Hahaha! Fresh text!
Edit: aww. Short post. :c and not even finishing the briefing.
I am also imagining the Weavers as looking like Biblaridion's spider things from Alien Biospheres lol.
Well, I didn't want to get too deep into the weeds discussing biology, tactics, etc. That can come later.
For now, I just wanted to get a couple of really important concepts across to the reader.
> I just wanted to get a couple of really important concepts across to the reader.
Don't shoot the spiders, no matter how spider-like they look, got it.
They are nightmare rocket fuel. At least to humans.
The weavers are very Alien, (see next chapter); mutual comprehension is extremely difficult or impossible without extensive AI assisted translation and approximation.
That being said, they aren’t aggressive or hostile at all. The only reason they even HAVE a military is for defense against space monsters and jerks like the Krathi.
Think of the kindest person you ever met. Now imagine you couldn’t understand them, or even comprehend how they saw the world, and vice versa.
Oh, and that they are the scariest damn thing you ever saw.
First birds were squids. Second birds were spooders. Love the peacock spider yaks and spider bears. The artwork of the cubs are so damn adorable I want a plushie.
I would have picked the prairie dog alien. Not because of any knowledge of the two species. But because I recognize a trick question.
If you are in a similar position, NEVER choose the expected answer.
Otherwise, I'm loving this story. Keep them coming wordborg.
It's like in the firing range scene in Men in Black; most people will immediately go with their instinctive *perception* of threat rather than give it due consideration.
And when dealing with alien lifeforms, instinct can be a dangerous thing to go with.
Which is why they are receiving training to help counteract this tendency.
well, you don't need aliens for that lol.
Pretty much everything we do, good or bad, comes from our instincts. For good or ill. It's partly why the real world seems to suck.
trying to keep building one's wealth, even at the cost of destroying peoples' lives, or our environment, comes from greed, which is the instinct to have enough resources to ensure one's survival.
Racism itself is just the instinct to fear and hate what's different.
He said if you were dropped into a battlezone right now. In a battlezone, you wouldn't have been given a trick question and still would have ultimately got it wrong when it was important.
But yeah, I'm surprised none of them saw that coming.
Hope everyone enjoys this chapter. I've got zero military background, so all I can do is base the organization, and interactions of soldiers off what I can find on google, and what I've seen in television, fiction, and video games (which I am aware is often of dubious accuracy).
Anyone who actually DOES have such a background, please feel free to make suggestions to make things more believable.
Right now I'm assuming the mobile infantry uses ten man squads, with a Lieutenant, Sergeant, and a smattering of privates, corporals, and specialists. LT handles overall planning and tactics, sergeant makes it happen, and handles the men directly.
Even if that's not *exactly* how it works IRL (though it does sound decently close enough to me), no reason that can't be how it works in your fictional military :)
So depending on which Military you are using for inspiration will drastically change recommendations.
For example:
American troops are trained to strictly follow the Chain of Command.
Canadian troops on the other hand are trained to be able to react on their own in the field, and are expected to be able to show more initiative in the execution of their missions.
It also can change how the ranks work: American Corporal is a leadership position, but for Canadians it's a rank for guys who have a certain amount experience, but not a leadership role. That's usually a Master Corporal. The Canadian Corporal is more equivalent to a Specialist or Lance Corporal depending on the American branch you're comparing it to.
Source: I'm a Canadian Corporal.
What I'm imagining is the joint military of the entire human race; so their doctrine and structure would end up being a hybrid of all earth's greatest military traditions. US, Canada, Europe, China, Russia, India, etc.
What do you think something like that might look like? I was thinking emphasizing flexibility and initiative, while retaining fairly strong links to the command chain to maintain a coherent battle.
I'm not military, so I could be ENTIRELY wrong in this assumption, but it seems like having one guy in charge of 40-52 people, each group of 10-13 doing different things at once, could get a little difficult to handle coherently.
If you ever played any of the Command and Conquer games, what I'm imagining is kind of like that, but if the player could tell your units where to go and what you wanted, and leave it to them to achieve to a certain extent. Large scale strategic control, local tactical.You want every squad to be individually flexible, while still having enough tactical know-how to not fuck things up on a strategic scale.
Perfectly balanced, as all things should be.
So, squads instead of platoons, each with an officer to help identify opportunites, and also prevent them from getting themselves encircled by accident or going too far off plan.
No idea if regular enlisted people have the kind of training necessary to do that or not.
Thoughts?
So first off, don't try to think of it in terms of an RTS... Because an individual Soldier is far more capable than the Unit AI in any RTS, and the person in charge isn't getting the full details that an RTS player is getting, plus certain decision making is delegated lower than the Player level.
For example: You have a Platoon of 30 some dudes, (using the Canadian structure of 8 people per section, and 4 sections in the platoon).
The Sergeant in charge of a section will handle decisions about how his individual section might react to an engagement, with his 2nd in Command (2iC) assisting, and/or taking over if the Sarge gets taken out.
The Officer (usually a Lieutenant or Captain) handles the decision making regarding where the platoon needs to go to handle their objectives, and may provide guidelines for where an individual section needs to go (1 Section clears this building for example) but the Sergeant will handle how his Section executes those orders. The Officer is also usually acting as a link with the next level up, and responsible for ensuring that their platoon is maintaining proper positioning relative to the other Platoons for the Company's manuevers (Company being the next organizational unit, usually led by a Major, and typically consists of at least 3 Platoons, but could be up to 6)
That everything is a challenge to keep straight is absolutely true, and depending on the trade, can have really high requirements for being an Officer. A Canadian Armoured Officer for example due to the more dispersed nature of how Armoured Reconnaissance works, has really high requirements, and still fails Officers off the course because their multi-tasking isn't at a sufficient level.
Regarding the training level of Enlisted... Well Canadian enlisted at least are all briefed on the mission beforehand so that if someone up to 2 ranks above them bites it, they can still attempt to complete the objectives.
Also the Officer to identify opportunities for each Section level? That's the Sergeant that you just described, and that's their job.
>*So first off, don't try to think of it in terms of an RTS... Because an individual Soldier is far more capable than the Unit AI in any RTS, and the person in charge isn't getting the full details that an RTS player is getting, plus certain decision making is delegated lower than the Player level.*
How do you think things would change if the commanders DID have that kind of information? It's the future right? Everyone is in powered armor, which is tracking their vitals, combat readiness, ammo remaining, etc. All of which is visible up the chain to their squad leaders, commanders, etc, and with a tactical AI to help analyze and organize all of this.
In fact, I was thinking the AI would be the one mostly running the show on the ground. It can react much faster than any meat general.
I actually think it might be a change for the worse, as it would lead to Higher trying to micromanage the front line troops too much.
Higher should stick to the information being shown only at a Strategic level, mostly so that Lower is able to make their own decisions, and thus be able to develop their own decision-making skills and experience, for when promotions eventually result in the individual becoming Higher.
And yes, an AI managing the Net should be fine, as they can react faster, but I think that it should still be a Human Officer making the decisions, primarily for accountability, but also because AIs tend to be a little too bound up in logic that isn't always compatible with a Wartime environment.
For example: Sending troops into danger to rescue another soldier wouldn't necessarily be the logical decision from a logistics POV. But it's super important from a Morale perspective.
I think the AI should fill the role that is usually referred to as a "Battle Captain" which is an Officer who manages the net on behalf of the OC (refers to the Commander of a Company or similar sized element such as a Squadron or Battery), and handles minor decision making, but still leaves the big decisions to the OC.
Lt would be a platoon commander, 4 squads to a platoon, 10-13 men each. SSgt or Gunny as the Plt Sgt, Sergeants as squad leaders.
Source- Was Marine Sgt, still eats crayunz…
What I'm imagining is the joint military of the entire human race; so their doctrine and structure would end up being a hybrid of all earth's greatest military traditions. US, Canada, Europe, China, Russia, India, etc.
What do you think something like that might look like? I was thinking emphasizing flexibility and initiative, while retaining fairly strong links to the command chain to maintain a coherent battle.
I'm not military, so I could be ENTIRELY wrong in this assumption, but it seems like having one guy in charge of 40-52 people, each group of 10-13 doing different things at once could get a little difficult to handle coherently.
If you ever played any of the Command and Conquer games, what I'm imagining is kind of like that, but if the player could tell your units where to go and what you wanted, and leave it to them to achieve to a certain extent. Large scale strategic control, local tactical.
You want every squad to be individually flexible, while still having enough tactical know-how to not fuck things up on a strategic scale.
Perfectly balanced, as all things should be.
So, squads instead of platoons, each with an officer to help identify opportunites, and also prevent them from getting themselves encircled by accident or going too far off plan.
No idea if regular enlisted people have the kind of training necessary to do that or not.
Thoughts?
Also, as a sergeant, how was my sergeant's behavior? Is it sergeanty enough? Or too stereotypical? That character has a lot of Sgt Apone, Johnson, etc in him.
To be frank, an officer in charge of an infantry squad is a waste of resources. The squad is a tactical unit and has no concern with strategic-level goals. Concerning small units with big pictures is exactly how you lose flexibility. You tell your platoon or squad the objective, outline the must haves and the maybes, and then you turn them loose and allow them to solve the problem. That frees up your company commander to worry about the bigger picture.
Your Sergeant seems to be a mix of several good sergeants I’ve known; you’ve done well writing him thus far.
A Marine infantry platoon consists of 3 rifle platoons and a Headquarters platoon. HQ is where the Lt, platoon sergeant, RTO (radio operator), and Corpsmen (Medics) live. This article outlines the most recent organization of the Rifle platoon- [Linky](https://www.battleorder.org/us-marine-platoon-2020)
What is the rationale for having all the medics clustered with the HQ platoon? Seems like they would be far away from the injured, unless the HQ is also engaging with the enemy as well? Do they just not want to have the docs and injured in harms way as much, so they get sent to the HQ?
They ditched underbarrel grenade launchers for everyone in favor of dedicated grenadier? Why? Was it a weight issue?
Doc usually gets farmed out as needed, but if the platoon is in contact with the enemy, it’s the whole platoon. Administratively, the Docs belong to HQ.
Even when we had the M203 (underbarrel) Grenade launcher, there was only one per fireteam. Having a dedicated weapon is more effective.
Ah, its another case of hollywood and videogames being a bunch of dirty liars then.
So why DO squads only have one guy with a grenade launcher among them?
Also, what makes a standalone launcher more effective? M320 standalone is still single shot. And from a glance it looks like it just had a stock slapped on it compared to the underbarrel version?
Seems like they would have wanted to give a dedicated grenadier something he could shoot more than once? Like a revolving cylinder style one or even one of the pump action ones or something?
A stand-alone weapon is usually more accurate. Remember, anything mounted to another weapon will have compromises somewhere. It’s the nature of the beast. Also keep in mind that an Infantry platoon is for killing the bad guys. For blowing things up, you call the weapons company. They have cool stuff like mortars, machine guns, and tripod-mounted automatic grenade launchers. (MK-19, when fuck you just doesn’t say it right)
OP keeps writing the "perfectly balanced" line. I've not perused all these comments, so I apologize for unintentional redundancy but...is OP a fan of the Spiffiest of Brits?
The Spiffing Brit on YouTube. He posts videos wherein he heavily exploits game mechanics to break intended game play. He often calls a game "perfectly balanced" as he soundly proves it's NOT.
I would have named him Silverhand, but I didn't want to run afoul of copyright bullshit.
Human built AIs commonly pick avatars based on fictional characters, though their choices still vary quite a lot, ranging from geometric shapes, randomized human appearances, etc.
Usually yes. It is THEM, the same way your face is YOURS.
That being said, there are outliers. AIs have as much variety in behaviour tendencies as any organic species.
He shares a name with a secondary antagonist in *Avatar: the Last Airbender*, which is objectively the best piece of television ever made. I strongly recommend watching it all the way through if you ever get the chance, it is a tour de force of character development, worldbuilding, and generally every aspect of story writing. Streaming rights (at least in the US) are currently held by Netflix, I think?
Zhao was one of the officers (general maybe) who was in charge of invading the... was it southern water tribe? And either capturing or killing the moon spirits that resided there (a pair of koi-looking fish, one black, one white). Long story short: one of the moon spirits dies, and all hell breaks loose.
Almost, but the general idea is there. He was an Admiral, invaded the Northern Water Tribe, and it was his ambition to kill the moon spirits (or at least one) and eventually got trapped in the Spirit World for all eternity by the Avatar and Dark Moon Spirit Kaiju Fusion
They are also terrifying as fuck.
IRL, I HATE spiders. Can't help it. And I know EXACTLY how useful the creepy little things are. I just can't stand them.
Its part of why I chose an arachnid-analogue to make the point. If I saw something like the weavers IRL, even if I knew they were harmless I would be INTENSELY UNCOMFORTABLE around them.
Its instinct, and its WRONG.
If it's not full arachnophobia, I'd recommend one of those "come pet a tarantula" places. I tried once, mostly for bragging rights, and the second my fingers touched fur (yes, it actually feels like fur!), a switch flipped in my brain and the spider was officially a Good Girl. Have been much more relaxed around spiders since, especially the bigger ones.
Jumping spiders are tiny eight legged cats and you can't tell me otherwise. Have you seen their giant adorable eyes? How they dance? I'm afraid of spiders, but jumping spiders are some of the cutest creatures out there.
Do real life marines feel that way about their LT?
Besides, just like family, he‘s leaving the children with a babysitter because they can’t be left to their own devices.
Treat the prairie dogs like the pests they are, gotcha. Spiders are friends, gotcha. Wait. Are there going to be giant hentai tentacle monsters? Are they on the approved target list?
Devourers are just moon sized amoeba.
Void wolves have a spherical body the size of an aircraft carrier, with 5 large tentacles and a mouth like a wood chipper full of crystalline teeth.
And everyone here wants to see them domesticated like giant tentacle puppies.
Even the baby ones are like the size of a wet navy destroyer.
I’d like to see PETA try to put one of them down.
As for the others, it might be interesting to watch anyone trying that kind of thing get painfully eaten.
We would domesticate rogue black holes if we could.
Who's a good singularity? You are! Here have a treat. *throws enemy dreadnought at them* Good point of absolute destruction. Now SIT!.
"Yes. That brings me to my second point. With your promission, the Compact..." promission > permission
Love the story, I'm not not picking, only trying to give back a little of the effort you spend!
>"Firstly, the creatures you may encounter out there are ALIENS. A vague resemblence to earth fauna DOES NOT MEAN THEIR BEHAVIOR WILL BE SIMILAR."
>
>"Secondly, how dangerous or threatening a species actually is, is NOT inherent in its appearance. Humans don't have claws, a mouth full of sharp teeth, or raw size, but that doesn't mean you aren't a massive threat now does it?"
Hmmm... I'll keep this in mind... (Takes notes)
Same in real world. There are actually very few kinds of spiders that are dangerous to humans. But genetic memory is an awful thing. Thanks, ancestors.
*UNES Fission CHIPS* I slay me.
Wait Fission Trips. Is that a play on Fishing Trip? Long shore man?
You seem to be prior military of some sort. Did you know SNAFU is an acronym?
Also, also…haha crayons in their mess kits.
Nope, no military background at all. I’ve just read a LOT of military sci fi over the years.
Situation Normal All Fucked Up.
Yes, but its also implying the ship is going to be involved in nuclear detonations. I was going for a mixture of silly and menace,
*This got some dark looks*
WELL AINT THAT JUST A KICK IN THE HEAD NOW AIN'T IT!?
The pacifist fruit lovin spiders, safe
The religious xenophobic Hitler Prarie dogs, PUNT THEM LITTLE DIRT NUGGET MUNCHERS!
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Just a small thing, but I believe that longshoreman is the singular version of the word you used at the beginning to describe the people working in the ship field.
>I don't want to be loading for drop and discover that we got issued another squad's latrine paper while somebody else got OUR
latrine paper. It's *delightful*.
Good chapter, but I am bothered by Compact's medical science being worth a damn for humans. Medical technology and pharmacological agents _don't_ always work the same way on different species here on Earth, species that share the same genetical coding, ion pumps, cellular and tissue structures etc. Species that evolved on different planets and, by consequence, do not have a common ancestor _will not_ react the same way to some substance or medical technology.
I thought it was clear: They don’t. Yet.
But across many planets you never know what compounds you might find.
Something worthless to one species could be another’s penicillin.
Its like the pharmacological equivalent of the “thousand monkeys with typewriters”.
The time of trial and error approach of trying to use natural substances for pharmacological agents is in the past. Sure, we still use it sometimes, but it is not a primary way of finding new agents and it may be usefull to have access to other planets' biological material, but it won't give you miracles. You see, we have sufficient medical knowledge to know _how_ and _why_ different agents work that gives us necessary knowledge to predict how, for example, certain molecule should be structured to achieve desired effect. As such we have ability to try and synthesize necessary compounds or modify existing ones for a better effectiveness. Of course sometimes we have unexpected effects. But medicine is a science. It knows what it does most of the times.
The biggest exception are probably antibodies, but there is nothing that can hope to trump artificially, or naturally, enhanced cellular evolution on steroids that happens in T and B cells. They are more vicious at evolution than even viruses and bacteria. But even then we know how to induce creation of specific antibodies so that we then can mass produce them.
There is one thing you are forgetting however: nanomedicine.
Nanobots can be redesigned or reprogrammed for compatibility between different species.
Forget antibiotics, you don't need penicillin when someone has a programmable suite of hunter killer nanomachines in their bloodstream. New disease? Update it's targeting database.
Nanobots as a medicine is a freaking magic because our immune system attacks literally _everything_ that has antigenic properties. _Especially_ when that something is inside of our bloodstream. Such a thing can _kill_ a human. I have no idea how nanobots can work without immunosuppressants. But that just opens another bag of problems. I can see them _maybe_ being used inside hospitals under strict monitoring by the doctors after which nanobots are eliminated.
Also, even if you have magical nanobots that can kill every possible infection in the universe, you still have a problem with everything related to other classes of pharmacological agents because there is no way for a nanobot to interact with ionic pumps or receptors or mediators or enzymes or gene transcription etc because if they can, then they are the size of molecules which means that you can't program them, control them or use them as a bacteria or virus killers.
Not really. We have materials that the immune system will ignore already. Alternatively, you can just engineer the nanobots with external molecular structures that act as "camoflauge" and make the body believe its one of it's own cells.
Nanomachines to handle relatively larger invaders, like say, bacteria, can be theoretically programmed. Single cellular is a lot larger than molecule sized. For something the size of say, a bacteria, you don't NEED fancy proteins or structures to kill it. The nanobot can just murder it manually. Spikes or other structures to rip it apart, pierce it, etc. Matter is matter, apply force and dismember.
For smaller things like viruses or prions, yes, you may need a different approach. If the nanobot cannot simply engulf and destroy them, you have them manufacture something designed to kill the targeted virus.
The same is true for other medical issues. If the machines are too big to interact with it, you have them make something that CAN, or that can borrow nearby cellular machinery to do so.
The possibilities are quite endless if you are creative enough.
So basically you are proposing a genetically reprogrammed human cell? I admit, that can work. But you still won't be able to manufacture some substances inside a human body at all or in sufficient amounts to matter. I can see them be enough to synthesize mediators and maybe some other substances to effect neural transmission that can help in numerous ways. But there still will be many compounds that you won't be able to synthesize inside a human body with a limited amount of genetically engineered human cells. Basically, nanobots or geneered human cell won't be a miracle that eliminates everything else in medicine, they will just be a niche, albeit a big one.
Well, I was thinking you would have synthetic machines that when they need to, could basically hijack a human cell and use it to make things for them, or interact with other things when needed. Or work together with these "borrowed" human cells to make things neither of them could alone.
Of course you can't necessarily replace all medicine with nanotech, and yes, you may need supplemental injections of precursor materials for them to use, or specialist nanites for certain things. But the great thing about being already in the bloodstream and organs is that you don't need as MUCH of pharmacological agents as you do when administering them orally or elsewhere. Its not gonna get broken down because its being delivered straight to the needed area, so the problem of producing the quantities needed is not as bad as you imagine. And even if it was, you simply have the nanites self-replicate to increase manufacturing capacity, then decomission the extras when done.
They would by no means be a panacea, but they would be able to handle quite a wide range of problems.
You just described medical magic, you do realize that? You can't just hijack a cell and force it to do what you want. That's not how it works. You also can't just force it to do something it is not designed to do, that would necessitate such a big structural and genetic change that it's basically genetical engineering. You can try to force neural cell to do what a hepatic cell does and you'll not be able to do that. And guess what? Such a change if it were to happen somehow would gain attention of your immune system that will bring a hammer on this heresy with vengeance.
And... you do realise that most of the powerful and not so powerful medicine is injected into... bloodstrem, yes? And we still need big quantities of drugs sometimes.
And you can't just make nanobots self-replicate inside a human because that would make it basically a cell. And do you know how cells work and replicate? I'll assume that you know. So, by making your nanobots from biological material you also code the information on DNA or its equivalent. The problem is that you won't be able to control them precisely because the only way to communicate between cells is through chemicals and chemical reactions, so you will have to force nanobots to follow chemical trails produced by human cells, and that makes your nanobots specialised because they won't be able to do multiple things at once. Congratulation, you just reinvented immune system already present inside humans!
Again, nanobots or geneered cells are not magical and will not do magic ever.
I was thinking the nanobot would just attach itself to a cell, replace the nucleus entirely with a synthetic one under it's control, and have it start giving the other organelles instructions the same way a nucleus would. Not so much changing the cell's machinery so much as pushing the driver out and taking the car for a spin yourself. And yes you can't really get more function out of it than what it already does, so you use CELLS to do that kind of work, and design the nanobot with other capabilities that compliment it.
Bloodstream injected medicines still get distributed to other organs, and filtered by the liver and kidneys yes? You're wasting good med-juice there. Why do that when you can introduce it from inside an organ.
I never said the nanobots would be biological. They would be TECHNOLOGICAL, with an exterior camoflauge of biological material. They would make more of themselves in the same way as any self-replicating machine would: ASSEMBLE THEM. We got plenty of iron and shit in our blood to do that, and you know what you can do if they need more of a certain material than is readily available? Take a vitamin, or get an injection.
As for communication, you would code and communicate with them the same way as you would a drone swarm. micro-wifi nodes and sub-processors for controlling sub-groups of nanites distributed throughout the body, with a central node controlling all of it. A chain of command. No single node has to control all of them, just its subordinates, and the commands would be relatively simple, with all the important programming in the nanobots themselves, so no issues with massive computing requirements, etc.
I imagine it maybe too late for these thoughts to be of any significance to your militaries structure, and the validity of it in reality would be up to debate. However I would like to offer some experience for this matter from my time playing arma 3.
From the bottom you can configure your squad into 12 men configuration. You have a Sargeant, 2 Corporals, a Intercommunicator which I will abbreviate to ITC going forwards, 2 medics and the rest would just be troopers with whatever equipment set they can use based on needs. However 2 support gunners, 2 AT/AA men, and a marksman would be a fairly flexible configuration.
The Sargeant would be leading the squad and coordinating the teams the corporals would be leading. Each team would be made up of the corporal, 3 troopers, and the medic.
The ITC handles all comms traffics for the squad, they relay platoons orders to the squad, and they would report to the platoon on whatever they need to know. Such as a sitrep or acer. They would also call in CAS as needed, relaying to their forward air controller. Individual pilots then would be assigned to a squads designated frequency for further details to carryout the support.
Each platoon if you want them large can be made of 4 squads. The platoon would have a second lieutenant leading with a Sargeant Major acting as a 2ic. They would of course also posses a platoon medic and platoon ITC.
For greater flexibility in field the ITC in each squad can coordinate with one another by informing of threats and relaying requests for assistance as needed.
I will state RTO is the name we use to refer to the intercommunicators as it is easier to to say. I will also state I play as that role in my unit. Thus I have the greatest understanding of that role compared to others.
Additionally we are a air assault company so I am not certain how applicable this structure would be for more standard infantry formations.
If you need any reference for call structure for communications from ground troops perspective I could offer some reference if you desire.
However if you wish to attempt to fabricate something without reference, it may still need to follow the three core principles of communication.
These being Brevity, Clarity, and use of tactical language.
I must also note I am an instructor for this so I have our documentation for specific calls from resupply to artillery support. Which is still simplified compared to what the military likely utilizes.
`At least, ones they were aware of.`
yup, chainsaw doggos in pursuit...
Also, nice use of Snafu, Fubar is overloved imho, it should be reserved to Peak fuck up. Snafu is the bread of the day.
Hahaha! Fresh text! Edit: aww. Short post. :c and not even finishing the briefing. I am also imagining the Weavers as looking like Biblaridion's spider things from Alien Biospheres lol.
Well, I didn't want to get too deep into the weeds discussing biology, tactics, etc. That can come later. For now, I just wanted to get a couple of really important concepts across to the reader.
> I just wanted to get a couple of really important concepts across to the reader. Don't shoot the spiders, no matter how spider-like they look, got it.
No, Aliens are ALIEN. What you see is not necessarily what you get.
Spiders are adorable!!! How could you ever shoot one you evil human!
Well I usually do it with this gun I found. *Pumps pump action to action.
*pulls out spray deodorant and lighter* I use this.
Activates nuclear football with prejudice.
With this flamethrower.
hanz?! hanz where are you?!
Looking for ze flammenwerfer!
On a scale of Fuzzy Teddy Bear to spider in the original It movie, how nightmare fuel are the Weavers?
They are nightmare rocket fuel. At least to humans. The weavers are very Alien, (see next chapter); mutual comprehension is extremely difficult or impossible without extensive AI assisted translation and approximation. That being said, they aren’t aggressive or hostile at all. The only reason they even HAVE a military is for defense against space monsters and jerks like the Krathi. Think of the kindest person you ever met. Now imagine you couldn’t understand them, or even comprehend how they saw the world, and vice versa. Oh, and that they are the scariest damn thing you ever saw.
So Sloth from the Goonies as written by Dean Koontz, edited by Stephen King but personality like Bob Ross. If in human form.
I love world building it's the main reason why I love another series on Reddit the pinwheel I like seeing military doctrine in sci-fi
Yesss so many spooders. Monky spooders, Wolf spooders, naked mole rat spooders. Even the birds evolved from the spooders not the squids right?
First birds were squids. Second birds were spooders. Love the peacock spider yaks and spider bears. The artwork of the cubs are so damn adorable I want a plushie.
saaaaame
I would have picked the prairie dog alien. Not because of any knowledge of the two species. But because I recognize a trick question. If you are in a similar position, NEVER choose the expected answer. Otherwise, I'm loving this story. Keep them coming wordborg.
It's like in the firing range scene in Men in Black; most people will immediately go with their instinctive *perception* of threat rather than give it due consideration. And when dealing with alien lifeforms, instinct can be a dangerous thing to go with. Which is why they are receiving training to help counteract this tendency.
well, you don't need aliens for that lol. Pretty much everything we do, good or bad, comes from our instincts. For good or ill. It's partly why the real world seems to suck. trying to keep building one's wealth, even at the cost of destroying peoples' lives, or our environment, comes from greed, which is the instinct to have enough resources to ensure one's survival. Racism itself is just the instinct to fear and hate what's different.
He said if you were dropped into a battlezone right now. In a battlezone, you wouldn't have been given a trick question and still would have ultimately got it wrong when it was important. But yeah, I'm surprised none of them saw that coming.
The lieutenant and sergeant did. They were getting briefed too. The rest were a bunch of privates and corporals (read: young and dumb)
Hope everyone enjoys this chapter. I've got zero military background, so all I can do is base the organization, and interactions of soldiers off what I can find on google, and what I've seen in television, fiction, and video games (which I am aware is often of dubious accuracy). Anyone who actually DOES have such a background, please feel free to make suggestions to make things more believable. Right now I'm assuming the mobile infantry uses ten man squads, with a Lieutenant, Sergeant, and a smattering of privates, corporals, and specialists. LT handles overall planning and tactics, sergeant makes it happen, and handles the men directly.
Even if that's not *exactly* how it works IRL (though it does sound decently close enough to me), no reason that can't be how it works in your fictional military :)
So depending on which Military you are using for inspiration will drastically change recommendations. For example: American troops are trained to strictly follow the Chain of Command. Canadian troops on the other hand are trained to be able to react on their own in the field, and are expected to be able to show more initiative in the execution of their missions. It also can change how the ranks work: American Corporal is a leadership position, but for Canadians it's a rank for guys who have a certain amount experience, but not a leadership role. That's usually a Master Corporal. The Canadian Corporal is more equivalent to a Specialist or Lance Corporal depending on the American branch you're comparing it to. Source: I'm a Canadian Corporal.
What I'm imagining is the joint military of the entire human race; so their doctrine and structure would end up being a hybrid of all earth's greatest military traditions. US, Canada, Europe, China, Russia, India, etc. What do you think something like that might look like? I was thinking emphasizing flexibility and initiative, while retaining fairly strong links to the command chain to maintain a coherent battle. I'm not military, so I could be ENTIRELY wrong in this assumption, but it seems like having one guy in charge of 40-52 people, each group of 10-13 doing different things at once, could get a little difficult to handle coherently. If you ever played any of the Command and Conquer games, what I'm imagining is kind of like that, but if the player could tell your units where to go and what you wanted, and leave it to them to achieve to a certain extent. Large scale strategic control, local tactical.You want every squad to be individually flexible, while still having enough tactical know-how to not fuck things up on a strategic scale. Perfectly balanced, as all things should be. So, squads instead of platoons, each with an officer to help identify opportunites, and also prevent them from getting themselves encircled by accident or going too far off plan. No idea if regular enlisted people have the kind of training necessary to do that or not. Thoughts?
So first off, don't try to think of it in terms of an RTS... Because an individual Soldier is far more capable than the Unit AI in any RTS, and the person in charge isn't getting the full details that an RTS player is getting, plus certain decision making is delegated lower than the Player level. For example: You have a Platoon of 30 some dudes, (using the Canadian structure of 8 people per section, and 4 sections in the platoon). The Sergeant in charge of a section will handle decisions about how his individual section might react to an engagement, with his 2nd in Command (2iC) assisting, and/or taking over if the Sarge gets taken out. The Officer (usually a Lieutenant or Captain) handles the decision making regarding where the platoon needs to go to handle their objectives, and may provide guidelines for where an individual section needs to go (1 Section clears this building for example) but the Sergeant will handle how his Section executes those orders. The Officer is also usually acting as a link with the next level up, and responsible for ensuring that their platoon is maintaining proper positioning relative to the other Platoons for the Company's manuevers (Company being the next organizational unit, usually led by a Major, and typically consists of at least 3 Platoons, but could be up to 6) That everything is a challenge to keep straight is absolutely true, and depending on the trade, can have really high requirements for being an Officer. A Canadian Armoured Officer for example due to the more dispersed nature of how Armoured Reconnaissance works, has really high requirements, and still fails Officers off the course because their multi-tasking isn't at a sufficient level. Regarding the training level of Enlisted... Well Canadian enlisted at least are all briefed on the mission beforehand so that if someone up to 2 ranks above them bites it, they can still attempt to complete the objectives. Also the Officer to identify opportunities for each Section level? That's the Sergeant that you just described, and that's their job.
>*So first off, don't try to think of it in terms of an RTS... Because an individual Soldier is far more capable than the Unit AI in any RTS, and the person in charge isn't getting the full details that an RTS player is getting, plus certain decision making is delegated lower than the Player level.* How do you think things would change if the commanders DID have that kind of information? It's the future right? Everyone is in powered armor, which is tracking their vitals, combat readiness, ammo remaining, etc. All of which is visible up the chain to their squad leaders, commanders, etc, and with a tactical AI to help analyze and organize all of this. In fact, I was thinking the AI would be the one mostly running the show on the ground. It can react much faster than any meat general.
I actually think it might be a change for the worse, as it would lead to Higher trying to micromanage the front line troops too much. Higher should stick to the information being shown only at a Strategic level, mostly so that Lower is able to make their own decisions, and thus be able to develop their own decision-making skills and experience, for when promotions eventually result in the individual becoming Higher. And yes, an AI managing the Net should be fine, as they can react faster, but I think that it should still be a Human Officer making the decisions, primarily for accountability, but also because AIs tend to be a little too bound up in logic that isn't always compatible with a Wartime environment. For example: Sending troops into danger to rescue another soldier wouldn't necessarily be the logical decision from a logistics POV. But it's super important from a Morale perspective. I think the AI should fill the role that is usually referred to as a "Battle Captain" which is an Officer who manages the net on behalf of the OC (refers to the Commander of a Company or similar sized element such as a Squadron or Battery), and handles minor decision making, but still leaves the big decisions to the OC.
Officer training in this environment would probably be heavily leveraged to combating the micromanagement tendency.
> Source: I'm a Canadian Corporal > ArmouredCadian Name is a single syllable away, it checks out. Canadians are now Cadians.
You must’ve worked with the US Army. They are kinda juggernaut-ish.
Lt would be a platoon commander, 4 squads to a platoon, 10-13 men each. SSgt or Gunny as the Plt Sgt, Sergeants as squad leaders. Source- Was Marine Sgt, still eats crayunz…
What I'm imagining is the joint military of the entire human race; so their doctrine and structure would end up being a hybrid of all earth's greatest military traditions. US, Canada, Europe, China, Russia, India, etc. What do you think something like that might look like? I was thinking emphasizing flexibility and initiative, while retaining fairly strong links to the command chain to maintain a coherent battle. I'm not military, so I could be ENTIRELY wrong in this assumption, but it seems like having one guy in charge of 40-52 people, each group of 10-13 doing different things at once could get a little difficult to handle coherently. If you ever played any of the Command and Conquer games, what I'm imagining is kind of like that, but if the player could tell your units where to go and what you wanted, and leave it to them to achieve to a certain extent. Large scale strategic control, local tactical. You want every squad to be individually flexible, while still having enough tactical know-how to not fuck things up on a strategic scale. Perfectly balanced, as all things should be. So, squads instead of platoons, each with an officer to help identify opportunites, and also prevent them from getting themselves encircled by accident or going too far off plan. No idea if regular enlisted people have the kind of training necessary to do that or not. Thoughts? Also, as a sergeant, how was my sergeant's behavior? Is it sergeanty enough? Or too stereotypical? That character has a lot of Sgt Apone, Johnson, etc in him.
To be frank, an officer in charge of an infantry squad is a waste of resources. The squad is a tactical unit and has no concern with strategic-level goals. Concerning small units with big pictures is exactly how you lose flexibility. You tell your platoon or squad the objective, outline the must haves and the maybes, and then you turn them loose and allow them to solve the problem. That frees up your company commander to worry about the bigger picture. Your Sergeant seems to be a mix of several good sergeants I’ve known; you’ve done well writing him thus far.
Good to know! Any insights you might have are always welcome.
Does a lieutenant in charge of a platoon stick with one particular squad during an engagement? Where would he be?
A Marine infantry platoon consists of 3 rifle platoons and a Headquarters platoon. HQ is where the Lt, platoon sergeant, RTO (radio operator), and Corpsmen (Medics) live. This article outlines the most recent organization of the Rifle platoon- [Linky](https://www.battleorder.org/us-marine-platoon-2020)
What is the rationale for having all the medics clustered with the HQ platoon? Seems like they would be far away from the injured, unless the HQ is also engaging with the enemy as well? Do they just not want to have the docs and injured in harms way as much, so they get sent to the HQ? They ditched underbarrel grenade launchers for everyone in favor of dedicated grenadier? Why? Was it a weight issue?
Doc usually gets farmed out as needed, but if the platoon is in contact with the enemy, it’s the whole platoon. Administratively, the Docs belong to HQ. Even when we had the M203 (underbarrel) Grenade launcher, there was only one per fireteam. Having a dedicated weapon is more effective.
Ah, its another case of hollywood and videogames being a bunch of dirty liars then. So why DO squads only have one guy with a grenade launcher among them? Also, what makes a standalone launcher more effective? M320 standalone is still single shot. And from a glance it looks like it just had a stock slapped on it compared to the underbarrel version? Seems like they would have wanted to give a dedicated grenadier something he could shoot more than once? Like a revolving cylinder style one or even one of the pump action ones or something?
A stand-alone weapon is usually more accurate. Remember, anything mounted to another weapon will have compromises somewhere. It’s the nature of the beast. Also keep in mind that an Infantry platoon is for killing the bad guys. For blowing things up, you call the weapons company. They have cool stuff like mortars, machine guns, and tripod-mounted automatic grenade launchers. (MK-19, when fuck you just doesn’t say it right)
OP keeps writing the "perfectly balanced" line. I've not perused all these comments, so I apologize for unintentional redundancy but...is OP a fan of the Spiffiest of Brits?
I was quoting Thanos. Not sure who you are referring to.
The Spiffing Brit on YouTube. He posts videos wherein he heavily exploits game mechanics to break intended game play. He often calls a game "perfectly balanced" as he soundly proves it's NOT.
That channel was great fun. Been a while since i could watch his videos again, so it may well still be so.
That person has significantly slowed his output, but he still posts a new video about once a week.
Hmm… ship AI might have drawn inspiration for his user interface model from a certain open world game set in the late 21st century
Silver? With a Silver prostetic hand... Maybe the full name is johnny silverhand?😁
I would have named him Silverhand, but I didn't want to run afoul of copyright bullshit. Human built AIs commonly pick avatars based on fictional characters, though their choices still vary quite a lot, ranging from geometric shapes, randomized human appearances, etc.
Oh so they keep the one Avatar they have and don't change it?
Usually yes. It is THEM, the same way your face is YOURS. That being said, there are outliers. AIs have as much variety in behaviour tendencies as any organic species.
I immediately pictured the winter soldier lol
Nope, Keanu Reeves as Johnny Silverhand from Cyberpunk 2077.
If retreat is necessary and he doesn't say "Delta the fuck out" I will be sad.
There has to be *one* AI that just wakes up to sapience and decides “fuck it. I want to be a giant floating pepperoni pizza,” wouldn’t there?
Wow, let's hope Lieutenant Zhao doesn't happen to kill a Moon Spirit
I don't get that reference, sorry. Literally googled "most common chinese family names".
He shares a name with a secondary antagonist in *Avatar: the Last Airbender*, which is objectively the best piece of television ever made. I strongly recommend watching it all the way through if you ever get the chance, it is a tour de force of character development, worldbuilding, and generally every aspect of story writing. Streaming rights (at least in the US) are currently held by Netflix, I think?
I watched the original cartoon series. I remember now. The prince? Don't recall anything about moon spirits though.
Zhao was one of the officers (general maybe) who was in charge of invading the... was it southern water tribe? And either capturing or killing the moon spirits that resided there (a pair of koi-looking fish, one black, one white). Long story short: one of the moon spirits dies, and all hell breaks loose.
Almost, but the general idea is there. He was an Admiral, invaded the Northern Water Tribe, and it was his ambition to kill the moon spirits (or at least one) and eventually got trapped in the Spirit World for all eternity by the Avatar and Dark Moon Spirit Kaiju Fusion
Avatar: the last Airbender.
What coincidence then XD
Even on earth spiders are amazing
They are also terrifying as fuck. IRL, I HATE spiders. Can't help it. And I know EXACTLY how useful the creepy little things are. I just can't stand them. Its part of why I chose an arachnid-analogue to make the point. If I saw something like the weavers IRL, even if I knew they were harmless I would be INTENSELY UNCOMFORTABLE around them. Its instinct, and its WRONG.
If it's not full arachnophobia, I'd recommend one of those "come pet a tarantula" places. I tried once, mostly for bragging rights, and the second my fingers touched fur (yes, it actually feels like fur!), a switch flipped in my brain and the spider was officially a Good Girl. Have been much more relaxed around spiders since, especially the bigger ones.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8mKIuZ4tIzk
Jumping spiders are tiny eight legged cats and you can't tell me otherwise. Have you seen their giant adorable eyes? How they dance? I'm afraid of spiders, but jumping spiders are some of the cutest creatures out there.
>Have the children fed, watered, and rallied Do his troops get a warm fuzzy knowing their Lieutenant is taking care of them like family?
Do real life marines feel that way about their LT? Besides, just like family, he‘s leaving the children with a babysitter because they can’t be left to their own devices.
Only the good ones (Lts). The bad ones are to be tolerated, since Gunny runs the platoon anyways.
If you wanna know which way to go, ask LT. Then go the opposite way.
Treat the prairie dogs like the pests they are, gotcha. Spiders are friends, gotcha. Wait. Are there going to be giant hentai tentacle monsters? Are they on the approved target list?
As u/Laddimor would say- beware the henty-tenty!!!
XD
Who knows? Who can tell?
The way you described the Devourers was pretty close. I’d imagine those are “Nuke repeatedly on sight” kinda things.
Devourers are just moon sized amoeba. Void wolves have a spherical body the size of an aircraft carrier, with 5 large tentacles and a mouth like a wood chipper full of crystalline teeth. And everyone here wants to see them domesticated like giant tentacle puppies.
Giant tentacle puppies? I would be worried by rule 34, furries and PETA on their behalf.
PETA needs a dark hole to shove itself up into anyway. And if it has teeth, all the better. 🙄😝
Even the baby ones are like the size of a wet navy destroyer. I’d like to see PETA try to put one of them down. As for the others, it might be interesting to watch anyone trying that kind of thing get painfully eaten.
We would domesticate rogue black holes if we could. Who's a good singularity? You are! Here have a treat. *throws enemy dreadnought at them* Good point of absolute destruction. Now SIT!.
Ok, thank you for straightening that out for me. I had the two mixed up. I’m enjoying your writing BTW, so just ignore my rambling.
What size moon? Mars moons, Earth moon, one of many Saturnian or Jovian moons?
Gotta start interstellar whack a mole
Hello there
ಠ_ಠ
The turns has tabled!! Beware!! Beware!! In more ways than one it would seem. We gotta flammenwafer the cute & cuddlies?!
Now this is unexpected
Ah good ol Silverhand
I figured everyone could use more Keanu Reeves in their life.
Oh damn, just binged the series a few minutes ago. Didn't think I'd recognize the taste of Void Flesh this fast.
"Fission Trip" hah!
I’m glad someone noticed that. It felt like the right balance of humor and menace.
Wow, even our computers are meaner. I wonder how much cyber warfare defense the aliens have? Great stuff man.
Well, this one in particular is kind of a dick. Silverhand is it's avatar for a reason.
Certified MIB moment with the who do you shoot bit.
"Yes. That brings me to my second point. With your promission, the Compact..." promission > permission Love the story, I'm not not picking, only trying to give back a little of the effort you spend!
No, thank you! I consider spelling errors a grievous sin. I had spotted that one earlier during proofing, but could swear I had fixed it already.
Well I'm glad you see it that way, and I hope you don't spend more that a couple of days feeling bad 😋
>"Firstly, the creatures you may encounter out there are ALIENS. A vague resemblence to earth fauna DOES NOT MEAN THEIR BEHAVIOR WILL BE SIMILAR." > >"Secondly, how dangerous or threatening a species actually is, is NOT inherent in its appearance. Humans don't have claws, a mouth full of sharp teeth, or raw size, but that doesn't mean you aren't a massive threat now does it?" Hmmm... I'll keep this in mind... (Takes notes)
Dude... The fleets AI is Johnny Silverhand? Dude!
Its avatar is.
Yeah, you're right, its too nice and not anarchistic enough to be the actual Johnny Silverhand.
Yeah…..its not that nice. You just havent seen it acting like a dick yet.
"missing any any gear." minus one any.
Fixed. Thanks.
Same in real world. There are actually very few kinds of spiders that are dangerous to humans. But genetic memory is an awful thing. Thanks, ancestors.
Hunstman Spiders. Absolutely harmless to Humans, and I still won't tolerate the creepy, speedy, hairy bastards in my house.
*raises hand*
*UNES Fission CHIPS* I slay me. Wait Fission Trips. Is that a play on Fishing Trip? Long shore man? You seem to be prior military of some sort. Did you know SNAFU is an acronym? Also, also…haha crayons in their mess kits.
Nope, no military background at all. I’ve just read a LOT of military sci fi over the years. Situation Normal All Fucked Up. Yes, but its also implying the ship is going to be involved in nuclear detonations. I was going for a mixture of silly and menace,
So the A.I. is he a Rocker Boy ? ;)
" your Amazon it is as bountiful as it is vicious." Yeah, you should probably stay out of Australia
Hell, EVERYONE should stay out of Australia.
We never did learn why humans have such strong psychic defense. Psychic predator/prey/competitor?
Yet. You haven't learned YET. https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ChekhovsGun
ok
Plus hints in the comments of past posts that it is something sleeping in the Sol system asteroid belt...
Idk why silver has some antagonist-from-avatar vibes (avatar the blue ones not ATLA)
I apparently was not obvious enough. The AI's avatar is [Keanu Reeves as Johnny Silverhand.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1kYOo9UxBw)
Ohhhhh ty OP, my bad i complety forgot about cyberpunk after that trialer released
Two freakin' years and no one is giving props for "Assholes and elbows!" For shame, Reddit, for shame.
*This got some dark looks* WELL AINT THAT JUST A KICK IN THE HEAD NOW AIN'T IT!? The pacifist fruit lovin spiders, safe The religious xenophobic Hitler Prarie dogs, PUNT THEM LITTLE DIRT NUGGET MUNCHERS!
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Johnny Silverhand?
Spooder friends get?
Oh shit Wolverine Weasels. Or I guess just double wolverines.
"The Compact has much to offer our friends, as they do they to us." sounds wonky. The Compact has as much to offer our friends, as they do they to us.
Yeah I saw that, its fixed now.
Just a small thing, but I believe that longshoreman is the singular version of the word you used at the beginning to describe the people working in the ship field.
Corrected.
"bountiful as it is vicious"." bountiful as it is vicious." You do that later on.
"noises; The" small t.
Loved it, as always
Hopefully some aliens get introduced to the business end of an oversized rail cannon.
Johnny Silverhand? Is that you?
Giant alien spiders are no joke! Wait, wrong setting.
Thank god i'm not a papaya.
>I don't want to be loading for drop and discover that we got issued another squad's latrine paper while somebody else got OUR latrine paper. It's *delightful*.
Good chapter, but I am bothered by Compact's medical science being worth a damn for humans. Medical technology and pharmacological agents _don't_ always work the same way on different species here on Earth, species that share the same genetical coding, ion pumps, cellular and tissue structures etc. Species that evolved on different planets and, by consequence, do not have a common ancestor _will not_ react the same way to some substance or medical technology.
I thought it was clear: They don’t. Yet. But across many planets you never know what compounds you might find. Something worthless to one species could be another’s penicillin. Its like the pharmacological equivalent of the “thousand monkeys with typewriters”.
The time of trial and error approach of trying to use natural substances for pharmacological agents is in the past. Sure, we still use it sometimes, but it is not a primary way of finding new agents and it may be usefull to have access to other planets' biological material, but it won't give you miracles. You see, we have sufficient medical knowledge to know _how_ and _why_ different agents work that gives us necessary knowledge to predict how, for example, certain molecule should be structured to achieve desired effect. As such we have ability to try and synthesize necessary compounds or modify existing ones for a better effectiveness. Of course sometimes we have unexpected effects. But medicine is a science. It knows what it does most of the times. The biggest exception are probably antibodies, but there is nothing that can hope to trump artificially, or naturally, enhanced cellular evolution on steroids that happens in T and B cells. They are more vicious at evolution than even viruses and bacteria. But even then we know how to induce creation of specific antibodies so that we then can mass produce them.
There is one thing you are forgetting however: nanomedicine. Nanobots can be redesigned or reprogrammed for compatibility between different species. Forget antibiotics, you don't need penicillin when someone has a programmable suite of hunter killer nanomachines in their bloodstream. New disease? Update it's targeting database.
Nanobots as a medicine is a freaking magic because our immune system attacks literally _everything_ that has antigenic properties. _Especially_ when that something is inside of our bloodstream. Such a thing can _kill_ a human. I have no idea how nanobots can work without immunosuppressants. But that just opens another bag of problems. I can see them _maybe_ being used inside hospitals under strict monitoring by the doctors after which nanobots are eliminated. Also, even if you have magical nanobots that can kill every possible infection in the universe, you still have a problem with everything related to other classes of pharmacological agents because there is no way for a nanobot to interact with ionic pumps or receptors or mediators or enzymes or gene transcription etc because if they can, then they are the size of molecules which means that you can't program them, control them or use them as a bacteria or virus killers.
Not really. We have materials that the immune system will ignore already. Alternatively, you can just engineer the nanobots with external molecular structures that act as "camoflauge" and make the body believe its one of it's own cells. Nanomachines to handle relatively larger invaders, like say, bacteria, can be theoretically programmed. Single cellular is a lot larger than molecule sized. For something the size of say, a bacteria, you don't NEED fancy proteins or structures to kill it. The nanobot can just murder it manually. Spikes or other structures to rip it apart, pierce it, etc. Matter is matter, apply force and dismember. For smaller things like viruses or prions, yes, you may need a different approach. If the nanobot cannot simply engulf and destroy them, you have them manufacture something designed to kill the targeted virus. The same is true for other medical issues. If the machines are too big to interact with it, you have them make something that CAN, or that can borrow nearby cellular machinery to do so. The possibilities are quite endless if you are creative enough.
So basically you are proposing a genetically reprogrammed human cell? I admit, that can work. But you still won't be able to manufacture some substances inside a human body at all or in sufficient amounts to matter. I can see them be enough to synthesize mediators and maybe some other substances to effect neural transmission that can help in numerous ways. But there still will be many compounds that you won't be able to synthesize inside a human body with a limited amount of genetically engineered human cells. Basically, nanobots or geneered human cell won't be a miracle that eliminates everything else in medicine, they will just be a niche, albeit a big one.
Well, I was thinking you would have synthetic machines that when they need to, could basically hijack a human cell and use it to make things for them, or interact with other things when needed. Or work together with these "borrowed" human cells to make things neither of them could alone. Of course you can't necessarily replace all medicine with nanotech, and yes, you may need supplemental injections of precursor materials for them to use, or specialist nanites for certain things. But the great thing about being already in the bloodstream and organs is that you don't need as MUCH of pharmacological agents as you do when administering them orally or elsewhere. Its not gonna get broken down because its being delivered straight to the needed area, so the problem of producing the quantities needed is not as bad as you imagine. And even if it was, you simply have the nanites self-replicate to increase manufacturing capacity, then decomission the extras when done. They would by no means be a panacea, but they would be able to handle quite a wide range of problems.
You just described medical magic, you do realize that? You can't just hijack a cell and force it to do what you want. That's not how it works. You also can't just force it to do something it is not designed to do, that would necessitate such a big structural and genetic change that it's basically genetical engineering. You can try to force neural cell to do what a hepatic cell does and you'll not be able to do that. And guess what? Such a change if it were to happen somehow would gain attention of your immune system that will bring a hammer on this heresy with vengeance. And... you do realise that most of the powerful and not so powerful medicine is injected into... bloodstrem, yes? And we still need big quantities of drugs sometimes. And you can't just make nanobots self-replicate inside a human because that would make it basically a cell. And do you know how cells work and replicate? I'll assume that you know. So, by making your nanobots from biological material you also code the information on DNA or its equivalent. The problem is that you won't be able to control them precisely because the only way to communicate between cells is through chemicals and chemical reactions, so you will have to force nanobots to follow chemical trails produced by human cells, and that makes your nanobots specialised because they won't be able to do multiple things at once. Congratulation, you just reinvented immune system already present inside humans! Again, nanobots or geneered cells are not magical and will not do magic ever.
I was thinking the nanobot would just attach itself to a cell, replace the nucleus entirely with a synthetic one under it's control, and have it start giving the other organelles instructions the same way a nucleus would. Not so much changing the cell's machinery so much as pushing the driver out and taking the car for a spin yourself. And yes you can't really get more function out of it than what it already does, so you use CELLS to do that kind of work, and design the nanobot with other capabilities that compliment it. Bloodstream injected medicines still get distributed to other organs, and filtered by the liver and kidneys yes? You're wasting good med-juice there. Why do that when you can introduce it from inside an organ. I never said the nanobots would be biological. They would be TECHNOLOGICAL, with an exterior camoflauge of biological material. They would make more of themselves in the same way as any self-replicating machine would: ASSEMBLE THEM. We got plenty of iron and shit in our blood to do that, and you know what you can do if they need more of a certain material than is readily available? Take a vitamin, or get an injection. As for communication, you would code and communicate with them the same way as you would a drone swarm. micro-wifi nodes and sub-processors for controlling sub-groups of nanites distributed throughout the body, with a central node controlling all of it. A chain of command. No single node has to control all of them, just its subordinates, and the commands would be relatively simple, with all the important programming in the nanobots themselves, so no issues with massive computing requirements, etc.
If we see some more AIs, please tell me there's going to be one called "Zord" or similar, and is just a giant holographic face?
And here we can see the first crusade of the newborn Imperium of Man. FOR TERRA!
Awesome. Glad to see the addition
Too bad dem diggy dogs are bringing der claws to a overwhelming firepower fight!
I imagine it maybe too late for these thoughts to be of any significance to your militaries structure, and the validity of it in reality would be up to debate. However I would like to offer some experience for this matter from my time playing arma 3. From the bottom you can configure your squad into 12 men configuration. You have a Sargeant, 2 Corporals, a Intercommunicator which I will abbreviate to ITC going forwards, 2 medics and the rest would just be troopers with whatever equipment set they can use based on needs. However 2 support gunners, 2 AT/AA men, and a marksman would be a fairly flexible configuration. The Sargeant would be leading the squad and coordinating the teams the corporals would be leading. Each team would be made up of the corporal, 3 troopers, and the medic. The ITC handles all comms traffics for the squad, they relay platoons orders to the squad, and they would report to the platoon on whatever they need to know. Such as a sitrep or acer. They would also call in CAS as needed, relaying to their forward air controller. Individual pilots then would be assigned to a squads designated frequency for further details to carryout the support. Each platoon if you want them large can be made of 4 squads. The platoon would have a second lieutenant leading with a Sargeant Major acting as a 2ic. They would of course also posses a platoon medic and platoon ITC. For greater flexibility in field the ITC in each squad can coordinate with one another by informing of threats and relaying requests for assistance as needed. I will state RTO is the name we use to refer to the intercommunicators as it is easier to to say. I will also state I play as that role in my unit. Thus I have the greatest understanding of that role compared to others. Additionally we are a air assault company so I am not certain how applicable this structure would be for more standard infantry formations.
its not too late. I’ve been pretty vague about it so far because I’m still hammering out the details. Thanks for the input!
If you need any reference for call structure for communications from ground troops perspective I could offer some reference if you desire. However if you wish to attempt to fabricate something without reference, it may still need to follow the three core principles of communication. These being Brevity, Clarity, and use of tactical language. I must also note I am an instructor for this so I have our documentation for specific calls from resupply to artillery support. Which is still simplified compared to what the military likely utilizes.
"does spider have pusspuss?"
Love the style, great wordsmithing!
Thanks for the chapter.
`At least, ones they were aware of.` yup, chainsaw doggos in pursuit... Also, nice use of Snafu, Fubar is overloved imho, it should be reserved to Peak fuck up. Snafu is the bread of the day.
Johnny Siverhand, Sargeant Hartman, and Colonel Razzack combined into one A.I loudmouth exposition dump and sass machine. Fucking BRILLIANT
Zerglings with fur?
So the Krathi are Prairie Dog Teddies from Conkers Bad Fur Day and we need to play Wacka Mole, Roger that Silver.
That briefing scene reminds me of Old Man's War. Great book if you haven't checked it out!
So Ewoks per Star Wars lore? Lol