Texas-sized Frustration

[Library Ogre]

So, 1997 was a busy year for Palladium. Two of the books published were World Book 13: Lone Star and Sourcebook 4: Coalition Navy.

Coalition Navy is set in about 103 PA. In 100 PA, the Coalition launched a massive strike on Port Horus, a small kingdom just west of Beaumont, Texas. They utterly destroyed it, and built a massive military installation, Fort Pinnacle, in its place. Fort Pinnacle, with a population of almost 100,000 people, and a military complement of 35,000 CS Navy personnel. It is now a 10 square mile military base and a full-on Coalition city.

Rifts: Lone Star is set in 105 PA, and has a page or so about the city of Houstown (some in that section, some of its history with the NPC stat block for the mayor). A free city, with a Titan Mystic as a mayor, it has an unusually high population of psi-stalkers (6400), and a total population of just under 30,000 people. As you might guess from the name, it is built around the city of Houston. No mention of Fort Pinnacle but, hey, Texas is a big place. How far apart can they be?
Houston to Beaumont is a bit less than 90 miles. The Coalition could sit in their Navy base and destroy Houston with missiles and wouldn't even need to put on PANTS. The military population of Fort Pinnacle is 25% larger than the total population of Houstown.

Now, there are a couple possibilities. It's possible that something, in 103 or 104 PA, utterly destroyed the massive Coalition base, allowing Houstown to return to the free and happy people they're presented as being in Lone Star. Or, perhaps you favor the "Houstown is obviously so gone it didn't even get a mention in CS Navy".

But when two cities, 84.9 miles apart, don't even mention each other, despite being the major powers in the area, you have to wonder at the lack of a map or something to see what's going on.

[Killer Cyborg]

Obviously the writers weren't thinking things through, paying attention to what other books said.

But in-game?

All I see is an adventure hook.

[Library Ogre]

A note about Fort Pinnacle.

"Capital Ships of Note: Carriers: CSS Joseph Prosek (flagship), CSS Lone Star, and CSS Chi-Town; Amphibious Warship: Missouri; and Ballistic Missile Submarines: Defiance and Reprisal."

Between the Joseph Prosek and the Lone Star, there are 2880 Long range missiles (just on the ships, not counting their aircraft complement). The Defiance and Reprisal add another 336 LRM each, bringing the total to 3552 LRM. The Chi-Town carrier adds another 400 LRM, so we're at 3952 LRM. 2312 of these can be fired within minutes; the other 1640 of them would take an hour to reload and fire. Add in the carriers' aircraft, and you're looking at another 288 LRM from each Prosek Class carrier, and 176 from the Chi-town's aircraft, giving a first strike capacity of 3064 long-range missiles, with a second set of 1640 an hour later.

That is roughly 1 long range missile per 6 people in Houstown. The first strike is "only" 1 LRM per 10 people.

[glitterboy2098]

perhaps Houstown has a secret agreement with the CS to remain a free city, in exchange for some benefit for the CS? that would give GM's some fun options.

IRL Houston has a huge oil industry, with oil fields around it and refineries in the city. perhaps Houstown has a smaller but still sizeable oil industry as well, and sells most of their oil to the CS in exchange for neutrality and safety. the CS would need oil and petrochemicals for some of their naval ships, as well as using it as feedstocks for a lot of industrial processes.

[Panomas II]

Obviously the writers weren't thinking things through, paying attention to what other books said.

But in-game?

All I see is an adventure hook.

I read the first line and said... "Make Lemonade!"

[Mack]

I'd simply put Houstown on the "to-do" list of Fort Pinnacle.

Another thought: The CS treats Houstown similar to how Free Quebec treats Old Bones. They use it to collect intel on the rest of the area.

Another-other thought: Given the other threats to the CS (Tolkeen, Juicer Uprising, Xiticix, FoM...) pacifying southern Texas simply isn't a priority. Nor does the CS want to start a state-wide fight with the Pecos Empire. The status-quo may be preferable.

Another-other-other thought: Since much of the CS Navy was sunk by FQ during the SoT, Fort Pinnacle may not be what it used to be. I can imagine much of its resources being recalled. (But that's a bit later in the timeline.)

{But more to the point, I believe it's an oversight coming from the fact that the two books had different authors.}

[taalismn]

Houstown-Fadetown

Or as one Fort Pinnacle CS soldier said one morning "THAT wasn't there yesterday!"

[Colonel_Tetsuya]

So, 1997 was a busy year for Palladium. Two of the books published were World Book 13: Lone Star and Sourcebook 4: Coalition Navy.

Coalition Navy is set in about 103 PA. In 100 PA, the Coalition launched a massive strike on Port Horus, a small kingdom just west of Beaumont, Texas. They utterly destroyed it, and built a massive military installation, Fort Pinnacle, in its place. Fort Pinnacle, with a population of almost 100,000 people, and a military complement of 35,000 CS Navy personnel. It is now a 10 square mile military base and a full-on Coalition city.

Rifts: Lone Star is set in 105 PA, and has a page or so about the city of Houstown (some in that section, some of its history with the NPC stat block for the mayor). A free city, with a Titan Mystic as a mayor, it has an unusually high population of psi-stalkers (6400), and a total population of just under 30,000 people. As you might guess from the name, it is built around the city of Houston. No mention of Fort Pinnacle but, hey, Texas is a big place. How far apart can they be?
Houston to Beaumont is a bit less than 90 miles. The Coalition could sit in their Navy base and destroy Houston with missiles and wouldn't even need to put on PANTS. The military population of Fort Pinnacle is 25% larger than the total population of Houstown.

Now, there are a couple possibilities. It's possible that something, in 103 or 104 PA, utterly destroyed the massive Coalition base, allowing Houstown to return to the free and happy people they're presented as being in Lone Star. Or, perhaps you favor the "Houstown is obviously so gone it didn't even get a mention in CS Navy".

But when two cities, 84.9 miles apart, don't even mention each other, despite being the major powers in the area, you have to wonder at the lack of a map or something to see what's going on.

... this is the first time you've noticed glaring issues with the setting like this?

90 miles is within range of Medium Range missiles, as well, if im not mistaken (a few of the types get up over 100 miles - correction, they max out at 80).

How about.. the range on LRMs is enough for the CS (centrally located in the Midwest/edge of the West) to bombard literally the entire US without leaving their bunks. Kingsdale, the Colorado Baronies, and Arzno shouldn't even exist if the CS is as rabidly anti-magic as they claim to be. Chi-town's batteries can literally hit any target worth hitting on the continent. Add in that Lone-Star assuredly has LRM batteries of it's own (every large CS city, presumably) with deep missile reserves and quite honestly...

yeah. Not sure how this one got by you.

Tildeer:

The setting makes no sense on its face.

Why:

Kevin thinks towns in Colorado can be "thousands of miles apart". He has NO SENSE of scope, distance, etc. None. Zero. Or that pretty much any flying Power Armor can be all the way across the continent in less than 12 hours. Etc.

[glitterboy2098]

i wouldn't put this one on on entirely K.S., since SB4 was written by someone else. Mr. Nowak might have written that part of SB4 prior to Lone Star coming out (books can take awhile to write after all) but once it was out, he should have figured out his choice of locations might be problematic, and fixed it.

[dreicunan]

Just assume that any travel beyond 20 miles is subject to radical distortion due to dimensional anomalies and the setting as written starts to make a little more sense.

[Proseksword]

Chi-town isn't exactly built on the same location as Old Chicago. Do we know for a fact Houstown is geographically in the same location as old Houston?

While not exactly a model Coalition community, from what you've described, a city full of Psi-Stalkers doesn't seem like the worst neighbors for the Coalition to have. Considering all the other baddies out on the Pecos, the Coalition may just view Houstown as a preferable buffer community to the alternatives.

[ShadowLogan]

perhaps Houstown has a secret agreement with the CS to remain a free city, in exchange for some benefit for the CS? that would give GM's some fun options.

IRL Houston has a huge oil industry, with oil fields around it and refineries in the city. perhaps Houstown has a smaller but still sizeable oil industry as well, and sells most of their oil to the CS in exchange for neutrality and safety. the CS would need oil and petrochemicals for some of their naval ships, as well as using it as feedstocks for a lot of industrial processes.

Or perhaps it is sitting on some resource(s) the CS wants, but can't get "cheaply". IIRC part of the CS wanting the community home to Iron Heart Industries was for their blue prints and such, all they managed to get was the factory (and some workers).

If Houstown is the site of petrochemicals, and has infrastructure to process it, the CS might not want to lose that existing infrastructure.

It probably isn't the only community like this either near the CS border that exists for so long (Tolkeen for ex pre-SoT, New Lazlo when FQ was a member, etc).

And it isn't like there aren't exceptions to CS policy on who they will negotiate with (Triax, has/had that high ranking non-human in the govt, Columbia has its Dwarves, the Manistique Imperium (sp) in the UP signed an alliance per CWC and they have TW and such in their population, Northern Gun might also qualify)

Another-other-other thought: Since much of the CS Navy was sunk by FQ during the SoT, Fort Pinnacle may not be what it used to be. I can imagine much of its resources being recalled. (But that's a bit later in the timeline.)

{But more to the point, I believe it's an oversight coming from the fact that the two books had different authors.}

I thought FQ sunk much of the CS Navy that was in that theatre of operations, the Texas/Gulf-of-Mexico Fleet would have likely not been a participant in that conflict. I suppose the CS could have redeployed those assets to in an attempt to fill any gaps .

[FluidicAztec]

I'd simply put Houstown on the "to-do" list of Fort Pinnacle.

Another thought: The CS treats Houstown similar to how Free Quebec treats Old Bones. They use it to collect intel on the rest of the area.

I do like this idea...You could even say it's a major recruiting station for Psi-Stalkers.

Here's another thought, maybe LRMs are not as effective without satellites. Targets have to be "painted" by a forward observer and even then, relay stations need to be in-place for long distances. I'm not sure how effective missiles are without some kind of GPS guidance, but I agree, 90 miles could probably be targeted. Isn't that one of the reasons North Korea's nukes will probably miss us, no satellites?

This article talks about a world without satellites: https://io9.gizmodo.com/what-would-happen-if-all-our-satellites-were-suddenly-d-1709006681

It mentioned how battles would be fought like a game of Battleship. Granted, cities don't move. You could always rule that without line-of sight, anything within 5 miles of a ley line has too much dimensional distortion for a missile to target? Ley line storms cause all kinds of problems with tech, maybe a ley lines keeps an area in a hazy flux when trying to target something? That's why all these magic cities haven't been LRM'd to death.

[Razorwing]

While the Coalition may have the firepower to wipe a town like Houstown from the map... doing so in such an overwhelming manner is likely to have serious repercussions for them down the road.

1) such an unprovoked attack could unite the otherwise fractured nature of the portions of Texas that are not under Coalition control... which is still much of the state (thus creating a united opposition against the Coalition... something they don't want).
2) It could leave the Coalition at least temporarily vulnerable to other, more dangerous forces... such as the demonic forces in Cuba (not sure how long they have been there... my books are not with me right this moment) or even Atlantis forces that do make forays along the Gulf Coast for slaves.

The point is... just because the Coalition may have the fire power to wipe out a near by city-state that populated by non-humans doesn't mean they will do so... especially when it is non-hostile to them and there are other more serious threats they may need such weapons against. The Coalition may be human supremacists, but for the most part, they aren't idiots who attack everything they can just because they can... there is no point in winning a single battle if it leads to one loosing a longer war.

[Eagle]

Yeah, the Coalition are human supremacists, but they don't act like rabid dogs. There's probably a lot of stuff more important than Houstown out there. A city full of psi-stalkers isn't the worst thing in the world, even if their ruler is some kind of wizard. I bet they're way, way down the list.

Of course, the real reason is that the writers didn't notice it. But the in-character reason is probably that Houstown is just too small potatoes.

[Freemage]

Generally, the rule seems to be, "The Coalition can beat down any other force on the continent, but not ALL the other forces, simultaneously." So they pick and choose the weakest targets (ones they can take out without over-committing) and those that have the most credible reasons for receiving such an assault (to keep the various other forces from uniting wholesale).

Combine that with some practical reasons listed above for choosing other targets first (oil refineries and psi-stalker recruitment both being prime examples from up-thread), and you end up with the seeming contradictions in policy.

Oh, and the psi-stalker population there presents another potential issue--blasting so many P-S out of existence at once, without some sort of actual aggression on their part, could very well reduce morale in one of the key lynchpins of the CS strategy for dealing with supernatural threats.

[Library Ogre]

Chi-town isn't exactly built on the same location as Old Chicago. Do we know for a fact Houstown is geographically in the same location as old Houston?

Per page 169 of Lone Star, it is.

While not exactly a model Coalition community, from what you've described, a city full of Psi-Stalkers doesn't seem like the worst neighbors for the Coalition to have. Considering all the other baddies out on the Pecos, the Coalition may just view Houstown as a preferable buffer community to the alternatives.

It's led by a Titan Mystic.

I mean, I've worked on this; I've considered what it looks like, and how it would work. It was revisiting it for a Savage Rifts conversion that got me worked up about it again. And it is less that the two exist near each other (as folks have shown, there's a lot of ways you can rationalize it) than the editorial error that neither one mentions the other in their entry... Fort Pinnacle's entry shows no sign that there's a sizable kingdom nearby, and Houstown's shows no sign that there's an overwhelming military force within range of a particularly forceful pee.

[Colonel_Tetsuya]

Just assume that any travel beyond 20 miles is subject to radical distortion due to dimensional anomalies and the setting as written starts to make a little more sense.

ive mentioned this as being integral to any 2nd Edition/rewrite i would ever consider. Maybe not 20 miles, but a similar idea. Long-distance navigation without constant beacons isn't possible in my setting. Otherwise the whole thing falls apart.

But thats a "my setting" thing. As presented.... that isn't how the setting works.

I'd simply put Houstown on the "to-do" list of Fort Pinnacle.

Another thought: The CS treats Houstown similar to how Free Quebec treats Old Bones. They use it to collect intel on the rest of the area.

I do like this idea...You could even say it's a major recruiting station for Psi-Stalkers.

Here's another thought, maybe LRMs are not as effective without satellites.

As a house rule/my version of the setting - yes, something like that. Its not "without satellites" but "without beacons". The magic in the air makes long-distance navigation impossible. In the setting-as-written though? Nope.

Targets have to be "painted" by a forward observer and even then, relay stations need to be in-place for long distances. I'm not sure how effective missiles are without some kind of GPS guidance, but I agree, 90 miles could probably be targeted. Isn't that one of the reasons North Korea's nukes will probably miss us, no satellites?

No, satellites have nothing to do with it. We didn't have GPS satellites in the 50s and 60s and we could put nukes down within feet of where we wanted. Inertial guidance is a thing. North Koreas missiles will likely miss because they have no tech base to speak of and their quality sucks.

This article talks about a world without satellites: https://io9.gizmodo.com/what-would-happen-if-all-our-satellites-were-suddenly-d-1709006681

Rifts Earth isn't "suddenly" without satellites, though. Its been centuries. And the tech base exists to make missiles that dont need satellites. We could re-make those (hell, we still have tens of thousands of them sitting around).

It mentioned how battles would be fought like a game of Battleship.

Not really. You can mock up a "satellite" network in low-orbit or even just high-altitude via drones. Another area that doesn't really make sense in the setting (well, drones as we know them werent really a thing when Kev wrote Rifts so i can give him a pass here) - the CS could literally just make cheap skelebot drones and hang them in the air at about 15,000ft and have a "satellite network". Again, i dont think it SHOULD work that way, but nothing in the setting prevents it other than they dont do it.

Granted, cities don't move. You could always rule that without line-of sight, anything within 5 miles of a ley line has too much dimensional distortion for a missile to target? Ley line storms cause all kinds of problems with tech, maybe a ley lines keeps an area in a hazy flux when trying to target something? That's why all these magic cities haven't been LRM'd to death.

I agree that it SHOULD be something like that - but that is never mentioned anywhere, and, in fact, the opposite is true - the CS did a serious long-range bombardment of Tolkeen before the invasion proper began. Only reason it DIDNT wipe Tolkeen completely away was Deus-Ex-Rifts-Triangular-Defense-Spell.

One thing these smaller towns do NOT have going for them is that kind of defensive power. Most of them aren't even on or near a nexus, let alone 3.

The reason they haven't been LRMed to death is that the setting doesn't make a terrible amount of sense.

Kevin obviously wanted it to be like a high-tech blend of sci-fantasy and Palladium Fantasy, where "you travel for a few weeks to get to your destination" is the norm.

Except that you have vehicles that go hundreds of miles an hour and dont need roads. He didn't write a McGuffin into the setting that forces people to move at horse-speeds only most of the time. He also has no serious sense of scale. I dont have it in front of me right now, but there's a section in New West where he talks about the outlying towns in the Colorado area (outside of the Baronies proper) and mentions that they are "hundreds, often thousands of miles apart".

.... yeah, Colorado aint that big Kev. The Continental US isn't that big. There is literally nowhere in the main parts of the setting (the US and lower Canada, Mexico) that you are "thousands of miles" from the nearest town. Just the canon towns in various books prevent that, much less any towns the GM adds.

From the northern tip of Washington (the state) to the soutern tip of what remains of Florida, is only 2800 miles. From where Free Quebec is to the California Coast is only 2500 miles. The most distant portion of the Cali coast to the edge of Newfoundland is only 3100 miles (thats the widest the settled portion of the continent gets).

The CS states are right in the middle of that (just a bit off-center for Chi-town but there is at least one fortress-city in Iowa) and extend a bit into the West (Lone Star Complex) and East (Iron Heart; leaving out FQ). They have multiple craft capable of high-altitude, high-speed (700+mph) heavy transport (Death's Head Transports).

As written, there is no reason for Kingsdale, etc to even exist, just a few hundred miles at most from a major CS settlement. (Actually, as of the creation of El Dorado as a state, within ~100 miles and INSIDE claimed CS territory). Same with the Baronies, which butt right up against CS Chi-town's Iowa farmlands, and are a few hundred miles at most from major CS settlements.

While the Coalition may have the firepower to wipe a town like Houstown from the map... doing so in such an overwhelming manner is likely to have serious repercussions for them down the road.

1) such an unprovoked attack could unite the otherwise fractured nature of the portions of Texas that are not under Coalition control... which is still much of the state (thus creating a united opposition against the Coalition... something they don't want).

Since this town is a "goody two shoes" town, highly unlikely. The Pecos Bandits arent likely to care one whit.

2) It could leave the Coalition at least temporarily vulnerable to other, more dangerous forces... such as the demonic forces in Cuba (not sure how long they have been there... my books are not with me right this moment)

The Deevil forces in Cuba have been there since the Dark Ages. Until just before the Minion War, the CS isn't even aware they exist. At all.

or even Atlantis forces that do make forays along the Gulf Coast for slaves.

I dont think expending a few hundred LRMs (if that) is going to seriously weaken the defenses of a base with a major fleet attachment and 30,000+ troops.

The point is... just because the Coalition may have the fire power to wipe out a near by city-state that populated by non-humans doesn't mean they will do so... especially when it is non-hostile to them and there are other more serious threats they may need such weapons against.

The CS expends more missiles daily in patrols, i'd wager.

The Coalition may be human supremacists, but for the most part, they aren't idiots who attack everything they can just because they can... there is no point in winning a single battle if it leads to one loosing a longer war.

As written, there is no chance of them losing such a war. They have more troops under arms than all of these other nations combined have people. It is -yet another- way that the setting makes very little sense. Hell, the reason Lazlo didn't join with Tolkeen was because they knew that even if all of the CS' enemies joined the fight, theyd still lose.

And given that Kingsdale, the Baronies, and Arzno directly help their enemies (unlike this little town in Texas, or, say, Merctown) and (with the exception of Arzno) are RIGHT NEXT DOOR to major CS settlements, they should have blown them away years ago. Just for border security if nothing else.

An afternoon of sustained fire turns any of those places into a smoking ruin.

[Proseksword]

It's led by a Titan Mystic.

Sure, and how many Mystics are probably camped out in the Chi-Town 'burbs? I doubt that's as huge of a deal breaker as one would think at first....

[Killer Cyborg]

As written, there is no chance of them losing such a war. They have more troops under arms than all of these other nations combined have people. It is -yet another- way that the setting makes very little sense.

There are all kinds of ways to lose a war.
The easiest is by over-extending oneself.
The CS can knock over all the other anthills, perhaps, but unless they can hold all that territory they'll just end up with a ton of angry ants.

Hell, the reason Lazlo didn't join with Tolkeen was because they knew that even if all of the CS' enemies joined the fight, theyd still lose.

Is there a direct quote to that effect?

[Colonel_Tetsuya]

Your quoting is all kinds of fubar

Edit:

Aftermath Page 57.

Even if Lazlo, the Baronies, New Lazlo, Kingsdale and the full force of the Cyber-Knights had joined the war, it could not have been won.

[dreicunan]

Your quoting is all kinds of fubar

Edit:

Aftermath Page 57.

Even if Lazlo, the Baronies, New Lazlo, Kingsdale and the full force of the Cyber-Knights had joined the war, it could not have been won.

Unless, of course, the additional forces bought enough time for them to have gone through with the Tolkeen Doomsday device plan and obliterated Chi-Town. Absent the Proseks and the heart of the CS government, things likely play out differently.

[Killer Cyborg]

Your quoting is all kinds of fubar

Yeah, that was seriously messed up!

Edit:
Aftermath Page 57.

Even if Lazlo, the Baronies, New Lazlo, Kingsdale and the full force of the Cyber-Knights had joined the war, it could not have been won.

Although that is not a full list of all the Coalition's enemies.

[eliakon]

To be fair...
Arnzo, Lazlo and possibly the Cyber Knights ARE capable of annihilating the CS if they actually throw their entire weight into the conflict.
That is because the CS is big.. but it is, in the end just one power on one continent of one world.
THOSE three powers though are allied with and associated with larger interdimensional forces.
If they truly, TRULY decide that things just HAVE to end they have friends in high places. Atlantian clans, gods, the UWW... stuff like that.

As far as I can tell... this is in fact the reason that the authors are reluctant to use them fully.

[glitterboy2098]

To be fair...
Arnzo, Lazlo and possibly the Cyber Knights ARE capable of annihilating the CS if they actually throw their entire weight into the conflict.
That is because the CS is big.. but it is, in the end just one power on one continent of one world.
THOSE three powers though are allied with and associated with larger interdimensional forces.
If they truly, TRULY decide that things just HAVE to end they have friends in high places. Atlantian clans, gods, the UWW... stuff like that.

As far as I can tell... this is in fact the reason that the authors are reluctant to use them fully.

main reason they would be wary of doing so, in or out of universe, is that by the time enough power is brought in to defeat the CS, you are at the stage of "we had to destroy the town to save it".. and Arzno, lazlo, and the cyberknights are all to ethical and moral (relatively speaking) to want to destroy the CS's populations. they might be ignorant and racist, but the vast majority of the CS's civilian population is still innocent, just duped and manipulated by their government and military. any actions that would bring down the CS via outside force would result in huge civilian casualties, which those groups cannot condone. thus their focus on grassroots efforts to educate the CS populace (potentially changing the CS from within over time) and in blunting the CS's more genocidal actions in the field. (both directly and by training and inspiring others to resist the CS)

[Razorwing]

To be fair...
Arnzo, Lazlo and possibly the Cyber Knights ARE capable of annihilating the CS if they actually throw their entire weight into the conflict.
That is because the CS is big.. but it is, in the end just one power on one continent of one world.
THOSE three powers though are allied with and associated with larger interdimensional forces.
If they truly, TRULY decide that things just HAVE to end they have friends in high places. Atlantian clans, gods, the UWW... stuff like that.

As far as I can tell... this is in fact the reason that the authors are reluctant to use them fully.

Do you realize just how large and advance the Coalition Army is? They have the MOST advanced technology in North America (baring a few small powers such as Archie 3), the largest and most disciplined fighting force. True most of them are of the grunt level infantry... but they can field armies of over a million (the army that initially invaded Tolkeen was about 800,000 strong... and that is just man power... add in the Robotic Vehicles, aircraft and other vehicles... not to mention a large number of Skelebots... all of which can multiply the effectiveness of the soldiers by 3 or 4 times... and that isn't including the forces sent against Free Quebec at the same time which was likely an equal amount of fighters).

So, drawing man power from all the Coalition States it is conceivable that they could have a fighting force of 2 or 3 million soldiers, two or three times as many Skelebots... plus some of the most advanced vehicles (normal and robotic).

In contast, Lazlo has much lower population... maybe a few hundreds of thousands, and while many of them are spell casters, most are not trained fighters... even including supernatural creatures like the large population of dragons in the city, their military might probably numbers in the 10s of thousands (at best).

Even Arnzo doesn't have a large enough population to add much more than the same amount to that... and while they do have a better trained fighting force (due to fighting Vampires), their techno-weaponry tends to be more specialized to the enemies they fight (Vampires mostly).

Then there are the Cyber-Knights. These may be some of the best fighters in North America... but their numbers are no where near that of either Lazlo or Arnzo... with only a few thousand to a few 10s of thousands in all of the Americas. True, they do have a slight advantage against technological opponents like the Coalition Army... even they can not hope out fight such a large force (they will inflict the heaviest casualties, but ultimately will be overwhelmed by shear numbers). Yes, if the entire Fellowship of the Cyber-Knights were to attack the Coalition, they would be a significant force for sure, but they would be outnumbered by 100:1... not even the Cyber-Knights can overcome odds that stacked against them (even 10:1 odds would be difficult for them to overcome).

To defeat the Coalition States would likely require EVERY other nation in North America (excluding monsters like the Xiticix of course) to join forces... just to match the number of soldiers the Coalition can field. Then the only deciding factor will be the level of technology the States have... which, as I stated before... is the MOST advanced in the Americas (and much of the world... only isolated powers have anything that matches or exceeds it). Even here though, the edge is still in the Coalition's favor. It will take a lot to bring the Coalition down than many think.

[eliakon]

To be fair...
Arnzo, Lazlo and possibly the Cyber Knights ARE capable of annihilating the CS if they actually throw their entire weight into the conflict.
That is because the CS is big.. but it is, in the end just one power on one continent of one world.
THOSE three powers though are allied with and associated with larger interdimensional forces.
If they truly, TRULY decide that things just HAVE to end they have friends in high places. Atlantian clans, gods, the UWW... stuff like that.

As far as I can tell... this is in fact the reason that the authors are reluctant to use them fully.

Do you realize just how large and advance the Coalition Army is? They have the MOST advanced technology in North America (baring a few small powers such as Archie 3), the largest and most disciplined fighting force. True most of them are of the grunt level infantry... but they can field armies of over a million (the army that initially invaded Tolkeen was about 800,000 strong... and that is just man power... add in the Robotic Vehicles, aircraft and other vehicles... not to mention a large number of Skelebots... all of which can multiply the effectiveness of the soldiers by 3 or 4 times... and that isn't including the forces sent against Free Quebec at the same time which was likely an equal amount of fighters).

So, drawing man power from all the Coalition States it is conceivable that they could have a fighting force of 2 or 3 million soldiers, two or three times as many Skelebots... plus some of the most advanced vehicles (normal and robotic).

In contast, Lazlo has much lower population... maybe a few hundreds of thousands, and while many of them are spell casters, most are not trained fighters... even including supernatural creatures like the large population of dragons in the city, their military might probably numbers in the 10s of thousands (at best).

Even Arnzo doesn't have a large enough population to add much more than the same amount to that... and while they do have a better trained fighting force (due to fighting Vampires), their techno-weaponry tends to be more specialized to the enemies they fight (Vampires mostly).

Then there are the Cyber-Knights. These may be some of the best fighters in North America... but their numbers are no where near that of either Lazlo or Arnzo... with only a few thousand to a few 10s of thousands in all of the Americas. True, they do have a slight advantage against technological opponents like the Coalition Army... even they can not hope out fight such a large force (they will inflict the heaviest casualties, but ultimately will be overwhelmed by shear numbers). Yes, if the entire Fellowship of the Cyber-Knights were to attack the Coalition, they would be a significant force for sure, but they would be outnumbered by 100:1... not even the Cyber-Knights can overcome odds that stacked against them (even 10:1 odds would be difficult for them to overcome).

To defeat the Coalition States would likely require EVERY other nation in North America (excluding monsters like the Xiticix of course) to join forces... just to match the number of soldiers the Coalition can field. Then the only deciding factor will be the level of technology the States have... which, as I stated before... is the MOST advanced in the Americas (and much of the world... only isolated powers have anything that matches or exceeds it). Even here though, the edge is still in the Coalition's favor. It will take a lot to bring the Coalition down than many think.

Ummm did you actually READ what I posted?
Go back and check the text I highlighted in red.
I know exactly what the populations are.
I was talking about the things like the fact that those forces have allies of their OWN who are vast and mighty
Basically... its a WWI secenario. WWI was not because of the nations that got involved over the assassination. It was because those nations had mutual aid treaties with people who got dragged in. And THOSE people had allies that got dragged in, and before you knew it the entire WORLD was taking sides over the assassination of some small time noble in podunkistan.
Yes Arzno is chump change
Clan Bagh-Dash though is NOT
And if Bagh-Dash (who is one of the movers and shakers of atlantian politics) gets involved enough they could quite possibly get the rest of the clans involved.

Yes a place like Merc-Town is chump change
The megaversal Legion though is NOT

Yes Lazlo is chump change.
Thoth and Isis and the UWW are NOT

It is not the tiny people that matter
It is the allies of those people and the allies of those allies that matter.

If you get entire clans of Atlantians, or the Lemurian Nation, or the Megaversal Legion or light preserve you full on gods or the UWW military... well then its time to put some butter and jam in your pockets because your about to become toast.

THAT is what I was talking about.
The CS has a lot of forces sure...
...but those forces are, in the big scheme of things quite limited.
They have a fixed pool of people to draw on, they only have so many manufacturing facilities (that are starting to wear out), they only have so much stored supplies, they only have so many leaders, for all intents and purposes they have no counter to a competent magical force that is not juggling idiot balls...
Sure they have 5 or 10 or even 15 million soldiers...
What of it? If you wake the giant and get someone who can throw more or better troops at YOU then suddenly that doesn't help.
I mean what is the CS going to do if Isis and Thoth get involved, personally?
Those two can pull in their friends and call up millions of minions of their own.
What do they do if the UWW gets involved and sends in a division or five to 'deal with the problem'?
What do they do if the Atlanteans decide that its time for another crusade?
What do they do if Lord Coake decides that its time for him to start calling in his markers?
What do they do if they make enough fuss and bother that Splyncryth decides that its getting bad for stability?
What do they do if the Naruni decide that its time to make an example of the CS so that no one else gets the idea that you can cross the Naruni?
What do they do if...

Its not just the CS curb stomping a bunch of little people who have no friends, no tools, no weapons, no abilities, no soldiers and are just sitting there twiddling their thumbs waiting to be slaughtered.
Heck, the only reason they won the SoT was that the authorial fiat of multiple Deus Ex Machina ass pulls and gave every one on the other side a handful of idiot balls to juggle. And even THEN they still took a hideous mauling from a fairly tiny foe. Scale up that carnage to "every other force on NA going Axis and Allies on them" and your looking at the CS becoming the Ex-CS. And that is WITH the idiot balls and Deus Ex Machina. With out them the CS is doomed. AND that is NOT counting in anyone calling in aid.

If someone pulls a Gondor Calls for Aid... then its all over but the shouting and clean up.

[Colonel_Tetsuya]

To be fair...
Arnzo, Lazlo and possibly the Cyber Knights ARE capable of annihilating the CS if they actually throw their entire weight into the conflict.
That is because the CS is big.. but it is, in the end just one power on one continent of one world.
THOSE three powers though are allied with and associated with larger interdimensional forces.
If they truly, TRULY decide that things just HAVE to end they have friends in high places. Atlantian clans, gods, the UWW... stuff like that.

As far as I can tell... this is in fact the reason that the authors are reluctant to use them fully.

Do you realize just how large and advance the Coalition Army is? They have the MOST advanced technology in North America (baring a few small powers such as Archie 3), the largest and most disciplined fighting force. True most of them are of the grunt level infantry... but they can field armies of over a million (the army that initially invaded Tolkeen was about 800,000 strong... and that is just man power... add in the Robotic Vehicles, aircraft and other vehicles... not to mention a large number of Skelebots... all of which can multiply the effectiveness of the soldiers by 3 or 4 times... and that isn't including the forces sent against Free Quebec at the same time which was likely an equal amount of fighters).

So, drawing man power from all the Coalition States it is conceivable that they could have a fighting force of 2 or 3 million soldiers, two or three times as many Skelebots... plus some of the most advanced vehicles (normal and robotic).

Your numbers are a little low, actually. And doesn't include the ISS forces... though those are home-defense and cops, so fair enough.

In contast, Lazlo has much lower population... maybe a few hundreds of thousands, and while many of them are spell casters, most are not trained fighters... even including supernatural creatures like the large population of dragons in the city, their military might probably numbers in the 10s of thousands (at best).

Actually, they are a little bigger than Tolkeen was before the war (about a million people, not counting The Relic and the outlying towns, as of Aftermath) and have a professional standing army and a very large army of very experienced volunteers. They can field about what Tolkeen did, or a little more.

Even Arnzo doesn't have a large enough population to add much more than the same amount to that... and while they do have a better trained fighting force (due to fighting Vampires), their techno-weaponry tends to be more specialized to the enemies they fight (Vampires mostly).

Actually, Arzno's weaponry is pretty generic. They ALSO fight Vampires, but they produce all the basic TW arms. The problem is the AMC is about 5,000 guys. The entire population of Arzno is sub 40,000 people.

Then there are the Cyber-Knights. These may be some of the best fighters in North America... but their numbers are no where near that of either Lazlo or Arnzo... with only a few thousand to a few 10s of thousands in all of the Americas. True, they do have a slight advantage against technological opponents like the Coalition Army... even they can not hope out fight such a large force (they will inflict the heaviest casualties, but ultimately will be overwhelmed by shear numbers). Yes, if the entire Fellowship of the Cyber-Knights were to attack the Coalition, they would be a significant force for sure, but they would be outnumbered by 100:1... not even the Cyber-Knights can overcome odds that stacked against them (even 10:1 odds would be difficult for them to overcome).

To defeat the Coalition States would likely require EVERY other nation in North America (excluding monsters like the Xiticix of course) to join forces... just to match the number of soldiers the Coalition can field. Then the only deciding factor will be the level of technology the States have... which, as I stated before... is the MOST advanced in the Americas (and much of the world... only isolated powers have anything that matches or exceeds it). Even here though, the edge is still in the Coalition's favor. It will take a lot to bring the Coalition down than many think.

I dont particularly LIKE that the CS is written that way, but setting-as-written, yeah, pretty much.

The entire populations of the CS enemies (civilian AND military) dont even add up to what the CS has under arms. The biggest Non-CS "nation" that has a significant number of troops other than Lazlo is the Pecos Empire and it would take an external invasion of their land to unite them... and even then, theyll get massacred in the long run. There are a lot of them, but they can't stand up to organized military strikes with air and armor support. The Federation of Magic is a joke, barring unseen/unknown massive population. The FoM World Book is actually awful about telling us how many people actually live there, but the cities that are detailed are tiny (Dweomer is the largest by a fair bit and is sub-100k). The FoM's main claim to life is that they are basically non-invadable because of the terrain and permeation of magic in the area, but their actual population and ability to be a military force outside their own lands is laughable at best. They have little to no ability to project military force.

The Colorado Baronies arent a lot better - about (if we include the populations of not just the capitals, but all the baronies) 350,000-500,000 people at most, most of them... not soldiers but MDC capable at least. But against a stand-up military? Hosed.

Like ive said before, i have a strong sense of what Kevin intended the setting to be like (Palladium Fantasy + Super Tech, but on Earth!) It just didn't turn out that way as written. A few McGuffins and some medium-weight Retcons could fix it, but i doubt we will ever see a 2nd Edition of Rifts (which it BADLY needs; the whole Megaversal System needs a rework) or any of the necessary retcons.

[dreicunan]

"and before you knew it the entire WORLD was taking sides over the assassination of some small time noble in podunkistan."

If by podunkistan you mean "Austro-Hungarian Empire, second largest state in Europe in terms of land and third in terms of population" and if by small time you mean "heir to the throne," then yeah, WWI was triggered by the assassination of a small time noble from podunkistan.

By that standard, I suppose that the new podunkistan entered WWII formally after a sneak attack on its Navy at some backwater called Pearl Harbor.

[Shamrock 'Slinger]

The scale and supposed distance has always been a problem for me in Rifts. As described, one would take days to get across a state even in a wilderness prepped car. Even without roads, I have a hard time seeing it being that long. I do agree that it stems from the old fantasy idea of journeys to another town taking days - due to foot travel. But with vehicles, wheeled or hovering, it should be way less than that. This might be a separate discussion for a separate thread though.

[eliakon]

"and before you knew it the entire WORLD was taking sides over the assassination of some small time noble in podunkistan."

If by podunkistan you mean "Austro-Hungarian Empire, second largest state in Europe in terms of land and third in terms of population" and if by small time you mean "heir to the throne," then yeah, WWI was triggered by the assassination of a small time noble from podunkistan.

By that standard, I suppose that the new podunkistan entered WWII formally after a sneak attack on its Navy at some backwater called Pearl Harbor.

Heir or not he wasn't exactly the most important of nobles, and since by definition nobles tend to be a select group in and of themselves. However yeah, okay I probably should have just said a noble with no qualifiers.
And by podunkstan I mean that the place the shooting took place (the Kingdom of Serbia) was pretty much only important because Serbia had allies that got dragged in, who had enemies and allies who...

Exemplar. Blowing up the TW factory in Arzno during a work day killing most of the mages is to the CS a ho-hum operation in some little petty kingdom out in the middle of nowhere.
But if Prince Onra Misvina was showing it to his brother... (to make the analogy match) the Libson are not going to just sit by and let the heir to their leadership get assassinated. They would likely call on the various obligations of the other families and rally Clan Bagh-Dach to action.
Bagh-Dach will ask the other clans for any help that they can spare...
...Aerihim sensing a chance to get a lot of Atlantians killed will offer to send in some of their forces. Once Aerihim joins up many of the other clans will feel an obligation to show solidarity and contribute as well.
Meanwhile the friends of the various undead slayers and T-men and the other soldiers will want to go help their friends in their crusade and protect them.
A large enough mobilization is going to attract the attention of Zeus who is explicitly personally interested in the survival of the Atlantians and intervenes, personally, in their affairs.
When Zeus gets involved the rest of the Pantheon is not going to sit by...
... Meanwhile Lazlo with its pyramid and its Atlantians is going to be dragged in.
Lazlo has the personal attention of Isis. Who might intervene... and she has the perfect agents in the Knights of the White Rose...
And for more fun the Atlantians are members of the UWW because of the planet they control. If they are going to war they are likely to request the assistance of the UWW military, and at a minimum mobilize their planetary forces and send some of them to help.

So suddenly offing some noble in Arzno is dragging in the Atlantian race, the UWW and two pantheons.
That 5-10 million soldiers suddenly doesn't look nearly as overpowering as it did before they blew up part of Arzno.

[Colonel_Tetsuya]

Well start with: The CS would have to have some way to know any of this to not want to blow up Arzno though. And they dont. They have no idea how the Atlanteans are organized, that they exist in large numbres, nothing. They may or may not even be aware that the Atlantean in charge of Arzno is important at all. They certainly wouldn't know that his visiting cousin is important in some way, or that it is even his cousin.

And by podunkstan I mean that the place the shooting took place (the Kingdom of Serbia) was pretty much only important because Serbia had allies that got dragged in, who had enemies and allies who...

Flawed analogy from the start. Europe was waiting to explode for more than a decade prior. The assissination was an excuse to start a war that a number of parties wanted to start anyway.

None of the factions you're about to drag in have any skin in the game in North America and certainly dont care about starting another war, or are, we are explicitly told, actively opposed to it (Lazlo)

Exemplar. Blowing up the TW factory in Arzno during a work day killing most of the mages is to the CS a ho-hum operation in some little petty kingdom out in the middle of nowhere.
But if Prince Onra Misvina was showing it to his brother... (to make the analogy match) the Libson are not going to just sit by and let the heir to their leadership get assassinated. They would likely call on the various obligations of the other families and rally Clan Bagh-Dach to action.
Bagh-Dach will ask the other clans for any help that they can spare...
...Aerihim sensing a chance to get a lot of Atlantians killed will offer to send in some of their forces. Once Aerihim joins up many of the other clans will feel an obligation to show solidarity and contribute as well.
Meanwhile the friends of the various undead slayers and T-men and the other soldiers will want to go help their friends in their crusade and protect them.

K. Assuming any of that is even remotely feasible or true, which is a gigantic stretch because unless Secrets MASSIVELY expanded the Atlantean populations, they dont have enough men to field a sizeable force of anything.

A large enough mobilization is going to attract the attention of Zeus who is explicitly personally interested in the survival of the Atlantians and intervenes, personally, in their affairs.
When Zeus gets involved the rest of the Pantheon is not going to sit by...

Zeus will explicitly NOT intervene on Rifts Earth. Pantheons states it unequivocally. He knows absolutely that the Splugorth and other powers will not permit a pantheon, his or any other, to take such an active roll and that he and his pantheon have no hope of standing up to Splynncryth alone. Just read that like.. yesterday. Its also where it details how the other cosmic powers view Earth as a no-go-zone. Which is why Splyncryth hasn't simply taken the whole place.

... Meanwhile Lazlo with its pyramid and its Atlantians is going to be dragged in.

Lazlo will explicitly NOT start, get involved in, or encourage a war with the CS (Aftermath), as they view that as the quickest way for Lazlo to be destroyed.

Lazlo has the personal attention of Isis. Who might intervene... and she has the perfect agents in the Knights of the White Rose...

.. about 1,000 guys. OK. And she's nothing to write home about, what with her 1/5th MDC levels on Earth (Pantheons).

And for more fun the Atlantians are members of the UWW because of the planet they control.

You should go read that again, actually. Alexandria is run by a non-Atlantean civilian government. The Atlanteans there make up a tiny portion of the population (less than 1%) and gave control of the planet to the UWW citizens centuries ago.

If they are going to war they are likely to request the assistance of the UWW military, and at a minimum mobilize their planetary forces and send some of them to help.

Unless Secrets ret-conned that clan as being gigantic... they have about 50,000 Atlanteans. In total. The UWW will also not get involved. The Warlock Navy is actually EXPLICITLY a defensive-only force and is NOT ALLOWED by the founding documents of the United Worlds to be used as a conquering force. That's also why its so small compared to the militaries of the CCW and TGE.

On top of that, "Atlanteans" aren't part of the UWW. The Atlantean Citizens of Alexandria are. The UWW is organized so that each member planet is expected to take care of its own internal issues. The UWW parliament can only intervene when member worlds get into it with one another or takes over when dealing with external threats. Something happening on a podunk world in another dimension is not an external threat to the UWW. They would view this as a problem for a tiny portion of the population of one world which had zero impact on the UWW. They wouldn't care. If they were going to care, they'd probably start with the fact that a sizeable number of their own member planets are hell-worlds where entire populations are enslaved by madmen and warlords.... except, they don't. That's that worlds problem.

So suddenly offing some noble in Arzno is dragging in the Atlantian race, the UWW and two pantheons.

For one thing, its unlikely that the Atlanteans are going to risk millions of lives to avenge one Prince, when they are already on the decline and there aren't even ~20 million of them left in the Megaverse.

The Olympians will explicitly NOT get involved for fear of retribution from the other cosmic powers and Splyncryth in particular, who Zeus fears.

And Isis doesn't have the pull to really get her pantheon involved anyway (they are too busy fighting wars in other dimensions, including the Palladium one), not that they have any forces of any kind they can really commit to an attack on Rifts Earth. Or that ANY of them would survive it.

As is clearly intimated in Pantheons, the only reason Splyncryth hasn't just taken the whole planet is the cosmic "no one gets to have all of this place" not-talked-about-agreement.

The Atlanteans

That 5-10 million soldiers suddenly doesn't look nearly as overpowering as it did before they blew up part of Arzno.

Actually they do. The UWW forces, if they get involved (they literally cant, legally) aren't any tougher than the Coalition forces. Even if Zeus got involved with the Olypmians... so what? They have millions of troops sitting around? Nope, we know that because Zeus knows he cant go up against Atlantis (Splugorth) and have any hope. The Pantheon of Light? They actually do have some forces.. tied up fighting in the Minion War and in other dimensions, not that they will all get involved anyway.

1000-2000 Knights of White Rose? The rest of the Mystic Knights would be DROOLING at the chance to take them out. If they gathered up in numbers, the much more numerous Mystic Knights would be coming out of the woodwork to put them down.

The Atlanteans dont have millions of men, and while their average fighter is certainly a tough cookie, he's not a god. A couple of good missile volleys he has no real defense against and he's deader than a doornail.

And even if, by some miracle of miracles, all of these weird stars you made up align and they DO land millions of troops on Rifts Earth?

Splyncryth cackles in glee because he cant take the gloves off of his mouthy tentacles fast enough. And he has BILLIONS of DISPOSABLE troops, all on his own. Not to mention the backing of other Splugorth.

[dreicunan]

"and before you knew it the entire WORLD was taking sides over the assassination of some small time noble in podunkistan."

If by podunkistan you mean "Austro-Hungarian Empire, second largest state in Europe in terms of land and third in terms of population" and if by small time you mean "heir to the throne," then yeah, WWI was triggered by the assassination of a small time noble from podunkistan.

By that standard, I suppose that the new podunkistan entered WWII formally after a sneak attack on its Navy at some backwater called Pearl Harbor.

Heir or not he wasn't exactly the most important of nobles, and since by definition nobles tend to be a select group in and of themselves. However yeah, okay I probably should have just said a noble with no qualifiers.
And by podunkstan I mean that the place the shooting took place (the Kingdom of Serbia) was pretty much only important because Serbia had allies that got dragged in, who had enemies and allies who...

Exemplar. Blowing up the TW factory in Arzno during a work day killing most of the mages is to the CS a ho-hum operation in some little petty kingdom out in the middle of nowhere.
But if Prince Onra Misvina was showing it to his brother... (to make the analogy match) the Libson are not going to just sit by and let the heir to their leadership get assassinated. They would likely call on the various obligations of the other families and rally Clan Bagh-Dach to action.
Bagh-Dach will ask the other clans for any help that they can spare...
...Aerihim sensing a chance to get a lot of Atlantians killed will offer to send in some of their forces. Once Aerihim joins up many of the other clans will feel an obligation to show solidarity and contribute as well.
Meanwhile the friends of the various undead slayers and T-men and the other soldiers will want to go help their friends in their crusade and protect them.
A large enough mobilization is going to attract the attention of Zeus who is explicitly personally interested in the survival of the Atlantians and intervenes, personally, in their affairs.
When Zeus gets involved the rest of the Pantheon is not going to sit by...
... Meanwhile Lazlo with its pyramid and its Atlantians is going to be dragged in.
Lazlo has the personal attention of Isis. Who might intervene... and she has the perfect agents in the Knights of the White Rose...
And for more fun the Atlantians are members of the UWW because of the planet they control. If they are going to war they are likely to request the assistance of the UWW military, and at a minimum mobilize their planetary forces and send some of them to help.

So suddenly offing some noble in Arzno is dragging in the Atlantian race, the UWW and two pantheons.
That 5-10 million soldiers suddenly doesn't look nearly as overpowering as it did before they blew up part of Arzno.

Fair point about what you said, I could have sworn that you said "from" podunkistan, probably because Franz Ferdinand was assassinated in Sarajevo, which at the time of his assassination was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, NOT the Kingdom of Serbia. I must have just corrected for the error as I read it without realizing it. He was assassinated by an ethnic Serb of Bosnian origin, but he was not within Serbian territory when he was shot.

Also, for issues of scale in making that comparison keep in mind that Serbia had just nearly doubled in size after its successes in the Balkan wars and its population had jumped to 4.5 million, compared to about 53 million for Austrio-Hungary. Serbia was certainly viewed as a rising power by Austrio-Hungary, so even if it was not one of the great powers I wouldn't agree with calling it podunkistan, either. In North America, either Lazlo or pre-fall Tolkeen would be a better comparison, in terms of ratio of population to the CS.

[smashed]

The obvious answer is that Houston was moved further away from Beaumont the Golden Age of Man.

[Eagle]

The obvious answer is that Houston was moved further away from Beaumont the Golden Age of Man.

Perhaps Beaumont followed the Springfield plan, where they packed up the town and moved it down the road to get away from all their collected trash.

"Collected trash" in this example being the city of Houston.

[eliakon]

"and before you knew it the entire WORLD was taking sides over the assassination of some small time noble in podunkistan."

If by podunkistan you mean "Austro-Hungarian Empire, second largest state in Europe in terms of land and third in terms of population" and if by small time you mean "heir to the throne," then yeah, WWI was triggered by the assassination of a small time noble from podunkistan.

By that standard, I suppose that the new podunkistan entered WWII formally after a sneak attack on its Navy at some backwater called Pearl Harbor.

Heir or not he wasn't exactly the most important of nobles, and since by definition nobles tend to be a select group in and of themselves. However yeah, okay I probably should have just said a noble with no qualifiers.
And by podunkstan I mean that the place the shooting took place (the Kingdom of Serbia) was pretty much only important because Serbia had allies that got dragged in, who had enemies and allies who...

Exemplar. Blowing up the TW factory in Arzno during a work day killing most of the mages is to the CS a ho-hum operation in some little petty kingdom out in the middle of nowhere.
But if Prince Onra Misvina was showing it to his brother... (to make the analogy match) the Libson are not going to just sit by and let the heir to their leadership get assassinated. They would likely call on the various obligations of the other families and rally Clan Bagh-Dach to action.
Bagh-Dach will ask the other clans for any help that they can spare...
...Aerihim sensing a chance to get a lot of Atlantians killed will offer to send in some of their forces. Once Aerihim joins up many of the other clans will feel an obligation to show solidarity and contribute as well.
Meanwhile the friends of the various undead slayers and T-men and the other soldiers will want to go help their friends in their crusade and protect them.
A large enough mobilization is going to attract the attention of Zeus who is explicitly personally interested in the survival of the Atlantians and intervenes, personally, in their affairs.
When Zeus gets involved the rest of the Pantheon is not going to sit by...
... Meanwhile Lazlo with its pyramid and its Atlantians is going to be dragged in.
Lazlo has the personal attention of Isis. Who might intervene... and she has the perfect agents in the Knights of the White Rose...
And for more fun the Atlantians are members of the UWW because of the planet they control. If they are going to war they are likely to request the assistance of the UWW military, and at a minimum mobilize their planetary forces and send some of them to help.

So suddenly offing some noble in Arzno is dragging in the Atlantian race, the UWW and two pantheons.
That 5-10 million soldiers suddenly doesn't look nearly as overpowering as it did before they blew up part of Arzno.

Fair point about what you said, I could have sworn that you said "from" podunkistan, probably because Franz Ferdinand was assassinated in Sarajevo, which at the time of his assassination was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, NOT the Kingdom of Serbia. I must have just corrected for the error as I read it without realizing it. He was assassinated by an ethnic Serb of Bosnian origin, but he was not within Serbian territory when he was shot.

Also, for issues of scale in making that comparison keep in mind that Serbia had just nearly doubled in size after its successes in the Balkan wars and its population had jumped to 4.5 million, compared to about 53 million for Austrio-Hungary. Serbia was certainly viewed as a rising power by Austrio-Hungary, so even if it was not one of the great powers I wouldn't agree with calling it podunkistan, either. In North America, either Lazlo or pre-fall Tolkeen would be a better comparison, in terms of ratio of population to the CS.

You are correct, I will gladly accept that I was wrong and have been corrected and withdraw my statements about the Duke and such on WWI. This is what happens when you try and go off of courses you took years ago and is my fault (I really should have done some research before posting).

I think however that we can agree that the seemingly insignificant (at the time) of an action can have consequences far out of proportion to what was intended.
The intent of the assassination was not to cause a general global war but to (as I understand it) free Yugoslavia.
The intent of the missile strike/bombing in my hypothetical was not to cause an interdimensional godswar, but to simply wipe out a known TW manufacturing plant that was not mobile.
And that it is those sorts of entanglements that are the reason that Arzno and Lazlo and the like get such special treatment now. They have turned into cases of "to radioactive to touch so we will just conveniently ignore them and thus maintain the status quo"

[dreicunan]

@Eliakon: I can definitely agree with the law of unintended consequences! They were indeed hoping for a kind of southern slavic homeland (which is basically what Yugoslavia means), and they got it after WWI. Then after about 70 years of being together decided that being slavic wasn't specific enough and got their violence on to break up into more specific regional groups.

I also agree that between Tolkeen and the Minion War the CS is now going to be more leery of going after anyone far beyond their borders. I wouldn't be surprised of it took them 30-50 years to consolidate and be ready to go adventuring again (that would be a good fast forward for a 2nd edition!)

[Nekira Sudacne]

I think this and a lot of other plot holes are basically summed up as "Why would the Coalition tolerate X Magic Using/D-bee community right on their border? Don't they hate all D-bee's/Magic Users?"

Sure. but the thing about borders is: you are always surrounded by them. If you subdue all the towns and city-states on your border, then you've expanded your borders and now have some other town that was further behind right on your border.

The real issue at stake is that the common way for players/PC's to picture the CS as "Mindless DB-Mage hating machines who will murder any magic-user they see or reasonably comes within range."

Which is really strange because at no point in the books have they been discribed as such. Hell, they're aware of a heavy population of both right outside of Chi-town. I'd advise people to take a look in the main book where it actually discribes CS policy to Dead boys and Mages in Chi town. it's "Interrogate and imprison or exile, sometimes death", not "always death"

The reason the CS ignores them is "They are littearlly surrounded by them, all the times, within CS borders and without, and wasting your resources mindlessly attacking every D-bee you see is a good way to die in the long term."

Simply put: Sure, the CS brass hate them. But they're smart about their hatred (relatively). They are not simply going to hulk out at the first sign of magic to destroy at all costs. They will watch, they will wait, they will gather intelligence. and if a certain DB community relatively nearby is peaceful but there is evidence of a more dangerous threat elsewhere, there's a reasonable chance that the CS will leave them alone until more pressing threats have been delt with.

Once the CS has decided it's run out of better things to do, though, the hammer will come down hard, and the years or decades of peace won't be enough to save them.

[Blue_Lion]

Perhaps it just has not been approved for the expenditure of the missiles. With the build up for the war with tolkeen(likely already in the planning stage) it is possible the CS decided it is not worth the resources at that time but if it becomes a nuisance to the CS they could easily destroy it.

Do we have a time frame for a full resupply of missiles for those ships?
Do we know how many missiles the CS makes in X time frame?
What happens if you burn all your missiles and then ships from Atlantis raid the CS base for slaves?
What happens if you burn all your missiles and a alien intelligence rifts in?

Going black on ammo for something that poses no significant risk makes no tactical sense.

[Jorick]

To me, a lot of these problems are solved by the timeline.

I don't think the Coalition, as we've known it in the books, has been around that long (no matter what Prosek would have us believe). The war between Chi-town (not the Coalition) and the FoM happens in the first couple decades of the PA calendar (less than 100 years before the war on Tolkeen). Chi-town may have been doing ok, but it was emerging in a relatively peaceful time for the continent (when demons and mosters were running slightly less amok than they usually do). It still pretty much immediately found itself in a war against mystic forces.

The Coalition States are formed in 55 PA. These are a collection of relatively well off cities with a suspicion of magic, all emerging relatively new from the ashes of the past 3 centuries. Dead boy armor is created sometime afterwards, and the CS puts its efforts towards controlling the FoM. UAR-1 is made in 78. Then the Xiticix come.

Then the FoM goes after Chi-Town in the 80s. Sometime later Lone Star is developed as is some of its research.

Only then do we get to the first Rifts book. Everything after that, specifically the Coalition War Campaign, is a mad rush of development and buildup with ONE primary objective (which quickly becomes two, when the shaky alliance between the states dissolves in part). That primary objective, the destruction of Tolkeen, takes years.

And here we are, on the eve of a Demonic Invasion (aka the end of the short miraculous period of relative peace from whence the Domain of Man could emerge).

I choose to read the area outside of the domain of man as being absurdly dangerous. The demons may have stopped running as amok as they had been for centuries, but there's still centuries worth of demons out there, and the rifts keep opening. The Coalition military, except for that large force built for and focused on Tolkeen (and FQ) spends most of its time controlling its borders: hunting down rampaging dinosaurs, reacting to raids from bandits and psi-stalkers and Simvan, attempting to control perpetually open rifts, and trying to find any sort of target in the FoM for its impressive collection of long range missiles to shoot at.

What remains of the Tolkeen force is patrolling the Mississippi river, hunting everything from mystic titans to ancient dragons appearing willy-nilly blowing up their lines with abilities and advantages that no insurgent force in the real world could dream of. Half the FoM is ready to strike, and the Xiticix are a miserable wall of horror to the north that makes Tolkeen look like a cake walk. And the New Navy--the NEW New Navy--sees Atlantis all over the place (and all eyes on the water are to the East).

Perhaps the Coalition could mobilize quickly again, maybe even with greater numbers, but they just won a huge costly victory after years of conflict. They are tired, like a relatively small country (population wise) with an enormous percentage of it's population at war would be. Those dead boys need breaks. Even the skelebots need oil in their gears. And people are still getting possessed by who-knows-what in their houses.

Just when they get a chance to breath a little, just when they have only begun to formulate the next steps, given the massive destruction and horror wrought by the first years long strike in their dreamed of campaign to unite the domain of man, all Hell breaks loose.

Maybe if they had a year or two to get their crap together, Houstown would be easy pickins, an afterthought in a clean sweep (assuming all out war didnt start with the FoM, an entire Zone of nexuses, with defenses and horrors that have been stewing for years--all eyes on the ground are to the East too). But this is Rifts, where the crap is a monstrous walking abomination, and hits other things with a giant spinning magic laser fan.

[Eagle]

^^^

I like this explanation.

I've always seen the Coalition as an ever-present but not overwhelming force. Coalition soldiers would be spread relatively thin across much of North America. It would not be unusual for a couple of SAMAS pilots to fly into a town, kick open some doors, show a photo of somebody they're hunting ("Have you seen this boy?"), call somebody a dirty dee-bee, and then fly off. The town is on the edge of Coalition territory (or what the Coalition considers their territory anyway), and so you're gonna see Coalition soldiers. Imagine the scene at the spaceport in Star Wars. You've got a handful of Storm Troopers stomping around in their white uniforms acting like they own the place. They couldn't hope to actually control the whole town, but they can make a lot of trouble for a farm boy and his droids.

I bet the Coalition loses men and equipment all the time. A squad of 5 Dead Boys are walking through a town, looking for anything suspicious they can shoot. They know there have been reports of magical activity here and they are on the lookout. The rest of their platoon is in other areas of the town, or guarding the APC , or scouting in the woods outside of town. So these 5 guys hear a strange, otherworldly noise coming from an alleyway. They look at each other and grin (though you can't tell behind the faceplates). They ready their weapons, turn the corner, and storm down the dead-end street. They've really got this guy now. Moments later, there are a few screams, some panicked laser rifle fire, and a staticky transmission. Then everything goes quiet. When backup arrives a few minutes later, there's nothing there, not even signs of a battle. What happened? Nobody seems to know. The locals mutter strange things and cross themselves, and they won't leave their houses. Further searches don't find anything.

Entire APCs might disappear without a trace. Who knows where platoon #74 went. They're just... gone. Never came back from routine patrol. The world is dangerous.

Now, not every Coalition unit suffers losses like that. And the losses they do suffer are within their ability to replace. But I think Dead Boys sometimes have the life expectancy of redshirts on Star Trek. Now in large numbers, and over time, the Coalition can be very powerful. And they're very well equipped to handle some big MDC monster. And there are probably a lot of wizards whose cunning trap fails and they get blown away. So they aren't total chumps. But I think they normally operate in the "provides moderate challenge for PC group" range, until you get into the heart of one of their city-states.

[SolCannibal]

Houstown-Fadetown

Or as one Fort Pinnacle CS soldier said one morning "THAT wasn't there yesterday!"

Yes, this, simple, quick and closes the issue with minimal hassle, sorting it out in a "make the cake and eat it too" kind of way.

[Pepsi Jedi]

So, 1997 was a busy year for Palladium. Two of the books published were World Book 13: Lone Star and Sourcebook 4: Coalition Navy.

Coalition Navy is set in about 103 PA. In 100 PA, the Coalition launched a massive strike on Port Horus, a small kingdom just west of Beaumont, Texas. They utterly destroyed it, and built a massive military installation, Fort Pinnacle, in its place. Fort Pinnacle, with a population of almost 100,000 people, and a military complement of 35,000 CS Navy personnel. It is now a 10 square mile military base and a full-on Coalition city.

Rifts: Lone Star is set in 105 PA, and has a page or so about the city of Houstown (some in that section, some of its history with the NPC stat block for the mayor). A free city, with a Titan Mystic as a mayor, it has an unusually high population of psi-stalkers (6400), and a total population of just under 30,000 people. As you might guess from the name, it is built around the city of Houston. No mention of Fort Pinnacle but, hey, Texas is a big place. How far apart can they be?
Houston to Beaumont is a bit less than 90 miles. The Coalition could sit in their Navy base and destroy Houston with missiles and wouldn't even need to put on PANTS. The military population of Fort Pinnacle is 25% larger than the total population of Houstown.

Now, there are a couple possibilities. It's possible that something, in 103 or 104 PA, utterly destroyed the massive Coalition base, allowing Houstown to return to the free and happy people they're presented as being in Lone Star. Or, perhaps you favor the "Houstown is obviously so gone it didn't even get a mention in CS Navy".

But when two cities, 84.9 miles apart, don't even mention each other, despite being the major powers in the area, you have to wonder at the lack of a map or something to see what's going on.

... this is the first time you've noticed glaring issues with the setting like this?

90 miles is within range of Medium Range missiles, as well, if im not mistaken (a few of the types get up over 100 miles - correction, they max out at 80).

How about.. the range on LRMs is enough for the CS (centrally located in the Midwest/edge of the West) to bombard literally the entire US without leaving their bunks. Kingsdale, the Colorado Baronies, and Arzno shouldn't even exist if the CS is as rabidly anti-magic as they claim to be. Chi-town's batteries can literally hit any target worth hitting on the continent. Add in that Lone-Star assuredly has LRM batteries of it's own (every large CS city, presumably) with deep missile reserves and quite honestly...

yeah. Not sure how this one got by you.

Tildeer:

The setting makes no sense on its face.

Why:

Kevin thinks towns in Colorado can be "thousands of miles apart". He has NO SENSE of scope, distance, etc. None. Zero. Or that pretty much any flying Power Armor can be all the way across the continent in less than 12 hours. Etc.

This! This! 1000Times This!

Not trying to be mean but Palladium and most ESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSPECIALLY Rifts is built on "It sounded cool at the time"

Now... I'm a FIRM believer in "Too much science kills my science fiction" I like fun and all, but time and time and time again Kevin/Palladium has shown that they don't fact check... pretty much... ANYTHING in house.

Sounds good at the time? Awesome. DO IT!

At the very very very best, he might go "Anyone remember a reason why this won't work?" an if noone says anything in the next 10 secodns. "DO IT!"

There's no 'setting bible' or anything plotted out for Rifts. It's just plug and play.

The reason they're so close together is that noone writing it ever thought to double check or look it up. Nothing deeper than that.

Game solution. Ignore one or the other or just move um 500 miles apart. Texas is a big ass place. for all we know Houston was Dshifted further West or what ever. If the entire rockies can be teleported out and newer, taller, more imposing mountains put in their place.. moving one city ain't nothin'.

[Pepsi Jedi]

Your quoting is all kinds of fubar

Yeah, that was seriously messed up!

Edit:
Aftermath Page 57.

Even if Lazlo, the Baronies, New Lazlo, Kingsdale and the full force of the Cyber-Knights had joined the war, it could not have been won.

Although that is not a full list of all the Coalition's enemies.

It's stated in the fluff too. Erin Tarn writing/talking about it. About how Creed got so mad but was directly told by Lazlo that even if -all- the magical societies joined together (Including the evil ones in the magic zone) that they'd still be defeated. That it was suicide.

Where in Creed had a Thanos moment and went "I'LL DO IT MY F'N SELF!"

[Pepsi Jedi]

To be fair...
Arnzo, Lazlo and possibly the Cyber Knights ARE capable of annihilating the CS if they actually throw their entire weight into the conflict.
That is because the CS is big.. but it is, in the end just one power on one continent of one world.
THOSE three powers though are allied with and associated with larger interdimensional forces.
If they truly, TRULY decide that things just HAVE to end they have friends in high places. Atlantian clans, gods, the UWW... stuff like that.

As far as I can tell... this is in fact the reason that the authors are reluctant to use them fully.

Do you realize just how large and advance the Coalition Army is? They have the MOST advanced technology in North America (baring a few small powers such as Archie 3), the largest and most disciplined fighting force. True most of them are of the grunt level infantry... but they can field armies of over a million (the army that initially invaded Tolkeen was about 800,000 strong... and that is just man power... add in the Robotic Vehicles, aircraft and other vehicles... not to mention a large number of Skelebots... all of which can multiply the effectiveness of the soldiers by 3 or 4 times... and that isn't including the forces sent against Free Quebec at the same time which was likely an equal amount of fighters).

So, drawing man power from all the Coalition States it is conceivable that they could have a fighting force of 2 or 3 million soldiers, two or three times as many Skelebots... plus some of the most advanced vehicles (normal and robotic).

In contast, Lazlo has much lower population... maybe a few hundreds of thousands, and while many of them are spell casters, most are not trained fighters... even including supernatural creatures like the large population of dragons in the city, their military might probably numbers in the 10s of thousands (at best).

Even Arnzo doesn't have a large enough population to add much more than the same amount to that... and while they do have a better trained fighting force (due to fighting Vampires), their techno-weaponry tends to be more specialized to the enemies they fight (Vampires mostly).

Then there are the Cyber-Knights. These may be some of the best fighters in North America... but their numbers are no where near that of either Lazlo or Arnzo... with only a few thousand to a few 10s of thousands in all of the Americas. True, they do have a slight advantage against technological opponents like the Coalition Army... even they can not hope out fight such a large force (they will inflict the heaviest casualties, but ultimately will be overwhelmed by shear numbers). Yes, if the entire Fellowship of the Cyber-Knights were to attack the Coalition, they would be a significant force for sure, but they would be outnumbered by 100:1... not even the Cyber-Knights can overcome odds that stacked against them (even 10:1 odds would be difficult for them to overcome).

To defeat the Coalition States would likely require EVERY other nation in North America (excluding monsters like the Xiticix of course) to join forces... just to match the number of soldiers the Coalition can field. Then the only deciding factor will be the level of technology the States have... which, as I stated before... is the MOST advanced in the Americas (and much of the world... only isolated powers have anything that matches or exceeds it). Even here though, the edge is still in the Coalition's favor. It will take a lot to bring the Coalition down than many think.

This also holds. Before the HoH book the CS had "Millions" (Plural) Of troops under arms. Then took in another 2 million (( I know it's dumb, but I didn't write it)) I did the math a while back when HoH came out but if memory serves the CS has 4.5 to 5 MILLION Troops under arms (Depending on how you factor in the dog boys which firm numbers aren't given))

Half of those are pretty new recruits but..... due to the SoT... MANY of the remaining are medium to high level. The 'crappy' CS troops died in the SoT. The ones' that lived are experienced combat vetrans now. So not only does the CS have more people under arms than all the other populations in NA added up together.. but a large number of them are medium to high level as well.

[kaid]

Add to the size of their army by them really ramping up their augmented troop creation both juicers and cyborgs. With cyborgs you don't lose the experience even when a trooper is just about dead. If there is enough of them left to put into a cyborg chasis you now have all the battlefield expertise in a new even harder to kill body. And most cyborgs can get wrecked a few times without actually "killing" the person just take them out put them into a new body.

This is why even if they do some massive handwaving players like lazlo and the federation of magic really can't be anything but long term pains in the ass for the CS but not really an existential threat. There just are not enough of them to matter.

Honestly the gaining an extra couple million troops in HoH does honestly make some sense. The CS is basically the only real game in town in north america who has a legit shot at surviving a demon plague. Most of these people will have a lot of passed down oral history of how bad the initial demon plagues were so if they feel another one is coming anybody who can go under the CS umbrella likely will.

[Pepsi Jedi]

And all that is before you factor in Skelebots too.

And the skelebots will no longer die/be destroyed like they were in the SoT (By the 100s and 1000s) Because the CS LEARNED from THAT mistake and now have a specialized class of Skelebot Drone commanders. I.E. Living flesh to better direct and control those assets.

[RockJock]

D-Bees of North America screws with a lot of the population numbers. You have groups like the Squilbs and Vintax in fairly large numbers(in the hundreds of thousands) that I would think would rally with Cyber Knights, Atlanteans and so on against the CS, if it ever came to that sort of all out fight.

[Pepsi Jedi]

D-Bees of North America screws with a lot of the population numbers. You have groups like the Squilbs and Vintax in fairly large numbers(in the hundreds of thousands) that I would think would rally with Cyber Knights, Atlanteans and so on against the CS, if it ever came to that sort of all out fight.

Yeah didn't they slip though a few million slug people or something, or a slug person genocide? I vaguely remember SOMETHING that CLEARLY got past editing and I think it had something to do with slugs....

[SolCannibal]

D-Bees of North America screws with a lot of the population numbers. You have groups like the Squilbs and Vintax in fairly large numbers(in the hundreds of thousands) that I would think would rally with Cyber Knights, Atlanteans and so on against the CS, if it ever came to that sort of all out fight.

Yeah didn't they slip though a few million slug people or something, or a slug person genocide? I vaguely remember SOMETHING that CLEARLY got past editing and I think it had something to do with slugs....

Those might make for some pretty problematic numbers, but i guess even then it might depend a bit on how spread out and distributed are they across North America.