863 réponses à ce sujet

[Phaedon]

Saphra Deden wrote...
They still don't pay for or build themselves. They are useful for moving and deploying troops.

Why sacrifice any unless I have to? 

First off, yes, you have to. It's your duty.

Secondly, these shuttles will evacuate Earth, you have more of them, to not use them makes no sense.

Thirdly, are we seriously talking about sacrificing a lot of civillians for a bunch of shuttles?

[4yan3ric]

Saphra Deden wrote...

Phaedon wrote...

First off, yes, you have to. It's your duty.

In the long run I'll save more by saving my ships.

You'll save more humans than the 11 billion people on Earth? Wat.

[celuloid]

War with Reapers won't be won with shuttles. Alliance can afford to deploy them to rescue operations.

[SkittlesKat96]

Erm, 'Systems' Alliance anyone?

[Phaedon]

Saphra Deden wrote...
In the long run I'll save more by saving my ships.

Not really. Not at all, actually. These shuttles were used for bases, that means that the fleet has enough shuttles to ensure mobility. 

In fact, you would lose more than human lives that way. You would lose trust, both of civillians and soldiers. And morale would go very low, nobody wants to be the coward who runs away when they have sworn to die to save civillian lives.

The Alliance can't afford abandoning Earth for some shuttles.

Yes. I'm not going to sacrifice my military to save a bunch of civilians who will be killed anyway if my weakened military can't defeat the enemy.

Except that no matter the strength of your military you CAN'T defeat the enemy, we have been through this a hundrend times, the victory will come from Shepard and the superweapon or secret that they find.

Whether you have 15000 ships or 14500 ships won't change anything at all. It's not as if these 500 ships would ensure victory against the Reapers. But they could have ensured saving many human lives.

Saving more ships ensures nothing, saving more civillians is following your duty and saving...well, lives.
Alliance soldiers knew that they could at one point have to sacrifice their lives to save civillians, it's not the other way around.

Besides, you will have to sacrifice your fleet at one point, if you want to save billions of lives. There's a scene in ME3 where various fleets enter the Sol system through the Mass Relay, presumably as a destraction, or for only some of them to survive and take back Earth.

Modifié par Phaedon, 24 juillet 2011 - 12:00 .

[Someone With Mass]

Zulu_DFA wrote...
When troops are mobilized and go on code red that greatly improves morale. And unlike a civilian crowd, in the military it's very easy to isolate whiners and panic mongers and assert the futility of any selfish moves. Especially in the future military with all its fancy psycological and genetic screening technics. It all really depends on the leadership. If the leaders are strong and smart and don't give a rat's ass about "emotional impacts", they'll find a may to keep the morale up under ANY circumstances. It's a technical problem. Maintenance issue, quite literally.

I'm going out on a limb here and guessing that you have never either seen combat or how soldiers behave right in the middle of it against overwhelming odds.

[Someone With Mass]

Saphra Deden wrote...

Phaedon wrote...

Kodiak shuttles have FTL capability, but zero offensive capability, so I think that we can dismiss the claim of sacrificing important parts of the fleet.

They still don't pay for or build themselves. They are useful for moving and deploying troops.

Why sacrifice any unless I have to? 

Yes, and they can be used to evactuate the troops that are more than likely based on Earth, along with civilians.

And that's pretty much all they're good for. Transporting people. The ships that are too large to land on planets can keep theirs, but I'm sure we can spare some to evacuate people.

Modifié par Someone With Mass, 24 juillet 2011 - 12:07 .

[Arijharn]

Saphra Deden wrote...

Phaedon wrote...

Kodiak shuttles have FTL capability, but zero offensive capability, so I think that we can dismiss the claim of sacrificing important parts of the fleet.

They still don't pay for or build themselves. They are useful for moving and deploying troops.

Why sacrifice any unless I have to? 

Why would you be deploying troops if you're escaping into space? I think the question boils down to that the SA has a degree of duty of care. It's going to be impossible of course to evacuate everyone (and it'll be even stupider to even try), but you can't honestly think that the SA could get away with just sitting there doing nothing. Imagine after the war and how many heads will roll if they did that (i.e., nothing).

Some shuttles are not going to make a massive difference in what is effectively a space battle.

[Nightdragon8]

I think its less allences doing if not more of Anderson/Hakett doing to stall for more time

[Phaedon]

Arijharn wrote...
Why would you be deploying troops if you're escaping into space? I think the question boils down to that the SA has a degree of duty of care. It's going to be impossible of course to evacuate everyone (and it'll be even stupider to even try), but you can't honestly think that the SA could get away with just sitting there doing nothing. Imagine after the war and how many heads will roll if they did that (i.e., nothing).

Some shuttles are not going to make a massive difference in what is effectively a space battle.

Not only would heads roll, the Alliance would cease to exist. See: World War 2, League of Nations.

[nhsk]

Saphra Deden wrote...

I didn't say anything about deploying troops.

I'm talking about the evacuation here. I'd rather get critical personnel and the shuttles themselves to safety than worry about evacuating civilians.

Glad you're not in charge of any military.

[Candidate 88766]

Saphra Deden wrote...

Phaedon wrote...

Kodiak shuttles have FTL capability, but zero offensive capability, so I think that we can dismiss the claim of sacrificing important parts of the fleet.

They still don't pay for or build themselves. They are useful for moving and deploying troops.

Why sacrifice any unless I have to? 

Thats like saying England is being invaded, but lets not counterattack because we may lose some of our tanks.

The Alliance's duty, like any military, is to defend their homeland and their people and in this case that means saving as many people as possible and trying to attack the Reapers. If they don't bother saving Earth then a counterattack later would be pointless because there'll be nothing left to save.

[LOLandStuff]

Saphra Deden wrote...

Yes. I'm not going to sacrifice my military to save a bunch of civilians who will be killed anyway if my weakened military can't defeat the enemy.

Oh yeah, why save a bunch of civilians? There's just like a whole planet full of them, nothing important. Like a small village in the middle of nowhere. No one will notice a bunch of civilians missing to keep some shuttles.

[Candidate 88766]

Saphra Deden wrote...

Arijharn wrote...

Why would you be deploying troops if you're escaping into space?

I didn't say anything about deploying troops.

I'm talking about the evacuation here. I'd rather get critical personnel and the shuttles themselves to safety than worry about evacuating civilians.

What is the point of having a military if not to defend the people?

[Someone With Mass]

It's not like the military is getting its recruits and supplies from the civilians and their companies or anything.

[Candidate 88766]

Saphra Deden wrote...

Candidate 88766 wrote...

What is the point of having a military if not to defend the people?

We'll defend them, but there is a right way and a wrong way to do it. You don't help anybody if you get yourself killed in the process. Then you're just one more person who needs to be rescued.

This seems to be the case in ME3 after all with the Alliance needing the aliens to come its rescue.

I'd have wante to avoid ever being in that situation.

If you don't at least try to save Earth's population then the vast majority of humanity will perish. The military will have failed in its task of defending humanity. If it was a question of sacrificing a lot of ships to save, say, a small colony or the Council as in ME1 then you have a valid point - it is better to wait and gather your strength before rushing in. However, in a situation as desperate as the whole of Earth being attacked then fleeing will gain nothing as there'll be nothing left to save later. Against the Reapers, chances are the Alliance will be wiped out either way. Surely it is better that they die giving at least some of the people a chance as opposed to letting them die and then dying themselves anyway at a later date.

It is, as you say, an undesirable situation. There isn't really any choice - either way, people will die in massive numbers. The Alliance is faced with a devil's alternative, and so chose to at least try to save some of the people. A foolish choice perhaps, but at least a noble one.

Modifié par Candidate 88766, 24 juillet 2011 - 12:35 .

[LOLandStuff]

Saphra Deden wrote...

They are all better off fleeing the big cities and heading into the suburbs and smaller towns. In the end we won't be able to save very many anyway.

Enough of them will get off on private and commercial transports. No reason to waste any valuable military ones.

Because the Reapers will definitely not attack the suburbs and small towns. Who would do that when in every movie all aliens attack big cities? That's just ridiculous to attack a small town. Since they're in the big city, they might as well do some shopping. You don't find Gucci and other expensive stores in the suburbs and small towns.

And it's not like there's chaos everywhere and husks running rampant. Oh those silly civilians, so dependable on Alliance.

[Candidate 88766]

Saphra Deden wrote...

Candidate 88766 wrote...

If you don't at least try to save Earth's population then the vast majority of humanity will perish.

I didn't say we wouldn't try, you dunce.

Try and follow a long here.

We escape with our army from Earth as intact as possible.

THEN we mount a rescue and we evict the Reapers at the same time.

What we don't do is waste time and resouces trying to save people while the Reapers are invading. We get the hell out of Dodge.

Firstly, try and keep it civil. I'm not going to discuss something with someone who stoops to insults, although this is the internet so it was bound to happen eventually.

Secondly, the only chance of saving people is while the Reapers are still arriving and being resisted by the fleets. If they wait, the Reapers will be able to fortify their position and the Alliance has enough knowledge of Reapers to know that they wouldn't stand a chance of saving them at a later date. The only chance they have is during the initial stages when the Reapers are still being resisted and Earth's defences are still just about holding.

Thirdly, the Alliance has no idea whether there'll be anyone left to save in a few days. As far as they are concerned, the Reapers have arrived and are obliterating everything. They don't know that humans are being harvested, they just know that they are dying. For all they know this is the only opportunity they'll have to save people; in a day or two there may be nothing left and the Alliance will have failed in ites duty, the Reapers having long since moved on.

[Candidate 88766]

Saphra Deden wrote...
They're here to harvest, not just eradicate us.

The Alliance doesn't know that. As far as they're concerned an overwhelming hostile force has arrived on Earth and is killing everyone.