[GHOST PALADIN]

Look the the mms are cool but i do wonder why the moranth did not conqour all with the bloody things.

after all they have arial troops able to carpet bomb enemy low tech armies

i spose mages balanced out this maybe

but then why would moranth not have mages?

and hey if malazan armies had these why did the crimson guard (??) and brood not get smashed by em in the same way

training and gr8 armour wont stop a grenado

even iron bars would die from such

firearms and explosives have always been the gr8 equalizer

5 year trained marine with best modern kit can get dead just as easy as anyone else even if foe is 10 year old kid with ak47 hidding in dustbin!

same here i spose - realy hard well trained caladan brood style knight with great axe vs small malazan girl marine with grenado!

who wins

[Agraba]

Quote

It has a sense offinality though this time. The cycle will be broken, techology will progress normally after this. I just get that feeling.

"Progress normally"? Define that. Every civilization must hit a decline, or sudden crash eventually; none are immortal. This cycle isn't some fantasy concept Erikson made in his series, it's the only realistic manner in which a civilization can go by. I hope you're not making the mistake of deeming our human race here on Earth as an immortal species.

Here's a question: Although munitions are sorcerors' bane, would it really make a difference in a battle of high mages? The answer lies at the beginning of GotM.

[Dolorous Menhir]

Raymond Luxury Yacht;192712 said:

Regarding the shorttails: I like to pretend they accomplished all they did with magic, not tech. I know this isn't accurate, but i just really hate advanced tech in my fantasy.

It is hard to ignore the nanobots in the blood of the Short-Tail that Karsa killed.

[Raymond Luxury Yacht]

Agraba;192737 said:

"Progress normally"? Define that. Every civilization must hit a decline, or sudden crash eventually; none are immortal. This cycle isn't some fantasy concept Erikson made in his series, it's the only realistic manner in which a civilization can go by. I hope you're not making the mistake of deeming our human race here on Earth as an immortal species.

Here's a question: Although munitions are sorcerors' bane, would it really make a difference in a battle of high mages? The answer lies at the beginning of GotM.

By progress normally, I mean move past the swords n' horses era, into an eventual industrial age, followed by "high" technology such as what we have now, ultimately ending up futuistic and sci-fi. Not quickly, but that's the general arc. This is opposed to going from the stone age to the bronze age to the iron age, then some calamity setting them back to the beginning of the cycle. They haven't progressed past what is basically a medieval tech level in hundreds of thousands of years, I think they will after this. BUt who knows.

[Dark Mac]

Raymond Luxury Yacht;192745 said:

By progress normally, I mean move past the swords n' horses era, into an eventual industrial age, followed by "high" technology such as what we have now, ultimately ending up futuistic and sci-fi. Not quickly, but that's the general arc. This is opposed to going from the stone age to the bronze age to the iron age, then some calamity setting them back to the beginning of the cycle. They haven't progressed past what is basically a medieval tech level in hundreds of thousands of years, I think they will after this. BUt who knows.

Not quite. At one point in DG, Mappo and Icarium find the book(s?) about how sewage systems work, and remark that the civilization that produced such pointless books must have been appallingly wealthy. That civilization must have had at least Renaissance-level technology, probably better. Civilizations with advanced technology have come to be in the Malazan world before, and that did not save them from destruction.

And don't forget that technology can evolve in very different ways than it did on Earth. Letherii steel, for example, seems to be every bit as good as (or better than) 21st century steel, which is quite impressive. And yet their other technology lags far behind.

[Raymond Luxury Yacht]

Regardless of if it's a medieval or renaissance society, the point is it's pre-industrial.

[Onos]

Mostly the excess made me a bit unconfortable. I prefer their use for things like blowing out walls and how the bridge was blown out by the 7th as that was more interesting.

I can agree that they would have had a larger suply based on the analysis above somewhere. Also they needed the munitions to make their suicide run to letheras. But now i am less interested in threatening plot devices cause the 14th can do anything. They seem Uber powerful. What i liked (up til RG) was that there was a chance of losing your favorite character at any time due to a large threat. Now, people either use Munitions to defeat whatever, or people that die just come back to life, so there are far fewer threats to keep me interested.

Another good point by someone was why didnt the Moranth take over the world. I assume they hated Pale most but were countered by mages. Next i assume their population is small. But the small population would make it harder to produce all the munitions. How many munitions does the Empire use a year? 10,000? That must take a lot of people to produce. Not sure what to make of the whole situation.

[Agraba]

@Raymond: The way I see it, the way we, on Earth, are going about it is not necessarily "normal", but just one of many many ways that a civilization can progress. Also, something I've taken from 1st year Anthropology (which SE inspired me to take as an elective, lol) is that the concept of "progression" is a lot more hazy than you think.

Also, this "cycle", as you call it, applies to our world as well. There have been many peaks and falls in civilization, and there are Ancient Greece civilizations known to use very efficient and complex mechanical water flowing systems, and things like that. I do also believe that there was a city in Mesopotamia (the first known civilization) that had strong theoretical math, and was able to deduce that the Earth is a sphere by some mathematical patterns they observed in the sky.

All this would scrap the generic sci-fi setting as an inevitability for "normal progression", even given that there's no actual indication that we will reach such a level. (Who knows, we could be at our peak right now.)

Also, nobody commented on my High Mage > Munitions comment (or maybe Onos did... though he was quite vague about it). The incident of Pale proves that when it comes down to it, munitions cower in a battle of High Mages. I'm pretty sure the Bonehunters wouldn't have been able to do much if they got to Lether earlier, when the Edur were using high rituals of chaos, and Andii wraiths. Also, it wasn't munitions, but Beak, who saved them from the conflaguration summoned at the border of the city. Imagine sappers sent to breach Pale... they'd have been buttered down just as well as the swordsmen, as was described. And it's not like they could've reached any important vantage point, like on top of the skykeep.

[Abyss]

The point was also made that Malazan armour was superior to Letherii weapons, as per description of the main Malazan force's landing near Leth.

Plus the Letherii army was divided, demoralized, recently conquered...

Over on 7C, the Malazans were facing suicidal fanatics on their home turf, MANY of who had been trained by the Malazans themselves, and who invoked a similar level of warren-based magic.

On Genabackis, they were facing some of the best, nastiest mercenaries known, immortal ascendants, etc etc, on inhospitable terrain in the course of a stalled invasion with intended occupation/conquest.

Leth was VERY different from these. This was a punitive fight against a numerically superiour but morale-ly broken foe, with no need to hold on to anything back the way they came, and a form of magic that while not as rawly powerful, was a total surprise to the Letherii. Plus hey, munitions!


Also, pure spec, but i figure Tavore is using Banaschar $$$ to pay the TTG for resupply, including moranth munitions.

- Abyss, does not feel the need to say 'Wolverine would kick all their butts' in this instance.

[Kurt Montandon]

Abyss;193314 said:

- Abyss, does not feel the need to say 'Wolverine would kick all their butts' in this instance.

Well, now I've got an image of the Age of Apocalypse Wolverine and Jean Grey infiltrating Letheras to overthrow an increasingly insane Holocaust, with Sebastian Shaw taking the part of Tehol, and Magneto as Bugg.

So, thanks.

[Danyah]

Other weak point of the Letherii military... the saddles.