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From:	Quindrael d.n.m.vannederveen@****.warande.ruu.nl
Subject:	Spirits of War
Date:	Wed, 14 Jul 1999 19:17:53 +0200

Message no. 1 >>An example of how a normal
>>Spirit of War would manifest would be as Minuteman or WWII GI, while a tox
>>form would appear as an SS Officer or a Cen/SouAm death squad member.

I think you could easily think up a normal American (or any other country)
soldier/officer for a Toxic Spirit of War. It's not like it's only the "bad
guys we always love to blacken while being blind to our own atrocities" who
could be called "toxic".
Few examples: atrocities by GI's during Vietnam against the Vietnamese, USA
dropping an atomb bomb, officers giving orders they know will kill many of
theirr own people without any result, just for personal reasons - happens
in every war. What about last year's video shoots of soldiers "initiating"
each other by pushing long sharp needles in each others chests, etc.? And
to show you I'm not only ranting against the USA: currently, here in
Holland we have (again) a huge uproar because of possible ultra-right
behavior of some of our soldiers in Bosnia, where they were sent to protect
the people!

To be honest, I think War of these days is almost always toxic. If not
ever. Has it really ever been "honourable"?

VrGr David

"Shapes of angels the night casts lie dead but dreaming in my past and
they're here, they want to meet you, they want to play with you, so take
the dream."
(Fields of the Nephilim - "Sumerland (what dreams may come)")

From:	IronRaven cyberraven@********.net
Subject:	Spirits of War
Date:	Wed, 14 Jul 1999 19:08:01 -0400

Message no. 2 At 19.17 07-14-99 +0200, you wrote:
>Few examples: atrocities by GI's during Vietnam against the Vietnamese, USA

That would get ugly- you wouldn't even know what you summoned....
Hmmm.........

>dropping an atomb bomb, officers giving orders they know will kill many of

As for the bomb, Truman is on record as believing that he was going to
hell for it. War is ugly. But how ugly would it have been to take the
home islands. Don't read the US work of the time, and just burn the
revisionist pipe dreams. Read stuff written by the Japanese at the time.
A few thousand dead, as opposed to a few million if the Allies had been
forced to invade.
I've always been amazed that the bombs even worked- surrender is not part
of bushido, either the true form or the romanticised/basterdized version
practiced by the Japanese military at the time.

>To be honest, I think War of these days is almost always toxic. If not
>ever. Has it really ever been "honourable"?

You've never had to defend the lives of those who you love, have you, lad?
Starting a war is never honorable, but defense of home and clan is, even
if that defense requires a pre-emptive move.

CyberRaven
http://members.xoom.com/iron_raven/
"Once again, we have spat int he face of Death and his second cousin,
Dismemberment."
"Briar Rabbit to Briar Fox; I was BORN in that briar patch!"

From:	Paul J. Adam Paul@********.demon.co.uk
Subject:	Spirits of War
Date:	Thu, 15 Jul 1999 00:55:29 +0100

Message no. 3 In article <3.0.3.32.19990714190801.00908860@***.softhome.net>,
IronRaven <cyberraven@********.net> writes
> As for the bomb, Truman is on record as believing that he was going to
>hell for it. War is ugly. But how ugly would it have been to take the
>home islands. Don't read the US work of the time, and just burn the
>revisionist pipe dreams. Read stuff written by the Japanese at the time.

Japanese planning was to meet the invaders on the beaches with waves of
women and children armed with bamboo spears. Once the invaders had
expended their ammunition on those comparitively expendable targets,
the _real_ soldiers would counterattack into the confusion.

It is quite terrifying to read how the Japanese planned to defend the Hoe
Islands.

>A few thousand dead, as opposed to a few million if the Allies had been
>forced to invade.
> I've always been amazed that the bombs even worked- surrender is not
>part
>of bushido, either the true form or the romanticised/basterdized version
>practiced by the Japanese military at the time.

The third A-bomb would have hit Tokyo and killed the Emperor.

The Japanese military derived its entire legitimacy from its defence of the
Emperor, who was basically considered a divine personage. The US was
very astute in using nuclear weapons against Hiroshima and Nagasaki: the
power of their new weapon was demonstrated, as was the ability to
conduct repeated attacks: and the Japanese military had no way to
guarantee the destruction of every single B-29 that approached Tokyo.

>>To be honest, I think War of these days is almost always toxic. If not
>>ever. Has it really ever been "honourable"?
>
> You've never had to defend the lives of those who you love, have you, lad?
> Starting a war is never honorable, but defense of home and clan is, even
>if that defense requires a pre-emptive move.

My MTQ2 precis has a number of quotes from "18 Platoon" by Sydney Jary,
but one seems especially appropriate here. The context is a WW2 rifle
platoon: Lt. Jary commanded it from 1944 to demobilisation. Here,
they're enjoying their victory.

"The battalion settled down to the immediate post-war problems of life in
defeated Germany. The rifle companies were billeted in four small hamlets
adjoining a village with a Norwegian name, of which we knew nothing:
Bergen-Belsen.

After cholera inoculations, we were led into the world of Frankenstein.
Nothing had prepared us for what we now experienced: not Hill 112, Mont
Pincon, Elst or Hoven could compete with this horror... Private Macy, 'D'
Company's Jeep driver, aptly summed it up: 'There is no doubt that we
have fought a just and proper war.'"

--
Paul J. Adam

From:	Gurth gurth@******.nl
Subject:	Spirits of War
Date:	Thu, 15 Jul 1999 11:02:51 +0200

Message no. 4 According to Quindrael, at 19:17 on 14 Jul 99, the word on
the street was...

> To be honest, I think War of these days is almost always toxic. If not
> ever. Has it really ever been "honourable"?

Very strange things happen in war. Honor is a matter of personal
interpretation, of course, but in plenty of wars, soldiers one moment try
to kill the enemy at all cost, and the next treat them extrenely
honorably. What has made modern wars much more horrific is the de-
personalization of the whole affair.

Sure, wars have never been pretty, but it tended to be over relatively
quickly -- a battle would last a few days at most, ending with lots of
dead and wounded, but at least it was over.

Verdun (to stick with that earlier example) lasted from 21 February until
November 1916 and saw near-constant artillery fire (9 hours worth out of
1240 guns just as the German opening bombardment), rifle/machinegun fire,
gas attacks, ... End results? Over 300,000 casualties on either side, and
a few kilometers of ground gained by the Germans. (Where it should be
noted that Verdun wasn't about terrain; it was fought, in the words of
general Falkenhayn, to bleed the French white.)

Hell, even the Gulf War of 1991 saw so many Iraqi's get killed that nobody
knows how many -- estimates at the time ranged between 10,000 and 100,000,
but I can't remember more recent/accurate figures. And that war got
stopped pretty damn quickly when the real face of war (the so-called
"highway of death") flashed across TV screens in the western world...

These are just examples, but they're a major part of the reason why I'm
saying the same thing Quindrael is, namely that spirits of war would
virtually always be toxic. Fighting for The Cause (hm, a NOFX song :) may
seem or even be the right thing to do, but I don't think it would produce
"good" spirits.

--
Gurth@******.nl - http://www.xs4all.nl/~gurth/index.html
Cooking with the devil, frying down in hell.
-> NAGEE Editor * ShadowRN GridSec * Unofficial Shadowrun Guru <-
->The Plastic Warriors Page: http://shadowrun.html.com/plasticwarriors/<-
-> The New Character Mortuary: http://www.electricferret.com/mortuary/ <-

GC3.1: GAT/! d-(dpu) s:- !a>? C+(++)@ U P L E? W(++) N o? K- w+ O V? PS+
PE Y PGP- t(+) 5++ X++ R+++>$ tv+(++) b++@ DI? D+ G(++) e h! !r(---) y?
Incubated into the First Church of the Sqooshy Ball, 21-05-1998

From:	IronRaven cyberraven@********.net
Subject:	Spirits of War
Date:	Thu, 15 Jul 1999 08:20:35 -0400

Message no. 5 At 11.02 07-15-99 +0200, you wrote:
>honorably. What has made modern wars much more horrific is the de-
>personalization of the whole affair.

No argueement. I'd much rather get tagged by a long range rifle man that
has to SEE me and concously choose to remove my life, than get a couple
hundred pounds of high explosives dropped in my face by some shmuck at 40K
who is cruising along at a high fraction of the speed of sound.

>saying the same thing Quindrael is, namely that spirits of war would
>virtually always be toxic. Fighting for The Cause (hm, a NOFX song :) may

I think that this is going to come down to a difference of interpretation.
I see the Spirits of Man in SR to be the embodiments of idealised aspects
of man's nature. Conflict is a large part of man's nature.
There are honorable reasons to go to war. These IDEALS are what form the
normal forms of a War Spirit (perhaps it should be named a Spirit of
Defense, but I don't stoop to political correctness). The way that I would
have one act is tired, sad and generally wishing it could be someplace
else, and it ask you if you were really sure the situation had come to a
point were violence was the only way. The cost toraising one would include
nightmares, and an odd, haunted, gutted feeling that lasts for a long time.
Toxic forms would not manifest looking all that healthy, and they would be
pushing you to use more force than is needed and would involve
noncombatants. They would be eagre for conflict, and thier cost would be
that they follow you (you let the little demon out, you have to put him back).

I know that it doesn't totally jive with the book, but my opinion of the
book when it comes to magic is even worse than my opinion on the SRII range
tables.

CyberRaven
http://members.xoom.com/iron_raven/
"Once again, we have spat int he face of Death and his second cousin,
Dismemberment."
"Briar Rabbit to Briar Fox; I was BORN in that briar patch!"

From:	Gurth gurth@******.nl
Subject:	Spirits of War
Date:	Thu, 15 Jul 1999 19:44:53 +0200

Message no. 6 According to IronRaven, at 8:20 on 15 Jul 99, the word on
the street was...

> >honorably. What has made modern wars much more horrific is the de-
> >personalization of the whole affair.
>
> No argueement. I'd much rather get tagged by a long range rifle man that
> has to SEE me and concously choose to remove my life than get a couple
> hundred pounds of high explosives dropped in my face by some shmuck at 40K
> who is cruising along at a high fraction of the speed of sound.

I don't think that makes all that much of a difference in a protracted
war, in the end (and I don't just mean that as "you're dead either way").

> I think that this is going to come down to a difference of interpretation.

It certainly looks like it.

> I see the Spirits of Man in SR to be the embodiments of idealised aspects
> of man's nature. Conflict is a large part of man's nature.

No argument there.

> There are honorable reasons to go to war. These IDEALS are what form the
> normal forms of a War Spirit (perhaps it should be named a Spirit of
> Defense, but I don't stoop to political correctness). The way that I would
> have one act is tired, sad and generally wishing it could be someplace
> else, and it ask you if you were really sure the situation had come to a
> point were violence was the only way. The cost toraising one would include
> nightmares, and an odd, haunted, gutted feeling that lasts for a long time.

This is contradictory, if you look at it. First you say "I see the Spirits
of Man in SR to be the embodiments of idealised aspects of man's nature."
and then you would have the spirit act in a way that goes against that.
Idealized warfare is Good vs. Evil, or in other words Us vs. Them -- with
the Good/Us coming out on top because We're the Righteous Ones. In short,
the attitude many people have toward a war when it's just beginning (and
not just in "unenlightened" countries, either). A spirit if war would be
following that idealized view of warfare, IMHO.

--
Gurth@******.nl - http://www.xs4all.nl/~gurth/index.html
Cooking with the devil, frying down in hell.
-> NAGEE Editor * ShadowRN GridSec * Unofficial Shadowrun Guru <-
->The Plastic Warriors Page: http://shadowrun.html.com/plasticwarriors/<-
-> The New Character Mortuary: http://www.electricferret.com/mortuary/ <-

GC3.1: GAT/! d-(dpu) s:- !a>? C+(++)@ U P L E? W(++) N o? K- w+ O V? PS+
PE Y PGP- t(+) 5++ X++ R+++>$ tv+(++) b++@ DI? D+ G(++) e h! !r(---) y?
Incubated into the First Church of the Sqooshy Ball, 21-05-1998

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