Attempting to Fulfill the Plan: GDI Edition

[Hazard]

(And I have trouble accepting the suggestion that Nod can somehow hide all evidence of operations on that sort of scale. Especially agriculture, which takes up lots of space and needs to be above ground to avoid ruinous power costs, but putting all the rest of it underground or under extraordinarily sophisticated and difficult to construct stealth technology also sounds non-viable. Nod's assets and population base just have to be too big for them to be a significant threat to GDI to hide.)

Click to shrink...

GDI has extensive hydroponic and aquaponic vertical farms powered by nuclear reactors because tiberium infection is too great a risk for open field farming.

Nod, living in the more heavily contaminated YZs, no doubt has similar practices. In fact, during TW2, key civilian infrastructure in tiberium infested regions were things like water purifiers and enclosed hydroponic farms.

What's the estimated world population, and the portion of it behind GDI's lines?

Click to shrink...

Somewhere in the ballpark of 2 billion worldwide, I think, and around 30-40% are behind GDI's lines. I found a WOG on discord that we're not likely to hit 3 billion people world during the quest.

Click to shrink...

At the end of TW3, world population was about 1.5 billion. A third of that was GDI.

These days it's probably about the same number of people, maybe having crept up to 1.6-7 billion and it's more like 40-45% GDI.

Click to shrink...

Population numbers are at the lower end of between 1.4 and 1.5 billion people, of which some 550 million live in GDI territory. Nod has a shrinking population advantage, but that's because Nod's population is dying rapidly and fleeing its territory. It retains, however, have a notable advantage is military age population, because their population is on the average younger.

The population of humanity will not, under any circumstance, rise except if any of the following happens; we manage to establish substantial space habitation, we reclaim substantial portions of the world from tiberium even through its current mutating phase, or we build the TCN. People are too despairing to have more kids, basically, and humanity as a whole is not achieving replacement rate. Nor is Nod, specifically, and forget GDI.

 

[doruma1920]

Can we get the last phase of Chicago built while still throwing up fortress towns and rail lines? And still compete Karachi on time? That'd be a good fuck you to Gideon, and for even trying that stunt with the shard launchers I want him hung from a fucking post.

Click to shrink...

There are 7 turns remaining in the Plan. 6 Infrastructure dice per turn yields a total of 42 Infrastructure dice for the remainder of the Plan.

We currently have two items in infrastructure required for the FYP. One more stage of BZ Arcologies and Phase 1-4 of Karachi. The current plan as far as I am aware is completing all 5 phases of Karachi during the Karachi sprint Q4 2060 to Q2 2061. Exactly when we will achieve this depends on how the Regency War is going in a few turns. BZ Arcologies should take 7-8 dice to complete on average and the first 4 Phases of Karachi should take 11-12 dice. Combined with the worst case scenario in mind gives ~20 required dice of the 42 total so there are ~22 available infrastructure dice for the rest of the Plan.

Bearing in mind we want to finish Karachi Phase 5 which is ~12 dice. If we wanted to finish off the currently available Rail and YZ Fortress Towns to support Steel Vanguard. The former just had a Phase finish and the next (and last currently available as of last turn) Phase is sitting at 159/300 or ~2 dice. For YZ Fortress Towns we are almost done with the current Phase and we, as of last turn, have one additional Phase available, which we would likely want to complete to help secure our current inroads in NOD's territory, the combined Phases are sitting at 232/550 Progress or ~4 dice. Total for things we want not including Chicago is 18 dice, 4 dice remaining.

Chicago Phase 4 is 3/600 Progress or ~7 dice to complete. It is doable, but requires Free Dice Investment. Chicago Phase 5 would require 14 more dice invested.

This does not include using Tib Dice for the Planned Cities which is highly recommended. Especially since our main problem in Tib isn't the RpT but the Mitigation. We only need 145 RpT, 70 of that is going to come from the Lunar Mines (assuming we focus on Heavy Metal with 2 Rare), 10 is coming from things we completed this turn, an additional 15 from the SMARV will start in Q3, that just leaves an additional 50 RpT we need to get, 5 of which is in easy reach from Railgun Harvester Dandong. On the Mitigation front we need 11 more (currently 14 but 3 from the SMARV will start in Q3). On average it takes about 1 die for each mitigation and 5 RpT. Thanks to finishing Chicago we would not need the Tib Processing Plants for our Processing target. So we need ~11 dice to accomplish our mitigation and RpT goals. Of Note is one of these should be GZ Tib Intensification as it supports Steel Vanguard. We have a total of 49 Tib dice for the rest of the Plan, so we have 38 Tib dice to spend on Planned Cities if we so choose.

Summary:
Infrastructure: 42 dice Total
BZ Arcology Stage 4: 1/650, ~8 dice.
Steel Vanguard:
YZ Fortress Towns Phase 4-5: 232/550, ~4 dice.
Rail Network Phase 3: 159/300, ~2 dice.
Non Planned Cities Infrastructure Total: 14 dice, 28 dice remaining.

Tiberium: 49 dice Total
YZ Tib Harvesting Phase 7: 183/300, ~1 die, 5-10 RpT and 3 Mitigation
GZ Tib Intensification Stage 5: 63/100, ~1 die, 5-10 RpT and 1 Mitigation
Railgun Harvester x4: 45/280, ~4 dice, 20 RpT
Note: All of these support Steel Vanguard and would provide ~35 RpT and 4 Mitigation
Vein Mines Stage 2: 5/195, ~2 dice, 20-30 RpT and 1 Mitigation
Tib Processing Refit Phase 5: 6/100, ~1 die.
Non Planned Cities Tiberium Total: 9 dice, 40 dice remaining. (Provides ~60 RpT (Min 50 RpT) and 5 Mitigation)

Planned Cities:
Required:
Karachi Phase 1-4: 0/975, 12 dice
Non Required:
Karachi Phase 5: 0/1040, 12 dice
Chicago Phase 4-5: 1800, 20 dice
Planned Cities Total: 44 dice
Note: In order to meet the Mitigation and Processing Goal only Chicago Phase 4 is needed in this strategy.

In short, even with a full commitment to all of Steel Vanguard, completing our applicable Plan Goals, and finishing both Karachi and Chicago we would have approximately 24 dice in Tiberium and Infrastructure remaining in case of short falls or for additional Housing if needed.

 

[karloss99]

Speaking of Karachi...

I distinctly remember it being mentioned that it would result in a veritable flood of refugees coming our way.
Refugees that would need housing and food, and medicine, and employment, and education, and...

 

[Model DC.14F]

The "why doesn't GDI just blow up everything outside their border?" makes me headcanon that GDI using Ion Cannon for Disproportionate Responses is the Tiberium-verse equivalent of IRL's the USA Nukes/Drone Strikes Anything joke/meme.

*Cut to a random south YZ-10 Yellow Zoner whistling while manning a counter*
*Slow Zoom out revealing it's a gun shop, proceeding until the camera is outside the shop*
*The POV is revealing to be a GDI Commando using a scope*
"Command, we've got a possible source of arms for Militants"
"Roger that, verifying coordinate"
*Cut to Ion Cannon in orbit repositioning*
*There is a 30 sec long charging sequence, intercut with clips of the YZer doing shopkeeper things like wiping the counter, counting bills, etc*
*Cut Back to outside the shop, which has a Ion Beam come down and blow up the shop*
"Strike Sucessful, Mission Accomplished, bugging out!"
*Camera slowly pans over to the shop right next to the newly formed smoking crater name UNCLE KAIN'S SPOCKETS, then travels underground*
*Shows two Black Hand Troopers Standing Guard Next to a Scorpion Tank.*
"Did you hear something?" "....huh?" "Nevermind"

Wonder what a CnC Brand-X Expy of Rocket Jump or Corridor Digital would be named?

 

[VonVonson]

we will need to destroy all nod lands with nuclear bombardment to ensure they aren't a threat, also destroy all of our lands to make sure we get rid of all infiltrators as well

im am pro peace and definitely not 2 scrin in a trenchcoat

 

[Derpmind]

Nod is a threat, but it isn't the enemy.

Click to shrink...

If anything, much of our conflict with NOD is only because they get between GDI and more Tiberium mining.

Even if you've got 1.4 billion people on Earth, if 300 million of them support Nod and you have to kill them from orbit by blowing up Nod agriculture and cities and factories and mining operations and so on, 1.1 billion people and no organized Nod problem looks like an objectively better situation for the probability of human survival. Without having to divert huge amounts of our resources to defense we would be able to deal with the tiberium humanitarian problems we've got.

Click to shrink...

This is hilarious. You really think every single person who supports NOD is a genocidal maniac? That of the billion+ people living under NOD, every single one of them is a threat to the entirety of humanity? Pull the other one.

The "why doesn't GDI just blow up everything outside their border?" makes me headcanon that GDI using Ion Cannon for Disproportionate Responses is the Tiberium-verse equivalent of IRL's the USA Nukes/Drone Strikes Anything joke/meme.

*Cut to a random south YZ-10 Yellow Zoner whistling while manning a counter*
*Slow Zoom out revealing it's a gun shop, proceeding until the camera is outside the shop*
*The POV is revealing to be a GDI Commando using a scope*
"Command, we've got a possible source of arms for Militants"
"Roger that, verifying coordinate"
*Cut to Ion Cannon in orbit repositioning*
*There is a 30 sec long charging sequence, intercut with clips of the YZer doing shopkeeper things like wiping the counter, counting bills, etc*
*Cut Back to outside the shop, which has a Ion Beam come down and blow up the shop*
"Strike Sucessful, Mission Accomplished, bugging out!"
*Camera slowly pans over to the shop right next to the newly formed smoking crater name UNCLE KAIN'S SPOCKETS, then travels underground*
*Shows two Black Hand Troopers Standing Guard Next to a Scorpion Tank.*
"Did you hear something?" "....huh?" "Nevermind"

Wonder what a CnC Brand-X Expy of Rocket Jump or Corridor Digital would be named?

Click to shrink...

NOD standard instructional video: How Not To Be Seen.

 

[TaliesinSkye]

This is hilarious. You really think every single person who supports NOD is a genocidal maniac? That of the hundreds of millions of people living under NOD, every single one of them is a threat to the entirety of humanity? Pull the other one.

Click to shrink...

Spoiler: Lengthy Philosophical Response

No, of course not, but individual guilt and threat doesn't actually matter. We're not some god sitting in judgment of the deeds of each individual, meting out just rewards or punishments. We are the opposite side in a war and our responsibility is to our own population. We are obligated to win the war with minimal losses for our side. That is our duty, and our only concern.

In other words, a state of war does unusual things to the usual moral considerations that we hold dear in our everyday life. It forces us to set those considerations aside, or else betray the people we've been charged to protect by getting more of them killed than is necessary.

To be pithy, war is fundamentally immoral and unethical. It's organized slaughter. Don't expect anything else.

In the big strategic picture, those populations are doing things that enable Nod to continue being a threat. Maybe directly, like by working in factories producing Nod's war materiel. Maybe indirectly, making goods that Nod's population needs to live. They're a threat and they're not going to be persuaded to stop, so if they can be destroyed, they should be destroyed in order to preserve our own people. It would be nice if it were possible to spare the innocents, but you don't let a civilization continue to make war against you just because you don't want to cause collateral damage. Survival comes before moral considerations. You can only mourn the deaths of innocent children if you're alive to do it.

Hiroshima was a major military base, but also a city. Nagasaki was a center of military manufacturing, but also a city. They were destroyed to impair Imperial Japan's ability to make war knowing that children and shopkeepers and other people who were no direct threat would die. Those people had no input on whether Japan attacked the United States, but they died for the decisions made by their rulers and societies.

It wasn't just, but justice never entered into it. It's just war. War is awful and that's why we avoid it. But when you find yourself in a war? Don't sabotage your own side's survival by pretending war is anything other than what it is. A crime. A horror in which both sides are trying to kill the other as efficiently as possible. If you must embark on the project of war do so with your eyes open and a clear vision of what the actual goal of war is.

Wars end when the other side is unable or unwilling to continue. You might eventually win a war by sending enough of one side's soldiers home in bags, but if you can destroy the enemy's ability to make war in the first place then you win faster. Blow up their factories. Blow up the cities where the workers live. Blow up the fields where they grow food to feed their population. Kill, and keep killing until the enemy is unwilling or unable to continue.

That's not just war, but your duty. If you find yourself in charge of one side of a war, not only can you choose to pursue the most effective strategy possible, you are obligated by responsibility to the people you protect to do so. It is not your job to protect the people on the other side. They've made a collective choice that binds their fates, and there is nothing you can do about that. It is your job to protect your own people by killing the other side until they surrender or there's no one left to fight you.

Other people do see things differently. In most wars I wouldn't recommend the total war approach espoused above, in fact. Most wars are limited conflicts that aren't so much about survival as they are about resources or other matters. Destroying population centers and similar tactics would be counterproductive and risk creating new enemies.

But in a total war conflict to the death between two sides, as a general principle I don't believe you can afford to hold back over ethical concerns for the people on the other side. The necessities of the situation just are what they are, and the first duty is to the people on the side you're on.

 

[Sa'kage]

You also have to remember that Kane, is like, a thing.

As far as GDI is concerned if they decide to go nuclear hellfire and just blow up everything in red and yellow zone that looks remotely human, Kane might just go "Fuck it, gonna lose no matter what at this rate"

And just, start throwing out tacius-enhanced CABAL, let every warlord get schematics for cataclys missiles instead of just Black hand, and whatever other unholy weapons he has in his shiny bald head

 

[Phrux]

The problem with killing civilians to kill terrorist organizations is that it always, ALWAYS, results in a net gain of terrorists.

 

[TaliesinSkye]

How does Kane come back from the dead, anyway? Is that ever addressed in the lore?

 

[BOTcommander]

How does Kane come back from the dead, anyway? Is that ever addressed in the lore?

Click to shrink...

Only theories: The most likely I have seen so far is that he can transfer his consciousness to clone bodies while also having a Marvel superhero level regeneration factor.

 

[RCNAnon]

Kane is Kane, a semi-mystical probably space alien who might also be Cain of Cain and Able fame. So no.

 

[Strunkriidiisk]

The latest update felt like an advertisement for Steel Talons. While other elements of GDI's military such as the navy, the air force and the OSRCT were obviously also depicted, the ground forces in general weren't even given much details in comparison to the Steel Talons.

In Krukov's battle:



In Gideon's battle:




Nothing were described about them in Stahl's battle, so I assume they weren't even there or something.

Overall though it's been noted that any time the ground units did anything it's the Steel Talon's actions that were given coverage and details, while generalizing whenever the other regular ground units of GDI did anything. Not much of what the venerable but still reliable units such as the Predator tanks, the Pitpulls, the APCs, and of course the iconic Mammoth tanks did was described with any significant detail.

Maybe this was done in response to the reaction from the player at latest failures of Steel Talons, but it makes a bitter taste when the overall least funded and confident faction of the military is given the spotlight in the majority of the ground battles, while the most funded and most confident faction, were barely even given much details other than perhaps at how they failed at chasing down Stahl.

I thought that with all the investments gone into them technologically and materialistically that there would be at least some mention of how well the ground forces were prepared for this, especially with the War Factories Refits that supposedly increased the supply of just about all production of war materiel. Yet all the attention went to the recently funded Steel talons instead. That led up to the impression that the GDI ground forces in general are now just background supporting actors, with no need to specifically note any strength or success they may or may not have in battles across the world, at least not when the Steel Talons could be given that attention instead.

Is that the reality of this quest's GDI ground forces? That they're just indistinguishable abstract background numbers compared to the Heroic Steel Talons in the spotlight? It's simply that jarring to me when in actual practical gameplay I basically never used their specialty units when I could be making other more cost efficient and effective units such as the Mammoth tanks instead.

To be clear, I am less complaining about the Steel Talons getting attention and more complaining about the rest of the ground forces not being given nearly the same amount of it, because so much of the military investment was allocated to funding the ground forces in general compared to specifically the Steel Talons. After all anyone would like seeing the new toys being shiny, but it's sad when it's seemingly at the cost of seeing the older reliable units being pushed into obscurity. Where's the equality? Are the Steel Talons simply the favored faction for the QM that they'd rather write about? If so, that's that I suppose.

Click to shrink...

 

[karloss99]

As an another point for the 'Why doesn't GDI just Ion Cannon all of Nod's stuff'...

We kinda do.
During the Mecca negotiations the fact that GDI had ICd a number of Hajj caravans came up, and we basically ended up giving the... caravaneaseri... w/e bunch of 'we are a peaceful caravan of pilgrims' beacons, so their Nod vehicle caravans wouldn't get ICd.

Because every time we got the chance to fire an Ion Cannon on what looks like a Nod military convoy, we take the shot.
But there's only so many Ion Cannons in orbit and Nod has stealth tech up the wazzo even when Tiberium isn't actively wrecking the sensors.

 

[ThoughtMaster]

Right now,I have two questions: one, what sorts of technical goodies do you think we will get from the intact Bogatyr, and two, what are we going to name the one we captured into our service?

 

[aceraptor]

People going on about the attempt to destroy Chicago and how that was a red line that means we should respond in kind:

You guys do realize that Chicago is a Planned City that is not in anyway a major settlement. Its more or less a fortress town writ large with a massive refinery complex built into it.

Its population is probably a few tens of thousands at most, and most of them military garrison and technical staff keeping the abatement and refining of Tiberium going.

 

[Khop]

I mean we do strike industrial targets I'm not sure what all the bother is over. It was the very first thing we did with our new bombers and NOD's ability to hide all it's important industry is just a fact of the setting it's not really a helpful thing to argue against.

 

[agumentic]

Spoiler: Lengthy Philosophical Response

No, of course not, but individual guilt and threat doesn't actually matter. We're not some god sitting in judgment of the deeds of each individual, meting out just rewards or punishments. We are the opposite side in a war and our responsibility is to our own population. We are obligated to win the war with minimal losses for our side. That is our duty, and our only concern.

In other words, a state of war does unusual things to the usual moral considerations that we hold dear in our everyday life. It forces us to set those considerations aside, or else betray the people we've been charged to protect by getting more of them killed than is necessary.

To be pithy, war is fundamentally immoral and unethical. It's organized slaughter. Don't expect anything else.

In the big strategic picture, those populations are doing things that enable Nod to continue being a threat. Maybe directly, like by working in factories producing Nod's war materiel. Maybe indirectly, making goods that Nod's population needs to live. They're a threat and they're not going to be persuaded to stop, so if they can be destroyed, they should be destroyed in order to preserve our own people. It would be nice if it were possible to spare the innocents, but you don't let a civilization continue to make war against you just because you don't want to cause collateral damage. Survival comes before moral considerations. You can only mourn the deaths of innocent children if you're alive to do it.

Hiroshima was a major military base, but also a city. Nagasaki was a center of military manufacturing, but also a city. They were destroyed to impair Imperial Japan's ability to make war knowing that children and shopkeepers and other people who were no direct threat would die. Those people had no input on whether Japan attacked the United States, but they died for the decisions made by their rulers and societies.

It wasn't just, but justice never entered into it. It's just war. War is awful and that's why we avoid it. But when you find yourself in a war? Don't sabotage your own side's survival by pretending war is anything other than what it is. A crime. A horror in which both sides are trying to kill the other as efficiently as possible. If you must embark on the project of war do so with your eyes open and a clear vision of what the actual goal of war is.

Wars end when the other side is unable or unwilling to continue. You might eventually win a war by sending enough of one side's soldiers home in bags, but if you can destroy the enemy's ability to make war in the first place then you win faster. Blow up their factories. Blow up the cities where the workers live. Blow up the fields where they grow food to feed their population. Kill, and keep killing until the enemy is unwilling or unable to continue.

That's not just war, but your duty. If you find yourself in charge of one side of a war, not only can you choose to pursue the most effective strategy possible, you are obligated by responsibility to the people you protect to do so. It is not your job to protect the people on the other side. They've made a collective choice that binds their fates, and there is nothing you can do about that. It is your job to protect your own people by killing the other side until they surrender or there's no one left to fight you.

Other people do see things differently. In most wars I wouldn't recommend the total war approach espoused above, in fact. Most wars are limited conflicts that aren't so much about survival as they are about resources or other matters. Destroying population centers and similar tactics would be counterproductive and risk creating new enemies.

But in a total war conflict to the death between two sides, as a general principle I don't believe you can afford to hold back over ethical concerns for the people on the other side. The necessities of the situation just are what they are, and the first duty is to the people on the side you're on.

Click to shrink...

I already mentioned that total bombardment is not a good idea for practical reasons, but leaving them aside, I, personally, think that from a philosophical point of view two-thirds of the population of Earth that happen to live in Yellow Zones are as much "our side" for the movement named Global Defence Initiative as the third in Blue/Green Zones, and that we should act in a way that causes minimal losses for them as well. Acting as if everyone there made a choice to be a part of Nod's war machine and thus need to be obliterated in the name of the greater good is so Hard Men Making Hard Decisions that it is almost a parody.

 

[Lightwhispers]

The latest update felt like an advertisement for Steel Talons. While other elements of GDI's military such as the navy, the air force and the OSRCT were obviously also depicted, the ground forces in general weren't even given much details in comparison to the Steel Talons.

In Krukov's battle:



In Gideon's battle:




Nothing were described about them in Stahl's battle, so I assume they weren't even there or something.

Overall though it's been noted that any time the ground units did anything it's the Steel Talon's actions that were given coverage and details, while generalizing whenever the other regular ground units of GDI did anything. Not much of what the venerable but still reliable units such as the Predator tanks, the Pitpulls, the APCs, and of course the iconic Mammoth tanks did was described with any significant detail.

Maybe this was done in response to the reaction from the player at latest failures of Steel Talons, but it makes a bitter taste when the overall least funded and confident faction of the military is given the spotlight in the majority of the ground battles, while the most funded and most confident faction, were barely even given much details other than perhaps at how they failed at chasing down Stahl.

I thought that with all the investments gone into them technologically and materialistically that there would be at least some mention of how well the ground forces were prepared for this, especially with the War Factories Refits that supposedly increased the supply of just about all production of war materiel. Yet all the attention went to the recently funded Steel talons instead. That led up to the impression that the GDI ground forces in general are now just background supporting actors, with no need to specifically note any strength or success they may or may not have in battles across the world, at least not when the Steel Talons could be given that attention instead.

Is that the reality of this quest's GDI ground forces? That they're just indistinguishable abstract background numbers compared to the Heroic Steel Talons in the spotlight? It's simply that jarring to me when in actual practical gameplay I basically never used their specialty units when I could be making other more cost efficient and effective units such as the Mammoth tanks instead.

To be clear, I am less complaining about the Steel Talons getting attention and more complaining about the rest of the ground forces not being given nearly the same amount of it, because so much of the military investment was allocated to funding the ground forces in general compared to specifically the Steel Talons. After all anyone would like seeing the new toys being shiny, but it's sad when it's seemingly at the cost of seeing the older reliable units being pushed into obscurity. Where's the equality? Are the Steel Talons simply the favored faction for the QM that they'd rather write about? If so, that's that I suppose.

Click to shrink...

Let's see. This update, we saw Murmansk, where the Home Guard did their best, but were not prepared to face an invasion in force. Otherwise, the Ground Foces were not there, since they were actually attacking into NOD territory.
Chicago and Great Lakes Region: we saw one push by the Steel Talons, which focused on showing how effective the technology we hadn't seen before on-screen, and had described a Ground Forces reaction to an attack in which they nearly managed to cut off and eliminate a NOD armored infantry brigade.
Stahl: no Steel Talons shown.

The Steel Talons get a bit more spotlight than might otherwise be warranted because their combat arm is specialized for high-intensity combat... which is exactly the type that gets words dedicated to it.

Right now,I have two questions: one, what sorts of technical goodies do you think we will get from the intact Bogatyr, and two, what are we going to name the one we captured into our service?

Click to shrink...

The technologies I think are most likely to be able to get from it are the drive and power systems. We may get a little boost to lasers, but we already have NOD's modern laser tech, and IIRC their missiles are nothing special.

 

[Crazycryodude]

The point's been beaten to death already but there's very good reasons we don't just indiscriminately nuke everything factory-shaped in a Yellow Zone. 1) Anything really good is hidden so we can't nuke it, 2) whatever we're allowed to see is going to be at minimum dual use if not purely civilian, and blowing up the local water filter or enviro suit factory isn't a valid military target even if it's providing water and suits to NOD militants because in a Yellow Zone it's literally impossible for anybody to survive without significant industrial infrastructure. Blowing up the water filter and enviro suit factories is an assured death sentence for every single person in the region, civilians first because the dudes with guns will keep taking what they need even after production is cut off. Committing intentional mass murder of every single man, woman, and child in a Yellow Zone with the full foreknowledge that you're doing it is a step above a strategic bombing campaign and into "genocide" territory. Especially when the party line is that there's no such thing as a NOD civilian, only a GDI civilian under illegal occupation by illegitimate insurgents.

And beyond that, most importantly, 3) NOD is a near-peer power and going strategic on them results in them going strategic right back on us. Even if we somehow managed to pull off an insane militarist coup or whatever and short-circuit the checks of Parliament and the rest of the sane bureaucracy, using strategic weapons to "sanitize" the Yellow Zones results in NOD "sanitizing" the Blue Zones right back with nukes and liquid Tib bombs and hyper-smallpox-ebol-AIDS and God knows what else.

 

[mayboro]

People going on about the attempt to destroy Chicago and how that was a red line that means we should respond in kind:

You guys do realize that Chicago is a Planned City that is not in anyway a major settlement. Its more or less a fortress town writ large with a massive refinery complex built into it.

Its population is probably a few tens of thousands at most, and most of them military garrison and technical staff keeping the abatement and refining of Tiberium going.

Click to shrink...

Most OTL nations reserve the right to respond to an attack with weapons of mass destruction with their own.
The Nod warlord Gideon has attempted to use weapons of mass destruction against the newly built city of Chicago.
The dual use situation of this city makes the exact classification difficult, but no matter how you slice it, we are absolutely within our rights to retaliate against Gideon with our own weapons of mass destruction.
Whether we leave it at attacks against military targets or whether we also attack targets whose status is as unclear as Chicago is up to us.
However, the escalation by Nod should not go unanswered.
We must teach Gideon a lesson that this kind of warfare will not be tolerated by us and that we demand a high price from all warlords who want to pursue a similar escalation.

 

[Taliys]

Most OTL nations reserve the right to respond to an attack with weapons of mass destruction with their own.
The Nod warlord Gideon has attempted to use weapons of mass destruction against the newly built city of Chicago.
The dual use situation of this city makes the exact classification difficult, but no matter how you slice it, we are absolutely within our rights to retaliate against Gideon with our own weapons of mass destruction.
Whether we leave it at attacks against military targets or whether we also attack targets whose status is as unclear as Chicago is up to us.
However, the escalation by Nod should not go unanswered.
We must teach Gideon a lesson that this kind of warfare will not be tolerated by us and that we demand a high price from all warlords who want to pursue a similar escalation.

Click to shrink...

It's so funny to hear something like that from a German. Let me guess, sometimes your hands reach out to greet the sun, buddy? Or even Rome?

 

[karloss99]

To give the most cold logic and brutal pragmatism I can muster right now?

None of those people in the Yellow Zones want to be in the Yellow Zones. And they will happily do whatever they have to to get into the nice and safe Blue Zones where they won't die just from breathing in the air.

We can give them the bread and circuses treatment and they will happily cross that thin green line and work in the factories for us, building more guns and tanks to blow up noddies with, and more harvesters and refineries to clear up Tiberium with.

Or we can give them indiscriminate Ion Cannon strikes. And they will still cross that little green line, only this time with a gun in their hands and a shout of 'For Kane!' on their lips.


I very much prefer the first option.

 

[Ehbon]

I mean wow, I really did not expect to come back to this thread and have things be this heated. I think this, more than just about anything, could use a topic change… yeah?

Does anyone happen to know how the Tib Inhibitors work? Is it via some bizarre Scrin magic that we're capable of replicating but don't quite understand or is it a relatively well-studied principle that we could maybe duplicate as a process without the usage of Scrin schematics?

I only ask because it sounds like inhibiting the function of Tib would be incredibly useful for medical purposes, weaponry, and even environmental suits and the like.

 

[Lightwhispers]

I mean wow, I really did not expect to come back to this thread and have things be this heated. I think this, more than just about anything, could use a topic change… yeah?

Does anyone happen to know how the Tib Inhibitors work? Is it via some bizarre Scrin magic that we're capable of replicating but don't quite understand or is it a relatively well-studied principle that we could maybe duplicate as a process without the usage of Scrin schematics?

I only ask because it sounds like inhibiting the function of Tib would be incredibly useful for medical purposes, weaponry, and even environmental suits and the like.

Click to shrink...

The most we know is that they basically are the Scrin growth accelerators run backwards. The mechanism behind how they work is being studied, but we don't know what it is, yet.