============ OGRE/GEV list, June 8th (Last: June 4th) ============= ===== Conspiracies and Ogres From: SFsupply@aol.com ===== World War From: "Thaddeus Blanchette" ===== Infantry sidearms and PBEM coreldraw From: "Clinton D. Coates" ------------------------------ From: SFsupply@aol.com Subject: Conspiracies and Ogres In a message dated 97-06-05 08:24:52 EDT, you write: << (Hope I'm not sued for linking into the middle of a site like this) >> Oh, right. Like they're going to sue the guy who has quite possibly done the most to keep Ogre fans interested in the game and in touch with each other. When (if?) Ogre sees its big debut as a boxed minis game (picture boxes of Epic 40,000 being blown to bits by a fusilade of fire from the Steve Jackson Games shelves in every hobby/game store) you should receive a huge amount of the credit for keeping people informed and playing.... Maybe we forget to say it Henry, but thanks for all the effort on this Ogre resource. (O.K. All you need to do is invent a super CCG, make a fortune off of it, and you too can have fantastic HMTL...) ('Course, I understand the prerequisite is that you must first be raided by a major government agency...) flunky (MiB wannabe) ------------------------------ From: "Thaddeus Blanchette" Subject: World War >> Hmmmm. Didn't the European left say something remarably similar to this >> right before WWI? >yes, but the situation they faced then is not the situation we face >now... indeed, it hinted at the situation now, even helped to cause it, >but we are in a very unique era today... What I meant is that large-scale global warfare has been officially declared dead several times in the past, only to have returned to the world scene alive and kicking. >the current trend in political fracturing will continue; the number of >countries in the world will rise for some years to come as fiercely >independent groups exert sovereignity against arbitrary boundaries >externally imposed on them. you see this happen today in the old Warsaw >Pact countries, South America, and South East Asia. Where, pray tell, is this happening in South America? (I live in Brazil.) The Mercosul common market seems to be forming new economic allainces and Brazil's busy hammering out military and economic deals with southern Africa. I don't see any serious independence movements on the continent at this time. In fact, the trend tends to be towards increased nationalism. >at the same time, economic organizations are growing in unity and >strength. with the spread of citizen govenrments, economic interests >stand to dominate the socio-political arena. Huh? A "citizen's government" runs the ex-Soviet Union or (for that matter) Brazil? Sure, elections are held, but both countries are awash in vote fraud scandals and the like. An election does not a democracy make. What we have here (and in most of the developing world) is "wild west" style capitalism with a democratic veneer. One good global economic crisis and the whole mess is liable to come tumbling down. What will replace things then? I don't know, but neo-fascist super-nationalist governments of national unity sure head my list of suspects. >> Most wars of the last 100 years occured because the states involved were >> firmly convinced that they had no choice BUT to go to war. Clausewitz >> and Machiavelli (SP?) aside, most governments don't rationally decide to >> start wars. Rightly or wrongly, they almost always feel that they've >> been pushed to the limits of their tolerance before they call out the >> troops. Rarely is the decision to go to war based on cold, rational >> thought and planning beforehand. >that was a motivation of the past; i agree some states still are open >to the possibility. N. Korea, Iraq, some nations in South and Central >Africa... the nations the US propaganda machine calls "rogue nations". >but look at all the hotspots; small, desparate economies on the edge >run by dictators or oligarchies... they are the poor. they are the >few. and they are a dying breed. active interests among the wealthy >nations are intent on modifiying the political and social climate >to induce favorable trade environments; they seek global trade and >the result is global interdependency. Fear of loss of trade has rarely prevented a nation from going to war when other preceived interests are threatened. "Traditional" nationalism (i.e. "my country - right or wrong" stuff) is still a hugely powerful force. In the admittedly unlikely event that the US or the other first world nations would ever declare a unilateral internationalization of the Amazon (as some people are calling for), Brazil would almost certainly go to war. (We'd get our asses kicked, but that's besides the point.) Several times over the last decade, Brazil and the US have stood on the brink of economic war over the debt issue. Such a conflict would spell economic death for Brazil, forcing the country into an autarchic cycle and probably reinforcing rabid militarism and nationalism. Keep in mind that this is no "small, desperate dictatorship", but the 12th largest economy in the world. So far "trade considerations" have kept this from happening, but a Mexican style collapse of Brazil's overheated economy could definately change things. >so, will it be a good idea to build a free will, cybernetic tank >with enough fire power to level cities? you tell me. In the summer of 1997, probably not. 50 years from now, though... who can say? I certainly can't. OGRE is sci-fi, but at least it's well though out sci-fi. Though the background might be dated, but I still sutain that there's nothing fundamentally impossible about any of Steve's creations. Maybe we're finally in an era of relative global peace and prosperity. However, it's just as likely that our great-grandkids will look at this time as the calm before the storm... Thad ------------------------------ From: "Clinton D. Coates" Subject: Infantry sidearms and PBEM coreldraw Hi all. I am new to the list and so have been reading the old GEV lists to get up to speed. A couple of questions and comments. In Feb or March (I forget) someone was talking about infantry and GURPs trying to figure out how they could fit together. One of the things mentioned was that the infantry is drawn with personal sidearms (handguns) and that this was inappropriate in the 21st century. As a bit of a friendly response to that, I would like to suggest that the role of the infantry would not be simply one of pasting each other with teensy nukes and getting churned up by ogre treads. Infantry would also be involved in street fighting, house clearing, prisoner watching and other close quarter activities where the equivalent of our TOW or RPG would be a bit innapropriate. <"hands up or I'll nuke your house...> The issue of whether personal sidearms are appropriate for the 'modern battlefeld' has been churning for over 100 years. However, small, close range personal weapons are still carried in all branches of the military. Granted, there are new contestants for the sidearm category now, such as the new personal weapon from FN which is meant to fill the tactical niche that the m1 carbine was designed for in the past. These still have not supplanted the pistol as the reserve sidearm of choice. Soldiers normally prohibited from carrying a personal sidearm have historically ignored the rule and manage to acquire one anyway. On another subject, has anyone tried using corel draw as a vehicle for PBEM yet? To help keep the file size down, it is possible to save only the pieces in their configuration as a separate file to be sent without the map background. Such an uncompressed file should be around 50-100k. I am just in the process of making a copy of the basic OGRE board on my computer to play around with. Clinton ----- [Also note that it does NOT take a nuke to kill a grunt. My conception has the main weapon being a railgun that fires single gram particles at a dozen kilometers per second with the capabilty of also launching tactical nuclear missiles. (At a much slower speed) It would be very much like the current rifles that include grenade launchers. If you can see your target then shoot them. If you think they're hiding under cover then lob a nuke in. -HJC] Henry J. Cobb hcobb@io.com http://www.io.com/~hcobb All OGRE-related items Copyright (c) 1997, by Steve Jackson Games.