Rifle would like to talk to you about how much time you spend maintaining Power Armor instead of Rifle, who, it reminds you, does all the killing to keep you alive Soldier.
@@MCNshot2shot It's because the person above them would only promote them if they would so kindly allow a stick to be lodged up their ass. They didn't put it there themselves.
Remember: if your gun jams and you can't get it to work leave a couple magazines behind so then you can blame the gun fucking up on combat stresses and thus avoid awkward conversations with your officers.
Don’t forget. “This tactical decision will save the lives of literally everyone on our side, with little to no downside, however due to some arbitrary Federation law, I’m going to be arrested and stripped of all rank, despite single-handedly saving thousands of lives. Then, in a _surprise_ twist, only long after I’ve been punished, the government will realize they need my tactical prowess and is willing to bend the rules to allow me to stay in the military.”
Why not call in some orbital strikes while retreating? Also which is why the big guns can make a huge difference in either defense or offense. That's usually the standard strategy in my planned novel series.
Another one of those situations where I'm asking for citations. I mean Bernard Cornwell is ALL WAR ALL THE TIME, over multiple series and this never happens. Most of the guys writing milsf (At least the better portion of the Baen crew) are obsessives about military study, and others are vets.
In film, sure, I can see that. It's mostly because the reality of military life and warfare in hypothetical situations doesn't really translate to the screen very well. The writers only have about 2 hrs to tell the whole story, and the director has a prerogative to hold audience attention... In reality, for the individual soldier, a war is MOSTLY being bored, interspersed with moments of mortal terror and confusion, with just a little bit of "we know what to do." (Mostly, you just sit around scratching your junk until explosions, then you keep your head down and try to shoot the right random face way out that way.) For the commanders it's worse. All academic, all the time. Issue orders as best you can, and then anxiously wait for reports of what happened. Rinse and repeat.
@@jasoethesentienteyeshapedg4847 - TV works better, and I think there were a couple honest attempts in the '00s, but I can't think of any specifics right now.
@@FlameQwert Yeah, that's always funny... You people are the ones with the agenda! Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to let Heinlein explain to me why a military-elite controlled federation is a good idea.
Oh great tech-priest. I have prayed to the Omnissiah fifteen times a day while applying the sacred maintenance oil and lighting the holy repair incense yet my boltgun still does not work. How do I proceed?
Legitimately true. Take American supercarriers: 1/3 of the force is in maintenance, 1/3 is training, and only 1/3 is actually combat-ready at any given time.
Don't forget to have a "neutral caught in the middle alien race or faction" This way your protagonist can feel bad about something while still shooting the Evil alien hive
Really, if the neutral is directly affected by the conflict, they most likely wouldn’t *stay* neutral. At minimum, many of the neutral’s civilians would be split down the middle in their attitudes and start taking sides, perhaps some even feeling strongly enough about it to enlist in each side’s forces (The citizens of Whiterun in Skyrim are a pretty good albeit very simplified example of this). Or, if they have the resources for it, the neutral could decide they’ve simply had enough of being a political football and declare *both* sides their enemy.
That depends on how exactly the antimatter itself is involved. Is it a projectile made purely of antimatter, or is it a missile with an antimatter warhead? And is the explosion itself supposed to be the main source of damage, or the massive EMP you'd get from it?
The Fuzzy Vulpine I think that depends on the scenario you’re in, and therefore specific any matter weapons could be tailored to a use case, whether that’s the EMP effect or blasting the shit outta something
@@mcfluffly8579 Sounds reasonable. Personally, I think the scariest application would be antimatter ammunition, or an antiparticle beam amitter, used to directly strike the target. You get severe blast damage, heat damage, _and_ major ionizing radiation damage all in one go.
This made me want a military sci-fi story about a group of badly equipped, poorly trained conscripts, and then I remembered that 90% of stuff about the Imperial Guard fits that description.
Funny how that goes against the lore too, any governor who sent the Guard a crap regiment like that would be executed. A Guardsman was supposed to be the best his home planet had to offer, even if sometimes that was a sad commentary about his planet.
See, the IG's "flak jackets" can take a .50 cal with no problem, and their lasgun just refuses to break and can shatter feet of concrete. Unfortunately compared to everything else out there (tyranids, eldar, necrons, orks, traitor marines, etc), it just doesn't compare.
From what I heard, the Imperial Guard is actually really, REALLY good at what they do. So good, in fact, that by the year 40,000 they'd already wiped out most of mankind's enemies, leaving only the absurdly OP ones that need to be countered with giant genetically engineered monster-men clad in enough armor to put a light vehicle to shame, ie. the Adeptus Astartes marines. Even then, though, the Guard still does the brunt of the fighting, with Space Marines only being used as a sort of specialist force - in official lore, at least. Obviously, none of this has stopped 40k fans from portraying the Marines as THE main fighting force of the Imperium, with the Guard only existing to get slaughtered in droves and call for the Marines to come save the day.
Or the one time the villains can aim they are a crack shot and headshot a fully armored person in power armor and only kill one at a crucial moment for maximum emotional impact. When previously nothing could kill them. If you played the game you know exactly what i mean.
@@OddMobileWatcher Amd then, having successfully killed one of your enemies most vital soldiers, proceed to immediately fly off under combined small arms fire, rather than turning your transports main gun on the remainder. Seriously, what even was that scene- a shocking death for its own sake?
@@spartanpawn007 Just didn't want to outright say it, some people still haven't played reach and i dont want people to go through the game just waiting for someone to randomly get sniped at any moment.
@@sethbritton6970 Most of the game's deaths actually had a meaning while that one just felt like... well fuck how are they going to die? Also i didn't even realize that was a seraph or banshee that did it, they could've killed all of the squad at once. Halo reach is like a good example for this video, like really really is, just the game's story and the way it showed the reality of spartans, but that one death is the only cheap one that just felt like it was squeezed in there.
@@Usual_User Yeah! it makes that we get wounded only half the time you would! and we can get hit one more time! truly superior! it also makes us slightly stronger!
Wh40k: *stamps YES then moves on* Herbet: *writes Dune* Wh40k: *stamps YES then moves on* Tolkien: *Writes Lord of the Rings* Wh40k: *stamps YES* Also wh40k: *puts all of them in a blender, strains out the fat, adds a tub of lard, fries it up and leaves it to turn grimdark* ... some of us go that one step further.... is it really a bad thing?
And a rag tag team of survivors who, for most cases, have the combat experience of a newly born baby being able to kill more zombies than an A-10 Warthog being powered by the power of Rambo and Chuck Norris' third fist.
Also, Virus strain or any netural/bioengineered microbiotics are always be the one to blame. And infected will always suffer talking disablity no matter what the fuck infect them. I expect something different like infected are seperate into two different group, the one that can still act like human but has to be quarrantined and the one that their brain get altered too much so the previous group isolate them elsewhere. Or zombie status by other means like sound/video based neural interruption device meant to wreck havoc in opposition country, but went wrong and blow up on themselves. Last of all, we haven't yet discovered wether the zombie drink water, i mean they are still using human form and i don't think blood is enough water source for a day for them.
The definition of military scifi: The equipment allways works as the supplier promissed. Oh, a bit of extra advice if you plan on writing an entire series of books: As you progress from book to book, make sure to shift the focus more and more away from the soldiers and officers at the front lines to the high-ups, until at least 2/3 of your story takes place in a number of fucking confrence rooms...
And have the military completely stop using the old equipment once the new stuff gets off of the assembly line. That won't cause problems with the logistics and make sure they never bring up how much money war cost.
@@Sorain1 Don't forget to have your character accumulate more and more skills, pets and priceless artifacts, like some kind of an RPG protagonist, until they're a literal god of war mowing down hordes of base-level enemies effortlessly. At no point should anyone take issue with our hero bringing her pet murder machine with her into said conference rooms.
This is why I appreciate Halo's extended universe. They make light about the eveil on both sides through humanities shadow organizations like ONI and they even talk about the morality of the spartan program. They make it clear that even though the protagonist is human (sometimes) they are never completely innocent.
It's because reading about the exploits of an automated drone is really boring. The general audience want's to read about people. In reality automated drones would most likely be better than humans in all combat roles. To avoid that the authors have to come up with lazy reasons why it isn't the case, such as robots aren't as adaptive as humans or some other equally lazy explanation.
Uhhh Sangbum60090, there usually aren't GOOD in universe reasons. As julius mikala pointed out, the typical ones are 'robots don't adapt' or 'we don't trust robots' or in rare cases 'we don't have the tech for that yet'. Though 'had a robot war before, refuse to risk that again.' and 'religious reasons' tend to be fairly common.
@@Sorain1 Hmm, any scifis that said robots and AIs would have no sense of morality or compassion and thus will be capable of unethical warfare or war crimes. Though that's kinda a lame excuse as well because you can simply program or control robots and AIs to obey international law.
All of the best stories I have from my time as a reservist involve A. mission critical equipment breaking and no one having spare parts for it, B. mission critical equipment being left behind, C. mission critical equipment put in a footlocker that is locked and the only key is with an individual who is never around.
@Lawofimprobability That, too. I distinctly remember one year when my platoon spent the whole year prepping. We had everything. A tent, AC, generators, water, we even built a fucking field shower. We get to the exercise area and immediately our tent is stolen by headquarters because, for some reason, they didn't want to sleep in the same tent as all of their equipment. So my platoon didn't have to stay in the AO, which was actually nice. But it also meant we had to truck 5 miles for chow twice a day.
A) British paras try to capture Arnhem, but their radios have dead batteries. B) British try to retake Norway but forgot to pack the straps for their skis.
Armor: an iron man exosuit with 4 varieties of laser canons, 15 different missiles ranging from anti air, anti mat, and small rockets that can lodge itself into crooks of any tech oriented thing and disable it. It's comprised of nano machines that can convert the dirt on the ground into machinery to repair any and all damage the suit experiences using quantum atoms. The suit also has a life support system that cam let the wearer never die and can survive anything, from the deepest ocean to the deepest of space. It also has a jetpack. Also since it's nano machines it's easy to move around in and enhances everything. Oh it can also let the wearer use magnets to basically be magneto. Oh and shields that protect from anything that isn't a planet ending super weapons. Weapons: Even if they don't need weapons since their armor is basically an armory, every marine will use an energy sword like a lightsaber, a plasma rifle, and a laser pistol. They'll also never need to reload since they all have a fusion reactor powering them or something like that. that's really it. Enemy: a hive mind bug race that's primitive in terms of pure tech but uses organic tech that only they can control. They also always need a human host to reproduce and despite not wearing armor, their exoskeletons are so strong, ordinary guns can't hurt them and only the super advanced plasma bolts can pierce their hides. Also despite the super power armor, these bugs can easily wound the marines with their acid venom that can somehow pierce the armor and the shields it has. Explaining anything tech related: just add quantum or hyperspace in there. Cast: the no nonsense captain, the quirky, female engineer, the silent and badass sniper, the crass and overconfident tank, the other guy that's there and is basically the comic relief that will end up dead by the end and everyone will be sad because the one thing that brought the team laughter is now gone very sad.
Wait, are we talking about a conversing armored vehicle tank, or a rpg game tank? Cause I could see the former being interesting, and plausible (if that even matters) with AI.
6:00 “Oh no, we’ve been caught in the logical contradiction of trying to portray Japan as a wonderfully peaceful nation while still trying to tell ourselves that we’re a victorious military power to massage our bruised post-1945 egos!” -The vast majority of mecha anime.
Don't forget to throw in portrayals of idealistic soldiers who fight for honor and duty even against overwhelming odds because we have a hard on for samurai legends.
I'd read Children of Time for some inspiration on aliens if you want to put aliens in your story. It's the only sci fi book I've read that actually makes truly alien aliens.
@@braidans4767 Interesting. I myself wanted to do aliens and humans fighting together under one force and explore the struggles and hardships that would bring up.
@@torakazu2269 Just a note that could help you : if you have a FTL drive, than you have to entirely redefine the weaponry since any ship with this is now a planet-surface-destroyer. Also it would be great if you specified the level of the humans and aliens on the scale of Kardashev, because that will give you the scale of civilisation, war and the ultimate winner. If you're a K2 civ, than your armada likely counts in the trillions of ships and you can render planets unhabitable from light-years with relativistic kill missile, though yourself don't care much about planets since the ultra-majority of your population lives in megastructure and rotatting habitats.
@@torakazu2269 Is your story going to have vast amounts of xenophobia? I can imagine that any species would feel suspicious of anything that is not like them, the fear of the other. Of course, fighting together would strengthen this bond, but in the meantime this childish attitude can cause problems during wartime in terms of cooperation. Just a thought.
@Maintenance Renegade Even officers or technicians are usually competent enough to do the job. In most cases those stories are written specifically to be a political essay, by someone who never was in army but think that they uniforms look cool. It is why so many of those stories end as straight garbage.
@Maintenance Renegade That one could be excluded from the debate though, as it was written in the 50's. It was original back them and contrary to popular opinion Heinlein wasn't glorying his military state. Movie adaptation chose form of satire, because they didn't have time to address those specific issues from the book.
@Maintenance Renegade the forever war was written by a combat vet. Weird how they decided conscripting a physics graduate to front line combat was a good idea for US circa 1960s
When he mentions a power armor failure scene causing an incident of quick thinking that would be cool In star wars lore, the Galactic Marines were using experimental spacetrooper armor in one battle and the weapon systems failed so their commander ordered them to charge at an advancing column of super battle droids and use the strength enhancements of the armor to tear the droids apart in hand to hand combat
@@Noah-zz8uw yeah, its easily the Galactic Marines' most badass moment, Commander Bacara is such a hardass he orders his men to fight B2s hand to hand and they fucking win
So if I combined your teachings from your "Grim Dark" video with this video I have a good chance writing a good Warhammer 40k story? Also... FOR THE EMPEROR!!!
Oh here goes the love triangle man, rambling on and on about themes. He knows not about dissecting my complex plots, and yet he thinks he can dissect entire high-tech military organizations spanning multiple books? *sip* ...this wine tastes funny...
“What if the Nazis won WWII? No one’s done that one before. You can even set it in the modern day; never mind that culture is ever evolving and that 1940s Germany would have developed beyond recognition in the following eighty years.”
Aka: What if MY political ideas/Historical figure I like became dominant in World for Utopia. Or some kind of a crude caricature of ideas I don't like for Dystopia.
Never understood how alternate history got to be it’s own genre. It’s one thing if you’re introducing fantastical elements into a real world setting and basing your new timeline on how those elements effect history. But just saying x happened instead of y, so now everything’s shit doesn’t seem very interesting.
Did I ever mention that I love how you keep your sponsor plugs separate from the main video, and instead make them an entertaining advert all of their own? None of this ugly, shoehorned in product placement nonsense, it flows because its it's own story.
My least favorite thing about this genre is how the militaries seem to rely on Revolutionary War-like tactics to win battles with enemies who sometimes don’t even have guns and or technology of their own (Starship Troopers, Avatar, etc).
Yeah in one video he was talking about character archetypes and when he mentioned comic relief characters, the text bubvle humorously said, "DIE DIE DIE DIE" a bunch of times. That summed up my feelings perfectly.
Oh, and remember that in the end, the entire outcome of the war will be dependent on the single most important mission that will only be carried out by the hero soldier and maybe a few companions without any back up plan. Not that real wars are a combined effort of several branches of the military and no commander in chief would send one soldier (be he as badass as he may) to achieve an all important goal without having contingency plans.
I mean that's pretty par for the course in fiction, like the unspoken plan guarentee or the million to one chance. In real life even in war unnecessary drama is to be avoided, while that's often the main point of fiction.
This whole thing is ironic on so many fronts. Guy mocks communism being the villain, weeks a later a virus leaks from a communist lab and causes the world to be locked down under a global pandemic. Sure but communism, what an outdate enemy But yeah Space Force bit is even stranger as they're pretty much 100% the reason the Ukrainians are winning this war.
Sadly, there's really two options, and nit much between. Either: 1) Don't write Hard SF. It will heavily date itself very quickly, and won't be a fun story beyond that point. Pick a sub-genre to make it interesting after the next physics paper gets published, like "romance-SF" or "military-SF" or "space opera." 2) Write a Michael Bay film, shamelessly adding nerdgasm-expositions, accept your short shelf-life, and just have fun.
@@bordenfleetwood5773 It is only true if you write bad Hard SF with dated science and lack of interesting plot. It is why scams like to cover old cliches in the "science" costumes.
Viktor true. I think too many people get bent out of shape over hard SF based upon its label more than anything else. It’s like reading criticisms of the Orions Arm collaboration project over the inclusion of wormholes and magnetic monopoles, things that are very speculative IRL, but unprovable in our current understanding. The critics will say that their inclusion in Orions Arm precludes it from being hard SF just because of things that science isn’t definitive about. As you’ve said, it’s more about sticking to the rules about what you do add that’s speculative than just treating said speculative things as do-anything phlebotinum.
Alternatively, the more overly specific and niche your genre is, the less competition you'll have to make its Bestseller list! Isn't that ego boost worth making those crippling debts slightly more crippling?
@@aiden4917 its a video game so gameplay is more important and you can get away with less competent writing. I saw a lot of people getting mad about the Halo books due to both not being true to the games and doing some stupid shit example: the death of rookie from halo 3 ODST is pure BS , Spartans are ridicilously OP in the books yet humanity is still losing , they make spartans instead of something smarter like new technological weapons that can be used by ever soldier or something like a better nuke (its excusable in the games because being a Spartan the Masterchief is one of the idententities of the games but in a world building realistic story its not the most logical choice)
@@noobguy9973 Honestly, the UNSC is massively behind in basic tech. Like drones. Just remote controlled drones. Think about it, instead of sending poor SoBs off to die use robots. You can make them tiny and heavily armored so the covies can't shoot them, and they could be pumped out in the trillions with several planets to work off of. The upside is that, if we're going for truely realistic warfare,(as in what people of the future would actually do if not dumb.) then there will probably be few, if any dashing space marines, when we can use cheap, made ot order and utterly disposable drones to fight. Especially against a religiously genocidal empire of alien theocrats.
My planned novel series is almost at the absurd level of 40k but influenced by Marvel/DC comics and Isekai mangas at a multiversal level conflict that nigh-omnipotent beings are the main causes sometimes.
*but i don't look good in a red shirt....especially if it was a different color other than red prior to putting it on and then being struck by some ghastly blunt force trauma projectile that fractures my spine and causes my internal organs to start leaking out of my body in a most undignified and very painful manner...i just hate starting my day like that*
I'd offer that there isn't one point of view that can embrace the story of a war. There are many different wars within what's recognized as a single conflict. A friend of mine was in the Korean Conflict. He had a superb grasp of about two acres worth of that. A lifetime in a day or less. There are also "Kelly's Heroes" sorts of experiences. The latter scenarios are a lot more common than realized. There's also the tendency to ignore the winning side abuses over time. US troops boiled and took heads in WWII in the Pacific then brought them home as trophies. (If anyone reading this feels offended by the statement or questions its veracity, please engage the Google, and consider asking yourself why you didn't read about this in history classes.) The US military is a major player in Hollywood war movies. The military signs off on the script if they are participating. This has the inevitable effect of slanting the type of stories that are told. Since most writers follow the blockbusters and not the small often more thoughtful films, the influence of the blockbuster and the military is magnified.
"Most soldiers fight their chain-of-command more than the enemy" I think half of this video was just him venting about the *assness* of The Service lol.
Finn Swan I know he was likely criticizing this book, but I would honestly recommend Robert Heinlein's "Starship Troopers". Goes a lot into the roles that power armor plays, the human government that fights the aliens as well as the tactics of the alien race and how the protagonist only manages to initially get fast promotions because the officers are all getting killed off in the early stages of the war. The biggest issues that most people have are Heinlein's views that he puts into the book, especially with his view that people should only gain citizenship and thus voting rights through compulsory service (which most people forget can either be civic or military).
@@averymicrowave1713 Seconding this. Definitely epitomizes the soap-boxing cliché with his "history & moral philosophy" scenes. And if you're a fan of basically anything derivative of Karl Marx's school of thought you're probably gonna have a bad time (he actively takes entire pages to shit on... pretty much anything that comes to mind if I were to say "leftist.") But if you can handle that, good book. Just don't go into it expecting rip-roaring sci-fi combat, or to come out really knowing the state of the overall war. It's a coming of age story in a well developed setting of a character who doesn't really have the clearance or aptitude for the full scope of the inter-planetary conflict he's in. You get more of a... tactile sense of it.
honestly, the only military sci-fi work I ever enjoyed was Miles to Go, and that was barely military sci-fi (the MC is a guy who got reassigned to the middle of nowhere to command a giant sentient tank with nothing to do that. the two of them treat it like retirement).
not a book, but an old anime. the original Mobile Suit Gundam is one of a very small number of military sci-fi works I actually enjoy, and it's actually really good. if you absolutely MUST read something, though, then I suggest the Bolo series.
@@darthkek1953 No, the implication is that you have to be incompetent for all other forms of persuasion to have failed. While this may or may not be true, it clearly is Asimov's perspective. Violence is the first resort of the idiotic, because only an idiot would try violence before diplomacy.
@@piguyalamode164 you can't convince ideologues with rationality. This is where the fundamentals of Foundation (which I love) fails. The mathematics of Foundation rely on human rationality. Nazism. Marxism. Islamism. Etc. You can't negotiate or predict them because they are chaotic, narcissistic, belligerent, and ultimately self-destructive.
@@darthkek1953 In-universe the quote is true by the existence of psychohistory, out of universe it is false by the impossibility of psychohistory. It is not just that people are irrational, but that populations are chaotic and small changes tend to lead to bigger ones.
And don't forget about the enormous mecha robots! I'm sure a big, slow and extremely expensive war vehicle wouldn't be an easy target for, let's say, enemy planes, missiles, and air strikes. Bonus points if you deploy them in the middle of a city where they have little to no space to move efficiently.
and also remember to completely throw physics out of the window ignoring that making things big doesn't necessarily means that it can hold itself together and not collapse on its own weight
“I’ve been looking forward to this.” Only things missing/we need to see in the sequel video: THE LOVE TRIANGLE!, Pilots, starship combat differing from actual naval combat, & news agencies during sci fi wars and tense periods calling out the protagonists for every action and then using veiled insults on them when they cannot act due to political crosshairs.
Borden Fleetwood Thanks for the advice. I’ll be sure to use soft, squishy, and fleshy humans. Although, some of my soldiers are large androids that can be described as walking body armor. Any tips on that?
@@MediumSizedZ - I'm going to respond as though this is an earnest question. If it's snark or sarcasm, I honestly apologize. There are (in my opinion) two approaches to inhuman androids or cyborgs as protagonists or main characters. 1) "All animals are dogs." This trope basically states that, even though this is definitely NOT a human, they should have enough human traits to make them relatable to readers. If your story is light-hearted or just for funsies, I'd recommend this approach. 2) Really embrace the alien. Make sure you have a human character *somewhere* close by, and explore what makes this android inhuman. Are they just a walking suit of armor, with no personality, or are they like Robocop, where the man is in there, but so buried that it would take tremendous trauma to bring them back out? Feel free to dig into them reader feels with heartfelt drama amidst a backdrop of hardcore laser explosions. Or (if you're gonna hook me personally), explore the outlook of an emotionless warrior, effortlessly wading through physical combat while struggling with watching his/it's more human companions descending into madness; an *internal* struggle, rather than an external one. I hope this helps!
“Let’s just set it in the past, because why would there ever be a mystery in contemporary times? Let’s make sure to use the 1890s or 1920s, because no other historical periods have any potential _I_ could think of!”
Ender’s Game could have been even deeper, the reason so many books offered different perspectives. Something any writer could learn from. But yes, I adore every one of them.
It’s so sad that Hollywood committed exactly the same atrocities in their movie that Card always feared they would. I always thought he was being over dramatic, turns out I was far too optimistic.
7:52 reminds me of the interviews with the men of East Company in Band of Brothers where their explaining why they joined such a dangerous job. It went something like: “The recruiter walked in and said ‘You’ll be an experimental unit, jumping out of an airplane and being guided down by parachutes.’ and not a single hand went up. Then he said ‘Oh, also, it’s 50 bucks extra.’ *Puts hand up*”
All of my knowledge of military science fiction comes from playing Starcraft religiously as a teenager. Trust me, that power armor isn't saving anybody. Hehe! Great video, JP!
By the God Emperor! We should purge all xenos, heretics and daemons! "My armor is contempt. My shield is disgust. My sword is hatred. In The Emperors name let noone survive!
2:15 HOLY SHIT I DID THAT! I had to make a story for school as a substitute mid-term, and I actually had a scene where the characters used an on-the-spot Plan B to achieve success in their mission after their armor ran out of battery.
@@AegixDrakan - It's a good one, right! Fun trivia: the original quote, to my knowledge, goes back to the US Marine GySgt Dan Daly at the battle of Beleau Wood in 1917. He led charges through a wheat field directly at a machine gun emplacement, and was recorded as shouting, "Come on, you sons-of-bitches! You ant to live forever?!" The action earned him his *second* Congressional Medal of Honor. Correction, because I suck: Daly was *nominated* for a Medal of Honor in that action, but was denied because he ALREADY HAD TWO. From two different actions. So they gave him a Navy Cross instead.
This is why red rising and it’s starshells are so awesome as superarmor, it’s not some super weapon which makes u invincible and there were many cases where it actually crashed down the characters cause of malfunctions or whatever. It doesn’t just make you invincible out of thin air
I love these videos but I go through them so fast because any time I need something to occupy my entire brain I just binge like 20 in a row. These are perfect because they require just enough concentration to do that while still honestly being relaxing/de-stressing to watch as well as entertaining and helpful. Which means I've watched every video so many times my eyes will probably eventually fall out of my head.
As someone writing a story where the military secretly consists of like 20 half-mercenaries half-soldiers from the tattered remains of humanity and their 90 billion unmanned combat vehicle buddies, the "follow a realistic chain of command" part felt like it was meant for me specifically
Well you said 'secretly consists of' meaning an effort is being made to cover that fact up. That sounds interesting inherently and justifies the very few people involved and lack of conventional/proper command chain. It suggests that things went pear shaped and it's being covered up to prevent total morale collapse.
@@Air_Serpent I'm going for a... Bleak-yet-hopeful, I guess, tone? The emptiness it invokes gives it both loneliness and a sense of freedom, which has really shaped the way it's going since I made that leap away from just "army but in space." I'm still kind of stuck in the worldbuilding syndrome but stuff's coming together in a way I like.
@@Sorain1 It's not a secret within the ranks of the military, nor in the civilian populace because, well, there isn't one. It's more that it's kind of a reveal to the reader that I'll hold off on (sorry if that makes this a spoiler?) but it's consistent between the factions at play that there are just not a lot of people anymore, human or otherwise. Still, some of them have more generous populaces, and the exact numbers I gave were of course hyperbole- but it gradually becomes apparent that this group that is presented like an organized force is actually a bunch of one-man armies vaguely cooperating in more of a post-apocalyptic tribe held together by peer-to-peer C3 than a chain of command and they can't really stop each other if they decide to go rogue.
@@draconianwarking I figure the biggest difference is that successful writers finish the story FIRST. Fanfic writers go for that sweet, sweet chapter-by-chapter instant gratification. 😂
Reading Cadian Honour as of now. And I love how modern the IG gets in 40k. I've known some soldiers that actually liked the Sci-Fi Military stuff... My father gave me a copy of the green cover Starship Troopers book that he found in his barracks decades ago. Then, I read The Forever War. Both were written by War Veterans, and they respectively display the insights of their writers as well. You should give them a read.
Holy shit man!! First off, love your channel man. Consider me a long time listener, first time caller. I love your shit dude. I came here specifically because I have been writing a series for over two years now, and it's set in a military science fiction setting. I wanted to be sure I hadn't done anything you mentioned here, and I'm proud to say I don't. Thank you for videos like this that force a writer to question their direction and character building. I've babbled long enough, but you sir have made me a better writer. Thank you. I would say you earned a subscribe, but pretty sure I already am.
The real love triangle is between a soldier, his power armor, and an even sexier version of power armor.
Rifle would like to talk to you about how much time you spend maintaining Power Armor instead of Rifle, who, it reminds you, does all the killing to keep you alive Soldier.
@@Sorain1 *laughs in Chozo Power Suit*
But don’t worry, he will choose his old power armor, even though it is less efficient, because it’s been there for him since the beginning...
*Laughs in Sisters of Battle.*
*Laughs in Stealth Suit MK II*
"Most soldiers fight their chain-of-command more than the enemy"
This is so incredibly true that it hurts.
Anyone else want to bet he's a vet?
The worst is when someone who was chill a day ago then gets promoted and suddenly gets a stick up his ass.
@@MCNshot2shot That's true for all industries.
@@MCNshot2shot It's because the person above them would only promote them if they would so kindly allow a stick to be lodged up their ass. They didn't put it there themselves.
"The British soldier can stand up to anything except the British High Command."
Automatic like for mentioning that military equipment spends more time being maintained than in use
I know this pain
Remember: if your gun jams and you can't get it to work leave a couple magazines behind so then you can blame the gun fucking up on combat stresses and thus avoid awkward conversations with your officers.
How much maintenance does the auto-liker take?
Can confirm
@@ihaveagun22 it takes about 25 hours of maintenance per day- you may have to deploy likes manually
Don’t forget.
“This tactical decision will save the lives of literally everyone on our side, with little to no downside, however due to some arbitrary Federation law, I’m going to be arrested and stripped of all rank, despite single-handedly saving thousands of lives.
Then, in a _surprise_ twist, only long after I’ve been punished, the government will realize they need my tactical prowess and is willing to bend the rules to allow me to stay in the military.”
Look up a story on Korea's Admiral Yi. Sadly, there is historical precedent for this actually happening.
I think you just described Star Trek Discovery...
Everyone posting examples of this just proves what a cliche it is. Despite it being semi realistic lol
Fabius: Yeah, I know this ALL too well... **glares at the Roman Senate**
@@privateeyety5735 It's more than semi realistic. The military really is that rigid and unforgiving.
"what do you mean space tactics is different from naval combat?"
oh, that would be a video on its own
In most cases they can't even apply that one properly 0_0
Oh, come on! Most people don't even know that inertia is a thing at naval combat!
Because you need to study basic naval tactics and basic space physics
@@AureliusLaurentius1099 Or at least play Kerbal Space Program ;D
not even close lol. even in WW2 fleets were dozen of kilometers away from each other, and somehow in movies close-range combat in space works.
"If railgun no work, use more railgun"
- me, a renowed tactician
More railguns is always the answer
Unless you're in anime, use A certain Scientific Railgun.
@@majorblitz3846 unless it's a popular metal monster they turned into a living city for some reason. Then the railguns steal yo girl
“The answer? use a railgun. And if that don’t work, use more railgun”
Did you use this from TF2 Engineer
Power armour on Protagonists: Gets shot 5 times to die
Power armour on Antagonists: Get shot once anywhere and dies instantly
@blackrave404 I think the word both of you are looking for is *plot* armour.
@blackrave404 And that's why we have the mace, warhammer, war pick, war-can-opener.
But seriously you are right.
Only if the antagonist is in a cutscene, otherwise those take entire magazines
You have it wrong guy!
Power armour on Antagonists : Dies instantly
Not instantly they have a lengthy and dramatic death with lots of coughing
I just love how 50% of fictional armys always run without a fight and the other 50% keep on fighting no matter how little damage they do.
Why not call in some orbital strikes while retreating?
Also which is why the big guns can make a huge difference in either defense or offense.
That's usually the standard strategy in my planned novel series.
Another one of those situations where I'm asking for citations. I mean Bernard Cornwell is ALL WAR ALL THE TIME, over multiple series and this never happens.
Most of the guys writing milsf (At least the better portion of the Baen crew) are obsessives about military study, and others are vets.
In film, sure, I can see that. It's mostly because the reality of military life and warfare in hypothetical situations doesn't really translate to the screen very well. The writers only have about 2 hrs to tell the whole story, and the director has a prerogative to hold audience attention...
In reality, for the individual soldier, a war is MOSTLY being bored, interspersed with moments of mortal terror and confusion, with just a little bit of "we know what to do." (Mostly, you just sit around scratching your junk until explosions, then you keep your head down and try to shoot the right random face way out that way.)
For the commanders it's worse. All academic, all the time. Issue orders as best you can, and then anxiously wait for reports of what happened. Rinse and repeat.
@@bordenfleetwood5773 Why not make it into a tv show?
Or is there already one?
@@jasoethesentienteyeshapedg4847 - TV works better, and I think there were a couple honest attempts in the '00s, but I can't think of any specifics right now.
5:49 "Let's see how close I can get to accidentally advocating fascism!"
It's funny because it's too real
It's such a major problem in so much of mil sf but anyone bringing it up regularly gets accused of "having an agenda" or whatever
@@FlameQwert Yeah, that's always funny...
You people are the ones with the agenda! Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to let Heinlein explain to me why a military-elite controlled federation is a good idea.
Or in some cases, less accidentally advocating fascism.
bashes fascism but let's commies slid despite their superior K/D. typical modern illogical bias.
@@zeevdrifter2707 nigga military SF doesn't accidentally advocate for communism as a trope
Keep in mind that the most common definition of fascism is "side with really cool military uniforms".
Not, most common. Most ignoramus.
TheRezro
*whoosh*
@@BlackCover95 Whoosh what? Because only person who wooshed here is you, as I do know what he meant with that "deep reference" 0_0
Nazi uniforms are pretty cool.
@@Author_Paluthor Well, they were designed by Hugo Boss, so...
The general's chainsaw arm switched arms during the sponsorship.
What an amazing subversion of my expectations of visual consistency!
That was his mirror universe counterpart.
Ghidorahnumber1 It broke new ground
He has both hands. His phone tune demostrates his love for sci-fi strategy games. And you kinda need two hands for that stuff.
It's attachable.
He's a Street Fighter II character.
"military equipment spends more time being maintained than in use"
yep, yep and more yep
Oh great tech-priest. I have prayed to the Omnissiah fifteen times a day while applying the sacred maintenance oil and lighting the holy repair incense yet my boltgun still does not work. How do I proceed?
And don't forget that every design of equipment actually works unlike real military equipment, cough cough UCP cough cough.
@@AJPDing PRAY MORE
Legitimately true. Take American supercarriers: 1/3 of the force is in maintenance, 1/3 is training, and only 1/3 is actually combat-ready at any given time.
@@AJPDing bayonet 'em
Don't forget to have a "neutral caught in the middle alien race or faction" This way your protagonist can feel bad about something while still shooting the Evil alien hive
Or be w40k. So the protagonists can feel bad about helping their government and good about killing their even worse enemies.
@@owlblocksdavid4955 yes commissar this man right here
Really, if the neutral is directly affected by the conflict, they most likely wouldn’t *stay* neutral.
At minimum, many of the neutral’s civilians would be split down the middle in their attitudes and start taking sides, perhaps some even feeling strongly enough about it to enlist in each side’s forces (The citizens of Whiterun in Skyrim are a pretty good albeit very simplified example of this).
Or, if they have the resources for it, the neutral could decide they’ve simply had enough of being a political football and declare *both* sides their enemy.
There's only one rule of military sci-fi:
Kinetic weapons > arguably everything else.
it's true tho, gravity gun beats all with suspended animation.
question: would amat (anti-matter) weaponry count as either, or would it be its own category?
That depends on how exactly the antimatter itself is involved. Is it a projectile made purely of antimatter, or is it a missile with an antimatter warhead? And is the explosion itself supposed to be the main source of damage, or the massive EMP you'd get from it?
The Fuzzy Vulpine I think that depends on the scenario you’re in, and therefore specific any matter weapons could be tailored to a use case, whether that’s the EMP effect or blasting the shit outta something
@@mcfluffly8579 Sounds reasonable. Personally, I think the scariest application would be antimatter ammunition, or an antiparticle beam amitter, used to directly strike the target. You get severe blast damage, heat damage, _and_ major ionizing radiation damage all in one go.
This made me want a military sci-fi story about a group of badly equipped, poorly trained conscripts, and then I remembered that 90% of stuff about the Imperial Guard fits that description.
Funny how that goes against the lore too, any governor who sent the Guard a crap regiment like that would be executed. A Guardsman was supposed to be the best his home planet had to offer, even if sometimes that was a sad commentary about his planet.
@@davehood2667 And of course, even the worst Guardsman regiment would be among the top tier of soldiers in the real world.
@@davehood2667 crap in comparison to the mega chad 1,000 IQ space marines I guess is a more accurate description
See, the IG's "flak jackets" can take a .50 cal with no problem, and their lasgun just refuses to break and can shatter feet of concrete. Unfortunately compared to everything else out there (tyranids, eldar, necrons, orks, traitor marines, etc), it just doesn't compare.
From what I heard, the Imperial Guard is actually really, REALLY good at what they do. So good, in fact, that by the year 40,000 they'd already wiped out most of mankind's enemies, leaving only the absurdly OP ones that need to be countered with giant genetically engineered monster-men clad in enough armor to put a light vehicle to shame, ie. the Adeptus Astartes marines. Even then, though, the Guard still does the brunt of the fighting, with Space Marines only being used as a sort of specialist force - in official lore, at least. Obviously, none of this has stopped 40k fans from portraying the Marines as THE main fighting force of the Imperium, with the Guard only existing to get slaughtered in droves and call for the Marines to come save the day.
“I GIIIIVE MY LIIIIIFE! NOT FOR HONOR, BUT FOOOOOR- yeah, for honor.”
-Private General In Chief 3rd Class Johnny McProtagonist
"I, Cato Sicarius!"
Mans single handedly annihilated the plot armor of Matt Wards Blue boys lmao
I'm sensing a distinctive amount of Starship Troopers references coming
So what? Fxxx the Force!
I’m doing my part!
And probably some smoothbrain in the comment section falsely conflating the book with fascist propaganda.
It’s more like the book from the 1950s. Unlike the movies, it was serious in tone.
That book was fun but the ending was disappointing in the same vain of Bilbo getting hit on the head and missing the huge climactic battle.
Make sure all the villains can’t hit the broad side of a barn with a shotgun.
Or the one time the villains can aim they are a crack shot and headshot a fully armored person in power armor and only kill one at a crucial moment for maximum emotional impact. When previously nothing could kill them.
If you played the game you know exactly what i mean.
@@OddMobileWatcher Me thinks Reach.
@@OddMobileWatcher Amd then, having successfully killed one of your enemies most vital soldiers, proceed to immediately fly off under combined small arms fire, rather than turning your transports main gun on the remainder.
Seriously, what even was that scene- a shocking death for its own sake?
@@spartanpawn007 Just didn't want to outright say it, some people still haven't played reach and i dont want people to go through the game just waiting for someone to randomly get sniped at any moment.
@@sethbritton6970 Most of the game's deaths actually had a meaning while that one just felt like... well fuck how are they going to die? Also i didn't even realize that was a seraph or banshee that did it, they could've killed all of the squad at once.
Halo reach is like a good example for this video, like really really is, just the game's story and the way it showed the reality of spartans, but that one death is the only cheap one that just felt like it was squeezed in there.
Warhammer 40k imperial guards be like "what's power armor?"
Spacemarine: THIS is power armor!
@@Usual_User Yeah! it makes that we get wounded only half the time you would! and we can get hit one more time! truly superior! it also makes us slightly stronger!
Warhammer 40k be like "what's a logical setting"
Let it be known
That the planet broke before the Guard did.
Warhammer is a setting with intentionally bad logistics, that just hurts everytime
Heinlein: Writes Starship Troopers
Every Military Scifi Writer Ever Since: "Same"
Wh40k: *stamps YES then moves on*
Herbet: *writes Dune*
Wh40k: *stamps YES then moves on*
Tolkien: *Writes Lord of the Rings*
Wh40k: *stamps YES*
Also wh40k: *puts all of them in a blender, strains out the fat, adds a tub of lard, fries it up and leaves it to turn grimdark*
... some of us go that one step further.... is it really a bad thing?
I always get nervous before a drop
@@gamertagboakan7417 Battletech: Am I a joke to you!?
@@dubuyajay9964 yes
@@gamertagboakan7417 🖕
I was about to say that if this wasn’t sponsored by Skillshare I would be sad. No more Skillshare battles.
Can't we all just share?
Sponsorship. Sponsorship never ends…
The military is always getting whooped by zombies .
And a rag tag team of survivors who, for most cases, have the combat experience of a newly born baby being able to kill more zombies than an A-10 Warthog being powered by the power of Rambo and Chuck Norris' third fist.
Also, Virus strain or any netural/bioengineered microbiotics are always be the one to blame. And infected will always suffer talking disablity no matter what the fuck infect them.
I expect something different like infected are seperate into two different group, the one that can still act like human but has to be quarrantined and the one that their brain get altered too much so the previous group isolate them elsewhere.
Or zombie status by other means like sound/video based neural interruption device meant to wreck havoc in opposition country, but went wrong and blow up on themselves.
Last of all, we haven't yet discovered wether the zombie drink water, i mean they are still using human form and i don't think blood is enough water source for a day for them.
@@redundantfridge9764 that's obviously because the survivors ARE Rambo and Chuck Norris
The US military have a contingency plan against zombies so its not like they're not prepared.
@@redundantfridge9764 I mean they may just be under order not to shoot infected civilians. Bit of a war crime to do that actually.
That... That general is literally just an Imperial commissar.
You even made his ringtone a Dawn of War track.
I would never have noticed that if it were not for this comment. Dawn of War will always hit different.
The definition of military scifi:
The equipment allways works as the supplier promissed.
Oh, a bit of extra advice if you plan on writing an entire series of books:
As you progress from book to book, make sure to shift the focus more and more away from the soldiers and officers at the front lines to the high-ups, until at least 2/3 of your story takes place in a number of fucking confrence rooms...
Someone has read the Honor Harrington books. (I miss when that was well written darn it.)
Well, yea. I stoped at some point. Just couldn't be botherd to slog through even more "let's descide the fate of the galaxy over eg benedict"...
And make sure these conference rooms are filled to the brim with love hyper-rhombisododecahedrons
And have the military completely stop using the old equipment once the new stuff gets off of the assembly line. That won't cause problems with the logistics and make sure they never bring up how much money war cost.
@@Sorain1 Don't forget to have your character accumulate more and more skills, pets and priceless artifacts, like some kind of an RPG protagonist, until they're a literal god of war mowing down hordes of base-level enemies effortlessly. At no point should anyone take issue with our hero bringing her pet murder machine with her into said conference rooms.
This is why I appreciate Halo's extended universe. They make light about the eveil on both sides through humanities shadow organizations like ONI and they even talk about the morality of the spartan program. They make it clear that even though the protagonist is human (sometimes) they are never completely innocent.
Yes, ONI being humanities darker side really makes teh universe seem realistic
Glasslands is one of my favorite novels on this subject. The fighting between Halsey and Ackerson is so satisfying to read.
I've wondered why they barely use drones and robots on sci-fi wars.
Fairly new concept, I guess...
It's because reading about the exploits of an automated drone is really boring. The general audience want's to read about people.
In reality automated drones would most likely be better than humans in all combat roles. To avoid that the authors have to come up with lazy reasons why it isn't the case, such as robots aren't as adaptive as humans or some other equally lazy explanation.
@@julius-q9f2f Talking more about in-universe reasons
Uhhh Sangbum60090, there usually aren't GOOD in universe reasons. As julius mikala pointed out, the typical ones are 'robots don't adapt' or 'we don't trust robots' or in rare cases 'we don't have the tech for that yet'. Though 'had a robot war before, refuse to risk that again.' and 'religious reasons' tend to be fairly common.
@@Sorain1 Hmm, any scifis that said robots and AIs would have no sense of morality or compassion and thus will be capable of unethical warfare or war crimes. Though that's kinda a lame excuse as well because you can simply program or control robots and AIs to obey international law.
Got here at 3 views
A love triangle has formed
Hey shrexy
Looks like you'll have to upgrade to a love dodecihedren
It has been 30 minutes since you commented, 10 love triangles had been already formed
Now it's a love dodecahedron
@@emilianorios4761 Read my other comment. Did we just become best friends?!?!
All of the best stories I have from my time as a reservist involve A. mission critical equipment breaking and no one having spare parts for it, B. mission critical equipment being left behind, C. mission critical equipment put in a footlocker that is locked and the only key is with an individual who is never around.
I'm getting the idea that making a really realistic military focused novel would involve writing about inconveniences and boredom quite a bit
@Lawofimprobability That, too. I distinctly remember one year when my platoon spent the whole year prepping. We had everything. A tent, AC, generators, water, we even built a fucking field shower. We get to the exercise area and immediately our tent is stolen by headquarters because, for some reason, they didn't want to sleep in the same tent as all of their equipment. So my platoon didn't have to stay in the AO, which was actually nice. But it also meant we had to truck 5 miles for chow twice a day.
A) British paras try to capture Arnhem, but their radios have dead batteries.
B) British try to retake Norway but forgot to pack the straps for their skis.
@@massimookissed1023 fun, isn't it?
Forever war?
Armor: an iron man exosuit with 4 varieties of laser canons, 15 different missiles ranging from anti air, anti mat, and small rockets that can lodge itself into crooks of any tech oriented thing and disable it. It's comprised of nano machines that can convert the dirt on the ground into machinery to repair any and all damage the suit experiences using quantum atoms. The suit also has a life support system that cam let the wearer never die and can survive anything, from the deepest ocean to the deepest of space. It also has a jetpack. Also since it's nano machines it's easy to move around in and enhances everything. Oh it can also let the wearer use magnets to basically be magneto. Oh and shields that protect from anything that isn't a planet ending super weapons.
Weapons: Even if they don't need weapons since their armor is basically an armory, every marine will use an energy sword like a lightsaber, a plasma rifle, and a laser pistol. They'll also never need to reload since they all have a fusion reactor powering them or something like that. that's really it.
Enemy: a hive mind bug race that's primitive in terms of pure tech but uses organic tech that only they can control. They also always need a human host to reproduce and despite not wearing armor, their exoskeletons are so strong, ordinary guns can't hurt them and only the super advanced plasma bolts can pierce their hides. Also despite the super power armor, these bugs can easily wound the marines with their acid venom that can somehow pierce the armor and the shields it has.
Explaining anything tech related: just add quantum or hyperspace in there.
Cast: the no nonsense captain, the quirky, female engineer, the silent and badass sniper, the crass and overconfident tank, the other guy that's there and is basically the comic relief that will end up dead by the end and everyone will be sad because the one thing that brought the team laughter is now gone very sad.
thats why i liked the mobile infantry loadouts
Don't forget the sadist that's secretly in cahoots with the bugs and roguishly handsome heartthrob that's also sometimes the MC
Wait, are we talking about a conversing armored vehicle tank, or a rpg game tank? Cause I could see the former being interesting, and plausible (if that even matters) with AI.
6:00 “Oh no, we’ve been caught in the logical contradiction of trying to portray Japan as a wonderfully peaceful nation while still trying to tell ourselves that we’re a victorious military power to massage our bruised post-1945 egos!”
-The vast majority of mecha anime.
Not even mecha anime. Just military anime with Japan in general.
Don't forget to throw in portrayals of idealistic soldiers who fight for honor and duty even against overwhelming odds because we have a hard on for samurai legends.
@@nick0875 Lmaooo
@@KezanzatheGreat gundam and patlabor 2 are basically the few real robot mecha anime that aren't just pseudo-fascistic jerk-off sessions lol
@@hotlinerevachol5436 pseudo-fascistic? Stop with the word salad, lad
Remember no tactics allowed
And every soldier for himself
Is blindly charging a tactic?
@@ihaveagun22 The Soviets did it!
I think....
@@pedroh.6497 each side did it in the first world war
@@pedroh.6497 Human mass assault doctrine... Basicly Quantity of troops
War: Has is changed, or does it never change?
Yes
War has changed quite a bit.
@@lucass5980 The greed never change, but the value is.
THERE IS ONLY WAR!
PURGING WITH MY KIIIIIIIN!
@@minhkhangtran6948 I dont even know what that is supposed to mean or how that relates to anything
As someone who has plans to write in this genre, this was exactly what I needed.
I'd read Children of Time for some inspiration on aliens if you want to put aliens in your story. It's the only sci fi book I've read that actually makes truly alien aliens.
@@braidans4767 Interesting. I myself wanted to do aliens and humans fighting together under one force and explore the struggles and hardships that would bring up.
Uh...yeah. Better idea would be to read good books and mediocre books of the genre.
And then read a shitload of military history.
@@torakazu2269 Just a note that could help you : if you have a FTL drive, than you have to entirely redefine the weaponry since any ship with this is now a planet-surface-destroyer. Also it would be great if you specified the level of the humans and aliens on the scale of Kardashev, because that will give you the scale of civilisation, war and the ultimate winner. If you're a K2 civ, than your armada likely counts in the trillions of ships and you can render planets unhabitable from light-years with relativistic kill missile, though yourself don't care much about planets since the ultra-majority of your population lives in megastructure and rotatting habitats.
@@torakazu2269 Is your story going to have vast amounts of xenophobia? I can imagine that any species would feel suspicious of anything that is not like them, the fear of the other. Of course, fighting together would strengthen this bond, but in the meantime this childish attitude can cause problems during wartime in terms of cooperation. Just a thought.
As a former enlisted Army medic with several Afghanistan deployments, this is gold!
"Most military hardware falls all thr time and spends more time in maintenance then in use"
As a navy vet... Itd be funny if it werent so true
Military Science Fiction,
For writers who have that one friend in the military
If you consider cleaning military toilets as such...
@Maintenance Renegade Even officers or technicians are usually competent enough to do the job. In most cases those stories are written specifically to be a political essay, by someone who never was in army but think that they uniforms look cool. It is why so many of those stories end as straight garbage.
@Maintenance Renegade That one could be excluded from the debate though, as it was written in the 50's. It was original back them and contrary to popular opinion Heinlein wasn't glorying his military state. Movie adaptation chose form of satire, because they didn't have time to address those specific issues from the book.
@Maintenance Renegade the forever war was written by a combat vet. Weird how they decided conscripting a physics graduate to front line combat was a good idea for US circa 1960s
@@TheRezro a lot of Heinlein is author avatar lol
Considering Starship Troopers and Ender's Game are two of my all-time favorite books, I thoroughly enjoyed this episode.
The Bean/Hegemon series is also fantastic.
If you like geopolitics and military strategy (not tactics).
@@owlblocksdavid4955 Yup, plus the Earth at War series is great (I still need to read the last one)
If you like starship troopers look into armor by john steakley. Its amazing
Ender's game actually was about moral consequences and tactics unlike other movies. Entire movie was literally about tactics.
@@Enclave_Engineer
The movies kind of cringe but the book is amazing. Especially the follow-up book Ender's shadow.
I love how Mega Corp is actually a capable budget-maker lol.
All the way from the Bogon Galaxy!
When he mentions a power armor failure scene causing an incident of quick thinking that would be cool
In star wars lore, the Galactic Marines were using experimental spacetrooper armor in one battle and the weapon systems failed so their commander ordered them to charge at an advancing column of super battle droids and use the strength enhancements of the armor to tear the droids apart in hand to hand combat
Wow, I am huge into Star Wars lore, and I didn't know that!
@@Noah-zz8uw yeah, its easily the Galactic Marines' most badass moment, Commander Bacara is such a hardass he orders his men to fight B2s hand to hand and they fucking win
I admit I laughed out loud when the Federation general's ringtone turned out to be the Dawn of War Imperial Guard theme. The cat was quite startled.
So if I combined your teachings from your "Grim Dark" video with this video I have a good chance writing a good Warhammer 40k story?
Also... FOR THE EMPEROR!!!
Have you read 'battle for the abyss"? You don't need to be good to get published by BL.
It's better to die for the emperor than to live for yourself!
@@NetizenNo Only the truly divine deny their own divinity.
In theory... yes?
Speaking of Warhammer
8:51 is main theme of Imperial guard from Dawn of war
Oh here goes the love triangle man, rambling on and on about themes. He knows not about dissecting my complex plots, and yet he thinks he can dissect entire high-tech military organizations spanning multiple books?
*sip*
...this wine tastes funny...
Is this a reference
Excellent! All is going to plan. I think I will celebrate with... beer.
pascal ausensi ah CK 2 references are fun
Do “How to write Alternate Histories!”
“What if the Nazis won WWII? No one’s done that one before. You can even set it in the modern day; never mind that culture is ever evolving and that 1940s Germany would have developed beyond recognition in the following eighty years.”
Aka: What if MY political ideas/Historical figure I like became dominant in World for Utopia. Or some kind of a crude caricature of ideas I don't like for Dystopia.
Never understood how alternate history got to be it’s own genre. It’s one thing if you’re introducing fantastical elements into a real world setting and basing your new timeline on how those elements effect history. But just saying x happened instead of y, so now everything’s shit doesn’t seem very interesting.
Or better yet, Time traveling stories!
Kaiserreich
Did I ever mention that I love how you keep your sponsor plugs separate from the main video, and instead make them an entertaining advert all of their own? None of this ugly, shoehorned in product placement nonsense, it flows because its it's own story.
My least favorite thing about this genre is how the militaries seem to rely on Revolutionary War-like tactics to win battles with enemies who sometimes don’t even have guns and or technology of their own (Starship Troopers, Avatar, etc).
Can we have a moment of silence for everyone who doesn’t read the text bubbles on these videos
Yeah in one video he was talking about character archetypes and when he mentioned comic relief characters, the text bubvle humorously said, "DIE DIE DIE DIE" a bunch of times. That summed up my feelings perfectly.
"One like equals one dead bug"
Wow, that's a lot of dead bugs...
There are never enough dead bugs, there is only the good bug, a dead bug.
@@tngtrivedi suffer not the xenos to live.
I'm doing my part!
Yucky xenos bug
Plot twist: they're all inocent bees
Stargate- sg1, is a fine example of how to write military Fcience Fiction.
Getting a lot of consultation and support from USAF (to the point where two serving CSAF appeared in the show as themselves) helped.
Exept the humans are everywhere instead of drones which would do these tasks 100% better with no loss of human lives.
@@Enclave_Engineer Stargate Was set in the 2001
Helps the cast was so awesome
Oh, and remember that in the end, the entire outcome of the war will be dependent on the single most important mission that will only be carried out by the hero soldier and maybe a few companions without any back up plan.
Not that real wars are a combined effort of several branches of the military and no commander in chief would send one soldier (be he as badass as he may) to achieve an all important goal without having contingency plans.
I mean that's pretty par for the course in fiction, like the unspoken plan guarentee or the million to one chance. In real life even in war unnecessary drama is to be avoided, while that's often the main point of fiction.
Now that the Space Force is an actual branch of the military now, this entire genre is gonna be saturated
It's technically been a branch for years, but never got used.
This whole thing is ironic on so many fronts. Guy mocks communism being the villain, weeks a later a virus leaks from a communist lab and causes the world to be locked down under a global pandemic. Sure but communism, what an outdate enemy
But yeah Space Force bit is even stranger as they're pretty much 100% the reason the Ukrainians are winning this war.
@@swordofstabbingoldBut is it still going to be saturated?
Ok, wake me up when the Hard Sci-fi video comes out.
Sadly, there's really two options, and nit much between. Either:
1) Don't write Hard SF. It will heavily date itself very quickly, and won't be a fun story beyond that point. Pick a sub-genre to make it interesting after the next physics paper gets published, like "romance-SF" or "military-SF" or "space opera."
2) Write a Michael Bay film, shamelessly adding nerdgasm-expositions, accept your short shelf-life, and just have fun.
@@bordenfleetwood5773 It is only true if you write bad Hard SF with dated science and lack of interesting plot. It is why scams like to cover old cliches in the "science" costumes.
Viktor true. I think too many people get bent out of shape over hard SF based upon its label more than anything else. It’s like reading criticisms of the Orions Arm collaboration project over the inclusion of wormholes and magnetic monopoles, things that are very speculative IRL, but unprovable in our current understanding. The critics will say that their inclusion in Orions Arm precludes it from being hard SF just because of things that science isn’t definitive about.
As you’ve said, it’s more about sticking to the rules about what you do add that’s speculative than just treating said speculative things as do-anything phlebotinum.
@@Ebalosus Wow! Those people are idiots! Speculation is speculative fiction! Impossible!
@@bordenfleetwood5773 You're confusing hard SF with speculative SF.
Marines
Marines in space
We're gonna shoot
Some aliens in the face
Marines
Marines in spaaaaace
We're fighting for
The glorious human race
🏹
Ready to die for the emporor, sir!
For the God Emperor!
I literally can't stop singing this all the time. Thanks for making my day! :D
Why did I read this in the tune of hey Jude
I noticed that there was no mention of a Love Triangle.
Alternatively, the more overly specific and niche your genre is, the less competition you'll have to make its Bestseller list! Isn't that ego boost worth making those crippling debts slightly more crippling?
Laughs in Hammers Slammers
"When writing Military Sci fi, don't. There's no money in it."
Got it.
do it if you love it anyway
Cough halo cough.
@@aiden4917 its a video game so gameplay is more important and you can get away with less competent writing. I saw a lot of people getting mad about the Halo books due to both not being true to the games and doing some stupid shit example: the death of rookie from halo 3 ODST is pure BS , Spartans are ridicilously OP in the books yet humanity is still losing , they make spartans instead of something smarter like new technological weapons that can be used by ever soldier or something like a better nuke (its excusable in the games because being a Spartan the Masterchief is one of the idententities of the games but in a world building realistic story its not the most logical choice)
@@noobguy9973 Honestly, the UNSC is massively behind in basic tech. Like drones. Just remote controlled drones. Think about it, instead of sending poor SoBs off to die use robots. You can make them tiny and heavily armored so the covies can't shoot them, and they could be pumped out in the trillions with several planets to work off of.
The upside is that, if we're going for truely realistic warfare,(as in what people of the future would actually do if not dumb.) then there will probably be few, if any dashing space marines, when we can use cheap, made ot order and utterly disposable drones to fight. Especially against a religiously genocidal empire of alien theocrats.
basicly just rip off 40k with none of the fun!
My planned novel series is almost at the absurd level of 40k but influenced by Marvel/DC comics and Isekai mangas at a multiversal level conflict that nigh-omnipotent beings are the main causes sometimes.
@@jasoethesentienteyeshapedg4847 name please
@@jasoethesentienteyeshapedg4847 Isekai Warhammer40k?
Sign me the fuck in.
NullLex00 Life is the Emperor’s currency, spend it well
@NullLex00 I have read a bit and from what I can understand people just really like seeing overpowered guns and planet destroying missiles and magic
The real irony about this video is I was about to start my military science fiction book and then this came out....what a world
Imagine being drafted into JP's fictional army and having to be a background character.
JP's, or TWA's?
Important distinction
In the war, we all are the background characters.
I'd dodge it.
Got bone spurs fam
*but i don't look good in a red shirt....especially if it was a different color other than red prior to putting it on and then being struck by some ghastly blunt force trauma projectile that fractures my spine and causes my internal organs to start leaking out of my body in a most undignified and very painful manner...i just hate starting my day like that*
I'd offer that there isn't one point of view that can embrace the story of a war. There are many different wars within what's recognized as a single conflict. A friend of mine was in the Korean Conflict. He had a superb grasp of about two acres worth of that. A lifetime in a day or less. There are also "Kelly's Heroes" sorts of experiences. The latter scenarios are a lot more common than realized. There's also the tendency to ignore the winning side abuses over time. US troops boiled and took heads in WWII in the Pacific then brought them home as trophies. (If anyone reading this feels offended by the statement or questions its veracity, please engage the Google, and consider asking yourself why you didn't read about this in history classes.)
The US military is a major player in Hollywood war movies. The military signs off on the script if they are participating. This has the inevitable effect of slanting the type of stories that are told. Since most writers follow the blockbusters and not the small often more thoughtful films, the influence of the blockbuster and the military is magnified.
Pacific war was fucked up man.
Very well said and true.
@@chopperjoe1998 find me a war that wasn’t and I’ll show you a master of propaganda.
@@surprisedchar2458 Fair enough!
@please resist the reset So you're just gonna ignore the loads of citations on the page?
I'm wheezing, literally listened to an entire military sci-fi book series and this describes them perfectly.
I JUST checked here and as soon as I click something else, you upload.
_You planned this didn't you?_
All according to plan.
The last time I was this early I had to return all my Christmas coal.
so not that long ago lol
>When you make a video showing how not to write a sci-fi military story
TWA: *"Im doing my part!"*
"Most soldiers fight their chain-of-command more than the enemy"
I think half of this video was just him venting about the *assness* of The Service lol.
As a long time Warhammer fan, I thank you so much for expressing so clearly the pitfalls of the genre and its dangers. Great work.
The military equipment line is so damn true lol. Everything is deadlined when you need it.
I'd love a "good version of this" book recommendation at the end of the video.
Finn Swan I know he was likely criticizing this book, but I would honestly recommend Robert Heinlein's "Starship Troopers".
Goes a lot into the roles that power armor plays, the human government that fights the aliens as well as the tactics of the alien race and how the protagonist only manages to initially get fast promotions because the officers are all getting killed off in the early stages of the war.
The biggest issues that most people have are Heinlein's views that he puts into the book, especially with his view that people should only gain citizenship and thus voting rights through compulsory service (which most people forget can either be civic or military).
You should read Enders Game
@@averymicrowave1713
Seconding this. Definitely epitomizes the soap-boxing cliché with his "history & moral philosophy" scenes. And if you're a fan of basically anything derivative of Karl Marx's school of thought you're probably gonna have a bad time (he actively takes entire pages to shit on... pretty much anything that comes to mind if I were to say "leftist.")
But if you can handle that, good book. Just don't go into it expecting rip-roaring sci-fi combat, or to come out really knowing the state of the overall war. It's a coming of age story in a well developed setting of a character who doesn't really have the clearance or aptitude for the full scope of the inter-planetary conflict he's in. You get more of a... tactile sense of it.
honestly, the only military sci-fi work I ever enjoyed was Miles to Go, and that was barely military sci-fi (the MC is a guy who got reassigned to the middle of nowhere to command a giant sentient tank with nothing to do that. the two of them treat it like retirement).
not a book, but an old anime. the original Mobile Suit Gundam is one of a very small number of military sci-fi works I actually enjoy, and it's actually really good. if you absolutely MUST read something, though, then I suggest the Bolo series.
8:51 *Looks around nervously*
I have a sudden urge to die for the Emperor.
You don’t have that urge constantly?
The use of that theme caught me off guard, and was a really awesome nod to 40K.
@@merrittanimation7721 Shu, should we call the commissar?
@@merrittanimation7721 Of course I have it constantly, I'm a loyal citizen of the Imperium... please don't execute me
@@patrickbuckley7259 I heard someone say Commissar, and came as fast as I could.
"Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent" - Salvador Hardin, Foundation
Assy got that wrong. Violence is the first resort of the incompetent and the last refuge of the competent.
And yet it is a universal language.
@@darthkek1953 No, the implication is that you have to be incompetent for all other forms of persuasion to have failed. While this may or may not be true, it clearly is Asimov's perspective. Violence is the first resort of the idiotic, because only an idiot would try violence before diplomacy.
@@piguyalamode164 you can't convince ideologues with rationality. This is where the fundamentals of Foundation (which I love) fails. The mathematics of Foundation rely on human rationality. Nazism. Marxism. Islamism. Etc. You can't negotiate or predict them because they are chaotic, narcissistic, belligerent, and ultimately self-destructive.
@@darthkek1953 In-universe the quote is true by the existence of psychohistory, out of universe it is false by the impossibility of psychohistory. It is not just that people are irrational, but that populations are chaotic and small changes tend to lead to bigger ones.
And don't forget about the enormous mecha robots!
I'm sure a big, slow and extremely expensive war vehicle wouldn't be an easy target for, let's say, enemy planes, missiles, and air strikes. Bonus points if you deploy them in the middle of a city where they have little to no space to move efficiently.
if the enemy can hurt it it is obviously not big enough
remember to put a church on its back for maximum flex
I feel personally attacked.
Pfff, your Mechas simply aren't strong enough to destroy supercarriers like butter.
and also remember to completely throw physics out of the window ignoring that making things big doesn't necessarily means that it can hold itself together and not collapse on its own weight
“I’ve been looking forward to this.”
Only things missing/we need to see in the sequel video: THE LOVE TRIANGLE!, Pilots, starship combat differing from actual naval combat, & news agencies during sci fi wars and tense periods calling out the protagonists for every action and then using veiled insults on them when they cannot act due to political crosshairs.
I love that the Empire's main rival is a militaristic federation. Very realistic.
I thought their main enemy would be a rebell- *sees Lucasfilm lawyer* resist- *Disney lawer* a revolution.
Stop attacking me and my love of body armor and cyborgs.
Body armor and cyborgs are cool! Keep 'em in! But just make sure the squishy meaty bits under the shell sound like real people.
Borden Fleetwood Thanks for the advice. I’ll be sure to use soft, squishy, and fleshy humans. Although, some of my soldiers are large androids that can be described as walking body armor. Any tips on that?
@@MediumSizedZ - I'm going to respond as though this is an earnest question. If it's snark or sarcasm, I honestly apologize.
There are (in my opinion) two approaches to inhuman androids or cyborgs as protagonists or main characters.
1) "All animals are dogs." This trope basically states that, even though this is definitely NOT a human, they should have enough human traits to make them relatable to readers. If your story is light-hearted or just for funsies, I'd recommend this approach.
2) Really embrace the alien. Make sure you have a human character *somewhere* close by, and explore what makes this android inhuman. Are they just a walking suit of armor, with no personality, or are they like Robocop, where the man is in there, but so buried that it would take tremendous trauma to bring them back out? Feel free to dig into them reader feels with heartfelt drama amidst a backdrop of hardcore laser explosions. Or (if you're gonna hook me personally), explore the outlook of an emotionless warrior, effortlessly wading through physical combat while struggling with watching his/it's more human companions descending into madness; an *internal* struggle, rather than an external one.
I hope this helps!
Borden Fleetwood thank you. And yes. That was an Honest Question
@manifestation of Gudako's insanity Why not have both? *cough* -Spartan-IIs, IIIs, and...not fours-
The general's ringtone being the Imperial Guard theme is just so perfect
I love how the go-to enemy is a hivemind. In my book, the hivemind is an ally ^^
Can you talk about cliches in mystery novels.
Yes please
Well he has done Noire.
Nope disregard I'm stupid he ain't done Noire, but spies and cyberpunk is close.
No need. We already know the butler did it.
“Let’s just set it in the past, because why would there ever be a mystery in contemporary times? Let’s make sure to use the 1890s or 1920s, because no other historical periods have any potential _I_ could think of!”
this video got uploaded the very second i was thinking of military sciencd fiction
psychic
Oh the General’s ringtone is from Dawn of War. 🙏
I see you are a man of culture as well. 🧐
The Imperial Guard theme, to be exact.
Ready to die for the emporor, sir!
@@flyingplatypus7272 Even in death, I still serve!
@@jhoughjr1 *SHATTER THEIR SKIES!*
Man, Ender's Game is so goddamn good. I love how deep the sequels go into interspecies relations and how different "death" can be between species.
Ender’s Game could have been even deeper, the reason so many books offered different perspectives. Something any writer could learn from. But yes, I adore every one of them.
It’s so sad that Hollywood committed exactly the same atrocities in their movie that Card always feared they would. I always thought he was being over dramatic, turns out I was far too optimistic.
Me, seeing almost any military science fiction film:
_GaRbAgE dAy._
Okay, but Edge of Tomorrow/Live Die Repeat is pretty damn good.
David Drake is pretty good, IMO.
When a third of the video is an ad and it’s not raid shadow legends. Hold up
The Starship Troopers reference was on point!
7:52 reminds me of the interviews with the men of East Company in Band of Brothers where their explaining why they joined such a dangerous job. It went something like:
“The recruiter walked in and said ‘You’ll be an experimental unit, jumping out of an airplane and being guided down by parachutes.’ and not a single hand went up. Then he said ‘Oh, also, it’s 50 bucks extra.’ *Puts hand up*”
“Son of a war-protester!”
The poet deals in golden.
As someone in the Marine corps infantry you are extremely accurate on how it is to be a grunt....
All of my knowledge of military science fiction comes from playing Starcraft religiously as a teenager. Trust me, that power armor isn't saving anybody. Hehe! Great video, JP!
By the God Emperor! We should purge all xenos, heretics and daemons!
"My armor is contempt. My shield is disgust. My sword is hatred. In The Emperors name let noone survive!
The Emperor protects.
What by the Emperors Throne are you talking about "interesting, well developed character" *GET BACK TO DIGGING THAT TRENCH GUARDSMAN!*
@@battleoid2411 *trench digging intensifies*
*ANND someone needs decaf this morning i think*
For the EMPEROR!
Also seriously dude: consider making this whole sponsorship saga into a book or something. it'll sell.
Or a love triangle with an mary sue and 12 hunk oiled guys, and make Mary Sue a chosen one.
@@guilhermeribeiro402 Oh no, what have you done! 😂
This makes me acctually more confident about my millitary sci-fi story
2:15 HOLY SHIT I DID THAT! I had to make a story for school as a substitute mid-term, and I actually had a scene where the characters used an on-the-spot Plan B to achieve success in their mission after their armor ran out of battery.
_”Come on, you apes! You wanna live forever?!”_
Great quote, but I'll forever hold that Dan Daly was ten times the Marine that Rico was supposed to be.
I distinctly remember that line from Vanquish... XD
@@AegixDrakan - It's a good one, right!
Fun trivia: the original quote, to my knowledge, goes back to the US Marine GySgt Dan Daly at the battle of Beleau Wood in 1917. He led charges through a wheat field directly at a machine gun emplacement, and was recorded as shouting, "Come on, you sons-of-bitches! You ant to live forever?!"
The action earned him his *second* Congressional Medal of Honor.
Correction, because I suck: Daly was *nominated* for a Medal of Honor in that action, but was denied because he ALREADY HAD TWO. From two different actions. So they gave him a Navy Cross instead.
@@bordenfleetwood5773 I thought it was first credited to Frederic the Great of Prussia at the Battle of Kolín.
@@hemidas - I was unaware of this attribution, but would be interested to learn. Would you happen to have a trustworthy source I can check out?
I'M DOING MY PART!
**Proceeds to write story about people on isolated island subsumed by spooky, creeping presence after a hurricane**
Desire to know more *intensifies*
7:03 nice Enders game reference dude. Honestly one of my favorite science fiction books.
This is why red rising and it’s starshells are so awesome as superarmor, it’s not some super weapon which makes u invincible and there were many cases where it actually crashed down the characters cause of malfunctions or whatever. It doesn’t just make you invincible out of thin air
I love these videos but I go through them so fast because any time I need something to occupy my entire brain I just binge like 20 in a row. These are perfect because they require just enough concentration to do that while still honestly being relaxing/de-stressing to watch as well as entertaining and helpful. Which means I've watched every video so many times my eyes will probably eventually fall out of my head.
As someone writing a story where the military secretly consists of like 20 half-mercenaries half-soldiers from the tattered remains of humanity and their 90 billion unmanned combat vehicle buddies, the "follow a realistic chain of command" part felt like it was meant for me specifically
Northropi I think it can be excused as long as it shows the consequences/has self awareness
Well you said 'secretly consists of' meaning an effort is being made to cover that fact up. That sounds interesting inherently and justifies the very few people involved and lack of conventional/proper command chain. It suggests that things went pear shaped and it's being covered up to prevent total morale collapse.
@@Air_Serpent I'm going for a... Bleak-yet-hopeful, I guess, tone? The emptiness it invokes gives it both loneliness and a sense of freedom, which has really shaped the way it's going since I made that leap away from just "army but in space." I'm still kind of stuck in the worldbuilding syndrome but stuff's coming together in a way I like.
@@Sorain1 It's not a secret within the ranks of the military, nor in the civilian populace because, well, there isn't one. It's more that it's kind of a reveal to the reader that I'll hold off on (sorry if that makes this a spoiler?) but it's consistent between the factions at play that there are just not a lot of people anymore, human or otherwise. Still, some of them have more generous populaces, and the exact numbers I gave were of course hyperbole- but it gradually becomes apparent that this group that is presented like an organized force is actually a bunch of one-man armies vaguely cooperating in more of a post-apocalyptic tribe held together by peer-to-peer C3 than a chain of command and they can't really stop each other if they decide to go rogue.
Yees! I love this genre, but nowadays it's easier to find good Fanfic then a Military Sci Fi setting without Author Filibusterers.
Given the genre originated in a thinly veiled nuclear proliferation propaganda piece, this is unsurprising.
Authors are often just more successful fanfiction writers :P
@@draconianwarking See the Mortal Instruments and 50 Shades. Straight up successful fanfiction.
@@draconianwarking I figure the biggest difference is that successful writers finish the story FIRST. Fanfic writers go for that sweet, sweet chapter-by-chapter instant gratification. 😂
Whats a Filibuster?
Reading Cadian Honour as of now. And I love how modern the IG gets in 40k. I've known some soldiers that actually liked the Sci-Fi Military stuff...
My father gave me a copy of the green cover Starship Troopers book that he found in his barracks decades ago. Then, I read The Forever War.
Both were written by War Veterans, and they respectively display the insights of their writers as well. You should give them a read.
Holy shit man!! First off, love your channel man. Consider me a long time listener, first time caller. I love your shit dude.
I came here specifically because I have been writing a series for over two years now, and it's set in a military science fiction setting. I wanted to be sure I hadn't done anything you mentioned here, and I'm proud to say I don't. Thank you for videos like this that force a writer to question their direction and character building. I've babbled long enough, but you sir have made me a better writer. Thank you. I would say you earned a subscribe, but pretty sure I already am.
5:44 "accidentally" advocating fascism.....
Yes.... "Accident".... 😉
Because facism is the only ideology capable of opposing C O M M U N I S M
He’s joking my guy