NS Military Realism Consultancy Thread Mk X Purps Safe Space

[Krasny-Volny]

No age of consent = best age of consent. Free love from birth!

Why don't you have a seat right over there?

[Imperializt Russia]

Loses impact without Chris Hansen's beaming face.

[Questers]

age of consent in questers is 21 LoL

[Pharthan]

So, segwaying back into NSMRC relevant topics... I really don't know what I want to change Pharthan's Age of Conscription/Recruiting to. Probably keep it at 18, 17 w/ parental consent, but still requiring a GED before going off to boot camp.

You could use frogmen, but use Kaitens instead. If you use frogmen you risk the crew being captured pushing the torpedos. With Kaitens, the crew will never be captured.

Kaitens are fucknig dumb.

They didn't work then and they won't work now.

If you can launch Kaitens you can launch torpedoes.

Make them less suicidey.

[Treneria]

Copied over from another thread:
What are some things I can add to my Special Forces characters to make them more characterized, more "real" in a sense? I'm looking for traits (and how to express them), as well as some quirks to their backgrounds that would be interesting.

Thanks in advance.

[Gallia-]

http://www.duffelblog.com/2014/07/green ... -man-face/

[Imperializt Russia]

http://www.duffelblog.com/2014/07/green-beret-ponders-just-war-theory-shooting-man-face/

Wow, Humour In Uniform's changed.

[Gallia-]

http://www.duffelblog.com/2014/07/sergeant-major-uav/

the reality of war

[Schwere Panzer Abteilung 502]

Duffel blog is the only trustworthy news source in the US anymore.

[Pharthan]

Copied over from another thread:
What are some things I can add to my Special Forces characters to make them more characterized, more "real" in a sense? I'm looking for traits (and how to express them), as well as some quirks to their backgrounds that would be interesting.

Thanks in advance.

For research topics, I'd recommend Starship Troopers (book not movie) by Robert Heinlein, and possibly Act of Valor, though I'd say they cleaned it up quite a bit. Jarhead is pretty accurate, but maybe not for special forces. Expect vulgarity on that level, at least, to include sexist jokes - even if they guys aren't sexist - racist jokes - even if the guys aren't racist - dark humor ("What do dark humor and food have in common?... Not everyone gets it.")

Some of the following may or may not be relevant to what you want to know, but this is the realism thread, so you're going to get some realism.

Most military groups, especially those requiring more intellect, like Special Forces, steer away from being super gung-ho military, whereas you'll see AOs and Infantryman being really, really into it at times. Most military feel largely disenfranchised and shy-away from being how they were back in boot camp, when you're all starry-eyed like "Ima go save the world now for 'Murica!" Within six months you're like, "Oh god I signed up to be a janitor for five and a half more years. I just happen to be a janitor that has to occasionally do [x] job."
Though I'd imagine SF guys don't have to do nearly as much cleaning of spaces they don't immediately live in. They get held up on a freaking pedestal, even by the military.

Overall, when it comes to trying to figure out how to portray military guys realistically, understand one very, very important thing: They are people. Sure, you get a much largely sampling size of the populace since they'll come from everywhere, but for the most part their backgrounds will be the same as those you see around you. You'll have your guy that was beaten as a child, the guy that had both his parents die tragically or disowned him, the guy that was born with a silver spoon, the guy that had literally nothing interesting happen to him and was purely middle-class (that'll actually be most of your guys), the guy that joined the military for lineage, the guy that joined to do his duty, the guy that joined for college money (less likely with Special Forces since it takes more dedication, but possible) the guy that joined because there was nothing else open to him (again, less likely), et cetera.

Special Forces groups will be a lot more tight-knit than other units. Meaning, they're going to fuzz the lines of fraternization quite a bit. They probably go drinking with their immediate supervising officer, unless he's a straight shooter (which will be more likely if he's very junior, less likely if he's prior-enlisted or more senior), they probably joke around with their NCOs/Senior-Enlisted a bit more than usual, et cetera. They probably play a lot of pranks on each other, even small-stuff, like, if one of them leaves their military-ID out, putting it in a cup of water and freezing it. Same with covers (aka hats), except just soaking-and-freezing.
Some of these pranks can be unwittingly destructive. ID cards can be fickle things. "Oh, yeah, I need a new ID card because... um... yeah, the magnetic strip just totally fell off the other day for no reason whatsoever."

In any sample group of soldiers of big enough size (even just a platoon) you will invariably have the following individuals:

1. The Straight Shooter: May or may not be super gung-ho military, but will be much more in-line with uniform regs with the others. Special Forces get special privileges, so maybe not as much. He may or may not be imposing on others, especially if he is younger/lower ranking. He might rib equal ranking guys about looking like crap, not that they'll care.
2. The Worthless Piece of Crap: This is largely subjective. Since he's SF, he probably is actually a pretty stellar guy, but he's not up to snuff with what everyone else sees as the standard. If it's early in his career he could come around to figuring out why he isn't as good and become better, or not, then later on accept that he just sucks and become calloused to it and not care.
3. The Party-Guy: Eternally single, the Party-Guy is the one you can count on having perfect sense of direction to the nears nightclub where he can try to pick up the area's best looking women. May or may not be suave enough to bed them. Some Party-Guys will have epic-levels of game. Some will never get any. Ever.
4. The Married Let-down: Complete opposite of Party-Guy. If the group is in a different location than normal, he's the guy seeing the sights, eating the food, and spending a fair portion of the type Skyping with his wife and/or kids if he has them. Pending on how understanding his wife is, he may actually be able to still have a good time with, but don't bet on going to nightclubs, stripclubs, casinos, et cetera. Good food, a bar or two, et cetera is about as crazy as he gets.
5. The Weirdo: Total wildcard. Usually a tag-along for any of the above when it comes to making friendships, based off what his "thing" is. It might be subtle, and he might be great at hiding it. He might be a complete and total social outcast but be absolutely amazing at a surprisingly useful task that winds up redeeming him. Note: This guy might also be the 'Worthless Piece of Crap'.
6. The Nerd (Note: May also be "the weirdo."): Largely subjective. Since it's SF, odds are they have a fair education, so he might actually be a nerd - will also probably be a closet nerd since SF guys tend to be a bit more macho (as in, plays Pokemon Go when none of the other guys are looking and doesn't talk about it.) Probably knows something science-y, probably space-related, on at least a level comparable to a lower-level college education.
   If he's a full-blown nerd, expect him to be a social outcast unless he joined the military in his mid-twenties instead of right-out of high school.

[/realism-injection-into-the-thread]

[Allanea]

Another question is the context.

You need to ask yourself some questions like...

What segments of society do my Special Forces come from?

In WW2, the Soviet Union explicitly recruited sportsmen, NKVD cadets, and... humanities students into the OMSBON, the result including them not just kicking Nazi ass over two continents, but also producing amazing war poetry and Hamlet productions behind enemy lines.

Israel has a special classified score that all military recruits have and is designed to favor people of a higher class background (no seriously) when recruiting into the special forces and other elite units. At one time they were deliberately screening against nerds (People who confessed to having roleplaying as a hobby would be blocked from service in classified units, later that changed).

Sometimes Special Forces fighters are doing it as a step for another career - there was an interview with a fighter in a Russian Special Police unit who was studying to be a surgeon in between kicking criminals in the face.

In some countries dedication to an ideological cause might be a big deal (think of Iran's Kuds Force).

[Imperializt Russia]

AronRa says that in the eighties, the religious right genuinely believed you were satanists, so maybe screening "against nerds" was something the orthodox lobby put in?

[Allanea]

AronRa says that in the eighties, the religious right genuinely believed you were satanists, so maybe screening "against nerds" was something the orthodox lobby put in?

There was some bullshit explanation that it made a person 'detached from reality'.

[Questers]

Writing dialogue is one of the hardest things to make authentic. This is doubly so for Americans, because their perception of how people outside of middle America speak is almost always wrong.

Source: almost every RP thread on this forum, ever.

[Purpelia]

Dialogue isn't that hard. The hardest part is always coming up with character names. Especially when you are trying to make up characters from diverse ethnicity and cultures and doubly so if said groups are fictional. Coming up with a Japanese name is hard, coming up with a name for a Dwarf living in an underground country inspired by revolutionary France is pure hell.

[Imperializt Russia]

Writing dialogue is one of the hardest things to make authentic. This is doubly so for Americans, because their perception of how people outside of middle America speak is almost always wrong.

Source: almost every RP thread on this forum, ever.

I gave up making convincing ethnically-Russian dialogue (even though written in English) and just handwaved the terms used.

[Allanea]

The key to writing good fiction is reading lots of good fiction.

[Questers]

The key to writing good fiction is reading lots of good fiction.

Absolutely.

[Allanea]

But then NS is not a novel.

I like good writing, but I don't really expect NS posts to be War and Peace.

[Questers]

Writing dialogue is one of the hardest things to make authentic. This is doubly so for Americans, because their perception of how people outside of middle America speak is almost always wrong.

Source: almost every RP thread on this forum, ever.

I gave up making convincing ethnically-Russian dialogue (even though written in English) and just handwaved the terms used.

You can study a language a little bit. For instance, there seems to be a word in Russian that translates to "lads", which you don't get in say, Hindi or Italian. So even if a person's writing in Russian, I think it would be appropriate to have them use the words lads. You can watch videos, especially translated, to see the manner in the way people speak.

Hemingway is particular at this. Just read any Hemingway short story set in Italy or Spain and you can see how he adapts what the people say, even though they were meant to have said it in another language, so that it sounds like that language but in English. Correct translation, perhaps.

[Imperializt Russia]

In my fics, the characters have been clearly speaking in English with English turns of phrase (despite supposedly speaking in Russian), but I've always maintained that for some reason the Russians in my universe loved British culture and continually tried to adapt and imitate it.

To the point that I have our region's China-alike put stalls of not-Chinese food in the army bases because :chinese food:

[Purpelia]

In my fics, the characters have been clearly speaking in English with English turns of phrase (despite supposedly speaking in Russian), but I've always maintained that for some reason the Russians in my universe loved British culture and continually tried to adapt and imitate it.

To the point that I have our region's China-alike put stalls of not-Chinese food in the army bases because :chinese food:

Did this process ever stop historically or is it ongoing? As in, do the Russians in your universe sound like ye-old Englishmen or do they eat curry?

[Imperializt Russia]

In my fics, the characters have been clearly speaking in English with English turns of phrase (despite supposedly speaking in Russian), but I've always maintained that for some reason the Russians in my universe loved British culture and continually tried to adapt and imitate it.

To the point that I have our region's China-alike put stalls of not-Chinese food in the army bases because :chinese food:

Did this process ever stop historically or is it ongoing? As in, do the Russians in your universe sound like ye-old Englishmen or do they eat curry?

It was a rapid thing after the Soviet Union fell and Russia liberalised and opened up to "the west".
I say "the west" as it's not an RL setting.

We don't have an Indian subcontinent stand-in, we're very much a "Global North" region.

[Gallia-]

Did this process ever stop historically or is it ongoing? As in, do the Russians in your universe sound like ye-old Englishmen or do they eat curry?

It was a rapid thing after the Soviet Union fell and Russia liberalised and opened up to "the west".

this would require russia to not be russia rly

unless this is like an impossible menshevik soviet union? then why would it collapse in the first place?

[Imperializt Russia]

It was a rapid thing after the Soviet Union fell and Russia liberalised and opened up to "the west".

this would require russia to not be russia rly

unless this is like an impossible menshevik soviet union? then why would it collapse in the first place?

I never said it was rational.

It tore itself apart over Chechnya.