Worldbuilding Realism Consultation Thread Mk. 4

[The High Tatras]

I believe sabers are quite effective as riot control weapons, especially when wielded from horseback. Unfortunately their lethality tends to get them a lot of bad press. That is probably why most police forces eventually replaced them with billy clubs and nightsticks, which unfortunately still get a lot of bad press.

[Kouralia]

I believe sabers are quite effective as riot control weapons, especially when wielded from horseback. Unfortunately their lethality tends to get them a lot of bad press. That is probably why most police forces eventually replaced them with billy clubs and nightsticks, which unfortunately still get a lot of bad press.

Their lethality is precisely why they're not effective at all as riot control weapons.

[The High Tatras]

I believe sabers are quite effective as riot control weapons, especially when wielded from horseback. Unfortunately their lethality tends to get them a lot of bad press. That is probably why most police forces eventually replaced them with billy clubs and nightsticks, which unfortunately still get a lot of bad press.

Their lethality is precisely why they're not effective at all as riot control weapons.

My post was supposed to be somewhat tongue in cheek.

[Bratislavskaya]

I believe sabers are quite effective as riot control weapons, especially when wielded from horseback. Unfortunately their lethality tends to get them a lot of bad press. That is probably why most police forces eventually replaced them with billy clubs and nightsticks, which unfortunately still get a lot of bad press.

#WaterlooMassacre

[Tule]

One good way to quell political riots in particular is to recruit young people who hold beliefs that align with the government and conflict with the protesters (who are often young themselves), arm them with table legs and pool ques and use them to bolster the ranks of the police.

This also has the advantage of making the protesters look less like "oppressed youth" and more like rebellious teens.

[Padnak]

You guys are such pussies

If you want your regime to stay in power you have to open up on the rioters with DShKs

[Yukonastan]

You guys are such pussies

If you want your regime to stay in power you have to open up on the rioters with DShKs

And your riot control water cannon has Dushkas on it, I take it?

[Bratislavskaya]

You guys are such pussies

If you want your regime to stay in power you have to open up on the rioters with DShKs

DShKs? Pussy. I use MLRS to bombard them before sending in the Nazi POWs, who we blame for it, and then we shoot the Nazi POWs. Logic.

[Yukonastan]

You guys are such pussies

If you want your regime to stay in power you have to open up on the rioters with DShKs

DShKs? Pussy. I use MLRS to bombard them before sending in the Nazi POWs, who we blame for it, and then we shoot the Nazi POWs. Logic.

Screw MLRS. Nothing quite as effective as nuclear shaped charge warheads launched from a site where we can attribute them to our favourite enemy, Bigtopia.
Then send in the political prisoners, who get killed by the radiation, after which we dump several thousand tons of concrete on what's left.

...

I sense I've gone too far.

[Padnak]

I did at one point use sarin on some rioters in my cannon...

that government fell apart as one might imagine

[Yukonastan]

I did at one point use sarin on some rioters in my cannon...

that government fell apart as one might imagine

#doingitwrong

If you're going to use nerve agents, at least do it right. At least use VX.

[Tule]

You guys are such pussies

If you want your regime to stay in power you have to open up on the rioters with DShKs

That can work. It can also turn riots into a revolution.

The best way to punish political dissenters is to punish them without them knowing for sure that they're being punished.

…the Stasi often used a method which was really diabolic. It was called Zersetzung, and it's described in another guideline. The word is difficult to translate because it means originally "biodegradation." But actually, it's a quite accurate description. The goal was to destroy secretly the self-confidence of people, for example by damaging their reputation, by organizing failures in their work, and by destroying their personal relationships. Considering this, East Germany was a very modern dictatorship. The Stasi didn't try to arrest every dissident. It preferred to paralyze them, and it could do so because it had access to so much personal information and to so many institutions.

They also did things like enter the home of the dissenter while he was at work/school, shift furniture slightly around, reset alarm clocks, change his brand of cigarettes etc. generally fuck with his mind and make him paranoid.

[Bratislavskaya]

You guys are such pussies

If you want your regime to stay in power you have to open up on the rioters with DShKs

That can work. It can also turn riots into a revolution.

The best way to punish political dissenters is to punish them without them knowing for sure that they're being punished.

…the Stasi often used a method which was really diabolic. It was called Zersetzung, and it's described in another guideline. The word is difficult to translate because it means originally "biodegradation." But actually, it's a quite accurate description. The goal was to destroy secretly the self-confidence of people, for example by damaging their reputation, by organizing failures in their work, and by destroying their personal relationships. Considering this, East Germany was a very modern dictatorship. The Stasi didn't try to arrest every dissident. It preferred to paralyze them, and it could do so because it had access to so much personal information and to so many institutions.

They also did things like enter the home of the dissenter while he was at work/school, shift furniture slightly around, reset alarm clocks, change his brand of cigarettes etc. generally fuck with his mind and make him paranoid.

How do you know the Stasi has bugged your house? There is a new cabinet in your bedroom, and a electricity generator outside.

[DnalweN acilbupeR]

With regards to pricing products, particularly automobiles, how do you take exchange rates etc. into account for deciding prices, my source is http://www.carsguide.com.au/car-news/wh ... _-6m0il2LM

e.g.
in the United Kingdom, a Mercedes-Benz E-Class (E200) starts at £32,750 ($57,746 AUD, $53,867 USD)
but...
in Australia, a Mercedes-Benz E-Class (E200) starts at $80,400AUD (£45,601 GBP, $75,090 USD)
and
in the USA, an entry-level Mercedes-Benz E-Class starts at $51,400USD (£31,212 GBP, $55,032 AUD)

I believe that, according to some sources, like products can be paid for in another currency [e.g. US dollars] despite being built elsewhere, but how do I make this realistic?

Why the fucking hell does an E-Class cost 20k USD more than it does in the US or Uk

[The High Tatras]

The idea of Zersetzung is diabolically brilliant. If ever felt the need to silence dissent, I would definitely use it. However, I want to be "lawful good", or at least as close as I can be to that in a "crapsack world" like that of most NS nations.

[DnalweN acilbupeR]

You keep saying this, but only four police were injured which is a fraction of the injuries sustained by police during the same style of operations elsewhere, so why are American police in dire need of proper body protection? Are you seeing a clear need for such equipment or are you hoping they'll someday look the part when combating protesters? How do you know they don't have access to this gear already?

Not Proper Riot Gear.
Proper Riot Gear.

Just my 2 pennies. Not that Ferguson really needed the sort of gear that PSNI needs.

(spoiler: unwarranted self importance ahead) as op of this thread i would like if we would all get along, vita and costa included

Costa does have a point in that "American police" so to speak is not particularly well suited to counter riots for a variety of reasons. The police is decentralized, PDs generally do not have proper reserves, there is no gendarmerie, and the abundance of firearms in the US has made it so that types of armor, weapons, vehicles and even tactics different from what you'd find in countries with less guns have been employed, which are less suited for use in riots. In countries with less firearms the threats one can find on every day duty are highly similar to what could be expected during a riot (blunt and bladed weapons, etc.) so there is more commonality between everyday stuff overall and riot stuff than in places like the US where you pretty much need two different sets of equipment, vehicles, tactics, etc. for firearms-oriented duty and riot control, respectively.

As you might be aware, for example, body armor designed against bullets does not fair well against blunt force which requires hard, not soft and flexible materials, to protect from. The same principle holds true to a higher or lesser degree across all fields such as training, vehicles, weapons. You can only make stuff so "versatile" or "multirole" before running into problems regarding cost, weight, complexity, etc.

Another factor which may have contributed to less than optimal adaptation to riot control is that (and correct me if I am wrong) (historically at least, or so it seems) , riots haven't really been as common/severe/long in the US as in other places. Sure, there might be a lot of protests, but few of them turned into riots, as opposed to e.g. Europe.

IMO a decent riot control loadout should include at minimum some type of hardened/rugged/work boots (preferably with a hard toe tip or something), knee pads, a nuts-pad (because it's so small yet and cheap yet makes all the difference) , some sort of rugged gloves (preferably with hard knuckles), elbow pads, helmet WITH visor (very important) (and ideally nape/neck protector) as far as armor is concerned. Also fire resistant overalls if a fire risk is imminent (e.g. molotovs) . As far as weapons go, a long straight stick should work, with a small or mid sized one-handed shield.

[Costa Fierro]

You keep saying this, but only four police were injured which is a fraction of the injuries sustained by police during the same style of operations elsewhere, so why are American police in dire need of proper body protection? Are you seeing a clear need for such equipment or are you hoping they'll someday look the part when combating protesters? How do you know they don't have access to this gear already?

Not Proper Riot Gear.
Proper Riot Gear.

Just my 2 pennies. Not that Ferguson really needed the sort of gear that PSNI needs.

This is because the police in Ferguson don't have to death with centuries of religious conflict between two very opposed communities. Also, they don't have to deal with massive gatherings and potential riots every single year.

[The Akasha Colony]

Comparing the preparedness of a small-town police department to that of a major European city like London or Paris is more than a bit flawed. The NYPD and LAPD could have handled something like Ferguson easily, but the Ferguson police have a whopping fifty-four officers. And with that extremely limited manpower, they need to not only curb the riots but also maintain at least some semblance of order and presence in the rest of the town. This is compared to the NYPD, Paris police, and the Met which have well over 30,000 sworn officers each.

[Costa Fierro]

Comparing the preparedness of a small-town police department to that of a major European city like London or Paris is more than a bit flawed. The NYPD and LAPD could have handled something like Ferguson easily, but the Ferguson police have a whopping fifty-four officers. And with that extremely limited manpower, they need to not only curb the riots but also maintain at least some semblance of order and presence in the rest of the town. This is compared to the NYPD, Paris police, and the Met which have well over 30,000 sworn officers each.

There is that, although the point I was making was that the Mobile Gendarmerie has units which can respond to civil unrest anywhere in France purely because France has a habit of going to shit pretty quickly.

Kour's post also included the PSNI which is much smaller than the Met or the NY/LAPD (PSNI has 7,200 sworn officers for the entirety of Northern Ireland let alone the hotspots of (London)Derry and Belfast).

Point is that if the city itself doesn't have a dedicated force for civil unrest, the state police should do for instances such as Ferguson.

[Gallia-]

If you want to wait two or three days, America can have a mobile police force too!

[Costa Fierro]

With regards to pricing products, particularly automobiles, how do you take exchange rates etc. into account for deciding prices, my source is http://www.carsguide.com.au/car-news/wh ... _-6m0il2LM

e.g.
in the United Kingdom, a Mercedes-Benz E-Class (E200) starts at £32,750 ($57,746 AUD, $53,867 USD)
but...
in Australia, a Mercedes-Benz E-Class (E200) starts at $80,400AUD (£45,601 GBP, $75,090 USD)
and
in the USA, an entry-level Mercedes-Benz E-Class starts at $51,400USD (£31,212 GBP, $55,032 AUD)

I believe that, according to some sources, like products can be paid for in another currency [e.g. US dollars] despite being built elsewhere, but how do I make this realistic?

Why the fucking hell does an E-Class cost 20k USD more than it does in the US or Uk

Because Australia has a luxury vehicle tax for vehicles that cost something over $60,000.

[Zeinbrad]

This talks about riots have me a idea for how the Gaian gendarmerie police Gaia. Which is mostly city.

Volunteers that help the Gendarmerie in some way.

Of course, since most if the riots take place in the poor and overcrowded poor district and refugee district I don't know if it'll work.

[Vitaphone Racing]

With regards to pricing products, particularly automobiles, how do you take exchange rates etc. into account for deciding prices, my source is http://www.carsguide.com.au/car-news/wh ... _-6m0il2LM

e.g.
in the United Kingdom, a Mercedes-Benz E-Class (E200) starts at £32,750 ($57,746 AUD, $53,867 USD)
but...
in Australia, a Mercedes-Benz E-Class (E200) starts at $80,400AUD (£45,601 GBP, $75,090 USD)
and
in the USA, an entry-level Mercedes-Benz E-Class starts at $51,400USD (£31,212 GBP, $55,032 AUD)

I believe that, according to some sources, like products can be paid for in another currency [e.g. US dollars] despite being built elsewhere, but how do I make this realistic?

Why the fucking hell does an E-Class cost 20k USD more than it does in the US or Uk

Purchasing Power Parity. Australians earn more, spend more on utilities and basic groceries and hence, luxury goods are priced as such.

[DnalweN acilbupeR]

Why the fucking hell does an E-Class cost 20k USD more than it does in the US or Uk

Because Australia has a luxury vehicle tax for vehicles that cost something over $60,000.

Such bullshit. Australia sucks then.

[Costa Fierro]

Because Australia has a luxury vehicle tax for vehicles that cost something over $60,000.

Such bullshit. Australia sucks then.

Because of one tax? You really shouldn't base an opinion of a country on one thing.

Australia sucks for more than one reason.