AnimeSuki Forums

Marcus H. · 2012-07-12, 00:32

Quote:

Even without having seen/read the source material, this thread is interesting enough already... and has the side-effect of heightening anticipation for Firaxis' X-COM resurrection; thanks so much for that.

That's because the Muv-Luv universe portrays the governments and its respective armies as idiotic and incompetent compared to its real-life counterparts.

I really have to wonder why UN never initiated a treaty that unites all the forces on Earth to combat a common enemy. It's not like the Cold War is more important than the destruction of the human race.

Firefly00 · 2012-07-12, 00:41

Quote:

Originally Posted by Marcus H.

That's because the Muv-Luv universe portrays the governments and its respective armies as idiotic and incompetent compared to its real-life counterparts.

Hopefully, the nonsense tapers off in good order - it'd strain disbelief were it to be an ongoing issue through the entire series. Besides, the learning process would from a writer's perspective provide a trove of potential plot threads...

Quote:

I really have to wonder why UN never initiated a treaty that unites all the forces on Earth to combat a common enemy. It's not like the Cold War is more important than the destruction of the human race. :uhoh:

Among likely reasons: disbelief in the existence of such a common enemy; and, as LystAP points out, politicians still jockeying for short-sighted advantage even in the face of overwhelming argument for putting all that on the shelf.

Wild Goose · 2012-07-12, 00:57

Quote:

Originally Posted by Silvance

Hah. It'd be nice if mankind can produce something like that.

but wow. I didn't know the Type-94 is the first 3rd generation TSF in the world...

As for America, I like how they managed to keep being on the lead when it comes to TSF development and not Japan. It's unfortunate that the latter beat them in creating the first 3rd gen TSF, but at least the Black Widow and Raptors turned out better in the end. lol.

Still, the Type-0 is still the number one in my book when it comes to design. <3

Well, Japan may have had a leg up in design, but the Americans beat them in terms of relative awesome but practical - the wiki notes that the Shiranui is a fickle machine and really needs a skilled pilot to work.

Also, the Americans had the advantage of seeing what works and what doesn't work. American doctrine, IMO, is less about right and wrong and honor, and leans a bit more to doing what has to be done.

Also, something that bugged me about the Fall of Kyoto is that i don't recall seeing any F-15s around - where the hell were the Type-89 Kagerous that the IJA bought years ago?

DoomRavager · 2012-07-12, 01:09

Quote:

Originally Posted by potchip

"TSFs are really just planes on legs".

Hardly. The capabilities of a modern jet fighter is far superior to what's demonstrated so far from TSFs. Gone are the days of dog fights with cannons, jets mostly engage beyond visual range. The only advantage of TSF I can see is it's VTOL capability enable more flexible deployment. TSFs had shocking weapon range, bad survivalbility, limited deployment range and in general doesn't pack enough punch. So I'll simply assume air combat technology, doctrine, and ideas do not exist in the Muv-luv world by setting.

Long story short, appearance of lasers forced them to abandon traditional air combat doctrine. TSFs bring the air campaign down to the ground in the sense that they have jet engines to make them quicker and more maneuverable than other ground-based vehicles, but can stay close to the ground and make use of 3-dimensional maneuverability, VTOL short boost jumps, jet strafing around etc. to avoid getting themselves killed while getting into the thick of things, making use of other BETA and the terrain as cover from the lasers, instead of flying high up where they can get taken out. That's what one means when they say "planes with legs", in a sense it takes the high speed and maneuverability of jet planes and tries to apply them to a ground vehicle designed to ninja hop and dash around to get at targets in the middle or towards the back of enemy lines. It's an imperfect solution, but it suffices until they can clear the Lasers off a battlefield and bring in actual planes and helicopter support. In an air war, actual jet fighter planes would still trump TSFs in terms of speed and range, the point of the TSFs is to try to fill a niche that was left empty once planes were taken out of the equation. They still need backup from artillery and tanks etc. to be really effective without getting slaughtered. TSF jet-powered multi-dimensional maneuvering and boosting capabilities are also invaluable when fighting within the twisting, irregular spaces of the Hive underground complex tunnels, something that wheeled/tracked vehicles and aircraft alone can't really achieve as well.

@Wild Goose: The F-15Js were probably the same place all their Type-94s where, at the bottom of the 'couldn't show due to budget' bin. I mean, just look how off-model the Jolly Rogers F-14s were. An excuse would be that we mostly saw an out-of-the-way supply depot where their defenses were lighter, perhaps the Kagerous and Shiranuis were deployed closer to the city centre and we just never saw them.

MrTerrorist · 2012-07-12, 04:58

So i read in here that in the Muv-Luv Alternative Universe, Japan surrender to the Allies in 1944 rather than fight to the last man until the atomic bombs hit them in 1945.

So how is Japan's relationship with Asia with this universe and how was the Shogunate reestablished in this universe when it abolished during the Meiji Restoration era?

encia · 2012-07-12, 05:25

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tempester

1. Nukes do exist in the BETAverse, and it's likely true that they aren't as advanced as nukes in today's world.

2. There actually is a lot more unity, since they do have a common enemy. But their strategies against that enemy conflict a lot, with some groups wanting to use special technology to fight the BETA head on, and others wanting to bomb the hell out of them. So while there aren't much of outright wars between countries, there is much political tension and sneaky underhanded tactics going on.

3. I think they are immune to radiation, or at least largely unaffected. But they can be easily killed by the force of a nuke.

Against "zergling" style rush, they need use the neutron bombs or tactical nuclear weapons

DoomRavager · 2012-07-12, 05:51

@MisterTerrorist

It's a little unclear, they sort of skirt around exactly what happened to end up with their current situation. What we know from the game is that "in 1867, to resist the threat of European and American domination, the shogunate family and anti-shogun daimyo united for a common cause and established the restoration of imperial rule."

The Emperor does hold absolute power, but appoints a Shogun from one of the five regent houses Koubuin, Ikaruga, Saionji, Kujo, and Takatsukasa to govern the country as leader of the "元枢府", translated in the fan translation as "Central Department", the government's highest administrative arm, and delegates authority over all state matters to said Shogun.

So it sounds like the Meiji restoration ended with some sort of compromise instead, and probably Tokugawa still got the boot.

Either way, after their WWII, most of the Shogun's power was taken away and placed in the hands of the democratically elected Diet, leaving the Shogunate as mostly a figurehead position, thanks to the post-WWII treaties and occupation policies.

As for relationship with the rest of Asia, Japan doesn't seem to have the empire in Asia that it wanted in our WWII, so for lack of concrete information they presumably did the whole WWII "invade China, bomb Pearl Harbor, invade South East Asia, lose" thing. The retaking of the Japanese mainland after it completely fell in 1999 was done by a UN task force lead jointly by the Unites States and COSEAN (the Coalition of South East Asian Nations), though.

@encia: The main advantage of a neutron bombs would be somewhat diminished considering the whole "unaffected by radiation" thing. Meanwhile Hive infiltration units do carry S-11s, the yield of which is comparable to a tactical nuke, intended to be set on the ground and set for a delayed explosion for use against a Hive Reactor or as a suicide bomb if need be so there's that. On the surface, though, firing off tactical nukes results in said nukes getting lasered anyway, which is a fairly big issue. They could probably deploy them if they could somehow clear away all the lasers from the battlefield, but that happens all too rarely since the BETA do make an effort to protect laser units, and when it does happen they generally start conventional bombing runs and ground strafing with planes and helicopters rather than going crazy with nukes.

Wild Goose · 2012-07-12, 06:11

I'd think terrain-following cruise missiles might do the trick.

DoomRavager · 2012-07-12, 06:30

I guess that would depend on how low they can reliably fly and to what extent they can be controlled in real time and maneuver to keep other BETA between them and any lasers until they get to within a suitable detonation range. Either way, they don't seem to employ them, they'd rather deploy heavy metal clouds and launch dumb artillery shells and tank barrages over the horizon en masse while TSFs charge in along the ground.

Wild Goose · 2012-07-12, 06:49

That's true... Though arty, in sufficient numbers, would be quite cost-effective at stopping BETA: the naval gunfire mission was quite effective... Just not effective enough.

encia · 2012-07-12, 08:25

Quote:

Originally Posted by DoomRavager

@MisterTerrorist

ncc1701d

@encia: The main advantage of a neutron bombs would be somewhat diminished considering the whole "unaffected by radiation" thing. Meanwhile Hive infiltration units do carry S-11s, the yield of which is comparable to a tactical nuke, intended to be set on the ground and set for a delayed explosion for use against a Hive Reactor or as a suicide bomb if need be so there's that. On the surface, though, firing off tactical nukes results in said nukes getting lasered anyway, which is a fairly big issue. They could probably deploy them if they could somehow clear away all the lasers from the battlefield, but that happens all too rarely since the BETA do make an effort to protect laser units, and when it does happen they generally start conventional bombing runs and ground strafing with planes and helicopters rather than going crazy with nukes.

A nuclear weapon is also ionizing radiation type weapon at a greater magnitude than nuclear waste dump.

The nuke itself is just a warhead and the delivery system can be near ground level.

Silicon would be a poor shield against gamma frequency photons and high speed neutrons.

DoomRavager · 2012-07-12, 08:39

I don't see what silicon has to do with anything, since BETA are carbon based. The value of a nuclear bomb when fighting BETA would not be the long-term effects of ionizing radiation, but the heat and mechanical shockwave produced by the explosion, since the ionizing radiation does jack all to them.

A ground burst delivery system would have to be pretty close to the ground, low enough to keep other BETA between it and any lasers until it gets close enough, and maneuverable enough that it can rapidly shift trajectories on a dime to remain that way, since the BETA do actively coordinate to move aside and clear paths for lasers to high-priority targets, which nukes would be.

Actually, if you're going to go that far, they might as well just put the warhead in a suicide TSF and have TSFs get close in to detonate with a pilot crazy/sacrificial enough to do it, since TSFs fit the bill for what you'd need a ground delivery system to do. They kind of already do that with the S-11s anyway, but suicide generally seems to be out of the question unless they're stuck deep in a Hive cut off from all support or something, since the 'proper' use of an S-11 generally involves setting the timer, dropping it and getting the hell out of the blast radius, as opposed to setting it off right away and dying for it. In Chronicles 02 a TSF did manually deliver an S-11 to the battlefield and blow up a Carrier-class BETA, though there weren't any lasers active at that engagement.

Long story short, they don't think up convoluted nuke delivery methods because the system of plot and narrative causality doesn't want them to, the lasers are just a plot device to say "NO PLANES NO NUKES". It's a bit of a handwave, I suppose.

Candyshark · 2012-07-12, 08:58

Well looks there won't be any radical war-winning technology. Everything is built around to have TSF as main BETA weapon to the bitter end. So basicly it was very farsighted from US to make those stelth Raptors, which in long run will make everybody else US bitch and kiss their asses. They seem in such "confortable" position it almost asks for bitching.

Is there any info or map showing how much of territory is under control of humanity/BETA? What about Australia, Europe situation. I doubt humanity have any time left with that little population.

Silvance · 2012-07-12, 09:07

Well, the development of the F-22 did make the other nations question America's intentions for the post-beta world. They even asked the United States if they could also start marketing the F-22 like the F-4 and F-15, but they gave the other countries the middle finger instead.

A map? Don't have one but the entire Eurasia has fallen other than the British Isles.

DoomRavager · 2012-07-12, 09:26

@Candyshark:

Images

Sorry; dynamic content not loaded. Reload?

Shows the BETA-held territory.

There were two major BETA assaults on Great Britain across the English channel, in 1985 and in 1996, repelled both times, with difficulty.

Australia is clear for now and accepting refugees. Unites States also accepts refugees, and offers US citizenship to any refugees willing to enlist in the U.S. armed forces.

Soviet government currently resides in Alaska.

Combined Arabs and Jews, et al are preventing BETA incursions from the Iran and Iraq hives from invading Egypt across the Suez.

COSEAN (Coalition of South East Asian Nations) holding the line in Thailand.

As for radical war-winning technologies, the main "radical new technologies" revolve around the use of G-elements (which basically amount to alien-made phlebotnium that humans can't figure out how to manufacture and have all sorts of weird properties like one having negative mass, another being a room temperature superconductor, and so on) captured from the nuked Canada landing unit.

The first is the XG-70, a product of the HI-MARF project, a gigantic flying fortress armed with an experimental charged particle cannon as well as gatlings, missiles with S-11 warheads, railguns and so on, which flies by gravity control and shields itself from lasers and BETA by way of gravitational warp fields (Rutherford fields).

It was shelved due to human technology of the time being insufficient to fine-control the shape of the Rutherford field for safe controlled flight, and because of the invention of the G-bomb, which makes use of a runaway G-element reaction to create massive spacetime/gravitational distortions tearing up everything within a certain large radius, which can be deployed without fear of lasers because it also produces a Rutherford field that distorts lasers around it, without that pesky problem the XG-70 had of needing to fine-tune the field shape for safe controlled flight. The downside is that it creates permanent severe gravitational distortions and fluctuations in the area where it explodes, making the land around it unsuitable for supporting life ever again. Because of which, only two have ever been deployed as a test case (which allowed them to capture Hive 22), and the results of the test case were enough that there is significant political pressure holding back any further G-bomb deployment.

Alternative Plans are based around finding an alternative to winning the war besides conventional military might. Alternative I was an attempt to figure out how BETA communicate and ended in complete failure. Alternative II revolved around capturing live BETA for study but failed to return anything significant about BETA physiology besides "carbon-based reactions are involved somehow". Alternative III used mass-produced Soviet ESPers in two-seater modified F-14s to infiltrate Hives and attempt psychic communication with the BETA, and returned no significant results besides the fact that the BETA do not consider humans to be living organisms, killing most of the ESPers in the process. Alternative IV's objective is a spoiler. Alternative V involves the evacuation of 100,000 humans on a migrant space fleet to another Earthlike planet in the Barnard Star system a few lightyears away, while the United States initiates mass G-bomb bombardment on the Eurasian continent, and is the final fallback in case Alternative IV fails.

Spoiler for Alternative V results:

So yes, in terms of conventional arms, the TSFs are set up as humanity's valuable anti-BETA weapon to the bitter end. If you can consider giant humanoid machines to be "conventional arms", anyway.

@Silvance: Well, they did offer up the Silent Eagle and later the Lightning II for export, at least. As a peace offering of sorts "here you can have stealth too!", I suppose? Not like IRL Congress isn't blocking F-22 export anyway.

Firefly00 · 2012-07-12, 09:32

Quote:

Originally Posted by DoomRavager

I don't see what silicon has to do with anything, since BETA are carbon based. The value of a nuclear bomb when fighting BETA would not be the long-term effects of ionizing radiation, but the heat and mechanical shockwave produced by the explosion, since the ionizing radiation does jack all to them.

If that's the case, I think thermobarics would be an effective alternative, especially if you can get one inside a hive.

Quote:

Originally Posted by DoomRavager

Long story short, they don't think up convoluted nuke delivery methods because the system of plot and narrative causality doesn't want them to, the lasers are just a plot device to say "NO PLANES NO NUKES". It's a bit of a handwave, I suppose.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Candyshark

Well looks there won't be any radical war-winning technology. Everything is built around to have TSF as main BETA weapon to the bitter end.

So basically we have a touch of 'plot-imposed idiocy' going on? At least the laser 'handwave' is far more forgivable than Gundam's Minovskiy physics... without the handwaving away of long-range engagements, mobile suits' survivability would plummet very quickly. Interestingly, though, I understand that the mobile suits were originally meant to be powered armor (such as the ADP's K-series; 'Starship Troopers'), but someone thought Gundam needed to compete in the 'giant robot' genre. Which it did, quite well, but one cannot help but wonder what might have been were the original concept retained...

Silvance · 2012-07-12, 09:52

Quote:

Originally Posted by DoomRavager

@Silvance: Well, they did offer up the Silent Eagle and later the Lightning II for export, at least. As a peace offering of sorts "here you can have stealth too!", I suppose?

Silent Eagle has limited stealth, though.

As for the F-35, didn't the Lockweed Mardin collaborated with EU, Africa, and Asian countries to develop it? I heard there are technical issues or was it solved at the end? Not much is known about that unit really. lol.

DoomRavager · 2012-07-12, 10:11

Quote:

Originally Posted by Silvance

Silent Eagle has limited stealth, though.

As for the F-35, didn't the Lockweed Mardin collaborated with EU, Africa, and Asian countries to develop it? I heard there are technical issues or was it solved at the end? Not much is known about that unit really. lol.

Hmm, as far as I'm aware all we know of the F-35 comes from the April Fools article, which is still mostly reliable for TSF info besides the whole "Japan eschews F-35, EF-2000, F-15SEJ, Shiranui II etc. in favour of adopting F-4JXXX CHOU GEKISHIN" joke thing.

Quote:

米ロックウィード・マーディン社が、欧州連合、アフリカ連合と共に国際共同開発を行っている最新鋭第三世代戦術機。輸出向けベストセラー機であるF-16の後継として、F-22Aで得られた技術を元に、小型かつ近接戦闘戦能力を重視する機体として開発された。米国は日本帝国の次期戦術機に本機を最も強く推奨していたが、現時点においても制式機がロールアウトしてない点、カタログ性能に特に優れた点が無い事から、日本帝国での本機の採用は極めて疑問視されていた。

So stuff about how they collaborated with the African Union and European Union to make the F-16's successor, the F-35. Technical issues are only with regards to the real-life F-35, it remains to be seen whether or not Kouki will decide they'll plague the TSF-35 as well.

Cosmic Eagle · 2012-07-12, 10:15

Quote:

Originally Posted by Silvance

Hah. It'd be nice if mankind can produce something like that.

but wow. I didn't know the Type-94 is the first 3rd generation TSF in the world... D:

As for America, I like how they managed to keep being on the lead when it comes to TSF development and not Japan. It's unfortunate that the latter beat them in creating the first 3rd gen TSF, but at least the Black Widow and Raptors turned out better in the end. lol.

Still, the Type-0 is still the number one in my book when it comes to design. <3

No...what really defines Muv Luv America is that they are leasing out Alaska to the USSR

Sheba · 2012-07-12, 10:20

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cosmic Eagle

No...what really defines Muv Luv America is that they are leasing out Alaska to the USSR

Well, yeah, with that ice and cold, and BEARS, it's not like Russians feels out of place there.

2012-07-12, 04:58	Link #65
MrTerrorist Takao Tsundere Cruiser Join Date: Oct 2008 Location: Classified	So i read in here that in the Muv-Luv Alternative Universe, Japan surrender to the Allies in 1944 rather than fight to the last man until the atomic bombs hit them in 1945. So how is Japan's relationship with Asia with this universe and how was the Shogunate reestablished in this universe when it abolished during the Meiji Restoration era? __________________

2012-07-12, 05:51	Link #67
DoomRavager Senior Member Join Date: May 2010	@MisterTerrorist It's a little unclear, they sort of skirt around exactly what happened to end up with their current situation. What we know from the game is that "in 1867, to resist the threat of European and American domination, the shogunate family and anti-shogun daimyo united for a common cause and established the restoration of imperial rule." The Emperor does hold absolute power, but appoints a Shogun from one of the five regent houses Koubuin, Ikaruga, Saionji, Kujo, and Takatsukasa to govern the country as leader of the "元枢府", translated in the fan translation as "Central Department", the government's highest administrative arm, and delegates authority over all state matters to said Shogun. So it sounds like the Meiji restoration ended with some sort of compromise instead, and probably Tokugawa still got the boot. Either way, after their WWII, most of the Shogun's power was taken away and placed in the hands of the democratically elected Diet, leaving the Shogunate as mostly a figurehead position, thanks to the post-WWII treaties and occupation policies. As for relationship with the rest of Asia, Japan doesn't seem to have the empire in Asia that it wanted in our WWII, so for lack of concrete information they presumably did the whole WWII "invade China, bomb Pearl Harbor, invade South East Asia, lose" thing. The retaking of the Japanese mainland after it completely fell in 1999 was done by a UN task force lead jointly by the Unites States and COSEAN (the Coalition of South East Asian Nations), though. @encia: The main advantage of a neutron bombs would be somewhat diminished considering the whole "unaffected by radiation" thing. Meanwhile Hive infiltration units do carry S-11s, the yield of which is comparable to a tactical nuke, intended to be set on the ground and set for a delayed explosion for use against a Hive Reactor or as a suicide bomb if need be so there's that. On the surface, though, firing off tactical nukes results in said nukes getting lasered anyway, which is a fairly big issue. They could probably deploy them if they could somehow clear away all the lasers from the battlefield, but that happens all too rarely since the BETA do make an effort to protect laser units, and when it does happen they generally start conventional bombing runs and ground strafing with planes and helicopters rather than going crazy with nukes. Last edited by DoomRavager; 2012-07-12 at 06:10.

2012-07-12, 06:11	Link #68
Wild Goose Truth Martyr Author Join Date: Nov 2007 Location: Doing Anzu's paperwork. Age: 38	I'd think terrain-following cruise missiles might do the trick. __________________ One must forgive one's enemies, but not before they are hanged.Heinrich Heine. *I believe in miracles.* Order of Freelance Mages (Goose's Nanoha OC Project)

2012-07-12, 06:30	Link #69
DoomRavager Senior Member Join Date: May 2010	I guess that would depend on how low they can reliably fly and to what extent they can be controlled in real time and maneuver to keep other BETA between them and any lasers until they get to within a suitable detonation range. Either way, they don't seem to employ them, they'd rather deploy heavy metal clouds and launch dumb artillery shells and tank barrages over the horizon en masse while TSFs charge in along the ground. Last edited by DoomRavager; 2012-07-12 at 06:47.

2012-07-12, 06:49	Link #70
Wild Goose Truth Martyr Author Join Date: Nov 2007 Location: Doing Anzu's paperwork. Age: 38	That's true... Though arty, in sufficient numbers, would be quite cost-effective at stopping BETA: the naval gunfire mission was quite effective... Just not effective enough. __________________ One must forgive one's enemies, but not before they are hanged.Heinrich Heine. *I believe in miracles.* Order of Freelance Mages (Goose's Nanoha OC Project)

2012-07-12, 08:39	Link #72
DoomRavager Senior Member Join Date: May 2010	I don't see what silicon has to do with anything, since BETA are carbon based. The value of a nuclear bomb when fighting BETA would not be the long-term effects of ionizing radiation, but the heat and mechanical shockwave produced by the explosion, since the ionizing radiation does jack all to them. A ground burst delivery system would have to be pretty close to the ground, low enough to keep other BETA between it and any lasers until it gets close enough, and maneuverable enough that it can rapidly shift trajectories on a dime to remain that way, since the BETA do actively coordinate to move aside and clear paths for lasers to high-priority targets, which nukes would be. Actually, if you're going to go that far, they might as well just put the warhead in a suicide TSF and have TSFs get close in to detonate with a pilot crazy/sacrificial enough to do it, since TSFs fit the bill for what you'd need a ground delivery system to do. They kind of already do that with the S-11s anyway, but suicide generally seems to be out of the question unless they're stuck deep in a Hive cut off from all support or something, since the 'proper' use of an S-11 generally involves setting the timer, dropping it and getting the hell out of the blast radius, as opposed to setting it off right away and dying for it. In Chronicles 02 a TSF did manually deliver an S-11 to the battlefield and blow up a Carrier-class BETA, though there weren't any lasers active at that engagement. Long story short, they don't think up convoluted nuke delivery methods because the system of plot and narrative causality doesn't want them to, the lasers are just a plot device to say "NO PLANES NO NUKES". It's a bit of a handwave, I suppose. Last edited by DoomRavager; 2012-07-12 at 08:55.

2012-07-12, 08:58	Link #73
Candyshark Senior Member Join Date: Feb 2011	Well looks there won't be any radical war-winning technology. Everything is built around to have TSF as main BETA weapon to the bitter end. So basicly it was very farsighted from US to make those stelth Raptors, which in long run will make everybody else US bitch and kiss their asses. They seem in such "confortable" position it almost asks for bitching. Is there any info or map showing how much of territory is under control of humanity/BETA? What about Australia, Europe situation. I doubt humanity have any time left with that little population.

2012-07-12, 09:07	Link #74
Silvance Storm Vanguard Graphic Designer Join Date: Mar 2008 Location: Type-00	Well, the development of the F-22 did make the other nations question America's intentions for the post-beta world. They even asked the United States if they could also start marketing the F-22 like the F-4 and F-15, but they gave the other countries the middle finger instead. A map? Don't have one but the entire Eurasia has fallen other than the British Isles. Last edited by Silvance; 2012-07-12 at 09:19.

2012-07-12, 09:26	Link #75
DoomRavager Senior Member Join Date: May 2010	@Candyshark: Images Sorry; dynamic content not loaded. Reload? Shows the BETA-held territory. There were two major BETA assaults on Great Britain across the English channel, in 1985 and in 1996, repelled both times, with difficulty. Australia is clear for now and accepting refugees. Unites States also accepts refugees, and offers US citizenship to any refugees willing to enlist in the U.S. armed forces. Soviet government currently resides in Alaska. Combined Arabs and Jews, et al are preventing BETA incursions from the Iran and Iraq hives from invading Egypt across the Suez. COSEAN (Coalition of South East Asian Nations) holding the line in Thailand. As for radical war-winning technologies, the main "radical new technologies" revolve around the use of G-elements (which basically amount to alien-made phlebotnium that humans can't figure out how to manufacture and have all sorts of weird properties like one having negative mass, another being a room temperature superconductor, and so on) captured from the nuked Canada landing unit. The first is the XG-70, a product of the HI-MARF project, a gigantic flying fortress armed with an experimental charged particle cannon as well as gatlings, missiles with S-11 warheads, railguns and so on, which flies by gravity control and shields itself from lasers and BETA by way of gravitational warp fields (Rutherford fields). It was shelved due to human technology of the time being insufficient to fine-control the shape of the Rutherford field for safe controlled flight, and because of the invention of the G-bomb, which makes use of a runaway G-element reaction to create massive spacetime/gravitational distortions tearing up everything within a certain large radius, which can be deployed without fear of lasers because it also produces a Rutherford field that distorts lasers around it, without that pesky problem the XG-70 had of needing to fine-tune the field shape for safe controlled flight. The downside is that it creates permanent severe gravitational distortions and fluctuations in the area where it explodes, making the land around it unsuitable for supporting life ever again. Because of which, only two have ever been deployed as a test case (which allowed them to capture Hive 22), and the results of the test case were enough that there is significant political pressure holding back any further G-bomb deployment. Alternative Plans are based around finding an alternative to winning the war besides conventional military might. Alternative I was an attempt to figure out how BETA communicate and ended in complete failure. Alternative II revolved around capturing live BETA for study but failed to return anything significant about BETA physiology besides "carbon-based reactions are involved somehow". Alternative III used mass-produced Soviet ESPers in two-seater modified F-14s to infiltrate Hives and attempt psychic communication with the BETA, and returned no significant results besides the fact that the BETA do not consider humans to be living organisms, killing most of the ESPers in the process. Alternative IV's objective is a spoiler. Alternative V involves the evacuation of 100,000 humans on a migrant space fleet to another Earthlike planet in the Barnard Star system a few lightyears away, while the United States initiates mass G-bomb bombardment on the Eurasian continent, and is the final fallback in case Alternative IV fails. Spoiler for Alternative V results: The results of Alternative V in the timelines where Alternative IV failed were not pretty, to say the least. So yes, in terms of conventional arms, the TSFs are set up as humanity's valuable anti-BETA weapon to the bitter end. If you can consider giant humanoid machines to be "conventional arms", anyway. @Silvance: Well, they did offer up the Silent Eagle and later the Lightning II for export, at least. As a peace offering of sorts "here you can have stealth too!", I suppose? Not like IRL Congress isn't blocking F-22 export anyway. Last edited by DoomRavager; 2012-07-12 at 09:55.