Questions on M'Chek/T'Nanshi war

[Greymorn]

I posted this under the M'Chek thread, but it really belongs here.
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I'm a newbie trying to get a grip on this war, so take this with a large grain of salt.

I think it's safe to say that all of the human and orc nations are chronically malnourished. Ancient scholars lamented that mankind would *always* be doomed to crushing poverty because as soon as you grow more food, the population grows to consume it.

Elven birth rates are low enough, their culture different enough that this is probably NOT the case in T'Nanshi.

Nomadic cultures like the Romini tend to be better fed and healthier than thier civilized cousins. They eat more meat, have a low population density, etc.

M'Chek's problem isn't that they are out of food. They are no more or less starving than any other human or orc nation. M'Chek is out of *space* which is a completely different issue. If anything they are too efficient with their agriculture and grow too much food! If this wasn't true, they would have a similar population density to other human nations.

The downsides of their efficiency are manyfold. They must suffer severe sanitation and transportation problems. They exhaust their farmland and poison their living space. Unlike a steady state of famine, which just produces widespread misery and death, overpopulation degrades the basic resources that sustain a society, including a healthy and productive workforce. This degradation tends to accelerate catestrophically. Eventually the population will stabalize at the previous "normal" state of abject poverty, but the land will only support a much smaller population.

[Greymorn]

The upshot of this is that to solve the M'Chek problem the elves should send a continuous stream of raiding parties into the M'Chek bread-basket to burn their crops and kill their livestock. Ash and blood would renew the soil and within 2 years the humans would have plenty of empty space within their own borders. It worked for Sherman, it worked for Rome, it should work for T'Nanshi.

Fortunately for M'Chek, the Elves don't appear to have the morals of Joseph Stalin. Unfortunately for T'Nanshi, many humans *do* have the morals of Joseph Stalin, and they are often those holding the reigns of power.

The elves have the opposite problem. Their birth rate is so low they can't possibly fill the territory they have. Every casualty lost to battle or disease is irreplacable on a human timescale. This probably makes it very difficult for the humans and elves to understand each other; their frames of reference are too different.

All the humans need to do is keep the war going and make it as intense as possible. Every human death benefits M'Chek. Every Elven death benefits M'Chek. Eventually there won't be enough elves to defend the borders and humans will pour into T'Nanshi.

So what gives out first? Do the humans win a war of attrition or can the Elves hold out until M'Chek is crippled by famine? That's what it comes down to in my mind.

[Fire Monkey]

Fortunately for M'Chek, the Elves don't appear to have the morals of Joseph Stalin.

Who says?

All the humans need to do is keep the war going and make it as intense as possible. Every human death benefits M'Chek. Every Elven death benefits M'Chek. Eventually there won't be enough elves to defend the borders and humans will pour into T'Nanshi.

Perhaps, but you make assumptions about the relative sizes of the nations and the relative attrition rates of the two sides. Cetertainly to date the general impression I get is that T'Nanshi can more than cope with the scale of the conflict. Indeed T'Nanshi is a massive nation. It is only relatively recently that the nature of the conflict has started to change especially now with Drotid being drawn in.

[denor firefly]

Fortunately for M'Chek, the Elves don't appear to have the morals of Joseph Stalin. Unfortunately for T'Nanshi, many humans *do* have the morals of Joseph Stalin, and they are often those holding the reigns of power.

heh what sence made this. Elvenkind has more moral then the humans. They want let any m'chek take any ground that has still a forest on it. In my eye human are more affected by fear then elves. human are weak minded and die quick elves live for hundred year they have seen more scary things then a human in their live.

[Glocknal]

The upshot of this is that to solve the M'Chek problem the elves should send a continuous stream of raiding parties into the M'Chek bread-basket to burn their crops and kill their livestock. Ash and blood would renew the soil and within 2 years the humans would have plenty of empty space within their own borders. It worked for Sherman, it worked for Rome, it should work for T'Nanshi.

In the short term, a Total War strategy would work for T'Nanshi. One must consider the long term effects though. The basic motivation of the war for the Nanshi is defense of nature. Prevent the humans from despoiling thier lands. They garner a lot of support from Elysia, followers of O'ma and other nature gods. Should they reverse this position and destroy the few lush fields M'chek has, I bet you would see that support dry up. This would be harmful to T'Nanshi as Elysia is a excellent source of recruiting for T'nanshi and acts as refinement center for the many natural resources that can be extracted from the T'nanshi forest.

Glok

[Greymorn]

Re: Stalin ... I'm only saying the *current* T'Nanshi council isn't brutal enough to apply a scorched earth policy, not a general statment about the races. The rulers M'Chek seem willing to kill as many elves as it takes to get what they need.

Perhaps, but you make assumptions about the relative sizes of the nations and the relative attrition rates of the two sides. Cetertainly to date the general impression I get is that T'Nanshi can more than cope with the scale of the conflict. Indeed T'Nanshi is a massive nation. It is only relatively recently that the nature of the conflict has started to change especially now with Drotid being drawn in.

I really wasn't assuming anything about the power of either nation, just pointing out the variables and forces that define the conflict. I have no idea who will win, actually, or how long it will take.

[Greymorn]

In the short term, a Total War strategy would work for T'Nanshi. One must consider the long term effects though. The basic motivation of the war for the Nanshi is defense of nature. Prevent the humans from despoiling thier lands. They garner a lot of support from Elysia, followers of O'ma and other nature gods. Should they reverse this position and destroy the few lush fields M'chek has, I bet you would see that support dry up. This would be harmful to T'Nanshi as Elysia is a excellent source of recruiting for T'nanshi and acts as refinement center for the many natural resources that can be extracted from the T'nanshi forest.

Glok

I didn't graduate from Texas A&M or anything, but my understanding is that burning crops and killing livestock would actually *improve* the soil and help the environment. It doesn't address erosion and deforestation, but it's a first step.

In a nutshell, crops grow and draw nutrients from the soil. Humans eat the crops and crap those nutrients down a sewer, so it isn't returned to the land. What's left ends up in the graveyard. None of it returns to the soil. The more crops you grow (esp. if you don't let fields lie fallow for a year) the worse the soil gets.

It's why burying dead fish helps your corn grow, ya know?

[Glocknal]

The kind of slaughter you describe would not sit well with nature loving/protecting peoples. Slaying animals and destroying plants to achieve a short term military objective is not protecting nature, a basic moray in the nanshi culture. Im just saying that it would be very out of character forT'Nanshi to do so, andwould anger some of thier allies. Now the Sereg...thats a different matter.

Glok

[Greymorn]

The kind of slaughter you describe would not sit well with nature loving/protecting peoples. Slaying animals and destroying plants to achieve a short term military objective is not protecting nature, a basic moray in the nanshi culture. Im just saying that it would be very out of character forT'Nanshi to do so, andwould anger some of thier allies. Now the Sereg...thats a different matter.

Glok

* Glok walks up to Greymorn and pushed the BIG RED BUTTON ...*

This is a tangent to the topic of the thread, so I'll split it off into a new thread. But in a nutshell, I don't think Elves adhere to any kind of Walt Disney Fantasy of nature. Nature is full of ugly, nasty, brutal things. Thousands die so a few can flourish. Protecting the envoronment is often messy, painful or inconvenient.

I still hold that wholesale burning of crops would improve the environment in M'Chek, it would in fact be an environmentally sound thing to do. There's nothing like a good forest fire to re-vitalize an area, same idea here.

The Elves haven't because causing a widespread famine and killing humans by the millions is immoral, I don't see that it has anything to do with the environment. And I would certainly hope that T'Nanshi's allies would abandon her if she took such a drastic course. She might win over LE and CE allies in the process, so who knows?