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So fun fact: Until today ever since release of core book, I thought Silent War was cold war ever since initial invasion on pact worlds failed.
Then I today reread Near Space book for reviewing it and realized "Book states that during 320 years of After Gap, Veskarium's Emperor has stepped down only twice due to peace time, first when gap ended and second time when Swarm was repelled."
The book later confirms that there was at least one emperor during their attack on Pact Worlds, so this implies that for 200+ year period, Veskarium had line of emperors until truce with Pact Worlds due to Swarm attacking. And while Veskarium has sort of cold war with pact worlds in current times, they don't have emperor so...
...I'm like "WAIT a sec, Silent War was 200+ year long hot war? Where are all scars of war that only ended 20 years ago? No way that massive in fantastical timescale war wouldn't just have its marks disappear in 20 years"
So that means one of three things 1) there were actual three emperors who stepped down during AG years 2) Veskarium didn't consider it cold war even when active battling died down and gave way to arm race, so they never entered officially peacetime 3) it is actually a hot war that lasted over two centuries
...I literally never realized from any of starfinder adventures that silent war might have been a hot war so uh x'D Yeah, what do you guys think? I could have sworn devs stated Silent War was cold war, but I don't know now..
(and if you do think it might have been hot war, do you like idea of starfinder setting as "post war setting recovering from centuries long war"?)
I don't think x number of emperors Stepped down= there were x number of emperors. Emperors may die in office, retire, or be taken out of office by a subordinate getting a Klingon Vesk promotion. Only retiring would count as stepping down.
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Starfinder mission briefing. The ysoki biohacker was around for the 'cold' war.
"Alright Kids, for this trip My name is Mom. Just Mom. No last name. no first name. The Vesk still probably have my name on file somewhere..."
The Starfinders are in a restaurant when a one eyed vesk officer comes up to chat.
" Hey you uhm, didn't see the sniper that gave you that did you?"
"No , unfortunate...wait How'd you know it was a sniper? "
"Oh..ahhh.. just assumed no one could do that if they were up close..."
Was thankfully saved by large explosions outside.
I'm pretty sure it's mentioned somewhere that the silent war was a year or two here and there of a hot war followed by decades of cold war in between.
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I don't think x number of emperors Stepped down= there were x number of emperors. Emperors may die in office, retire, or be taken out of office by a subordinate getting aKlingonVesk promotion. Only retiring would count as stepping down.
I'm pretty sure it's mentioned somewhere that the silent war was a year or two here and there of a hot war followed by decades of cold war in between.
Nah, Core rulebook and Near Space book bot reaffirm that started 36 AG and ended 291 AG.
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I'm pretty sure it's mentioned somewhere that the silent war was a year or two here and there of a hot war followed by decades of cold war in between.Nah, Core rulebook and Near Space book bot reaffirm that started 36 AG and ended 291 AG.
That's exactly what I'm saying though. The initial conflict probably lasted a few years of fighting and raiding and scouting and fleet battles and whatnot.
Then there was probably a lull of a decade or more as both sides trained new troops and but new ships into service and developed new technology. Then the cycle repeats again and again.
By 'lull' I mean raiding, scouting and spying, but few to no pitched fleet battles or attempted invasions.
Here is what I was remembering, it's from near space
Relations soured and tensions escalated until 36 AG, when the Veskarium invaded the planet of Triaxus. The independent worlds of the Golarion System banded together to repulse the Veskarium's initial attack and soon after signed the Absalom Pact for mutual defense, creating the Pact Worlds.
Together, the unified Pact Worlds proved to be an equal match for the Veskarium, and for the next 250 years, the two societies struggled for supremacy. Following the disastrous Battle of Aledra, neither side was willing to risk ships and troops in an all-out invasion, so the conflict cooled into border skirmishes and battles for far-flung colonies in Near Space and the Vast. During this time, the Vesk constructed the huge space station and shipyard called Conqueror's Forge, a place to build new ships and armaments to support the so-called Silent War and develop weapons that could at last decisively defeat the Pact Worlds.
But the vesk's dreamed-of conquest of the Pact Worlds never happened.
So, there were scouts, spies, and skirmishes happening in the pact worlds and veskarium, but the only pitched battles after the first were over colonies in near space and the vast.
So, you'd have to travel to those colonies to see the results of pitched battles. The pact worlds and the veskarium were relatively untouched by the war.
However, there's probably a couple of ruined planets out in near space from the war.
I doubt even that was continuous fighting. There were still probably decades long pauses where the only things that happened were privateering and the occaisonal raid.
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Oki, that does help with my question a lot yeah. Though wouldn't call "occasional raids and battles" cold war either.
I do wonder what does that mean for Veskarium's emperor situation though. Like as far as I can tell, they would probably consider themselves be in war, just... One that takes longer than usual? I guess that means there were few emperors with "disappointingly slow" careers. Assuming they didn't die in raids. Kinda hard to imagine Ralkama III dying of old age then there being 0 emperors until swarm war if they were actively "battling" even if its like once a decade.
Edit: Ah got ninja'd there. But yeah, does seem like its option 2 :O
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Oki, that does help with my question a lot yeah. Though wouldn't call "occasional raids and battles" cold war either.
Well, the lukewarm war didn't make for good propaganda so they went with silent.
From the entry for the city of Enduring on Aballon, Pact Worlds pg 24:
In 39 ag, the Veskarium launched a daring raid into the Golarion System, performing numerous strikes on key worlds. The continued attacks eventually led the vesk assault fleet into the orbit of Aballon, where they detected a surge of energy from Enduring, one of Aballon’s First One cities. Not realizing the cities of the First Ones routinely generated such power surges, the vesk believed the surface was preparing a strike and unleashed a scathing bombardment on Enduring. The massive strike devastated a large portion of the city, reducing some of the structures within to molten slag. What the vesk did not account for was the immediate and overwhelming response of Aballon’s anacites. The ruination
led to an immediate coalition of anacites who overwhelmed the Veskarium force with a fleet of civilian and military ships alike. In the end, the vesk ships crashed down on the same city they’d just bombarded. While the attack on Enduring is thought to be one of the major reasons why Aballon signed the Absalom Pact just a year later, anacites bear no ill will
toward modern vesk.
I imagine there were naval raids every year or few years to try to destroy ships on the other side at favorable odds to shift the balance of power, maybe bombard some surface targets or orbital infrastructure to reduce warmaking capacity, but no big surface landings in home systems after the Pact was formed and the logistical challenges of taking and holding a distant planet surrounded by hostile forces in the same system became prohibitive.
The Pact Worlds probably wanted peace most of the time and didn't do much offensive stuff, the Vesk probably knew they couldn't actually conquer the Pact Worlds in any realistic timeframe but had domestic political pressure to engage in infinite war where they could constantly test the situation and hope for the Pact to fracture or some lucky battle to wipe out a fleet and change the dynamic. Or at least give glory and promotions to the military.
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Considering how the pact deals with threats, they probably sent a lot of four man groups of freelancers out to do stuff and cause havoc.
Considering how the pact deals with threats, they probably sent a lot of four man groups of freelancers out to do stuff and cause havoc.
I think the groups probably arose organically and independently without anyone sending them.
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Considering how the pact deals with threats, they probably sent a lot of four man groups of freelancers out to do stuff and cause havoc.I think the groups probably arose organically and independently without anyone sending them.
"These independent traders found a vesk fleet massing to invade!"
"Well, we better send them back out in their freighter to infiltrate the command ship and kill the admiral. It's the only way."
Considering how the pact deals with threats, they probably sent a lot of four man groups of freelancers out to do stuff and cause havoc.I think the groups probably arose organically and independently without anyone sending them."These independent traders found a vesk fleet massing to invade!"
"Well, we better send them back out in their freighter to infiltrate the command ship and kill the admiral. It's the only way."
You joke, but it has worked the 6 other times before this one.
Besides, it one freighter and 4 people we don't know. What do we have to lose?
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I think one thing we all forget when it comes to "inter-planetary wars" is the scale.
When the allied invaded europe in WW2 they sent far more then 5 million soldiers and support personel (based on the numbers of Operation Magic Carpet). And this was to "conquer" a country which only count for 2% of earth surface.
Also if you want to blockade earth you have to cover a "orbital surface" of 525.935.442 sq km. If each of your starship could effectivly blockade a area of 50 x 50 km of "orbital surface" you would need 210.593 ships (compare this to the allied WW2 fleet which was less then 10.000 ships).
If we assume only cruiser size this would mean at least a crew of 21.059.300.
If you now go into logistics the numbers get even more ridicilous (food and fuel for the fleet (and the support fleet) etc.).
So I think the best way of conquering an interplanetary species would be to destroy their space forces and then attack specific targets until they surrender and become a vasall of yours (otherwise you have to leave a MASSIVE occupation force behind).
And as Vesks are not mindless brutes, I think this would be the way they went for during the war. Unfortunately the Pact Worlds were a equivalent enemy and so a a stalemate/cold war scenario would be more likely.
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If nothing else, look at how ineffectively the US military has operated in the middle east when trying to function as an occupying force.
Insurgency against the occupiers' can make it incredibly costly, even if there is no outright army to fight. Control over the areas is tenuous at best, and we've yet to see what will happen as we pull out and leave the area.
Now scale that up to an entire planet.
With our currently technology subjugating a country is almost impossible, you basically have to stay in a total state of occupation, which is incredibly expensive and difficult.
My personal opinion is that the Vesk actually know this, but they just like fighting so much that they do it anyways ;)
That, and it might have even been a diversion to convince the pact worlds to fortify their home system while the vesk went and took some of their colonies.
The Vesk and certainly the Azlanti wouldn’t have any trouble pacifying planets with nuclear elimination of problematic cities and nations. They can always repopulate from elsewhere.
America struggles in similar circumstances because it chooses to.
Another thing to also consider is Tech levels... Not every planet has the full 'level 20' range of tech available
When your making real world comparisons, each side is within a small margin of 'tech level' of each other. Its not like that in Starfinder, the tech levels can be quite drastically different
Insurgency against the occupiers' can make it incredibly costly, even if there is no outright army to fight.
keep in mind, this only works as long as the invaders are reluctant to mow down the civilians disguising the insurgents.
keep in mind, this only works as long as the invaders are reluctant to mow down the civilians disguising the insurgents.Insurgency against the occupiers' can make it incredibly costly, even if there is no outright army to fight.
Depends to an extent on how much superiority the invaders have and whether there's anything they want from the civilians - or even their infrastructure.
In the most extreme case, you can always sterilize the surface of the planet from orbit, but then you don't have a labor force and have to rebuild everything from the ground up.
If you don't go that far, even if you're willing to do a lot of civilian slaughter, insurgents can still make it incredibly costly. Especially in a world where technology and numbers don't make as much of advantage as personal skills and powers. An insurgency campaign against an occupying force seems likely to lead to a lot of dead civilians, a lot of dead insurgents and a relatively small number of high level insurgents.
And in the inverse of the comment above about small elite units (PCs) being close to useless for holding territory, they're incredibly good at disrupting the invaders.
Yeah, if you go that far your basically saying "I had no intention of even conquering you, but rather exterminating you". There will be nothing left when your done with that kind of destruction on a planet. I mean, maybe resources deep within ground or under the sea (maybe, unless you specifically have like an entire ocean planet).
It takes a lot of resources to build up an armada to exterminate a planet. Why do it? Sure there can be reason, but those reasons aren't always clear and don't necessarily make sense. It's certainly not the traditional reasons for war, which is about access to raw materials typically.
Well you don't need to go so far as extermination. Just blow up a few cities as an example and insurgency rates will go WAY down as the locals start policing their own. Theres probably a camel curve to it(that probably varies with species) where you either want to be so nice no on ebothers to resist or just the right amount of evil that people are afraid to resist WITHOUT convincing the population you're going to kill them all, because at that point they fight you to the death because they having nothing to lose.
Well you don't need to go so far as extermination. Just blow up a few cities as an example and insurgency rates will go WAY down as the locals start policing their own. Theres probably a camel curve to it(that probably varies with species) where you either want to be so nice no on ebothers to resist or just the right amount of evil that people are afraid to resist WITHOUT convincing the population you're going to kill them all, because at that point they fight you to the death because they having nothing to lose.
I'm not an expert on the topic, but I think the actions of the US in the middle east would indicate that it doesn't work that way.
Unless you would argue the US didn't bomb enough or large enough cities to induce this effect.
Considering the vesk build fortress cities as a habit, I kind of imagine they'd blow up as much infrastructure as they can locate, demolish a couple cities in prime locations, forcibly relocate the inhabitants, build their fortresses, and then settle in for the long haul.
Kind of exactly what they did on vesk-6. Only with the pact worlds, I kind of imagine it was more of a political mess that got them to invade a technological near peer than a weaker system.
'Alright, we've conquered home, time to move on. Hey, look at that starstone thingy we should invade there'
'Sir, that's a monumentally bad idea'
'Well, the government must be seen to be conquering someone!'
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Well you don't need to go so far as extermination. Just blow up a few cities as an example and insurgency rates will go WAY down as the locals start policing their own. Theres probably a camel curve to it(that probably varies with species) where you either want to be so nice no on ebothers to resist or just the right amount of evil that people are afraid to resist WITHOUT convincing the population you're going to kill them all, because at that point they fight you to the death because they having nothing to lose.
I have to disagree here. History has shown that if you suppress a population by force, no matter how overwhelming the force is, people will rise up and fight you. And as you become more brutal more people will rise up. The only way to "conquer" a country is to not come as a invader/oppressor, but as a liberator (e.g. after WW2 the western allies did not occupied the country, but helped it to become a self-goverend ally. On the other side, the sowiejts occupied East-Germany which then resulted in a revolution).
Unless you would argue the US didn't bomb enough or large enough cities to induce this effect.
Since you can still name the cities, no. I'm talking old world raze the place so that no two stones stand on top of each other. The only cases of the US coming close to doing that ostensibly worked, but weren't in the middle east (but were hardly the only factor)
I mean, you can still name Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
And the US wasn't attempting to conquer those cities.
Only to cause such intense fear in the Japanese people and leaders that they would no option except to accept defeat or be completely obliterated, a feat made truly conceivable by the atomic bomb.
To be honest, it's not really comparable in my opinion because we weren't trying to occupy or conquer.
No one who wants to conquer a land takes such extreme measures, because it has no value.
If you want a much less contemporary example of such a thing, Rome vs Carthage in the Punic Wars. Except it really only applied to Carthage, and effectively the Romans obliterated the government of Carthage.
Can you provide any modern examples where right amount of destroying a city seemed to reduce/eliminate insurgency, in that place or elsewhere (between the same combatants)?
I mean, you can still name Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
And the US wasn't attempting to conquer those cities.
Only to cause such intense fear in the Japanese people and leaders that they would no option except to accept defeat or be completely obliterated, a feat made truly conceivable by the atomic bomb.
To be honest, it's not really comparable in my opinion because we weren't trying to occupy or conquer.
I think it's the closest parallel we have. The US wasn't looking to take over the place, but I don't think the Japanese believed that. It was an unconditional surrender, they could have been agreeing to that.
It's also the vesk/roman model. We're not changing anything, we run the place, your taxes go here, your able bodied sentients join our army, we're putting a military base here to conquer the next guys or keep an eye on something over there.
Can you provide any modern examples where right amount of destroying a city seemed to reduce/eliminate insurgency, in that place or elsewhere (between the same combatants)?
The soviet union in the ukraine. Basically used mass starvation, murder, and deportation to keep the country from rebelling. Anything more modern is probably running into the no politics prohibition.
I know there's a habbit to nobilize the in-conquerable human spirit and evil conquers pushing their subjects too far. But such events make history as the Battle of thermomople or the american revolution for a reason: they're rare. They stand up as specific examples whereas countless unnamed cities go "We saw what they did to those guys right? Yeah. we surrender...." just goes down as "mongol empire expands 1200 to
1300AD..."
Most people aren't willing to throw themselves against an army with little chance of success that will result of the death of themselves and their family.
If you want a much less contemporary example of such a thing, Rome vs Carthage in the Punic Wars. Except it really only applied to Carthage, and effectively the Romans obliterated the government of Carthage.
Which is why i say you bomb a city or two, not a state etc. The city is really only important because of the area it controls. Move the capitol you can keep most of the resources.
The Pact Worlds Delenda Est
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Unfortunately, the crushing of indigenous people has worked many times for the conquerors, including in the Americas, including in United States.
Unfortunately, the crushing of indigenous people has worked many times for the conquerors, including in the Americas, including in United States.
With incredibly lopsided technological differences.
Sorry that we didn't mention that more explicitly. We're talking about people who have available to them relatively equal levels of technology.
Not about people who largely had bows to fight against guns. Not that the people indigenous to the Americas had 0 guns, but their armies (to my knowledge) didn't consist of people using primarily guns.
Occupation and Subjugation works when done for a long enough time (2+ generations) as history shows. (Although you can argue that modern advances and the advent of nationalism makes historic examples irrelevant).
The bigger question is if it is even possible to actually conquer a planet.
Most people think that it is enough to achieve space dominance which allows you to bomb a planet without resistance, but that is wrong.While the gravity gauge gives some advantage to spaceships in orbit, that advantage is far smaller than what most people believe. You can't simply drop a bomb from orbit. This bomb would continue to float right next to you and not fall down onto the planet. You need to expend energy to slow down the bomb so much that it drops out of the orbit, at an angle which lets it survive reentry.
This is only a little less energy required than what you need to get a warhead to intersect the orbit of an spaceship (you do not need to achieve orbit with the warhead).
Of course it all depends on the orbit of the spaceship. A high orbit is very safe for it, but there is ample time to intercept anything the spaceship fires.
A low orbit on the other hand makes interception really hard, but is basically a death sentence for any spaceship.And when you add Sci-Fantasy it gets even more complicated. Energy weapons do not care about the direction they are firing. The same laser/whatever that can shoot down from the spaceship onto the planet can be fired from the planet at the spaceship.
Also, Starfinder seems to have easy access to anti-gravity technology which nullifies the effect of gravity altogether. Ships are not bound by orbits anymore but shooting missiles up into space is no more energy intensive than dropping bombs onto the planet.Magic makes that even more complicated as it allows you to achieve much steeper angles of reentry thanks to fire immune warheads or you can just teleport bombs into orbit or the planet.
Either way, the point is just achieving space dominance does not win you...
Not that a lot of points you're mentioning aren't valid, the most likely orbital bombardment scenario is something like the "rod from god" or towing an asteroid to launch at the planet. If you're going for all out devastation there's no need to be subtle. And while it might possible to intercept, if you have an armada's worth of ships doing it stuff will get through.
Which is still not say the occupying the space around a planet wins the war. Most planets will be self sustaining even without things being able to go on/off world. It's only when you go so far as to destroying much of the infrastructure of the planet that you can achieve that kind of domination. Something I think is only possible when you have a huge technological advantage.
If you control the space around a planet you can drop asteroids anywhere you want any time you want with a space frieghter and a slide rule.
Unfortunately, the crushing of indigenous people has worked many times for the conquerors, including in the Americas, including in United States.
With incredibly lopsided technological differences.
Sorry that we didn't mention that more explicitly. We're talking about people who have available to them relatively equal levels of technology.
I don't think all the waves of prehistoric conquering/genocide in Europe (continuously being proven by DNA grave investigations and the not-so-mysterious disappearance of Y chromosomes only from the preceding populations) involved big tech differences. Maybe someone had a sharper rock axe, but not that much sharper.
If you control the space around a planet you can drop asteroids anywhere you want any time you want with a space frieghter and a slide rule.
True, but what I'm saying is unless you practically destroy everything before putting soldiers on the ground you will likely find resistance to be too strong, unless you either brought a number of solider equal to a significant portion of the planetary population or are so technologically superior to your enemy that their attacks are ineffective.
Think of it like this. In medieval wars it was uncommon for an army to outright conquer an enemy city through war in the streets. It was much more common to siege the city and attempt to wait them out. You maybe could win against the city with your army, but you were going to take a beating doing so. Waiting outside for the citizens to start starving to death and surrender seemed like a better idea.
Only problem is, for most planets you can't just wait in space for them to run out of food. That probably isn't going to happen. And while you can stop shipments on and off world, they probably have the essentially they need on the planet already.
I don't think all the waves of prehistoric conquering/genocide in Europe (continuously being proven by DNA grave investigations and the not-so-mysterious disappearance of Y chromosomes only from the preceding populations) involved big tech differences. Maybe someone had a sharper rock axe, but not that much sharper.Unfortunately, the crushing of indigenous people has worked many times for the conquerors, including in the Americas, including in United States.
With incredibly lopsided technological differences.
Sorry that we didn't mention that more explicitly. We're talking about people who have available to them relatively equal levels of technology.
The problem with pre-historic (pre-written history) is that we don't have a full understanding of what happened.
You are correct that it's possible one group committed genocide against another in this time, but at this time cities and their defenses would have been virtually non-existent. Between that and an incomplete picture of circumstances it's hard to draw strong conclusions in my opinion.
If you control the space around a planet you can drop asteroids anywhere you want any time you want with a space frieghter and a slide rule.True, but what I'm saying is unless you practically destroy everything before putting soldiers on the ground you will likely find resistance to be too strong, unless you either brought a number of solider equal to a significant portion of the planetary population or are so technologically superior to your enemy that their attacks are ineffective.
Think of it like this. In medieval wars it was uncommon for an army to outright conquer an enemy city through war in the streets. It was much more common to siege the city and attempt to wait them out. You maybe could win against the city with your army, but you were going to take a beating doing so. Waiting outside for the citizens to start starving to death and surrender seemed like a better idea.
Only problem is, for most planets you can't just wait in space for them to run out of food. That probably isn't going to happen. And while you can stop shipments on and off world, they probably have the essentially they need on the planet already.
The sieges weren't because an army wouldn't be able to win against the populace fighting through the streets, but because the cities had walls and other defenses that made them much harder to attack. A force multiplier for the defenders.
If the city under attack just left the gates open, no attacking army would have bothered trying to starve them out, despite all the citizens they'd have to fight in the streets.
I mean yes, but that would have almost never happened.
The discussion is around an army conquering a city. Separating the city defenses (like walls) from the people fighting isn't meaningful in the discussion (in my opinion) as the army still has to get through the walls. Which would typically be very costly.
Future tech cities will have different, but just as difficult defenses to breach.
True, but what I'm saying is unless you practically destroy everything before putting soldiers on the ground you will likely find resistance to be too strong, unless you either brought a number of solider equal to a significant portion of the planetary population or are so technologically superior to your enemy that their attacks are ineffective.
Neither of those are required. you don't need to conquer a country, you need to conquer or convince the brain/heart/decision making apparatus of the country/planet. Then that decision making apparatus runs the country for you and suppresses the resistance for you.
It tends not to work in some other places because some other places dont actually HAVE a decision making body that effectively controls the country. If your contry is only a country on paper without any central authority this doesn't work.