53 KiB
The Cult of the Warrior
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Author: u/j9461701 *
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URL: https://www.reddit.com/r/rational/comments/6s565w/the_cult_of_the_warrior/
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Score: 156
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Created: 2017-08-07T12:23:34
Post:
Perhaps the single most consistent anti-rationalist thing I see in fiction is this trope. If your soldiers have the supersoldier serum, you win the war - logistics, armor support, all else be damned. If you're a super hero whose super powers make you a superior fistfighter, you save the world every other weekend - meanwhile plant boy, who can make plants grow 50,000% faster, is dead weight because his powers don't improve his combat abilities. If you're a general, your personal skills with a sword are more important than your ability to command troops - a drunk, morbidly obese old man could never be an effective general in fictionland. If you're a karate master, nothing short of a better martial artist can defeat you.
This is what I call the 'cult of the warrior', or the belief that superior skill in individual combat is the sole (or primary) arbiter of human affairs.
So, examples:
In the tv show Supernatural, we have Sam and Dean. Two more-or-less ordinary guys (depending on season) who aren't even especially smart. But because they're very good in a fist fight, they've beat angels, demons, knights of hell, archangels, gods, and even Satan himself. The powers and numbers of their enemies mean nothing because the cult of the warrior reigns supreme, and they're quite good warriors.
In Mass Effect, Commander Shepard is the captain of the galaxy's first stealth ship and his head contains an irreplaceable message from a dead people that needs to be translated. His skills as a soldier are still more important than anything else though, so he's in the forlorn hope on every mission. In Mass effect 3, in a war between multi-story-tall squid monsters and kilometer long starships - the entire conflict hinges on whether or not your infantry (read: you) is better than their infantry.
In Iron Man, the power armor Tony wears is presented as a military super weapon because it allows the wearer to defeat normal infantry in droves. The fact that 20mm autocannon fire from an F-22 (read: ammo that isn't even designed to pierce armor) nearly kills him doesn't matter - as far as the Iron Man movies are concerned power armor renders traditional military weapons outdated. Several of these all firing at you don't matter. The fact that Apache attack helicopters can carry an order of magnitude more weapons and armor than even War machine doesn't matter.
In Halo, Master Chief is a super soldier in power armor who is single handedly expected to win any ground conflict he is put in. This is not treated as abnormal or weird, and the sole reason the humans aren't winning the war with the Covenant is humanity's inferior navy.
In Batman's solo comics, no matter how clever Bats may be or what plans he sets in motion or what gadgets he pulls off his utility belt ultimately it is his martial art skills that win the day. Simply calling Gordon and saying "There are 40 tons of herion at Warehouse Z, lots of baddies too. Send SWAT" is not acceptable, even though that would be both safer and free up Batman's time to investigate other crimes. Batman must fight his enemies as a warrior, or he has not truly defeated them! Anonymous tips are for cowards.
In Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the ultimate weapon against the forces of darkness are the slayers. Young women imbued with super strength, super toughness, and enhanced healing. Even as a little kid this logic made me tilt my head - Buffy is stronger than any one vampire, but what happens if 20 just jump her all at once? Or what if one of the vampires gets a gun? This "ultimate weapon" seems a lot less ultimate than was advertised.
In Stargate SG-1, the SG team is a 4 man special forces unit that has toppled interstellar space civilizations consisting of billions of slaves and millions of troops. The only times they struggle are when the enemy creates superior warriors to challenge them, like the Kull who can defeat SG1 in small scale infantry combat and therefore are UNSTOPPABLE JUGGERNAUTS OF DESTRUCTION. Why they can't just play catch the nuke with a cruise missile fired through the stargate is never elaborated on.
Broadly, almost all war films are built on this idea. Tanks don't exist. Planes are all grounded. Someone put chewing gum in all the artillery tubes. The only thing that wins the battle is our protagonist's personal fighting skills - our heroes with their rifles and knives must kill the enemy themselves to win the day. Of course, in real life crew-serviced weapons and vehicles account for something like 90% of all casualties in a modern war but that's not very warrior of you young man.
Zombie fiction operates on this idea too. Because zombies are so numerous, no individual can beat them in open battle before getting swarmed. Therefore zombies are treated as a world-ending threat in almost all stories that focus on them. Except...no, stop thinking like some kind of 12th century barbarian. Literally tens of billions of bullets are manufactured in America every year, and zombies are slow as heck - just shoot a few, run away, shoot a few, run away, repeat until the infestation is solved.
Let's try a non-fiction example:
The bayonet controversy leading up to WW1. Basically the Germans had mastered this lunging technique that, in conjunction with their slightly longer bayonets, meant they could kill a British soldier in 1v1 melee combat before the British trooper could retaliate. Surely the whole war will be lost because of this! Turns out - it didn't matter in the slightest. In fact, soldiers of both sides hated bayonets as awkward, clumsy weapons totally unsuited for the chaos and speed of modern war. Much better to just sneak up behind guys and smash their brains in with a good club, like some kind of rogue.
So, I hope you now understand what I'm trying to get at. I mean it's just everywhere, and it bugs the crap out of me. One of the things that initially attracted me to rational fiction was specifically that it almost always violated this stupid cult and featured characters either mocking it or abusing its followers for their own advantage.
Thoughts?
edit: Thought of another one. The Matrix. As Morpheus tells Neo, when he is ready he won't even have to dodge bullets anymore - but swords, fists, maces, spears, those he will have to dodge. Because obviously The One's powers don't render you immune to the cult of the warrior.
Comments:
u/ketura [+99] Organizer (3 hours later)
I was actually going to bring up Halo as a counter-example. Granted, if one took only the games as presented you might have a point, but the books do a phenomenal job of establishing that the fight between humans and the Covenant is one of a much larger scale, and basically boils down to innovation vs imitation. The Covenant have had access to super-tech for millenia, yet they sit on it and worship its current state as perfection, considering any alteration heresy. Humans get their trash kicked in time after time due to bringing knives to a nuclear fight, but unlike the Covenant they invented all of their equipment, and it doesn't take too long for them to start reverse-engineering and improving on the alien tech.
And I'd argue that 117 doesn't keep winning because of his serum or his power armor, but because he crates around a general AI with him. Cortana not only directly interfaces with the layer between Chief's brain and the armor, optimizing his reaction time, aim, and movement, but coordinates targets on a strategic level. He's not just shooting his way through anything that moves, he's shooting his way through a path that an AI plotted out.
Information security is another huge thing. Humans kept surviving, not because of the prowess of their super soldiers (who were only slightly more powerful than most Elites), but because they had policies such as the Cole Protocol that kept information out of enemy hands by destroying any navigational data banks mid-fight. Fleets get wiped out, but hidden worlds could keep going.
And you sort of brush it aside, but plenty of the SPARTANs were wiped out due to fighting against superior logistics and tech. Hours before the events of the first game, a dozen of them were glassed from orbit, completely negating any fighting ability in exactly the sort of way that you say should be the obvious counter. The events of the games all explicitly take place on or around what is essentially holy ground to the Covenant, where they can't just perform an orbital bombardment without violating deep-seated religious convictions.
Sorry, didn't mean to turn this into a rant. Video game stories in general have to focus on the actions of the player, and this tends to result in a biased power-fantasy story that is almost always going to look like the player's actions were the hinges upon which victory turned. Halo is one that on the surface does exactly that, but the expanded lore does a good job of saying "yeah, we turn shit up in a fistfight, but in spite of that billions are still dead and you can't punch a navy lol".
u/cjet79 [+39] (6 hours later)
Very good points. There are other things that minimize the cult of the warrior in the halo universe:
- The flood are generally superior warriors to everyone. They lose the first time because the rulers of the galaxy build a super weapon that wipes out all sentient life. They lose a second time because they get glassed from orbit (on earth). They lose a third time with another usage of a super weapon. The flood also beat one of the few groups that were considered better warriors the Prometheans by superior numbers.
- Internal strife and the fall of the priesthood class basically collapses the covenant alliance. They only become beatable by the humans because the humans are coordinating with the well trained naval forces of a splinter group of covenant.
- The humans never win straight up brawls with the covenant prior the collapse of the covenant alliance. Master chief's mission in a lot of these cases are to conduct surgical strikes against the covenant, with the assistance of the general AI (Cortana) that you already mention.
- The covenant also win quite often because of superior numbers. During the invasion of Earth they hadn't even known they were coming up on the enemy home planet but they brought a fleet that was still large enough to beat Earth's defenses. When the covenant found Reach and knew it was a human colony they brought an absolutely massive fleet, even if the technological advantage had been reversed they still would have won.
u/j9461701 [+17] (10 hours later)
I didn't know that about Halo, I just played the first and 2nd games. Thanks for correcting me.
u/ketura [+9] Organizer (10 hours later)
I can highly recommend the first few books if you liked the setting. "The Fall of Reach" tells Master Chief's story up to the first game, "The Flood" is a bit of a mediocre retelling of the first game (only really recommended because of the alternate POVs and that it ties the other two books together), and "First Strike" tells how the Chief got from the end of Halo 1 to the opening of Halo 2.
I should probably reread them now that I've been exposed to rational fiction, now that I think about it, but they're at least as entertaining as the games themselves.
u/everything-narrative [+63] Coral, Abide with Rubicon! (8 hours later)
Counter-examples:
Fullmetal Alchemist: A pair of magician brothers who are proficient martial artists spend most of their time researching, trying to uncover a national conspiracy plotting magic genocide, and rely extensively on military contacts and cloak-and-dagger tactics to get through the day. It is rare they even win a fistfight, despite being exceptionally proficient.
u/Amonwilde [+24] (3 hours later)
This is a cognitive issue. We're just wired for this kind of person-on-person single combat. While I think stories of superior logistical acumen are awesome, most would probably not agree.
u/trekie140 [+24] (7 hours later)
Speaking as someone who finds logistics so entertaining that I have to stop myself from watching Let's Plays of city builders for hours, I don't think it's the plot the turns people off but the characters. Stories need to have characters that the audience can root for and/or relate to, and that's much easier to do when the story has an individualist focus.
In a Lets Play of Rimworld, for example, the player of the game is the protagonist you get invested in and want to see them react to the emergent phenomena in the game. Their monologue to the audience attaches character to the game world where the designers didn't so the logistics porn doesn't seem as shallow.
When you're trying to tell a story about a hero who happens to use logistics to advance the plot, that's much more difficult to get people invested in. Aside from the limitations of the medium where you can't or just shouldn't show viewers charts and numbers, you need to come up with conflicts related to logistics.
This is why I find simulation and strategy games so interesting, but never have fun actually playing them. It's enjoyable to see people attach a narrative to decisions about numbers, but I just want to experience a compelling narrative so having to make those management decisions feels like an obstacle to getting that.
So as far as writing stories about logistics goes, I think you need to plot it out like a mystery or procedural story. We're here to see characters solve intellectual problems in a way that can't be shown instead of told to us, so pick a formula for the pacing and draw people in with the details surrounding the main plot.
I watched Supernatural even though I found the monster hunting to be the least interesting part of the show because I liked the characters and side stories they ran into along the way. What makes whodunnits and police procedurals enjoyable is when the plot is used as a vehicle to take us interesting places.
u/alexanderwales [+11] Time flies like an arrow (12 hours later)
I am wondering whether you've read Instruments of Destruction, a short story I wrote about the second Death Star which is almost entirely focused on logistics, and if you've read it, or you have time to read it now, what you thought of it as a prose/logistics hybrid.
u/trekie140 [+8] (14 hours later)
I read it a while back, it's pretty decent. The only problem I have with it is that it's so short there's very little time to develop the characters, but it works well as a short story. Expanding it into a larger narrative is another matter, though, which is why I suggested adapting the whodunnit formula.
This story reminds me a little of Sherlock Holmes where the protagonist knows things we don't but still uses logical reasoning to solve problems in a consistent setting. To tell a longer story you should include the protagonist conversing with side characters to learn more about the situation.
We know from the start that the protagonist will figure things out, so what gets us invested is by having them travel around the setting and interact with other characters as they learn more about the problem they're solving. In the end, they hold a meeting where they present their conclusions to everyone.
u/pizzahotdoglover [+4] (14 hours later)
I thought it was great! By the way, are you going to post any more of Glimwarden?
u/alexanderwales [+12] Time flies like an arrow (14 hours later)
I'm writing chapters, but won't be posting until I have something with a Book 1 ending to it, which might be a while.
u/pizzahotdoglover [+7] (14 hours later)
Well I'm glad to hear it's not dead.
u/Amonwilde [+8] (8 hours later)
Sounds like you might like Dwarf Fortress...or at least the narrativized tales that arise from (un)successful games. If you haven't already, read Boatmurdered: https://lparchive.org/Dwarf-Fortress-Boatmurdered/
u/trekie140 [+4] (10 hours later)
I get off on watching ants scurry back and forth doing jobs, so that kind of thing doesn't appeal to me as much as watching people play and marveling at the infrastructure they've made.
u/SCP-469 [+3] (13 days later)
DF is basically a virtual ant farm with dragons and demons.
u/SevereCircle [+1] (29 days later)
I have to stop myself from watching Let's Plays of city builders for hours
Any recommendations?
Sorry for thread necromancy.
u/trekie140 [+3] (29 days later)
I got hooked on YouTuber Quill18 for a while and wasted a lot of time watching Anno, before that I was a huge fan of the Yogscast Minecraft games, but the game I want to see more of is Rimworld since it has some amazing potential for emergent storytelling. I'm not too experienced with Let's Plays, though, since I soon realized I could be doing more productive things and cut myself off.
I think Let's Plays offer an interesting opportunity as a storytelling medium, but even in terms of media consumption there are stories out there that require less time and offer more enjoyment in return. Personally, I'd love to see Let's Plays become a performance art like pro-wrestling so it wouldn't just be my weird fetish.
u/Leadlight [+23] (13 hours later)
World War Z (the book not the movie) actually tackled some of your gripes about the zombie genre. Initially humanity was losing because modern weaponry wasn't suited for fighting zombies because they were too numerous and it was too expensive to keep firing explosives at hordes that didn't have to worry about morale and could withstand being dismembered. Eventually they realized the most effective way to fight the zombies was to make firing lines with rifles and constantly barrage them with headshots, opting instead for a Practical but Boring approach.
I can't remember perfectly but I think the book might have even emphasized the importance of logistics and supplies.
u/Iconochasm [+23] (18 hours later)
The latter third goes extensively into what a difference logistics and supplies make. America had the capacity to mass produce reliable, accurate semi-automatic rifles and full-body, bite-proof mesh armor. America also had the planning capacity to pull off a vertical, double-line march across the continent. It sucks, and it's hard and slow, but America reclaims territory with minimal losses.
That then get's compared to Russia using old Cold War stockpiles and a "fight like it's Stalingrad" mentality and taking horrific losses. China attempts human wave tactics in the beginning, and makes the entire global situation massively worse due to their catastrophic losses. Even America has an example, with the ill-fated Battle of Yonkers, where the ordinance is crap against a foe that has flawless morale and immunity to
[phrase that describes the effects of a concussive shockwave on a person, which I cannot fucking remember for the life of me, even with google]hydrostatic shock, plus the massive logistical failure that left the soldiers pathetically short on ammunition to face off with the 8 million strong NYC horde.
u/SvalbardCaretaker [+10] Mouse Army (a day later)
I am at a loss here. My main gripes with zombe movies is that modern military is shown to always be useless against zombies.
Whereas the world wars showed that an entrenched machine gun nest ist basically impossible to capture by infantry - shooting hundreds of bullets per minute is enough to mow down anything made of flesh.
And you are claiming the exact opposite to be a good strategy?
u/Leadlight [+10] (a day later)
Well the in universe justification was that the zombies were slow and exceedingly durable but headshots would stop them from moving almost immediately. In universe I think the problem with machine guns was that:
- They would have a hard time consistently hitting the head
- They would waste way more ammunition than semiautomatic rifles, which was a big deal because ammunition was scarce.
u/SvalbardCaretaker [+9] Mouse Army (a day later)
seems so very unsatisfying. Like - at some very early point you just have zombie pudding on the ground. And aiming in the general direction of heads should be enough.
I might be able to accept that. Fully ramped up war time production is different than peace time storage. Still, given that ammunition has a rather long shelf life - and how critical ammunition is to any war effort - having a really really large storage seems like a no-brainer?
Oh well.
u/Leadlight [+9] (a day later)
You should check out the book if you can, I don't think I can really do it justice. The movie pretty much only had the name in common to be honest.
u/Roxolan [+7] Head of antimemetiWalmart senior assistant manager (a day later)
The story of the Battle of Yonkers is that it was intended as a propaganda show of force by the higher-ups, who thought that the battle couldn't possibly be lost given all the tech and firepower.
Then the fancy shrapnel shells, while far from useless, turned out to be less efficient than expected against non-humans. And the fancy communication system became a vector for loss of morale as soldiers reported anecdotal evidence of invincible zombies (their exact capabilities were at that point still poorly known). Then the troops routed, the failure of that show of force caused a panic, zombies got the chance to disperse inland and reach more population centers, and it took a while for the US to regroup into a proper government and military force again.
But every other paragraph of that chapter mentions how if only the troops had been placed in better defensive positions or if only they hadn't been wearing useless bulky gear for an extended engagement on a hot day etc. etc. the battle would probably have been won.
Basically it blames it all on overconfident commanders looking for a photo-op. Which may or may not be realistic, but it's definitely better than blaming it on the inefficacy of machine guns.
u/narfanator [+19] (7 hours later)
You're not wrong (particularly batman and buffy*), but there's something else you're missing: One-sided battles are boring.
- Except remember that time with the bazooka?
In an even more general sense; the smaller side must seek battles where the strategic advantage of the enemy isn't available.
So it does kinda make sense that it does come down to a single warrior's punchiness... but only when the strategic situation is such that everything is rendered moot (which you want, if your strategic situation is vastly inferior).
Conversely, what now extra doesn't make sense is why the guys who DO have the strategic advantage keep putting themselves in situations where they lose it. In other words, it's not that SG1 is weirdly competent, it's that their enemies are weirdly incompetent at letting their strategic advantage get taken off the table.
There's lots of examples of individual humans having outsize effects, even on the strategic level; look at the history and players of basically any of the tech giants. Look at religions and other cults of personality. Look at "confessions of an economic hit man", assassinations.... Hell, even the way the US election eventually comes down to a rhetoric slugging match.
And actually, regarding assassinations; WWI started because of something like the punchiness of one dude. Now, without the rest of the gigantic strategic situation, it wouldn't have mattered nearly so much, but at some point there was a guy punching another guy [with a bullet]. The key moment was still more-or-less a warrior.
I guess the meta-theory is that only battles between warriors end up mattering, because otherwise the outcome is pretty much already known. Not only does that make for uninteresting stories, but it also means the events are historically unremarkable...?
u/BKLaughton [+50] (3 hours later)
Why are so many characters proficient in combat? Because individual combat is an ancient, obvious, intuitive allegory for ideological, internal, and thematic conflict.
This post helped me realise what my problem with rationalist fiction is: it basically gives up on storytelling in favour of some hopeless venture in simulationism, throwing the baby out with the bathwater in the attempt. Fiction is definitionally just made-up pretendy times, and not even the strictest rationalist approach can circumnavigate this fact: a rationalist fiction story is still a story, it'll never be a simulation, because whatever the storyteller is inspired to include in the premise is arbitrary.
Now, don't get me wrong, I actually sympathise with the central concern of this sub: I value verisimilitude (at least, in some stories), and often find implausibility for the sake of narrative grating. However, I don't think the solution is to do away with narrative devices, but rather to use them more deftly. I think it's important to remember that if rationalist fiction is nevertheless still storytelling, and as such kind of requires a point, and structure. Disjointed, rambling fake histories devoid of tension and drama are at least as bad as formulaic and implausible chosen-one epics loaded with cliches.
u/ketura [+25] Organizer (7 hours later)
it basically gives up on storytelling in favour of some hopeless venture in simulationism, throwing the baby out with the bathwater in the attempt.
Do you have some examples for this? Maybe I'm just not paying attention, but I don't seem to recall any examples of rational fiction that ended up soulless in the attempt.
u/None [+33] (7 hours later)
I think their point is overblown, but valid as a critique of the idea of rational fiction. Not so much the implementation, so they're kind of building a strawman, but, still. The point about personal combat being a metaphor for ideological or thematic combat is valid, and it's important to consider literature (including games) as literature impacted by its genre and medium, not just as a depiction of events. Like, you can say "this superhero story is a bad piece of rational fiction because it involves a man dressing up and fighting crime, and that's somehow more effective than leveraging money and power to hire a small army". You can't say "this superhero story is a bad piece of superhero fiction because it involves a man dressing up and fighting crime, and that's somehow more effective than leveraging money and power to hire a small army".
u/BKLaughton [+15] (8 hours later)
/u/-Swimmingly- makes a fair point. My post is a bit of a strawman with regard to rationalist fiction, which I addressed in my opening sentence. Really my argument was pointed more at the concept, and in response to this OP. There's plenty of good rationalist fiction that strikes a good balance between verisimilitude and storytelling (which is why I'm subbed here).
u/trekie140 [+10] (7 hours later)
I completely agree with this in spite of the social pressure I feel to value rationality for the sake of it. I just want to read entertaining stories that appeals to my sensibilities while making me feel the way the author wants me to, so I hate it when adhering to the principles of rational fiction takes a higher priority than that.
u/OutOfNiceUsernames [+28] fear of last pages (4 hours later)
Supernatural, Mass Effect, Iron Man, Halo, Batman, Buffy the Vampire Slayer
All have action and adventure as their primary genre. So of course the individual combats will be the decisive factor for solving the story’s conflicts and problems. It’s like ranting that in strategy games the player can take control over each and every individual unit’s actions and can see what’s happening in various areas in real time despite not being in a technological era that could afford such level of surveillance and mind control.
You’d be more accurate to be ranting instead why the story plots of such actions games are so unrealistic (because it is an exploitation genre; because big companies are more suited to develop more popular games and they will also be the ones less caring about well-developed secondary aspects of the game; etc) and why other genres aren’t as popular as the action genre (because the natural selection applied in the environment of our universe is a major factor defining our psychology, for which shooting things is the more entertaining thing to do).
Thoughts?
If you’re starting to get frustrated by the underdeveloped plot and realism in actions games and literature, then maybe your tastes have changed and you’d be enjoying things like literature about military logistics, biographies, or political history more instead? Also try works like Game of Thrones and House of Cards.
u/None [+22] (an hour later)
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u/AurelianoTampa [+17] (6 hours later)
as the super powerful people who could beat anyone in a fight have to find a different way to solve problems.
That's definitely a recurring theme in TGAB. A whole bunch of super-powerful entities (dragons, gods, Tellwyrn herself) keep getting faced with the fact that the world has moved on and they're no longer the biggest fish in their respective ponds. They can neither afford to throw their weight around, nor try and remain apart. In volume 12, there's a conversation to this effect:
"You aren’t a matchless power anymore.” She hesitated, then continued in a bare whisper. “Nor am I. Nor is anyone. The dragons, as you mentioned, have realized it, and adapted. You yourself managed to bully Naiya into adapting, and her consciousness now so diffuse it’s amazing you got her to even hold a conversation. You, though? You see the state of the world, you recognize this need, and yet…here you are. You problem is that you still think the rules don’t apply to you, just because they mostly haven’t until now. I’m afraid that much has changed.”
“... your University is uniquely vulnerable... Whoever operates in this world must do so with great care, because everything they set in motion will ripple farther and faster than it ever has. Without subtlety, without strategy and restraint, a person or even a nation can easily be shaken to pieces by the vibrations she herself causes. But you? You have stubbornly kept yourself and your University separate. You’ve relied on your legend, your power and the threat of your anger to dissuade encroachers. And so, Arachne, you stand alone.”
“It’s time to join the world,” Kaisa said quietly, while Tellwyrn just stared at her. She stepped forward again, reaching out to place one hand on the elf’s shoulder. “Our age has passed, Arachne. No one stands above it all any longer. Very few have that power, and soon none will; already it has come to pass that those who have the power do not have the luxury of exercising it as we once did. This is my last lesson—to you, to our students, to me… And to my sisters. They will not hear it; I can only pray you will, and that some of what I love can be saved from the future I fear.”
It's kinda funny to think that dragons, archmages, semi-gods, and actual gods are getting hamstrung by the power of organized bureaucracy, but that's kind of the running theme of the series!
u/-main [+3] (2 days later)
Was going to recommend Strong Female Protagonist. The plot premise is that Supergirl hangs up the cape and mask after realizing that most of the world's problems aren't punchable, instead volunteering at the fire brigade while studying at uni and trying to figure her life out. A lot of the plot revolves around finding out what her fellow child soldiers are doing to try and improve the world with their superpowers and their life choices.
Also wins my award for 'best handling of an ethical dilemma in fiction' with chapter 6.
u/None [+1] (10 hours later)
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u/LordSwedish [+11] Q Continuum (5 hours later)
I take issue with some of your examples but the Iron Man example is just ridiculous. He was nearly killed by the most advanced fighter craft in the world on the first combat test of the suit. He then proceeded to destroy them by accident while trying to get away, he never even retaliated.
The suit is so powerful because it's ridiculously mobile and much more accurate than any plane but still carries the ordinance to punch through any armor. There's a reason why carriers quickly outclassed battleships.
u/j9461701 [+23] (7 hours later)
He was nearly killed by the most advanced fighter craft in the world on the first combat test of the suit.
The actual things that make the F-22 so powerful, like AESA radar, stealth, and beyond visual range missiles weren't utilized against him. Instead, he was engaged by the M61 Vulcan autocannon, first debuted 1959. This weapon is nearly able to kill him dead. And again, it's not even loaded with armor-piercing bullets because it's supposed to be used against thin-skinned aircraft.
The suit is so powerful because it's ridiculously mobile and much more accurate than any plane but still carries the ordinance to punch through any armor.
And do you know what happens when he tries to close into visual range to utilize any of that stuff? He's shot to pieces. Radar-controlled anti-aircraft cannons are literally WW2-era tech, and as seen above - his armor isn't proof against even relatively light ordnance, let alone something like a Bofors 40mm.
There's a reason why carriers quickly outclassed battleships.
Yes, because carriers can attack from hundreds of kilometers away while battleships can only fight things they can see. Which of those sounds more like Iron Man to you?
The effective range of the M242 chaingun on Bradley IFVs is over 3 kilometers. You think Iron Man can take one down from outside that range? Or how about the Russian Shilka anti air artillery vehicle? How's Iron Man's chances against one of these?
The fact is industrial war is won or lost by armor. Planes. Artillery. Machine guns. Individual infantrymen, even super-infantry like Iron Man, simply cannot carry enough weapons or armor to play the decision role anymore. I mean a single hellfire missile is 5'3'' long - how's Tony Stark supposed to carry that into battle, duck-tape two to his feet like a pair of skis? For the record, Apaches can carry up to 16 hellfires on every sortie. And a 30mm chaingun.
This is exactly what I mean by the 'cult of the warrior' though. That cult thinking kicks in, and suddenly all the rational objections just melt away in the face of good ol' fisticuffs.
u/LeifCarrotson [+11] (8 hours later)
The effective range of the M242 chaingun on Bradley IFVs is over 3 kilometers. You think Iron Man can take one down from outside that range?
Oh totally. He's flying along on a hologram call with Natasha, and Jarvis pipes up "Incoming kinetic weapons fire sir". Tony asks Nat to hang on for a minute, and suggests that Jarvis take evasive maneuvers. He stops his forward progress and makes a 20-meter turn to head - shock! - directly at the weapons emplacement. He grunts from the acceleration as Jarvis jerks him up and sideways and down out of the line of fire, tracers whizzing by a few feet from the armor. Perhaps one scratches the paint. Tony calls up a missile the size of a toothpick which appears from under a hitherto invisible compartment, and it jets ahead, destroying the gun. He lands nearby, and walks over to confront the shooters. His mask folds improbably into the neck of his suit, but just as he begins to launch a diatribe the faceless attackers launch themselves at him and attempt to pull him down. He punches them out and flies off, resuming the dialog with Natasha.
That, or radar triggers a siren that appears on his HUD for about 1 second. Tony grunts "Huh?" during his call upon seeing it, and then Natasha's end shows a dropped call. The end. Unless some of the ludicrous energy capacity (both in explosives and in kinetics) of the suit fails spectacularly in the process.
u/LordSwedish [+4] Q Continuum (8 hours later)
I don't remember exactly but does any of the bullets ever penetrate the suit or even cause any permanent damage?
Anyway, most of your issues seem to be that iron man isn't equivalent to heavy ordinance but while you're quick to point out his weaknesses you completely ignore his strengths. He doesn't need to carry all that ordinance because he has high tech mini missiles that can each take down tanks. He strafes and avoids the chain guns, which we have seen him do multiple times, and completes the objective.
I would also like to add that in his most basic armor he managed to avoid smart bombs with some minor difficulties. While no other countermeasures have been shown it would be extremely ooc for him not to build them into his suit.
I honestly think that the tank you provided would be completely worthless against iron man, not because he's some warrior fantasy, but because you've completely ignored his AI support (which he uses to dodge missiles), his upgraded armors (which withstand heavy arms fire in iron man 2), and his mobility/size which modern weapons aren't built to handle.
You say others have fallen into "cult thinking" but you ignore facts that don't fit your narrative.
u/Roxolan [+14] Head of antimemetiWalmart senior assistant manager (11 hours later)
He doesn't need to carry all that ordinance because he has high tech mini missiles that can each take down tanks.
That ties into /u/j9461701's point a little bit.
His missiles are really freaking impressive. His targeting system is an honest-to-god AGI. But it's the flying suit (also the arc reactor, which still counts as a warrior thing because it was built in a cave with a bunch of scraps) that gets all the press and keeps Tony awake at night.
Even when Ultron gets loose, with full access to Stark tech, it just builds lots and lots of knock-off suits. Most of which carry no weapons but their fists. (There are of course lots of good Doylist reasons for that, but.)
u/sephirothrr [+6] (16 hours later)
That's actually the biggest issue I had with the Iron Man films - don't get me wrong, I love to watch them, but it's the idea that it's the arc reactor and the suit that are the real extraordinary bits that make him a superhero, and not the creation of an AGI.
u/Roxolan [+8] Head of antimemetiWalmart senior assistant manager (a day later)
You'll love-hate the final fight of Iron Man 3, where the AI can control multiple flying suits in a very noisy 3D environment, understand orders like "stabilize that thing", and break suits down into flying body parts that can act independently then instantly reform...
And it fights by punching people. With disastrous consequences.
(No, this isn't a non-lethal thing - they're punched into falling to their deaths. I mean, Doylist-wise it is a non-lethal thing, it keeps the deaths bloodless and off-screen, but.)
The entire fight is one long chain of awesome warrior moments that make no sense at all when you remember the options available to the warriors.
u/sephirothrr [+3] (a day later)
Oh yeah, I definitely had that reaction the first time I watched it - like, I guess the extremis made the mooks impervious to bullets, but still left them vulnerable to being punched in the face? This is, after all, comic book logic, where they're two different types of attack with nothing in common.
u/Roxolan [+4] Head of antimemetiWalmart senior assistant manager (a day later)
They're handgun-proof, which may or may not carry to any other caliber of bullets. Explosions definitely do the trick though.
They also have no ranged capabilities to speak of. But they have some amount of super-strength. Perfect targets to engage in melee!
u/j9461701 [+9] (a day later)
He doesn't need to carry all that ordinance because he has high tech mini missiles that can each take down tanks.
Do you know why the Hellfire is 5'3'' tall? Because a rocket motor that can go 8km is very, very big. How far can Tony's tech mini missiles go? A few hundred meters?
He strafes and avoids the chain guns, which we have seen him do multiple times, and completes the objective.
We have never seen Iron man dodge computer-controlled anti-aircraft fire.
I would also like to add that in his most basic armor he managed to avoid smart bombs with some minor difficulties.
Modern missiles have what's called a no-escape zone, in which no amount of dodging or weaving can let you get away. The only way to beat a modern missile like that is to stay outside it's no-escape range and dodge like your life depended on it (because it does).
Iron man doesn't have that option, he has to get within brawling range for most of his effectiveness. Which means he has to get close enough that the missiles kill him dead.
I honestly think that the tank you provided would be completely worthless against iron man
A tank against Iron man would probably be completely worthless. It's not designed to track fast moving airborne targets. An anti air artillery vehicle, however, would probably reduce him to paste. Likely dozens of Iron men.
and his mobility/size which modern weapons aren't built to handle.
Our weapons are designed to hit fighter jets pulling maneuvers at the edge of human physiological capabilities. Unless Tony is a cyborg who's massively enhanced his ability to stand up to g forces, if a missile can hit a juking F-22 it can hit a juking Iron man.
You say others have fallen into "cult thinking" but you ignore facts that don't fit your narrative.
Look, I like the Iron man movies. They are really quite fun. But they are absolutely cult of the warrior flicks. It's built into every fiber of their being.
u/sicutumbo [+1] (4 days later)
Our weapons are designed to hit fighter jets pulling maneuvers at the edge of human physiological capabilities. Unless Tony is a cyborg who's massively enhanced his ability to stand up to g forces, if a missile can hit a juking F-22 it can hit a juking Iron man.
Well, there was that scene in the Avengers where he spins around the turbine trying to push start it. If we don't handwave that, he actually could maneuver much better than a net because he can ensure ludicrous g forces. Maybe he made an inertial dampener or something, it would explain that and a few other things.
u/EliezerYudkowsky [+22] Godric Gryffindor (4 hours later)
Says something a bit sad about our civilization that duels of intellects aren't equally implausible in an age where the enemy routinely fields PREDICTION MARKETS. Oh, wait, they don't.
u/ben_oni [+6] (11 hours later)
Except that prediction markets just plain don't work. Maybe someday, eventually. But not today.
u/None [+1] (7 hours later)
[deleted]
u/LeifCarrotson [+14] (8 hours later)
[Edit: Parent comment, now deleted, said they didn't understand EY's comment.]
https://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Prediction_market
Eleizer suggests that prediction markets, as described above, would be a good tool to determine the answer to a question, or at least better than a smart guy going with his gut instinct. But in business, politics, and science, we routinely field our smart guy against their smart guy.
It's the same concept of fighting a war from the perspective of one super-soldier against an entire society, applied to resolving an intellectual conflict by one smart guy against a hypothetical enemy employing a prediction market. You'd expect much the same result.
As an aside, I'd put money in a prediction market against no major nation-states making a decision based on a prediction market which functions and creates results like that described in the wiki for at least a decade.
u/anewhopeforchange [+1] (9 hours later)
I think he means prediction markets are intellectualls fighting each other and the winners get money instead of losers getting death
u/FeepingCreature [+9] GCV Literally The Entire Culture (6 hours later)
In games, this is the case because the player must be invested in the success or failure of the plot, and as such the plot must hinge on actions that the player can take.
And in a shooter, that's shooting.
u/ketura [+10] Organizer (9 hours later)
There's an article somewhere on the design of Super Metroid that points out that shooting is what you do in this game, so it only makes sense that even doors are opened by interacting with them through the primary mechanic: shooting.
u/queefellqueeferson [+8] (7 hours later)
I disagree with you using mass effect as an example of might/combat prowess trumping everything. Shepard happens to be the character responsible for everything, leading and making decisions, and the story is about him being in the places and battles where his actions decide the fate of the universe. It is not because he is the mightiest of super soldiers who can't lose. His team is vital and he couldn't do it without those who support him.
u/anewhopeforchange [+6] (8 hours later)
I agree I feel like shepherd was more of a get everyone together kinda chick, but the only way to convince people was with punchyness
u/serge_cell [+6] (18 hours later)
Superior logistics win the wars. Hand-to-hand mystic warrior or bullshit self-repairing power suit with infinite fuel reactor don't need supply. They effectively have infinite amount of supply and don't have delivery problem. Supply is not so visible in modern local wars, but in WW2 it was main limiting factor. Panzer division fighting with six (6) tanks because there was no spare parts/fuel/ammo for the rest was not something out of ordinary in WW2. That's how guy in power suit with infinite supply or mystic warrior with power of 1-2 tanks can be worth panzer division. Add to that superior mobility, stealth and some karmic luck to hit critical spot and you can see how single mystic warrior can topple war-torn empire.
u/18scsc [+3] (3 days later)
They're essentially equivalent to unnaturally effective special opps units. They can get behind enemy lines and do all sorts of crazy damage.
That's another common element here. Most of these characters aren't busy cleaning up mooks on a battlefield. They're hitting the enemy where they're weak and at critical points or times.
u/General_Urist [+8] (a day later)
The problem is that writing an entire story entirely centered around war and soldiers which breaks the cult of the warrior is stupidly hard. Best I can think of would be having the General or some other high-ranked officer be the focus character, with plenty of attention payed to how his logistical and supply situations affect his decision making. This will necessarily be action-deficient though, so it's only suitable for text-based medium.
Now, a small snippet that defies the cult, as part of a greater story, is fine. A brief fragment of story where the side with good super-soldiers goes up against the side with good everything else and gets creamed will work. But you can't make an *character-focused entire war story about that.
The fundamental problem is that defying the cult of the warrior makes the individual soldier almost meaningless, yet most traditional fiction relies on having a few "very important" character for the story to follow. Sure you can narrate the struggles of the army at large, but then you don't have a traditional story. ...
You have a history book.
EDIT: Not that that's inherently bad, I myself enjoy it. But I realize that Alternate History-esque stuff is not for everyone.
u/j9461701 [+7] (a day later)
I don't think it would be that hard honestly, because officers at every level are perfect counter-points to the cult.
Consider: These are people who aren't even allowed to do manual labor outside a warzone, who are not expected to routinely engage in direct combat themselves [1], who are expected to treat the men under them with a detached rationality - yet who dictate the flow of the entire battle with a few words. Without whom victory is nearly impossible, as the men lack cohesion, strategies fall apart, and everyone just runs around like a chicken with its head cut off.
The story can focus on the officer's tactics, planning, logistical cleverness, rather than the enlisted men's daring do and punching things. I've seen several anime that actually do exactly this, such as Log Horizon and Code Geass - where the protagonist is an abysmal warrior, but his superior skills as an officer make him utterly terrifying to fight.
Incidentally, if you want an example of doing this in reverse - watch Band of Brothers, episode 2. That battle in the trenches near to the end? Looked like a chaotic mess? It was actually a master class in small unit tactics carried out by Lt. Winters with almost no prep time. His men overcame 3 to 1 odds against an entrenched enemy in a short time with minimal losses - largely due to his superior leadership and superb tactical acumen. Yet you wouldn't know it from that show, because it focuses on glorifying the warriors under Winter's command rather than Winters himself.
[1] This is, incidentally, why pistols and SMGs were historically officer's weapons. It was thought he would be too busy directing his men to use a rifle, and so his only need of a weapon was in a self-defense situation should he be isolated at close quarters.
u/18scsc [+4] (3 days later)
I'd recommend you read Joe Acrombie's "The Heroes" it has many of these elements but also incorporates a rationalist explanation for the Warrior Cult. Mostly being that at last one of the sides has a very militaristic culture that highly prizes combat feats.
Tactics, strategy, logistics, and politics all shape the battlefield. Yet in middle of a pitched battle the death of a single warrior could could turn the tides. Not because of the loss of their combat ability, but because of the loss of morale that went along with their death.
Consider, in real life most of the casualties in ancient warefare did not really happen during the heat of battle, but rather after one side had routed. An inferior force could inflect incredibly outsized damage if they someone how managed to break the enemies morale. The performance of individual warriors could thus have outsized impacts, especially if their companions actually believe in the Cult of the Warrior.
u/Lliwynd [+3] (a day later)
Sounds a little like the original 'Ender's Game'.
u/Laborbuch [+2] (2 days later)
I’m not sure if they would fit, but Glen Cook’s Black Company series might work. The protagonists are all part of the eponymous mercenary company, and as such are deployed in the field by their boss, but within that they have to come up with their own tactics. While a part of the books deals with the clash of soldiers and mages in battles, it is far less prominent than in other works.
Though to be honest, I quite like the books and think they’re woefully underappreciated in general and enjoy every opportunity to recommend them. You might want to know about my bias therein, then.
u/FireHawkDelta [+3] ** (a day later)
I'm currently reading The Way of Kings, and two viewpoint characters are former soldiers solving problems that fighting won't work on. Sanderson's work often has characters in political struggles rather than just combat, Mistborn book 2 and Warbreaker are other cases.
u/muns4colleg [+1] (4 days later)
How is a cultural norms idolizing individual strength of arms inherently different than one that idolizes the ability of people to win manipulative magical mindgames?
Both viewpoints are raising g individuals to status above the common person for no other reason than perceived superiority, one just tends to involve decapitations and the other poison.