The Drums of War: A Reboot

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Czernobog
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The Drums of War: A Reboot

Post by Czernobog »

So, I've decided to reboot the Drums of War, taking a more 'space opera' tone, without, hopefully, sacrificing any of its themes. I've taken inspiration from the Solidarity Wars, and a failed 'verse of mine, Infinite Powers. So here is the introduction:

It is the Thirty-Ninth Century, and after two world wars, humanity has spread across the stars, striding across the known galaxy. But all is not well.

The galaxy is divided into two blocks, the freedom-loving Outer Arm Concordat and the authoritarian Core Defence Bloc. Aside from this, the galaxy is covered by dozens of alliances, most on one side or the other, but there are a few neutral blocs.

Aside from this, much has changed. Death and disease have been conquered, AIs and robots now walk the streets as free citizens of the great powers. Animals have been uplifted, granted sapience and civilisation, and humans now walk on millions of worlds.

But the drums of war still beat, and as an epic conflict approaches, one question remains - Which side are you on?

You have ruled this galaxy for ten thousand years.
You have little of account to show for your efforts.
Order. Unity. Obedience.
We taught the galaxy these things.

And we shall do so again.
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Siege
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Re: The Drums of War: A Reboot

Post by Siege »

It's a bit short, and a bit Total Annihilation-ish; and more specifically I've always wondered how a core-vs-arms conflict could possibly work. I mean, shouldn't the core have a massive advantage in that it has much less ground to cover, and can thus strike pretty much at will against the other guy?
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Magister Militum
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Re: The Drums of War: A Reboot

Post by Magister Militum »

Yeah, this does sound a little too much like Total Annihilation, but, we'll see, I guess.
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speaker-to-trolls
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Re: The Drums of War: A Reboot

Post by speaker-to-trolls »

I mean, shouldn't the core have a massive advantage in that it has much less ground to cover, and can thus strike pretty much at will against the other guy?
In such a conflict the Core should have a big advantage in being able to concentrate its power, that doesn't necessarily make it an overwhelming advantage, though, that depends entirely on how much of the energy available to them they are using compared with the Armies, how fast they are able to move and what each sides command structure is like. You might easily get into a stalemate if the Cories were unable to cope with going out for long distances into the Arms while the Armies couldn't compete with the concentration of Corey combatants.
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Somes J
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Re: The Drums of War: A Reboot

Post by Somes J »

The Arms could easily have a big numerical advantage. The Milky Way's disk is roughly circular, and the area of a circle increases by 4 as its radius increases by 2. So if the dividing line between the two powers was halfway between the central black hole and the galaxy's rim the Arms would have 3 times the territory of the Core. In practice it wouldn't be quite that bad for the Core since there's a ~10,000 light year wide bulge in the disk around the central black hole and IIRC the bulge stars are more tightly packed, but it would be pretty easy to give the Arms a numerical advantage that would compensate for their coordination disadvantage.

I suspect the map of a galaxy divided between roughly evenly matched Core and Arm powers would look pretty funny: if you looked at it you'd intuitively come away with the idea that the Core had considerably more territory, even if it was actually territorially the same size or smaller.
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