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Gate - Thus First Recon Fought There!

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RedrumSprinkles said:
For what it's worth,
the Empire was built by a group of Romans around 445CE after Rome fell, and they tried to model their society after the glory of what was lost (and probably made a lot of adjustments based off of what they found).

Any changes made in armor/fashion since then is based purely on the illustrator's (dubious) whims.
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... wait
that should mean that at least some of them were christian when they lost contact with Earth.

... the religious right is going to go *even more* nuts.

Edit:
It's like Gate: Thus the Guards 1st Tank Army fought there, where the Gate opens on Red Square and it turns out theres an oppressed Russian minority on the other side...
 
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Oh god,

Christians ancestors reverting to what could be called "pagan gods" is, if ever sufficiently proven to people at large, going to set the religious right ABLAZE.

Even that is only an iceberg compared to what this also means.

If any remnant of pre-collapse christendom survives in hiding, they would be the last remnants of the *first unified Christian Chuch*! The beginning, the source of where Catholism and Orthodoxy changed and split out of!
 
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Somebodynobody10 said:
Oh god, Christians ancestors reverting to what could be called "pagan gods" is, if ever sufficiently proven to people at large, going to set the religious right ABLAZE. If any remnant of pre-collapse christendom survives in hiding, they would be the last remnants of the *first unified Christian Chuch*! The beginning, the source of where Catholism and Orthodoxy changed and split out of!
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Or they, too, could have gone off in a different direction. I doubt the existance of other gods would have galvanized them.
 
PurgeTheXeno said:
I think some right wing politicians may make a big fuss over it, and the rest of the Right would go, 'huh', and get on with their business.
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Yeah, this sounds about right. Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld might try and push it depending on how much they want to pander to the religious right, but I think most mainstream politicians would move on.
 
GhostStalker said:
Yeah, this sounds about right. Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld might try and push it depending on how much they want to pander to the religious right, but I think most mainstream politicians would move on.
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I wouldn't be too sure. You see a lot of politicians today talking about God-this and God-that. It seems more unusual to me that they wouldn't either attempt to erase evidence of it to cover for their worldviews or take advantage of it to put themselves in better positions.
 
Ars Poetica said:
I wouldn't be too sure. You see a lot of politicians today talking about God-this and God-that. It seems more unusual to me that they wouldn't either attempt to erase evidence of it to cover for their worldviews or take advantage of it to put themselves in better positions.
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Maybe. But that's with the Tea Party and all that seeming to lead to a resurgence in the religious right as a political force. Sure, it was there during the Dubya years, but it was always kinda in the background.

Again, someone in the administration might try and make some political hay about it (if the author chooses to take the story in that direction, since this thread seems to have given him the unexpected idea), and some on the religious right and their captive politicians might jump on the bandwagon if they think it might play well to their constituents or if they truly believe such a thing is so bad, but religious pluralism has been a thing in our culture for a long time now, and I don't see the mainstream public taking the bait or those politicians outvoting ones that might not really care.

This is all presupposing that @dryskim chooses to run with that idea in his story here. He might just gloss over it like the original writer of Gate did, going off of his response above, he doesn't seem to have thought of it. Wonder if some nod to it will be included here because of this discussion now...

Anyway, it seems like with the proof of existence of actual Gods and their apostles in the Gate-verse and the absence of a presence of the Judaeo-Christian one over there, most if not all of the psuedo-Romans in the Empire have adopted worship of them, since they all seem to have middle names denoting their patron gods and all that... With the course of time that the Empire has thrived in Gate-land, it seems like the religious things would've changed a lot if there were Christians included in the original Romans who crossed over and were stranded there, especially with the aforementioned Gods physically running around in the world. No evidence of Christians at all in the original material, probably because the author didn't think it relevant.
 
@GhostStalker

Keep in mind, this is 2003 and the 2004 election is coming up. It's entirely possible (though realistically unlikely) that Bush might not actually be around to deal with the Gate forces after a certain point, depending on how the author takes it. Such are the joys of historical fiction and fanfiction, I suppose. Haha... Honestly, I'd rather @dryskim just dryly skim over the politics, primarily because of just how polarizing they can be. I'd rather not have everyone breaking out into a Conservative vs Liberal discussion in what should be a debate of modern military force vs pseudo Romans. I came for the latter, not the former! :)

Yet even saying that, I'm torn. I really want to see people react to the idea of genuine extradimensional pagan gods being a thing. The two-way culture shock is tantalizing to me... so many things I want from this, yet I must know that to ask for all of them at once would only divide the author's attention too many different ways... such a dilemma...
 
dryskim said:
@Rear Mirrors

You're not being rude at all, so no need to apologize for anything.


I'm basically going off this image when I say they're 'Romans'. They're obviously not Romans, but none of the combatants present know that. As for the very logical issue of how a technological inferior keeps other nations bent over their knee...that's really more of a question for the original creator.

I'm not really a guy to ask about the pros and cons of various ancient battle implements, and I don't think full plate would help the Empire tank bullets even if they had it.
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Taken from the gate wiki:

The Imperial Army is similar in appearance and structure of the real-world Roman Army, being made up primarily of formations of infantry armed with spears, swords, and large rectangular shields. Also present in the military are cavalry, archers, siege engines such a battering rams, ballistae, and trebuchets, and dragon riders. Auxiliary forces are provided by both human and goblin vassal states of the Empire. While the Empire is very Roman-like, their technology level is actually more late-medieval. For instance the Imperial cavalry, who are typically similar in appearance to medieval knights, clad in plate armor and armed with swords and lances. Other medieval weaponry used by the Empire include crossbows, halberds, and trebuchets.

Much like the Roman army, the largest division of troops is referred to as a legion. Other divisions of the army are not known, and it is not clear how the size of an Imperial legion compares to that of a Roman legion (5000-10000 troops depending on auxillaries). It is also not clear whether auxiliaries and orders of knights are integrated into the legions or exist separately.

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So the Cavalry(aka nobles) seems to be medieval in tech level while for the infantry(Grunts) it seems they are still using Roman Era equipment
 
Well, I think the empire basically gets the best of both worlds.

In the middle ages, the knights were heavily armed, heavily armored, highly trained killing machines while the common soldier had maybe a pike, maybe a buckler, and a chain shirt, and that was the well off ones.

Antiquity's Roman Empire didn't have such highly trained, heavily armed and armored knights, but their common infantry were a head and shoulders above the levy peasants of the middle ages, all highly disciplined professionals, armed with the same gear, a large shield with a big heavy boss, two javelins to break an enemy's charge, scale armor or even some plates, a good solid helmet, wickedly sharp and effective thrusting swords.

The empire's nobility get the full amazing kit from middle age technology, but the common rank and file still have that same amazing gear worn by the legionaries.
 
PurgeTheXeno said:
Roman infantry square vs Swiss pikeman?
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I mean the Swiss did charge through cannon and musket fire so they're pretty damn hardcore. :p

More seriously, the Swiss pikes, discipline, and tactics would make it unlikely that the Romans could win if the to sides closed to close combat. Skirmishing is likely to be inconclusive as the Swiss did not have that much cannon, firearms, or crossbows. Pilum throwing runs into the problem of limited ammo, penetrating armor, and short range.

I believe @100thlurker and @EricD could fill in on this better than I can.
 
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