Warcraft: Better with guns and bombs, or swords and shields?

[Byronazriel]

Would it be better if we went back to the olde ways of knights and samurai, of archers and ninja?

The way I figure it is that if you're going to fight, you should at least do it properly.

Of course if I had my way every town would have a butcher, a baker, a barber, a blacksmith, a doctor, a tailor, a tavern... Everything's so mass produced, and impersonal these days, but that's a whole different conversation.

There's a lot of benifits to modern society: Proper medicine, the internet, telelvision, science, and whatnot. But I'm not sure that the modern way of battle is one of them... Now ideally there should be no battling at all, but again would it be better to do so with nukes and tanks or siege engines and chariots?

We'd still have modern medicine, and science. So the bows would use composites instead of ash, and we'd use ATVs instead of horses.

[The Magic Pudding]

Well I suppose every warrior should be free to choose their weapon.
Me, I'd go for the remote control robot and retire to my cosy underground bunker.

[Byronazriel]

EMP, robots are dead. Now what? I've never trusted robots, I have plans for their inevitable uprising.

[The Magic Pudding]

EMP, robots are dead. Now what? I've never trusted robots, I have plans for their inevitable uprising.

Highly trained wombats tunnel under enemy fortifications.
When tunnels are complete elite attack ferrets are released.
I remain in my cosy bunker.

[Byronazriel]

...Sonic animal deterrent. Is this really the discussion we're having? I could play rock, paper, scissors style combat all day.

I'm a RPG nerd, DnD style type advantage/disatvantage turn based battles are a specialty of mine. My mad pokemon skills attest to that.  

[dloubet]

Well, strangely enough, it seems that as we go towards more and more esoteric means of destruction, the body-counts actually drop. Of course it's lots more complicated than just the technological aspect, but if we had death counts for the wars in the middle east like they had in the trenches of WWI, holy crap there'd be an outcry!

[Byronazriel]

...A WORLD war is a vastly differnet thing to the middle east conflict. Plus world war one was bloody even by the standards of the time.

[The Magic Pudding]

Modern African wars have caused a lot of death indirectly, farmers can't farm, people starve or disease gets them.
I think cold hunger and disease did more to defend Russia from Napolean and Hitler than gunpowder.
Disease brought to America and Australia would have killed more locals than the invaders did.
Disease did a better job killing those invading Africa, Central America and Asia than the inhabitants.
I don't have figures on hand for these assertions, but I don't think they would be disputed.

[Byronazriel]

Plus medical advances factor in as well.

[Will]

I like the Over the Top method, pioneered by Sylvester Stallone. Two huge guys arm wrestle and whoever wins, wins.

But seriously, I don't like guns and bombs because they're too powerful and too easy to use. Worse still, there's a ton of collateral damage. Swords and shields may be outdated, but it's hard to accidentally level a school or a Tylenol factory with a scimitar. Not only that, but they rely on skill in a way guns and bombs don't. There's no computer program that's going to make you a better swordsman. Most of all, though, is the idea of looking the person you're trying to kill in the eye. In the age of drone attacks and guided missiles, we're far removed from the consequences of war. We don't see the faces of our enemies.

[Byronazriel]

I was with you until you mentioned the look in the eye thing... Rogues don't do that much, they do it from behind.  :crazy:

[karadan]

Rogue nanobots. That'll learn 'em.....and everyone else.

I read a book by Richard Morgan called Woken Furies in which he wrote about this weapon which was essentially a beachball sized blob of intelligent nano material. Over the course of a few hours, it would assimilate local material and assemble itself into a weapon(s), depending on what its surroundings and enemy were. It would form into an entirely different weapon every time. It turned into hundreds of grasshopper cannons one time and levelled a city.

Just thought i'd share that  

[Byronazriel]

Rogue nanobots. That'll learn 'em.....and everyone else.

I read a book by Richard Morgan called Woken Furies in which he wrote about this weapon which was essentially a beachball sized blob of intelligent nano material. Over the course of a few hours, it would assimilate local material and assemble itself into a weapon(s), depending on what its surroundings and enemy were. It would form into an entirely different weapon every time. It turned into hundreds of grasshopper cannons one time and levelled a city.

Just thought i'd share that  :hide:

Also, ignore the pornographic calendar in the background...  

[karadan]

In the various sci-fi books i've read which speak about nanobots, they seem to be pretty hardy little buggers. Simple stuff like EMP definitely doesn't work. Generally it comes down to nanobots vs nanobots or massively overpowered AI vs nanobots.

[Byronazriel]

Kirby could beat the nanobots, he'd just suck them up then he'd be wearing a nanobot hat.  

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