Invasion of the Seven Villages

[Tom Mazanec]

Not that I am proposing this, but what if President Bush were to invade the Seven Villages? Who would win?

[Kerry Skydancer]

I'm tempted to take you literally, and say that one human couldn't possibly beat the entire Racconnan society.

First we need to know -why- such a thing would occur even if it were theoretically possible. The Villages would make a great trading partner. We'd be more likely to encourage immigration from them if they're overpopulated.

[Wanderwolf]

I'm tempted to take you literally, and say that one human couldn't possibly beat the entire Racconnan society.

First we need to know -why- such a thing would occur even if it were theoretically possible. The Villages would make a great trading partner. We'd be more likely to encourage immigration from them if they're overpopulated.

Leaving the current attitude toward immigration firmly aside, (after all, we can't really get by without all those eager folks from Mexico working our fields), it's pretty easy to imagine.

First of all, consider where the Seven Villages would have to be if they existed in the Real World. Sub-tropic swamp, plenty of Spanish Lace on the trees, an environment that favors creatures such as raccoons and gators (and their intelligent semi-relatives, the Rac Cona Daimh and the Gragum); closest match is Florida, down near the Everglades.

(Yes, Ralph, we all know the Seven Villages aren't meant to exist in our reality; we're just building a castle in the air, here.)

Now: Imagine that we suddenly discover an entire civilization has been hiding in the Everglades. They've used some form of cloaking device to hide themselves from our eyes and cameras all this time; they appear to be midgets in raccoon suits, wearing archaically-styled clothing. Their technology visibly appears to operate on different principles from ours, and includes a form of levitation which does not use magnetic rails, some form of robotics (e.g. Kestrel's golem), and certain effects which appear similar to magic.

Now, in the first place, humans are the boogeymen of the Rac Cona Daimh; not to the point of being irrationally terrified of us, but to the point of knowing just how treacherous and stupid we can be (and that's bad enough). Their reaction to knowing we have somehow breached the Mistwall isn't likely to be pretty. Most likely, all the Guardsmen in the Seven Villages wil be put on alert, luftships will patrol the border, and the trained wizards will be stationed at strategic points along the circumference.

We've just discovered these people have been hiding inside our borders for an indeterminate period, and now they're in an elevated military condition. Our response, naturally, will be a limited military reaction of our own; station the National Guard in the area.

From this condition, one of three things will happen:

1. Negotiators will begin talks; trade will be established; all will end well. (This is, sadly, an unlikely scenario. The Rac Cona Daimh are theorized to have been living inside our borders for years, a fact that will be capitalized on by the fearful.)

2. Negotiators from both sides will meet, hammering out an agreement whereby the Rac Cona Daimh will be allowed to keep the land they already hold. As non-citizens, of course, they will not be allowed to vote in local or national elections, but will not be required to join our military, either. (This is reasonably likely; it's the same arrangement we have with Native American tribes. Unfortunately, it depends on the Rac Cona Daimh accepting a restriction to their "reservation", which messes with the probabilities a lot.)

3. Any attempt at negotiations will be ended when someone gets panicky and semi-accidentally starts a skirmish (could be on either side). In the resulting conflict, our industrial might is likely to come out on top, though the "magical" abilities of the Rac Conans will present difficulties; we're optimized to face a technologically-advanced force such as our own, not an enemy that can create illusory duplicates (dust simulacra), levitate, and throw energy bolts at us... all with a low-metal technology. In the end, however, our ability to churn out more soldiers will prove superior, and the Rac Cona Daimh will be conquered. (Excepting the swamp tribes, who are likely to put up a guerilla defense for years yet.) With no place to deport them to (they claim the land they held was theirs, after all), the survivors will eventually be allowed to establish a colony on American soil, under the watchful eye of the government. That will be after the interrogations, of course... we have to be sure they don't have any bio-weapons or chemical weapons hidden away somewhere. (I'm not being facetious; this one is, sadly, the most likely of all, ending with disgruntled Rac Cona Daimh living on a reservation established in a place the government is willing to do without... this is how the Native American tribes wound up after the battles, remember. The seperation came much later.)

#2 is likely, assuming all goes well. If things go badly, however, #3 is incredibly probable.

Yours truly,

The wolfish,

Wanderer

[EdBecerra]

#2 is likely, assuming all goes well. If things go badly, however, #3 is incredibly probable.

Yours truly,

The wolfish,

Wanderer

You forgot three-sub-a... Rac'coonian healers drafted into service to heal humans whose science can't, Rac'coonian mages (any who might have survived) drafted into the American military ("You're a weapon. You'll serve us."), Rac'coonians who show abilities in handling/shaping animals and crops pressed into service to improve American agriculture, and Rac'coonian seers pressed into the CIA, NSA, and military intelligence (imagine how easy it would have been to get Osama if you have a seer to do a little mind raping of captured Alqida members...)

And in return, we'll CONSIDER treating them like citizens... provided they give us reason to trust them. Reasons that consist of being better Americans than Americans are (Navajo code-talkers, remember?)

[The JAM]

Rac Conans are also familiar with electromagnetism, though they don't rely on it as we do, so they COULD build a lux-powered EMP bomb that could disrupt human technology.

[RHJunior]

Leaving the current attitude toward immigration firmly aside, (after all, we can't really get by without all those eager folks from Mexico working our fields), it's pretty easy to imagine.

Okay, you asked for it.

1)we don't "need" them to work our fields. We have literally millions of LEGAL AMERICAN CITIZENS who are available for work like that.
And shovel me no horsecrap about "no American would work for those wages." One, yes many of them would. TWO, noone is supposed to work for that little in this country anyway. IT'S A CRIME.<I>that's why we have those minimum wage laws y'all bitched and whined for.</i> So quit trying to accommodate the tax-cheating, social-security cheating, employee welfare dodging employers who are exploiting criminal labor to save themselves a buck.

2)The estimated cost increase, if every<I>mexican criminal</I> in the fields were replaced with American farmhands, has been put at around 6%. I'll take 6 cents more for a $1 head of lettuce in exchange for an end to the tsunami of mexican tax dodgers, welfare leeches, dope smugglers, baby-dumpers and revolving-door violent criminals QUITE happily, thank you very much.

3)We are at war. And we've already caught several people sneaking into this country with turbans tucked up under their sombreros. (And shut up about the northern border. It's a mess too, but at least the mideastern islamics have a slightly harder time passing themselves off as Canadian maple syrup farmers.) The borders should have been tight as a drum within a week of 9-11, but instead we have brainless "empathic" milksops who have done everything they have to keep the river of criminals and illegal, dirt cheap labor---- the perfect cover for enemy spies, saboteurs and combatants trying to invade-- flowing across our southern border.

We created NAFTA, try to open factories and companies in Central America-- which would have not only helped our own economy but also given tens of thousands of those struggling mexicans liberals pity so much a gigantic economic shot in the arm.... and they SCREAMED about "Losing american jobs."

No, oh no, leftists prefer the alternative--- where millions of mexican illegals pour across the border. That way we not only lose American jobs, but we ALSO get to lose American tax revenue, American national security, and thanks to the influx of drugs and violent criminals, American lives.

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

[Shyal_malkes]

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.

[EdBecerra]

Leaving the current attitude toward immigration firmly aside, (after all, we can't really get by without all those eager folks from Mexico working our fields), it's pretty easy to imagine.

Okay, you asked for it.

1)we don't "need" them to work our fields. We have literally millions of LEGAL AMERICAN CITIZENS who are available for work like that.
And shovel me no horsecrap about "no American would work for those wages." One, yes many of them would. TWO, noone is supposed to work for that little in this country anyway. IT'S A CRIME.<I>that's why we have those minimum wage laws y'all bitched and whined for.</i> So quit trying to accommodate the tax-cheating, social-security cheating, employee welfare dodging employers who are exploiting criminal labor to save themselves a buck.

Not always, RH.. I remember various members of my family swearing that THEY didn't work so hard to get ahead in America just to see THEIR children demeaning themselves by doing common stoop labor! A natural born American ortah be above thet, don'cha know!

And no, I'm not exaggerating. Now, me, I served in the military, but then, that's a noble profession. Farm work is noble... if you own the farm. But "hired hands"? Lots of folks in my family looked down on them - being a hired hand was something you had to ESCAPE from.

Obviously, this does lead to the contradiction of their being 'dirty jobs' that need doing, and no one wanting to do them, but that's a problem I don't think we'll ever succeed in dealing with unless/until we create some form of sentient machine - in which case, we'll be re-inventing slavery, and I don't EVEN want to think about the new arguments that'll pop up over that.

As is, human life outside of America is cheap, inside of America (at least to native born Americans), it's dear. That's cynical and cruel. It's also natural.

Not much we can do about it - except choose to take advantage of it, when and where we can. Can't even begin to recall how many overseas women essentially volunteered to become 'the little woman', just to get my name and thereby become a US citizen. Hell, a good fifth of the GI's who lived on the same section of the post as my family had LBFM's for wives. Phillipino, Vietnamese, Korean, Samoan, you name it.. the LBFM's would line up for that precious citizenship, and if they had to get it through a wedding ring and a wedding night, so be it.

*shrugs* Hell, most of the guys who'd married them would praise them - obedient, skilled in housekeeping and marital duties, no worries of divorce... the perfect wife, to _their_ standards...

Ah, I love the smell of cynicism in the morning - it smells like... cynicism.

But what can you do. CYA, all the way.

[EdBecerra]

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*

[AYBABTU]

Question? How did we go from the original few posts to this?

[RHJunior]

Given an invasion by a modern military force (of which America is obviously the premier example)....

Okay, that brings up all sorts of variables and conditions.

What is the invader's goal?

What constitutes a victory for the invader?

What constitutes a decisive defeat?


If the invading army was out to exterminate the racconans--- they could stand off and lob bombs and missiles into the villages... or just drop one or two nukes. Not even get their hair mussed.

But if the objective was conquest and subjugation....
Crap, we can't even shoot homicidal, beheading baby-killing terrorists without the mass media climbing the military's frame. Can you imagine the uproar if they had footage of American soldiers wasting cute fuzzy wuzzy little raccoon people?

[Kitwulfen]

If the Bush Administration were to try it, then they would fail to "invade." Certainly, they could glass the place, and they probably would. However, the Bush Administration (and several other Administrations in our history) has a stupid habit of investing in all the high-tech toys they can. They fail to realize that you win wars by having boots in the mud, not planes in the sky. We bombed Germany all the time, didn't mean we'd won the war.

As for illegal immigrants... well, they're people from a foreign country who are invading our country. If it was up to me, I don't know that I would even give them a warning shot. With the unfortunately PC world we live in, a wall and some actual enforcement would be good.

[Wanderwolf]

If the Bush Administration were to try it, then they would fail to "invade." Certainly, they could glass the place, and they probably would. However, the Bush Administration (and several other Administrations in our history) has a stupid habit of investing in all the high-tech toys they can. They fail to realize that you win wars by having boots in the mud, not planes in the sky. We bombed Germany all the time, didn't mean we'd won the war.

On the other paw, the high-tech "toys" were very useful in Gulf War I; we had Iraqi soldiers surrendering to the spotter drone we used to sight in the bombers. We destroyed whole platoons that thought they could pull the "We surrender... NOT!" trick on our chopper crews.

Different wars are different, Kit.

As for illegal immigrants... well, they're people from a foreign country who are invading our country. If it was up to me, I don't know that I would even give them a warning shot. With the unfortunately PC world we live in, a wall and some actual enforcement would be good.

<rolls eyes> "Actual enforcement"? What, having armed guards at the border isn't enough? Having barbed wire, disease-filled trenches and guard dogs isn't enough? Making it so hard to get in that 500 people died trying to get in last year alone isn't enough?

And yet you think a wall will do some good?

Face it, Kit: Most of the illegal immigrants are illegal because they honestly don't think they can wait any longer to get to the Promised Land. We only roll out the red carpet for skilled workers in the sciences, and the rest are on a waiting list an AU long. Waiting most of a year to get your application approved can seem even longer if you're living in a hovel and scrounging for food. (I'm not kidding. According to the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, the Dallas office is now reviewing citizenship applications received December 1, 2005.)

Heck, we've even tightened the border with Canada, as one blogger found out the hard way. Just how tight do you want the borders, and what are you willing to pay to get there?

Yours truly,

The logical,

Wanderer

[Reignbow]

According to the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, the Dallas office is now reviewing citizenship applications received December 1, 2005.

That is quite a backlog, but are those really relevant to immigration? The usual modus in my experience is to apply for permanent resident status with work permit (considerably easier than citizenship) and if you've staid in the country for years, have somewhat absorbed the culture and plan to stay there, then you apply for citizenship. That application takes a while and is rather demanding, but it's not something you have to finish before even crossing the border. Frankly, the idea of becoming a citizen right after moving into the country sounds very hasty to me.

[Kitwulfen]

I'm not saying that some of the high-tech stuff our military has is useless, but it shouldn't take precedence over our soldiers.

Well, I honestly can't wait any longer to buy a car. I'm tired of saving up money for one. I guess by your logic, I can go steal one and everything will be cool.

We don't just roll out the red carpet for skilled workers. I know people with doctorates who had to jump through hoops to get into this country. Are there problems with our _legal_ immigration system? Yes. Should they be fixed? Yes. Does a FUBAR immigration system mean that people should just go ahead and get a free pass for breaking the law? No.

500 dead last year is less than one percent of the estimated total that made it through to the US last year.

How tight do I want the borders? Tight enough so that considering breaking into our country isn't something people are readily willing to do.

By actual enforcement, I meant dealing with the illegals already in our country. They broke the law. They should be in prison or back home in their own country, not loitering at the local 7-11.

[Tom Mazanec]

AYBABTU
Kerry Skydancer said something about immigration being better than invasion. Wanderwolf pointed out our current attitiudes to illegal immigration in response, a small part of a large post. This pushed one of Ralph's hot buttons and AWAAAYYY WE GO!

[Jaydub]

AYBABTU
Kerry Skydancer said something about immigration being better than invasion. Wanderwolf pointed out our current attitiudes to illegal immigration in response, a small part of a large post. This pushed one of Ralph's hot buttons and AWAAAYYY WE GO!

Tom,
I think the problem is the way you proposed the question. It was not what would happen if the United States invaded it was if President Bush Invaded. That statement shows a very liberal bias. It is an insinuation that President Bush on his own decides to invade without the consent of congress. The liberals seem to forget that Congress did authorize both Afghanistan and Iraq Invasions. I am not sure it was intended that way but it looked to me to be another Liberal Bush Bashing and chose not to respond.

[AYBABTU]

Ok. I was just wondering how we went from THIS

Not that I am proposing this, but what if President Bush were to invade the Seven Villages? Who would win?

to THIS.

Leaving the current attitude toward immigration firmly aside, (after all, we can't really get by without all those eager folks from Mexico working our fields), it's pretty easy to imagine.

Okay, you asked for it.

1)we don't "need" them to work our fields. We have literally millions of LEGAL AMERICAN CITIZENS who are available for work like that.
And shovel me no horsecrap about "no American would work for those wages." One, yes many of them would. TWO, noone is supposed to work for that little in this country anyway. IT'S A CRIME.<I>that's why we have those minimum wage laws y'all bitched and whined for.</i> So quit trying to accommodate the tax-cheating, social-security cheating, employee welfare dodging employers who are exploiting criminal labor to save themselves a buck.

2)The estimated cost increase, if every<I>mexican criminal</I> in the fields were replaced with American farmhands, has been put at around 6%. I'll take 6 cents more for a $1 head of lettuce in exchange for an end to the tsunami of mexican tax dodgers, welfare leeches, dope smugglers, baby-dumpers and revolving-door violent criminals QUITE happily, thank you very much.

3)We are at war. And we've already caught several people sneaking into this country with turbans tucked up under their sombreros. (And shut up about the northern border. It's a mess too, but at least the mideastern islamics have a slightly harder time passing themselves off as Canadian maple syrup farmers.) The borders should have been tight as a drum within a week of 9-11, but instead we have brainless "empathic" milksops who have done everything they have to keep the river of criminals and illegal, dirt cheap labor---- the perfect cover for enemy spies, saboteurs and combatants trying to invade-- flowing across our southern border.

We created NAFTA, try to open factories and companies in Central America-- which would have not only helped our own economy but also given tens of thousands of those struggling mexicans liberals pity so much a gigantic economic shot in the arm.... and they SCREAMED about "Losing american jobs."

No, oh no, leftists prefer the alternative--- where millions of mexican illegals pour across the border. That way we not only lose American jobs, but we ALSO get to lose American tax revenue, American national security, and thanks to the influx of drugs and violent criminals, American lives.

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

[UncleMonty]

Well AYBABTU, this forum thread has drifted a little bit. All forum threads tend to drift, and the drift from "Invasion" to "Illegal alien" is really not that great a distance. This particular drift took place through a series of steps which are easily available to the reader.
And hey, you don't even know where all my base are...

[Tom Mazanec]

I specified Bush as Commander in Chief of the prime Superpower of 2006. I could just have easily have said "What if an early 21st Century Superpower invaded the Seven Villages..." But then would that be early 21st Century as in 2001 US (still would have been Bush) or 2032 China (they may be a superpower by then, and by 2032 they may be using billions of bug sized robots or something) or... I had to be specific. I know a Medieval society can't do it. Gunpowder probably is not enough (an earlier thread gave some excellent reasons why not) but maybe a present day, large enough military could be a match for the Racconnans. It is not my fault that the prime example of such a military is lead by Bush (Well, it IS my fault...I voted for him, after all )