[Kha]

Originally Posted by Avatar_notADV

Like we've said, the TSAB is designed by people whose experience with the military is the JSDF. That is to say, the TSAB is a self-defense force in almost the same mold; law enforcement, disaster relief, a jobs program for people with a certain type of inclination.

That works for the Japanese government and society, but primarily because the US is there; Japan, as part of the US security umbrella, doesn't really need powerful forces of its own (and in fact, developing them would be counterproductive, as the US would probably reduce its own deployments in the area.) Nobody else is really competing with the US, so it's not essential that Japanese military strength be developed - and staying non-nuclear was Japan's only real hope of coming out of a multinational nuclear exchange intact.

The TSAB has a different environment, though. If there's a big protector keeping everyone else off their back, the series definitely doesn't mention it; thus, probably not. The implication is that they're the only game in town. Possibly true - it would take a lot of infrastructure to match their Navy, and they're not totally blind. That kind of security arrangement would call for something more like the British Imperial Navy than the JSDF...

One other point - there's absolutely no combat continuity in the TSAB. No mention of unit continuity, no glorious martial heritage, no traditions, no patriotism. No "why we fight" moment - the characters are there because of their personal ambitions, desires, and quirks, and there's no common purpose beyond that. That's -freakin' odd- for a military, but the JSDF is closer to it than anything else.

Nanoha and the others make a lot of other mistakes that help give you the feeling that the writers just weren't familiar with any "real" militaries, and thus winged the whole thing, without really having the background to appreciate the problems their structure would encounter. Well, it's not a terrible thing, that we've created a world in which such people can exist and not know any better... ;p But it does tend to kneecap your magical girl military realism, if that term isn't a contradiction in and of itself.

It'd be interesting to design a rival organization "the right way", though. What special challenges would a militarized magical society face? Yes, yes, peace through superior firepower, but there really are unique challenges presented by the situation; you couldn't just throw Nanoha and Fate and Hayate into the 101st without giving everybody involved fits.

(More to the point, it'd be more interesting to talk about that than harping continually on the shortcomings of Nanoha from a pragmatic standpoint...)

I just love how Tech thread keeps raising points for me to fix in Rebuilt of StrikerS.

Too bad I'm being hampered by my writing ability...

Originally Posted by arkhangelsk

Here's where the real rules about technology come in. Tk3997 discussed it with Kagerou and Wild Goose when they made Erusia in the OC thread. To put it simply, they won't succeed because the tech gap will be too great, especially since we hadn't even made the first step in scientifically identifying magic or the existence of other dimensions. Further, Nanoha, who is not even an engineer, won't be able to tell them anything technically useful (and even if she is realistically she can only have expert knowledge on one field), which makes an impossible task further off... All she can do is get Earth to intensify research on weapons.

They won't be able to invade us without lots of indiscriminate bombing to make up for their tactical nonexistence, but we aren't going to invade them anytime soon unless entire inftact warships are given to us. Even then, we'll only be able to use them until the first major magitech system requires maintenance.

(Pure speculation here, but when a world gets advanced enough it might just be able to, like the Erusians, eventually squeeze something out of accidentally contacted magitech, they go from "Non-management" to "Observation Candidate"). That's when they start to sweat...

Now here's another thought. We all agree that the TSAB pretty much had to suppress tactics to get that dumb.

Perhaps that was their war-suppression plan...

After all, tactics are the best chance for the weaker side to pull a fast one over a stronger side. If no one even has tactics as a concept, then battle becomes a crapshoot. The stronger side will win by dint of N-square (not counting the inevitable factor of luck). Since the TSAB is presumably the strongest power, anybody acting up won't even dream they can beat them.

Further, the suppression of tactics also suppresses the arms race. A lot of weapons are created to satisfy certain tactical requirements mandated by certain tactical visions. Remove thinking on military matters and you reduce this.

Of course, all this kind of falls apart when one guy like Scarlietti doesn't play by the rules, but while the illusion holds, a kind of peace can be retained. They are exchanging unpreparedness against the unknown factors we think of for increasing the probability of peace in the known factors.

At least, that was the original vision about 75-150 years ago. Now, no one in the TSAB controlled zone even really understands what's as stake.

...and now someone handed me in concrete the plot basis for the Third Succession War (the first being the one after the pillar of Cephiro fell, the second when Belka gave way for TSAB).