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Reasons to use 'Traditional' combat units in Sci-Fi?

Fernandel said:
So yes, "making the enemy mad at us" is absolutely a concern when debating whether force and/or which level of force should be used.
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The cases where it is a concern tend to be around situations where the military necessity is small or non-existent. We can ban gas because it's not terribly effective, good luck getting anyone to ban fragmentation bombs. The last time we had industrial powers at war, all sides did try to level each other's civilian population through indiscriminate bombing. It didn't work, but they damn well tried.

War is the breakdown in cooperation. At the end of the day you're trying to kill each other.
 
Acatalepsy said:
The cases where it is a concern tend to be around situations where the military necessity is small or non-existent. We can ban gas because it's not terribly effective, good luck getting anyone to ban fragmentation bombs. The last time we had industrial powers at war, all sides did try to level each other's civilian population through indiscriminate bombing. It didn't work, but they damn well tried.

War is the breakdown in cooperation. At the end of the day you're trying to kill each other.
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There's this thing called the Geneva Conventions, you may have heard of it?
 
Acatalepsy said:
The cases where it is a concern tend to be around situations where the military necessity is small or non-existent. We can ban gas because it's not terribly effective, good luck getting anyone to ban fragmentation bombs. The last time we had industrial powers at war, all sides did try to level each other's civilian population through indiscriminate bombing. It didn't work, but they damn well tried.

War is the breakdown in cooperation. At the end of the day you're trying to kill each other.
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Dude, this time, this is my area of expertise.

Military necessity is just one factor that goes into deciding whether force should be used and what level should be used. Another is, and has always been even when looking at historical rules of war like weregild, the interest to end conflicts decisively, but also to allow troops to surrender or disperse without a fight (as destroying them takes time, effort, blood, and risks destroying bystanders and infrastructure that may be valuable later), to limit casualties both civilian and military so as to avoid a classic "cycle of revenge" that may cause reprisals or later instability in occupied areas or from the enemy's allies, concerns of establishing lasting relationships with the enemy that cause long-term peace and later rétablissement, and also simple moral concerns.

Unless you're planning to genocide the enemy from the get-go, you cannot just handwave those away.

And even then, you cannot do it, as sensible military leadership will try to limit the level of force used to that of military and political necessity, and not further, out of pure self-interest when they're the one holding the short end of the stick.
 
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krinsbez said:
There's this thing called the Geneva Conventions, you may have heard of it?
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...you do realize that they sort of prove my point, yes?

Fernandel said:
You cannot just handwave those away.
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I'm not handwaving them away. I'm saying I don't buy the specific justification "we won't bomb our enemies because we'd rather take their stuff". And I'm saying that many SF end up using those concerns as handwaves to avoid dealing with the implications of their technology and strategic situation.
 
Acatalepsy said:
I'm not handwaving them away. I'm saying I don't buy the specific justification "we won't bomb our enemies because we'd rather take their stuff". And I'm saying that many SF end up using those concerns as handwaves to avoid dealing with the implications of their technology and strategic situation.
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"We'd rather take their stuff because habitable planets are rare as fuck" or "we do not want to cause indiscriminate carnage to avoid reprisals against our nation and later local and/or intergalactic instability" or "we don't have the forces or the political will to destroy an entire planet" is absolutely a concern that would enter the force calculus in such a setting.

Especially if the setting involves weaponry that can wipe out entire races or planet populations and/or destroy/damage atmospheres, rendering planets inhospitable to life.
 
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Fernandel said:
"We'd rather take their stuff because habitable planets are rare as fuck" or "we do not want to cause indiscriminate carnage to avoid reprisals against our nation and later local and/or intergalactic instability" is absolutely a concern that would enter the force calculus in such a setting.
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Having no habitable planet is a preferable situation to having a habitable planet belonging to someone trying to kill you. Preventing reprisals is great, but it's only a concern if what you are currently being threatened with isn't as bad as what would happen if you escalated. This makes for some great skirmishes and "border disputes", not so much for invasions by giant armadas of doomships, as is the norm.

Perhaps a better way of saying it might be that I so very rarely see these concerns used well, as opposed to be used as to handwave the implications of an author's worldbuilding. That's not to say that handwaving away MAD might not be the right choice for the work...but I still don't buy the handwave.
 
Acatalepsy said:
Having no habitable planet is a preferable situation to having a habitable planet belonging to someone trying to kill you.
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No, the worst possible situation is facing an enemy that is no longer willing to negotiate with you, explicitly aiming to genocide your entire race, and capable of doing so.

If that's the case, you're no longer actually facing sentient beings, but a faction of mindless Space Orks.

If the enemy you face is less than that, there is absolutely no reason to resort to genocide, and thus you need options in terms of military force that are less than total genocide and can bring people to defeat or to the negotiation table without either side's total destruction.

Again, we're not just talking the enemy here. We're also talking in terms of other factions watching the conflict.

In a Mass Effect example, perhaps the Systems Alliance feels justified to wipe out the Batarians by blowing up Khar'Shan, but the Asari, Turians, snd Salarians are not gonna let that shit slide. Which is also why the Krogans got neutered.

The force calculus is not and has never been a zero-sum game. Yes, fiction is awful at portraying it, but that doesn't change the fact that it exists in the way that it does.
 
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Acatalepsy said:
Having no habitable planet is a preferable situation to having a habitable planet belonging to someone trying to kill you.
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This is nonsense for the same reason that it's nonsense to just destroy it from orbit; you're losing a resource forever. An enemy-held planet is not lost forever. It can be retaken. Maybe not in this war but perhaps in the next or perhaps at the negotiating table.
 
Fernandel said:
If the enemy you face is less than that, there is absolutely no reason to resort to genocide, and thus you need options in terms of military force that are less than total genocide and can bring people to defeat or thlo the negotiation table without either side's total destruction.
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I was responding to the hypothetical that, for reasons, your only options were mounting a massive ground campaign, leaving them alone, or blowing up the atmosphere. If the first isn't a practical option, and you're already in a war for your own perceived survival (as is so often the case)...where exactly does that leave you? More 'realistically' you'd just cripple thier industry and production to the tune of massive casualties.

I'll note again that nations have engaged in indiscriminate slaughter of each other's civilian populations out of strategic calculus and still continued to exist without genociding each other.

Fernandel said:
In a Mass Effect example, perhaps the Systems Alliance feels justified to wipe out the Batarians by blowing up Khar'Shan, but the Asari, Turians, snd Salariand are not gonna let that shit slide. Which is also why the Krogans got neutered.
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This works both ways, though. It means that the most the Batarians can do is fund pirate attacks on SA colonies, not go for broke conquering the Alliance. Which is exactly the thing that I said.

Fernandel said:
The force calculus is not and has never been a zero-sum game. Yes, fiction is awful at portraying it, but that doesn't change the fact that it exists in the way that it does.
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I never said it didn't.

In general I think the implications of a lot of science fiction technology boil down to causing stalemate via MAD, and that this is the thing authors try (unsuccessfully) to deal with.

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Night said:
This is nonsense for the same reason that it's nonsense to just destroy it from orbit; you're losing a resource forever. An enemy-held planet is not lost forever. It can be retaken. Maybe not in this war but perhaps in the next or perhaps at the negotiating table.
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It's lost forever if you can't take it back, and losing the war is the kind of thing that stops you from taking it back. The "maybe next war!" idea is more handwave than actual justification.
 
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Acatalepsy said:
I was responding to the hypothetical that, for reasons, your only options were mounting a massive ground campaign, leaving them alone, or blowing up the atmosphere. If the first isn't a practical option, and you're already in a war for your own perceived survival (as is so often the case)...where exactly does that leave you? More 'realistically' you'd just cripple thier industry and production to the tune of massive casualties.

I'll note again that nations have engaged in indiscriminate slaughter of each other's civilian populations out of strategic calculus and still continued to exist without genociding each other.
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Considering that it is kinda impossible to definitely control a planet, its resources, and defense installations without entering the atmosphere in some way, and air campaigns alone have no staying power and will not topple governments without a follow-up capture of the enemy's key points of strength (compare the NATO air campaign in South-Eastern Europe with the first and second gulf wars), especially if the planet is self-sufficirnt in terms of food, I'm not too convinced that it's absurd to suggest that ground campaigns are necessary to force the enemy's surrender.

Sure, perhaps blockades are another option. Perhaps you just want to wipe out naval yards or defense installations and then wait out the enemy or move on to another strategically more important target. But controlling the planet requires boots on the ground, or at least a government willing to transfer power, cooperate with you, and letting your boots inspect and control stuff.

If you bomb the planetary government flat and cause a few massacres' worth of collateral damage, you get to have fun trying to control the planet on your own as everybody hates you.

Ergo, it makes sense to have as many options of force as possible -- and that also includes ground troops.
I never said it didn't.

In general I think the implications of a lot of science fiction technology boil down to causing stalemate via MAD, and that this is the thing authors try (unsuccessfully) to deal with.
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Okay. So that makes options of lesser force being available even more sensible and relevant.
 
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Fernandel said:
So how, pray tell, was I supposed to interpret this?
You're already at war, the enemy is already on a vengeful crusade. In general "but this will make the enemy mad at us" has not been a winning argument against using a tactic.
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I feel like they meant that in some books, the War is already at extermination/survival levels, and that thus using "they will be mad" to justify the presence of ground troops sounds... silly.
 
Vyslanté said:
I feel like they meant that in some books, the War is already at extermination/survival levels, and that thus using "they will be mad" to justify the presence of ground troops sounds... silly.
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Then the concerns of other nations in the same setting enter the calculus of force. My Mass Effect example comes to mind.
Hykal94 said:
I'd say something about this but if I mention Bavaria one more time I'm pretty sure Fern will die of an aneurysm.
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Hiiiiiiiiiiiissssssssss
 
Acatalepsy said:
It's lost forever if you can't take it back, and losing the war is the kind of thing that stops you from taking it back. The "maybe next war!" idea is more handwave than actual justification.
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And if men were both homo economicus and able to prognosticate perfectly, these would be valid complaints, but neither of those things are true. War is an unpredictable exercise.
 
Fernandel said:
So how, pray tell, was I supposed to interpret this?
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As a specific response to the chain of argument I quoted? I have no idea how you got from "how using a tactic affects your opponent's opinion of you is a very limited concern" to "I don't think armies are useful".

Fernandel said:
Then the concerns of other nations in the same setting enter the calculus of force. My Mass Effect example comes to mind.
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That they enter the calculus, but they aren't controlling. If there are other space nations. If they care. If they can and will take retaliatory action at cost to themselves. If the retalitory action is punishing enough to justify forgoing useful military strategy, relative to the perceived cost and likelyhood of defeat.
 
Acatalepsy said:
As a specific response to the chain of argument I quoted? I have no idea how you got from "how using a tactic affects your opponent's opinion of you is a very limited concern" to "I don't think armies are useful".



That they enter the calculus, but they aren't controlling. If there are other space nations. If they care. If they can and will take retaliatory action at cost to themselves. If the retalitory action is punishing enough to justify forgoing useful military strategy, relative to the perceived cost and likelyhood of defeat.
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Then I still disagree with you for all the reasons I previously mentioned.

How others think of or react to your violent actions is not and has never been a "relatively limited concern". And this concern in other nations will, in nearly all spacefaring settings involving intergalactic politics I can think of off the top of my head, be relevant enough to determine the level of force. Star Wars comes to mind. So does Mass Effect.

I still don't think your arguments are in any way convincing. Sorry.
 
Night said:
And if men were both homo economicus and able to prognosticate perfectly, these would be valid complaints, but neither of those things are true. War is an unpredictable exercise.
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....that....doesn't follow from anything I said? I have no idea what your reasoning is here. War is unpredictable, but people still make decisions based on their perceived gains. They perceive imperfectly, but if anything flawed perceptions bias toward reacting to immediate threats over thinking about long term concerns. Like...people aren't homo economus, therefore they make decisions like "blow it up rather than let the enemy have it".

Fernandel said:
How others think of or react to your violent actions is not and has never been a "relatively limited concern". And this concern in other nations will, in nearly all spacefaring settings involving intergalactic politics I can think of off the top of my head, be relevant enough to determine the level of force. Star Wars comes to mind. So does Mass Effect.
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I mean...like by "relatively limited concern", I mean that, by the theory that PR and IR concerns are a large concern, as or more important than military effectiveness, using machine guns and artillery to kill people in huge numbers and turn wars into industrial meat grinders is a thing no one wants so no one would use these methods over more limited battles. And deliberately bombing enemy cities from the air wouldn't happen - because once you've created an industrial war, you've also created a war where you fully mobilized opponent might not accept anything other than unconditional surrender; therefore everyone sticks to rifles and small armies to avoid accidentally decimating their own population in futile struggle.

But that...didn't happen. Concerns for military effectiveness outweighed any concern of how other parties would view the actions.

That's what I mean by 'relatively limited concern'. More generally, you can't require a level of cooperation between opponents for the greater good than would preclude conflict in the first place.

Fernandel said:
I still don't think your arguments are in any way convincing. Sorry.
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The argument you seem to think I'm making isn't very convincing. It's just...not related to the argument I'm actually making.
 
It seems to me that not everyone understands the difference between limited and total war.
In limited wars I can see the use of traditional units. Probably the various powers would already have bases and forces on the surface (otherwise what interest they could have in meddling in the affairs of a planet ?) In limited cases there could be invasions from orbits, against weak opponents that doesn't have effective anti-space weapons. But not against entire planets. That would be a threat to the existence of a great power (assuming that a planet with a single government is a great power in the setting). And total wars are a different beast.

The last time great powers engaged each other in a fight for the survival they tried to genocide the enemy population, they bombed everything attempting to make the economy collapse. Nobody thought about being nice. Nuclear weapons were used and guess what ? The enemy capitulated.

So if the Solar Federation wants to eliminate North Korea on Mars they would sent the Space Marines, even paradroping them from orbit if necessary.
But if the Federation wants to eliminate the Mars Empire... they won't do it. They could raid trade lines, support local rebels and other stuff like this. But they won't mount full scale invasion because at that point the Mars Empire won't have any reason to not use those nasty WMDs.
First rule of MAD: NEVER threat the existence of a power with WMD.
 
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Acatalepsy said:
...you do realize that they sort of prove my point, yes?
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Oh, really? Do tell how almost everyone in WWII except the Japanese and Soviets (who never signed), including the fucking Nazis, made at least a token attempt following the terms of the Third Geneva Convention proves your point that international agreements are never followed in wars?
 
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krinsbez said:
Oh, really? Do tell how everyone in WWII except the Japanese (who never signed), including the fucking Nazis, following the terms of the Third Geneva Convention proves your point that international agreements are never followed in wars?
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Not everyone did follow the Third, though. Something like 4000 Russian POWs were killed between 1942 and 1943 at Dachau KZ-lager by the Nazis, in clear violation of Geneva III. Also the USSR was not a signatory of the 1929 agreement during the Great Patriotic War, and one would be hard pressed to exclude them from the roll-call. That's two of the major belligerents not playing within the internationally recognised framework right there.

Also I'm not sure what this has to do with @Acatalepsy's point and I've rather lost sight of what that was, so if you'd be so kind as to clarify, @Acatalepsy, that'd be helpful.

Edit: to return to the OP, @Bakustra basically answered the question, @ShogunTrooper. Sometimes you don't want to blow everything up. Sometimes it's rather handy not to. The reasons given are sometimes specious when thought through, certainly, but good ones most definitely exist.
 
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