive them there. but you can't place sole blame on the "cowardly tolkeenites" when your commanding officer is explicitly ordering you to knowingly go into bug territory because he's got a hunch to soften the blow from the "cowardly tolkeenites" (that you're running away from instead of resisting their push). lastly, the entire concept that small scattered villages are going to have sufficient supplies for hundreds of thousands of soldiers to live off of for months is frankly absurd. even if we presume that those mostly-abandoned villages didn't take their food with them when they went. i mean, i dunno about you, but while i might leave my bed and my library and my computer behind if i was going on a trip somewhere, i wouldn't be nearly as likely to leave *food* behind, because as it turns out going to another location doesn't magically eliminate my need to eat. the country had been at war for an extended period of time, and rationing had probably been in effect for a large portion of that time, so food supplies were most likely at an all-time low and had been for quite a while.

the entire concept is laughably absurd in so many ways.

[Killer Cyborg]

The Xiticix book allows for people to fight back. If the bug is on you, you are allowed to shoot it and kill it. The Xiticix swarming above are impressed by your manliness (or whatever) and don't react to the death scent. You just can't help your buddy. If Carl gets grabbed by a bug and carried off into the sky, you can't go "you blankety-blank bugs, I'll kill you all!" and blast into the sky with your rail gun. You gotta let him go.

I think it's as plausible as anything else in the Seige of Tolkeen books that Jericho had this crazy idea, and sold his troops on it before they went in. Everybody goes in knowing that they can't engage the enemy unless they're attacked directly. So when Carl is grabbed and carried away, and Joe starts freaking out and grabs his rifle, everybody around him goes "no way man, you'll kill us all!" and they dogpile him. Even then, a handful of people shooting wild doesn't necessarily trigger the entire massive swarm coming down on them. We don't know how much of a response is required to trigger that.

Having a single Xiticix death bring out the entire colony is a recipe for disaster (for the Xiticix). It's an evolutionary handicap. Rub some dead bug on your SAMAS armor and just fly by the hive, the whole swarm will chase you for days and leave their home undefended. There has to be some degree of proportionality there to prevent such a tactic from working.

first off, i must repeat: the books give precisely ZERO indication that the bugs challenge individuals when those individuals are in large groups.

Uh... yeah, the book does.
I've already quoted it, and explained it.
If the xiticix behave this way with (individuals and small groups) in particular, then there must be something other category that they might behave this way in general or even in unusual circumstances.

[Blue_Lion]

The Xiticix book allows for people to fight back. If the bug is on you, you are allowed to shoot it and kill it. The Xiticix swarming above are impressed by your manliness (or whatever) and don't react to the death scent. You just can't help your buddy. If Carl gets grabbed by a bug and carried off into the sky, you can't go "you blankety-blank bugs, I'll kill you all!" and blast into the sky with your rail gun. You gotta let him go.

I think it's as plausible as anything else in the Seige of Tolkeen books that Jericho had this crazy idea, and sold his troops on it before they went in. Everybody goes in knowing that they can't engage the enemy unless they're attacked directly. So when Carl is grabbed and carried away, and Joe starts freaking out and grabs his rifle, everybody around him goes "no way man, you'll kill us all!" and they dogpile him. Even then, a handful of people shooting wild doesn't necessarily trigger the entire massive swarm coming down on them. We don't know how much of a response is required to trigger that.

Having a single Xiticix death bring out the entire colony is a recipe for disaster (for the Xiticix). It's an evolutionary handicap. Rub some dead bug on your SAMAS armor and just fly by the hive, the whole swarm will chase you for days and leave their home undefended. There has to be some degree of proportionality there to prevent such a tactic from working.

first off, i must repeat: the books give precisely ZERO indication that the bugs challenge individuals when those individuals are in large groups.

Uh... yeah, the book does.
I've already quoted it, and explained it.
If the xiticix behave this way with (individuals and small groups) in particular, then there must be something other category that they might behave this way in general or even in unusual circumstances.

Was that behavior standard times or when the hive is in swarm mode(millions of bugs all looking for a fight). I just find it hard to believe that a angry swarm is going to just challenge a few people in a group at a time. The idea that an angry swarm just does challenges for months on a large group and not attack seams a bit of a stretch to what I consider believable.

But in the end weather or not I can see it happening some how he did survive.

[Killer Cyborg]

The Xiticix book allows for people to fight back. If the bug is on you, you are allowed to shoot it and kill it. The Xiticix swarming above are impressed by your manliness (or whatever) and don't react to the death scent. You just can't help your buddy. If Carl gets grabbed by a bug and carried off into the sky, you can't go "you blankety-blank bugs, I'll kill you all!" and blast into the sky with your rail gun. You gotta let him go.

I think it's as plausible as anything else in the Seige of Tolkeen books that Jericho had this crazy idea, and sold his troops on it before they went in. Everybody goes in knowing that they can't engage the enemy unless they're attacked directly. So when Carl is grabbed and carried away, and Joe starts freaking out and grabs his rifle, everybody around him goes "no way man, you'll kill us all!" and they dogpile him. Even then, a handful of people shooting wild doesn't necessarily trigger the entire massive swarm coming down on them. We don't know how much of a response is required to trigger that.

Having a single Xiticix death bring out the entire colony is a recipe for disaster (for the Xiticix). It's an evolutionary handicap. Rub some dead bug on your SAMAS armor and just fly by the hive, the whole swarm will chase you for days and leave their home undefended. There has to be some degree of proportionality there to prevent such a tactic from working.

first off, i must repeat: the books give precisely ZERO indication that the bugs challenge individuals when those individuals are in large groups.

Uh... yeah, the book does.
I've already quoted it, and explained it.
If the xiticix behave this way with (individuals and small groups) in particular, then there must be something other category that they might behave this way in general or even in unusual circumstances.

Was that behavior standard times or when the hive is in swarm mode(millions of bugs all looking for a fight). I just find it hard to believe that a angry swarm is going to just challenge a few people in a group at a time. The idea that an angry swarm just does challenges for months on a large group and not attack seams a bit of a stretch to what I consider believable.

I can't say for certain, because I don't have the books and nobody wants to quote them, but I could see an angry swarm killing quite a few deadboys, then realizing that the "enemy" isn't fighting back, and reassessing the situation, then turning more toward the challenging behavior than the regular killing swarm.

But in the end weather or not I can see it happening some how he did survive.

Apparently.
The main question is how plausible this is.
I think it was (as far as I can tell) badly written, but not necessarily wrong in general thrust.

[Blue_Lion]

To me the idea just seamed unplausable.

[HWalsh]

Sorry I dropped off for a bit, was doing therapy and fell doing more harm than good to my poor legs. So I'm on bed rest for a few days. Will get book citations when I can next get to my comp.

[Killer Cyborg]

To me the idea just seamed unplausable.

Fair enough.
Which part?

[Killer Cyborg]

Sorry I dropped off for a bit, was doing therapy and fell doing more harm than good to my poor legs. So I'm on bed rest for a few days. Will get book citations when I can next get to my comp.

Good luck and swift healing.

[HWalsh]

Sorry I dropped off for a bit, was doing therapy and fell doing more harm than good to my poor legs. So I'm on bed rest for a few days. Will get book citations when I can next get to my comp.

Good luck and swift healing.

Thanks. Sadly it's not looking possible at this point. I'm not giving up, but yeah. I'm hoping we develop full conversion Borg technology soon.

[Blue_Lion]

To me the idea just seamed unplausable.

Fair enough.
Which part?

The idea of hiding in a Xit swarming for months in of itself is unbelievable to me.
The idea of any large scale sneak attack working in a world where both mage and psi can detect threats before they happen.
(Crippling a system with bombs and missile, sure I can believe it, but hey surprise we showed up with hundred of thousands of troops and killed 10s of thousands and no one saw it coming just a bit of a stretch.)

Oh no my wife is going to die when skellebots gun her down on main street.
Oh no I am going to use every thing when a bomb blows up my magic shop.

[Killer Cyborg]

To me the idea just seamed unplausable.

Fair enough.
Which part?

The idea of hiding in a Xit swarming for months in of itself is unbelievable to me.

Okay. Care to elaborate?
(Again, book quotes would be helpful)

The idea of any large scale sneak attack working in a world where both mage and psi can detect threats before they happen.
(Crippling a system with bombs and missile, sure I can believe it, but hey surprise we showed up with hundred of thousands of troops and killed 10s of thousands and no one saw it coming just a bit of a stretch.)

I can see that point of view. If there were other, more immediate threats though, that might mask such an approach.
Has anybody calculated the number of claivoyants in Tolkeen?

[Blue_Lion]

To me the idea just seamed unplausable.

Fair enough.
Which part?

The idea of hiding in a Xit swarming for months in of itself is unbelievable to me.

Okay. Care to elaborate?
(Again, book quotes would be helpful)

The idea of any large scale sneak attack working in a world where both mage and psi can detect threats before they happen.
(Crippling a system with bombs and missile, sure I can believe it, but hey surprise we showed up with hundred of thousands of troops and killed 10s of thousands and no one saw it coming just a bit of a stretch.)

I can see that point of view. If there were other, more immediate threats though, that might mask such an approach.
Has anybody calculated the number of claivoyants in Tolkeen?

Kind of a waist of time to do.
A threat on this scale even if only 4 in the city had it they would have seen it do to the scale.
Then there are thousands of state mages serving in the armed forces that can be trained in spells to see upcoming threat.
Then there where TW here let me create a computer to calculate upcoming threats.

[Shark_Force]

The Xiticix book allows for people to fight back. If the bug is on you, you are allowed to shoot it and kill it. The Xiticix swarming above are impressed by your manliness (or whatever) and don't react to the death scent. You just can't help your buddy. If Carl gets grabbed by a bug and carried off into the sky, you can't go "you blankety-blank bugs, I'll kill you all!" and blast into the sky with your rail gun. You gotta let him go.

I think it's as plausible as anything else in the Seige of Tolkeen books that Jericho had this crazy idea, and sold his troops on it before they went in. Everybody goes in knowing that they can't engage the enemy unless they're attacked directly. So when Carl is grabbed and carried away, and Joe starts freaking out and grabs his rifle, everybody around him goes "no way man, you'll kill us all!" and they dogpile him. Even then, a handful of people shooting wild doesn't necessarily trigger the entire massive swarm coming down on them. We don't know how much of a response is required to trigger that.

Having a single Xiticix death bring out the entire colony is a recipe for disaster (for the Xiticix). It's an evolutionary handicap. Rub some dead bug on your SAMAS armor and just fly by the hive, the whole swarm will chase you for days and leave their home undefended. There has to be some degree of proportionality there to prevent such a tactic from working.

first off, i must repeat: the books give precisely ZERO indication that the bugs challenge individuals when those individuals are in large groups.

Uh... yeah, the book does.
I've already quoted it, and explained it.
If the xiticix behave this way with (individuals and small groups) in particular, then there must be something other category that they might behave this way in general or even in unusual circumstances.

no, it doesn't.

the "in particular" deals with the things that are "in particular". not with the things that aren't.

if the bugs display a certain behaviour with certain types of targets "in particular", that only means that they display the behaviour with those certain types of targets.

it doesn't mean that they definitely don't treat any other targets that way, because that certainly isn't explicitly stated or implied. but it also doesn't explicitly state or imply that they do, either. if you're going to propose that the bugs behave in this certain way with things *other* than the ones that they "in particular" do, that needs to be presented on its *own* merits, not on the merits of the situations that are called out "in particular".

if you were in an area with many students in small groups, and you were to point to one group and indicate that on the last test, that group in particular did very well. that doesn't tell you about the other groups, and especially doesn't tell you about any other specific groups. it gives you information about that specific group "in particular" only. it doesn't mean that any other group did well on the test, and it doesn't mean that any other group didn't do well on the test, only that the indicated group "in particular" did well on the test. if you want to know about any of the other groups, you need to evaluate them on their own merits, for example by looking at the records that are kept of test scores and matching them up with student names, and comparing that with the names of the students in each group (which is likely more or less what was done in some way to point out the group that did well in particular, though probably from memory rather than from looking up test scores).

you can make some very general assumptions... in the students test scores example i've just given above, you can conclusively state that it is possible to have done very well on the test, therefore it is possible that other groups of students than the indicated one did well on the test... but you cannot prove with even the tiniest degree of certainty that there are any other groups that actually did well without further information, and certainly you cannot prove that any other specific group did without further information.

so... we can conclusively state that there are situations where individual bugs challenge individuals instead of attacking an entire group. but we only have evidence that it can happen with individuals or small groups. we have no evidence that it can happen with large groups, only speculation. we can't rule it out completely with certainty, because it isn't explicitly stated that they never challenge large groups, but it also doesn't suggest that they do.

it would be like me pulling out quotations about how if the CS attacked a hive, the bugs would come to recognize people in CS uniforms as enemies in the future, and conclude that as soon as they saw holmes marching his troops the bugs forevermore recognize CS uniforms as being an enemy. maybe they would. maybe they wouldn't. but the books only tell us what happens in an attack, not if the bugs merely spot a large group of CS soldiers, so we can't really use the information on how the bugs would react to an attack by the CS as evidence for what the bugs would do if they just see a large group of CS soldiers. i could say that *if* the bugs perceive the presence of a large group of CS soldiers as an attack, then they would in the future perceive people in CS uniforms as enemies (and as such, holmes was taking an incredible risk not just with the lives of his own troops, but with his entire nation). but i can't say that now the bugs will perceive people in CS uniforms as enemies.

it can provide some fodder for speculation, since again, we know that there are conditions where the bugs do exhibit that behaviour, so it's more plausible speculation than, say, speculating that the bugs are allergic to elven superheroes and will go into a sneezing fit when within 15 feet of one, or that contact with regular dirt causes all xiticix to spontaneously combust except for diggers, which is why they cover their territory in chitin... but it isn't proof, and it doesn't mean that the books are indicating that the behaviour applies in anything other than the situation where it says the behaviour applies "in particular".

[Axelmania]

As I pointed out above, with adequate treecover/smoke/spacing/staggering it would be possible for Jericho's forces to be views as small groups.

Military grouping breaks down chain if command lime that anyway. Companies into platoons and squads.

[Killer Cyborg]

The Xiticix book allows for people to fight back. If the bug is on you, you are allowed to shoot it and kill it. The Xiticix swarming above are impressed by your manliness (or whatever) and don't react to the death scent. You just can't help your buddy. If Carl gets grabbed by a bug and carried off into the sky, you can't go "you blankety-blank bugs, I'll kill you all!" and blast into the sky with your rail gun. You gotta let him go.

I think it's as plausible as anything else in the Seige of Tolkeen books that Jericho had this crazy idea, and sold his troops on it before they went in. Everybody goes in knowing that they can't engage the enemy unless they're attacked directly. So when Carl is grabbed and carried away, and Joe starts freaking out and grabs his rifle, everybody around him goes "no way man, you'll kill us all!" and they dogpile him. Even then, a handful of people shooting wild doesn't necessarily trigger the entire massive swarm coming down on them. We don't know how much of a response is required to trigger that.

Having a single Xiticix death bring out the entire colony is a recipe for disaster (for the Xiticix). It's an evolutionary handicap. Rub some dead bug on your SAMAS armor and just fly by the hive, the whole swarm will chase you for days and leave their home undefended. There has to be some degree of proportionality there to prevent such a tactic from working.

first off, i must repeat: the books give precisely ZERO indication that the bugs challenge individuals when those individuals are in large groups.

Uh... yeah, the book does.
I've already quoted it, and explained it.
If the xiticix behave this way with (individuals and small groups) in particular, then there must be something other category that they might behave this way in general or even in unusual circumstances.

no, it doesn't.

the "in particular" deals with the things that are "in particular". not with the things that aren't.

"In particular" means "especially (used to show that a statement applies to one person or thing more than any other)."
So if "individuals and small groups" are the one person or thing, what does that leave as the other person or thing....?

if the bugs display a certain behaviour with certain types of targets "in particular", that only means that they display the behaviour with those certain types of targets.

It means that they display that behavior with those certain types of targets more than any other, which is explicitly NOT the same as displaying the behavior ONLY with those certain types of targets.

it doesn't mean that they definitely don't treat any other targets that way, because that certainly isn't explicitly stated or implied. but it also doesn't explicitly state or imply that they do, either.

Actually, it does indeed imply that they do treat other targets that way. The "more than the other" part of the meaning of "in particular" specifically refers to treating other targets that way.

if you were in an area with many students in small groups, and you were to point to one group and indicate that on the last test, that group in particular did very well. that doesn't tell you about the other groups, and especially doesn't tell you about any other specific groups.

It tells you that more than just that one group took the test.
And it tells you that that the other groups did not perform as well.

you can make some very general assumptions... in the students test scores example i've just given above, you can conclusively state that it is possible to have done very well on the test, therefore it is possible that other groups of students than the indicated one did well on the test... but you cannot prove with even the tiniest degree of certainty that there are any other groups that actually did well without further information, and certainly you cannot prove that any other specific group did without further information.

That's fine--metaphorically proving that is not my goal.
All I am pointing out is that the text from XI allows for the bugs to behave that way with large groups, not that the rules specifically told us at that time and place that the bugs certainly DO behave that way.
The claim that you made was "the books give precisely ZERO indication that the bugs challenge individuals when those individuals are in large groups."
I am pointing out that your claim is incorrect, that there is indeed [u]indication[u/] that the bugs challenge individuals when those individuals are in large groups.
Indication is not the same as conclusively stating.

[Killer Cyborg]

To me the idea just seamed unplausable.

Fair enough.
Which part?

The idea of hiding in a Xit swarming for months in of itself is unbelievable to me.

Okay. Care to elaborate?
(Again, book quotes would be helpful)

The idea of any large scale sneak attack working in a world where both mage and psi can detect threats before they happen.
(Crippling a system with bombs and missile, sure I can believe it, but hey surprise we showed up with hundred of thousands of troops and killed 10s of thousands and no one saw it coming just a bit of a stretch.)

I can see that point of view. If there were other, more immediate threats though, that might mask such an approach.
Has anybody calculated the number of claivoyants in Tolkeen?

Kind of a [waste] of time to do.
A threat on this scale even if only 4 in the city had it they would have seen it do to the scale.

I'm not sure what that sentence is intended to mean, it you seem to be saying that if 4 people out of 1+ million predicted the attack, that those 4 people could necessarily have mobilized Tolkeen's defenses in time to prevent the attack.

Then there are thousands of state mages serving in the armed forces that can be trained in spells to see upcoming threat.

Ok.
How many thousands could potentially have been used that way?
How many actually were used that way?

Then there where TW here let me create a computer to calculate upcoming threats.

I don't know what you're trying to say.

[Eagle]

first off, i must repeat: the books give precisely ZERO indication that the bugs challenge individuals when those individuals are in large groups. none. zip. zilch. nada. there is no passage of text which even remotely implies that the behaviour of the bugs towards small groups and individuals (which are by nature going to be much less threatening than large groups) applies to anything other than small groups and individuals. this behaviour that you're describing, as far as large groups is concerned, is being made up from scratch.

The books don't say how the bugs react to large groups at all. It is known how they react to small groups. It is not known how they react to large ones.

From a writing perspective, the author is clearly trying to set up the "miraculous" Jericho Holmes movement through Xiticix territory by providing a little hint of information in the earlier book. The relevant passages don't seem to be of any great importance until the Seige of Tolkeen books.

secondly, holmes had maybe minutes before going into bug territory to explain that they were going into bug territory. he hadn't been spending the last few months planning on randomly marching through bug territory and briefing the troops on it. it was a response to an overwhelming assault that was specifically designed to force them into bug territory. it's going to take an awful lot to sell anyone on anything as crazy as "just let the xiticix kill us, eventually they might arbitrarily decide to stop instead of just using their millions of warriors to harvest us all". selling a few hundred thousand soldiers on that in mere minutes, and with zero logistical support (i hope you weren't planning on eating or drinking anything during your trip), based on a theory he came up with, is just not plausible.

It happens all the time in fiction. Some expert has a theory on how the monster is supposed to function, he tells the other characters, and he's proven right (or sometimes he's proven wrong and he gets eaten). First example I can think of is the T-Rex in Jurassic Park. "Don't move. He can't see you if you don't move." We know the Coalition has been planning for war against the Xiticix for some time. Jericho Holmes would very likely know of the current theories on how they operated. He's a general after all. He had enough time to relay orders to his men. "They're forcing us closer to the hives. If the bugs comes out, only fight back if you are *personally* attacked. They'll send out a few raiders to pick at us, but they won't swarm us unless we attack them as a group. Repeat, hold your fire unless you are personally attacked. Do not fire on a bug attacking your squad mate."

Coalition soldiers are trained to follow orders, and they're used to weird crap coming at them. They've been fighting sorcerers and demons. They understand strange rules about how you fight certain monsters. "Why do I have to club this thing with a tree branch? Why can't I just shoot it?" "It's vulnerable to wood, just do what you're told, soldier." If they are ordered to act a certain way, they'll generally follow that order. And the thing is, the theory was right. The bugs did act how Holmes said they would act. While you're seeing your buddies get picked off one at a time, you also see that the huge swarm above your head is in a holding pattern. They aren't coming down en masse to murder everyone. You'd have a dicey situation there at first, but after a little bit everyone would understand how they were surviving this.

as far as the death scent being a recipe for disaster, you don't seem to appreciate how many bugs there are in those hives. the army they sent to shadow holmes? that was a drop in the ocean. that's like the CS sending a couple of seek and destroy squads. the xiticix can afford to send several hundred thousand bugs to chase down something that attacked them.

Well, that's exactly my point.

The Xiticix have to have a way to scale their response. They just have to. Otherwise you kill one bug and now you have ten million of them pouring out of the hive. They have to be able to have some degree of proportionality. You can't have the entire hive react to a single small event. There's got to be a measured response by the bugs, otherwise you really will have one dude kill a single Xiticix warrior, rub the scent on his SAMAS, and lead the whole hive on a wild goose chase.

So what that means is the Coalition force in bug territory isn't going to be required to behave perfectly. A single guy who shouts "game over man, game over!" and starts blasting everything around him will trigger a response in that little area, but it won't cause the 800,000 warriors that are hovering over the battlefield to be like "aha! that guy right there, he broke the rules, let's get 'em".

Now we don't know exactly what the trigger points are. Kill one bug, maybe they send out 5. Kill 5, they send out 50. Kill 50, they send out 1000. Kill 1000, now they're really pissed and they send out a horde that will blot out the sun. Or maybe the numbers are different. We don't know. That's why it's so dangerous, because you don't know for sure what's going to trigger the whole hive and what is going to cause a small reaction. But there obviously has to be some threshold before they commit such a large force.

@ freemage: you don't just "get better" from PTSD after a few weeks. and it doesn't leave you in fighting condition. the problem isn't bad morale. it's psychological damage that requires extensive treatment to deal with, *if* treatment even works at all. and traveling at full speed in xiticix territory with an army is going to get you right back on their kill list real quick, so if they were supposed to have left at full speed, that's another stupid thing. furthermore, there was no "turning back". holmes didn't come back out where he came in. he travelled *through* xiticix territory and came out on the other side. tolkeen was watching for an army from their front. the whole point of the attack was supposedly that it was a flank attack from a direction tolkeen wasn't looking. there would be no surprise element if holmes just attacked from the same direction the coalition states were already attacking from. furthermore, the "cowardly" tolkeenites pushing the CS into bug territory only works as a narrative if holmes didn't *order* his men to fall back into bug territory. which he did. yes, the attack was designed to drive them there. but you can't place sole blame on the "cowardly tolkeenites" when your commanding officer is explicitly ordering you to knowingly go into bug territory because he's got a hunch to soften the blow from the "cowardly tolkeenites" (that you're running away from instead of resisting their push). lastly, the entire concept that small scattered villages are going to have sufficient supplies for hundreds of thousands of soldiers to live off of for months is frankly absurd. even if we presume that those mostly-abandoned villages didn't take their food with them when they went. i mean, i dunno about you, but while i might leave my bed and my library and my computer behind if i was going on a trip somewhere, i wouldn't be nearly as likely to leave *food* behind, because as it turns out going to another location doesn't magically eliminate my need to eat. the country had been at war for an extended period of time, and rationing had probably been in effect for a large portion of that time, so food supplies were most likely at an all-time low and had been for quite a while.

the entire concept is laughably absurd in so many ways.

Post traumatic stress disorder doesn't manifest immediately. These soldiers are going to have a hard time returning to civilian life, sure. But it's not like they get swarmed by the bugs and then 10 minutes later they all have PTSD. That kind of thing is going to show up months down the road.

Besides, you can't have it both ways. In one thread, people are saying that CS soldiers happily execute their own squad members for letting a lady leave with her baby. Now they're all heartbroken that their buddy is dead? They can either by psychotic killers or they can have camaraderie with their fellow soldiers. "Poor Joe, got eaten by a bug. Now I'm never gonna get to shoot him..."

[Freemage]

The Xiticix book allows for people to fight back. If the bug is on you, you are allowed to shoot it and kill it. The Xiticix swarming above are impressed by your manliness (or whatever) and don't react to the death scent. You just can't help your buddy. If Carl gets grabbed by a bug and carried off into the sky, you can't go "you blankety-blank bugs, I'll kill you all!" and blast into the sky with your rail gun. You gotta let him go.

I think it's as plausible as anything else in the Seige of Tolkeen books that Jericho had this crazy idea, and sold his troops on it before they went in. Everybody goes in knowing that they can't engage the enemy unless they're attacked directly. So when Carl is grabbed and carried away, and Joe starts freaking out and grabs his rifle, everybody around him goes "no way man, you'll kill us all!" and they dogpile him. Even then, a handful of people shooting wild doesn't necessarily trigger the entire massive swarm coming down on them. We don't know how much of a response is required to trigger that.

Having a single Xiticix death bring out the entire colony is a recipe for disaster (for the Xiticix). It's an evolutionary handicap. Rub some dead bug on your SAMAS armor and just fly by the hive, the whole swarm will chase you for days and leave their home undefended. There has to be some degree of proportionality there to prevent such a tactic from working.

secondly, holmes had maybe minutes before going into bug territory to explain that they were going into bug territory. he hadn't been spending the last few months planning on randomly marching through bug territory and briefing the troops on it. it was a response to an overwhelming assault that was specifically designed to force them into bug territory. it's going to take an awful lot to sell anyone on anything as crazy as "just let the xiticix kill us, eventually they might arbitrarily decide to stop instead of just using their millions of warriors to harvest us all". selling a few hundred thousand soldiers on that in mere minutes, and with zero logistical support (i hope you weren't planning on eating or drinking anything during your trip), based on a theory he came up with, is just not plausible.

Holmes had planned this as a last-resort maneuver before the invasion began (this is stated in the escape Epilogue). The odds are, he'd already briefed his field commanders on "Plan Omega" or whatever you want to call it, and explained it to them, including the whys and wherefores.

@ freemage: you don't just "get better" from PTSD after a few weeks. and it doesn't leave you in fighting condition. the problem isn't bad morale. it's psychological damage that requires extensive treatment to deal with, *if* treatment even works at all.

Welcome to the world of role-playing games. They simply do not handle such issues well, for myriad reasons. And I'm not saying they were cured, in any case; rather, that the time was spent bolstering and redirecting the various trauma reactions into rage against Tolkeen. I'm not trying to make light of the PTSD aspect; rather, I'm noting that there are multiple possible reactions to having PTSD in the first place, and these can be managed and re-directed.

and traveling at full speed in xiticix territory with an army is going to get you right back on their kill list real quick, so if they were supposed to have left at full speed, that's another stupid thing. furthermore, there was no "turning back". holmes didn't come back out where he came in. he travelled *through* xiticix territory and came out on the other side. tolkeen was watching for an army from their front. the whole point of the attack was supposedly that it was a flank attack from a direction tolkeen wasn't looking. there would be no surprise element if holmes just attacked from the same direction the coalition states were already attacking from.

You're missing the point. He didn't come out the opposite side. If the border between Tolkeen and the Hivelands is a line running East-west, then he went in traveling almost straight north, at high speed, during the initial rout by the Sorcerer's Revenge. When the Tolkeenites broke off, he stopped and hunkered down as the Xitixic started to swarm. The Tolkeenites hung around for a few days, and when he didn't come out, their troops went to join the southeastern front, where the CS troops were still being engaged.

Even as that was happening, Holmes began his very slow retreat. He didn't go through the heart of the territory; he angled to the southwest, and traveled very slowly. (His route in, his route out, and the southern border of Xitixic territory thus makes a triangle.) The outbound path took far more time than the inbound path, but the inbound path only took one day, at most.

furthermore, the "cowardly" tolkeenites pushing the CS into bug territory only works as a narrative if holmes didn't *order* his men to fall back into bug territory. which he did. yes, the attack was designed to drive them there. but you can't place sole blame on the "cowardly tolkeenites" when your commanding officer is explicitly ordering you to knowingly go into bug territory because he's got a hunch to soften the blow from the "cowardly tolkeenites" (that you're running away from instead of resisting their push).

The 'cowardly Tolkeenites' would've specifically been how Holmes sold it to his troops, and should not be viewed as my assessment of their character. The troops would very much be looking for someone to blame for that horror, and by focusing that rage externally, Holmes could make them very, very dangerous. It's not a long-term solution to their trauma; it's a field commander getting his troops through a brutally rough time in order to get them capable of inflicting a lot of damage.

lastly, the entire concept that small scattered villages are going to have sufficient supplies for hundreds of thousands of soldiers to live off of for months is frankly absurd. even if we presume that those mostly-abandoned villages didn't take their food with them when they went. i mean, i dunno about you, but while i might leave my bed and my library and my computer behind if i was going on a trip somewhere, i wouldn't be nearly as likely to leave *food* behind, because as it turns out going to another location doesn't magically eliminate my need to eat. the country had been at war for an extended period of time, and rationing had probably been in effect for a large portion of that time, so food supplies were most likely at an all-time low and had been for quite a while.

I'm just going to point to the "CS Breadbasket" thread, where I've been properly schooled in just how much food is likely in storage in these locations--I actually need to make a surrender post over there. (Basically, expect most of them to be, by design, capable of enduring a bitter winter with no supermarkets--so several months worth of deep storage.)

[Shark_Force]

I'm just going to point to the "CS Breadbasket" thread, where I've been properly schooled in just how much food is likely in storage in these locations--I actually need to make a surrender post over there. (Basically, expect most of them to be, by design, capable of enduring a bitter winter with no supermarkets--so several months worth of deep storage.)

in normal situations sure. in the middle of a war that's been going on for an extended period of time? yeah, not happening. those food stockpiles have been used. iirc, the entire war was something like 3 years. holmes going into bug territory happened in the last few months of the war and then he launched his surprise attack on tolkeen, which is what marked the end of the war (more or less... skirmishes are still going on, but nothing like a full-scale war).

and the march not coming out behind tolkeen doesn't make sense. if the army came out in front of tolkeen, they would have been spotted by scouts. how do we know tolkeen had scouts? because they weren't already dead. if they had no scouts, they wouldn't be alive at this point. even if the scouts don't report in before they're killed, that in itself gives you information, because hey guess what, something over in that direction is taking out your scouts. you might not know exactly what it is, but you *do* know that something is there, and if you're not a complete moron you'll be getting more information.

and no, you don't just casually channel PTSD in a direction you want. they had to put massive amounts of efforts into that in the first world war when "shellshock" became a huge problem, and in spite of having a lot of specialists and using a variety of forms of treatments including drugs, still were not able to get many of them into fighting shape. resources which holmes shouldn't have had access to, because the CS has never had the problem of needing to deal with PTSD on a massive scale in a warzone.

@ killer cyborg:

here are some more definitions:

"You use in particular to indicate that what you are saying applies especially to one thing or person."
"especially, particularly, or exactly"
"in particular - specifically or especially distinguished from others"

and here are some definitions of especially:

"particularly; exceptionally; markedly"
"for a particular purpose"
"used as an intensive - an especially good essay - nothing especially radical in the remarks"
"for a particular reason"

now, some of the definitions of especially also include things like

"very much; more than usual or more than other people or things"

which *could* indicate that there are other situations. but also could not indicate that, if it was simply meant in the sense of "very much"... as in they are quite likely to challenge individuals or individuals within small groups.

of note is the fact that many definitions of "especially" don't define it as "in particular", which suggests that it isn't an exact equivalent.

for example, when i look for synonyms of "in particular", i get:

chiefly, exclusively, notably, principally, specially, specifically, peculiarly, abnormally, above all, before all else, conspicuously, curiously, eminently, expressly, extraordinarily, in specie, mainly, markedly, oddly, outstandingly, preeminently, primarily, remarkably, signally, singularly, strangely, strikingly, supremely, unaccountably, uncommonly, uncustomarily, uniquely, unusually, wonderfully

and frankly i wouldn't expect most of those to have "especially" as their definition, and most of them i wouldn't expect to have it as a synonym either.

in particular has a bunch of uses. the one-word "definition" found in one dictionary is inadequate to properly get a feel for its meaning. considering that the paragraph doesn't discuss anything other than small groups or individuals, i'm really not seeing any context to suggest that the author intended it to mean that it might apply to anything else. certainly, if it was intended as foreshadowing (which seems unlikely, as we're talking about one paragraph in one book that is only tangentially related to the supposedly foreshadowed series of books, which paragraph is not referenced by that series of books), it is a spectacularly bad job of it. furthermore, it only discusses the possibility of one warrior challenging one individual, which the multiple days of shooting and the number of casualties being larger than one certainly suggests is not at all what happened. unless of course the CS troops triggered the other part of that by having someone other than the lone target join in, which indicates that it starts a full-on attack by all of the bugs.

there is no reason for us to presume that the behaviour indicated for small groups and individuals applies to anything other than small groups and individuals.

[Killer Cyborg]

@ killer cyborg:

here are some more definitions:

"You use in particular to indicate that what you are saying applies especially to one thing or person."
"especially, particularly, or exactly"
"in particular - specifically or especially distinguished from others"

and here are some definitions of especially:

"particularly; exceptionally; markedly"
"for a particular purpose"
"used as an intensive - an especially good essay - nothing especially radical in the remarks"
"for a particular reason"

now, some of the definitions of especially also include things like

"very much; more than usual or more than other people or things"

which *could* indicate that there are other situations. but also could not indicate that, if it was simply meant in the sense of "very much"... as in they are quite likely to challenge individuals or individuals within small groups.

Neat trick.
Check this out:
My dog Spot has mites.

Can mean, "(startled interjection) Disreputable person Taint has small sums of money."

But we all know that it doesn't mean that in normal usage, and it would take some extraordinary circumstances for the sentence to be logically interpreted that way.

there is no reason for us to presume that the behaviour indicated for small groups and individuals applies to anything other than small groups and individuals.

Sure there is.
The phrasing of that passage indicates it, as does the relative success of Holmes' travels through the hivelands.
You can try to argue that it's possible that the passage means something else, but the best case scenario that you can possibly get is that the passage might, if the words are being used a certain way, mean something other than "this happens most often to individuals and small groups."
But that still doesn't negate the possibility that the sentence means exactly what I interpret it to mean.

Which still nets out as "this passage does not exclude the possibility that the bugs would react roughly the same way with a large group."

[Freemage]

I'm just going to point to the "CS Breadbasket" thread, where I've been properly schooled in just how much food is likely in storage in these locations--I actually need to make a surrender post over there. (Basically, expect most of them to be, by design, capable of enduring a bitter winter with no supermarkets--so several months worth of deep storage.)

in normal situations sure. in the middle of a war that's been going on for an extended period of time? yeah, not happening. those food stockpiles have been used. iirc, the entire war was something like 3 years. holmes going into bug territory happened in the last few months of the war and then he launched his surprise attack on tolkeen, which is what marked the end of the war (more or less... skirmishes are still going on, but nothing like a full-scale war).

There's no indication that the relatively peaceful northern territories of Tolkeen were dealing with anything resembling famine or shortages. This is a region that was largely unscathed by the war up to this point. And Tolkeen was a little too chaotic to force massive shipments of food south. Sure, the region was probably being tapped to help feed the rest of the country, but it's unlikely that they were completely depleted.

and the march not coming out behind tolkeen doesn't make sense. if the army came out in front of tolkeen, they would have been spotted by scouts. how do we know tolkeen had scouts? because they weren't already dead. if they had no scouts, they wouldn't be alive at this point. even if the scouts don't report in before they're killed, that in itself gives you information, because hey guess what, something over in that direction is taking out your scouts. you might not know exactly what it is, but you *do* know that something is there, and if you're not a complete moron you'll be getting more information.

I'm not sure what you mean by 'behind' Tolkeen. If you mean, "the army came at them from the northwest", that's what I described. That's the depopulated zone.

Right, let me try this:
[url]
http://geology.com/cities-map/map-of-mi ... cities.gif[/url]

First off, I've gotten conflicting indications of where the border is between Tolkeen and the Hivelands. For purposes of this discussion, though, I'm drawing it as a line roughly from Hinkley to Eagle Bend. If this is wrong, but the border is still a rough east-west line, then you can shift the description below north or south as needed--the exact latitudes don't matter so much as the shape of the route taken.

Holmes comes in from Wisconsin, roughly even with Pine City. He gets hit, hard, and is forced to retreat almost straight north, pretty much right into the territory around the Duluth Hive. Say he gets as far as Kerrick or even Barnum before the swarm comes up, the Tolkeenites break off pursuit, and he gives the hunker down order.

Now he starts the withdrawal from Duluth. However, he doesn't just take the route he came in back. Instead, he moves southwest, on a line towards Flensburg. It's a much longer route, and he's traveling at a mere 10 mph or less (probably about 1/5 the speed he drove in towards Kerrick in the first place). But he's moving almost non-stop, which cuts the time-differential considerably.

So he emerges from a place where there are no Tolkeen scouts--they're all arrayed along the Wisconsin border, and more heavily towards the south, at that. Holmes raids the towns in the area, eliminating the token opposition (who are not expecting trouble). He then marches back south and east, along a line through Elk River, then turning south as he passes the halfway point between Coon Rapids and East Bethel. So yes, he comes out far behind enemy lines, hits them from an angle where they believed all active threats had been pacified, and deals the fatal blow.

[Shark_Force]

Neat trick.
Check this out:
My dog Spot has mites.

Can mean, "(startled interjection) Disreputable person Taint has small sums of money."

But we all know that it doesn't mean that in normal usage, and it would take some extraordinary circumstances for the sentence to be logically interpreted that way.

there is no reason for us to presume that the behaviour indicated for small groups and individuals applies to anything other than small groups and individuals.

Sure there is.
The phrasing of that passage indicates it, as does the relative success of Holmes' travels through the hivelands.
You can try to argue that it's possible that the passage means something else, but the best case scenario that you can possibly get is that the passage might, if the words are being used a certain way, mean something other than "this happens most often to individuals and small groups."
But that still doesn't negate the possibility that the sentence means exactly what I interpret it to mean.

Which still nets out as "this passage does not exclude the possibility that the bugs would react roughly the same way with a large group."

none of those definitions i posted are super esoteric slang uses of the word. they're all perfectly standard uses, many of which could have fit into the sentence easily, and in context are far more likely to have been the ones used because the text doesn't talk about things other than small groups and individuals. it could just as easily been "this happens notably to individuals and small groups" or "this happens specifically to individuals and small groups" or even "this happens very often to individuals and small groups" (a slight change to fit instead of very much). and it fits in just as well with what we know, because what we know is that holmes's troops were not buzzed by a lone warrior or hunter and then challenged. the number of casualties rules that out quite clearly. so it was something different.

@ freemage: the war doesn't have to happen in the northern parts of the country to cause shortages there. none of world war I or II were fought in the US. there was still food rationing and, for many foods, shortages. go ahead and ask someone who was alive at the time how possible it was to stockpile 5 months of food during those wars. war doesn't leave any part of the country completely unscathed when it's total war and has been going on for years. those areas may not have been razed by the CS, but you can bet tolkeen was sending officers to requisition supplies on a regular basis. they had to feed an army that was far larger than they could sustain (gotta feed all those mercs after all) for years.

and again, if communications from an area stop for 2 months from somewhere during a war, that is scouting information. maybe holmes could have stayed hidden for a couple of days (even that would be fairly impressive), but the months-long rest stop you're suggesting? not plausible. if holmes came out anywhere in between the front lines and tolkeen, he'd have been spotted in a few hours, tops, never mind months. the sheer amount of dust kicked up by the army's movements would alert you to their presence. even in the back country, you're going to notice when everyone you send to that area for any reason (leave of absence/vacation, to collect supplies, to recruit new soldiers, etc) suddenly drops off the face of the earth, and if holmes doesn't make those people drop off the face of the earth they're going to tell tolkeen about him. even if we presume that the full food stockpiles of small scattered communities were sufficient to keep 300,000 fighting men fed for 2 months, which i also doubt to be true.

additionally, many parts of the army had to march. you're not making 10 miles an hour through untracked wilderness on foot, without getting spread out all across the countryside, while under assault for a significant portion of the time, without proper sleep or rest stops. and you've either got thousands of hover vehicles blasting their hoverjets at high volume as they inch their way forward, which is going to make what limited amounts of sleep you do get even worse, or you're stuck hauling those hover vehicles with muscle power (i presume the former, because dragging a wheel-less 1,000 lb hovercycle through the wilderness is the less plausible of the two scenarios... and no, they couldn't use the vehicles for that, because the vehicles were already stuffed to capacity with troops and more piled on top where possible so that they can actually get any rest/sleep at all). oh, and also, you probably aren't going in a straight line either, so increase that distance some more. i mean, you can't exactly march your army too close to an outpost, and you're going to need to travel around some terrain features too if you want the tracked vehicles to get through.

[eliakon]

Neat trick.
Check this out:
My dog Spot has mites.

Can mean, "(startled interjection) Disreputable person Taint has small sums of money."

But we all know that it doesn't mean that in normal usage, and it would take some extraordinary circumstances for the sentence to be logically interpreted that way.

there is no reason for us to presume that the behaviour indicated for small groups and individuals applies to anything other than small groups and individuals.

Sure there is.
The phrasing of that passage indicates it, as does the relative success of Holmes' travels through the hivelands.
You can try to argue that it's possible that the passage means something else, but the best case scenario that you can possibly get is that the passage might, if the words are being used a certain way, mean something other than "this happens most often to individuals and small groups."
But that still doesn't negate the possibility that the sentence means exactly what I interpret it to mean.

Which still nets out as "this passage does not exclude the possibility that the bugs would react roughly the same way with a large group."

none of those definitions i posted are super esoteric slang uses of the word. they're all perfectly standard uses, many of which could have fit into the sentence easily, and in context are far more likely to have been the ones used because the text doesn't talk about things other than small groups and individuals. it could just as easily been "this happens notably to individuals and small groups" or "this happens specifically to individuals and small groups" or even "this happens very often to individuals and small groups" (a slight change to fit instead of very much). and it fits in just as well with what we know, because what we know is that holmes's troops were not buzzed by a lone warrior or hunter and then challenged. the number of casualties rules that out quite clearly. so it was something different.

@ freemage: the war doesn't have to happen in the northern parts of the country to cause shortages there. none of world war I or II were fought in the US. there was still food rationing and, for many foods, shortages. go ahead and ask someone who was alive at the time how possible it was to stockpile 5 months of food during those wars. war doesn't leave any part of the country completely unscathed when it's total war and has been going on for years. those areas may not have been razed by the CS, but you can bet tolkeen was sending officers to requisition supplies on a regular basis. they had to feed an army that was far larger than they could sustain (gotta feed all those mercs after all) for years.

and again, if communications from an area stop for 2 months from somewhere during a war, that is scouting information. maybe holmes could have stayed hidden for a couple of days (even that would be fairly impressive), but the months-long rest stop you're suggesting? not plausible. if holmes came out anywhere in between the front lines and tolkeen, he'd have been spotted in a few hours, tops, never mind months. the sheer amount of dust kicked up by the army's movements would alert you to their presence. even in the back country, you're going to notice when everyone you send to that area for any reason (leave of absence/vacation, to collect supplies, to recruit new soldiers, etc) suddenly drops off the face of the earth, and if holmes doesn't make those people drop off the face of the earth they're going to tell tolkeen about him. even if we presume that the full food stockpiles of small scattered communities were sufficient to keep 300,000 fighting men fed for 2 months, which i also doubt to be true.

additionally, many parts of the army had to march. you're not making 10 miles an hour through untracked wilderness on foot, without getting spread out all across the countryside, while under assault for a significant portion of the time, without proper sleep or rest stops. and you've either got thousands of hover vehicles blasting their hoverjets at high volume as they inch their way forward, which is going to make what limited amounts of sleep you do get even worse, or you're stuck hauling those hover vehicles with muscle power (i presume the former, because dragging a wheel-less 1,000 lb hovercycle through the wilderness is the less plausible of the two scenarios... and no, they couldn't use the vehicles for that, because the vehicles were already stuffed to capacity with troops and more piled on top where possible so that they can actually get any rest/sleep at all). oh, and also, you probably aren't going in a straight line either, so increase that distance some more. i mean, you can't exactly march your army too close to an outpost, and you're going to need to travel around some terrain features too if you want the tracked vehicles to get through.

I would like to point out that infantry does not march at 10mph
Infantry marches at 10-20 mpDay
Especially on a forced march where you don't have time to resupply, make proper camps ect...

[Jefffar]

I gather that the leg infantry almost all got on vehicles. Only 'marchers' would be PAs, 'Borgs and Juicers, who are probably considerably faster.

What conventional leg infantry didn't find a vehicle are probably accounted for in the 100 000 KIA.

[eliakon]

I gather that the leg infantry almost all got on vehicles. Only 'marchers' would be PAs, 'Borgs and Juicers, who are probably considerably faster.

What conventional leg infantry didn't find a vehicle are probably accounted for in the 100 000 KIA.

If they weren't marching then we are back to the time line being absurd though...
If your marching, then yeah it would likely take 2 months to cross that distance. If your mounted? Not a chance.

[Killer Cyborg]

Neat trick.
Check this out:
My dog Spot has mites.

Can mean, "(startled interjection) Disreputable person Taint has small sums of money."

But we all know that it doesn't mean that in normal usage, and it would take some extraordinary circumstances for the sentence to be logically interpreted that way.

there is no reason for us to presume that the behaviour indicated for small groups and individuals applies to anything other than small groups and individuals.

Sure there is.
The phrasing of that passage indicates it, as does the relative success of Holmes' travels through the hivelands.
You can try to argue that it's possible that the passage means something else, but the best case scenario that you can possibly get is that the passage might, if the words are being used a certain way, mean something other than "this happens most often to individuals and small groups."
But that still doesn't negate the possibility that the sentence means exactly what I interpret it to mean.

Which still nets out as "this passage does not exclude the possibility that the bugs would react roughly the same way with a large group."

none of those definitions i posted are super esoteric slang uses of the word.

Coolsy.
Same here.
I mean, you used Definition #6 for "in particular," and I didn't have to go past Def 2-3.

it could just as easily been "this happens notably to individuals and small groups"

Which would still mean that it does happens to other types.

or "this happens specifically to individuals and small groups"

See, but this is one of those times where I'm going to pull the "if they'd meant that, they'd have most likely said that."
There are a zillion easy way to say "only individuals or small groups get this response," and it's hard to believe that Palladium would go for the oblique and odd way to say it, a way that more commonly would mean the opposite, instead of just saying something simpler.

Regardless, any way you slice it, the net result (at best) would still be "The book does not rule out this happening to large groups."

holmes's troops were not buzzed by a lone warrior or hunter and then challenged. the number of casualties rules that out quite clearly. so it was something different.

Oh, I see the confusion.
You were under the impression that I was saying that 1 lone badass Xiticix picked off 100k CS soldiers, when I was really saying more that 100k-200k lone xiticix challenged grunts over the course of the journey.
Of course, I could be wrong, because nobody's actually quoting what the book states went down, nor how it went down.

[Jefffar]

I gather that the leg infantry almost all got on vehicles. Only 'marchers' would be PAs, 'Borgs and Juicers, who are probably considerably faster.

What conventional leg infantry didn't find a vehicle are probably accounted for in the 100 000 KIA.

If they weren't marching then we are back to the time line being absurd though...
If your marching, then yeah it would likely take 2 months to cross that distance. If your mounted? Not a chance.

And if you are going slow so you don't anger the hundreds of thousands of hostile insect men?

Not saying it should work, but it's hardly the least plausible thing in Rifts.

[glitterboy2098]

have we accounted for the fact that the Army in question probably had a number of psi-stalkers, who might well have known about the "Scent gland to disguise yourself as a member of the hive" trick? (WB23, pg38, #6 under the olfactory abilities of Xiticix)

having the PSi-stalkers and dogboys out hunting individual Xiticix (well away from the convoy), to harvest the scent glands needed to help disguise the convoy might help offset the issue.

[Blue_Lion]

have we accounted for the fact that the Army in question probably had a number of psi-stalkers, who might well have known about the "Scent gland to disguise yourself as a member of the hive" trick? (WB23, pg38, #6 under the olfactory abilities of Xiticix)

having the PSi-stalkers and dogboys out hunting individual Xiticix (well away from the convoy), to harvest the scent glands needed to help disguise the convoy might help offset the issue.

Isn't that trick just used by one clan of wild psi stalkers?

[Shark_Force]

Neat trick.
Check this out:
My dog Spot has mites.

Can mean, "(startled interjection) Disreputable person Taint has small sums of money."

But we all know that it doesn't mean that in normal usage, and it would take some extraordinary circumstances for the sentence to be logically interpreted that way.

there is no reason for us to presume that the behaviour indicated for small groups and individuals applies to anything other than small groups and individuals.

Sure there is.
The phrasing of that passage indicates it, as does the relative success of Holmes' travels through the hivelands.
You can try to argue that it's possible that the passage means something else, but the best case scenario that you can possibly get is that the passage might, if the words are being used a certain way, mean something other than "this happens most often to individuals and small groups."
But that still doesn't negate the possibility that the sentence means exactly what I interpret it to mean.

Which still nets out as "this passage does not exclude the possibility that the bugs would react roughly the same way with a large group."

none of those definitions i posted are super esoteric slang uses of the word.

Coolsy.
Same here.
I mean, you used Definition #6 for "in particular," and I didn't have to go past Def 2-3.

it could just as easily been "this happens notably to individuals and small groups"

Which would still mean that it does happens to other types.

or "this happens specifically to individuals and small groups"

See, but this is one of those times where I'm going to pull the "if they'd meant that, they'd have most likely said that."
There are a zillion easy way to say "only individuals or small groups get this response," and it's hard to believe that Palladium would go for the oblique and odd way to say it, a way that more commonly would mean the opposite, instead of just saying something simpler.

Regardless, any way you slice it, the net result (at best) would still be "The book does not rule out this happening to large groups."

holmes's troops were not buzzed by a lone warrior or hunter and then challenged. the number of casualties rules that out quite clearly. so it was something different.

Oh, I see the confusion.
You were under the impression that I was saying that 1 lone badass Xiticix picked off 100k CS soldiers, when I was really saying more that 100k-200k lone xiticix challenged grunts over the course of the journey.
Of course, I could be wrong, because nobody's actually quoting what the book states went down, nor how it went down.

they had ample opportunity to make it clear that it could apply to larger groups as well. they didn't. the argument that they didn't say it doesn't apply is null, because it is no stronger than the argument that they didn't say it does apply.

and the interpretation that the bugs will treat one large group which is explicitly all packed together as a whole bunch of smaller groups is *really* stretching.

you're right that the book doesn't completely rule out the possibility that this behaviour can apply to large groups (perhaps in a different form, like the bugs attacking in a number of groups against a number of groups). but you're not right in saying that it implies that it does apply in some form to anything other than the ones it specifically applies in. i've provided an example of how the phrase could be used naturally in a sentence without implying what you're insisting the word must imply... if you wish to prove that the word must imply what you say it implies, then demonstrate that the word could not have been used in my example. there are many definitions of the phrase in question. there is nothing to support that the specific definition that was intended is the definition that supports the interpretation that the described behaviour applies to anything other than what it says it applies to. particularly when the definition we're relying on is a one word definition that doesn't convert back on a one-to-one basis (that is, if A equals B, then B must also equal A, but while the definition you're using for "in particular" is "especially", the definition for "especially" is generally not "in particular", and at most only uses that as part of the meaning... thus, B is not A, so A is not B). it's a pretty poor definition that actually has fewer words than the word it is supposedly defining. and it's an even poorer definition when the word that is supposed to be the definition doesn't have the original word as a definition as well.

[Killer Cyborg]

they had ample opportunity to make it clear that it could apply to larger groups as well. they didn't.

I disagree. They, under the most common usage, indicated that individuals and small groups are most commonly the targets of this kind of reaction.
That makes it pretty clear that there are other targets.
Certainly, they did NOT state in any way that it can NOT happen to larger groups.
And when it comes to Holmes, they showed that it is in fact possible.

the argument that they didn't say it doesn't apply is null, because it is no stronger than the argument that they didn't say it does apply.

They don't have to say that it does apply.
If it doesn't NOT apply, then it is within fair game for them to later apply it.
Again, all I'm arguing at this point is that the rules do NOT forbid in any way the insects' reaction.
IF you agree on that point, we're free to argue about further points.
If you don't agree, then I'd like a good reason why.

and the interpretation that the bugs will treat one large group which is explicitly all packed together as a whole bunch of smaller groups is *really* stretching.

That's not my argument, so i don't really care one way or the other.

you're right that the book doesn't completely rule out the possibility that this behaviour can apply to large groups

So we're agreed on that point.

but you're not right in saying that it implies that it does apply in some form to anything other than the ones it specifically applies in. i've provided an example of how the phrase could be used naturally in a sentence without implying what you're insisting the word must imply...

In a less common usage that wouldn't make much sense in context.
Grammatically, it's pretty clear that the writer was either indicating that individuals and groups were the most likely targets (not the sole targets) for this kind of behavior, or the writer had a brain tumor that kicked in while writing that sentence.
Look at the sentence. Look at the comma placement and the terminology used.
IF the sentence had been intended to convey that "individuals and small groups are targeted by this behavior," then that's all that need to have been said.
Instead, the writer took the time, effort, and word count, to specify "in particular," offset by commas. That's some pretty unnecessary usage if it doesn't actually add anything to the sentence other than to, in a muddled way, convey "only."
Especially compared to "only individuals and groups," or "individuals and groups only," or "strictly when dealing with individuals or groups," or any number of other simpler, more direct, and more succinct ways of conveying that sentiment.

[Axelmania]

An interesting bit from XIp16 on tactics:

In general, without the influence of leaders such as a Queen, Super Warrior, Hunter or Nanny,
the Xiticix will attack first with their TK rifles, firing as they close the range to the enemy
(they cover approximately 500 yards/1500 feet per melee when flying)
Once they reach melee range, they change to spears, bayonets and swords

Personally I think that's a HORRIBLE tactic. 4000 feet is better than most CS weaponry. You should be trying to stay around 3500-3900 feet, and fly AWAY if you are approached, until you exhaust all your TK ammo, and only then close in.

Instead, these guys will go from 4000 > 2500 in 1 melee. That's 5 shots (1st level) to 9 shots (12th level warrior) at most, assuming they don't bother to aim (+2 to strike for 1 action) and always target the main body (1 action to call a hit elsewhere) which would diminish the output.

In the 2nd melee, they close from 2500 > 500 feet. Now we're up to 18 potential shots.

It will only take 1/3 a melee (5 seconds) to go the remainder of that distance, so 1/3 of 9 attacks (best possible for a Warrior) increases the shot total to 21. This is still less than half the payload! TK Rifles can store 40 blasts! It's amazing... and generally going to be utterly wasted because the Warrior is going to ditch his rifle and switch to swords...

Odds are, if you can beat the Xiticix, you not only salvage his rifle, but it will be over half full and you can turn the rifle on other Xiticix while beating a retreat.

This would mark a huge difference between PCs just facing warriors, and facing them led by a strategic Hunter or Super-Warrior (since Nannies/Queens would be unusual, and usually faced inside hives where a 4000 ft rifle isn't as advantageous) because warriors on their own are going to be foolish and not fully utilize their TK rifles due to their aggressive melee-oriented instincts.

Besides, you can't have it both ways. In one thread, people are saying that CS soldiers happily execute their own squad members for letting a lady leave with her baby. Now they're all heartbroken that their buddy is dead? They can either by psychotic killers or they can have camaraderie with their fellow soldiers. "Poor Joe, got eaten by a bug. Now I'm never gonna get to shoot him..."

This quote made my day Another intersect here is: if dogpiling isn't feasible (the more humane way of stopping guys from shooting Xiticix to save their buddy someone suggested earlier) and Jericho doesn't want to take away guns from the unstable (easy enough, have the most trustworthy obedient guys carrying the guns, ready to toss them to whoever gets challenged) then he can still order an unstable shooter to be executed, which would dissuade guys from playing rescue for teammates.

Also: any CS soldier who gets challenged, if he is about to lose, might possibly be carrying grenades he could detonate with his final breath. The attack is still from him and would not be attributed as 'cheating' but it would at least mean, if you couldn't win the duel, you got to take out the enemy.

If they weren't marching then we are back to the time line being absurd though...
If your marching, then yeah it would likely take 2 months to cross that distance. If your mounted? Not a chance.

Nothing absurd about fast guys taking a long time to get someplace. Longer rest times, windy paths, difficult terrain, etc. Superman can take 10 years to walk across North America if he wants to.

have we accounted for the fact that the Army in question probably had a number of psi-stalkers, who might well have known about the "Scent gland to disguise yourself as a member of the hive" trick? (WB23, pg38, #6 under the olfactory abilities of Xiticix)

having the PSi-stalkers and dogboys out hunting individual Xiticix (well away from the convoy), to harvest the scent glands needed to help disguise the convoy might help offset the issue.

Isn't that trick just used by one clan of wild psi stalkers?

Pg 40's left column says "Psi-Stalkers (and to a lesser degree, Wilderness Scouts, Hunter-Trappers, and Indian Warriors who observe and combat the Xiticix) have discovered", I don't see anything singling out a particular tribe, or even "wild" ones for that matter (implying CS ones might also have the lore)

You have to be careful not to get the Death Scent on you though, which I imagine would involve a successful "Skin and Prepare Animal Hides" roll or similar. Maybe something more advanced like Biology? Could be as delicate as trying to prepare a poison blowfish to eat.

Pg 40's right column does sound more destrictie though. Under the 'Note' before "4. Death Scent":

Other than regional Wild Psi-Stalkers who regularly battle the Xiticix, very few people know about this trick. The CS has learned it from allies and scouts among the Psi-Stalkers, but they keep this particular secret to themselves. It is knowledge that the Psi-Stalkers who ally themselves to the Lazlo forces will share.

So yeah... not a single wild clan, but mostly just wild clans who fight Xiticix, but the CS is noted as knowing about it, so Holmes should be able to apply it.

The most efficient means is 1 gland per person though, so you'd have to do a LOT of work to reliably cover your forces.

It is possible to share 1 gland among several but this drastically reduces the duration the scent lasts, so it isn't the ideal thing to do when you're trying to persist for months.

[Blue_Lion]

Fair enough.
Which part?

The idea of hiding in a Xit swarming for months in of itself is unbelievable to me.

Okay. Care to elaborate?
(Again, book quotes would be helpful)

The idea of any large scale sneak attack working in a world where both mage and psi can detect threats before they happen.
(Crippling a system with bombs and missile, sure I can believe it, but hey surprise we showed up with hundred of thousands of troops and killed 10s of thousands and no one saw it coming just a bit of a stretch.)

I can see that point of view. If there were other, more immediate threats though, that might mask such an approach.
Has anybody calculated the number of claivoyants in Tolkeen?

Kind of a [waste] of time to do.
A threat on this scale even if only 4 in the city had it they would have seen it do to the scale.

I'm not sure what that sentence is intended to mean, it you seem to be saying that if 4 people out of 1+ million predicted the attack, that those 4 people could necessarily have mobilized Tolkeen's defenses in time to prevent the attack.

Then there are thousands of state mages serving in the armed forces that can be trained in spells to see upcoming threat.

Ok.
How many thousands could potentially have been used that way?
How many actually were used that way?

Then there where TW here let me create a computer to calculate upcoming threats.

I don't know what you're trying to say.

You ask what I thought was unplausble I told you and you want to quibble about numbers. My point was numbers are irrelevant they had the ability to check what the CS would do and see the attack coming.


If there was only 4 people(Likely higher given the number of mystics and dragons with psi powers) with said power in Tolkeen they would likely be employed by a national intelligence agency. You are not dealing with a small group but a nation. A Tolkeen intelligence agency would have access to hundreds if not thousands of people that they could use PSI or magic to see what the CS would do next. I do not see them not doing so Plausible.

Just like how any nation in rifts would be able to do. To me the idea of any nation being caught off guard by a large scale sneak attack is not plausible given the existence of such powers. A nation can dedicate resources to find and recruit people with such powers and a nation not using such things to detect significant threats is not plausible to me. I do not care weather it is the CS, NRG, Tolkeen, Stormspire, or Atlantis no nation on rifts earth should be susceptible to large scale sneak attacks.

The TW I was refereeing to building a prediction spell into a computer to calculate what will happen.
So the Tolkeen intelligence agency should not only have had access to large number of mages and even psi that could detect a upcoming threat, but TW devices as well, so members with psi or magic but could not learn the spell or have the ability could also be used to see upcoming threats.

[Killer Cyborg]

You ask what I thought was unplausble I told you and you want to quibble about numbers. My point was numbers are irrelevant they had the ability to check what the CS would do and see the attack coming.

Numbers indicate the likelihood of them actually doing so.
Plausibility for most people rests in likelihood, not simple possibility.

If there was only 4 people(Likely higher given the number of mystics and dragons with psi powers) with said power in Tolkeen they would likely be employed by a national intelligence agency.

I didn't say "4 people with the power," I said "4 people detect the attack."
If every precog always detected everything, then the game world would be a much different place. Also, the spell/power description wouldn't refer to percentage chances of success.

You are not dealing with a small group but a nation. A Tolkeen intelligence agency would have access to hundreds if not thousands of people that they could use PSI or magic to see what the CS would do next.

Almost as if the numbers actually would matter.

Just like how any nation in rifts would be able to do. To me the idea of any nation being caught off guard by a large scale sneak attack is not plausible given the existence of such powers. A nation can dedicate resources to find and recruit people with such powers and a nation not using such things to detect significant threats is not plausible to me. I do not care weather it is the CS, NRG, Tolkeen, Stormspire, or Atlantis no nation on rifts earth should be susceptible to large scale sneak attacks.

To me, whether or not a nation can be caught in a large-scale sneak attack depends on a lot of factors other than just "do they have some precogs?"
They have to not only have precogs, but to have them in such numbers as to make not only detection of the threat statistically certain, but also to make certain that the information would get to the right people at the right time, and to make certain that the information itself was useful if only in combination.
They also have to have the infrastructure to utilize the psychics properly.

I don't think that your basic hypothesis "Tolkeen should have predicted this attack" is necessarily wrong. Emotionally, I lean a bit toward that hypothesis, in fact.
But I try to avoid putting much stock into untested hypotheses, and I don't see any reason to avoid testing or exploring a hypothesis in order to test its validity.

Also keep in mind that while I am one of the proponents of the "CS psychics could predict and stop a massive attack on the CS" school of thought, even I only argue that the CS could stop such an attack, not that they necessarily would.
And the CS would be much better equipped for that kind of thing than Tolkeen would, having such a massively larger number of precogs.

The TW I was refereeing to building a prediction spell into a computer to calculate what will happen.

Is this something that exists in canon?
If not, then it may or may not be possible in the game world.

[Blue_Lion]

Your demandig numbers not provided we do not know how many people any nation have with a power X or doing task Y. We do know how many mages where in the military thanks to SoT 6 in addition to a city full of dragons. (quite a few)
But the book does not talk about any nation number of people doing something that is reasonable.

I do not need to prove they had any number people doing it. It is reasonable to assume a nation would have resources doing it more so for a nation at war. It only needs to be possible to make the surprise attack working unlikely on a large scale.

[Eagle]

One of the problems Tolkeen had was that a lot of their military were volunteers who joined up when they saw war with the CS looming. Joe the Line Walker from Tennessee may be an effective fighter for Tolkeen, but that doesn't mean he's cool with hanging around acting as an early warning system. He joined up so he could kill some Nazis. Sitting around and casting divination spells all day is not what he had in mind.

It's been a while since I read the Seige of Tolkeen books, but it seemed to me that controlling Tolkeen's army was like herding cats. You have all these sorcerers of great personal power, and while they've agreed to try and cooperate and take direction, every one of them is a half second away from running off and doing their own thing. Basically they act like player characters. Whereas Bob the 1st level CS Grunt can be told to stand here and guard this outpost and he'll do it, with Tolkeen most of their warriors are guys who give themselves grandiose names (Balthazar the Magnificent). They ain't standing around guarding an outpost, they're gonna go fight!

While the CS had a modern, disciplined army and a very rigid command structure, Tolkeen's forces would have been much more independent. Now, that can have its advantages in that they can react to an unexpected development much more quickly (either to take advantage of an opening, or to improvise a solution to a problem). While the CS has to wait for orders before they tie their shoes, Tolkeen's forces can improvise and solve the problem on their own. But the danger to that level of autonomy is that every soldier thinks of himself as a general. You can't just tell Balthazar the Magnificent (3rd level Shifter) that he's got to stay in this barn and watch for CS troops, you basically have to explain to him why it's important. Because otherwise there's the chance that he thinks "this is dumb", and just summons some monster, tells the monster to stand there and watch for the CS, and then Balthazar runs off to do his own thing. But the monster doesn't necessarily know where he is or who he's supposed to contact when the CS shows up. "Yup, those are CS troops. Now... what am I supposed to do next?"

[Blue_Lion]

One of the problems Tolkeen had was that a lot of their military were volunteers who joined up when they saw war with the CS looming. Joe the Line Walker from Tennessee may be an effective fighter for Tolkeen, but that doesn't mean he's cool with hanging around acting as an early warning system. He joined up so he could kill some Nazis. Sitting around and casting divination spells all day is not what he had in mind.

It's been a while since I read the Seige of Tolkeen books, but it seemed to me that controlling Tolkeen's army was like herding cats. You have all these sorcerers of great personal power, and while they've agreed to try and cooperate and take direction, every one of them is a half second away from running off and doing their own thing. Basically they act like player characters. Whereas Bob the 1st level CS Grunt can be told to stand here and guard this outpost and he'll do it, with Tolkeen most of their warriors are guys who give themselves grandiose names (Balthazar the Magnificent). They ain't standing around guarding an outpost, they're gonna go fight!

While the CS had a modern, disciplined army and a very rigid command structure, Tolkeen's forces would have been much more independent. Now, that can have its advantages in that they can react to an unexpected development much more quickly (either to take advantage of an opening, or to improvise a solution to a problem). While the CS has to wait for orders before they tie their shoes, Tolkeen's forces can improvise and solve the problem on their own. But the danger to that level of autonomy is that every soldier thinks of himself as a general. You can't just tell Balthazar the Magnificent (3rd level Shifter) that he's got to stay in this barn and watch for CS troops, you basically have to explain to him why it's important. Because otherwise there's the chance that he thinks "this is dumb", and just summons some monster, tells the monster to stand there and watch for the CS, and then Balthazar runs off to do his own thing. But the monster doesn't necessarily know where he is or who he's supposed to contact when the CS shows up. "Yup, those are CS troops. Now... what am I supposed to do next?"

There military was not only volunteer even after all the volunteer left they had thousands of mages in their military, that where get this part of the Tolkeen military and not just volunteers.

A significant part of those volunteers where cyber knights, that are better trained than Cs grunts. Sure they had there individuals and discipline cases but they still had a organized military force. They used volunteers to augment the number of fighters they had to deal with the CS numbers.