Yu Jing Fluff - Perception, Reality, Desire

Except... too many casualties mentioned. About thousands of trained, professional soldiers died isolated in the Japan assault... unless somehow those 25.000 soldiers of the first offensive somehow escaped with less than 1% casualties, that is, because a 10% means 2.500 dead guys.
Kinda... hard blow to any military organization. Not only because of gear lost, but bodies and morale.

Big numbers go both ways.

Well... In fact, JSA needed 9 of the Security Council seats, because those numbers are needed to approve the Oberhouse's decisions.
As I said before, 1 seat is not defined on the RPG, other is NA nations, other is Aleph, 5 goes to each big faction, and O-12 gets 4. Now, we take out YJ's (because whoever thinks that one would vote yes needs a shrink's visit, seriously), and we find that 3 "no" blocks the Japanese's nation status... So O-12 NEEDS to be totally on board with this.

Add to that that Aleph MUST have been onboard aswell for whatever reason, or the data trail would have reached the right ears.

I just read the "infinity narrative guide". Until the last 2 pages it's fairly neutral, but then it starts to throw its lot with the JSA: stating that Aoi Tanemura's cessation was arbitrary (instead of saying "used as scapegoat", for example), or the description on the last page of YJ as "anything to blow those nomads up! mwahahahahaha, we care nothing at all for the JSA troops!!!" certanily change the tone completely.

So I'd go with Occam's razor and vote that no, he's no genius, and this is no masterpiece of human ingenuity that no one will ever understand.

I disagree there, just with the Infinity Narrative Guide last two pages of data we have an example that is not neutral. Unless, of course, you wanna argue with me what neutral means.

Wrong. Read the RPG, I already posted data about how O-12 worls. For starters it's totally independent, with more money coming from patetnts and the Circulars than what the nations "donate". And Bureau Aegis is so powerfull and independent, there have been unsuccefsull attempts to break it into 2 bureaus... and it's suspected by some of being the true power that controls O-12.

So impact: the circulars do not visit your system. I'll let you think about it, imagine all international traffic but for the very expensive military ships you have for emergencies stops.

No. The Oberhouse has hundreds of seats, in a variable number determined by the Petit Assemblée, and those seats are not only the hands of the nations, but of industries and the like. It's like the Senate of Star Wars, if you want.

JSA would need to court the Petit Assemblée (which can block the Oberhouse's proceedings, and can take upon itself something deemed too critical or urgent) and the Security council (which needs to approve the Oberhouse's decisions).

It would make more sense that the plan already existed and it was implemented. Even if not real or practical, military organizations tend to plan for a lot of stuff... I heard some years ago that the Spanish military had plans for take Paris. With military units at 100% strength that were deactivated for not having personnel...

A mention has been made of the JSA taking some stations and colonies near other nation's territories. So there was either no YJ loyalist troops nearby (not very logical, if they didn't trust the Japanese because they dismissed them as cannon fodder, as so many are so fond of set in stone) or the other nations had to provide "humanitarian aid".
But about the "no military assets were moved prior to the uprising", please take into account that the JSA would need to redeploy itself to have a prayer against YJ's numbers. And I'm talking about moving troops, material and starships.

You can't have it both ways: either he was a nobody undeserving of being controlled, or he was meeting movers and shakers that WERE being monitorized. It's not the type of meeting, but who he meets with.
And being a 2nd rate japanese citizen is coming and goings would be controlled by automated passports check, so the ISS had a database with his travels. Now, you can argue that nobody checked that, but the problem is scale. With so many citizens you could get thousands of entries per second in those databases, or more. So automated programs with limited AI capabilities would be needed, because Big Data and Business Intelligence and Datamining.
So a pattern would be discovered, or the ISS (or whatever letter soup agency) was grossly incompetent.

I would vote for superior firepower farther than the horizon, and orbital superiority. Atmospheric fighters have a big problem when you pick HMC weapons of capital size: cover in the air is scarce, and in atmospheric conditions you can be seen (in Space an electronic countermeasure and emissions control is enough, though).
It would be, in fact, easier to prevent anything to take the skies than have more and deadlier fighters. Specially if the IA's troops were not already in "China".

To me is mostly that I want things to make rational sense. And this narration could have fly 20 years ago, not because of we being younger, but because right now you can find data almost about anything you care enough to read about on the Internet.
Heck, in the Eclipse Phase forum they posted a 34 pages essay about space warfare from a real perspective (not tied to the system, but something with a paradigm and design that can be implemented in the real world given enough technological development) that concluded that you don't wanna be near any kind of space battle, and that it would be mostly 2 automated "cargo ships" (engines with structure to secure the modules) deploying weapons, countermeasures and other auxiliary stuff in a cloud and try to take out the enemy's engines while both moved in a vector.

From the RPG, pg 182:

Earth Bastion Army: The Earth Bastion Army has the complicated mission of both protecting PanOceania’s interests on humanity’s fractured homeworld as well as securing their various colonies, settlements, and orbitals throughout the Sol system.​

We insist that parts of it fail very loudly. Some others are coherent and logical, like PanO's being able to blockade YJ's reinforcements (which is an act of war anyway, unless O-12 sanctioned that beforehand, that is).

The problem with this posture is that you insist that the "money" (I use the word as a generalization of riches, money, resources, whatever) the Japanese took from YJ is an irrelevant amount... yet at the same time, is enough to ensure the economic future of a nation with debts with almost EVERY power of the Sphere (this is needed because, if not, they will take that Japanese nation piecemeal and the Uprising would end pretty fast with those territories in dispute between YJ and the other potencies), and it's enough to attract the interest of so many players they feel there are enough pie for all and justify the inmense risk and expenses PanO incurred upon.
Because PanO fired, and movilized troops, to stablish that Wall of Steel, and that costs money... and PanO's military money comes from the corporations, remember!

Can you please stop repeating this? The ones who have, which are at least the spanish people who ordered it to CB (and I know this for sure, including photos of "look, I just got the JSA box and the Uprising book" in the Whatsapp channel) are not responding to those plot holes we are raising concern about. So either you provide the data from the book to answer our worries, or stop telling us that unless we pay for a book we cannot get a refund from if we decide it's not worth it we have no right to point the holes in the plot.

Because somebody has to tell the emperor he is naked, you know, lest he ruins his country in inexistent garments -.-

You need to read better fiction. I would suggest the first Honor Harrington books (there comes a point when it's just a waste of ink because the plot stops moving for two or three whole books... but), or have a look at the works mentioned here (Ghost in the shell is among the first listed...), of which The Moon is a Harsh Mistress is VERY relevant and a good read (and in my personal definition, "a good read" means you lose track of time while reading the book).

Also, an entertaining and interesting TV series on spies is "Burn Notice", just for the actors it's worth the time.

Except, they don't. They have programs, machine learning, and big data tools for that kind of things. And in Infinity, Yu Jing has Aleph's help because they pay for it.

I'm talking about programs that routinely collate databases with 30GB of data, on the smaller side, for a bank's operation in a single country, just in the office I work.

The problem is that O-12 is broken on 3 houses, and the big one (the Oberhouse) requires too much backroom dealing to secure the votes... and you need the other two anyway, because one can block the Oberhouse and the other is needed to ratify their decisions. But anyway, we need to take into account travel times.

Realistically speaking, PanO could have had the O-12 order emitted BEFORE YJ's troops started moving against Japan, which would mean YJ was left out of the O-12 (since it has voting members on all chambers!), thus making it a case of "humanity Vs YJ", or PanO moved without sanction and got a retroactive one.

In any case, explanations would be needed. And then it's not only the PMC, but all those important people who have autority to broke backroom deals with that bland, anonymous agent (can I call him Lying Darkness? Ninube works too).

Weren't we talking the work of years? You cannot expect this to work if the dude met with Ikari five years ago, set everything, and then never contacted them until a month before the Insurrection... Spy work!

 

I think that you might be overestimating Yu Jing's intelligence resources. I doubt they have the funding to track and monitor every Japanese citizen. Sure those traveling abroad might garner more attention, but they also would require much greater effort to keep an eye on once they are outside your national boarders. How do they know he is meeting with organized crime? I doubt he filled that out on his travel Visa. I am sure the meetings were clandestine, organized crime likes it that way. Again I say Yu Jing is not omniscient. Stuff is going to slip through the cracks, possibly repeatedly.

 

Doesn't most of that sort of hiring takes place on Maya, on the various clusters that make up the War Market? Even if the Yanjing and ISS are trying to closely monitor activity they have to be limited in how deep they can get in the Market, which by the nature of the business is going to have some sort of protections against its contracts being spied on as well as the natural protection of the noise from all the other market activity. .

In that context, I'd think someone of Japanese descent making in-person meetings with mercs would be more likely to raise flags simply by standing out. But you don't need to fly to a Human Edge asteroid to sit down with someone for tea, you just need a good VR rig, could it be that our preternaturally-nondescript envoy was making these PMC deals that way, or is it clear they were literally taking a ship out to meet skin-to-skin?

 

Well... retroactive still counts in international politics.

 

@xagroth
Thanks for the details there. I haven't read the RPG so I'm definitely missing some of how O-12 functions. They have a lot more agency than I realized.

 

That is a good point, but the bigger the data, the easier it is for the small blips to disappear.

 

You give them passports. Everytime they pass through a spaceport, a log is created. And remember, the Circulars are filled with ISS and Santiago Knights...

Some deals require a face to face with the Johnson. And some others are better made from outside of the State Empire, with disposable phones.

Point is, some deals would be ok. Too many start the "single error brings the house down" argument.

Indeed, but it will only prevent YJ from demanding reparations inmediately, and you can be sure YJ will move things in the Conclilum Courts, and the Bureau Aegis, in the part of the Section Statera (hordes of lawyers!!!) will be heavily involved.
The problem is that since PanO deploys the Wall until O-12 sanction arrives, Earth is a few seconds to Midnight (in the apocalypse clock, since nuclear weapons would make things really difficult for the one who fires one).

It works precisely the other way around: the bigger the data, the easier it is to find patterns! It's like geometry: a single point gives you nothing, two gives you a line (1D), three gives you a plane (2D), etc...

I would have find more realistic that it was several agents of the ninja clans, frankly. It would fit more with Shinobu's portfolio.

 

Again relative powers, Japan is on the same power level (not aligned) with mercenary companies, Yu Jing is a superpower the JSA fleet was part of the Yu Jing navy, the crippled from combat casualties JSA fleet is the entire JSA navy.

What is huge for them is not huge for Yu Jing, Kurage survived because it was so unimportant high command said to the regional commander deal with it with what you have.

I do not have a definite for this but from the timeline Iron wall was first used (not named Iron wall) on Paradiso and it was an attempt from PanO to stop Yu Jing blowing to kingdom come one of the strongest fortifications against CA (because of course Yu Jing would put the JSA in the worse combat zones, but apparently they cared enouph to make sure they would survive the ordeal), they probably legally weaselled their position to do it on the other cases from there.

 

I'm a bit less annoyed after reading the Narrative guide, so nice work there CB. I honestly had no idea what the fuck was going on during TAGLINE but at least the narrative is coherent when you take a step back like this. Still not in love with the extent to which Yu Jing has to job to keep the story together though.

 

I'll have to find this narrative guide, clearly.

 

https://assets.infinitythegame.net/...ve_guide/en/v1.0/infinity_narrative_guide.pdf

 

Seems like everything stems from yu jing not getting their power plant back. I guess the nomads are the real bad guys after all.

 

Always have been, Bakunist anarchism is a bourgeois knife aimed to bleed out the progress of humanity as embodied by the enlightened forward-thinking policies of the Party!

 

It's not that complex. It's a slightly-more-capable UN, but even harder to get stuff done with three houses...

Yeah, that Steel Wall was ... hell, way more dangerous than the Cuban Missile Crisis or Able Archer in 1983...

I'm rather fluent in realpolitik. You kinda have to be when you work around nukes.

This is really stretching things.

PsychoticStorm is the Greek WarCor and a volunteer moderator on the forums. He doesn't work for CB, last I heard.

Breaking a blockade is usually considered an act of war.

Military assets, particularly ships and aircraft, are almost always in motion. The commander of a US carrier group can, at his own discretion, decide to move closer to a place where trouble is brewing (or where a disaster has happened, the US Navy did not wait for DC approval to respond to either the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami or the 2011 Tohoku quake/tsunami. They 'marched to the sound of the guns' and told DC "hey, we've deployed and will need lots of fuel to keep the planes flying")

Sure, placing units on alert happens all the time.

It's a whole different thing when you order those units to enter another nation's sovereign airspace and shoot down that nation's military! It's not like the South China Sea, where nobody but China is accepting the claims of sovereign waters. This is like the USAF flying between Moscow and StPetersburg to shoot down Russian airplanes flying troops en route to suppress a rebellion in StPete. I'd expect nukes to start flying in less than an hour.

The only thing an Air Force can do to a city is destroy it. They cannot force occupying infantry out of it, it takes other infantry to do that.

Kennedy did back down in Cuba, by telling the Soviets we were pulling the Jupiter missiles out of Turkey. Granted, we had been planning on doing that for a year, but the Soviets were no happier about having nukes 15 minutes flight from Moscow than the US was about having nukes 15 minutes flight from DC.

No, it's an act of war to take without having an O12 Security Council Resolution in hand.

Which apparently means that the O12 Security Council doesn't have veto authority like the UNSC does. I mean, the 5 permanent members of the UNSC can stop any proposed measure dead, and any one of the permanent members would shoot down any proposal to enforce a no-fly zone over their own territory instantly.

Given Asian cultural standards, it'd be probably a dozen meetings. The first one is just to introduce yourself. At the second, you talk about what areas you're going to be talking about in further negotiations. Once the scope of discussion has been agreed to, then you can actually start talking about what specifically you want to do, though that doesn't have to happen in formal face-to-face meetings. Some of the meetings would be dinners or drinks.

Quite frankly, I'd expect "crippling casualties" for 25,000 soldiers (that's ~2 divisions) to be on the order of less than 2000. Because most of a division is NOT combat soldiers, it's their support. There's only about 6000 infantry in two divisions, and infantry units are completely combat-ineffective after 33% losses.

If something like the Steel Wall happened today between the US and Russia, the entire planet would be less than an hour from nuclear weapons detonating. Less than half an hour from the start of the exchange.

 

Yup. @Interruptor , interested in elaborating?

 

So you insult his writing (that you haven't read) and now call him out by name to explain how his fictional story differs from a historical event that occurred over 200 years before it.

You must be a blast at parties.

 

I'm saying that O12's Security council doesn't have single-no vetos like today's UN Security Council. Because that's the only way you get the Steel Wall to happen without starting a war.

 

Yep, 100% with you there. My previous post was not directed at you.

 

Well I figured I'd draw his attention to it. I am talking shit about someone's work, after all, it's fair to give him a chance to retort.

 

So what, is this like your mid-term project in intermediate trolling?