Invasion of the Seven Villages

[Kerry Skydancer]

Yes, but what you -should- have said if you wanted a non-flammable thread would have been on the order of 'what would happen if the Seven Villages appeared in the Everglades today?' Not 'what would happen if Bush invaded them'. As was pointed out, the US President does not operate in a vacuum, nor is he by any stretch of the imagination the monster that the loony left portray him as. (Let's face it, they accuse of him of being right-wing AND a National Socialist in the same breath. Consistency is not their strong suit.) It sounded awfully like flame-bait.

[Tom Mazanec]

I once posted a thread like that "appear in Everglades". I was not going for that this time, I was going for a comparison of our relative military strengths. I guess I should have said America rather than Bush, but I cannot view every post for every possible reaction, and am bound to make mistakes. Perhaps part of my problem is that I do not like Republicans (even though I am one). I do not like Democrats. I am Tom Mazanec, a Roman Catholic who tries to follow my Church's social teaching. And on the biggest issue of the day, abortion, the Republicans are the ones who are the closer-to-correct of the two parties which have a snowball's chance of winning an election for President. So I guess that makes me a conservative. But I favor lock-them-up-and-melt-the-key over stick-in-the-needle, so I guess that makes me a liberal. Actually I am neither (though I am more right than left). I said Bush as shorthand for the contemporary United States armed forces, so I am sorry you did not like my choice of words. My apologies.
EDIT
Additional factors on later reflection may be my Asperger's, which makes it difficult for me to communicate always well even over the net, and being submersed in a media which says things like "Bush invaded Iraq" or "Bush may invade Iran"...again, sorry for the bad start and the thread's drift.

[BrockthePaine]

And now, Brock will attempt to answer the original question...

Expected result: human victory, potentially high losses on both sides.

Rationale: Ultimately, size and numbers would have an effect on the outcome of the war. The invader would have that size, and those numbers; I'd expect that the aggressor military force dispatched to conquer the Seven Villages (should such a thing ever occur) would equal a significant fraction of the Rac Conna population.

Still, the Racs would have the means, through illusionary tricks and such, to present the aggressors with a whole lot of bodies.

[Aurrin]

First off, motive only comes into play when determining the type of attack. Second, the citizenry and political factors are irrelevant to the question. The fact is that these type of questions are never looking for a realistic start-to-finish scenario, but one in which war is a predetermined condition. Basically, the question runs along the lines of: "If they did fight, who would win?"

And basically, I think the outcome would be determined, more than anything, by whether we sent in the infantry or pulled out our better tech. Sending in regular troops, though eventually effective, would probably mount massive casualties on both sides. Well-equipped troops would be better able to do it. (For instance, that mist-blanket won't fool infrared-augmented vision.) Adding into the equation mechanized warfare would probably tip the odds in our favor even further. Things like inspector gunships and the like can pick off individual targets at distances that make retaliation next to impossible. Guided missiles and smart-bombs make it even more uneven, although eventually they hit the point of diminishing returns where there's little left to bomb. Finally, if we go all the way, bypassing invasion to complete anhilation, nuclear weapons are quite effective at the job and basically impossible to stop, even with *our* technology. (We're working on it, obviously, but we basically can't stop it yet. Look for that to change as laser focusing gets better.)

In short, I think that technology would be our biggest advantage, and the further we played it up, the faster the war would be over, at least in part due to surprise. Note that this is a different situation from hunting terrorism, where the hunted have a more or less full knowledge of our technological capabilities and can blend in with noncombatants.

Of course, I'm a self-proclaimed techophile, so I might be a bit biased.

[BrockthePaine]

Right, agreed. Basically, the idea would be not to conquer and hold the territory, but to make them not want to fight anymore and negotiate. Basically setting up a few dozen artillery pieces then indescriminately shelling cities while all the while saying "if you surrender, we'll stop..." - that'd be one of the more effective ways of forcing an enemy to stop fighting. But the political fallout of such an action is, in modern America, double plus ungood.

[Rokas]

Holy Christ keep me from KILLING these imbeciles with my bare hands.

^ The mantra of my life.

As for invading a magic/lux-using people, well... Two words: Davy Crockett.

[Kitwulfen]

You mean this Davy Crockett or this Davy Crockett?

[NydaLynn]

Holy Christ keep me from KILLING these imbeciles with my bare hands.

I'd have thought your sense of human comraderie would be enough to do that.

*blinks*

"Human comraderie"?

There's one human in this world - me. Everyone else is a rival who potentially threatens my needs and desires.

See? It's really very simple. Welcome to the jungle.

There used to be two humans in the world. Myself, and Aili. But she's gone now. *shrugs*

Yeah, yeah, we get it already. In your mind you're the center of the universe.

[Rokas]

You mean this Davy Crockett or this Davy Crockett?

The former. *Crack-whoosh* "FIRE IN THE HOLE! Git down and do NOT look at the fireball!"

*Bright light, immeasurably loud explosion.*

"All right, that's lunch, people."

[EdBecerra]

Yeah, yeah, we get it already. In your mind you're the center of the universe.

The center of my own universe, yes. The center of THE universe, no.

Rather like Bill Murray's statement in "Groundhog Day".

"I'm A god. Not the God."

Paranoia isn't all THAT bad - provided you don't take a first strike mentality, and don't really care about living. I've never had the first, and after Aili passed on from cancer, the second didn't really seem all that important. *shrugs* Not a plea for sympathy, just a statement of fact - now that she's gone, life tastes flat, as it were.

[Nick012000]

You mean this Davy Crockett or this Davy Crockett?

The former. *Crack-whoosh* "FIRE IN THE HOLE! Git down and do NOT look at the fireball!"

*Bright light, immeasurably loud explosion.*

"All right, that's lunch, people."

Contrary to popular belief, looking at a nuclear explosion will not render you immediately blind. It is very bright, and you might develop blindness as a result of this, but it isn't any different than looking at the sun that way, and the flash won't be around long enough for you to get more than a few afterimages that will go away in a few minutes.

[Tom Mazanec]

You might get a retinal burn...kind of like a permanent blind spot. If you are close enough to be completely, permanently blinded, you are probably going to die of burns anyway. Probably.