Night_stalker
Slava Ukraini!
- Pronouns
- He/Him
[X] Civilian casualties are already worse than you'd feared
Petals of Titanium -- My Life as a Mecha Setting Bridge Bunny Quest
- Thread starter Gazetteer
- Start date
- Original Sci-Fi Users' Choice!
Voted best in category in the Users' Choice awards.
- Location
- USA
Okay. I'll give you a more logical argument.
Less civilians means less workers in the factories and less farmers in the field. Less workers in the factories means less production to replace the ships lost in this battle. Less farmers means less soldiers and sailors to replace the hands that all go down with their ships. In other words, the ability of our faction to project power and defend our holdings or retake the Empress's birthright would be severely hampered by the loss of its foundation.
On that note, consider that the enemy isn't likely using biological or chemical weapons on civilian targets. More bluntly, there is no indication that they are conscious of the infrastructural damage that they are dealing. Mining bases, habitation domes, factories, etc. Not only will the aforementioned worker and farmer be killed, but their tools and workplaces will be damaged or destroyed as well.
This is also disregarding the optics. By definition, the Empress rules her holdings with as much of an iron fist as the Divine Fop on Earth, being an absolute monarch and all. The justifications behind this method of ruling differ between the two, but there is an implicit promise that both share with their constituents. "Bend to my will or be destroyed. Do my bidding and you and your family will be fed and protected." When one bends to the monarch's will and does their bidding but continues to be slaughtered by invading armies or suffering from famine, the promise rings hollow and one wonders why they submit to the will of a tyrant so weak.
Tl;dr, bleed now or bleed later. Soldiers and ships are more replaceable. Civilian populations, infrastructure, and loyalty is not.
MacroDaemon
Lachrymose Lapis
[X] Civilian casualties are already worse than you'd feared
- Location
- Nova Scotia
- Pronouns
- She/Her
What's kind of interesting to me is that you as a voter base have gone through all the previous votes prioritising civilian safety and putting your own ship/pilots/fleet on the line to protect them and people like Daystar. Pretty dramatic last minute shift.
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- Location
- Third planet from the star named Sol
- Pronouns
- He/They
Well, we just recently got punished for not distributing the fallout, twice even since we're critically low on mecha, and have sacrificed them several times.
For me, it is responding to a pattern. We've lost a fair number of forces already, and the enemy has gotten a boost several times.
10ebbor10
DON'T PANIC
- Location
- Present
The big difference I think is that you always gave us the votes to kill civilians after the battle was won. People are a lot more willing to sacrifice military advantage if they think they won't immediatly need it.
In the current situation, the option to preserve civilians is diminished because the "preserve civilians" option holds within it the threat of a total loss, which means losing all the civilians.
- Location
- madison
this is the fight. we lose, or even take heavy enough losses that we're crippled here, and the war is lost. either here in round two. So right now, millitary advantage is key.
Omegahugger
Inattentive Idiot
The morale loss of civilian casualties is not to be ignored either though.
Especially not if, as you believe, we'll get a round two within an appreciable amount of time.
- Location
- madison
the main thing I'm hoping is we have enough fleet left after this that we can counter-attack. Though, now that a bigger fleet would mean less reserves...
[X] The enemy fleet is larger than expected
its likely easier to deal with them here than somewhere else. So let's see if we can punish them for committing heavily.
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- Location
- Derna
well, I got a bit sad and took a break after everyone voted to let a pilot die and pikachu face'd at it being Ito, the guy who'd just been torn to shreds in battle, but I'm finally caught up. maybe this quest has gotten less tragic while I was gone?
ow. ow. ow.
okay, now that that's out of the way.
[X] The enemy fleet is larger than expected
I get all the arguments for military necessity people are making, but I just can't in good conscience vote to risk the families of everyone involved except Amani. Even if it means probably killing one of the pilots, who are all great. Fuck everything about this choice.
[PLEASE :C] Resolve the problem with a weird workaround, you're good enough
ow. ow. ow.
okay, now that that's out of the way.
[X] The enemy fleet is larger than expected
I get all the arguments for military necessity people are making, but I just can't in good conscience vote to risk the families of everyone involved except Amani. Even if it means probably killing one of the pilots, who are all great. Fuck everything about this choice.
[PLEASE :C] Resolve the problem with a weird workaround, you're good enough
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Omegahugger
Inattentive Idiot
We won't. In fact, I am pretty sure we already don't have enough fleet left for an appreciable attack, and that's ignoring that our supply-lines would be really unprepared for such an undertaking right now (and we'd need to do it right now, while the planets are aligned).
And I think the morale issues would be even worse if we immediately sent our soldiers out again, at least give them some time to grieve or spend time with their loved ones.
- Location
- madison
Point. I've changed my vote to a larger fleet because a deeper commitment contains an opportunity as well as just a cost.
though be aware, when it comes time to pick what we lose? I'm going to be arguing for focusing on the strategic picture even though it will 100% mean losing someone.
I really don't like it to contextualize it as us choosing to "sacrifice" civilians, as if we were battlefield commanders making an in-character choice to bomb inhabited areas or something. It's "choosing which way the story goes".
The enemy has also shown a propensity for suicidal charges, as the attack we just beat off demonstrated.
With the fleet besieging Titan under explicit orders to kill as many as they can, I worry that even if we win some captains may choose to take as many as they can down with them rather than surrender or retreat home in disgrace. Worst case, they could turn their ships into kinetic impactors.
The larger the enemy fleet, the more chance of greater casualties to come.
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- Location
- Nova Scotia
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Reminder: the Divine Navy is technically trying to destroy Saturn's infrastructure, more than the primary objective is to kill everyone.
Right, good point. Though razing all infrastructure has somewhat different implications for a space-borne population than for people on a habitable planet.
The conversation between Amani and Mazlo left the impression that characters in-universe are worried as well about the casualty figures if the Divine Navy wins and burns Titan to the ground:
If the battle turns against the enemy fleet and the remaining ships make a last desperate attack on Saturn's "most industrialised and densely populated moon", it will make strategic bombing of cities look like precision targeting.
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- Location
- California
I honestly think people are getting desensitized to the vote too. Instead of genuinely caring about the civilians, all the pyrrhic victories we've had has lead people to only think of the hard numbers. I mean, it's going to suck ass no matter which vote wins, so why be emotionally invested anymore?
- Location
- madison
@Gazetteer
what was the reason for the other prong of this attack? to my understanding, it was kinda pointless? if they win here we lose anyways, and it was only through extraordinary effort that the ships there where even rallied, so its not like there was a major danger of those ships moving out to help titan. If they'd just bypassed that position and gone all in on titan wouldn't they be in a better position to overwhelm that critical linchpin? Its just been bugging me because it makes no sense, especially because it hinged on a covert ops success to do anything, and those are not reliable. wouldn't those ships have been better used helping against the primary objective?
what was the reason for the other prong of this attack? to my understanding, it was kinda pointless? if they win here we lose anyways, and it was only through extraordinary effort that the ships there where even rallied, so its not like there was a major danger of those ships moving out to help titan. If they'd just bypassed that position and gone all in on titan wouldn't they be in a better position to overwhelm that critical linchpin? Its just been bugging me because it makes no sense, especially because it hinged on a covert ops success to do anything, and those are not reliable. wouldn't those ships have been better used helping against the primary objective?
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- Location
- Nova Scotia
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Anchiale is a major shipyard capable of creating large warships, and it makes Iapetus headquarters of the Outer Fleet. They wanted to destroy both targets at once so that the Outer and Inner Fleets couldn't support one another. Remember that the Divine Navy's supply lines are far from secure and they can expect basically no support from beyond Saturn in any kind of a timely manner. A protacted campaign is completely against their best interests -- if this was going to work, it needed to hit Saturn as hard and as fast as possible.
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- Location
- madison
right, but I got the impression that if we lsot titan we lose the ability to maintain a population. That would pretty well kill any attempts at ship building wouldn't it? which would mission kill a shipyard about as well as blowing it up. was it just a case of them not realizing that titan going down would shut down the shipyard?
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- Location
- Derna
Yeah, there's definitely a pattern of desensitization. I mean, just look at the in-thread treatment of Mosi. It's fringe, sure, but there were a few voters calling her 'the cockroach' and showing little or no sympathy. Or look at Kim, who - to be fair - was a very minor character in a segment we didn't directly control. Who died in a brutal if quick manner that barely anyone noticed. It's in the nature of the setting, really. Every battle has hundreds or thousands of people dying brutally in the vacuum or being shredded into fleshy micrometeorites for…what?
It's not a choice. Things just happen. People do their jobs, and they either die or they don't. Even the descriptions of mecha flights are like this, you might've noticed. The pilots get a spike through the cockpit, or get grabbed by the arm and shredded from head to toe with rounds, and then they're dead. They aren't killed, in the way we're used to heroes and villains dying. One second they're there, and the next they still are. But flesh tears and blood stops pumping. And it's gruesome, unthinkable, and then it's on to the next.
Nobody in this quest has agency. Not the pilots, or the crewmen sitting at their consoles when the hull breaks, or the civilians who don't even realize they're a target. Not even the named characters. We don't see them making choices, we see them doing things that they feel they have to. Because they're right, or because they're important, or for whatever. Mosi is the one beautiful, heart-rending exception who never had a chance to be anything but what she was and managed to change.
Not even our precious scans tech is in control. She'll do her job the best she can, and she'll live or die.
I dunno, I'm rambling incomprehensibly and definitely wrong about lots of things. This quest is hard.
edit: obviously I used a lot of absolutes in this post for things that aren't anywhere close to absolutes, but I dunno.
Edit 2: and if I sound a bit too down, I don't mean to. This quest is awesome and heartwarming it's just also going to kill me.
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- Location
- Nova Scotia
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Iapetus's system of habitats is intended to be self sufficient, just not for the level of population that Titan's can provide for.