The Behemoth in WCIII was a stupid idea

just one question,

i thought it was the temblor bomb that needed an unstable planet, and the
behemoth was just an enormous gun that could be fired at anything.

creating an enourmous spaceship around a flying gun to fire one single shot at a
single target simply sounds like a pure waste of recources, which they were short
on anyway.
 
Considering that one gun could destroy an entire planet, I think you're in the wrong.
 
Well, in this case only a very limited number of planets. and since it is a big
energy weapon, and not a smart bomb targeting at a specific region of the
planet, I find it hard to assume that you could not use it to blow up anything
else it could hit.
 
In both cases the Kilrathi have to fight to get within missile range, so I don't think the actual missile attack would be any different whether bioweaopns or strontium warheads were used. We don't have any indication that the skipper missiles were a unique delivery system that could only be used with bioweapons, so they almost certainly could have armed the missiles with strontium warheads if they wanted to instead. The only advantage I can think of for using a bioweapon is that if the Kilrathi are immune to the bioweapon then they can simply take over the planet once the human population was killed. With a strontium warhead the planet is totally useless for both the humans and the Kilrathi. In both cases I think the Kilrathi would view the attacks in the same way, since using radioactive contamination to kill your enemy or using a bio-engineered pathogen to kill your enemy are both dishonourable ways to kill another warrior.

Remember that what specifically perplexes Hobbes isn't the choice of weapon - it's the idea that Thrakhath was going to "grant prize without struggle" (trav'hra'nigath). It's the *fight* that matters to the Kilrathi - win the battle and you can do anything you want to the civilians (a reasonable evolution of belief for a species which fights wars to capture slaves).

The "Unseen Death" missiles were launched by Strakha which were specifically trying to avoid the colonies defenses - if they'd had some other type of weapon that produced a similar effect, the lack of honor would probably still be there.

i thought it was the temblor bomb that needed an unstable planet, and the behemoth was just an enormous gun that could be fired at anything.

The Behemoth would have done tremendous damage to another target - but Tolwyn was only certain it could completely destroy a tectonically unstable planet. They talk about this somewhat in the novel, where the Victory (and other battle groups) are scouting for possible test sites (which was why the Victory went to the Ariel System).
 
Do you think in Prophecy that some mad-crazed brass in the upper echolon of Confed Command who was part of Tolwyn's staff would think of developing another behemoth type weapon, sure they had that plasma cannon strapped on to the midway with their one off shot but i wonder if they would do it again.
When I first saw the Behemoth in Wing Commander 3 and then watching over it again I was laughing because it remind me of a miniture portable Death Star or to some Star Wars fans who may have read many of its books, the DarkSaber.
What do others think??
 
Bandit LOAF said:
Remember that what specifically perplexes Hobbes isn't the choice of weapon - it's the idea that Thrakhath was going to "grant prize without struggle" (trav'hra'nigath). It's the *fight* that matters to the Kilrathi - win the battle and you can do anything you want to the civilians (a reasonable evolution of belief for a species which fights wars to capture slaves).

The "Unseen Death" missiles were launched by Strakha which were specifically trying to avoid the colonies defenses - if they'd had some other type of weapon that produced a similar effect, the lack of honor would probably still be there.

In the WC3 novel, you have to remember that the Skippers were launched by the capships and not the Strakha - the Strakha were there to escort the missiles in and delay any Terran pursuit till they were all well on course for the strike, since the missiles had to decloak to get their bearings. In the WC movie, I can't remember if the Skippers were capship weapons or fighter weapons, but I thought I recalled they were ship-launched as well.

But the point stands - the Skippers were missiles that could be launched at range, without ever requiring one to close in on the target - the WC equivalent to naval ICBMs as it were; the launch platform would not go into range of the target's defenses, and the missile would home onto its target by itself, without direct and active control from the launch platform. With the Strontium-90 missiles, the Kilrathi had to fight their way into position to use them; the difference between firing torps or guns and firing Polaris missiles, so to speak.
 
Mace said:
just one question,

i thought it was the temblor bomb that needed an unstable planet, and the
behemoth was just an enormous gun that could be fired at anything.

In the WC3 novel they mention that the behemoth only works on tectonically unstable planets like Kilrah, so it basically has the same types of limitations as the temblor bomb.

Mace said:
creating an enourmous spaceship around a flying gun to fire one single shot at a
single target simply sounds like a pure waste of recources, which they were short
on anyway.

I addresed this in one of the earlier posts in this thread. The idea was that destroying Kilrah would kill the Emperor and most of the Imperial family, and the resulting chaos would make it impossible for the Kilrath to continue to fight the war effectively. All the clans would be fighting each other for power to replace the Imperial family and wouldn't be focused on fighting the Confederation any longer. The destruction of their homeworld would also completely demoralize the Kilrathi as well and create further problems. The Confederation fleet could take advantage of the resulting disorganization to defeat the Kilrathi fairly quickly. So even though the behemoth would only be useful for destroying Kilrah, that's all they'd need to use it for to win the war. If the behemoth had been used successfully it would definately have been well worth the investement of resources (and if Hobbes wasn't able to tell the Kilrathi about the behemoth's weak points there was a good chance it would have succeeded).

Bandit LOAF said:
Remember that what specifically perplexes Hobbes isn't the choice of weapon - it's the idea that Thrakhath was going to "grant prize without struggle" (trav'hra'nigath). It's the *fight* that matters to the Kilrathi - win the battle and you can do anything you want to the civilians (a reasonable evolution of belief for a species which fights wars to capture slaves).

The "Unseen Death" missiles were launched by Strakha which were specifically trying to avoid the colonies defenses - if they'd had some other type of weapon that produced a similar effect, the lack of honor would probably still be there.

The Kilrathi concept of "granting a prize without struggle" was referring to the use of bioweapons, not skipper missiles. The use of cloaking devices was nothing new to the Kilrathi and wasn't considered dishonourable at all. It only gave them the ability to launch surprize attacks with Strakha fighters and make the skipper missiles harder to shoot down. The use of cloaking devices didn't eliminate the need to fight, it just make it harder to defend against their attacks. If the Kilrathi armed their skipper missiles with anti-matter warheads, there would have been absoloutely no problem at all. Even if a few anti-matter skippers get through to reach a planet, they would only kill the targets hit directly by the warhead. The surviving humans on the planet can still try and fight, so the combat would still be considered honourable. Killing an enemy with biological weapons, on the other hand, isn't achieved directly through conflict and is considered to be "without struggle" because the pathogen is what spreads and does the actual killing rather than a conventional weapon. It wasn't considered honourable because it didn't give the humans a fair chance to meet them in combat.

Haesslich said:
But the point stands - the Skippers were missiles that could be launched at range, without ever requiring one to close in on the target - the WC equivalent to naval ICBMs as it were; the launch platform would not go into range of the target's defenses, and the missile would home onto its target by itself, without direct and active control from the launch platform. With the Strontium-90 missiles, the Kilrathi had to fight their way into position to use them; the difference between firing torps or guns and firing Polaris missiles, so to speak.

As I mentioned above, the Kilrathi didn't have any problems with using skipper missiles, it was the biological warheads they had a problem with. The skipper missiles were simply an effective weapon delivery system, they weren't considered dishonourable if they were used to kill an enemy directly with a convenational warhead. Using a bioweapon or strontium warhead, on the other hand, was considered dishonourable because it killed humans that weren't directly involved in the fighting.
 
The Kilrathi concept of "granting a prize without struggle" was referring to the use of bioweapons, not skipper missiles. The use of cloaking devices was nothing new to the Kilrathi and wasn't considered dishonourable at all.

It referred to the fact that they were leaving Locanda without a fight - Blair and company thought it was a euphamism for a surrender, but it turned out to mean that they were going to use the bioweapon on their way out.

It's the tactic, not the weapon... they used bioweapons at Repleetah without honor being an issue - and they wiped out entire populations a number of different ways throughout the war (orbital bombardment, the Proton Accelerator Gun, the afore mentioned Strontium-90 warheads).
 
Sarty said:
You should edit your posts instead of posting 3 times in a row.

I was responding to three separate posts. It's much easier for me to hit the quote button three times then to cut and paste all of the quotes into a single large post and type in "quote=" and "/quote".

It actually used to annoy me too when people made individual replies like I just did because I figured they were just trying to get their post count up, but then I realized that if they're posting replies to separate posts then it really isn't unreasonable for them to address them separately. And since its much faster than cutting and pasting everything into one large post I've gotten into the habit of replying to posts separately now. :)
 
Bandit LOAF said:
It referred to the fact that they were leaving Locanda without a fight - Blair and company thought it was a euphamism for a surrender, but it turned out to mean that they were going to use the bioweapon on their way out.

I just finished reading the WC3 novel, and based on what I read "granting a prize without struggle" was a clear reference to the use of bioweapons. The "prize" was the destruction of a human world (such as Locanda IV) and the lack of "struggle" refered to the use bioweapons instead of honourable combat. The humans initially thought that it might be referring to surrender, but they later realized that the Kilrathi were referring to the use of biological weapons.

Bandit LOAF said:
It's the tactic, not the weapon... they used bioweapons at Repleetah without honor being an issue - and they wiped out entire populations a number of different ways throughout the war (orbital bombardment, the Proton Accelerator Gun, the afore mentioned Strontium-90 warheads).

That's exactly my point. If the Kilrathi had no problems using bioweapons at Repleetah or using strontium warheads during the Battle of Earth, why did the Emperor and Thrakhath suddenly have doubts about whether they should use bioweapons at the start of the WC3 novel? The best explantion I've heard so far is CptnEisen's suggestion that the other Kilrathi may have begun to respect the humans enough to consider them worthy of honourable combat. It's speculative but it makes more sense then trying to suggest that the Kilrathi somehow viewed bioweapons as less "acceptable" than the other methods they had already employed to exterminate planetary populations.
 
What I'm saying is that it isn't the weapon itself - it's the manner in which the weapon is being delivered. They're not fighting for the system, they're firing their missiles in secret and running away.

Their moral viewpoint would be the same if they were undertaking the same plot using cloaked Strontium-90 warheads -- conversely, they would have no problem using biological weapons in a situation where they've fought to take a system (as they did at Repleetah).

The key is that the Kilrathi don't have the same moral viewpoint towards civilian populations that we have. Populations are resources to them - the Kilrathi fight wars to capture slaves that they use for horrible things... their concept of honor involves the fighting, not the treatment of the prize.
 
Bandit LOAF said:
What I'm saying is that it isn't the weapon itself - it's the manner in which the weapon is being delivered. They're not fighting for the system, they're firing their missiles in secret and running away.

It IS the type of weapon that's the issue. The Kilrathi have no problem retreating if necessary, since they can always come back later and defeat their enemies in combat. And they have complete respect for clever tactics that outwit an opponent, which is why the Kilrathi referred to tactics such as the Tarawa's raid and the ambush at Vukar Tag as "masterful" even though they didn't fully respect the humans themselves. The Kilrathi have no problem retreating, abandoning territory or luring their enemies into a trap if it serves some purpose as part of a larger plan.

Bandit LOAF said:
Their moral viewpoint would be the same if they were undertaking the same plot using cloaked Strontium-90 warheads -- conversely, they would have no problem using biological weapons in a situation where they've fought to take a system (as they did at Repleetah).

The key is that the Kilrathi don't have the same moral viewpoint towards civilian populations that we have. Populations are resources to them - the Kilrathi fight wars to capture slaves that they use for horrible things... their concept of honor involves the fighting, not the treatment of the prize.

As I mentioned before, the cloaked skipper missiles were never a problem for the Kilrathi at all. Cloaking technology was not viewed as dishonourable in any way by the Kilrathi. They already used cloaking devices on their Strakhas and even used Strakhas to ambush the Tiger's Claw without any loss of honour. Strontium warheads and bioweapons, on the other hand, were not an honourable way to fight an opponent. The Emperor and Prince Thrakhath ordered the use of strontium warheads and bioweapons because they viewed the Terrans as "prey" and not worthy of honourable combat. They wouldn't have been able to use those types of weapons on an opponent that was worthy of honourable combat without opposition by the other Kilrathi.
 
I don't think you understand what I'm saying. It's not the single fact that they're retreating or that they're using cloaked missiles - it's that they're not fighting at all.

There's no "change" to weapons of wholesale destruction specifically because their view of humans has changed after Fleet Action - they were flattening whole colonies with nukes in 2634, they were doing it with the PAG in 2654 and they were dosing planets with bioweapons in the early sixties... the difference is that all those battles involved a struggle and they fought for the ability to wipe out those planets in the first place.
 
Bandit LOAF said:
I don't think you understand what I'm saying. It's not the single fact that they're retreating or that they're using cloaked missiles - it's that they're not fighting at all.

What do you mean by "not fighting at all"? They had to establish a fleet presence in the system to launch the missiles and they had to escort the skipper missiles to Locanda IV to prevent them from being shot down. After the bioweapons hit Locanda IV, they retreated because they had succeded in testing the weapon. They didn't need or want to hold the system after that, so there was no reason to continue fighting there. They also wanted to ensure that the Victory escaped so that they could use Hobbes as a spy to sabotage the behemoth. Aside from the use of bioweapons there was nothing they did that would have been considered dishonourable. They weren't surrendering, they were trying to outwit the Confederation.

Bandit LOAF said:
There's no "change" to weapons of wholesale destruction specifically because their view of humans has changed after Fleet Action - they were flattening whole colonies with nukes in 2634, they were doing it with the PAG in 2654 and they were dosing planets with bioweapons in the early sixties... the difference is that all those battles involved a struggle and they fought for the ability to wipe out those planets in the first place.

Regardless of any struggle that may have been involved prior to the launch of strontium warheads or bioweapons, it would still be considered inherently dishonourable for the Kilrathi to use those types of weapons on a species that they considered to be worthy of combat. From the Kilrathi point of view, it simply isn't honourable to kill another warrior by poisioning them or infecting them with a bioweapon because it doesn't help prove that Kilrathi are superior warriors. That's why I found it very out of character for the Emperor and Prince Thrakhath to express any concerns about using bioweapons at the start of the WC3 novel. They already used strontium warheads during Fleet Action and never saw the humans as anything other than "prey". Their opinion of humans went down even further after they accepted the false armistice, so if anything they should have been even more convinced that using bioweapons on humans would be justified during WC3.
 
Well, I'm referring directly to how Hobbes' explains the situation in Locanda in the novel: "Ceasing to struggle for a prize one deems worthwhile is not honorable at all," Hobbes said slowly. "A tactical retreat, yes, especially if there is duty to one's followers involved, but the ultimate object is never abandoned."
 
Bandit LOAF said:
Well, I'm referring directly to how Hobbes' explains the situation in Locanda in the novel: "Ceasing to struggle for a prize one deems worthwhile is not honorable at all," Hobbes said slowly. "A tactical retreat, yes, especially if there is duty to one's followers involved, but the ultimate object is never abandoned."

From what I remember, at that point they were still trying to figure out what the Kilrathi concept of "granting a prize without struggle" was referring to. They didn't realize that it was referring to a new bioweapon, and the only thing they could think of at the time was that the "lack of struggle" might refer to a Kilrathi retreat. But in the passage you quoted Hobbes indicates that the Kilrathi would only retreat temporarily and would return to fight if they considered the territory to be valuable, so they weren't sure what the Kilrathi were going to do at Locanda IV until they learned about the bioweapons.
 
Of course with the fact that Hobbes was tipping the Kilrathi off about the Behemoth project, any attempt to move a huge Confed fleet into Kilrah would've been met with a larger Kilrathi force no matter how sneaky Confed was about gathering the fleets. The more fleets Confed could've brought into the operation, the bigger the disaster would've been. Of course this is hindsight.

Given that it is hindsight, if I were a member of Confed high command I think I would've favored the Behemoth project over the Temblor bomb, and quite possibly dedicated more resources towards it. It just would've seemed to have a higher probability of success. The Temblor bomb required among other things extracting a scientist from a Kilrathi prison. Given the Kilrathi treatment of prisoners, I wouldn't be sure the scientist would still be alive, or if he was, he may no longer be mentally fit to develop the bomb. Also, who knew if the covert Confed team that Angel was a part of succeeded in their mission? The supply depots that were created may have been discovered and destroyed by the Kilrathi. The Behemoth project only requires managing to sail the huge ship close enough to Kilrah to hit it. This is by no means an easy task, but certainly has alot less variables than the Temblor project.

Given the covert requirement of the Behemoth project, I would hope that I would have the good sense to be skeptical of putting a Kilrathi on a strike team destined to kill his own planet. Even if Hobbes was loyal to Confed, blowing up an entire planet that was the Kilrathi homeworld and had old friends and family living on it would be bound to cause conflict in even the most loyal defectors. Of course "loyal defector" seems to be a contradiction of terms.
 
Mjr. Whoopass said:
The Temblor bomb required among other things extracting a scientist from a Kilrathi prison. Given the Kilrathi treatment of prisoners, I wouldn't be sure the scientist would still be alive, or if he was, he may no longer be mentally fit to develop the bomb.


I suppose, given Vagabonds reaction to the rescued scientist, that the doctor was possibly in the kilrathi prison with confeds blessing... atleast untill they were desprate enough to want to finish one of his projects. ( Of couse I don't have the novel handy to compare:()

If so I'd imagine they would have been keeping close tabs on his whereabouts.
 
Mjr. Whoopass said:
Of course with the fact that Hobbes was tipping the Kilrathi off about the Behemoth project, any attempt to move a huge Confed fleet into Kilrah would've been met with a larger Kilrathi force no matter how sneaky Confed was about gathering the fleets. The more fleets Confed could've brought into the operation, the bigger the disaster would've been. Of course this is hindsight.

If Confed had any idea that Hobbes had leaked information about the Behemoth (both the Behemoth's location and its weak points) they probably would have recalled the Behemoth and tried to plan a new attack. Once the Kilrathi learned about the Behemoth, the only way to get it close enough to Kilrah would have probably been a massive escort fleet that might have survived long enough to get the Behemoth within firing range. Their fleet would have undoubtedly met heavy Kilrathi forces and taken severe losses, but if the Behemoth managed to destroy Kilrah it probably would have ended the war. A large Behmoth escort fleet would have left Earth open to a Kilrathi counterattack, however, so the Confederation fleet probably couldn't have managed to provide a heavy escort without leaving themselves almost totally defenseless.

Mjr. Whoopass said:
Given that it is hindsight, if I were a member of Confed high command I think I would've favored the Behemoth project over the Temblor bomb, and quite possibly dedicated more resources towards it. It just would've seemed to have a higher probability of success. The Temblor bomb required among other things extracting a scientist from a Kilrathi prison. Given the Kilrathi treatment of prisoners, I wouldn't be sure the scientist would still be alive, or if he was, he may no longer be mentally fit to develop the bomb. Also, who knew if the covert Confed team that Angel was a part of succeeded in their mission? The supply depots that were created may have been discovered and destroyed by the Kilrathi. The Behemoth project only requires managing to sail the huge ship close enough to Kilrah to hit it. This is by no means an easy task, but certainly has alot less variables than the Temblor project.

I actually would have put more resources into the Temblor bomb project. Once the Temblor bomb was completed it could have been mass-produced fairly quickly. They had at least two Temblor bombs hidden at each of the secret depots near Kilrah and they probably could have built dozens more if they needed to. The big advantages of the Temblor bombs are that they are much easier to deploy than the Behemoth (since they can be carried by a single heavy fighter) and you can build several of them and have backups to increase your chances of a successful strike. Kilrah was heavily defended, but Confed could have sent in dozens of Excaliburs armed with Temblor bombs. Even if only one of them makes it through, that's all you need to destroy Kilrah. With the Behemoth, you really only have one chance because if the Kilrathi can destroy or disable the Behemoth there aren't any backups.

Although I think the Temblor bomb would have been more useful than the Behemoth, I think it would have been most effective to deploy them both simultaneously in a combined attack on Kilrah. While the Kilrathi are busy trying to stop the Behemoth, the Excaliburs are making Temblor bomb attack runs on Kilrah. The Kilrathi didn't know anything about the Temblor bomb, so they wouldn't have even suspected the Excaliburs and would have probably focused entirely on the Behemoth. And even if they learned about the Temblor bombs and tried to stop the Excaliburs, that would divide their fire and give the Behemoth a better chance.

Mjr. Whoopass said:
Given the covert requirement of the Behemoth project, I would hope that I would have the good sense to be skeptical of putting a Kilrathi on a strike team destined to kill his own planet. Even if Hobbes was loyal to Confed, blowing up an entire planet that was the Kilrathi homeworld and had old friends and family living on it would be bound to cause conflict in even the most loyal defectors. Of course "loyal defector" seems to be a contradiction of terms.

Presumably Tolwyn had complete faith in Hobbes, since he was in charge of assigning personnel to the Victory in preparation for the behemoth attack. I agree that it probably wasn't a good idea to assign Hobbes to the Victory, but at that point he had served the Confederation for so long that his loyalty to the Confedreation was without question. There were many other human traitors that have betrayed the Confederation (Jazz and the government official from Fleet Action are two of the best examples), so the Kilrathi probably could have found another way to get information about the Behemoth by bribing a human officer in the Confederation Navy. I really don't like the idea of Hobbes being a traitor in the first place, since it takes everything about Hobbes from Freedom Flight and totally ignores it. Based on the information in Freedom Flight, Hobbes was supposed to be one of the few Kilrathi that understood that the war was meaningless and wasn't helping the Empire. Turning him into a traitor basically takes Cobra's anti-Kilrathi mentality and totally justifies it, since her suspicions about Hobbes were 100% correct in the end. Hobbes being a traitor is probably one of the only things I totally can't stand about the Wing Commander storyline.
 
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