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Noblesse Oblige [Znt/SI]

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I just wonder about how isabella and the general population will respond to that. Hero welcome? Roman style triumph parade?

And Momma Karin must be really proud right now.

(And I'm guessing that the nobles that wanted Henry to marry Henrietta must be salty as hell.)
 
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Gunman said:
Wait. So are you saying the Elvish population was around 60,000 (not counting those too young/old or infirm to fight)? If so, this just crippled the Elves and put them in a much worse position to negotiate.

Either way they now have like 32,000 soldiers, versus at least 25,000 Gallians. Not counting at least 50,000 more Halkeginians. If they're modernized or at least put under Henrys' command, the next fight could be about 3:1.
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Its actually even more desperate than that. If you consider that the maximum armed forces that could be raised and sustained in the late medieval ages were around 5% of the population (levies + core professional troops), assuming a total population of humans at 30 million, then that's around 1.5 million men. Of course in practice fielding and supplying an army of that size is well... impossible outside of home ground and in a desert, thats even worse.

Even so, an army of one to two hundred thousand is probably feasible, especially if they are supplied by air which medieval armies could not do so. Furthermore, consider that only the professional Gallian army fought and as such, they still have reserves to draw upon, and if they take a year to prepare, well, the elves are really screwed.

Notes 6-7% or 1 out of 15 man are the figures often cited as the theoretical maximum before starvation will occur. Also the following link is a nice resource: The Numberless Hordes: Keeping Your Fantasy Armies a Little Less Fantastic
 
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So let me get this straight. Based on the numbers, the Elves are, I'm sorry I meant were able to field an army of around sixty thousand. They sent half to attack and lost almost ninety two percent of the force. So they are left with thirty two thousand.

This is the entire able bodied population, as every elf serves in the military. It takes over forty years to have a new child, and the elven culture would probably not encourage them to have children all of the time. We do not know when elves are considered mature or if they age just as slowly. So an elf might be a child for forty or fifty years.

I think they have a total population between three to six hundred thousand. So they lost either five or ten percent of their total population. They also lost half of their available army which is also their total trained manpower.

Yeah, the elves will be reeling from this. I do not expect panic until Henry presses into elven territory. If Henry wanted to negotiate from strength, he should press into their territory. This is not a serious attack, but the mere act of it will force the elves to scramble. This will cause disruptions across the entirety of their society. This will cause panic as the elven people realize that for the first time in their history they have a serious chance of being destroyed.

Nothing brings leaders to the table more than their people clammering for them to attend. the elves have always viewed themselves as superior, the fact that humans can destroy them if they wanted will pierce right to the heart of their society.
 
SKsniper128 said:
Oxygen deprivation doesn't have to be lethal.
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It looked more like vacuum.
Having your blood boil and your lungs rupture tends to be lethal quite fast

Evillevi said:
Not to pop your bubble but this is a minor plot hole :V

Namely that if you can reverse direction of any given thing, you can stop something leaking from going out.

:V:V:V

Granted it's a plot hole whose existance lends a lot to the reading experience so carry on
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Maybe not. A spirit of air can probably manipulate the medium because it *is* the medium. Manipulating vacuum could require a spirit of suck or something.


The_Butcher said:
I saw it, it was seconds.
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Shade is secretly a female canadian recluse, but dont't spread it around.
(S)he's also all the mods.
 
SKsniper128 said:
Are you kidding?

Even at 50% casualties, this was a major victory on Henry and Gallia's part. It was stated that Gallia outnumbered the elves 2:1, and then suffered 50% losses to the elves 28K, Henry achieved an unheard of 1:1 exchange against the elves without the use of bullshit void magic or literal nukes. Recruitment will likely go through the roof as people who will have inevitability lost friends and family, or are seeking glory under a commander that could bring miraculous victories sign up for the army.

Henry has been gearing Gallia for war for most of this story (years), replacing lost equipment like uniforms, weapons, ammunition is going to be trivial. Replacing ships is a more daunting task, but possible under wartime production with the looming threat of elves.

And with a population base of millions of people, replenishing the manpower lost is only a question of training time, a few months if he wants to be thorough, a few weeks if rushed.

-SK
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Thus the real secret is made known. It's not about making a huge army, it's about being able to out-reinforce everyone else. Henry didn't just revolutionize war, he revolutionized logistics, the clever bastard. He doesn't even need to attack the elves now. In a year he can have his army reinforced to three times it's pre-attack size and just steamroll them. Hell, if he was really clever he'd let the other armies of Halkegania exhaust themselves against the elves while citing his buildup and then come in and sweep up. It's what I'd do, anyway.

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Sokol-1 said:
Bows don't 'open fire', they 'loose'.
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I beg to differ.

To be fair I don't think this is what was happening but the image man. The image. *single teardrop falls from my eye*
 
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Ehn said:
Shade is secretly a female canadian recluse, but dont't spread it around.
(S)he's also all the mods.
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Anyways, I'm pretty interested in the reactions of the foreign polities as soon as they get word of Henry's miraculous stand against the elves. I'm wondering if this will be a prelude to a Gallian lead alliance, even without the Pope's prompting.
 
One thing I've noticed about ZNT Elves is that they place a lot of credit on the difference between them and humans morally.

To me it comes off as them believing they are morally superior and saintly perfect. I even imagine they could have built a cultural identity on that.

Now that's just conjecture, but just imagine how such a society would receive the news that a barbarian human knows their secret sins and casually reveals them.

He's not just a threat in War, he's a threat in just existing to the social order of the Elves!
 
shadenight123 said:
The older elf turned his eyes on Raven, and narrowed them. He whispered something in elvish, which I didn't understand. His eyes glanced at me. He said something else, and then he raised a hand in the air, and a glowing sphere of light ignited in his palm before rising upwards. It reached only as far as the nearest rooftop, because a murder of crows intercept it and surrounded it with their black plumage.
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Seems like the elf recognized Raven (maybe from Bidashal's description) and deduced he was fighting Henry.
The ball of light thing is probably a beacon of sort, so he has reinforcement to capture him.
I wonder what they wanted with him. Ransom him for the void mages? Information?
 
You know, we haven't seen Derflinger anywhere in these last 170 chapters. Henry made an effort to really gather up unique magical artifacts. You'd think he'd prioritize the thousands of years old sentient anti-magic sword since he has the Gandalfr on his side.

Plus the partnership of him and Agnes would be hilarious with teasing her about her taste in Vallieres.
 
MiskWisk said:
He's like hardened steel on the field but genteel in the palace.
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A shame that this doesn't have a hundred likes.

Also, yeah, Henry is square class air mage, he could probably create a fairly large vacuum bubble around the elf, probably enough for him to explode from the pressure differential if they learn how to counter the suffocation.
 
The problem is that the elves fucked up and so did Henry.

The elves never would have attacked if Henry didn't threaten them with the genocide spell when trying to set up negotiations. That caused them to panic.

The elves panicked and sent one half of their standing army to attack an enemy that has dramatically changed how his army is equipped, fights and is led. This army got destroyed. They were not merely forced to retreat after a normal 15-30% casualties, the whole army Is gone and any survivors will be emotionally wrecked. It will shock the elven nation and panic them. Humans only need a 2x1 advantage spell the death off the elven people.

There is no doubt that Gallia's Queen of Hearts will be planning revenge and they wil go full fire to ready what may be an equipped army of over one hundred thousand alone.

And Henry will prepare for a war with the elves and not just Albion, new weapons and such as needed.

Also, he did not have the void or use it in this fight. Any surviving elves may realize it and be worried, what if they are moving now then?

The invasion was set to cripple Gallia, kill the void users and prevent a crusade. That army should have been able to stomp most of Halk too.
 
Bastur2 said:
At the same time, the strength of Galia is spent, as its army was decimated.
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Decimated means losing one in ten, which is not impossible to compensate for. Even with Gallia losing half its trained forces it still has the tech advantage in Halkgania and a standing army of half the initial. They can mobilize a defense just fine, but offensive action is not a good idea for a few months to a year while they train the new soldiers. Joint offensives or support from Romalia would mean the evacuation of the continent could go through if only due to religious support even if Brimir's 6000 year old screw up comes to light.
 
What no-one has noted is that sure the elf population has probably halved, but it's actually worse than that. All their best fighters? The brave, the angry, the ones who practice their magics and all that? Those are the ones who will have gone on this attack. The ones who stayed back will be on average slower, more cowardly and worse at elf combat magic. Aside that is from the 2000 survivors who I would expect to be disproportionately high power elves, since they were strong enough to survive.
 
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@shadenight123

Where did you get those Elven figures because they make absolutely no sense. Every Elven citizen learns how to fight, but that doesn't mean ALL of them are part of the army at all times, second and the most important thing is that the largest Elven cities are population wise comparable to the largest cities in Halkeginia. The Elven rural population pretty much doesn't exist, but that still means there should be more than a few hundreds thousands Elves living in the desert cities of their kingdom.

I would say the Elven population should be around a million total at the very least otherwise several plot hooks (Like the Pope plans of living in the empty Elven cities after the genocide spell is used) make absolutely no sense.
 
Ehn said:
Maybe not. A spirit of air can probably manipulate the medium because it *is* the medium. Manipulating vacuum could require a spirit of suck or something.
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As a rule of thumb, elves can do anything a mage can but better*. If Shade can create a vacumn, then an elf can create a vacumn too. This is off course unlikely since hte mental gymnastics of making the magic work is fairly difficult though the concept of counter pulling air would be possible if they knew what the spell was suppose to do.

*Subject to certain limits such as needing the spirits to actually be present, something a spirit can affect, and something a spirit can sense
 
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