Realism of Jericho Holmes survival in Xiticix territory

[cornholioprime]

Well, about 100,000 of the CS were 'harvested'. A single human should be able to provide a meal for a dozen Xitixic, assuming they eat most of the organs as well as the flesh; why kill the rest of the herd, when you may want to eat them next week?

Xiticix don't consume people that way.

They use them for mulch to fertilize their alien fungus, which is what they do eat.

As such, they wouldn't necessarily think that any amount of food is enough; just turn it all to mulch and get the Diggers to hollow out more underground real estate for farming.

[cornholioprime]

Argh, I just lost a longer post. Long story short, SoT books 5 and 6 sure make it sound like no soldiers fired off a shot; they talk about Holmes being an incredible leader: "Few leaders anywhere in the world could get their troops to trust in them so strongly that they would literally follow him into the jaws of death, and once gripped in those jaws, to hold together under such perilous conditions." - SoT 6 p. 13.

They also talk in SoT 5's epilogue about how the bugs swarmed them for 72 hours and had Holmes at the breaking point and ready to order his troops to fire when 60% of the swarm broke off and from then on almost all the "attacks" from the bugs over the rest of the three weeks were non-lethal, which means that the vast bulk of the losses occurred in the first 72 hours. Since the whole strategy was predicated on grounding all fliers, moving slow, and not shooting, that sure makes it sound like no one fired a shot. If they had, that would have made the plan not work.

And that is the rub; if a man as disciplined as Holmes was at the breaking point after 72 hours of watching his troops get slaughtered, it is beyond ludicrous to think that the soldiers getting ripped to shreds or watching their friends get ripped to shreds were all so disciplined that no one fired a shot. It would have been more plausible if the writers had said that Ursakar E. Creed suddenly showed up with 12 Imperator titans, a 1000 baneblades, and 100,000 Imperial Guardsmen (all from behind bushes) to obliterate the Xiticix before they knew what hit them; and I mean that - a bunch of guys with giant robots that have freaking gothic cathedrals on their backs from an entirely different gaming system suddenly showing up and saving Holmes would have made more sense than what was written.

Apparently, in the Holmes scenario, not a single one of the soldiers there were privates fresh out of boot camp with itchy trigger fingers, or people with psychological problems sustained from the previous, horrendous fight with the Tolkeenites which dumped them into Xiticix territory in the first place.

Nor did a single solitary one of the soldiers horribly killed, apparently, tried to launch one last "aw, screw it!" attack at the Xits as he or she fell to slow horrendous deaths at the feet and claws and teeth (mandibles?) of the Xitz.

I've been in pain much less serious than being mauled to death by alien insectoids, and I can tell you that I've temporarily lost my mind at times from that relatively trifling pain. But I'm supposed to believe that each and every one of the 100,000 killed kept their heads cool right to the utter end through a haze of blinding, all-encompassing pain that even believers in eternal Hellfire would find more frightening.

[Eagle]

Argh, I just lost a longer post. Long story short, SoT books 5 and 6 sure make it sound like no soldiers fired off a shot; they talk about Holmes being an incredible leader: "Few leaders anywhere in the world could get their troops to trust in them so strongly that they would literally follow him into the jaws of death, and once gripped in those jaws, to hold together under such perilous conditions." - SoT 6 p. 13.

They also talk in SoT 5's epilogue about how the bugs swarmed them for 72 hours and had Holmes at the breaking point and ready to order his troops to fire when 60% of the swarm broke off and from then on almost all the "attacks" from the bugs over the rest of the three weeks were non-lethal, which means that the vast bulk of the losses occurred in the first 72 hours. Since the whole strategy was predicated on grounding all fliers, moving slow, and not shooting, that sure makes it sound like no one fired a shot. If they had, that would have made the plan not work.

And that is the rub; if a man as disciplined as Holmes was at the breaking point after 72 hours of watching his troops get slaughtered, it is beyond ludicrous to think that the soldiers getting ripped to shreds or watching their friends get ripped to shreds were all so disciplined that no one fired a shot. It would have been more plausible if the writers had said that Ursakar E. Creed suddenly showed up with 12 Imperator titans, a 1000 baneblades, and 100,000 Imperial Guardsmen (all from behind bushes) to obliterate the Xiticix before they knew what hit them; and I mean that - a bunch of guys with giant robots that have freaking gothic cathedrals on their backs from an entirely different gaming system suddenly showing up and saving Holmes would have made more sense than what was written.

Apparently, in the Holmes scenario, not a single one of the soldiers there were privates fresh out of boot camp with itchy trigger fingers, or people with psychological problems sustained from the previous, horrendous fight with the Tolkeenites which dumped them into Xiticix territory in the first place.

Nor did a single solitary one of the soldiers horribly killed, apparently, tried to launch one last "aw, screw it!" attack at the Xits as he or she fell to slow horrendous deaths at the feet and claws and teeth (mandibles?) of the Xitz.

I've been in pain much less serious than being mauled to death by alien insectoids, and I can tell you that I've temporarily lost my mind at times from that relatively trifling pain. But I'm supposed to believe that each and every one of the 100,000 killed kept their heads cool right to the utter end through a haze of blinding, all-encompassing pain that even believers in eternal Hellfire would find more frightening.

You're holding the CS soldiers to a higher standard than is necessary. The Xiticix Invasion book has a passage (quoted earlier in the thread, I'm not going to go searching for it now) that says that when a force is moving through their territory, they will sometimes send individual bugs down to fight the intruders one on one while the rest of the swarm circles overhead and watches. The person who is attacked is allowed to fight back, but his buddies aren't allowed to help or more Xiticix will come down. The book leaves the circumstances as to when this occurs pretty vague, I think intentionally. It's clear after seeing what they did in the Siege of Tolkeen, that the writer wanted to plant the seeds for this sort of thing to be possible without revealing a major plot point of the coming books.

In the CS army's case, if the Xiticix were to behave this way (not attacking en masse, just sending down lone bugs to fight), then the soldier who is attacked is allowed to fight back. Apparently the "death scent" isn't triggered in this case.

From an evolutionary perspective, this makes sense. The Xiticix respond with hostility to any intruder into their territory. As you said earlier, a herd of cattle wandering through their land will cause a bunch of the bugs to swarm out and investigate/attack. But remember, the Xiticix are instinctual predators, and they don't really know the difference between a herd of cows and a column of soldiers. If a large group enters their territory, they need to have a way to tell the difference between cows, soldiers, and a herd of Fury Beetles. Remember, this is just if a group is traveling through their territory, and is NOT actively attacking. So how do you do this? How do you distinguish between harmless herd animals, an organized fighting force, and a group of dangerous but independent creatures? Easy. Send Joe down to pick a fight, and see what happens.

Every time you send out a swarm of bugs, you're expending energy. You're sending out soldiers to fight, and possibly die, when you may not have to. In the Old West, there were herds of 100,000+ bison that would roam the Great Plains. On MDC worlds, you may get creatures tougher than the buffalo that roam in similar numbers. The Xiticix wouldn't be as successful as they are if they wasted energy trying to slaughter herds of non-aggressive MDC "Tuffaloes" (because they're tough, get it?) that are just passing through. It expends energy, it draws most of your warriors out of your hive, and you don't actually gain anything from it. So you need a way of determining whether this large group of creatures that is going through your territory is a threat to your hive or not. Then you can respond appropriately. That's why you send down individual soldiers.

One of the biggest dangers to the survival of an overly-aggressive race is that they expend more resources than they can replace in needless attacks. In Siege of Tolkeen, we find out that Skelebots kind of suck as a massed army, because as soon as they see a threat (any threat), they immediately attack in full force. A squad of 4 Skelebots will attack that giant dragon with zero hesitation, even though any idiot could tell you that you're just going to have 4 destroyed Skelebots and one mildly irritated dragon afterwards. They operate like Zap Brannigan was commanding them. The Xiticix Killer has the ability to breed in the wild, but we're told that they can't replace their numbers because they go on so many suicidal attacks against the bugs. If we are to believe that the Xiticix themselves are a successful race, they need to have a way to gauge when to spend their resources.

So Joe Xiticix flies down and attacks a random member of the herd passing through, while the rest of the swarm waits above waiting to see what happens. If Joe slaughters the animal he picked a fight with, and the rest of the herd just keeps moving (and/or flees in terror), then it's more likely that they're just dumb animals. The herd is not likely to be a threat, so it isn't necessary to call out more bugs and press the attack. The message the swarm should be receiving is "not a threat". Now, if Joe goes down there, picks a fight, and promptly gets eaten in one chomp by whatever thing he attacked, then it's a very different message. You've just had a Xiticix warrior get killed in a one on one fight with something. Whatever that herd of critters down there happens to be, they're dangerous. But they still aren't actively attacking you. Now you've got a decision to make. Do you send the swarm into a costly war, possibly losing thousands or tens of thousands of soldiers in the process? To pick a fight with an enemy that appears to just be passing through? Or do you just leave it alone as long as it keeps heading out of your territory?

The third possibility when Joe flies down to pick a fight, is that the herd of animals responds as one. They all turn and attack Joe together. This indicates coordination and teamwork on the herd's part. This makes it more likely that these things are not just a herd, but an organized army. This would put the swarm on the highest alert possible. Evidence of coordination means they're a serious threat, something worth spending resources to destroy. Individual CS soldiers would be allowed to fight the bug warrior attacking him, without triggering this "that's not just a group of individual dangerous critters, that's an army" alert. You just can't help your buddies.

So yeah, Bob who just finished basic training last week, could lose his mind and start shouting "Game over, man. Game over!" and just start shooting at the nearest whatever, without causing the entire swarm to descend. These aren't Clan Warriors from Battletech, honorbound a-holes who are just looking for the slightest violation of an obscure code of engagement before they launch into senseless slaughter. The bugs are trying to determine if the group they're circling is a real threat to the hive or not.

[SereneTsunami]

Zap Brannigan and Tuffalos working together as a team. Pure genius. I don't have the trouble with the particulars of Holmes survival, or the way the war ended. These things certainly aren't the most wild or far-fetched happenings in real life wars, let alone fictional ones.

[Blue_Lion]

Blue, if you want to insist that it's impossible for you to make a decent argument for your own claim, then I'm not going to beat my head against the wall trying to change your mind.
You say the numbers aren't there. I disagree.
That leaves us at an impasse unless somebody wants to pull out the book and start quoting.

The numbers are not there at all.

Again, I disagree, but if you want to claim that the numbers to support your view simply don't exist, then I'm not going to keep arguing about it.

As I said this is what I think, you are the one trying to make it a claim.

"They had the ability to check what the CS would do and see the attack coming" is a claim.
If you think that it's an unsupportable claim, then okay. I'll take you at your word.

Prove the numbers exist for any one what book list the number of people with a power, or the % of a population with a power to see the future in the CS.

That's not really a proper sentence, and I don't know what it is intended to mean.

( I want to see your math with citing the sources of said numbers.)

You say the numbers are there show where the numbers exist in the books.

(You keep claiming numbers exist and demand that I use numbers that have not been proven to exist. Show me how the numbers exist if you want to claim they do.)

It is a fact that numbers exist. There are all kinds of numbers.
Is there a specific number that officially represents the exact number of Clairvoyants in a specific area?
Probably not.
But there are numbers that do exist, which we can work with to reach conclusions.

If, for example, the total number of mages in Tolkeen is X, and the total number of psychics is Y, then that tells us that the number of Clairvoyants in Tolkeen can NOT be larger than X + Y.
This is simple logic.
So that's a number that we could come up with, possibly.
Does it tell us everything that we wish to know?

Potentially, depending on what we wish to know.

But you insist that there no numbers exist for Tolkeen that could possibly support your claim, and I've long since grown tired of arguing about that point.
So, sure.
Numbers don't exist, if that's what you insist.

If you want the numbers for the CS' psychics that I came up with, the math I did and the conclusions that I came to, all you have to do is to search through my previous posts on this subject in previous topics, either using Palladium's search function, or using Google or whatever search engine you prefer.

But since you've done nothing to assist me in supporting your own claim, I don't see why I should do the legwork to help you attempt to disprove my own claim.

So, good day, and have fun.
I don't see any use in continuing the conversation.

Wait are you now claiming you have only been asking for the max possible I was under the impresion that you wanted the exact number with the power to see the future. And that you claimed you had calculated the exact number of people in the Cs with the power.

So the reason I was saying the numbers do not exist is they do not tell us what number of mages are trained in a said spell or the frequency that the power comes up compared to others. So that is why I was saying the numbers did not exist because we did not know the exact number of mages and psi with that ability. We do have stats for the frequency of psi and numbers of mages that served in Tolkeens military during the final siege.

(When asked for a citation your to prove that we know the CS numbers and you reply with use search seams like you saying waist your time proving my numbers of numbers. It is not my job to prove your claim of numbers for CS psi exist it is yours. So provide a link when asked for citation do not a reply that says Prove they exist for me.)

The first sentence when you look at what the topic we where auguring over seams clear, I am saying the exact numbers do not exist you are saying they do. You even made a claim that you calculated the exact number for the CS, and I was demanding that you prove the numbers exist for any nation. Using the calculation you claimed to already done for the CS to make it easier for you.

[Shark_Force]

heh. sure. the xiticix evaluating a force of a few hundred thousand CS soldiers as a legitimate threat. that's a funny one.

with the numbers the xiticix can bring into play, even if only 1/4 of the warriors have guns (that is, even if they don't just specifically send a bunch of warriors with guns, as opposed to their other warriors), they can kill off soldiers way quicker than they can be killed. especially after killing a hundred thousand of them without anyone fighting back.

simply put, nothing on the scale of the CS military can plausibly register as a legitimate threat to the bugs. if they ignored the CS army marching through, it's not because they were afraid.

furthermore there is absolutely nothing clear about the supposed passage existing to set up the jericho holmes march. nothing. the SoT doesn't refer back to that part of the xiticix book. it doesn't talk about challenges either. it does talk about the bugs killing off CS soldiers while others around them are stuck watching.

if the SoT books were supposed to be referring back to XI, they did an absolutely horrid job of it. a proper reference should have at *least* mentioned the paragraph in question, or the fact that the bugs were issuing challenges, not just a vague statement that holmes had a theory that the bugs would just let the army march through without killing them all. or, to put it another way... a reference needs to refer back to something. it's like if i told you two years ago that there is a recall on all models of a specific vehicle, then i tell you now that my car is broken (without specifying the model of vehicle), and then claim that i've clearly been referring back to that recall i mentioned 2 years ago when i never told you to think about that vehicle recall or anything of the sort. there is *nothing* clear about it.

i mean, it's theoretically *possible* that they were trying to reference that one tiny paragraph. i'm still not *remotely* convinced that the only way to interpret that paragraph is that it is *intended* to imply that the behaviour can occur for anything other than small groups and individuals (though i'm not interested in continuing that discussion in any event). and even if it is intended to be read that way (in which case the original passage is also not clear at all), i'm not remotely convinced that the behaviour described in Final Siege matches that original description anyways.

but to claim that it's definitely and clearly what was being done? bull crap. if that's what they were trying (and failing) to do, they botched it horribly, and it's about as clear as mud. the simple fact that it took NEARLY SIXTEEN YEARS for anyone on these forums in the many discussions on this specific highly controversial (within the palladium community) event which has come up many times before to even *propose* that there might be any connection at all tells you that. clear connections don't take 16 years to notice when you've got hundreds (maybe thousands?) of pairs of eyes looking at them repeatedly.

[Freemage]

Shark_Force: Hey, I doubt you're going to get anyone defending the quality of writing, here. Rather, the pro-Holmes side is laying out the most likely confluence of factors leading to the outcome described, given the spartan nature of the information available.

[Johnathan]

For the sake of argument, which seems to be the case here, and just because I love a good math problem. I decided to try my hand here and came up with the following equation:

6,000,000/4/3/24 = 20,833

Amongst a population of 6,000,000 random humans (of which the CS would undoubtedly have a veritable plethora more than that, in spades and folds undoubtedly), 25% of them are natural born psychics (major and minor only. I'm not even going to bother finding master level psychics but we could probably safely say, on the low end, they are not included in this 25%.). Amongst those 1,500,000 psychics a third of them would have sensitive psionics (again, low-balling this. I know major psychics can pick from sensitive, physical AND healing, but I'm playing conservative here). Amongst those 500,000 psychic sensatives 1 out of 24 of them would have clairvoyance (there are 24 sensitive psi powers in RUE, again beings ULTRA conservative here. Personally? If I were a minor psychic, I wouldn't pick it. A major psychic? Totally would.). That leaves us with 20,833 psychic sensatives who possesses clairvoyance as a psychic ability.

Of course, the CS makes an attempt to actively recruit, register and conscript as many psychics as they can and again, these numbers are actually VERY conservative for the CS. We all know the CS population is well above 6 million people (DFW Metroplex alone has over 7 million people. That's just one location.)

However, these numbers are also me excluding variables like "free will" and "choice" and focuses strictly on the percentages.

I'll even take into account that all of these 20,000+ psychic sensatives are 1st level clairvoyants... who have only a 58% chance of success. That STILL leaves 12,083 successes. 12,083.

GO MATH!

[Shark_Force]

Shark_Force: Hey, I doubt you're going to get anyone defending the quality of writing, here. Rather, the pro-Holmes side is laying out the most likely confluence of factors leading to the outcome described, given the spartan nature of the information available.

except that they're not just arguing that that's what *could* have been intended (which i certainly lack the ability to disprove).

they're arguing that this is clearly the obvious and only interpretation of events (or at least, one of them is). and that is complete and utter nonsense.

i may not be able to prove that it wasn't a horribly botched job of making a connection that was supposed to be made, but i can prove that it wasn't clear or obvious.

edit:

For the sake of argument, which seems to be the case here, and just because I love a good math problem. I decided to try my hand here and came up with the following equation:

6,000,000/4/3/24 = 20,833

Amongst a population of 6,000,000 random humans (of which the CS would undoubtedly have a veritable plethora more than that, in spades and folds undoubtedly), 25% of them are natural born psychics (major and minor only. I'm not even going to bother finding master level psychics but we could probably safely say, on the low end, they are not included in this 25%.). Amongst those 1,500,000 psychics a third of them would have sensitive psionics (again, low-balling this. I know major psychics can pick from sensitive, physical AND healing, but I'm playing conservative here). Amongst those 500,000 psychic sensatives 1 out of 24 of them would have clairvoyance (there are 24 sensitive psi powers in RUE, again beings ULTRA conservative here. Personally? If I were a minor psychic, I wouldn't pick it. A major psychic? Totally would.). That leaves us with 20,833 psychic sensatives who possesses clairvoyance as a psychic ability.

Of course, the CS makes an attempt to actively recruit, register and conscript as many psychics as they can and again, these numbers are actually VERY conservative for the CS. We all know the CS population is well above 6 million people (DFW Metroplex alone has over 7 million people. That's just one location.)

However, these numbers are also me excluding variables like "free will" and "choice" and focuses strictly on the percentages.

I'll even take into account that all of these 20,000+ psychic sensatives are 1st level clairvoyants... who have only a 58% chance of success. That STILL leaves 12,083 successes. 12,083.

GO MATH!

sure. but the problem there is that if we scale it down to, say, half a million (a wild guess as to how many people might be living in the city of tolkeen), that means we have about 1,000 successes. so how does anyone ever surprise tolkeen?

and if we scale it down to 100,000 people, we still get 200 successes. if we scale it down to 10,000 people, that would still mean 20 successes. how does anyone surprise a town of even 10,000 people then when there should be around 20 people in said town that can give warning before anything bad happens?

if clairvoyance works to the extent that is being proposed, nobody should ever be able to surprise any community of any significant size.

[Johnathan]

Shark_Force: Hey, I doubt you're going to get anyone defending the quality of writing, here. Rather, the pro-Holmes side is laying out the most likely confluence of factors leading to the outcome described, given the spartan nature of the information available.

except that they're not just arguing that that's what *could* have been intended (which i certainly lack the ability to disprove).

they're arguing that this is clearly the obvious and only interpretation of events (or at least, one of them is). and that is complete and utter nonsense.

i may not be able to prove that it wasn't a horribly botched job of making a connection that was supposed to be made, but i can prove that it wasn't clear or obvious.

edit:

For the sake of argument, which seems to be the case here, and just because I love a good math problem. I decided to try my hand here and came up with the following equation:

6,000,000/4/3/24 = 20,833

Amongst a population of 6,000,000 random humans (of which the CS would undoubtedly have a veritable plethora more than that, in spades and folds undoubtedly), 25% of them are natural born psychics (major and minor only. I'm not even going to bother finding master level psychics but we could probably safely say, on the low end, they are not included in this 25%.). Amongst those 1,500,000 psychics a third of them would have sensitive psionics (again, low-balling this. I know major psychics can pick from sensitive, physical AND healing, but I'm playing conservative here). Amongst those 500,000 psychic sensatives 1 out of 24 of them would have clairvoyance (there are 24 sensitive psi powers in RUE, again beings ULTRA conservative here. Personally? If I were a minor psychic, I wouldn't pick it. A major psychic? Totally would.). That leaves us with 20,833 psychic sensatives who possesses clairvoyance as a psychic ability.

Of course, the CS makes an attempt to actively recruit, register and conscript as many psychics as they can and again, these numbers are actually VERY conservative for the CS. We all know the CS population is well above 6 million people (DFW Metroplex alone has over 7 million people. That's just one location.)

However, these numbers are also me excluding variables like "free will" and "choice" and focuses strictly on the percentages.

I'll even take into account that all of these 20,000+ psychic sensatives are 1st level clairvoyants... who have only a 58% chance of success. That STILL leaves 12,083 successes. 12,083.

GO MATH!

sure. but the problem there is that if we scale it down to, say, half a million (a wild guess as to how many people might be living in the city of tolkeen), that means we have about 1,000 successes. so how does anyone ever surprise tolkeen?

and if we scale it down to 100,000 people, we still get 200 successes. if we scale it down to 10,000 people, that would still mean 20 successes. how does anyone surprise a town of even 10,000 people then when there should be around 20 people in said town that can give warning before anything bad happens?

if clairvoyance works to the extent that is being proposed, nobody should ever be able to surprise any community of any significant size.

Well. I can provide a few answers that may assuage.

1 - Clairvoyance is a power that requires activation. It must be actively used. I'm sure this actually goes without saying, but is the foundation to be built upon.

2 - Clairvoyance must be given a point of direction in order to be used properly. The psychic must actively be focusing on a series of events that are either already in motion or set to be put into motion. The reason I say this should also be apparent. It's stated in SoT that EVERYONE took Holmes' army as dead and gone. Everyone just -assumed- he marched his entire army into an all you can eat Dead Boy Buffet for Xiticix. Nobody believed he'd come back out.

3 - This assumption plays an important role for the psychics of Tolkeen. Their attention wouldn't be directed towards Holmes' army but to the CS army that the Tolkeenites believe is still an active threat.

4 - Even then! Let's assume their attention was broader. They use clairvoyance to see of future events to the threat of Tolkeen... because they're still working off of the belief that Holmes' army is dead and gone, they use clairvoyance and in a vision (which tend to be symbolic if not downright vague as sin...) they report of a "massive threat from the north that will bring death upon black wings" or "Something from the North will descend upon us in the final hours of the war" or any number of vague clairvoyant visions that suggest danger from the north. In any and all of those visions any "superior officer" or warlord or leader in Tolkeen wouldn't believe the vision referred to Holmes' army. They'd believe it was a vision about a future Xiticix attack that is to come. Why? Because, as was stated previously, everyone, on both sides, -believed- Holmes and his army were Xit Poodoo.

5 - Let's go more specific. A number of psychics actually -don't- believe Holmes' army is dead and gone, throw away the assumption they're all dead, focus their clairvoyant attentions on Holmes' army to the north and attempt to gain an insight into what is going to happen (I think that's 3 "what if's" in that situation alone). We'll assume they successfully gain at least ONE clairvoyant vision that is so precise, so dead-on accurate, that it just CAN'T be ignored. We'll then assume they're able to convince their superior officer, or someone who holds some kind of sway over military decisions and placements of troops and fortifications that they're vision is 100% accurate (there's a few more big "what if" scenarios, as that would take some seriously major convincing) and that they need to fortify their northern defenses to prepare for the inevitable appearance of Holmes' army. Tolkeen forces got decimated during the Sorcerous Blitz. They suffered massive losses in an all out push to drive off the CS army "for good". Tolkeen just didn't have the resources anymore to provide a solid defense on a border that didn't pose an immediate threat. They were still juggling whoever and whatever stuck around once the Blitz was over. Many of Tolkeens defenses and forces were hired help. Mercenaries. Even summoned minions are only so helpful and/or plentiful.

Truthfully, even in the very, very, very unlikely event that #5 ever occurred (and let's be realistic... you've got a better chance of winning the Power Ball ten times in a row than that scenario actually happening just due to previously stated events) Tolkeen just, flat out, didn't have the man power to do ANYTHING about it. The mercenaries and volunteers left after the Blitz, believing the war was over or because they'd become sickened by Tolkeens tactics and measures. Tolkeen leadership even believed they'd "won". The war was over. Most people went on to a new contract or back home. Most of them didn't even want to stick around. That just leaves the Tolkeenites themselves. Who had suffered massive losses, trauma and were probably equally of the opinion that the war was over and they just wanted to rebuild their lives. Or at least attempt to.

Their focus wasn't on the CS coming back and kicking tail. It was focused on licking their wounds, rebuilding their broken lives/kingdom, and trying to put the horrors of the war behind them. What is left is Tolkeens standing forces and military personnel. Which, by THAT point, was probably marginal. The Sorcerous Blitz, like any Blitz tactic really, was a double-edged sword that, while it inflicted massive damage to the CS, left Tolkeen hurting just as badly, if not worse.

I digress, but all points above are perfectly valid and logical.

[eliakon]

Shark_Force: Hey, I doubt you're going to get anyone defending the quality of writing, here. Rather, the pro-Holmes side is laying out the most likely confluence of factors leading to the outcome described, given the spartan nature of the information available.

except that they're not just arguing that that's what *could* have been intended (which i certainly lack the ability to disprove).

they're arguing that this is clearly the obvious and only interpretation of events (or at least, one of them is). and that is complete and utter nonsense.

i may not be able to prove that it wasn't a horribly botched job of making a connection that was supposed to be made, but i can prove that it wasn't clear or obvious.

edit:

For the sake of argument, which seems to be the case here, and just because I love a good math problem. I decided to try my hand here and came up with the following equation:

6,000,000/4/3/24 = 20,833

Amongst a population of 6,000,000 random humans (of which the CS would undoubtedly have a veritable plethora more than that, in spades and folds undoubtedly), 25% of them are natural born psychics (major and minor only. I'm not even going to bother finding master level psychics but we could probably safely say, on the low end, they are not included in this 25%.). Amongst those 1,500,000 psychics a third of them would have sensitive psionics (again, low-balling this. I know major psychics can pick from sensitive, physical AND healing, but I'm playing conservative here). Amongst those 500,000 psychic sensatives 1 out of 24 of them would have clairvoyance (there are 24 sensitive psi powers in RUE, again beings ULTRA conservative here. Personally? If I were a minor psychic, I wouldn't pick it. A major psychic? Totally would.). That leaves us with 20,833 psychic sensatives who possesses clairvoyance as a psychic ability.

Of course, the CS makes an attempt to actively recruit, register and conscript as many psychics as they can and again, these numbers are actually VERY conservative for the CS. We all know the CS population is well above 6 million people (DFW Metroplex alone has over 7 million people. That's just one location.)

However, these numbers are also me excluding variables like "free will" and "choice" and focuses strictly on the percentages.

I'll even take into account that all of these 20,000+ psychic sensatives are 1st level clairvoyants... who have only a 58% chance of success. That STILL leaves 12,083 successes. 12,083.

GO MATH!

sure. but the problem there is that if we scale it down to, say, half a million (a wild guess as to how many people might be living in the city of tolkeen), that means we have about 1,000 successes. so how does anyone ever surprise tolkeen?

and if we scale it down to 100,000 people, we still get 200 successes. if we scale it down to 10,000 people, that would still mean 20 successes. how does anyone surprise a town of even 10,000 people then when there should be around 20 people in said town that can give warning before anything bad happens?

if clairvoyance works to the extent that is being proposed, nobody should ever be able to surprise any community of any significant size.

Well. I can provide a few answers that may assuage.

1 - Clairvoyance is a power that requires activation. It must be actively used. I'm sure this actually goes without saying, but is the foundation to be built upon.

Incorrect.
The power can be activated consciously a limited number of times per day, as well as automatic passive activation.

2 - Clairvoyance must be given a point of direction in order to be used properly. The psychic must actively be focusing on a series of events that are either already in motion or set to be put into motion. The reason I say this should also be apparent. It's stated in SoT that EVERYONE took Holmes' army as dead and gone. Everyone just -assumed- he marched his entire army into an all you can eat Dead Boy Buffet for Xiticix. Nobody believed he'd come back out.

You are mistaking Sixth Sense and Clairvoyance there. Only Sixth Sense has the "in motion...." text
You don't have to focus on the threat though.
A flash that your sister is in danger from an attack does not require you to be thinking about Holmes, but instead to be thinking about your sister.

3 - This assumption plays an important role for the psychics of Tolkeen. Their attention wouldn't be directed towards Holmes' army but to the CS army that the Tolkeenites believe is still an active threat.

Again, your making a false assumption that they would not be instead looking for threats to Tolkeen.
Basically your making a mistake and reversing cause and effect.

4 - Even then! Let's assume their attention was broader. They use clairvoyance to see of future events to the threat of Tolkeen... because they're still working off of the belief that Holmes' army is dead and gone, they use clairvoyance and in a vision (which tend to be symbolic if not downright vague as sin...) they report of a "massive threat from the north that will bring death upon black wings" or "Something from the North will descend upon us in the final hours of the war" or any number of vague clairvoyant visions that suggest danger from the north. In any and all of those visions any "superior officer" or warlord or leader in Tolkeen wouldn't believe the vision referred to Holmes' army. They'd believe it was a vision about a future Xiticix attack that is to come. Why? Because, as was stated previously, everyone, on both sides, -believed- Holmes and his army were Xit Poodoo.

That would STILL cause the attack to fail
Because the attack was able to work because there was no one, at all, watching the northern border and no one, at all, was ready to defend.
If there were any clairvoyant warnings (and the argument that of the potential thousands of visions every single one of them was so totally vague as to not have a single image of a CS machine, a fire, a damaged building... or any other effect that was not consistant with a Xicticx attack is basically just dressing up the plot armor.

5 - Let's go more specific. A number of psychics actually -don't- believe Holmes' army is dead and gone, throw away the assumption they're all dead, focus their clairvoyant attentions on Holmes' army to the north and attempt to gain an insight into what is going to happen (I think that's 3 "what if's" in that situation alone). We'll assume they successfully gain at least ONE clairvoyant vision that is so precise, so dead-on accurate, that it just CAN'T be ignored. We'll then assume they're able to convince their superior officer, or someone who holds some kind of sway over military decisions and placements of troops and fortifications that they're vision is 100% accurate (there's a few more big "what if" scenarios, as that would take some seriously major convincing) and that they need to fortify their northern defenses to prepare for the inevitable appearance of Holmes' army. Tolkeen forces got decimated during the Sorcerous Blitz. They suffered massive losses in an all out push to drive off the CS army "for good". Tolkeen just didn't have the resources anymore to provide a solid defense on a border that didn't pose an immediate threat. They were still juggling whoever and whatever stuck around once the Blitz was over. Many of Tolkeens defenses and forces were hired help. Mercenaries. Even summoned minions are only so helpful and/or plentiful.

Truthfully, even in the very, very, very unlikely event that #5 ever occurred (and let's be realistic... you've got a better chance of winning the Power Ball ten times in a row than that scenario actually happening just due to previously stated events) Tolkeen just, flat out, didn't have the man power to do ANYTHING about it. The mercenaries and volunteers left after the Blitz, believing the war was over or because they'd become sickened by Tolkeens tactics and measures. Tolkeen leadership even believed they'd "won". The war was over. Most people went on to a new contract or back home. Most of them didn't even want to stick around. That just leaves the Tolkeenites themselves. Who had suffered massive losses, trauma and were probably equally of the opinion that the war was over and they just wanted to rebuild their lives. Or at least attempt to.

Their focus wasn't on the CS coming back and kicking tail. It was focused on licking their wounds, rebuilding their broken lives/kingdom, and trying to put the horrors of the war behind them. What is left is Tolkeens standing forces and military personnel. Which, by THAT point, was probably marginal. The Sorcerous Blitz, like any Blitz tactic really, was a double-edged sword that, while it inflicted massive damage to the CS, left Tolkeen hurting just as badly, if not worse.

I digress, but all points above are perfectly valid and logical.

[/quote]
This here is all based on the problem that to do this you would have to change how the powers work since the powers in the RAW do not function this way or have these limitations.
So no it is not "Valid and logical" it is a conclusion based on multiple false premises that is therefor inherently flawed since logic is pretty adamant that you can not get a valid conclusion from invalid premises.
And since we know that
#1 =/= T
#2 =/= T
#3 =/= T
#4 =/= T
It follows that
#5 =/= T

[Johnathan]

Shark_Force: Hey, I doubt you're going to get anyone defending the quality of writing, here. Rather, the pro-Holmes side is laying out the most likely confluence of factors leading to the outcome described, given the spartan nature of the information available.

except that they're not just arguing that that's what *could* have been intended (which i certainly lack the ability to disprove).

they're arguing that this is clearly the obvious and only interpretation of events (or at least, one of them is). and that is complete and utter nonsense.

i may not be able to prove that it wasn't a horribly botched job of making a connection that was supposed to be made, but i can prove that it wasn't clear or obvious.

edit:

For the sake of argument, which seems to be the case here, and just because I love a good math problem. I decided to try my hand here and came up with the following equation:

6,000,000/4/3/24 = 20,833

Amongst a population of 6,000,000 random humans (of which the CS would undoubtedly have a veritable plethora more than that, in spades and folds undoubtedly), 25% of them are natural born psychics (major and minor only. I'm not even going to bother finding master level psychics but we could probably safely say, on the low end, they are not included in this 25%.). Amongst those 1,500,000 psychics a third of them would have sensitive psionics (again, low-balling this. I know major psychics can pick from sensitive, physical AND healing, but I'm playing conservative here). Amongst those 500,000 psychic sensatives 1 out of 24 of them would have clairvoyance (there are 24 sensitive psi powers in RUE, again beings ULTRA conservative here. Personally? If I were a minor psychic, I wouldn't pick it. A major psychic? Totally would.). That leaves us with 20,833 psychic sensatives who possesses clairvoyance as a psychic ability.

Of course, the CS makes an attempt to actively recruit, register and conscript as many psychics as they can and again, these numbers are actually VERY conservative for the CS. We all know the CS population is well above 6 million people (DFW Metroplex alone has over 7 million people. That's just one location.)

However, these numbers are also me excluding variables like "free will" and "choice" and focuses strictly on the percentages.

I'll even take into account that all of these 20,000+ psychic sensatives are 1st level clairvoyants... who have only a 58% chance of success. That STILL leaves 12,083 successes. 12,083.

GO MATH!

sure. but the problem there is that if we scale it down to, say, half a million (a wild guess as to how many people might be living in the city of tolkeen), that means we have about 1,000 successes. so how does anyone ever surprise tolkeen?

and if we scale it down to 100,000 people, we still get 200 successes. if we scale it down to 10,000 people, that would still mean 20 successes. how does anyone surprise a town of even 10,000 people then when there should be around 20 people in said town that can give warning before anything bad happens?

if clairvoyance works to the extent that is being proposed, nobody should ever be able to surprise any community of any significant size.

Well. I can provide a few answers that may assuage.

1 - Clairvoyance is a power that requires activation. It must be actively used. I'm sure this actually goes without saying, but is the foundation to be built upon.

Incorrect.
The power can be activated consciously a limited number of times per day, as well as automatic passive activation.

2 - Clairvoyance must be given a point of direction in order to be used properly. The psychic must actively be focusing on a series of events that are either already in motion or set to be put into motion. The reason I say this should also be apparent. It's stated in SoT that EVERYONE took Holmes' army as dead and gone. Everyone just -assumed- he marched his entire army into an all you can eat Dead Boy Buffet for Xiticix. Nobody believed he'd come back out.

You are mistaking Sixth Sense and Clairvoyance there. Only Sixth Sense has the "in motion...." text
You don't have to focus on the threat though.
A flash that your sister is in danger from an attack does not require you to be thinking about Holmes, but instead to be thinking about your sister.

3 - This assumption plays an important role for the psychics of Tolkeen. Their attention wouldn't be directed towards Holmes' army but to the CS army that the Tolkeenites believe is still an active threat.

Again, your making a false assumption that they would not be instead looking for threats to Tolkeen.
Basically your making a mistake and reversing cause and effect.

4 - Even then! Let's assume their attention was broader. They use clairvoyance to see of future events to the threat of Tolkeen... because they're still working off of the belief that Holmes' army is dead and gone, they use clairvoyance and in a vision (which tend to be symbolic if not downright vague as sin...) they report of a "massive threat from the north that will bring death upon black wings" or "Something from the North will descend upon us in the final hours of the war" or any number of vague clairvoyant visions that suggest danger from the north. In any and all of those visions any "superior officer" or warlord or leader in Tolkeen wouldn't believe the vision referred to Holmes' army. They'd believe it was a vision about a future Xiticix attack that is to come. Why? Because, as was stated previously, everyone, on both sides, -believed- Holmes and his army were Xit Poodoo.

That would STILL cause the attack to fail
Because the attack was able to work because there was no one, at all, watching the northern border and no one, at all, was ready to defend.
If there were any clairvoyant warnings (and the argument that of the potential thousands of visions every single one of them was so totally vague as to not have a single image of a CS machine, a fire, a damaged building... or any other effect that was not consistant with a Xicticx attack is basically just dressing up the plot armor.

5 - Let's go more specific. A number of psychics actually -don't- believe Holmes' army is dead and gone, throw away the assumption they're all dead, focus their clairvoyant attentions on Holmes' army to the north and attempt to gain an insight into what is going to happen (I think that's 3 "what if's" in that situation alone). We'll assume they successfully gain at least ONE clairvoyant vision that is so precise, so dead-on accurate, that it just CAN'T be ignored. We'll then assume they're able to convince their superior officer, or someone who holds some kind of sway over military decisions and placements of troops and fortifications that they're vision is 100% accurate (there's a few more big "what if" scenarios, as that would take some seriously major convincing) and that they need to fortify their northern defenses to prepare for the inevitable appearance of Holmes' army. Tolkeen forces got decimated during the Sorcerous Blitz. They suffered massive losses in an all out push to drive off the CS army "for good". Tolkeen just didn't have the resources anymore to provide a solid defense on a border that didn't pose an immediate threat. They were still juggling whoever and whatever stuck around once the Blitz was over. Many of Tolkeens defenses and forces were hired help. Mercenaries. Even summoned minions are only so helpful and/or plentiful.

Truthfully, even in the very, very, very unlikely event that #5 ever occurred (and let's be realistic... you've got a better chance of winning the Power Ball ten times in a row than that scenario actually happening just due to previously stated events) Tolkeen just, flat out, didn't have the man power to do ANYTHING about it. The mercenaries and volunteers left after the Blitz, believing the war was over or because they'd become sickened by Tolkeens tactics and measures. Tolkeen leadership even believed they'd "won". The war was over. Most people went on to a new contract or back home. Most of them didn't even want to stick around. That just leaves the Tolkeenites themselves. Who had suffered massive losses, trauma and were probably equally of the opinion that the war was over and they just wanted to rebuild their lives. Or at least attempt to.

Their focus wasn't on the CS coming back and kicking tail. It was focused on licking their wounds, rebuilding their broken lives/kingdom, and trying to put the horrors of the war behind them. What is left is Tolkeens standing forces and military personnel. Which, by THAT point, was probably marginal. The Sorcerous Blitz, like any Blitz tactic really, was a double-edged sword that, while it inflicted massive damage to the CS, left Tolkeen hurting just as badly, if not worse.

I digress, but all points above are perfectly valid and logical.

This here is all based on the problem that to do this you would have to change how the powers work since the powers in the RAW do not function this way or have these limitations.
So no it is not "Valid and logical" it is a conclusion based on multiple false premises that is therefor inherently flawed since logic is pretty adamant that you can not get a valid conclusion from invalid premises.
And since we know that
#1 =/= T
#2 =/= T
#3 =/= T
#4 =/= T
It follows that
#5 =/= T[/quote]

Upon further review of the power. You are absolutely correct. I had failed to account for the involuntary clairvoyant visions as well as the ambiguity involved therein. I must retract my previous claims, as I was writing them based on memory of the ability and, at this point, I'm thankful I got the freakin percentage right.

However, on that same note, my numbers are also accurate from my previous. Which, therefore, as credence to Shark-Force claim on how it's even possible that ANY town of a decent enough size would ever be surprised by any kind of attack. Even a town of 300, according to the math, would potentially have ONE clairvoyant psychic...

I'm not presenting these arguments really as for or against the handwavium one way or another... I'm more so trying to account for unaccountables. At some point, I think, logic just takes a look at all of it and just finds the nearest window to jump out of.

[eliakon]

<Mega-Snip>

Upon further review of the power. You are absolutely correct. I had failed to account for the involuntary clairvoyant visions as well as the ambiguity involved therein. I must retract my previous claims, as I was writing them based on memory of the ability and, at this point, I'm thankful I got the freakin percentage right.

However, on that same note, my numbers are also accurate from my previous. Which, therefore, as credence to Shark-Force claim on how it's even possible that ANY town of a decent enough size would ever be surprised by any kind of attack. Even a town of 300, according to the math, would potentially have ONE clairvoyant psychic...

I'm not presenting these arguments really as for or against the handwavium one way or another... I'm more so trying to account for unaccountables. At some point, I think, logic just takes a look at all of it and just finds the nearest window to jump out of.

This is Rifts.
Logic is the gibbering wreck huddled under the ruined table

On a more serious note your correct, Clairvoyance and the other precognitive abilities in the setting are, fundamentally world altering if they are used at all.
Which is why I point out that so much of what happens is Plot Armor/Narrative Justification/Authorial Fiat. Because if you start poking around inside the guts of it you find out that it doesn't really work But that doesn't make a good story.

To be honest this is why I have stopped posting heavily in this thread.
Because even though I think that logically the survival is utterly unrealistic I accept that that was not the point.
It isn't supposed to be realistic, just like the game is not a reality sim and instead is a sort of 'action adventure movie in dice format'
It's supposed to be dramatic with epic narrative and sweeping drama. And if that requires that Realism and Logic get mangled in the process...well can't have a war with out casualties what's two more?

[Johnathan]

<Mega-Snip>

Upon further review of the power. You are absolutely correct. I had failed to account for the involuntary clairvoyant visions as well as the ambiguity involved therein. I must retract my previous claims, as I was writing them based on memory of the ability and, at this point, I'm thankful I got the freakin percentage right.

However, on that same note, my numbers are also accurate from my previous. Which, therefore, as credence to Shark-Force claim on how it's even possible that ANY town of a decent enough size would ever be surprised by any kind of attack. Even a town of 300, according to the math, would potentially have ONE clairvoyant psychic...

I'm not presenting these arguments really as for or against the handwavium one way or another... I'm more so trying to account for unaccountables. At some point, I think, logic just takes a look at all of it and just finds the nearest window to jump out of.

This is Rifts.
Logic is the gibbering wreck huddled under the ruined table

On a more serious note your correct, Clairvoyance and the other precognitive abilities in the setting are, fundamentally world altering if they are used at all.
Which is why I point out that so much of what happens is Plot Armor/Narrative Justification/Authorial Fiat. Because if you start poking around inside the guts of it you find out that it doesn't really work But that doesn't make a good story.

To be honest this is why I have stopped posting heavily in this thread.
Because even though I think that logically the survival is utterly unrealistic I accept that that was not the point.
It isn't supposed to be realistic, just like the game is not a reality sim and instead is a sort of 'action adventure movie in dice format'
It's supposed to be dramatic with epic narrative and sweeping drama. And if that requires that Realism and Logic get mangled in the process...well can't have a war with out casualties what's two more?

The TRUE victims of the Siege on Tolkeen. Realism and Logic. R.I.P.

[cornholioprime]

You're holding the CS soldiers to a higher standard than is necessary. The Xiticix Invasion book has a passage (quoted earlier in the thread, I'm not going to go searching for it now) that says that when a force is moving through their territory, they will sometimes send individual bugs down to fight the intruders one on one while the rest of the swarm circles overhead and watches.

There are/were far too many CS soldiers in Holmes' contingent for the "sometimes" tactic to be a plausible explanation.

Even if a whole bunch of "sometimes" were happening here, there, and everywhere, there'd be a whole lot more of the "smash and bash with no quarter asked and no quarter" given stuff happening everywhere else.

Unimaginably gruesome killing that we are expected to believe happened without so much as a single accidental or intentional or "death throes frenzy" killing of Xits that would have got the whole Death Scent snowball rolling down hill.

[Killer Cyborg]

You're holding the CS soldiers to a higher standard than is necessary. The Xiticix Invasion book has a passage (quoted earlier in the thread, I'm not going to go searching for it now) that says that when a force is moving through their territory, they will sometimes send individual bugs down to fight the intruders one on one while the rest of the swarm circles overhead and watches.

There are/were far too many CS soldiers in Holmes' contingent for the "sometimes" tactic to be a plausible explanation.

Even if a whole bunch of "sometimes" were happening here, there, and everywhere, there'd be a whole lot more of the "smash and bash with no quarter asked and no quarter" given stuff happening everywhere else.

Unimaginably gruesome killing that we are expected to believe happened without so much as a single accidental or intentional or "death throes frenzy" killing of Xits that would have got the whole Death Scent snowball rolling down hill.

We've covered the "death scent" angle.
Scroll up.
The bugs don't always go crazy over it. During a challenge, the bugs will take their dead guy and leave.
"Not a single death" is not something that the books say happened, nor something that the books would require to have happened.

[Killer Cyborg]

furthermore there is absolutely nothing clear about the supposed passage existing to set up the jericho holmes march. nothing. the SoT doesn't refer back to that part of the xiticix book. it doesn't talk about challenges either. it does talk about the bugs killing off CS soldiers while others around them are stuck watching.

Feel free to quote what the books DO say.

if that's what they were trying (and failing) to do, they botched it horribly

Yes. And?

the simple fact that it took NEARLY SIXTEEN YEARS for anyone on these forums in the many discussions on this specific highly controversial (within the palladium community) event which has come up many times before to even *propose* that there might be any connection at all tells you that. clear connections don't take 16 years to notice when you've got hundreds (maybe thousands?) of pairs of eyes looking at them repeatedly.

It's come up before, actually, probably multiple times over the years.

Also, keep in mind that it's been 27 years since the RMB, and people still don't agree how the C-12 was supposed to work.
And Palladium hasn't done much to clarify things, or to correct any confusion in the matter.
That's not how they roll.

[Killer Cyborg]

(You keep claiming numbers exist and demand that I use numbers that have not been proven to exist. Show me how the numbers exist if you want to claim they do.)

It is a fact that numbers exist. There are all kinds of numbers.
Is there a specific number that officially represents the exact number of Clairvoyants in a specific area?
Probably not.
But there are numbers that do exist, which we can work with to reach conclusions.

If, for example, the total number of mages in Tolkeen is X, and the total number of psychics is Y, then that tells us that the number of Clairvoyants in Tolkeen can NOT be larger than X + Y.
This is simple logic.
So that's a number that we could come up with, possibly.
Does it tell us everything that we wish to know?

Potentially, depending on what we wish to know.

But you insist that there no numbers exist for Tolkeen that could possibly support your claim, and I've long since grown tired of arguing about that point.
So, sure.
Numbers don't exist, if that's what you insist.

If you want the numbers for the CS' psychics that I came up with, the math I did and the conclusions that I came to, all you have to do is to search through my previous posts on this subject in previous topics, either using Palladium's search function, or using Google or whatever search engine you prefer.

But since you've done nothing to assist me in supporting your own claim, I don't see why I should do the legwork to help you attempt to disprove my own claim.

So, good day, and have fun.
I don't see any use in continuing the conversation.

Wait are you now claiming you have only been asking for the max possible

No.
I've been asking for ANY NUMBERS THAT MIGHT SUPPORT OR INDICATE YOUR CLAIM.

I was under the impresion that you wanted the exact number with the power to see the future.

Sure. When I specifically asked how many mages in Tolkeen might have the potential to see the future, I absolutely must have meant that I wanted an exact number.
That makes sense.

And that you claimed you had calculated the exact number of people in the Cs with the power.

Nope.

So the reason I was saying the numbers do not exist is they do not tell us what number of mages are trained in a said spell or the frequency that the power comes up compared to others. So that is why I was saying the numbers did not exist because we did not know the exact number of mages and psi with that ability. We do have stats for the frequency of psi and numbers of mages that served in Tolkeens military during the final siege.

So.... any numbers that might support or indicate your conclusion that Tolkeen would necessarily have psychically predicted Holmes' return...?

(When asked for a citation your to prove that we know the CS numbers and you reply with use search seams like you saying waist your time proving my numbers of numbers. It is not my job to prove your claim of numbers for CS psi exist it is yours. So provide a link when asked for citation do not a reply that says Prove they exist for me.)

You're the one asking about the CS numbers; you're the one who should do the research.
I've already done it, and posted on it multiple times over the years.
I'm not going to do it again, just because you want me to.
There is no burden on me to search for information that you want to have.

The first sentence when you look at what the topic we where auguring over seams clear, I am saying the exact numbers do not exist you are saying they do.

Not a bit of it.
I don't see any reason why you would think that only EXACT numbers could support or indicate your claim, and I don't see any point at which I made any claims about having or requiring EXACT numbers.
If YOU think you know of any place where I made claims about EXACT numbers, by all means quote me, and provide a link to where I said it.

[Killer Cyborg]

However, on that same note, my numbers are also accurate from my previous. Which, therefore, as credence to Shark-Force claim on how it's even possible that ANY town of a decent enough size would ever be surprised by any kind of attack. Even a town of 300, according to the math, would potentially have ONE clairvoyant psychic...

A town of 300 might have one clairvoyant.
That clairvoyant might have a vision.
That vision might be useful.
The clairvoyant might have that useful vision in time to act.
The clairvoyant might choose to act
The clairvoyant's actions might be useful in preventing the attack.

There's a lot of mights. That's how it's not only possible, but perfectly plausible that a community with psychics could be caught off-guard in an attack.

In order for psychics to be a reliable safeguard against attacks:
1. There must be a large enough number of psychics to ensure that at least some visions will be had.
2. There must be a large enough number of psychics to ensure that of the number of psychics who have any visions at all, that a significant number will have useful information.
3. There must be communication and police/military infrastructure in place designed to take advantage of these visions when they arise. The right information doesn't matter unless it can get into the right hands, and get there in time to act.
4. All these factors need to fit together reliably. History is full of successful surprise attacks that occurred because the people who found out about the attack in advance were not able to understand and communicate the importance of the information that they had.

[cornholioprime]

The bugs don't always go crazy over it. During a challenge, the bugs will take their dead guy and leave.
"Not a single death" is not something that the books say happened, nor something that the books would require to have happened.

That's the point.

They don't go crazy over the Death Scent during a challenge.

Said challenges explicitly stated by the books to be a relatively rare occurrence; the rest of the time, it's "deploy at least 2 Xiticix per each opponent in enemy group, kill them unmercifully, and if one or more of their guys kill our guys for any reason outside of a one-on-one challenge, it's Death Scent Release time" style fighting.

[Axelmania]

Apparently, in the Holmes scenario, not a single one of the soldiers there were privates fresh out of boot camp with itchy trigger fingers, or people with psychological problems sustained from the previous, horrendous fight with the Tolkeenites which dumped them into Xiticix territory in the first place.

Nor did a single solitary one of the soldiers horribly killed, apparently, tried to launch one last "aw, screw it!" attack at the Xits as he or she fell to slow horrendous deaths at the feet and claws and teeth (mandibles?) of the Xitz.

1) itchy/psycho grunts would be attacked but that would not lead to the entire groupbeing targeted if they stayed out of it.

2) last "screw it" attacks surely did happen, and would not penalize the surviving g groups at all

[cornholioprime]

Apparently, in the Holmes scenario, not a single one of the soldiers there were privates fresh out of boot camp with itchy trigger fingers, or people with psychological problems sustained from the previous, horrendous fight with the Tolkeenites which dumped them into Xiticix territory in the first place.

Nor did a single solitary one of the soldiers horribly killed, apparently, tried to launch one last "aw, screw it!" attack at the Xits as he or she fell to slow horrendous deaths at the feet and claws and teeth (mandibles?) of the Xitz.

1) itchy/psycho grunts would be attacked but that would not lead to the entire groupbeing targeted if they stayed out of it.

2) last "screw it" attacks surely did happen, and would not penalize the surviving g groups at all

That's not how Xiticix mass attacks work normally.

That's how Xiticix behave in a rare instance wherein they "challenge" a group -and a small one at that -to a one-on-one duel.
The rest of the time, it's numerically superior force attacking your own, and if any of those guys get killed for any reason including accidentally, Death Scent is released.

It's just another layer of skin on the onion of implausibilities that surround General Holmes' survival of the Xiticix Horde.

[boring7]

However, on that same note, my numbers are also accurate from my previous. Which, therefore, as credence to Shark-Force claim on how it's even possible that ANY town of a decent enough size would ever be surprised by any kind of attack. Even a town of 300, according to the math, would potentially have ONE clairvoyant psychic...

A town of 300 might have one clairvoyant.
That clairvoyant might have a vision.
That vision might be useful.
The clairvoyant might have that useful vision in time to act.
The clairvoyant might choose to act
The clairvoyant's actions might be useful in preventing the attack.

There's a lot of mights. That's how it's not only possible, but perfectly plausible that a community with psychics could be caught off-guard in an attack.

In order for psychics to be a reliable safeguard against attacks:
1. There must be a large enough number of psychics to ensure that at least some visions will be had.
2. There must be a large enough number of psychics to ensure that of the number of psychics who have any visions at all, that a significant number will have useful information.
3. There must be communication and police/military infrastructure in place designed to take advantage of these visions when they arise. The right information doesn't matter unless it can get into the right hands, and get there in time to act.
4. All these factors need to fit together reliably. History is full of successful surprise attacks that occurred because the people who found out about the attack in advance were not able to understand and communicate the importance of the information that they had.

When I brought this up I was talking about scouting. They had their bulls&#$tium-powered future-vision skull, but vague prophecy only prompts MORE investigation and watching by the military. Prophecy is always vague, and the more knowledgeable you are about magic (Tolkeen's whole 'thing') the more you know to "trust but verify" magical future-vision.

With drones or the crystal ball equivalent of drones or even Astral Projection you can send people out to look at troop movements with minimal risk. Unless I'm missing something a decent psychic can scout an entire countryside in minutes (1 minute real time is 1 week astral projection time) just floating around as an astral ghost. Sure the CS has psychics who can spot him, but I am not sure CS has the psychics/powers to actually hurt him. Even if they DO, he just runs away at mach 1.

So no, blindly ignoring the northern front was yet another way the Jericho Miracle didn't make sense.

As for the "Xiticix did ritualistic combat but otherwise left an entire freaking army unmolested as it tromped through their territory and posed a threat to their hive clusters" idea...no. It's ridiculous.

Jericho is another CS Jesus performing miracles to save the space nazis from their own stupid. Speaking of which, does anyone remember the name of the CS leader/general who was Propaganda shuffled as "fighting the glorious fight" somewhere but actually teamed up with Heretics and Xenos to fight the vampires? Or am I misremembering things?

[Eagle]

As for the "Xiticix did ritualistic combat but otherwise left an entire freaking army unmolested as it tromped through their territory and posed a threat to their hive clusters" idea...no. It's ridiculous.

Jericho is another CS Jesus performing miracles to save the space nazis from their own stupid. Speaking of which, does anyone remember the name of the CS leader/general who was Propaganda shuffled as "fighting the glorious fight" somewhere but actually teamed up with Heretics and Xenos to fight the vampires? Or am I misremembering things?

Sigh.

It's just a plot twist you didn't like. That's it, nothing more. Bad writing? Sure. A poor attempt at drama? Sure, not arguing that. But Holmes coming to the rescue was pretty clearly planned out. At the very least, KS knew what he was going to do with them when he had them enter bug territory in the first place. I'd argue that he had a general plan for what he wanted to do when he wrote Xiticix Invasion. One of the SoT books explicitly says that Holmes had devised this strategy as a backup plan before he ever set out. It's meant to be military genius, not blind luck.

But the criticism should be that it's a bad attempt at creating false drama, not that it's plot armor. As far as numbers of troops go, the Coalition should have walked all over Tolkeen without a problem. A SAMAS suit can fly from Chi-Town to Tolkeen (roughly Chicago to Minneapolis) in a little over an hour. Coalition skycycles and Death's Head Transports could get there in about half an hour. Long range missiles would hit in 12 minutes. There shouldn't be this "Moses wandering in the desert for 40 years" aspect to the war. That's all done for dramatic effect. You can't talk about how unreasonable Holmes' survival is without recognizing that the Coalition was basically handicapped the entire time, forced to operate like an American Civil War army, and not one that has supersonic hover transports.

Hell, the Coalition Mark V APC can drive away faster than the average Xiticix can fly (90 mph ground speed vs 82 mph average flight speed). If they really wanted to go through bug territory, it should have looked like that scene from Jurassic Park where the T-Rex is chasing the jeep.

[boring7]

I didn't say it wasn't planned, just that it was bad writing and plot armor. "Plot armor" just means you get free deus ex machina successes that don't make sense or flow in the narrative.

And Tolkeen was far more handicapped than the Coalition. Tolkeen should have thrown up the barrier and while the CS was trying to figure out how to get a good number of troops through (ones and twos are easy, but they are also easy to pop by defenders) someone should have 'ported a small army of mega-boosted magic zombies on Prosek's head in a swift assassination strike.

Unrelated: does the CS actually have supersonic transports? I only ask of curiosity because I have been noticing vehicles in Rifts are amazingly slow. I know of two things that go above Mach 1 and they're both literally magic (technically psychic) and this amuses me more than it should.

Back on topic, another thing that annoys me about the plot is the fact that it doesn't give a reason/method. I know it is a common narrative convention for the "amazing victory" to happen off-panel and let the reader's imagination do the work I don't like that convention. It just feels lazy to me, in my subjective opinion.

[Shark_Force]

furthermore there is absolutely nothing clear about the supposed passage existing to set up the jericho holmes march. nothing. the SoT doesn't refer back to that part of the xiticix book. it doesn't talk about challenges either. it does talk about the bugs killing off CS soldiers while others around them are stuck watching.

Feel free to quote what the books DO say.

if that's what they were trying (and failing) to do, they botched it horribly

Yes. And?

the simple fact that it took NEARLY SIXTEEN YEARS for anyone on these forums in the many discussions on this specific highly controversial (within the palladium community) event which has come up many times before to even *propose* that there might be any connection at all tells you that. clear connections don't take 16 years to notice when you've got hundreds (maybe thousands?) of pairs of eyes looking at them repeatedly.

It's come up before, actually, probably multiple times over the years.

Also, keep in mind that it's been 27 years since the RMB, and people still don't agree how the C-12 was supposed to work.
And Palladium hasn't done much to clarify things, or to correct any confusion in the matter.
That's not how they roll.

again, i'm not saying "it's impossible for this to have been the intent". i can't really prove that one way or the other.

but if someone (not you, can't remember the poster offhand) is going to argue that this is *clearly* what was intended, well no. it isn't clear. it isn't anything like clear. it is so much unlike clear that it is, in fact, the opposite of clear, if it even is actually what was intended (which we have no way of knowing).

[Axelmania]

That's how Xiticix behave in a rare instance wherein they "challenge" a group -and a small one at that -to a one-on-one duel.
The rest of the time, it's numerically superior force attacking your own, and if any of those guys get killed for any reason including accidentally, Death Scent is released.

It's just another layer of skin on the onion of implausibilities that surround General Holmes' survival of the Xiticix Horde.

1) challenges aren't rare

2) death scent isn't likely to land on you if you're using laser guns which 2000 feet range

3) death scent doesn't initiate mindless killing sprees, it simply prompts investigation

4) CS can simply take away ranged weapons from most of the troops to prevent them from shooting Xiticix.

5) it's difficult to kill a Xiticix in a single shot from a standard CS rifle, plenty of time for teammates to wrestle the idiot to the ground and prevent the Death Scent

[Axelmania]

That's how Xiticix behave in a rare instance wherein they "challenge" a group -and a small one at that -to a one-on-one duel.
The rest of the time, it's numerically superior force attacking your own, and if any of those guys get killed for any reason including accidentally, Death Scent is released.

It's just another layer of skin on the onion of implausibilities that surround General Holmes' survival of the Xiticix Horde.

1) challenges aren't rare

2) death scent isn't likely to land on you if you're using laser guns which 2000 feet range

3) death scent doesn't initiate mindless killing sprees, it simply prompts investigation

4) CS can simply take away ranged weapons from most of the troops to prevent them from shooting Xiticix.

5) it's difficult to kill a Xiticix in a single shot from a standard CS rifle, plenty of time for teammates to wrestle the idiot to the ground and prevent the Death Scent

the Coalition Mark V APC can drive away faster than the average Xiticix can fly (90 mph ground speed vs 82 mph average flight speed). If they really wanted to go through bug territory, it should have looked like that scene from Jurassic Park where the T-Rex is chasing the jeep.

Pretty sure the speeds we get for land vehicles are based on the assumption of a perfectly level paved road going in a straight line.

When we take into account inclines/declines, needing to steer around trees and potholes, mud, etc. it probably slows a great deal.

The SAMAS / Sky Cycles you mentioned earlier on the other hand... quite able to flee.

Of course... if smart Xiticix simply pepper you with TK Rifle snipes from cover... it might not be immediately clear what direction to run in, you might actually flee into an ambush. Luckily the basic Warrior doesn't do that, it's a tactic I'd only expect to see from Super Warriors or Hunters leading a pack and enforcing better tactics for their underlings.

Unrelated: does the CS actually have supersonic transports? I only ask of curiosity because I have been noticing vehicles in Rifts are amazingly slow. I know of two things that go above Mach 1 and they're both literally magic (technically psychic) and this amuses me more than it should.

Not exactly 'super', but the closest I can think of is the Death's Head Transport they've had since RMB (pg 200) going "Mach One, about 670mph). I've always thought that to be a major factor of their dominance.

They've had these since at least 70 PA since Sedition 100 mentions Joseph Prosek was in one during an assassination attempt.

Whenever it was that the CS incorporated Psi-Techs, I imagine they would want to utilize them as pilots for that sweet 10% speed boost.

This is probably one of the earliest incarnations of the "Death's Head", since the Dead Boy armor was based on tech unearthed at Lone Star (discovered 68 PA, 2 years before Joseph was killed)

RMB 193 mentions "The famous Death's Head motif of the Coalition's armor and war machines has struck fear in the hearts of its opposition for nearly 40 years". Assuming RMB's 'current year' was ~100 PA (based on the date of Erin Tarn's traversing) 100-68=32 so the armor doesn't appear to be the 1st instance of its use.

Does anyone recall any mentions of decades-old usage of SAMAS, Enforcers, Spider Skull Walkers or Sky Cycles? These all have the Death's Head image and could possibly be candidates for pre-68 PA usage of the Death's Head emblem by the CS.

The UAR-1 Enforcer Robot is mentioned as having a mysterious "predecessor" which appeared a "few years" after the FoM conflict of 12 PA (RMB p 194) but the current model "has been used for over 20 years now" so that's probably just ~75-80 PA and not a candidate.

I figure the predecessor was that thing the Republicans had eventually revealed in Sourcebook One Revised? I think the SAMAS was a similar situation. I suppose whether the UAR-1 predecessor or the SAM having pre-68 usage would depend on whenever it was the CS got the technology.

If not them, I guess I would assume the Sky Cycle / Spider Walker. Or maybe they just used the emblems on flags but didn't incorporate it into armor until the Body Armor / Transport?

[Killer Cyborg]

The bugs don't always go crazy over it. During a challenge, the bugs will take their dead guy and leave.
"Not a single death" is not something that the books say happened, nor something that the books would require to have happened.

That's the point.

They don't go crazy over the Death Scent during a challenge.

Said challenges explicitly stated by the books to be a relatively rare occurrence; the rest of the time, it's "deploy at least 2 Xiticix per each opponent in enemy group, kill them unmercifully, and if one or more of their guys kill our guys for any reason outside of a one-on-one challenge, it's Death Scent Release time" style fighting.

Sounds like you think that "this is a relatively rare occurrence " means "this could not have happened with Holmes' troops."

[Blue_Lion]

(You keep claiming numbers exist and demand that I use numbers that have not been proven to exist. Show me how the numbers exist if you want to claim they do.)

It is a fact that numbers exist. There are all kinds of numbers.
Is there a specific number that officially represents the exact number of Clairvoyants in a specific area?
Probably not.
But there are numbers that do exist, which we can work with to reach conclusions.

If, for example, the total number of mages in Tolkeen is X, and the total number of psychics is Y, then that tells us that the number of Clairvoyants in Tolkeen can NOT be larger than X + Y.
This is simple logic.
So that's a number that we could come up with, possibly.
Does it tell us everything that we wish to know?

Potentially, depending on what we wish to know.

But you insist that there no numbers exist for Tolkeen that could possibly support your claim, and I've long since grown tired of arguing about that point.
So, sure.
Numbers don't exist, if that's what you insist.

If you want the numbers for the CS' psychics that I came up with, the math I did and the conclusions that I came to, all you have to do is to search through my previous posts on this subject in previous topics, either using Palladium's search function, or using Google or whatever search engine you prefer.

But since you've done nothing to assist me in supporting your own claim, I don't see why I should do the legwork to help you attempt to disprove my own claim.

So, good day, and have fun.
I don't see any use in continuing the conversation.

Wait are you now claiming you have only been asking for the max possible

No.
I've been asking for ANY NUMBERS THAT MIGHT SUPPORT OR INDICATE YOUR CLAIM.

I was under the impresion that you wanted the exact number with the power to see the future.

Sure. When I specifically asked how many mages in Tolkeen might have the potential to see the future, I absolutely must have meant that I wanted an exact number.
That makes sense.

And that you claimed you had calculated the exact number of people in the Cs with the power.

Nope.

So the reason I was saying the numbers do not exist is they do not tell us what number of mages are trained in a said spell or the frequency that the power comes up compared to others. So that is why I was saying the numbers did not exist because we did not know the exact number of mages and psi with that ability. We do have stats for the frequency of psi and numbers of mages that served in Tolkeens military during the final siege.

So.... any numbers that might support or indicate your conclusion that Tolkeen would necessarily have psychically predicted Holmes' return...?

(When asked for a citation your to prove that we know the CS numbers and you reply with use search seams like you saying waist your time proving my numbers of numbers. It is not my job to prove your claim of numbers for CS psi exist it is yours. So provide a link when asked for citation do not a reply that says Prove they exist for me.)

You're the one asking about the CS numbers; you're the one who should do the research.
I've already done it, and posted on it multiple times over the years.
I'm not going to do it again, just because you want me to.
There is no burden on me to search for information that you want to have.

The first sentence when you look at what the topic we where auguring over seams clear, I am saying the exact numbers do not exist you are saying they do.

Not a bit of it.
I don't see any reason why you would think that only EXACT numbers could support or indicate your claim, and I don't see any point at which I made any claims about having or requiring EXACT numbers.
If YOU think you know of any place where I made claims about EXACT numbers, by all means quote me, and provide a link to where I said it.

So you want me to do the research to prove your claim the numbers exist. Because you do not fill you need to prove your numbers. (Heck even a link to them but I will not prove your numbers exist that is your claim and your job.)

If you are unwilling to prove your claim of the numbers existing is true then it is untrue.

I never said the exact numbers would support or prove my claim, you where the one demanding numbers.
My claim was giving the existence of such powers it is improbable for any nation to be surprised by a large scale sneak attack and the exact numbers with the power are irrelevant.(So the exact numbers are not needed to prove my claim as my claim is they are irrelevant.)

The numbers being relevant is your claim not mine, My claim was the numbers does not mater it is the existence and reasonable access to it by a nation that makes large scale sneak attacks improbable to happen.(Small scale stuff yea it can slip by but large scale sneak attack with significant affects to a nation would be detected with said powers when dealing with it on national scale.)

I did make the claim that we do not have access to the numbers with those powers, you made the claim we have access to the numbers.

That means my claim is the numbers do not exist your claim is numbers do exist. So why would I do the research to prove your claim that the numbers exist. If you can not prove your claim of a positive access to the numbers then my claim of negative access wins.(You need to prove something exist not that it does not exist.)

[Jefffar]

I think this horse isn't getting any deader no matter how much we flog it.