Best HFY Reddit Stories: War Games, Or, The Accidental Superpower

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#hfy #Greentext #awesome #space #spaceorcs #/tg/ #greentexts #4chan

[@SupCom78]

Alien: Your Military Force is absolutely HUGE it scares us. Human: What Huge Military Force its just our Quick respond Fleet ? ( So funny thx for uploading. )

[@SergeyWaytov]

Yyeps! Whoopsie!😂

[@Guiarr]

😅

[@USS_Grey_Ghost]

A QRF or Quick Reaction Force

[@-zawzaw-8897]

isn't that an alusion to another HFY story?

[@PanduPoluan]

Yeah, the FSA will learn about "reserve force" and "general mobilization"

[@ArchonSG1]

"Have you heard by chance, humanity's concept of "Total War"? No? Be glad you never need to find out."

[@CT-1035]

Do you want to find out why the Canadians say sorry all the time?

[@TheShadowblade9999]

@@CT-1035 Do you want to know what it means when they stop saying sorry?

[@Amoth_oth_ras_shash]

delight in it.. the crap your pants when something else causes them to go into total war mode ^^

[@solomonburns7137]

Cue FAFO.

[@laplace607]

The minute “Total War” is declared, one could reasonably expect the Human’s combat power to increase tenfold.

[@josephaskins1996]

I can appreciate how this story doesn't make us out to be crazy beings from an incredibly deadly planet, but instead a species with an incredibly different mindset to the other races of the galaxy because of differences in our histories and where we come from.

[@spudthepug]

That’s part of the reason I’m really starting to love HFY. The stories tend to be written from an alien POV and show just how weird we are.

[@scientistx5717]

Surviving two world wars and one cold war did not help our species psyche

[@Blxz]

@@scientistx5717 "but really it was the third and fifth world wars that really drove the point home."

[@kylejohns2288]

Thanks for the writing prompt I’ll tell you when I’m finished

[@Pibola64]

@@Blxz "third and fifth world wars" what about the fourth one??

[@omargoodman2999]

When your total forces makes the combined fleets of the entire rest of the alliance look like a Coast Guard by comparison.

[@krel7160]

When your coast guard makes the combined fleet of the alliance look like hired mercenaries at best

[@Saviliana]

@@krel7160 Its more like your police department makes the whole galaxy looks like mall security at best.

[@Talk-Hub]

"yes we scaled down our war machines production, we've been in a peace economy for a while now, all our factories have the capability of being switched to military production " ( as an old Romanian communist joke goes, " man I don't know what damned motorcycles I'm building here in the Factory, I respect all the damned blueprints but they all look like fucking tanks " ) , Imagine the collective heart attack of the galaxy when they realize the fleet of 1 species during peace time is actually 10% of what we could come up with during war times

[@ireallyreallyhategoogle]

lol

[@corranhuss]

And those are the relative peace time fleets, now considered humanity going into war economy

[@PanduPoluan]

"War economy" and "general mobilization" are definitely 2 concepts the FSA would be terrified to learn about.

[@bishalnath24]

@@PanduPoluan And add that Earth is a high gravity planet, meaning an individual soldier is physically more powerful than them.

[@chaplaingilgamesh2964]

Oh goodness. I can imagine it now. "Humanity has just made another 50 fleets, where are they getting all these ships!?" Meanwhile, the human war machine starts blotting out the stars with how many ships they're building.

[@USS_Grey_Ghost]

I have a feeling the reason those other hostile forces have been quiet for a while is because they might’ve figured out how much military force humans have and didn’t want to antagonize the largest military force in the area

[@truekurayami]

That would make them some of the smartest Empires/Nations in HFY

[@USS_Grey_Ghost]

@@truekurayami there can be some smart ones once in a Blue moon

[@JainZar1]

Yeah, I imagine the alien's military intelligence apparatus looking at the markings of at least 3 different "QRFs" they had contact with, that each comprise the entire forces of smaller fleets. And since it probably wasn't 1st, 2nd and 3rd fleet that intervened, it would make estimating the minimum forces easier.

[@noppornwongrassamee8941]

At a guess? The hostiles sent spies to gather intel on alliance force sizes. And while asking about an ally's military is diplomatic faux pas, and humanity might keep the exact capabilities of their military tech a secret, humanity's never been bothered to hide it's total force SIZE. So you can bet the instant any spy asks how big the human military is, they only have to be pointed at publicly available documents and press releases to find the answer. At which point they all go, "Oh shit." And the largest military in the known galaxy is only what humans admit to having. There's gonna be all kinds of rumors about what superweapons the human military might be keeping under wraps.

[@bandiras2]

To answer the last question: Fuk around, find out.

[@truekurayami]

Then the real question becomes, Is humanity your "Big Brother' or your enemy's once it's hit the fan.

[@DageLV]

This reminds me of Lithuanian squad exercise when command thought the guys got lost, so they sent an actual search party for them, with choppers etc and the squad thiught it's part of the exercise and won

[@calebstripling1489]

When the aliens realize that they’ve allied themselves with a loaded gun: 😨😱 Them then realizing they could point that gun at literally anything/anyone else: 😮‍💨

[@ShadeThe777]

Humanity : You're not that guy. FSA : What ? Humanity : You're not that guy. Humanity : I am that guy.

[@scotteggert9820]

Nic quote from the Expanse. and yeah, Humanity is That Guy. Always has been and always will be to the relief of our friends and the detriment of our enemies.

[@Zaluskowsky]

Yes, fits Perfectly lol

[@PanduPoluan]

Humanity to the rest of the FSA: "Just consider us your fun-loving enthusiastic little brother who is a bit oversized and will happily destroy whoever threaten our family." I mean, hey, even earlier in our spacefaring history we already implemented "Cessions", giving up huge swathes of space for younger species, and guarding them, rather than invading them and making them our vassals. In a way that reminds me of my own story in HFY, "Brothers & Sisters".

[@deanjones4928]

It would seem that Fleet Week was fully understood

[@Zaluskowsky]

Each Week, add a Fleet.

[@medical-cyanide1526]

Damn, the best comparisons my tired brain can come up with is if say the US or peak Soviet Union were somehow 100% isolated, got incredibly paranoid and did what essentially happened IRL, continuously built their forces expecting an equal force

[@user-iw6bu4iq4r]

Then realizing that once contact was made that paranoia resulted in one side becoming the largest military force on earth/galaxy. Yeah sounds like a human thing to do.

[@davidthorp01]

What’s funny is the Soviets often over projected their capabilities to the US. Hence why US capability creep is so noticeable in the quality of our equipment. Then the Russians would find out only to double down in fear of what the US would do if we found out they weren’t as about it as we thought. Which is hilarious really.

[@Aenonar]

Just look up the Mig-25 vs F-15 story... The Mig-25 appeared and USA thought it was extremely good and way faster than anything the west had, appears to outperformed everything they had. So they designed the F-15 in response and "spared no expense" as some like to say... Like a decade later a Mig-25 defects to the west and everyone finally found out that it was literally just a massive engine with fuel tanks, going extremely fast in a straight line but nothing else... Even the sheer speed was ripping itself apart and couldn't turn or even slow down... The F-15 that had been designed to match/counter it was at least 10 times as good and still outperforms pretty much everything built since then, 50 years later.... "oh... oops... guess we exaggerated a little..."

[@medical-cyanide1526]

@@Aenonarif I’m recalling correctly, there is a reason the 15 is considered the best all around fighter jet. May be messing up the name properly but you get the idea. Have you heard of how well the 22 preforms when compared to other active planes? In simulations it was discovered the only way to theoretically take “ONE” down is overwhelming numbers

[@mexcore14]

​@@medical-cyanide1526and now the F-15 was retrofitted to work in conjunction with F-35. F-35 is the eyes, F-15 is the claw. New models are rolling out of the production line with updates.

[@aco319sig3]

That last question: Probably laugh, then raise the defense budget again,. You know, just in case... God help anyone who attacked us, though.

[@ireallyreallyhategoogle]

Of course, got to protect our allies if they can't.

[@latemanparodius5133]

That's not even counting all of the civilians that are able and willing to put up a fight. How many are armed 'just in case'? If not armed, how near are they to something that can be used as a weapon either with or without a little modification?

[@ravenouself4181]

*looks at stick* it'll do *picks up stick*

[@idcgaming518]

​@@ravenouself4181looks at broom, tape and kitchen knife (when at home): "MAKESHIFT SPEAR!"

[@PanduPoluan]

And "general mobilization", a frightening concept.

[@Vrooto]

I can still imagine one person using a musket for home planet defence xd

[@WE_DONT_LIE]

​@Vrooto is there any other way?

[@FeyTheBin]

You're a superpower, Harry!

[@Zakvadr1995]

Humanity being the literal sleeping galactic giant seems so fitting that I would dare any extra galactic threat to try us. Also, just imagining the absolute horror of a full human mobilization would leave the Galaxy in worse shape than any extra galactic threat.

[@dumnor]

"Humanity is committed to triple our standing fleet within next 30 months to repel this invasion!" "You what?"

[@PerfectedEvil]

@@dumnor We can do more, but that would mean opening "The Vault"..... You don't want The Vault opened.

[@PanduPoluan]

"fully unleashed" ... Will not happen until someone threatens the FSA. And the FSA will have another lesson on "reserve' and "general mobilization" as the UN's Force enlarges by another order of magnitude.

[@wolfoffenris9951]

A devouring swarm or rouge AI Shows up and threatens the fsa With extinction H: now You did it bucko *Roles up sleves*

[@PerfectedEvil]

@@wolfoffenris9951 *rolls up magazine and swats AI with it* Bad AI, Bad AI....

[@brunsy1990]

The most accurate description of Fleet Week I've ever heard XD

[@smaragdwolf1]

sounds like a story with a potencial 2nd part... since the humans inhabit a region of space that many species want and sharing a border with a Species who seem to be rather "dangerous", if their presence alone did make other species hesitant to explore that region of Space.

[@ornerylurker8296]

“Mostly faff about and prepare for increasingly important improbable and ridiculous hypothetical scenarios only making the problem worse in the process soooooo same old same old.” It’s nice the boys in uniform get a break for once!

[@musicduck2251]

WE NEED A SEQUEL TO THIS STORY!! I want to know what happens Next

[@Zaluskowsky]

General to Ministry of Defense: Damn that was a good idea but with Horrific outcome. Now they know how hard to push their Military. I suggest we raise defense budget and build a STEALTH DEFENSE FLEET for every two other fleets. Minister: Nod Nod Nod

[@Cortanis001]

The hilarious part is that humanity would swing one of three ways. Ether we would do nothing as we see no threat and only wish to make peace at that point. The other side of the coin would be that we go full genocide and claim the entire thing for ourselves and ultimately regret it in the end as we have no others to talk to or look forward to. The last one is probably the most destructive though... We split the sentiment down the middle so to speak. Half of us would seek peace and share everything but would ultimately be dragged into war as elements of our population decide to go to war to get rid of any life that stands in our way.

[@polasamierwahsh421]

not really a more likely option of power tactics we can do and take whatever we want that no one has claimed & enforce our laws and spread our ideas among our neighbors and creating a space council like the un security council the alliance will become our alliance and post ww2 pre cold war politics of you do you we do us but watch out for backstabs along with some form of arms and tech race details will vary according to which nation is taking over but expect a couple of nato pacts , some warsow pacts and even a few centeral powers pact all with humanity or parts of humanity as a major player the only reason we do not destroy it all is a power balance akin to the confrence of euorpe or the mad doctrine tho with more oversight brought by the lessons learned from both

[@Zedyne]

Do not forget how the few discovered pre-spaceflight alien speices were protected and cared for by humanity, which means that unless there was a major shift of paradigm, the supposedly equal aliens would get the same treatment. Why fix something if it's not broken, after all.

[@zacharyhawley1693]

It all depends on how we're treated.

[@octaviondeminicolas1941]

Or the realistic and historically accurate route, the military gets defunded as there is no perceived need.

[@jayeisenhardt1337]

@@octaviondeminicolas1941 Defunded? Quick, we need a false flag and a new war!

[@thomashummer6162]

INDIVIDUAL SHIPS: 774 carriers, with 77,400 fighters and 154,800 men 1,998 dreadnoughts, with 999,000 men 4,640 cruisers, with 464,000 men 928 scout ships, with 9,280 men TOTAL COMBINED HUMAN MILTARY MIGHT: 8,340 ships, 77,400 fighters, and 1,627,080 men Assumptions: 1. Each carrier employs 100 men and 1 man per fighter, for a total of 200 men per carrier 2. Each scout ship employs 10 men EF (Expeditionary Forces) are 10 fleets of: 10 carriers, with 100 fighters and 200 men each (1,000 fighters and 2,000 men total) 20 dreadnoughts, with 500 men each (10,000 men total) 50 cruisers, with 100 men each (5,000 men total) 10 scout ships, with 10 men each (100 men total) EF FLEET TOTAL: 90 ships, 1,000 fighters, and 17,100 men 100 carriers, with 10,000 fighters and 20,000 men total 200 dreadnoughts, with 100,000 men total 500 cruisers, with 50,000 men total 100 scout ships, with 1,000 men total EF TOTAL: 900 ships, 10,000 fighters, 171,000 men CDF (Commonwealth Defense Forces) are, not including the DDF, 37 fleets of: 10 carriers, with 100 fighters and 200 men each (1,000 fighters and 2,000 men total) 20 dreadnoughts, with 500 men each (10,000 men total) 50 cruisers, with 100 men each (5,000 men total) 10 scout ships, with 10 men each (100 men total) CDF FLEET TOTAL: 90 ships, 1,000 fighters, and 17,100 men 370 carriers, with 37,000 fighters and 74,000 men total 740 dreadnoughts, with 370,000 men total 1,850 cruisers, with 185,00 men total 370 scout ships, with 3,700 men total CDF TOTAL: 3,330 ships, 37,000 fighters, and 632,700 men DDF (Domestic Defense Forces) are 15 fleets of: 10 carriers, with 100 fighters and 200 men each (1,000 fighters and 2,000 men total) 20 dreadnoughts, with 500 men each (10,000 men total) 50 cruisers, with 100 men each (5,000 men total) 10 scout ships, with 10 men each (100 men total) DDF FLEET TOTAL: 90 ships, 1,000 fighters, and 17,100 men 150 carriers, with 15,000 fighters and 30,000 men total 300 dreadnoughts, with 150,000 men total 750 cruisers, with 75,000 men total 150 scout ships, with 1,500 men total DDF TOTAL: 1,350 ships, 15,000 fighters, and 256,600 men SDF (Settlement Defense Flotillas) are 154 flotillas of: 1 carrier, with 100 fighters and 200 men (100 fighters and 200 men) 2 dreadnoughts, with 500 men each (1,000 men total) 10 cruisers, with 100 mean each (1,000 men total) 2 scout ships, with 10 men each (20 men total) FLOTILLA TOTAL: 15 ships, 100 fighters, 2,220 men 154 carriers, with 15,400 fighters and 30,800 men total 308 dreadnoughts, with 154,000 men total 1,540 cruisers, with 154,000 men total 308 scout ships, with 3,080 men total SDF TOTAL: 2,310 ships, 15,400 fighters, and 341,880 men TOTAL INDIVIDUAL SHIP+MAN COUNT: 774 carriers, with 77,400 fighters and 154,800 men 1,998 dreadnoughts, with 999,000 men 4,640 cruisers, with 464,000 men 928 scout ships, with 9,280 men TOTAL COMBINED HUMAN MILTARY MIGHT: 8,340 ships, 77,400 fighters, and 1,627,080 men Something doesn't add up. The combined active military personnel of NATO is 3.27 million people, over double what the combined military force for the entire human race is. Earth currently has over 12 times more soldiers in NATO alone that the entire DDF, or the defense forces for the entirety of the Sol System, has in the future. What is going on? At the beginning of the video, it tells us that 2090 was when humans discovered FTL. The next page tells us that after 100 years, they finally joined the FSA, and 5 years after that was when this happened. So this occurs 105 years after 2090, or 2195. The rapid expansion of humanity after the discovery of FTL is similar to what happened when the US was still in its "manifest destiny" phase, with a large period of rapid growth lasting about 50 years, which is far shorter. This lasted between 1800 and 1850, and caused the population to boom from 5 million to 23 million. Ignoring exponential growth, this means that Earth's starting population of 10 billion should quadruple to 40 billion. This means that the ratio of civilian to military is 25,000:1. To compare to the US, the US has a population of 330 million and total military personnel of 1.6 million, a ratio of 206.25:1. The alien comments that 1 EF Fleet "surprisingly on par with the rest of the FSA." This means that the average total military might of each individual member of the FSA is equal to 1 EF fleet. Therefore, each alien civilization seemingly only has 17,100 military members, or just a tiny bit over 1% of human's military might. And remember, this is DURING A COLD WAR. HUMANS ONLY JOINED 5 YEARS AGO. IN LESS THAN 5 YEARS, HUMANS BUILT A MILITARY 100 TIMES STRONGER THAN ANY OTHER INDIVIDUAL SPECIES. IN 5 YEARS. AND REMEMBER, THAT'S INCLUDING THE TIME THAT THEY HAD TO UPGRADE THEIR PREVIOUS SHIPS.

[@CuteHangman8302]

Impressive maths my man👍👍

[@GBXS]

I Suspect that you're very off with your conclusion. Here are a couple of notes and estimates. Let's go through your assumptions first: *Cruisers* Interestingly, modern Ticonderoga-class cruisers carry about 330 people total, whereas many WW2 era cruisers carried around 600 people or more. So these fictional cruisers are clearly able to be more streamlined by a factor of 3. This is assuming, of course, that these cruisers are comparable to the cruisers today. Which is not a given, since destroyers and frigates are not mentioned here at all. *Dreadnoughts* Now, the bigger an organization becomes, the less efficient it is. The WW2 era battleship USS Iowa supposedly carried almost 2800 people. A dreadnought in this setting would either be the battleship equivalent or something bigger. I would say that a conservative estimate would be one order of magnitude bigger than the cruisers. Making it 1000 people on board instead of the 500 in your assumption. *Carriers* The newest US carriers of today have a complement of about 4300 people. Because a carrier needs has a large amount of complicated tasks (sorties, maintenance, and logistically support the aforementioned tasks), it required a significantly higher headcount than even old battleships. And because it's so big and complex, 2000 people should be a fair count instead of the 200 in your estimation. *New totals* 774 carriers with 1,548,000 men 1,998 dreadnoughts, with 1,998,000 men 4,640 cruisers, with 464,000 men 928 scout ships, with 9,280 men *TOTAL:* 4,019,280 men _conservatively_ *You're forgetting something* The headcount above are only the men on the 'front-line'. These are all direct action ships. To maintain such a fighting force, you need an incredibly sturdy logistical backbone - especially considering that a lot of these fleets are all over different different systems. The US Navy has 387,367 uniformed personnel as well as 279,471 civilian employees (total 666,838) for approximately 290 deploy-able ships. All ships mentioned are deployed, so that should roughly give some impression. 666,838 divided by 290 ships makes it about 2300 people per US ship. A straight conversion to these active ships, would imply an organizational size of *19,182,000* people. I would argue that, with that many different systems, there are countless more star-bases needed compared the the required infrastructure for the US Navy. Hence, the final number would probably be bigger. Additionally, there may be various unmentioned elements which were not involved as main battle fleets, but would run tasks like convoy protection. Also, humanity would probably have military installations in their space. *Ground-forces* Everything in the above completely ignores the existence of ground-forces. These (para-)military forces would probably get close or even match the numbers from the Navy. *Total size* Considering that the US Navy, as an organization, is relatively small compared to what is required of the US Army, I believe that the total force needed to support this size of military would probably easily require 100 million people. Front-line troops have always been significantly outnumbered.

[@thomashummer6162]

@@GBXS *Here's my math for the dreadnoughts and cruisers* 8:14 "Twenty dreadnoughts capable of fielding a combined ten thousand soldiers." 10,000/20=500 men per dreadnought. Looking at your own sources, the USS Iowa, which you are using as a stand-in for a dreadnought, held 2800 men. As you also stated, cruisers around the same era held roughly 600 men. Considering that the different classes of ships are almost certainly taken in comparison to one another, the ratio between a dreadnought and a cruiser should be 3000:600 (rounding up for the dreadnought to make the math easier), or 5:1. That means that if we can expect the ratios to remain the same, which seems the most logical rather than using WW2 ships to compare to sci-fi ships, we can expect the cruisers to hold 100 men each, and we are directly told that the dreadnoughts can only hold 500 men total. *You're right about the carriers, but not quite* I'll take the point about the carriers. Here is my new estimation. You claim that modern carriers take 4300 men to work properly. I'd compare this directly to the USS Iowa you used previously, but that would be comparing two entirely different eras of ships. However, we do not have any modern battleships to compare, so I'll round up the number for the carrier to 5000 and round down the USS Iowa to 2500. That extreme assumption gives us a ratio of 2:1, and using the fact that dreadnoughts have 500 men means that carriers must have 1000 men. Adding the fighters gives us 1100 men per carrier, which seems decently reasonable. This means that the new estimation for the amount of men in the space forces is 2,323,680 men, with 851,400 men for the carriers and fighters within them. Hopefully that seems reasonable to you. *Fighting power/military might vs logistical power* The reason I did not include logistics is because there is no way of calculating that, and even if I did it would be misleading. The military force is what I am estimating, not the size of the military. To include logistical manpower and ships would be like saying every ship is at least as powerful as a cruiser, which it very likely isn't. While logistical ships can fight, they are not meant to and as such I did not include them. *Ground Forces* As for the ground forces, do note that this video only mentions the spaceships. Again, we have no way of estimating the ground forces, and as such I did not include them. Besides, the aliens probably don't even understand the concept of ground forces. *Total Size* Lastly, your total size is something I completely disagree with. Firstly, the Navy isn't small in comparison to the Army. The Army has roughly 500,000 active-duty members and the Navy has roughly 350,000 active-duty members. That's a 10:7 ratio, which is well out of the boundaries of "small." Secondly, this isn't the Navy. These are spaceships, and given that this is the space age with orbital bombardment as an available option, I doubt that any other branch of the military would be larger. *YOU'RE forgetting something* This isn't the US military. This is the entirety of humanities' forces. That is why I compared it to NATO, because that would be the closest comparison. This isn't WW2, this is the space age. The two are extremely different and are difficult to compare, especially with so little to go off of. Their technology is better, their logistics are (presumably) better, and their organization is on an (hopefully) planetary scale, if not greater. I know that my numbers don't make sense. I pointed it out in the last 3 paragraphs of my comment. Even with an extra 700,000 men from the new carrier estimation, it is still ridiculous. However, simply inflating the numbers to what you think they should be is not a good way to go about estimating actual military strength. I can't include the civilian employees or bases because we have literally zero information on the number or size of them. Even with your massive number of 20 million people, that still leaves us with a civilian to military ratio of roughly 2,000:1. And that should be the main military force, given some barebones logic. It is a ridiculously small military for the size of humanity, and even that has been, in my opinion, grossly overestimated based upon the actual information we have.

[@thomashummer6162]

@poiujnbvcxdswq Fair point, I had not considered that.

[@hainleysimpson1507]

Yeah and none of your calculations include infantry for humans or police forces and militias and P.M.C or mercenary bands. Also that military is tiny in terms of manpower so I assume drones that need to be hacked manually are being used for majority of ground deployments.

[@devinmelvig8732]

Funny thing is I can tell someone who knows about the military or was in the military wrote this. And I love it.

[@chrisdufresne9359]

Nice to see the Military Industrial Complex maintain its normal (to me) level of mind games regarding numerical and technological advantages.

[@uCruz_]

Kinda now want to see a series where humanity is the aliens quietly watching an not so developed species, helping here and there in the shadows, waiting the right moment to say hello. It's also probably a very human "kink" to imagine themselfs as the most power species of the galaxy, although it wouldn't be impossible, all it would take is that natural hostility is rare, and therefore, races don't build up their army.

[@JohnSmith-kg2rt]

Only one I have seen like that was a mass effect fanfiction call psi effect (xcom mass effect crossover)

[@uCruz_]

@@JohnSmith-kg2rt Do you know anyone who has done a voice over kinda thing with that? Would love to watch it, but don't feel like reading a "book"

[@dotnet97]

Not exactly what you describe, but the story "Now I am become death the destroyer of worlds" is kind of close to this concept

[@uCruz_]

@@dotnet97 didn't find anything with that, can you maybe say the name of the creator or someone who did a video on it?

[@dotnet97]

@@uCruz_ It should be on r/WRickWritesSciFi from 3 months ago, alternatively, the AI narration of it by SciFi Stories is very good.

[@Sef_Era]

“Uninhabitable” is a *strong word* for what we did to Terra. Burn the atmosphere away, and we could’ve lived there as easily as we ever did Mars. But we’re hoping it fixes itself after a few centuries as a nature reserve. Our mother world means *more* to us than just our means of living there. It’s *everything else* that matters, now.

[@kerriondarkice]

That's the standard fleet imagine the war time one add on a total war fleet it would expand even greater

[@craftysmithkeith3653]

unified and peaceful humanity? only one of three ways this goes 1) they get their friends up to speed militarily through joint training from some human fleets 2) they leave them to their own devices since they shouldn't do things for free and without benefit 3) they let loose the hounds of war and conquer the FSA bringing about a new superior human rule

[@idcgaming518]

I hope it's the third one. I like it when there's a powerful, but peaceful, human faction in a series. It reflects that, while we are good at war, that's not all we do.

[@thalaseamyst3934]

Is Rick Roll the answer if humanity is fully unleashed?

[@kiritotheabridgedgod4178]

Nah, it's "Steam Roll" given that from context, it seems humanity in this story, has probably got enough forces to outnumber the rest of the alliance 5-to-1

[@thalaseamyst3934]

@@kiritotheabridgedgod4178 I didn't mean the meme. I meant in the literal context of it.

[@KJ-nw8ge]

You know the rules, time to dye

[@alfredsutton4412]

Could be! Could be.

[@spencersmith9469]

god help those poor xenos when they learn of human-wave tactics or worse how quickly humanity can raise a malitia

[@victortahlor4038]

Thank you for the reading

[@carlfranz6805]

What would they do? Protect their friends.

[@themarlboromandalorian]

You must construct additional pylons.

[@Zaluskowsky]

We re out of Vespine Gas!

[@Rokr83]

ah , another zerg rush story , nice

[@user-zv6th8fh8v]

Its Proxy Starports crawling terran 13 bases mostly fleet all in.

[@chrisdufresne9359]

Nah, just the reality of each major country having its own stellar navy and combining them after unity is achieved. It's the result of every military Humanity has joining into a unified group.

[@ActJack]

Love the channel the stories are engrossing and interesting thank you🙂👍

[@damonminnix4660]

“Who’s gonna tell the humans they out-gun everyone else?”

[@Whisper555]

When the 552nd fleet is asking the 201st fleet when the 338th fleet is going to arrive.

[@H3xx99]

Did I just accidentally a war?

[@davidpoole7098]

Fun fact, US forces will lose nearly every war game because they handicap themselves, like putting drop tanks on an F22 completely negating it's stealth ability and adding 8klbs, because defeate teaches so much more than victory.

[@kfeltenberger]

Alien Admiral: What are the "Geneva Convention and Hague Convention?" Human Admiral: Those are our rules of war. AA: Rules of war? HA: Yes, they protect whoever we fight...until they break them in which case they become a footnote in a history book. AA thinks: And they have the firepower to do it...

[@zotaninoron3548]

All that upkeep for unused assets. Better to channel more into eco to expand capacity. Having more units than you need is an opportunity cost.

[@ironwolfF1]

It's a BIG universe out there and, as the story points out, not everyone out there wants to play nice. Planning for the worst, and hoping for best lets you stay alive past that first 'ah shit' moment. And though it's not spelt out explicitly, you can bet your last credit that the humans were sniffing out their 'potentially hostile' neighbors...hence the size of their military. P.S. -- having an 'eco-pristine' planet doesn't mean dick when you're up to your eyeballs in hostile xenos, orbital bombarding the crap out of it. Better to keep potential enemies at arms-length.

[@FoxDren]

@@ironwolfF1 also it seems humanity may have finally learnt why dismantling your military during times of peace is a terrible idea.

[@trevynlane8094]

These are bare minimum battle fleets and defense fleets. The expeditionary fleets would likely be the state of the art warships, and the others are older ships that would be scrapped if not used for colony defense.

[@zotaninoron3548]

@@ironwolfF1 I am making a grand strategy/rts joke. I am not saying eco as in ecological, I am saying eco as in economy. I'm not surprised at thread here because, I too, am from the U.S. and its often impossible for folks from the U.S. to conceive of anything other than crippling high defense spending. But the issue is if you spend all those resources to upkeep a vastly inflated defense infrastructure, you're not spending them to improve the economy to improve your capacity to produce defense when you need it. Its like guns and butter, but in this case guns and future guns. It was the U.S.'s industrial capacity that really propelled the Allies on the western front to victory. Its NOTABLE that the story does not mention U.S. intelligence. It side steps this as a misunderstanding to avoid discussion as a cultural faux pas. Because the author probably wants that for the humor and probably doesn't think about the value of military intelligence. If the humans had anticipated a large military presence among the potential adversaries of such a grand scale, then surely they'd have shared that intelligence with their allies whom they are effectively in a defensive pact with. If that is the justification for such human buildup then the allies should not be surprised by it, either. The author is almost certainly a U.S. mil stan writing a power fantasy about Space America. But I can't help thinking about all those wasted guns that could have been butter. :D

[@donanthebarbarian5177]

​@@zotaninoron3548 while largely true it does seem like we're actually maintaining pretty small fleets per system based off of USA spending levels and a post ftl level of material resources. Like if we just used the asteroid belt, and the oort cloud of our current system we could have built both all the fleets mentioned in this story and the infrastructure to maintain them and be expanding via building colony ships and void habitats in the sol system. Never mind all the resources we'd gain from other star systems. Someone did a story where they took humanity colonizing every rock bigger than a kilometer in radius in the sol system using STL tech to the extreme and the human population was in the Quadrillions at least.

[@etopsirhc]

i feel like that needs a follow up that just begins with "and that question was answered when..."

[@user-qp6pz5gq4e]

Better to have it and not need it, than to need it and not have it.

[@jasonbull6560]

Well I really enjoyed that.

[@METAnonymous1]

Do more like this.

[@IndigoWhiskey]

had this experience in X4. the enemy are deploying a fleet... one carrier, one supply vessel and a mismatched escort of fighters and corvettes with one destroyer. so my two battleships, four carriers, three supply vessels and their escorts 2 fleet compliments of ten destroyers and their deliniated strike craft of 20 corvettes and 30 fighters each, per battleship... well we send orders to the builder fleet that we'll very shortly be establishing an outpost in uncontested space. you say overkill we say engineered redundant tolerances against probability of failure. you don't get a save when you're as fucked as the cover is.

[@brayachdragonbane7529]

Violence is never the answer its the question, and the answer is always: Yes humanity worships at the altar of war, and has mastered its hellish gifts.

[@KuDastardly]

The consequences of FSA's _'mums the words'_ regarding military matters reminds me something similar as to how the US military tech and doctrine were able to out-spank anything the Soviets could make during and after the Cold War.

[@dudupintarolas5214]

Someting i am seeing people forget is that this is just the active stuff remenber that there is still the stuff in storage

[@benkenobi8077]

nice

[@Kokuyous3ki]

Just like when most other stories of this type ends I can only say: "Go on..." :)

[@The_Viscount]

I like to think we would not immediately go expanding our territory, but...

[@jeremyf6821]

Ah, it's nice to know that even if the US has been assimilated into the global government, our view on what a defense budget should look like still lived on.

[@Ryvaken]

Meanwhile the human galactic debt:

[@adorablecockroach5131]

We are also assuming that these are still baseline humans and not suped up on genetic modifications and cybernetics.

[@Darkwintre]

Here i was thinking they have that immense because one of the inhabitants inspired by science fiction built vastly more powerful weapons and ships and these are just the ones she feels is safe for them to use!

[@patrickrannou1278]

I find it funny how the humans can have so many ships even for worlds with less than 1 million population, each has small fleet with it's own carrier of 100 fighters. And presumably, a fighter shaceship requires even more engineering and needs to be bigger than a fighter air jet. The US has population 380 millions and only 11 aircraft carriers. The 2022 USA military budget was 877 B$, while it's ENTIRE spent budget was 6500 B$. So, if going to a wartime economy the theoretical maximum reached could be an army about 7 times bigger. And that would be possible only if EVERYTHING ELSE was sacrificed. So even in that impossible extreme case it's 77 aircraft carriers or about 1 carrier (plus accompanying fighters supply destroyers scouts etc.) per 5 million people. AT BEST. Then you have to take into account that they have been at peace for CENTURIES. The numbers just don't add up. The only way it can make any kind of sense is if overall productivity and manufacture's automation are all so incredibly high that the costs orf everything dropping by an least an order of magnitude. Meanwhile the other aliens have a huge enemy around them that doesn't seem to be any kind of wake up call to develop a bigger army lol. It's the problem with most of these HFY stories. Sure they are cute nice little stories, but they are all almost too one-sided in their "propaganda", clearly exagerating stuff to the point of breaking suspension of disbelief. It's like if you made a race car driving show set in 1990 but somehow team USAm, and only team USA, had racing cars able to go at 50 times the speed of sound. The humans always "have to" somehow "magically win and be better" by _SEVERAL_ orders of magnitiude. It's like watching football where team USA is made up of strong jocks and every other team are made up of toddlers. It would not make for "a good show". And thus the same effect happens to all these stories. I always inevitably facepalm. In HFY stories, humans are not so muchg space orcs, as they are Mary Sues. It makes for cheap drama.

[@XanderKaine]

So space america

[@futuresonex]

Oops...better safe than sorry, you know?

[@Googleistheantichrist]

We believe in backup and reserves. In quantity

[@gunilive781]

they think this is the best we can do lmao someone teach them total war

[@sirhud1]

So Earth became the USA of the galaxy, cool!

[@amberliddell4503]

Talk about a little overkill here😅

[@peterwalls-qf7ii]

Y'all worry too much. Humans suck at war.Its why we keep having them, one after the other after the other. If we were any good at it, we'd have our war, call it good enough, then move on to other things we suck. Sadly we suck so bad ,we are stuck at having wars since slightly before we discovered fire can be useful. First use, was to burn those pesky neighbours out. set fire to their cave, moved back and watched the show. It was glorious !

[@CowCommando]

I disagree. I think it's the reverse. We suck at peace, that's why we have such a hard time hanging on to it. We're great at war. That's why we default to it to resolve our problems

[@jayeisenhardt1337]

Makes ya wonder how many people's have been wiped out since one was a little better at war than another. Then that spiteful fight to take everyone and everything down with you.

[@mattwallace963]

The entire story is good. The ending is cheesy

[@user-xt1fm9rh6r]

THE ANSWER IS........ FA&FO

[@krimsonsun10]

Talk softly but carry a big stick 🤷‍♂😏

[@ireallyreallyhategoogle]

What? You're the ones who said it was rude to ask. Not knowing what all you guys had, we used what we considered the minimum.