Ultimate Showdown: The Coalition vs The Federation of Magic

[Lenwen]

The problem is, they would rather die than share their knowledge on the level that is required to save themselves.

Isn't this supposed to be a secret that only a few people know about?
Sure seems that way.

Only if you follow canon ..

In MY world .. mages openly share their magic within certain powerblocks . thus enabling a city state such as Tolkeen to easily swat the fly that is the Coalition back to its domain ..

According to canon .. there are too many things limiting magic .. to such a degree its stupidity to play 1 .. So I took the liberty KS afforded us GM's .. And dumped some of them

[Balabanto]

And Dog Boys are essentially designed to be cannon fodder, so targeting them isn't necessarily a strategic coup in any case.

Their sensing abilities make dog boys and other CS psychics far more annoying to a mage than any grunt, so even if the CS considers them to be expendable, I still consider them to be higher priority targets.

On a side note, does the CS still use skycycles? Having an exposed pilot and handles to steer that are trivially manipulated via TK seems like a bad idea.

--flatline

Dogboys and Psi-Stalkers are always the first targets my players go after. Annoying to mages, a ton of actions (Because they're so numerous), can't run away from them. Action denial, again, is the most powerful thing in Rifts, and if you can find a softer target that's easier to kill, dead targets have an action total of zero. Their actions are completely denied. Dogboys also have crappy armor, which makes it even more important to kill them quickly. Plus, you gain the additional advantage of decomplicating the battlefield. The less targets there are, the easier it is to focus your fire.

[flatline]

Remote Viewing only looks down on individuals and the surroundings are fuzzy, so that wouldn't work.

I have no idea what spell you're thinking of, but it's not Remote Viewing. Remote Viewing lets you target people, places, or things. There is no mention of the viewing angle or the surroundings being "fuzzy" or or less detailed.

Oops! My bad! Dustin Fireblade is right... I was thinking of the psi power Remote Viewing. Must have got it in my head the spell worked the same as the psionic ability.

That said, the spell Remote Viewing isn't all that great for recon. According to its write-up...
"the character must have intimate knowledge of the person or place he wants to observe, meaning he must have personally met and spent a few minutes time with the person or have visited or lived in a specific room in a particular building..." (BoM 246)

The whole point of recon of an area is to gather information on someplace you haven't been before. If the mage already visited the spot he wants to teleport, there's no point in doing the recon in the first place. But since the caster hasn't in this case, Remote Viewing isn't going to be of much help.

Remote Viewing lets you see what's going on near a person, place, or thing that the mage is familiar with.

Step 1: get familiar with a pebble
Step 2: fly up to where you can see the encampment
Step 3: Teleport:Lesser to place the pebble in the encampment
Step 4: use Remote Viewing to see the pebble and its surroundings.

As I understand it, it's not well defined what psionic powers can be used by an astral traveler against someone in the material plane, so we should probably have that discussion in another thread.

--flatline

[Lenwen]

Remote Viewing only looks down on individuals and the surroundings are fuzzy, so that wouldn't work.

I have no idea what spell you're thinking of, but it's not Remote Viewing. Remote Viewing lets you target people, places, or things. There is no mention of the viewing angle or the surroundings being "fuzzy" or or less detailed.

Oops! My bad! Dustin Fireblade is right... I was thinking of the psi power Remote Viewing. Must have got it in my head the spell worked the same as the psionic ability.

That said, the spell Remote Viewing isn't all that great for recon. According to its write-up...
"the character must have intimate knowledge of the person or place he wants to observe, meaning he must have personally met and spent a few minutes time with the person or have visited or lived in a specific room in a particular building..." (BoM 246)

The whole point of recon of an area is to gather information on someplace you haven't been before. If the mage already visited the spot he wants to teleport, there's no point in doing the recon in the first place. But since the caster hasn't in this case, Remote Viewing isn't going to be of much help.

Remote Viewing lets you see what's going on near a person, place, or thing that the mage is familiar with.

Step 1: get familiar with a pebble
Step 2: fly up to where you can see the encampment
Step 3: Teleport:Lesser to place the pebble in the encampment
Step 4: use Remote Viewing to see the pebble and its surroundings.

I like this .

As I understand it, it's not well defined what psionic powers can be used by an astral traveler against someone in the material plane, so we should probably have that discussion in another thread.

--flatline

All psionic abilities the individual has, are able to be used against beings in the physical world. Just as any psionic ability that can be used against astral travelers is also useable against them.

Its a two way street.

[barna10]

The Coalition wins because Mages are balanced by pride.
There are literally a hundred different ways a collective of Mages could smash the Coalition, but doing so means sharing power and the Mage's pride typically won't allow them to make that sacrifice - even if the alternative is their death.

Even if the Mages don't want to exploit teleportation, they could easily amass a ridiculous fortune by constantly scribing and selling scrolls or other magic-related goods. With the money generated, they could hire the Megaversal Legion or any number of mercenary companies to just steamroll the CS if that was their wish.

The problem is, they would rather die than share their knowledge on the level that is required to save themselves.

So, what of the various gods, demons, etc. that associate with Duscon and the rest? How many of them have centuries of experience leading troops into battle or getting underlings to do their bidding? Sure, a rabble of unorganized mages may be victims of pride, but that's where leadership comes into play. Droves of lesser mages would be swept up by the shear power of an immortal leading them into battle.

Also, hate of the Coalition would be enough to gather support for the battle.

If pride will keep mages from working together, how do the the Splugorth do it? How do the United Worlds of Warlock manage to hold it together? How do a Pantheon of Gods claim dominion over anything?

Seriously, their is nothing written in any Palladium book that shows advantages for the Coalition over Tolkeen or the Federation of Magic besides the writers saying that the Coalition wins.

Transportation WOULD end the war! Not teleporting in to attack combat troops, but teleporting behind the front lines to disrupt the supply chain. Starve the troops, win the war. Just look at Vietnam to see how effective Guerrilla tactics can be against a (supposedly) superior force. Transportation is the ultimate guerrilla weapon and even prideful mages would realize that.

If I were in charge of the Tolkeen or Federation defense, I wouldn't waste a single shot or PPE point trying to kill combat troops. I would terrorize settlements behind the lines, destroy cargo shipments, snipe leaders, etc. The average troop may not know of these tactics, but the various immortals would. Again, advantage - magic.

[barna10]

So let's assume that an astral projecting CS soldier discovers that a mage with invisibility:superior is floating 2000 feet up in the air about 8000 feet south by southwest of the camp. Please explain how he could relay that information in sufficient detail that the mage could actually be targeted by anti-aircraft fire by the units in the camp. Remember, the people manning the anti-aircraft weaponry can't see the mage, so it's insufficient to just point them in the mage's direction.

Edit: Once you've responded to the above, go ahead and take it one step further and assume that the operator on the ground CAN see the invisible. He can't take advantage of any of the targeting abilities of his weapon since the weapon can't see the mage and it's not good enough to get missiles near the mage since the missiles wouldn't know when to detonate and there aren't any direct fire weapons with sufficient range (do rail guns even have "iron sights"?).

--flatline

Let's take it one step further: Why would there have to be a mage with Invisibility Superior when a psychic on the mage side could also use remote viewing! The mages side would have mind melters, mystics, mystic knights, etc, all of which could have remote viewing.

[jaymz]

actually,... there are rules on TK ... and you're the only one who seems it's not aware of it. Super TK functions the same but superior to regular tk, but costing a minium of 10 isp to use.

Last I checked I never saw anything in regards to using super tk like using a hand at a distance. More like you just give it a general shove.

[Nether]

actually,... there are rules on TK ... and you're the only one who seems it's not aware of it. Super TK functions the same but superior to regular tk, but costing a minium of 10 isp to use.

Last I checked I never saw anything in regards to using super tk like using a hand at a distance. More like you just give it a general shove.

Super TK is actually much more like using a hand at range than just the push/shove. The power says you can "manipulate" one object per level, and manipulate would suggest it does much more. As well it says you can parry by using "controlled" objects.
Basic TK lets you use one object to as if using a invisible hand to swing a club, then add the Super TK is suppose to be much better all around then minor TK and you have some pretty good control, hence super multiple objects manipulation. Super TK could let you weild one vibro sword per level and use them to attack / parry as disired up to num of attacks.

Besides they already have powers that are more grunt sounding action like for pushing and shoving that are TK powers with more focus on said action.

If you read TK minor and super you will see what i am saying.

[Killer Cyborg]

actually,... there are rules on TK ... and you're the only one who seems it's not aware of it. Super TK functions the same but superior to regular tk, but costing a minium of 10 isp to use.

Last I checked I never saw anything in regards to using super tk like using a hand at a distance. More like you just give it a general shove.

Super TK is actually much more like using a hand at range than just the push/shove. The power says you can "manipulate" one object per level, and manipulate would suggest it does much more. As well it says you can parry by using "controlled" objects.
Basic TK lets you use one object to as if using a invisible hand to swing a club, then add the Super TK is suppose to be much better all around then minor TK and you have some pretty good control, hence super multiple objects manipulation. Super TK could let you weild one vibro sword per level and use them to attack / parry as disired up to num of attacks.

Besides they already have powers that are more grunt sounding action like for pushing and shoving that are TK powers with more focus on said action.

If you read TK minor and super you will see what i am saying.

I agree with you about the connotations of "manipulate," and I'll point out that "turning a door knob" is one of the things you can do.
But there's a heck of a lot left out of the description.

[jaymz]

actually,... there are rules on TK ... and you're the only one who seems it's not aware of it. Super TK functions the same but superior to regular tk, but costing a minium of 10 isp to use.

Last I checked I never saw anything in regards to using super tk like using a hand at a distance. More like you just give it a general shove.

Super TK is actually much more like using a hand at range than just the push/shove. The power says you can "manipulate" one object per level, and manipulate would suggest it does much more. As well it says you can parry by using "controlled" objects.
Basic TK lets you use one object to as if using a invisible hand to swing a club, then add the Super TK is suppose to be much better all around then minor TK and you have some pretty good control, hence super multiple objects manipulation. Super TK could let you weild one vibro sword per level and use them to attack / parry as disired up to num of attacks.

Besides they already have powers that are more grunt sounding action like for pushing and shoving that are TK powers with more focus on said action.

If you read TK minor and super you will see what i am saying.

I agree with you about the connotations of "manipulate," and I'll point out that "turning a door knob" is one of the things you can do.
But there's a heck of a lot left out of the description.

Agreed. Though personally I think just hitting the bike with say 400lbs of steady force in one really big shove might be enough to throw the rider if not expecting it

[Killer Cyborg]

actually,... there are rules on TK ... and you're the only one who seems it's not aware of it. Super TK functions the same but superior to regular tk, but costing a minium of 10 isp to use.

Last I checked I never saw anything in regards to using super tk like using a hand at a distance. More like you just give it a general shove.

Super TK is actually much more like using a hand at range than just the push/shove. The power says you can "manipulate" one object per level, and manipulate would suggest it does much more. As well it says you can parry by using "controlled" objects.
Basic TK lets you use one object to as if using a invisible hand to swing a club, then add the Super TK is suppose to be much better all around then minor TK and you have some pretty good control, hence super multiple objects manipulation. Super TK could let you weild one vibro sword per level and use them to attack / parry as disired up to num of attacks.

Besides they already have powers that are more grunt sounding action like for pushing and shoving that are TK powers with more focus on said action.

If you read TK minor and super you will see what i am saying.

I agree with you about the connotations of "manipulate," and I'll point out that "turning a door knob" is one of the things you can do.
But there's a heck of a lot left out of the description.

Agreed. Though personally I think just hitting the bike with say 400lbs of steady force in one really big shove might be enough to throw the rider if not expecting it

Sure... but that's not necessarily what the power does. That's one of the vague parts of it.
The weight limit may not be the amount of force you can apply.
In fact, since the distance limitation implies the opposite, since spending the ISP to lift 40 lbs doesn't extend the range at which you can hurl a 10 lb object.
Though this may be due to writer neglect, or to unknown in-world forces.

[jaymz]

Very true

[Nether]

@Deadboy
You come across as "wanting" the CS to win no matter the facts. Not saying you are like that, just come across like that. I as well love the CS but i also love Magic/Psi alot as well.

Your right about numbers, the Fed doesnt have the numbers in comparison, but also this makes it much easier for them to hide and means assymetric warfare like guerilla warfare would be used and going up against magic/psi plus tech in this department would be a nightmare.

For recon of the large cities, your scout could be a mage with major psionics, psi tek or any major/master psychic with mask ppe / isp to infiltrate the city. These two abilities work very well to greatly diminish dog boys/psi stalkers. There is other psionics that let you hack or fabricate the ID's you need to be a reg citz or just be successful at sneaking by. Even better is if you are a mage with major psionics like a mystic knight to infiltrate while hiding ppe till you need it. Even then it isnt like every inch of a major city is covered by psi-stalker/dog boys as is. While concealed you can also have concealed camera's / radios ext. Espionage skills help here alot in identifying targets and recording locations. You dont need to go into the gov hall to know where it is, how far it is from your safer distance ext as well again with espionage skills to mark it.

This could work on smaller camps but alas would be much harder.

Add to the scout spells like chameleon, concealment for cameras/radios/espionage gear x, <cloak of darkness, invis (+sup), shadowmeld> to be truly invisible at night all with low level spells. Then use charm/dominate on individuals as opportunity arises for secret info or sabotage from thier own. Use these on troop cooks to let you put sleep on the food and you have a bunch of sleeping beauties, well prolly grunts. Energy disruption is great for bypassing tech as well if needed ontop of already mentioned. Fly lets you get to high difficult places and in many cases no one is watching for. For smaller camp with astral patrol, see invis also lets you pattern thier patrol like reg. Also reduce self makes looking for you much harder visually and if using any cloaking powers as mentioned along with espionage skills like prowl makes your damn near impossible to detect. Mask PPE is phenominal for epsionage based casters and lets them greatly diminish the threat of stalkers/dog pack.

These are just some of the spells of a infiltraton mage and i havent even gotten into illusions spells or higher level spells like teleport, dimensional pockets ext to smuggle troops/bombs/gear in. As the guerilla in this fight, you have alot more time to plan and manuever than the opponent who has to search endlessly for you.

Add on top to this TW gear to reduce ppe cost or offer more utility to user.

Just based on this how would the Fed of Magic not know all the locations of CS main cities and even major bases. They could as well easily scout mobile bases and have the spells to slip back away undetected or greatly reduced risk.

Then you have psi ghosts who also live in the magic zone i believe, and they sure as hell dont want that devestated. They would have no problem scouting CS terf.

And dont you think that the Fed of Magic would already have been mapping all this out? I am pretty sure Dweomer would have or any magic/psi organization that is a kingdom of sorts would have its own military and espionage branches would be more than ready for this scenario, especially how long this scenario has been brewing and it is no secret the CS hates magic and dbees.

Then spells like teleport superior would be very valuable and useful. Mages have leylines and rifts as mentioned to keep ppe costs down from thier end. Scrolls are easy enough to be made and would be regardless of what the book says.

It is silly to think that a magic/psi military would be included in the "mages dont share spells" BS, because it is a organization and to train your military factions they would need certain spells and access to a greater pool. Then you would have spells given out with specific missions which would also be deemed vital to mission success.

Tolkeen was a fraction of what it became in the books, like the SoT series, and if any of the stuff some have been saying that mages dont share spells, info, create scrolls ext is total BS in those books. Then there is the high level spells, well again look at one city (Tolkeen) which had some pretty amazing stuff and spells, and you would have to be crazy to think they werent sharing spells.

In the end this war would either be a stale mate because the CS just couldnt find enough forces to destroy or the CS would lose vietnam style but worse sinse the guerillas could easily strike back at thier home bases.

Big post i know, bare with me. Counter what you think is faulty.

[Nether]

actually,... there are rules on TK ... and you're the only one who seems it's not aware of it. Super TK functions the same but superior to regular tk, but costing a minium of 10 isp to use.

Last I checked I never saw anything in regards to using super tk like using a hand at a distance. More like you just give it a general shove.

Super TK is actually much more like using a hand at range than just the push/shove. The power says you can "manipulate" one object per level, and manipulate would suggest it does much more. As well it says you can parry by using "controlled" objects.
Basic TK lets you use one object to as if using a invisible hand to swing a club, then add the Super TK is suppose to be much better all around then minor TK and you have some pretty good control, hence super multiple objects manipulation. Super TK could let you weild one vibro sword per level and use them to attack / parry as disired up to num of attacks.

Besides they already have powers that are more grunt sounding action like for pushing and shoving that are TK powers with more focus on said action.

If you read TK minor and super you will see what i am saying.

I agree with you about the connotations of "manipulate," and I'll point out that "turning a door knob" is one of the things you can do.
But there's a heck of a lot left out of the description.

Agreed. Though personally I think just hitting the bike with say 400lbs of steady force in one really big shove might be enough to throw the rider if not expecting it

Sure... but that's not necessarily what the power does. That's one of the vague parts of it.
The weight limit may not be the amount of force you can apply.
In fact, since the distance limitation implies the opposite, since spending the ISP to lift 40 lbs doesn't extend the range at which you can hurl a 10 lb object.
Though this may be due to writer neglect, or to unknown in-world forces.

Ya super TK really needed more details as i remember a old thread on it that left alot of its ruling to house rules, just like this situation.
I would just go with either give the cycle rider a psi save to determine if he managed to fend it off or treat it like a trip action but using ME and TK bonus or give the TK a str vs rider str check to see who wins. I would go with the Trip attack myself as it is physical force and it is essentially what you are trying to do.

[barna10]

@Deadboy
You come across as "wanting" the CS to win no matter the facts. Not saying you are like that, just come across like that. I as well love the CS but i also love Magic/Psi alot as well.

........

Big post i know, bare with me. Counter what you think is faulty.

I agree with everything! (truncated for space)

[Nightmask]

Seems like many of the posts speak in absolutes, how this post's events will always be countered by the follow-up post, when RL (or a reasonable approximation) is never like that. Just as you can never always counter a suicide attacker you can't always counter other things. So the question really is which side in spite of setbacks and failures caused by the uncertainties is most likely to win, who can better adapt when things go wrong.

[Killer Cyborg]

Seems like many of the posts speak in absolutes, how this post's events will always be countered by the follow-up post, when RL (or a reasonable approximation) is never like that. Just as you can never always counter a suicide attacker you can't always counter other things. So the question really is which side in spite of setbacks and failures caused by the uncertainties is most likely to win, who can better adapt when things go wrong.

Agreed.
Though we'll probably disagree on who that generally is.

Whenever somebody comes up with a "brilliant" attack on the CS (and some of them actually are pretty brilliant), and complains that the only reason why the CS exists is because Kevin wants them to, because the Federation of Magic, or Tolkeen, or whoever the heck is involved in their scheme would obviously execute Plan X that is within their resources, and that they see no reason why it could fail... all I can think about is the fact that the United States is still here, and that the 9/11 attacks were the exception rather than the rule, even though similar stuff would still be possible today, or any number of other plans that should succeed, and which are perfectly plausible... yet have never happened.
Because ultimately, people don't behave as we think that we would if we were in their shoes.
Sometimes because they can't, sometimes because they simply don't want to, sometimes because even though we can think of a clever plan, they cannot. Sometimes because they lack the guts, or the physical ability, or simply the luck needed to get the job done.
There are too many things that can go wrong with any plan, and the reason why we don't see clever plans succeed more often in the real world is simply because things DO go wrong.
And the game world is no different.

So people can come up with whatever "OMG! Teh CS would be SOOOOO dead!" plans they like, and Dead Boy can come up with whatever "OMG, they would SOOOO NOT die!" responses... but it's all just so much guesswork that doesn't take into account any number of real-world-type factors that can some into play.
Like personality, conscience, intelligence, and luck... and they don't always work the way that we'd expect.
In fact, they very, very often don't.

After the 9/11 attacks, I expected some random stabbings or other murders by terrorist operatives, scattered throughout the US. Just a quick "stab, stab, stab," or "bang, bang, bang," then leave a note to the infidels, and the attackers disappear before they're caught.
Just to stir us up, to make us more paranoid, and to make us scared... to terrorize is.
It's a simple plan, and it would have been easy enough to perform for all that I can see.
There's no reason that it didn't happen, and it would have been the smart, obvious thing to do.
But it never happened.
Because the really-real world just isn't like that- it's beyond our expectations, and beyond the limits of our own minds.
Just because we think something would happen, that it's the obvious thing to do and that it would obviously work, doesn't mean that it actually would happen.

And in a fantasy setting, the realistic thing would be that we'd get much the same results.
We'd feel cheated or relieved by the lack of the world fulfilling our expectations.
But that's just how the world works, any world.

We can say that the FoM would have realistically though of Plan X, and carried it out... just like we can say that realistically al Queda would have realistically thought of and carried out Plan Y by now.
But when the world disagrees, where does that leave us?
We can ***** and moan that God, or the writers, or whoever just aren't as freakin' brilliant as we are, we who have never created any comparable world on either level, reality or fantasy.
Or we can assume that there are things we don't know, and things that we can't conceive of, and that it's the unknown factors that are responsible for what we see happening (or failing to happen) around us.

But that first option just makes us seem small, and petty, and ignorant.
So, personally, I try to lean a bit more toward the second.

[Nether]

Seems like many of the posts speak in absolutes, how this post's events will always be countered by the follow-up post, when RL (or a reasonable approximation) is never like that. Just as you can never always counter a suicide attacker you can't always counter other things. So the question really is which side in spite of setbacks and failures caused by the uncertainties is most likely to win, who can better adapt when things go wrong.

Adaptability is the mages strong suit. The mage is a tihnking mans character and i know alot of peeps complain about thier strength compared to tech but to me they just outclass tech in most things other than straight up combat.

1 mage with preparation is worth easily 10 CS commandos or more as they can tinker and toy with that group, summon hordes of undead or elementals, entities and demons to be a much larger force, and some of those summoners can create that force right on your base or anywhere they want.

Tech on the combat front has the advantage, it can be mass produced so any person can use it or learn it fairly quick without alot of restrictions, also letting a large force quickly become strong, but mages win in adaptability as they have to easy of a time bypassing, hiding, and working around enemy forces. No one is safe from a competent militant mage/psi group as they can always get to your heads of gov and remove them. Problem is new heads just pop up and you have a very long battle.

Blow up Karl and jr will prolly look to put an end to any further war, of course thru propaganda that the CS won of course even if it was a defeat or stalemate.

[Lenwen]

Whenever somebody comes up with a "brilliant" attack on the CS (and some of them actually are pretty brilliant), and complains that the only reason why the CS exists is because Kevin wants them to, because the Federation of Magic, or Tolkeen, or whoever the heck is involved in their scheme would obviously execute Plan X that is within their resources, and that they see no reason why it could fail... all I can think about is the fact that the United States is still here, and that the 9/11 attacks were the exception rather than the rule.

Your opinion is skewed .. Due to the fact that the United states is thee only power on earth .. that has "friendly" nations surrounding it (or its simply due to it being the baddest of the territory) and every single enemy it has is so far away .. as to effectively be isolated from well over half the world.

Meaning .. Were simply too far away .. for most enemies to bring forces to bere against us sufficently enough to make us hurt enough to lose a war in which distance is the real killer .. not military tactic's .. not military strength .. but rather distances that are not tactically sound enough to protect a supply rout from us getting to it.

This is also in conjunction with the fact that again most of the united states enemy states also in fact do not have technologies sufficiently high enough to launch missiles at us, and the ones that do have sufficent enough technological missiles do not have sufficent enough missiles to launch the missiles in enough quantity to actually do real damage ..

Course this is just my 2cp's .. take them with a grain of salt..

[Nether]

Seems like many of the posts speak in absolutes, how this post's events will always be countered by the follow-up post, when RL (or a reasonable approximation) is never like that. Just as you can never always counter a suicide attacker you can't always counter other things. So the question really is which side in spite of setbacks and failures caused by the uncertainties is most likely to win, who can better adapt when things go wrong.

Agreed.
Though we'll probably disagree on who that generally is.


We can say that the FoM would have realistically though of Plan X, and carried it out... just like we can say that realistically al Queda would have realistically thought of and carried out Plan Y by now.
But when the world disagrees, where does that leave us?
We can ***** and moan that God, or the writers, or whoever just aren't as freakin' brilliant as we are, we who have never created any comparable world on either level, reality or fantasy.
Or we can assume that there are things we don't know, and things that we can't conceive of, and that it's the unknown factors that are responsible for what we see happening (or failing to happen) around us.

But that first option just makes us seem small, and petty, and ignorant.
So, personally, I try to lean a bit more toward the second.

I can agree with some of this for sure, as there is alot of will at work all at once and they arent all focused on the same things per say, even inside the same organization.

But with your example i disagree with the modern examples as the US and Russia a little while ago were the only big kids on planet earth that could play competively with each other. No other nation compared, and therefore fell into asymmetrical warfare. Things would be very different in those examples if you say gave the al queda magic like teleport, espionage like spells ext to penetrate the US. In our world nuclear weapons are heavily watched and accounted for as is militant power, and this isnt so for Rifts Earth. Not by the appearance in the books anyway. But i would think that tech/magic/psi kingdoms would be paying attention, but once you introduce the abilities to have a much easier time of transportation, stealth ext that magic brings it definitely changes how things would play out and gives the smaller force a much bigger chance than they had.

I'm saying it would not be such an easy fight for the CS vs Fed of Magic. To me this comes across as a US vs vietnam or Russia vs Afgahanastan. If these little forces could hold these behemoths at bay in stale mate then imagine what they could have accomplished if they had rifts magic.

[Killer Cyborg]

Whenever somebody comes up with a "brilliant" attack on the CS (and some of them actually are pretty brilliant), and complains that the only reason why the CS exists is because Kevin wants them to, because the Federation of Magic, or Tolkeen, or whoever the heck is involved in their scheme would obviously execute Plan X that is within their resources, and that they see no reason why it could fail... all I can think about is the fact that the United States is still here, and that the 9/11 attacks were the exception rather than the rule.

Your opinion is skewed .. Due to the fact that the United states is thee only power on earth .. that has "friendly" nations surrounding it (or its simply due to it being the baddest of the territory) and every single enemy it has is so far away .. as to effectively be isolated from well over half the world.

I think you're over-estimating the difficulty of buying a plane ticket.
Barring that, there's always boats.

Meaning .. Were simply too far away .. for most enemies to bring forces to bere against us sufficently enough to make us hurt enough to lose a war in which distance is the real killer ..

That'd be great, IF I was talking about a war.
But I'm not.
I'm talking about very, very simple terrorist action that simply doesn't happen.
No people being stabbed/shot in the night with a note of "al Quaeda was here," or anything like that.
No terrorists running around just shooting cell phone towers and power lines.
No baddies spritzing grocery store produce with anthrax or other nastiness.
They could do it. It'd be easy. They could get away with it.
But.... nothing.

I'm just talking about very simple stuff that our enemies could, and as far as I know would do... but haven't.
It's pretty damned unrealistic, if you ask me.
But reality hasn't asked me.
It keeps rolling along, without giving a **** about my opinion on probability or what "would" happen.

[Killer Cyborg]

Seems like many of the posts speak in absolutes, how this post's events will always be countered by the follow-up post, when RL (or a reasonable approximation) is never like that. Just as you can never always counter a suicide attacker you can't always counter other things. So the question really is which side in spite of setbacks and failures caused by the uncertainties is most likely to win, who can better adapt when things go wrong.

Agreed.
Though we'll probably disagree on who that generally is.


We can say that the FoM would have realistically though of Plan X, and carried it out... just like we can say that realistically al Queda would have realistically thought of and carried out Plan Y by now.
But when the world disagrees, where does that leave us?
We can ***** and moan that God, or the writers, or whoever just aren't as freakin' brilliant as we are, we who have never created any comparable world on either level, reality or fantasy.
Or we can assume that there are things we don't know, and things that we can't conceive of, and that it's the unknown factors that are responsible for what we see happening (or failing to happen) around us.

But that first option just makes us seem small, and petty, and ignorant.
So, personally, I try to lean a bit more toward the second.

I can agree with some of this for sure, as there is alot of will at work all at once and they arent all focused on the same things per say, even inside the same organization.

But with your example i disagree with the modern examples as the US and Russia a little while ago were the only big kids on planet earth that could play competively with each other. No other nation compared, and therefore fell into asymmetrical warfare. Things would be very different in those examples if you say gave the al queda magic like teleport, espionage like spells ext to penetrate the US. In our world nuclear weapons are heavily watched and accounted for as is militant power, and this isnt so for Rifts Earth. Not by the appearance in the books anyway. But i would think that tech/magic/psi kingdoms would be paying attention, but once you introduce the abilities to have a much easier time of transportation, stealth ext that magic brings it definitely changes how things would play out and gives the smaller force a much bigger chance than they had.

I'm saying it would not be such an easy fight for the CS vs Fed of Magic. To me this comes across as a US vs vietnam or Russia vs Afgahanastan. If these little forces could hold these behemoths at bay in stale mate then imagine what they could have accomplished if they had rifts magic.

No other power in North America even remotely compares to the CS.
There are no other big kids there.
All that's left is asymetrical warfare.
The CS is the only one that has ICBM nukes- everybody else only has baby nukes with a radius of... what, 50' or so?

The CS has over 3 million SAMAS alone.
The FoM has less than 100,000 people, many of which spurn technology (such as nukes and other high explosives).

The CS controls the credit, the most prolific currency in North America.
They control the most territory.
They have the highest population by an insane degree.
They (supposedly) have the best technology.

If killing a dozen or a hundred Dead Boys would be significant, you could find plenty of people willing to throw their lives away in suicide attacks or high-risk operations... but it wouldn't be.
There are millions of them.
You kill a hundred Dead Boys, or Dog Boys, or even SAMAS... you're in the news for a day, but tomorrow you're forgotten and the tide of CS troops keeps coming in.
It's not unreasonable for people to risk their lives for a cause, even a lost cause if they think they'll make history, make a real impact... but with the kind of numbers the CS has, that's not very likely.
Nobody will remember the D-Bee Alamo, not after a few weeks. Except, maybe, they'll remember that somebody stood up and somebody died for it.

And hell, say you defeat the CS... Great! That means YOU'll have to deal with the Xiticix, who are over a billion strong according to the official stats.
Not much of a motivation to win, but one heck of a motivation to lie low and hope the CS is wiped out damaging one of the bigger threats, while you kick back in your castle with your personal army of dozens of serving wenches and soldiers ready to do your bidding.

The CS is major league, and they're STILL pathetically outnumbered and/or outgunned by the other major players on Rifts Earth.
The FoM is still minor league, regardless of their potential.
And there are reasons for that.

[Nightmask]

Seems like many of the posts speak in absolutes, how this post's events will always be countered by the follow-up post, when RL (or a reasonable approximation) is never like that. Just as you can never always counter a suicide attacker you can't always counter other things. So the question really is which side in spite of setbacks and failures caused by the uncertainties is most likely to win, who can better adapt when things go wrong.

Agreed.
Though we'll probably disagree on who that generally is.


We can say that the FoM would have realistically though of Plan X, and carried it out... just like we can say that realistically al Queda would have realistically thought of and carried out Plan Y by now.
But when the world disagrees, where does that leave us?
We can ***** and moan that God, or the writers, or whoever just aren't as freakin' brilliant as we are, we who have never created any comparable world on either level, reality or fantasy.
Or we can assume that there are things we don't know, and things that we can't conceive of, and that it's the unknown factors that are responsible for what we see happening (or failing to happen) around us.

But that first option just makes us seem small, and petty, and ignorant.
So, personally, I try to lean a bit more toward the second.

I can agree with some of this for sure, as there is alot of will at work all at once and they arent all focused on the same things per say, even inside the same organization.

But with your example i disagree with the modern examples as the US and Russia a little while ago were the only big kids on planet earth that could play competively with each other. No other nation compared, and therefore fell into asymmetrical warfare. Things would be very different in those examples if you say gave the al queda magic like teleport, espionage like spells ext to penetrate the US. In our world nuclear weapons are heavily watched and accounted for as is militant power, and this isnt so for Rifts Earth. Not by the appearance in the books anyway. But i would think that tech/magic/psi kingdoms would be paying attention, but once you introduce the abilities to have a much easier time of transportation, stealth ext that magic brings it definitely changes how things would play out and gives the smaller force a much bigger chance than they had.

I'm saying it would not be such an easy fight for the CS vs Fed of Magic. To me this comes across as a US vs vietnam or Russia vs Afgahanastan. If these little forces could hold these behemoths at bay in stale mate then imagine what they could have accomplished if they had rifts magic.

Well for Vietnam at least (since I don't know anything about the other event) you're leaving off the US wasn't going for a scorched earth, leaving nothing but the dead within the borders war, something that gave the US a weakness that could be exploited (enough so you got plenty of war crimes on the US side when some troops decided to in fact do scorched earth). The CS is a scorched earth policy, an edge that shouldn't be underrated for just how ruthlessly evil it is and powerful. The Federation would have to be pumping out summoned troops and pulling off very useful tactical plays to survive, although they do at least have reason to constitute the terrain as 'well studied' given how much time they've had. Good chance many areas are pre-planned attacks using magical effects primed for trigger events just in case, areas where conventional military would most likely make use of.

[Nether]

Whenever somebody comes up with a "brilliant" attack on the CS (and some of them actually are pretty brilliant), and complains that the only reason why the CS exists is because Kevin wants them to, because the Federation of Magic, or Tolkeen, or whoever the heck is involved in their scheme would obviously execute Plan X that is within their resources, and that they see no reason why it could fail... all I can think about is the fact that the United States is still here, and that the 9/11 attacks were the exception rather than the rule.

Your opinion is skewed .. Due to the fact that the United states is thee only power on earth .. that has "friendly" nations surrounding it (or its simply due to it being the baddest of the territory) and every single enemy it has is so far away .. as to effectively be isolated from well over half the world.

Meaning .. Were simply too far away .. for most enemies to bring forces to bere against us sufficently enough to make us hurt enough to lose a war in which distance is the real killer .. not military tactic's .. not military strength .. but rather distances that are not tactically sound enough to protect a supply rout from us getting to it.

This is also in conjunction with the fact that again most of the united states enemy states also in fact do not have technologies sufficiently high enough to launch missiles at us, and the ones that do have sufficent enough technological missiles do not have sufficent enough missiles to launch the missiles in enough quantity to actually do real damage ..

Course this is just my 2cp's .. take them with a grain of salt..

Agree with my brother from another mo... err i mean my clone from another drone.. err drone from a clone?? hmm, dont worry Len i will figure out a better rhyme.

add what he said to my post as he seems to be thinking the same thing as me.

[Nether]

@KC
Where does it say that CS has the equivalent of ICBMs?
The only thing in game i have seen listed for them is the nukes with a 50ft rds... i know, .. i just doesnt make sense..

But what i was saying about the CS vs the Fed, is it seems very similar to the two examples i mentioned, vietnam and afgahanastan. Greatly smaller forces with far less in tech and equipment held off vastly larger armies. Afgahanastan for ex, the Russians sent in 100k soldeirs to deal with them, and found out that wasnt nearly enough to deal with it. Now give those rebels magic spells that let them go where they need to, hide anywhere they need to and now you have the problems of where do you send that big force? Numbers mean nothing if you dont have a target to apply it to which is teh current CS vs Fed issue. On top those rebels thru magic now have the ability to move very quickly, call aditional forces and strike you at home.

I mentioned this in prior post, is that i agree the CS is so big and now those magic rebels can strike the head of your empire. Problem is as you mentioned there is so many that so one else just replaces them and numbers are to great. You then have a stalemate, one side is vastly larger but cant find anything to fight, the other side is very small and can strike behind enemy lines with impunity and stay hiden, but thier foe is to big to kill.

@Nightmask, if there policy is scorched earth then they are still way to close to the fallout.
It is also simular to why all that open farmland of the CS is untouched, because no one is trying to declare war. Sure there might be small incidents here and there but nothing that says or pushes the CS to invade the Fed of Magic as both sides have to know this War would be paid with alot of blood on both sides and allies would be pulled, especially as Tolkeen showed them what happens to solo groups.

Also with scorched earth that doesnt get rid of all your enemies nor their hiding spots. CoB cant be conventionally nuked by firing a bunch of missiles at its location, Psyscape would be untouched and you have 3 gods in dweomer that already have plenty of magic defense up and prolly would make it very difficult to even target the location with missiles assuming they ever found it. I am sure there is other examples but also many would die with scorched earth, but that also means the same could be returned. As far as i know besides dunscon, the Fed isnt looking for scorched earth, but would be just as capable of raining it down in a manner and a nuke strike from CS would not guarantee victory.

[Killer Cyborg]

@KC
Where does it say that CS has the equivalent of ICBMs?

CS Navy.

[Nightmask]

@KC
Where does it say that CS has the equivalent of ICBMs?
The only thing in game i have seen listed for them is the nukes with a 50ft rds... i know, .. i just doesnt make sense..

@Nightmask, if there policy is scorched earth then they are still way to close to the fallout.
It is also simular to why all that open farmland of the CS is untouched, because no one is trying to declare war. Sure there might be small incidents here and there but nothing that says or pushes the CS to invade the Fed of Magic as both sides have to know this War would be paid with alot of blood on both sides and allies would be pulled, especially as Tolkeen showed them what happens to solo groups.

Also with scorched earth that doesnt get rid of all your enemies nor their hiding spots. CoB cant be conventionally nuked by firing a bunch of missiles at its location, Psyscape would be untouched and you have 3 gods in dweomer that already have plenty of magic defense up and prolly would make it very difficult to even target the location with missiles assuming they ever found it. I am sure there is other examples but also many would die with scorched earth, but that also means the same could be returned. As far as i know besides dunscon, the Fed isnt looking for scorched earth, but would be just as capable of raining it down in a manner and a nuke strike from CS would not guarantee victory.

I really wish people wouldn't go 'scorched earth=nuclear weapons', that's not what scorched earth means. It only means you eradicate everything in the area and there are plenty of non-nuclear weapons around that can if you go for literal scorched earth that can do the same thing.

[Nether]

Sorry guys, updated my last post, mainly for KC.

[Nether]

@KC
Where does it say that CS has the equivalent of ICBMs?
The only thing in game i have seen listed for them is the nukes with a 50ft rds... i know, .. i just doesnt make sense..

@Nightmask, if there policy is scorched earth then they are still way to close to the fallout.
It is also simular to why all that open farmland of the CS is untouched, because no one is trying to declare war. Sure there might be small incidents here and there but nothing that says or pushes the CS to invade the Fed of Magic as both sides have to know this War would be paid with alot of blood on both sides and allies would be pulled, especially as Tolkeen showed them what happens to solo groups.

Also with scorched earth that doesnt get rid of all your enemies nor their hiding spots. CoB cant be conventionally nuked by firing a bunch of missiles at its location, Psyscape would be untouched and you have 3 gods in dweomer that already have plenty of magic defense up and prolly would make it very difficult to even target the location with missiles assuming they ever found it. I am sure there is other examples but also many would die with scorched earth, but that also means the same could be returned. As far as i know besides dunscon, the Fed isnt looking for scorched earth, but would be just as capable of raining it down in a manner and a nuke strike from CS would not guarantee victory.

I really wish people wouldn't go 'scorched earth=nuclear weapons', that's not what scorched earth means. It only means you eradicate everything in the area and there are plenty of non-nuclear weapons around that can if you go for literal scorched earth that can do the same thing.

It doesnt really matter what kind of scorched earth tactic they use, it is a drastic measure which would create a Jyhad like enemy. Brazil in rl is a good example as the police or gangs would kill its enemies, leaving brothers, sisters, mothers or fathers personally greaving and seeking vengeance they ended up joining a gang themselves to get payback. It created a viscious cycle where people are willing to do dire things when such extremes are taken. There is no surrender to break thier spirits, it is just slaughter. Now today the two largest cities in the country are literally 1/3 favela (slum) and gang controlled.

If they beat them using conventional warfare, they would break them but when a populace is faced with extermination with no parlay, suicide bombing and extreme measures become easier to accept.

The Fed could as well kill many in the CS with magic against thier crops ext that would cause great numbers to starve, give them unstable goverment but they wouldnt be able to slay the beast.

Tolkeen has alot of hand wave crap imo, but they became faced with similar situation of extinction. They called on some dark forces to return the mentality of CS towards them.

[Nightmask]

@KC
Where does it say that CS has the equivalent of ICBMs?
The only thing in game i have seen listed for them is the nukes with a 50ft rds... i know, .. i just doesnt make sense..

@Nightmask, if there policy is scorched earth then they are still way to close to the fallout.
It is also simular to why all that open farmland of the CS is untouched, because no one is trying to declare war. Sure there might be small incidents here and there but nothing that says or pushes the CS to invade the Fed of Magic as both sides have to know this War would be paid with alot of blood on both sides and allies would be pulled, especially as Tolkeen showed them what happens to solo groups.

Also with scorched earth that doesnt get rid of all your enemies nor their hiding spots. CoB cant be conventionally nuked by firing a bunch of missiles at its location, Psyscape would be untouched and you have 3 gods in dweomer that already have plenty of magic defense up and prolly would make it very difficult to even target the location with missiles assuming they ever found it. I am sure there is other examples but also many would die with scorched earth, but that also means the same could be returned. As far as i know besides dunscon, the Fed isnt looking for scorched earth, but would be just as capable of raining it down in a manner and a nuke strike from CS would not guarantee victory.

I really wish people wouldn't go 'scorched earth=nuclear weapons', that's not what scorched earth means. It only means you eradicate everything in the area and there are plenty of non-nuclear weapons around that can if you go for literal scorched earth that can do the same thing.

It doesnt really matter what kind of scorched earth tactic they use, it is a drastic measure which would create a Jyhad like enemy. Brazil in rl is a good example as the police or gangs would kill its enemies, leaving brothers, sisters, mothers or fathers personally greaving and seeking vengeance they ended up joining a gang themselves to get payback. It created a viscious cycle where people are willing to do dire things when such extremes are taken. There is no surrender to break thier spirits, it is just slaughter. Now today the two largest cities in the country are literally 1/3 favela (slum) and gang controlled.

If they beat them using conventional warfare, they would break them but when a populace is faced with extermination with no parlay, suicide bombing and extreme measures become easier to accept.

The Fed could as well kill many in the CS with magic against thier crops ext that would cause great numbers to starve, give them unstable goverment but they wouldnt be able to slay the beast.

Tolkeen has alot of hand wave crap imo, but they became faced with similar situation of extinction. They called on some dark forces to return the mentality of CS towards them.

The Federation is already a jihad level enemy of the CS, scorching the landscape with fuel air bombs and the like isn't going to make them any more determined (the only reason they didn't go after the CS during the Tolkeen war was writer fiat to keep a credible threat out that would have skewed things in Tolkeen's favor).

[Nether]

@KC
Where does it say that CS has the equivalent of ICBMs?
The only thing in game i have seen listed for them is the nukes with a 50ft rds... i know, .. i just doesnt make sense..

@Nightmask, if there policy is scorched earth then they are still way to close to the fallout.
It is also simular to why all that open farmland of the CS is untouched, because no one is trying to declare war. Sure there might be small incidents here and there but nothing that says or pushes the CS to invade the Fed of Magic as both sides have to know this War would be paid with alot of blood on both sides and allies would be pulled, especially as Tolkeen showed them what happens to solo groups.

Also with scorched earth that doesnt get rid of all your enemies nor their hiding spots. CoB cant be conventionally nuked by firing a bunch of missiles at its location, Psyscape would be untouched and you have 3 gods in dweomer that already have plenty of magic defense up and prolly would make it very difficult to even target the location with missiles assuming they ever found it. I am sure there is other examples but also many would die with scorched earth, but that also means the same could be returned. As far as i know besides dunscon, the Fed isnt looking for scorched earth, but would be just as capable of raining it down in a manner and a nuke strike from CS would not guarantee victory.

I really wish people wouldn't go 'scorched earth=nuclear weapons', that's not what scorched earth means. It only means you eradicate everything in the area and there are plenty of non-nuclear weapons around that can if you go for literal scorched earth that can do the same thing.

It doesnt really matter what kind of scorched earth tactic they use, it is a drastic measure which would create a Jyhad like enemy. Brazil in rl is a good example as the police or gangs would kill its enemies, leaving brothers, sisters, mothers or fathers personally greaving and seeking vengeance they ended up joining a gang themselves to get payback. It created a viscious cycle where people are willing to do dire things when such extremes are taken. There is no surrender to break thier spirits, it is just slaughter. Now today the two largest cities in the country are literally 1/3 favela (slum) and gang controlled.

If they beat them using conventional warfare, they would break them but when a populace is faced with extermination with no parlay, suicide bombing and extreme measures become easier to accept.

The Fed could as well kill many in the CS with magic against thier crops ext that would cause great numbers to starve, give them unstable goverment but they wouldnt be able to slay the beast.

Tolkeen has alot of hand wave crap imo, but they became faced with similar situation of extinction. They called on some dark forces to return the mentality of CS towards them.

The Federation is already a jihad level enemy of the CS, scorching the landscape with fuel air bombs and the like isn't going to make them any more determined (the only reason they didn't go after the CS during the Tolkeen war was writer fiat to keep a credible threat out that would have skewed things in Tolkeen's favor).

Well completely agree with the writer fiat crap about tolkeen, as no way Dunscon would pass up such a opportunity to hit the CS with thier pants down. Not to mention that i really thought it stupid how they explained no allies jumping in on tolkeens side. Even non magic users and once ally and state of the CS, FQ joined Tokeen briefly should have really sent out a message of get in the game. And the cyber knights joining tolkeen as well should have been alot of incentive for the do gooders to join. Not to mention that i cant see the magic kingdoms not allying.

Well Dunscon hates the CS and is very evil so he might not care as much that it has to be scorched earth as long as he wins and shows them proseks. The rest of the Fed though i definately dont think is scorched earth policy types.

[Lenwen]

Whenever somebody comes up with a "brilliant" attack on the CS (and some of them actually are pretty brilliant), and complains that the only reason why the CS exists is because Kevin wants them to, because the Federation of Magic, or Tolkeen, or whoever the heck is involved in their scheme would obviously execute Plan X that is within their resources, and that they see no reason why it could fail... all I can think about is the fact that the United States is still here, and that the 9/11 attacks were the exception rather than the rule.

Your opinion is skewed .. Due to the fact that the United states is thee only power on earth .. that has "friendly" nations surrounding it (or its simply due to it being the baddest of the territory) and every single enemy it has is so far away .. as to effectively be isolated from well over half the world.

I think you're over-estimating the difficulty of buying a plane ticket.
Barring that, there's always boats.

Fact of the matter is .. the vast majority of all terroristic threats are of low level poorly trained and poorly equipped militents.. If they can not get to the target by foot , or horse or car .. then you have already taken out any honestly real threat about them the vast majority of the time ..

If they were already poorly equiped and poorly trained .. Buying those plane tickets .. and or boat tickets .. is in many ways if you actually sit down an think about it .. beyond their rational to invest into such a suicidal tendency .. for anyone who wishes to back such an attack ..

It was said it took literally 5+ yrs .. to enact the bombing of the world trade center towers (this is the act you eluded to earlier) And literally hundreds of thousands of dollars according to what the FBI stated .. to house , school, train , feed an basically keep the terrorists alive long enough and educate them well enough .. to do their actual deed.

You seem to completely underestimate .. how much Range / access to .. the target plays in determining a military operation such as those . (no offense)

Meaning .. Were simply too far away .. for most enemies to bring forces to bere against us sufficently enough to make us hurt enough to lose a war in which distance is the real killer ..

That'd be great, IF I was talking about a war.
But I'm not.
I'm talking about very, very simple terrorist action that simply doesn't happen.
No people being stabbed/shot in the night with a note of "al Quaeda was here," or anything like that.
No terrorists running around just shooting cell phone towers and power lines.
No baddies spritzing grocery store produce with anthrax or other nastiness.
They could do it. It'd be easy. They could get away with it.
But.... nothing.

I'm just talking about very simple stuff that our enemies could, and as far as I know would do... but haven't.
It's pretty damned unrealistic, if you ask me.
But reality hasn't asked me.
It keeps rolling along, without giving a **** about my opinion on probability or what "would" happen.

There are bills being introduced right now .. some have already passed .. in which even american's can be imprisioned due to "terrostic" actions .. If you are deemed a terrorist or your action .. you will be locked up for a very very long time .. with out trial .. this is has actually passed an is a law as we speak ..

Now as to who is enabled to say what is or is not a terroristic this or that .. has never been stated .. its enough to know that you are going to be caught, and you will be taken down.

America has a VERY good police of its states, to a degree that such trvialties of "stabbing" some one an saying "al Quaeda was here," is literally going to dwindle down their numbers .. faster then our actual "war on terrorism" has .. meaning .. it would in fact be obscenely stupid for a terroristic organization to try to do something stupid like that..

Shooting a cell phone tower is not going to do much of anything .. as the calls will simply be rerouted an fix the downed tower.(no offense)

And as far as the anthrax thing goes .. yes that would utterly destroy alotta people .. however your not recognizing how difficult it is to get Anthrax .. its easier to fly planes into big buildings then it is to get Anthrax..

[Dead Boy]

Remote Viewing only looks down on individuals and the surroundings are fuzzy, so that wouldn't work.

I have no idea what spell you're thinking of, but it's not Remote Viewing. Remote Viewing lets you target people, places, or things. There is no mention of the viewing angle or the surroundings being "fuzzy" or or less detailed.

Oops! My bad! Dustin Fireblade is right... I was thinking of the psi power Remote Viewing. Must have got it in my head the spell worked the same as the psionic ability.

That said, the spell Remote Viewing isn't all that great for recon. According to its write-up...
"the character must have intimate knowledge of the person or place he wants to observe, meaning he must have personally met and spent a few minutes time with the person or have visited or lived in a specific room in a particular building..." (BoM 246)

The whole point of recon of an area is to gather information on someplace you haven't been before. If the mage already visited the spot he wants to teleport, there's no point in doing the recon in the first place. But since the caster hasn't in this case, Remote Viewing isn't going to be of much help.

Remote Viewing lets you see what's going on near a person, place, or thing that the mage is familiar with.

Step 1: get familiar with a pebble
Step 2: fly up to where you can see the encampment
Step 3: Teleport:Lesser to place the pebble in the encampment
Step 4: use Remote Viewing to see the pebble and its surroundings.

Interesting strategy, I grant you that, but not flawless. You're still forgetting the mage needs first-hand familiarity with where the object is being teleported. And with Teleport: Lesser, there is no 20% chance of success by going off minimal information. No personal familiarity, not t-port.

Now, I know what you're going to say next. "Fine. I'll just familiarize my mage with ten rocks and use Teleport Superior till that 20% roll cuts in my favor." Yes, that's sort of an option, but carries with it a problem of its own. How does the character know when the spell works as desired and when it doesn't? Answer: He doesn't! He could accidentally teleport a scouting rock to the wrong place (80% chance, and it could be hundreds of miles off course) and end up Remote Viewing the wrong place without even knowing it! Entire missions could be sent to the wrong T-port LZ with them spending hours to days in the wrong spot before they get a clue and try to return home. I call that a big problem when it comes to timely resource allocation in wartime conditions.

As I understand it, it's not well defined what psionic powers can be used by an astral traveler against someone in the material plane, so we should probably have that discussion in another thread.

Check out Psyscape, pg 150. There's a condition called the Astral Avenger syndrome where a psychic goes into a berserk rage and attacks physical beings in astral form. One of the key pieces from that which can be extrapolated to ordinary astral use is this line here...

"The Astral form of the character can attack with any kinetic powers, bio-regeneration, empathic transmission, Psi-Sword, or any mind attacks he may possess." (WB12 pg 150)

Looks fairly well defined to me on the extent of what powers astral beings can use vs corporeal targets.

[Dead Boy]

Let's take it one step further: Why would there have to be a mage with Invisibility Superior when a psychic on the mage side could also use remote viewing! The mages side would have mind melters, mystics, mystic knights, etc, all of which could have remote viewing.

We covered this ground. The Psychic version of Remote View provides a picture of individuals only, and the surroundings are too fuzzy to make out any details. Plus, recalling details is difficult too with the power.

actually,... there are rules on TK ... and you're the only one who seems it's not aware of it. Super TK functions the same but superior to regular tk, but costing a minium of 10 isp to use.

You're thinking of Telepathy, not Telekinesis.

@Deadboy
You come across as "wanting" the CS to win no matter the facts. Not saying you are like that, just come across like that.

Wanting? No sir, just brazenly biased.

Counter what you think is faulty.

Well, while its true they FoM may have done prior scouting in preparation of their invasion of the CS, the same is true of the CS against the FoM. There's no reason one or more of the Coalition's LRRP scouting teams hadn't already discovered the locations of all of the Federation's primary assets and cities (along with the firing solutions to target them... even the City of Brass since it's dimensional front door doesn't actually have a "closeable" door).

None the less, the Federation's amazingly small numbers means a military offensive like the kind they launched in 12 PA is forever off the table realistically. Asymmetric warfare really only works in your own backyard, not someone else's. The best they could muster is a series of terrorist attacks, which is exactly what your descriptions set up, not a full-scale invasion of conquest or extermination. They are small time punks with delusions of grandeur, and other than setting off a few bombs and kills a few thousand soldiers and dog boys, they will never come close to achieving victory over the CS.

Also, I think you grossly under-estimate the abilities of Dog Boys and Psi-Stalkers to protect the cities of the CS. Remember, their ability to detect magic actively in use is 400 feet +50/level! Even for average level dogs (let's conservatively say level 4 for argument's sake), that means a single dog is aware of ANY magic or psionic activity in a 600-foot radius. Factor in the fact the CS has over a million Dog Boys, and you have a LOT of coverage there. Any spy work would be best accomplished the old fashioned way, with tech alone.

As for scouts using the spells you listed, they are far from foolproof.
Chameleon: Totally ineffective if moving any faster than 6 feet per melee round (better for snipers), and offers no protection vs IR optics.
Concealment: Doesn't work against metal detectors, EM detectors, sniffer dogs, and the Dog Boy's would zero in on the persistent magic in no time.
Cloak of Darkness: Standard issue IR optics defeats that easily.
Inviso Superior: (see counters to that above in other posts)
Shadow Meld: Again, standard issue IR optics defeats that easily.
Charm: The spell only works on one person at a time, and the CS almost always works in teams. Also, Dog Boys and Psi-Stalkers get bonuses to save vs mind control.
Reduce Self: Not only will it proportionately reduce the character's movement, it also counts as a sustained magic power that broadcasts the mage's presence and position to every Dog Boy near by.
Mask PPE: Frankly, I really don't know why they made this psionic power they way they did, because it's stupid. Sure, the mage masks all but a normal amount of PPE, but it also enacts a sustained psychic power that daraws the attention of every nearby Psi-Stalker and Dog Boy. Kind of defeats the purpose.

Got any more spells or powers in mind?

As for Psi-Ghosts of the Magic Zone, you do realize the CS has Psi-Ghosts of their own, right? For every intelligence gathering method out there, there's a counter-intelligence method too. But even if that weren't the case... hell, dude... a simple electric fence will keep them at bay.

Now, all that said, no one is saying that teleport spells are completely useless in Rifts warfare. I'm just saying it's not so easy to implement as the FoM proponents are suggesting. Sites need to be scouted in advance. A heavy supply of scrolls for their common use need to be stockpiled for years before put into heavy use. And on-the-fly scouting missions to find new locations to teleport to are far from guaranteed to be successful. Remember, this is an all out war and invasion of the Coalition States' territory, and they are far from pushovers, nor are they novices when it comes to fighting magic and the supernatural.

[Giant2005]

Dead Boy, I think you are getting confused about the targets of the terrorism.
I am only speaking for myself, but when I talk of scouting for a teleport ambush, I am not referring to mobile CS forces. I am talking about strongholds such as Chi Town and any other static fortifications the FoM may know about.
Even if some of those pebbles get teleported to the wrong place via Teleport: Superior, one remote viewing will make it fairly obvious that it is not at the target destination as I'm sure Chi-Town is fairly identifiable.
I am not suggesting ambushing the CS troops - even with teleportation type terrorism, that would be far too problematic to be worth the effort. The CS troops that are outside the borders of those static strongholds would be largely irrelevant once their upper command, civilians and supply lines are destroyed. They would no longer be an army, just your common bandits.

Once properly scouted (Via remote viewing, 4D transformation or any number of magical means), those strongholds would be completely defenseless.
By simply dividing their troops into squads of two teleporters and as many offensive casters as the lower leveled of those teleporters can carry, those cities are no more.
With proper timing, those mages would have already been preparing their spells before the initial teleport took place, the offensive casters (Steel Rain, Annihilate) would have their spells timed to unleash a moment after the initial teleport and the second teleporter would have timed his spell to be completed a moment after those offensive casters have done their thing.
With perfect timing and deployment of those squads, every military stronghold of the CS that is known to the FoM would be destroyed in less than half a second.
The only means the CS would have of surviving the attack is via the Vanguard but the forces of the CS would ensure that the efforts of the Vanguard are thwarted. The minute a Vanguard member started casting an Anti-Magic cloud or something that could save the city equally well, any Dogboys nearby would sniff them out and kill them.

[flatline]

Remote Viewing only looks down on individuals and the surroundings are fuzzy, so that wouldn't work.

I have no idea what spell you're thinking of, but it's not Remote Viewing. Remote Viewing lets you target people, places, or things. There is no mention of the viewing angle or the surroundings being "fuzzy" or or less detailed.

Oops! My bad! Dustin Fireblade is right... I was thinking of the psi power Remote Viewing. Must have got it in my head the spell worked the same as the psionic ability.

That said, the spell Remote Viewing isn't all that great for recon. According to its write-up...
"the character must have intimate knowledge of the person or place he wants to observe, meaning he must have personally met and spent a few minutes time with the person or have visited or lived in a specific room in a particular building..." (BoM 246)

The whole point of recon of an area is to gather information on someplace you haven't been before. If the mage already visited the spot he wants to teleport, there's no point in doing the recon in the first place. But since the caster hasn't in this case, Remote Viewing isn't going to be of much help.

Remote Viewing lets you see what's going on near a person, place, or thing that the mage is familiar with.

Step 1: get familiar with a pebble
Step 2: fly up to where you can see the encampment
Step 3: Teleport:Lesser to place the pebble in the encampment
Step 4: use Remote Viewing to see the pebble and its surroundings.

Interesting strategy, I grant you that, but not flawless. You're still forgetting the mage needs first-hand familiarity with where the object is being teleported. And with Teleport: Lesser, there is no 20% chance of success by going off minimal information. No personal familiarity, not t-port.

Teleport:Lesser chance of success: 80% + 2% per level
The location must be known to the mage. Well, it's in line of sight from his high vantage point, so it is known to him.

If you use the percentages from Teleport:Superior, line of sight is 99%.

What am I missing?

--flatline

[Nether]

Let's take it one step further: Why would there have to be a mage with Invisibility Superior when a psychic on the mage side could also use remote viewing! The mages side would have mind melters, mystics, mystic knights, etc, all of which could have remote viewing.

We covered this ground. The Psychic version of Remote View provides a picture of individuals only, and the surroundings are too fuzzy to make out any details. Plus, recalling details is difficult too with the power.

actually,... there are rules on TK ... and you're the only one who seems it's not aware of it. Super TK functions the same but superior to regular tk, but costing a minium of 10 isp to use.

You're thinking of Telepathy, not Telekinesis.

@Deadboy
You come across as "wanting" the CS to win no matter the facts. Not saying you are like that, just come across like that.

Wanting? No sir, just brazenly biased.

Counter what you think is faulty.

Well, while its true they FoM may have done prior scouting in preparation of their invasion of the CS, the same is true of the CS against the FoM. There's no reason one or more of the Coalition's LRRP scouting teams hadn't already discovered the locations of all of the Federation's primary assets and cities (along with the firing solutions to target them... even the City of Brass since it's dimensional front door doesn't actually have a "closeable" door).

None the less, the Federation's amazingly small numbers means a military offensive like the kind they launched in 12 PA is forever off the table realistically. Asymmetric warfare really only works in your own backyard, not someone else's. The best they could muster is a series of terrorist attacks, which is exactly what your descriptions set up, not a full-scale invasion of conquest or extermination. They are small time punks with delusions of grandeur, and other than setting off a few bombs and kills a few thousand soldiers and dog boys, they will never come close to achieving victory over the CS.

Also, I think you grossly under-estimate the abilities of Dog Boys and Psi-Stalkers to protect the cities of the CS. Remember, their ability to detect magic actively in use is 400 feet +50/level! Even for average level dogs (let's conservatively say level 4 for argument's sake), that means a single dog is aware of ANY magic or psionic activity in a 600-foot radius. Factor in the fact the CS has over a million Dog Boys, and you have a LOT of coverage there. Any spy work would be best accomplished the old fashioned way, with tech alone.

As for scouts using the spells you listed, they are far from foolproof.
Chameleon: Totally ineffective if moving any faster than 6 feet per melee round (better for snipers), and offers no protection vs IR optics.
Concealment: Doesn't work against metal detectors, EM detectors, sniffer dogs, and the Dog Boy's would zero in on the persistent magic in no time.
Cloak of Darkness: Standard issue IR optics defeats that easily.
Inviso Superior: (see counters to that above in other posts)
Shadow Meld: Again, standard issue IR optics defeats that easily.
Charm: The spell only works on one person at a time, and the CS almost always works in teams. Also, Dog Boys and Psi-Stalkers get bonuses to save vs mind control.
Reduce Self: Not only will it proportionately reduce the character's movement, it also counts as a sustained magic power that broadcasts the mage's presence and position to every Dog Boy near by.
Mask PPE: Frankly, I really don't know why they made this psionic power they way they did, because it's stupid. Sure, the mage masks all but a normal amount of PPE, but it also enacts a sustained psychic power that daraws the attention of every nearby Psi-Stalker and Dog Boy. Kind of defeats the purpose.

Got any more spells or powers in mind?

As for Psi-Ghosts of the Magic Zone, you do realize the CS has Psi-Ghosts of their own, right? For every intelligence gathering method out there, there's a counter-intelligence method too. But even if that weren't the case... hell, dude... a simple electric fence will keep them at bay.

Now, all that said, no one is saying that teleport spells are completely useless in Rifts warfare. I'm just saying it's not so easy to implement as the FoM proponents are suggesting. Sites need to be scouted in advance. A heavy supply of scrolls for their common use need to be stockpiled for years before put into heavy use. And on-the-fly scouting missions to find new locations to teleport to are far from guaranteed to be successful. Remember, this is an all out war and invasion of the Coalition States' territory, and they are far from pushovers, nor are they novices when it comes to fighting magic and the supernatural.

The scout does not need to use those spells at all times by any stretch, as normal espionage skills and tech will work just fine for scouting via spy. Those spells in combo is what i meant, ie (cloak of darkness, shadowmeld n invis sup) would allow a magic scout to be undetectable to everything. Infared/thermal, normal sight, nightvision, ext as long as the mage stayed in shadows and cloak of darkness means he is always in shadow while invis sup hides him from infared thermal. Add to this Mask PPE, even for persoanl continuous spells and it hides the mage from dog boys. Some GM ruling can sway this last part depending on bias, and we know where you stand on the matter but even at best the dog boy could not actually find the mage or the "cause" of the effect and he would always sense it as this way or that, but never be able to find it. Add on top a infiltration team which would use red herrings as distraction along with illusion spells and you have an invisible mage leading a growing group of dog boys around the search chasing illusions. But the use of the spells is really only needed more for sabotage ext as the spy being there is enough to record the area, create detailed maps and info for other mages to use.

I get that the dog boys and stalkers are very useful, but i still see the edge on the scout/spy's side in regards to recon, being mobile and stealth (broad term) regardless of the countermeasures shown which are all only psi.

As for Psi Ghosts, unless you can show me where it says the CS has them, i'm not buying it as they are a very secretive community that isnt that large, they wouldnt sell thier own secrets out to the CS even if some decided to work for the CS (suggested by the description of racial bond) and even the ones that do work for them are too few to effectively watch over the large pop of CS. They are mutants and psychics which so far that i'm aware of there is no mom style implant that can replicate that. In this case this is a group the CS would not have access to, and they are to small a group to warrant the CS electrifying everything. Even then it doesnt mean electricity stops them from phasing thru it, just that they will take some damage. In the case of a electric fence they just go under it or over it.

I am not saying all of this is super easy, nor stated the the CS would be obliterated. What i have been saying is that would be a stale mate as magic makes a group/army very versatile and allows them to bypass all the conventions of a tech only society. The tech side is playing on a 3D battlefield and the magic side is on a 4D battlefield (no ref to spell) as they can teleport, summon creatures, hide, ext ext.

And many of the magic kingdoms would have a military that would be doing the same as the CS, mapping, cataloging, creating strategies for all scenarios just like the CS would, but the magic kingdom is not limited in the same way not to mention they can strike where they want to.

Dweomer i like my clone Len think is the most dangerous of them all. Sure they are small but they live thier lives in the shadow of war. Thier military is always training, they are always hard at work creating TW and reg Magic items, use tech as well, they would have crap loads of scrolls stockpiled amongst amulets ext for many years as they werent created yesterday and it is a very discipline militant magic kingdom that employs all aspects of war, espionage, def, ext. Yes they are very small in comparison but they would have alot of highly intelligent minds available, which most of them are versed in warfare, at the moment there is no way the CS would ever find them let alone target them, but the main point i'm getting at for them is they would have plans created, strategies ready to be executed and a readiness. If they entered the fight and were able to lead the Fed in it, they would be scary effective in my mind.

But i do agree, the Fed is small and not one organized body atm. But if they did publish a series for this war like SoT then i would bet SueAnns favorite swine that we would all of a sudden see the populaton stats be drastically changed for the Fed as they were for Tolkeen, there would be far more fantastic magic than Tolkeen had which is as it should sinse Tolkeen originally was never considered an amazing magic place that the writers decided to turn it into to make the war more interesting, and lastly there is just no way there wouldnt be many many allies pulled togather on this. Dweomer would have the goodies backing them up like Lazlo and Cyberknights, and stormspire is a massive TW supply factory which also can just temp dissappear at missile / attack force assault and come back when they are gone, and then the bad apples of magic, dunscon and his horde. They guy might be insane and evil, but he also has a 28 IQ which suggests he is brilliant to say the least. Well in all honesty dunscon and his horde would prolly puck things up and make it worse for the Fed as he isnt fond of his strongest ally in this war.

So i see this as being a stalemate type war. The biggest army in the galaxy is of little consequence if it cant find its enemy to fight, and you can only bring to bear so much of that force at once adding on top the enemy can just relocate all the time.

[Killer Cyborg]

@KC
Where does it say that CS has the equivalent of ICBMs?
The only thing in game i have seen listed for them is the nukes with a 50ft rds... i know, .. i just doesnt make sense..

But what i was saying about the CS vs the Fed, is it seems very similar to the two examples i mentioned, vietnam and afgahanastan. Greatly smaller forces with far less in tech and equipment held off vastly larger armies. Afgahanastan for ex, the Russians sent in 100k soldeirs to deal with them, and found out that wasnt nearly enough to deal with it. Now give those rebels magic spells that let them go where they need to, hide anywhere they need to and now you have the problems of where do you send that big force? Numbers mean nothing if you dont have a target to apply it to which is teh current CS vs Fed issue. On top those rebels thru magic now have the ability to move very quickly, call aditional forces and strike you at home.

And the CS has psychics, and intelligence agents.
You want to argue that the FoM can "hold off" or "survive" the CS, then sure, I'm right there with you.
But WIN?
Nope.

I mentioned this in prior post, is that i agree the CS is so big and now those magic rebels can strike the head of your empire. Problem is as you mentioned there is so many that so one else just replaces them and numbers are to great. You then have a stalemate, one side is vastly larger but cant find anything to fight, the other side is very small and can strike behind enemy lines with impunity and stay hiden, but thier foe is to big to kill.

Pretty much.

[Killer Cyborg]

Remote Viewing only looks down on individuals and the surroundings are fuzzy, so that wouldn't work.

I have no idea what spell you're thinking of, but it's not Remote Viewing. Remote Viewing lets you target people, places, or things. There is no mention of the viewing angle or the surroundings being "fuzzy" or or less detailed.

Oops! My bad! Dustin Fireblade is right... I was thinking of the psi power Remote Viewing. Must have got it in my head the spell worked the same as the psionic ability.

That said, the spell Remote Viewing isn't all that great for recon. According to its write-up...
"the character must have intimate knowledge of the person or place he wants to observe, meaning he must have personally met and spent a few minutes time with the person or have visited or lived in a specific room in a particular building..." (BoM 246)

The whole point of recon of an area is to gather information on someplace you haven't been before. If the mage already visited the spot he wants to teleport, there's no point in doing the recon in the first place. But since the caster hasn't in this case, Remote Viewing isn't going to be of much help.

Remote Viewing lets you see what's going on near a person, place, or thing that the mage is familiar with.

Step 1: get familiar with a pebble
Step 2: fly up to where you can see the encampment
Step 3: Teleport:Lesser to place the pebble in the encampment
Step 4: use Remote Viewing to see the pebble and its surroundings.

Interesting strategy, I grant you that, but not flawless. You're still forgetting the mage needs first-hand familiarity with where the object is being teleported. And with Teleport: Lesser, there is no 20% chance of success by going off minimal information. No personal familiarity, not t-port.

Now, I know what you're going to say next. "Fine. I'll just familiarize my mage with ten rocks and use Teleport Superior till that 20% roll cuts in my favor." Yes, that's sort of an option, but carries with it a problem of its own. How does the character know when the spell works as desired and when it doesn't? Answer: He doesn't! He could accidentally teleport a scouting rock to the wrong place (80% chance, and it could be hundreds of miles off course) and end up Remote Viewing the wrong place without even knowing it! Entire missions could be sent to the wrong T-port LZ with them spending hours to days in the wrong spot before they get a clue and try to return home. I call that a big problem when it comes to timely resource allocation in wartime conditions.

As I understand it, it's not well defined what psionic powers can be used by an astral traveler against someone in the material plane, so we should probably have that discussion in another thread.

Check out Psyscape, pg 150. There's a condition called the Astral Avenger syndrome where a psychic goes into a berserk rage and attacks physical beings in astral form. One of the key pieces from that which can be extrapolated to ordinary astral use is this line here...

"The Astral form of the character can attack with any kinetic powers, bio-regeneration, empathic transmission, Psi-Sword, or any mind attacks he may possess." (WB12 pg 150)

Looks fairly well defined to me on the extent of what powers astral beings can use vs corporeal targets.

The standard Astral Travel power, though, defines different powers, so I'd say that the Astral Avengers have a wider array of options than the standard psychic.

[Killer Cyborg]

There are bills being introduced right now .. some have already passed .. in which even american's can be imprisioned due to "terrostic" actions .. If you are deemed a terrorist or your action .. you will be locked up for a very very long time .. with out trial .. this is has actually passed an is a law as we speak ..

Right.
Which does little to no good against actual terrorists, but which does a lot to create a divide between the citizens and the government.
IF the 9/11 attacks had had follow-ups on any scale other than the laughable level of "some guy got caught with explosive underoos" and such, the government would crack down even harder, and the US would be that much more divided.
The threat to America isn't terrorism, it's tyranny.

Now as to who is enabled to say what is or is not a terroristic this or that .. has never been stated .. its enough to know that you are going to be caught, and you will be taken down.

That's not known, though. Severity of punishment has nothing to do with catching criminals.
Besides, compared to what they do in other places, nothing we do in the US is all that scary.

America has a VERY good police of its states, to a degree that such trvialties of "stabbing" some one an saying "al Quaeda was here," is literally going to dwindle down their numbers .. faster then our actual "war on terrorism" has .. meaning .. it would in fact be obscenely stupid for a terroristic organization to try to do something stupid like that..

http://ask.yahoo.com/20060531.html
According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, in 2004, 62.6% of homicides were "cleared," leaving a substantial portion of murder cases unresolved.

The FBI's official site says a crime is cleared when either an arrest is made or "elements beyond the control of law enforcement prevent the agency from arresting and formally charging the offender, by exceptional means." We assume this refers to rare cases when, for example, suspects die before they can be charged.

In 2004, there were 16,137 cases of murder or nonnegligent manslaughter in the United States. Because 37.4% of these cases went uncleared, around 6,035 people "got away with murder" that year. Of course, this assumes each offender murdered only one person, which very likely isn't true, but seeing as the cases are unsolved, this is our best guess.

And of the cleared cases, one heck of a lot of them are cases where the murderer didn't even try not to get away with it, and a heck of a lot more are cases where the motive and/or suspects were obvious.
Also, that's not counting the cases that were cleared... but only because the wrong person got arrested.

Meanwhile, the CS has millions of psychics that can track you by your psychic scent, or by finding any object that you own, or (among many other tricks) by outright clairvoyance before you've even committed the crime.
In addition to the kind of police and intelligence-gathering techniques we have today.
In addition to brutal police-state tactics that make the US's policies laughable.
(You think the CS is going to draw the line at water-boarding people?)

A terrorist's odds of taking on the US successfully would be a heck of a lot higher than taking on the CS.

Shooting a cell phone tower is not going to do much of anything .. as the calls will simply be rerouted an fix the downed tower.(no offense)

How much does a bullet or a dozen bullets cost?
How much does it cost to repair a cell phone tower that's been shot up?
And in a lot of places, downing one tower means lost service for quite a wide area, even today.

And you're skipping the bit about power lines.

And as far as the anthrax thing goes .. yes that would utterly destroy alotta people .. however your not recognizing how difficult it is to get Anthrax .. its easier to fly planes into big buildings then it is to get Anthrax..

It's not that difficult, actually. Cows get anthrax, and they're not even trying.
But you're missing the point. It doesn't have to be anthrax. It could be Raid, or anti-freeze, or something more effective that's easy to get, and less detectible.
Remember the uproar caused with poisoned Tylenol in the '80s?
You know, the case that was never solved, led to 7 deaths, a heck of a lot of panic nation-wide, and a slew of new laws and regulations?
That same trick might be harder, but there's plenty of easy marks out there.
A person could taint some meat, poison some veggies, put powdered lead on doorknobs, and cause one heck of a lot of trouble... and the chances of getting caught would be very, very low initially.
But nobody's bothered.

[barna10]

Regardless of how "fuzzy" the Psionic or Magical version of Remote Viewing (which the psionic one CAN target an area, not just people) is, its just one tool. The crux for me is that Tolkeen or the Federation has ALL of the same tools as the Coalition PLUS Magic!

Someone mentioned the CS having superior tech, what tech would the CS have that anyone else couldn't or wouldn't have? Anything the CS has could be stolen easily via teleporters/taken off dead bodies/bought on the black market/etc., but the CS will NEVER have or use magic like the other guys.

So again, I see no advantage for the Coalition.

Lastly, how is sharing spells any different than normal man sharing technological secrets?

One last thing, Anthrax does kill a few people, but that's not the desired purpose of an Anthrax attack! The reason Anthrax is so scary is because it is so infectious; it spreads like wildfire. Very few people actually die from Anthrax, but most everybody will get sick. This overwhelms the infrastructure of a population reducing the populations ability to function. Imagine the U.S. if even 20% of the workforce got sick on the same day. Also, sick soldiers are less effective. Lastly, you use chemical weapons to decimate a population, biological ones to weaken it. What good is a bunch of dead civilians when you probably want slaves, workers, new soldiers, etc.? Kill everybody and all you have is one big wasteland that you probably cannot capitalize on.

[Killer Cyborg]

As for Psi Ghosts, unless you can show me where it says the CS has them, i'm not buying it as they are a very secretive community that isnt that large, they wouldnt sell thier own secrets out to the CS even if some decided to work for the CS (suggested by the description of racial bond) and even the ones that do work for them are too few to effectively watch over the large pop of CS. They are mutants and psychics which so far that i'm aware of there is no mom style implant that can replicate that. In this case this is a group the CS would not have access to, and they are to small a group to warrant the CS electrifying everything. Even then it doesnt mean electricity stops them from phasing thru it, just that they will take some damage. In the case of a electric fence they just go under it or over it.

Psyscape, p. 146
1% of Psi-Bat's Alpha Battalion are Psi-Ghosts.
Alpha Battalion has 4280 members, as of whatever year that book was set in.
So that's 42 Psi-Ghosts right there.
Not including new Battalion Alpha members recruited/trained in the following years between then and the current timeline (Psyscape mentions that a couple thousand recruits are in training at the time).
Not including Psi-Battalions Beta, Epsilon, Gamma.
Not including any new Battalions that have been created.
Not including mercenary outfits hired by the CS.

[Killer Cyborg]

Regardless of how "fuzzy" the Psionic or Magical version of Remote Viewing (which the psionic one CAN target an area, not just people) is, its just one tool. The crux for me is that Tolkeen or the Federation has ALL of the same tools as the Coalition PLUS Magic!

Someone mentioned the CS having superior tech, what tech would the CS have that anyone else couldn't or wouldn't have?

ICBMs, for one.
Other top-secret stuff.

But mostly, it's just the sheer numbers.
Some of the CS's enemies will have CS gear.
ALL of the CS will have CS gear.

Anything the CS has could be stolen easily via teleporters/taken off dead bodies/bought on the black market/etc., but the CS will NEVER have or use magic like the other guys.

Well, kind of.
The thing is, the CS does have the Vanguard, though they don't really know it.
They're also willing to hire mercenary groups from time to time, especially in emergencies, without looking too close at whether or not there are mages in the group, as long as the job gets done.

But for the most part, you're right- the CS doesn't use magic as a rule.
Luckily, they have psychics, which make up for a lot.

Lastly, how is sharing spells any different than normal man sharing technological secrets?

It's not that different.
Now take a good, long look at how hard companies in the real world fight to protect their technological secrets.
Now imagine that there's no government protecting your patent rights.

Knowledge is power, and the people with the power are almost never the people likely to give it away for free, or even cheap.
Because by giving it away, they lose it.
If you're the only mage in town that knows a spell, you're powerful.
If you're one of a crowd, you're average.
Powerful people work really hard to avoid dropping down to average from their positions of power.

And you might be thinking, "well, what's to stop the occasional mage who doesn't mind losing power from giving away his spells and knowledge?"
The answer is "Other mages."
Mages operate out of guilds in order to protect their power and their secrets.
Guilds exist for a reason, and there are reasons why it's a bad idea to cross them.

[barna10]

Regardless of how "fuzzy" the Psionic or Magical version of Remote Viewing (which the psionic one CAN target an area, not just people) is, its just one tool. The crux for me is that Tolkeen or the Federation has ALL of the same tools as the Coalition PLUS Magic!

Someone mentioned the CS having superior tech, what tech would the CS have that anyone else couldn't or wouldn't have?

ICBMs, for one.
Other top-secret stuff.

But mostly, it's just the sheer numbers.
Some of the CS's enemies will have CS gear.
ALL of the CS will have CS gear.

Anything the CS has could be stolen easily via teleporters/taken off dead bodies/bought on the black market/etc., but the CS will NEVER have or use magic like the other guys.

Well, kind of.
The thing is, the CS does have the Vanguard, though they don't really know it.
They're also willing to hire mercenary groups from time to time, especially in emergencies, without looking too close at whether or not there are mages in the group, as long as the job gets done.

But for the most part, you're right- the CS doesn't use magic as a rule.
Luckily, they have psychics, which make up for a lot.

Lastly, how is sharing spells any different than normal man sharing technological secrets?

It's not that different.
Now take a good, long look at how hard companies in the real world fight to protect their technological secrets.
Now imagine that there's no government protecting your patent rights.

Knowledge is power, and the people with the power are almost never the people likely to give it away for free, or even cheap.
Because by giving it away, they lose it.
If you're the only mage in town that knows a spell, you're powerful.
If you're one of a crowd, you're average.
Powerful people work really hard to avoid dropping down to average from their positions of power.

And you might be thinking, "well, what's to stop the occasional mage who doesn't mind losing power from giving away his spells and knowledge?"
The answer is "Other mages."
Mages operate out of guilds in order to protect their power and their secrets.
Guilds exist for a reason, and there are reasons why it's a bad idea to cross them.

CS has ICBMs, mages have Annihilate

You proved my point KC, tech secrets are just as valuable as magical ones, but somehow they get shared/stolen/what have you. If I have spell A and want spell B, I'll probably be willing to trade spell A or something else to get spell B. Plus, magic has to traded or it would have died out millions of years ago! Just saying every mage is greedy and won't share spells is pretty a pretty simple minded approach to the idea.

[flatline]

Don't ICBMs go high enough to run foul of all the crap and killer sattelites in earth orbit?

But of course, ICBMs aren't necessary to target anything in NA. Cruise missiles will do just fine and can probably carry equivalent payloads.

--flatline

[DhAkael]

T.L.D.R. not caring move along; it is up to the individual GM's
...that being said; MAOR Kira PLEEZKAYTHANXBYE!

[Nether]

Slight side note, someone mentioned before about the different flavors of Mystic Knight groups/factions. Where is there info on these groups or any additional info other that FoM?

@Flatline, oh man you dont like FoM? Think it is cheesy?
Thats a shame because that is my fave rifts book yet.

[kaid]

Slight side note, someone mentioned before about the different flavors of Mystic Knight groups/factions. Where is there info on these groups or any additional info other that FoM?

@Flatline, oh man you dont like FoM? Think it is cheesy?
Thats a shame because that is my fave rifts book yet.

I know a sect of good mystic knights appears in Mad Haven.

[kaid]

A weapon with a 6 mile MDC blast radius is pretty darn scorching of the earth. Sure it won't kill some of the bigger nastier super natural critters but it pretty well incinerates everything short of that and all ground cover.

That said baring a major CS strong hold on the verge of being over run I don't see them deploying their nukes. They want to take back north america and conquer it. The don't want to rule over an irradiated waste land. Who knows we may see some deployed if the calgary rift spits out enough demons but they are not something the coalition would use on land for anything short of dire emergency.

The biggest plus of the CS is that they stand together all the main magic cities don't have any real overall cohesiveness. Look at the federation of magic you got dweomer which is powerful but just wants to hide and you got stormspire that just wants to make money whose leaders rightly thinks the leader of the federation of magic wants to kill him. I don't see that is a very stable group. Had the federation of magic/lazlo/new lazlo/tolkeen all pitched in together they could stop the coalition but that kind of cooperation does not appear to be in the nature of those groups.

Can the CS kill off the federation of magic? Probably not its like punching fog you may kill a whole lot of them but due to all the ley lines in the area and nexus magic users will just drift back in soon enough and due to all the ley lines and nexus they will always have the home field advantage. Tolkeen was comparatively easy to attack bigger and more cohesive but one single main target that was known and not mobile. That is the ideal type of target for the CS.

For the federation of magic it will last pretty much as long as people chose to keep using the name. Baring the CS learning stone magic and turning off the magic spigots an area infested with magic users will stay infested with magic users.

@KC
Where does it say that CS has the equivalent of ICBMs?
The only thing in game i have seen listed for them is the nukes with a 50ft rds... i know, .. i just doesnt make sense..

@Nightmask, if there policy is scorched earth then they are still way to close to the fallout.
It is also simular to why all that open farmland of the CS is untouched, because no one is trying to declare war. Sure there might be small incidents here and there but nothing that says or pushes the CS to invade the Fed of Magic as both sides have to know this War would be paid with alot of blood on both sides and allies would be pulled, especially as Tolkeen showed them what happens to solo groups.

Also with scorched earth that doesnt get rid of all your enemies nor their hiding spots. CoB cant be conventionally nuked by firing a bunch of missiles at its location, Psyscape would be untouched and you have 3 gods in dweomer that already have plenty of magic defense up and prolly would make it very difficult to even target the location with missiles assuming they ever found it. I am sure there is other examples but also many would die with scorched earth, but that also means the same could be returned. As far as i know besides dunscon, the Fed isnt looking for scorched earth, but would be just as capable of raining it down in a manner and a nuke strike from CS would not guarantee victory.

I really wish people wouldn't go 'scorched earth=nuclear weapons', that's not what scorched earth means. It only means you eradicate everything in the area and there are plenty of non-nuclear weapons around that can if you go for literal scorched earth that can do the same thing.

[Killer Cyborg]

You proved my point KC, tech secrets are just as valuable as magical ones, but somehow they get shared/stolen/what have you.

Got examples?

If I have spell A and want spell B, I'll probably be willing to trade spell A or something else to get spell B. Plus, magic has to traded or it would have died out millions of years ago! Just saying every mage is greedy and won't share spells is pretty a pretty simple minded approach to the idea.

It's not that mages won't ever teach other people spells, it's that they won't do it without very good reason, and if those reasons aren't agreed with by the magic community at large, the mage doing the teaching might get disappeared.
Spells can be purchased for a price, the availability and prices are listed in the books.