[Goober5000]

O rly?

Kara and I have made Lobo and General Battuta global moderators.

Hmm, maybe it was a joint decision.  I don't recall the details.

[General Battuta]

5) I still fail to understand how any discussion in this thread, or even the opinions people hold in general, should have any effect on Battuta's participation in HLP overall.  Battuta, correct me if I'm wrong, but are you really saying that you are incapable of working with people who hold opinions different from yours?  It smells of passive-aggressive behavior to me.  Karajorma and I hold substantially different political opinions but we work together all the time.  I wish you wouldn't resign your global moderatorship or your participation in Blue Planet; you are an asset to the HLP community.

This kind of action is what troubles me, and what I would like to move away from.

If you've read the posts I made above, then you should see something that I've repeated time and again about my decision. See if you can find it and identify it.

I'll give you a hint: it's something that you have not at any point made an effort to do.

And you're right, I am an asset. I'm damn good at what I do. It's a shame that you make a habit of losing or driving away those assets with your personal conduct.

(And on the factual 'ground warfare' side? Give me a break. We're talking about barring women from the pilot corps here. It should be abundantly clear by now that if the casualties are as high as you suggest, women in the military are not going to make any difference. Even with World War I levels of ground casualties and women in 25% of those roles, it is still demographically insignificant. Imagine that?)

[karajorma]

O rly?

Definitely. I checked the logs. You told me that Jeff Vader had volunteered already and I suggested Battuta.

I was more than willing to handle bringing him on board but since you were already doing the same thing for Jeff Vader and I had a Diaspora Dev Blog post to make I left it to you.

[Woolie Wool]

With the Shivans, the male/female ratio would be completely irrelevant anyway because of the Shivan policy of total genocide. The window of opportunity in which the Shivans can be defeated before completely overrunning Terran space is far too small for baby-farms to return on their investment, and civilians are not safe at home--the Shivans will destroy anything Terran, and civilians are if anything, less safe cowering in their cities, installations, or transports as the Shivans vaporize them than the soldiers, crewmen, and pilots are.

As for the Terran-Vasudan war, evidence points towards ground operations having largely ceased by the end of the war, and for the pressures on the GTA and PVE being economic rather than demographic. The game implies that both empires are essentially broke and have resorted to relatively low-intensity engagements like Operation Thresher for the most part (one Orion per year or less as indicated by the Typhon description is rather tame compared to the slaughter of the Great War or even the NTF engagement). Under these circumstances, baby farms would not be helpful or desirable.

Women would be far more useful fighting the enemy or working to support the war effort in other capacities (such as industrial work) than making hordes of babies the GTA cannot support (and, in the case of a Shivan conflict, the Shivans would just incinerate anyway long before they grew up).

[General Battuta]

We've made these points again and again. Goober5000's argument has been destroyed at every turn. His latest assertion, that orbital bombardment or nuclear attacks could cause a demographic crisis, is essentially a last-ditch effort.

The death of billions requires a demographic response. Terrans would be encouraged to have large families.

The loss of breeding-age females to the pilot corps and the naval officer corps would have absolutely no impact on this effort.

We have pointed out, again and again, that removing 50% of your top skill echelon is absurdly counterproductive. This argument has not apparently registered.

Another aspect of this thread has apparently not registered with Goober5000, which is that I am attempting to reduce the odds of becoming involved in unending, futile, ideologically motivated debates like this one.

Were he to show a similar commitment and tendency to self-examination and self-critique, perhaps things might have been different.

[High Max]

baby-farms

I never heard that term before, but for some reason it sounds disturbing. I know what you mean though. Also, just preserving or creating more members of a species seems to lack a point. Preserving individuals that exist already sounds more appealing to me. Heck, just create robots to do most of the fighting against Shivans like terminators and that will save a lot of lives maybe I would expect the GTVA to be able to do that, though it can't storywise because that would ruin gameplay, I guess.

[Woolie Wool]

What Goober described is essentially a system of baby farms where women are used to farm babies for the military. With a lead time that will be well over a decade, even if you use child soldiers (the children must still be old enough to handle weapons, control military hardware, and fight effectively). Making your soldiers to order is really a horrible idea.

With an enemy intent on massacring your entire population, farming babies to bolster the population is futile because they will just be massacred along with everyone else. The only hope of survival is to focus every available resource, including human resources, on defeating the enemy before your people are completely annihilated. Baby farms will divert human, financial, technological, and other resources away from this end and hasten the demise of the human race. Rebuilding the population can wait until after the enemy has been defeated.

[High Max]

Perhaps excelerated growth and learning ability like the clones in Star Wars would be good. I think creating robots would be the ideal choice though.

[Woolie Wool]

Robots are really the only way to get made-to-order soldiers.  Robots would also probably be superior to human soldiers if they had the intelligence of, say, a dog and some human officers to direct them because they would have massively more strength, endurance, and agility than a human of the same size. Humans are extremely weak creatures.

[High Max]

Don't forget their extreme durability to force and heat, radiation, etc, which is also vert important.

Edit: Now let's add carbon nanotube tech to the robots to boost.

[General Battuta]

I have elected to leave Hard Light for the time being. If I return to continue work on Blue Planet in the weeks or months to come, I may continue to  post in public forums as well.

None of my efforts to resolve the problem have succeeded, and even my most resolute attempts to take a share of the blame apparently came across as passive-aggressive.

I am profoundly grateful for the opportunities that have been presented me, but I think it would be wise to invest time in more rewarding and less painful aspects of my life.

[Ransom]

For what it's worth, Battuta, your desire to leave is understandable. I wish you all the best.

I'm having difficulty thinking of a more catastrophic way this debate could have ended. Your departure is the harshest blow to this community in a very long time. I'm really sorry.

[Woolie Wool]

We will miss you greatly, Battuta. The FreeSpace community is diminished by your departure. I'm sorry that it couldn't have ended in a better way.

[Thaeris]

 

By all accounts, I'd best describe this thread as a cluster-f*ck. Seriously.

This thread began as a split from the Transcend VA Call over a simple debate over the ligitimacy of a "canon" figure for gender ratios in the GTVA, an organization which is not real. In doing so, we have managed to seriously offend a very decent person in real life, as well as his significant other.

[sarcasm]
Really, fine job people...
[/sarcasm]

[High Max]

I dare say: But Bat always seems to over react and obsess with gender equality and even creates a topic based on it like he has some issues. I can't say I feel bad. It is getting too obsessive. Anyone else feel that it gets old?

[Thaeris]

I've spoken to Battuta before on a similar subject (reacting to other's positions and views), Max, but no one was getting beat out of shape then.

To an active moderator, I'd request we shut this one down until further notice. Keeping this thread open longer will imaginably just ruffle more feathers.

[FoxtrotTango]

I dare say: But Bat always seems to over react and obsess with gender equality and even creates a topic based on it like he has some issues. I can't say I feel bad. It is getting too obsessive. Anyone else feel that it gets old?

Misogyny is an issue that's as old as recorded history, Max. If you wanted to call it old, you would just be redundant. And ignored.

I agree, let's close this painful discussion before anyone else is forced into speaking on it.

[Fury]

Why this wasn't closed as soon as it was split from its original topic is beyond me. This topic accomplished nothing but endangering the future of BP2. Thank you very much.

[Mongoose]

Looking back, I should have just done it outright, whether it stepped on anyone's toes or not.

(Battuta, if you're still looking here, I'll get back to your PM ASAP.)

[karajorma]

I dare say: But Bat always seems to over react and obsess with gender equality and even creates a topic based on it like he has some issues. I can't say I feel bad. It is getting too obsessive. Anyone else feel that it gets old?

Yeah. The last thing we need is someone constantly dragging every single topic he posts in around to the same tired old topic.

Oh wait.