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| Greymark Question and Answer; An Opportunity for Clarification; Credit to Tehraani | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Apr 9 2012, 08:13 PM (430 Views) | |
| Deleted User | Apr 9 2012, 08:13 PM Post #1 |
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First off, thanks to Tehraani for the idea. Now to business. Greymark, as an extreme stratocracy, can be a difficult country around which to wrap one's mind. In endeavoring to understand the complexities of a country that is also an army, the first resource for any questions must be the Greymark Factbook. However, I understand that this is a work in progress, and likely will remain so until late this summer. Moreover, it would not have the answers to every possible question even if completed. So I'm opening this thread to more specific and detailed questions, or to requests for information pertinent to RPing which is not yet available on the factbook. I am at your disposal! |
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| Lamoni | Apr 10 2012, 06:06 AM Post #2 |
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Where do you see Greymark as being similar to Lyras, and where does Greymark make it's own departures from what Lyras does? |
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| Deleted User | Apr 10 2012, 02:42 PM Post #3 |
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Like Lyras, Greymark is a stratocracy; also like Lyras, every Greymarker is considered a serving soldier. This creates similar political and social patterns in which military rank is correlated to political and economic authority; see here for a more in-depth explanation of this. As in Lyras, education from birth is geared toward producing soldiers, with the result that every Greymarker is a better-trained combatant than the soldiers of almost any other nation. As in Lyras, most of the population that does not serve on active duty holds public sector jobs which are viewed as noncombatant military roles, and organized accordingly. Finally, as in Lyras, the economy is geared toward military production on incredible levels, because the entire country needs to be equipped for war, down to the last child; Greymark operates 1400 carrier groups and over a hundred thousand military aircraft. Thus, the vast majority of the Greymarker economy is spent on arms production simply in order to support the existence of the army-state as a viable fighting force in its entirety. Greymark is distinctly unlike Lyras in its size; it is 357 million people compared to a nation of over nine billion. It is also located in a much colder area, and the endless tundra and steppe play an important role in the Greymarker psyche. It is far more ethnically diverse, with four different major ethnic and religious groups, each with its own official language. Its government differs significantly; the Standing Orders of Greymark provide for promotion by an election of the rank immediately inferior, and since military rank corresponds to political authority, this allows for a kind of highly filtered indirect democracy. Greymark is also governed at a much more unitary level than Lyras; the Wardens are directly responsible for most major policy-making, and there is no equivalent of the Lyran Orders. Finally, unlike Lyras, Greymark is not an arms exporter; its whole economy is geared toward domestic production to arm and equip the army-state and the army-state alone. This means that Greymark remains much poorer than Lyras, and the standard of living of most Greymarkers is based on government social programs provided to them in their capacity as soldiers; they live in barracks, eat rations, and work at noncombatant military jobs, predominantly in armaments factories. Greymark is thus significantly less prosperous and more insular than Lyras, though the structure of the army-state means that everyone has work and nobody starves. Does this answer your question? If not, feel free to ask for further clarification. Thanks! |
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| Deleted User | Apr 10 2012, 06:07 PM Post #4 |
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Greymark, you know I enjoyed being part of your nation's history building, and used it as a model for my own. I think you are a good writer as both your nations and I'm looking forward to your involvement. Having said this, I think some of your numbers are way too high. I have a hard time believing in it. What I'd like to suggest is this: 1. Have a slightly larger than normal force for your size but only slightly. 2. Have an unusually long term of compulsory military service--say 4 years. That would give enough time that people would definitely have military experience as well as training. 3. Have an unusually large reserve force--like have say 3 degrees of preparedness for reserve divisions, and have regular re-training or maintenance of reserve units. 4. Have a decent amount of modern equipment, and a whole lot of out of date equipment to varying degrees. 5. Accept the fact that your people probably don't have a fantastic economy. Like that probably people are used to making do, a lot of mended clothes, lack of frills, etc. Maybe the average ones are factory workers and farmers. I think if you did this rather than focusing on 1400 aircraft carriers (that's like more than there are in the real world) and huge numbers it will be accepted better. You remember that in your history thread I suggested that huge numbers alone would not have won actions and that it wasn't necessary to win every battle for your people to have thrown off my people's colonial rule--in the same way you don't have to have a ridiculously huge military force to be effective. Look at great victories in history--the American Revolution, Bolivia, Vietnam, Israel vs. the Assyrians, etc. It's not the numbers but what you do with them. Edit with something else to add: I think that during recapturing of Abermark and certainly during the uprising that Mark Obed would have unhesitatingly bombed and bombarded any available militarily useful targets. Something to consider when thinking about the condition of your country now. |
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| Deleted User | Apr 10 2012, 07:59 PM Post #5 |
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I also think that you're an excellent writer - one of the best I know, in fact. And so I'm taking your suggestions under serious consideration. However, it's only the fourth and fifth suggestions that I can really accept. Regarding the fourth: this was my plan. Most Greymarker equipment was overhauled in the 1990s, but very little has been introduced since then, and the sheer size of the Greymarker military means that many - perhaps most - Reserve units are still equipped to varying degrees with out-of-date equipment from the 1970s. Bear in mind, though, that with an entire national economy geared toward producing military goods, enough modern equipment can still be manufactured to equip many millions of soldier-citizens. Regarding your fifth suggestion - I have always accepted it. If you look at my post in the economics thread, Greymark has one of the lowest GDPs per capita in Pardes. People live overwhelmingly in government-produced barracks, work in government-run factories, choke on smog, and die young in military hospitals. Factory workers and farmers are definitely the average, and the standard of living probably looks a lot like that of Soviet Russia in the 1970s. I've never tried to duck that reality; life in an extreme stratocracy is going to be nasty, brutish, and short. Running a nation as an army takes a heavy toll not just on resources, but on lives. Let me be clear: the reason why I insist on the sheer scale of the Greymarker military is because the military is the country. I have more carrier groups than the entire RL world, yes. Why? Not because I think I need them to win battles; I've experienced firsthand with Norvenia how small units with superior training and equipment can fight off forces many times their size. But because numbers like that are inherent in what it means for a country to be a stratocracy. If every citizen is a soldier, then the branches of service swell to enormous size; if a carrier group has 10,000 sailors, then 1400 such carrier groups are needed just to account for the active-duty sector of the Greymark Navy, let alone the millions of other Greymarkers who belong to it in a reserve capacity. I am not looking for a super-huge military with which to steamroll the world. I'm not interested in that. If I were, I wouldn't have made Greymark so isolationist. I am looking for a representation of what it really means to have a society in which military life is all that anyone ever knows. Such a society, never having existed on earth, by its nature involves figures which seem absurd from an RL standpoint. But on the basis of our experience together, I ask you to trust that I am throwing out such numbers not in a vain attempt to render Greymark invincible, but in an reasoned attempt to portray a society in which every citizen truly is a soldier. I hope that this has, to some extend, assuaged your worries. If you have more specific concerns, I'm happy to address them on a case-by-case basis. Please know that I value your opinion greatly, and I'm grateful for your input. Finally, regarding the Abermark and especially the Second Liberation - I had figured as much, but it's good to have it confirmed. Aberpont, the second-largest city in Greymark, has been comprehensively if imperfectly rebuilt since it was torn apart in 2002; there are a number of other references in the section on the Abermark in my factbook. |
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| Deleted User | Apr 10 2012, 08:26 PM Post #6 |
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1400 carrier groups? if they are all nimitz class carriers then you have spent well over 6 trillion on carriers alone, which even if spread over 30 years for a country your size would be quite impossible to maintain with the upkeep costs required. For reference, i only have 32 carriers and 30 of them are light carriers. I think for a nation your size, only 10 aircraft carriers at the most would be possible to maintain |
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| Deleted User | Apr 10 2012, 08:37 PM Post #7 |
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They're not; most are more equivalent to the Kitty Hawk class - smaller and conventionally powered, with modernized defenses and secondary armament. They've been under production since about 1960, so that's fifty rather than thirty years. Even with upkeep and modernization costs, that's probably less than half the price of the equivalent in Nimitz-class carriers, possibly much less. It's still an enormous expense, but spread out over fifty years, it is feasible, especially for a country with an economy focused all but exclusively on military production. |
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| Earth Sphere Coalition | Apr 10 2012, 09:03 PM Post #8 |
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1,400 Carriers. Man, that's too crazy even for me. What did you put in your kool-aide? Jeez...
Edited by Earth Sphere Coalition, Apr 10 2012, 09:03 PM.
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| Deleted User | Apr 10 2012, 09:10 PM Post #9 |
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| Canhadast | Apr 11 2012, 02:26 AM Post #10 |
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This is fairly ridiculous. A nation the size of the US has more carriers than have every been built or planned in RL earth. Claiming that this only looks ridiculous because no society on earth has been militarized to this level is like saying that ponies (of the brony variety) only *look* ridiculous only because horses have not been allowed to evolve to that level. Your answer is technically true, but not very convincing. Edited by Canhadast, Apr 11 2012, 02:27 AM.
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