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Topic: Would the Ur-Quan have had the Shofixti not supernova'd their sun? (Read 2770 times)
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danzibr
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Title says it all. I seem to recall reading that the Ur-Quan Kzer-Za lost a third of their fleet when the Shofixti blew up their sun. Was that the entire fleet or some squad? It seems like if the Ur-Quan were only fighting with 2/3 of what they could've had, they'd win. But hey, no way to know.
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onpon4
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In SC lore, they would have annihilated each other, AFAIK (though that makes no sense in real life).
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Draxas
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Neither subspecies would disrespect the traditions of the doctrinal war enough to stop before only a scant few Ur-Quan were left, or one of the subraces was eliminated entirely. So yes, they would have effectively exterminated each other had the Kzer-Za fleet been at full strength.
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onpon4
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In SC lore, they would have annihilated each other, AFAIK (though that makes no sense in real life).
Why not? It's not as though the Kohr-Ah (at least) are rational enough to realize that's a bad idea.
Because someone has to be around to kill someone else, the numbers of the ships are not going to be exactly the same, and the rate of ship loss isn't going to be exactly the same for both sides. Plus, most societies have tons of people that don't fight at all (scientists, engineers, traders, etc), and these people don't depend on the military being intact to survive (and unless they're idiots, faced with loss of something valuable (such as freedom), or under a totalitarian government that lies to them, they probably wouldn't risk their lives trying to fight a proper military). Of course, that last point can maybe be discarded for the Ur-Quan, but in that case, it's still most likely that one side will be completely annihilated while the other side survives (though possibly without many survivors) or that one side will get lucky and overpower the other side.
Of course, I'm mostly talking out of my ass (not an expert of any kind), so I could be completely off, but that's my reasoning. Not like it matters, because the SC universe isn't the real world.
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Death 999
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War is a very unstable process, to say the least. Total mutual annihilation is ridiculous in the absence of strategic weaponry analogous to our nukes. However, there are enough stabilizing aspects to warfare that it's quite possible for two sides to grind each other down - if it came to a fight between 1914 Germany and 1917 Germany, who do you think would win?
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Defender
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June 15, 1915 Germany?
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Death 999
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I don't get it, and googling the date doesn't really answer it for me.
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Stardrake
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That does make for an interesting question, actually. 1914 Germany had more resources to play with, but 1917 Germany had a significant technology upgrade. My gut feeling is that said technology upgrade probably wouldn't be enough since that was a war mostly fought by the poor bleedin' infantry and most of the technology upgrades were elsewhere, but that feeling might be wrong.
Even so, while it bogged down for several years, when the end came it was pretty decisive (arguably similar to the actual Doctrinal Conflict, since IIRC that had been going for long enough for the battle thralls to get back up to mischief). The US entering the war probably had an influence there, but not a decisive role in terms of actual military engagements (although there were psychological effects on both the German troops and high command).
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« Last Edit: August 01, 2012, 08:03:19 am by Stardrake »
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Stardrake
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The Allies and Germans each lost more troops than that in the Battle of the Somme alone. There's one major battle that official US troops were involved in (as distinguished from the volunteers with the French Foreign Legion and similar units), the Battle of Blanc Mont Ridge with is mainly historically notable because US troops participated in it - Germany was already planning to sue for peace at the time, and US casualties were higher proportionally during the time they were fighting because they were a lot greener than the Allied troops that had been fighting for years. That the US was in the war certainly contributed psychologically, since the German leadership and troops on the ground both knew that they were going to be facing increasing numerical superiority as more US troops arrived, but peace happened before that became as significant as it would have if the war had extended to 1919. (There are actually some historians that think the US entering the war actually harmed the Allied war effort, since it meant that supplies that had been being sold to Britain and France were diverted to US preparations to fight instead, and those diversions happened well before US troops were ready to deploy)
The postwar borders had little to do with where the battle lines were drawn - in fact, by Armistice Day they were mostly still on the French side of the prewar border (part of the reason why the legend developed that the German army hadn't been beaten in the field and had instead been stabbed in the back by a Jewish conspiracy). To tell the truth, if the US had had more of a direct, tangible effect on the war, Germany would probably have been better off and World War 2 might have been avoided (or at least been a very different war) - President Wilson advocated being gentle with Germany where the French and to a lesser extent the British were inclined to be vicious, and Wilson's opinion basically got shrugged off on the basis that the US hadn't done the fighting so what would they know.
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