Naldiin
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ACOUP Senate Poll and Open Thread II
🕑 Added 2021-11-19 06:42:56 +0000 UTCSenators!
The second Q&A Referenda ad Senatum post is going to go up this week, which makes it a good time to both solicit a second round of questions (though there are still a few from the first round that I haven't done yet) as well as give you all a chance to vote on the next topic to tackle after we finish the Fortification series (which is itself partly response to Maxwell Goebl's question on fortifications in the last Open Thread).
The options for the poll run thusly:
1) "How Bad was the Fall of Rome and Why?" (a mix of two questions asked, Leo Zhang asking "What caused the loss of state capacity during the collapse of the Roman Empire in the West" and Captain Button asking, "How should such a collapse or massive change in society be done in SF to better match the historical record?”)
2) "How did the Roman office of Dictator work and how well did it work for the Romans when it was used?" (A question asked by Christian Slot Holck and actually a good one - there is, I suspect, more complexity here than you may think!)
3) "Ancient Polytheism and the State" (from Vitali who asked, "How were Polytheistic religions incorporated into formal state structures?”
4) Mercenaries in the Ancient World! (from Adam who asked, "How did mercenaries work in the ancient world?")
5) "What is the Problem with Science Fiction Body Armor?" (from me, a look at the rigid body armor 'hardsuits' of things like Mass Effect and Dune (2021) and why they look wrong and work wrong).
6) Does Dune's Combat Model Work? (from me, a look at both the fighting style and military organization of Dune probing some of the assumptions of this kind of combat)
Assuming I have clicked the right buttons, you can vote for one, all or none of these options. Whichever gets the most nods I'll set on my schedule for after Fortifications finishes. The rest won't vanish, but will go into the pool for the next poll.
The end date for the poll is whenever I actually start writing whichever topic is in the lead (probably not for another three weeks or so).
Comments
Naldiin
Actually going to discuss Roman carroballistae quite soon!
Its been a while since you dropped an open thread and that been because you are busy! Which is great. But I am curious, based on some of the talk in your tank post about artillery. Not so much siege artillery, which I believe was decently explained in the fortification series but rather field artillery. The Roman legion did however deploy 1 light ballista for each century, alongside crafting heavy pieces for sieges and the like. To my understanding this piece was mounted on a cart. Was this an attempt to make some thing more mobile, to create a "self propelled" piece that could redeploy as needed to allow for larger missile fire to strike into a massed enemy before they could form up, similar to the way horse artillery was used in the Napoleonic era to rapidly deploy light artillery? Or was the use of artillery in classical era more for protected locations only, Caesar's landing in Britain or at the Seleucid-Roman Thermopylae?
Hi, I would love to learn more about the ramifications of new military technologies, especially fortifications. What are some interesting ways in which an army came up with a new design (or tactic) and it ended badly for them? For instance, some people hold the Maginot Line responsible for France's quick defeat in WW2. I seem to remember reading (in a university history course) about medieval towns that began building the star-shaped fortresses but then ran out of money and had to surrender their sovereignty. Did that really happen? Or, are there historical cases where a country built a wall and their enemies interpreted it as a sign of weakness? For instance, this could be because building a wall means you are unable/unwilling to fight on the field and that signal encourages your enemy. I would love to hear your thoughts.
