Racial Stereotypes: Origin and Accuracy

Another question, since Nik's covered most of it:

how do you avoid friendly fire? Like scanners will pick up on friendlies, unknowns and enemy signatures, but scanners jam or malfunction and when you walk into a room and there's someone with a gun, you have a split second to decide whether to shoot them or not and generally seeing your own colours will tip that into 'don't shoot'.

Don't tell me you just know, cause in a big operation there's tens of thousands and what if you're fighting other asari?

Commando units rarely work in operations on the scale of tens of thousands. The huntress and commando units that reformed under N7 command were an exception and equipment was standardized where possible to help Combined Arms efforts, however, Asari Commando units are mostly assigned to counter-terrorist duties and organized crime suppression in Asari space. We were trained to fight against conventional military forces, however, it's a rarity if a commando unit ever has to do so.

In fact, it is the biggest weakness of the Asari military. In a head on fight with say, the Turians, the Asari would not be able to gain any tactical advantages due to small unit size, and lack of heavy assets. Compared with other galactic powers, the Asari have a military most similar to the Salarians.


As for fighting other Asari, there is still some uniformity to clothing. The Thessian warbands use standardized primary coloring and emblems to distinguish from the enemy, with other planets using similar ways of analogue IFF.


Yes, that is exactly the problem. The Asari Cadre is structured in a way that compensates for low numbers relative to other forces, but results in issues in coordinated strategic planning. In a conventional fight, the Asari would rely on surprise attack, covert operations, and their navy to claim victory. Defense of strategic resources would be a major flaw in their tactics.

I believe the humans have a similar problem in that they're defense of outer colonies relies on navy QRF, which can take days, potentially.

In general functionality perhaps but the salarians rely on maintaining a devastating and crippling first strike/retaliatory capability to offset their strategic weaknesses. The asari doctrine seems to almost exacerbate these issues rather than address them.

Granted this does make several things rather clear (and marginally less eyeburstingly idiotic) given what has been established with regards to the Republics military capacity versus it's cultural or economic leverage.

In that there would be none but a most sincere thanks for actually acknowledging the issue.

That strategic deficiency was the result of a resource starved governing body stretching supply and patrol lines to the utter limit to effect a massive land grab.

To be rather blunt, what's the Republic's excuse?

Yes, the asari doctrine doesn't allow for devastating strike capability. Their tactics more rely on a slow attrition as FOBs go dark, supply routes are raided, and important officers lose a throat. It's a slightly more.... decisive tactic I feel. By the time the attacker realizes it's time to surrender, they've lost much more resources then they would have to a devastating shut out.

It's one thing for a terminus nation to get their foot crushed as the door slams shut. It's another thing if they stick their whole leg out to take a step and realize that, oh no, the joint's missing. A good analogy of this that I can take from human history is the Patriotic War of 1812, where a great conqueror Napoleon lost his armies to attrition due to weather conditions and scorched earth tactics.

Pretty much to the second point. I won't lie to you and say that the defense of Thessia from the reapers was a valiant and glorious fight. It was a sprinting retreat, our only objective being to get the matriarchs off the planet, right up until we realized that escape routes were cut off. I hope for my fellow asari's sake that that was a wake up call to the higher ups.

As for the third point

Fuck if I know.

Something I've noticed regarding militaries and their equipment:

The Republics have a tendency toward tried-and-true battle tested tech. While the Union has an insatiable appetite for the newest prototypes out of the labs. When I was in, several times a year one or several pieces of gear were traded in for the latest and greatest. The Hierarchy and the Alliance both fall somewhere in the middle, with the Alliance being slightly less risk averse than the Turians.

By staying behind the upgrade curve, the Asari risk losing their edge against well equipped foes. Our bleeding edge approach has its own risks, mainly having the performance of our gear being somewhat unpredictable. I once had a prototype weapon explode while I was trying to use it, it didn't really hurt me directly, but it toasted itself and couldn't be fixed (at least in the field) leaving me in a perilous situation without the firepower I really needed.

The primary issue with this is the fact that, as you have implicitly stated, the Republic's military is not prepared, organized, or trained for full scale military conflict. So while a defense of smoke and mirrors and misdirection is all well and good so long as the opponent is willing to play the game it becomes immaterial in fact rather than merely theory when the invader just goes "fuck it" and bulls through to the soft targets.

Such as undefended population centers ie. most of them.

Except rare is the nation suicidally stupid enough to mount a sustained campaign against C-Space, it wasn't profitable before the war, it still isn't profitable now. Really most of what the Republics are going to be fighting from out of extra citadel space is pirate and raider flotillas which, as I have stated in other threads, they are simply not equipped to handle.

There's no long game to play, no supply lines to cut, and no political figures to assassinate.

The best method of study, I find, for the capabilities and efficiency of an asari nation on sustained military footing is to examine the independent Republics in the Terminus and Abyss. And, frankly, it's rather hit or miss for most of them with the deciding factor being the aforementioned Republic's ability to adapt. The New Nova Ascendancy is stable, prosperous, and recovering nicely from the War (particularly with no Hierophant to torch it again) while worlds like Thesbos or the Isilelis Republic very notably are not. Largely by virtue of no longer existing.
Sadly as has been demonstrated multiple times on this board alone, according to the asari the Reapers "don't count".

I know right?

Exactly. Especially white-collar crime or cybercrime (yo). I'm not into the honor death thing, personally, but the rest of that tops the list of stuff that's perfectly normal. The basic idea is 'if you don't get caught and the damage isn't too bad, s'all good.'


Then you need to factor in that a lot of that stuff probably led up to the Hegemony in the first place. Pre-Hegemony or not, it's not exactly optimal just because it's not from the Hegemony in and of itself.


tl;dr Khar'shan Ascendancy traditionalist crap


Sometimes, the culture is wrong. Besides that, slavery's very unproductive by comparison to things such as automated labor. The vast majority of data indicates that, even though other races have had slavery in the past, it was always an economic matter that was maintained out of a need for raw manpower to keep things going. As automation and machines came into play, the need for so much manpower was removed. Same thing here, and we didn't exactly pick up on that little detail.


False. I was born slave-caste, even though I'm technically outside the system entirely because I was born and raised on Omega. Guess what? Done some shit no slave would ever be caught doing.


You're comparing the way asari fuck to a caste system that kept my parents and their ancestors in chains.

I'm trying not to laugh.


Hearing a lot of talk outta you that doesn't quite mesh with reality. Too much rampant idealism in your view of the caste system.

May want to work on that.


They don't revolt because the guys in charge have guns, training, back-up waiting in the wings and no qualms about mowing their labor force down if they get uppity. More importantly, they'll enact some retribution if any of the rebelling slaves are captured alive.

Saying my parents took a fucking risk getting to Omega is an understatement.

It's interesting how our societies that were outside the borders of the Hegemony saw the caste system. Some places almost discard it entirely, others cling to it. On Kloro, there would have been far greater resistance to the Unification if I were of a lesser caste, even though it has existed as an independent colony for centuries. On Omega, only some high castes who actually have any real power care what caste anyone else is.


That depends greatly on the task that you need accomplished. For menial labor it is indeed true, for more advanced tasks it's a trickier proposition. I have started to supplement the mining force with mechs, but changing over to mechanized labor is a costly endeavor. Even if the future rewards are great, you need to have the capital to perform the switchover before you can take full advantage of them.

All Batarians are SCUM! Not good for anything but cannon fodder. When I make my mercenary company that's all I will let Batarians be

No that's vorcha, dumbass.

Blinks is what you use when you're too cheap to get a krogan.

The hell are you supposed to be, kid?

'When I make my mercenary company'

Pch.

Presumably that would take place after you hit puberty?

So you're gonna give people guns, then you're gonna throw them into the meat grinder because you think they're mostly worthless.

I guess it'll be a toss up between your target and your own side for who kills you first.

This is the new neo-Cerberus guy. That's how he's selling himself, at least. I can't tell if he's serious or not.