I had a dream about 10 to 12 years back about a military commander who was forced to send a little over 100,400 volunteers to at best certain capture and more likely certain death in order to allow a little under 701,600 other soldiers to definitely survive and almost definitely escape. If he did that in Traveller what are the likely repercussions he'd face?. I'd say not as great as you'd think as they volunteered, he promised to try to ensure their families would be looked after if their side won and he survived and he refused to said anyone, even volunteers, that he knew had young children, elderly relatives or other family that depended on him on the mission, but what do you think?
Possible reprecussions?
- Thread starter JMISBEST
- Start date
steve98052
Mongoose
I'd say that's far outside the domain of a Traveller adventure.
Sigtrygg
Emperor Mongoose
There is a very long history of military commanders, both generals and admirals, having to sacrifice part of their forces in order to achieve an objective. It was rarely a matter of asking for volunteers, the commander would pick the units to be deployed and send then off to their certain deaths.
Rule one of warfare - the winner writes the history books; so if it works out it was a noble sacrifice of gallant heroes, if it leads to defeat anyway then it was a callous act verging on a war crime.
Rule one of warfare - the winner writes the history books; so if it works out it was a noble sacrifice of gallant heroes, if it leads to defeat anyway then it was a callous act verging on a war crime.
Pyromancer
Mongoose
On that scale, you can't ask individual soldiers to volunteer; you, as the commander, "volunteer" entire units.
Since he sacrificed his own soldiers, and not soldiers of the Imperium (a weak, but existing distinction), he won't face official repercussions at all. Depending on circumstances, he might be lauded as an operational genius, rescuing almost a million soldiers from certain doom, or mocked as one of the greatest losers and cowards in history, letting a hundred thousand soldiers be slaughtered just to escape himself. Or anything in between.
Also depending on circumstances, that action might lead to a "loss of confidence" in him by the Emperor, who might remove him from further military commands and might rethink the succession arrangements. Or he might get a medal for this. Or both! Again, it depends on the circumstances.
Since he sacrificed his own soldiers, and not soldiers of the Imperium (a weak, but existing distinction), he won't face official repercussions at all. Depending on circumstances, he might be lauded as an operational genius, rescuing almost a million soldiers from certain doom, or mocked as one of the greatest losers and cowards in history, letting a hundred thousand soldiers be slaughtered just to escape himself. Or anything in between.
Also depending on circumstances, that action might lead to a "loss of confidence" in him by the Emperor, who might remove him from further military commands and might rethink the succession arrangements. Or he might get a medal for this. Or both! Again, it depends on the circumstances.
Pyromancer said:
We are talking about, in the dream, The Sector Duke's Son and Heir leading from the front as A PR Stunt in a battle that was supposed to be a piece of cake, but the dreams version of The Zhodanni turned the old commander traitor. This means it was a set up and as The Duke's Son is, despite only being 28, the most popular Military Leader of noble blood in 20,000 years of history and among the top 35 altogether he actually ended up with so many volunteers that he had to turn down around 25,200
Pyromancer
Mongoose
JMISBEST said:
You can't ORGANIZE this in a reasonable time frame, separating the volunteers from the non-volunteers and building new units from the ground up. And even if you spend three weeks doing this, you lose a lot of fighting power, because you have to break up well practised teams and put together people who never fought side by side and don't know one another. In your place, I would adjust my dream accordingly. A division commander might report his whole division as volunteers, without asking every single soldier.
Pyromancer said:
It was a dream. To be honest out of all my dreams with absurd plots this was, depending on your point of view, the 1 that had the least nonsense in it, also bear in mind that although the dream didn't actually state it that he or his father or both definitely had more then enough time in months and years prior to these events to get enough volunteers
Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
The survivors write the histories.
Repercussions depends on the presentation and believability of the spin.
Repercussions depends on the presentation and believability of the spin.
