the DO is NOT winning

[aevogt]

Thought I'd chime in here.

 

The last battle is not going to be "OK Darkfriends to the left and Non-Darkfirends to the right"

 

There are going to be DFs in every unit.

 

If I'm a DF commander, I'd get the word out that when "you see the great spinning wheel of green fire in the sky, kill the man next to you!"  If you have 10% infiltration, the Forces of the Light (FotL) have 10% casualties, virtually instantaneously, with another 10% probably coming a couple of seconds later.  Not to mention the fact that they were at 90% to start with from the infiltrators.  This ain't the US Marines, there's going to be traitors.  Yes, even in the Band.

 

As far as channeling goes, all of my dreadlords will be instructed to go for the dispersal, rather than the kill, to let the trollocs get in for the close work.  In Tear, we saw what happened when Trollocs charge against channelers fighting from a defensible, prepared position.  If Rand/Logain's people had been out in the open and if there had been Dreadlords of sufficient strength present to disrupt some of the offensive weaves, that's a whole different ballgame.  They almost lost as it was.  Half again as many trollocs and they'd have been overrun and slaughtered. 

 

It kind of makes you wonder if all the Fades are sent to the High Lord Weiramon of House Saniago school of battle tactics in the Blight.  There's only one course.  Line everyone up and CHARGE!  At the end of the battle if you have more combatants left than the enemy, it's a glorious victory.

 

 

[Shaidar]

Just to (try to) address some of the criticisms here...

 

That is not the situation we have in the books. We can safely assume the shadow have infiltrated every single army out there, as well as positions in society crucial to food and water supplies.

 

That is why DF channelers strengths get multiplied by 3 - to take into account their factor of surprise.

 

Meanwhile, Rand can't do much other than trying to gather his forces and wait for the shadow to act. He can't just open a bunch of gateways to SG and start pouring out his troops...inclucing most of the forsaken who knows everything there is to know about using the OP in war

 

Can the Forsaken stand against dozens, let alone hundreds, of Aes Sedai, Asha'man, damane, etc? I doubt it. They'll either flee or die (or get captured). Besides, the Seanchan managed to rid their entire Blight off Trollocs, despite the disadvantages of fighting there. Why can't Randlanders do the same, now that such vast numbers of channelers who know how to Travel, and Aiel, and Seanchan beasts, are being mobilized?

 

Time is on the DOs side. For the shadow to win, all it takes is keeping Rand occupied long enough to have the DO break free.

 

This is true - which is why Rand must move quickly.

 

I think 4 million is a small measurement of the trolloc population.  I would almost double that number 8 million does not seem insignificant. 

 

It's tricky counting the Trolloc population and rests on assumptions and inferences. I've explained my reasoning. Blight = 2x area of Westlands. Westlands = 50 million people. Hunter-gatherer population density = 1/10 those of agricultural societies. Therefore 10mn Trollocs. Half are male, 80% are of fighting age = 4mn Trollocs. (If anything, that number is inflated. Trollocs presumably need a higher caloric intake than humans, plus the Blight is hardly a garden of Eden teeming with nice edible meat.)

 

If we take 4mn, we know Trollocs work in fists of 100-200 - let's say average of 150 (also the basic human military unit). If we assume a Fade for every 150 military age Trollocs, that's about 25,000 Fades. Also read Demandred's POV at the start of LoC.

If we assume one sword every 10 mins and renewal has to be done every 6 months, and currently 1/2 of the Myrddraal are gnashing their teeth over not having a new sword, then 50,000 Myrdraal. If a sword every 20 mins, then 25,000 Myrrdraal. In any case we can assume the range of Myrrdraal is 20,000-100,000. But I still tend to the lower figures, like for Trollocs.

 

But really all this is very uncertain. There's also the question of how to value them. The Borderlanders say that you need a 3x numerical advantage over Trollocs to assure victory. That implies, if Borderlands soldiers are worth 3, that each Trolloc is worth 6 or 7 - which would double the military might of the Shadow and put the Light into a bad spot. But then we see Aiel easily killing multiple Trollocs each, in the books. So that would give each Aiel a value of maybe 20. Is each Aiel really worth 7 Borderlanders? Doubt it. So overall I think the values I give for the soldiers are as consistent as can be achieved.

 

how bout you add a large multiplier for the DO in that equation.

 

I have no idea how high that multiplier will be. Plus it will grow bigger with time.

 

Also, I doubt any real novices will be fighting. If they get the Tower back, I'm sure a lot of the current novices on the outside will be Accepted, but half of them will probably remain and not partake in the LB.

 

Personally I would put the Ashaman over most Aes Sedai, simply because they are trained to kill. A lot of Aes Sedai just talk and study. Provoked, I could see them giving a good fight, but I'd take a young Ashaman over some Brown or White any day. Maybe that's just me.

 

Possibly Asha'mans will be more useful in battle, raw power trumping experience. But damane will be key - they far outnumber both AS and Asha'men .

 

Thought I'd chime in here.

 

The last battle is not going to be "OK Darkfriends to the left and Non-Darkfirends to the right"

 

There are going to be DFs in every unit.

 

If I'm a DF commander, I'd get the word out that when "you see the great spinning wheel of green fire in the sky, kill the man next to you!"  If you have 10% infiltration, the Forces of the Light (FotL) have 10% casualties, virtually instantaneously, with another 10% probably coming a couple of seconds later.  Not to mention the fact that they were at 90% to start with from the infiltrators.  This ain't the US Marines, there's going to be traitors.  Yes, even in the Band.

 

Firstly, as I've said I've taken this into account by multiplying Dark channelers power by factor of 3 relative to Light channelers. Besides, this isn't too realistic. 10% sounds highish to me - RJ himself says DF's make up 1-2% of the population. Secondly, most won't be that deeply in thrall to the DO as to launch kamikaze/'suicide bombing' missions against the Light's forces. Thirdly, so they kill 20% of the Light's forces straight away - so what? In the next few seconds, they're gonna get fried themselves. The Light has 80% of its forces left. The Dark has none.

 

As far as channeling goes, all of my dreadlords will be instructed to go for the dispersal, rather than the kill, to let the trollocs get in for the close work.  In Tear, we saw what happened when Trollocs charge against channelers fighting from a defensible, prepared position.  If Rand/Logain's people had been out in the open and if there had been Dreadlords of sufficient strength present to disrupt some of the offensive weaves, that's a whole different ballgame.  They almost lost as it was.  Half again as many trollocs and they'd have been overrun and slaughtered. 

 

If Rand truly managed to marshall his forces, then 'setpiece' battles like these will have hundreds if not thousands of Light channelers - enough to overpower any Dark channelers and then some. Besides they can always simply gateway out of the way. (Also, their position was not prepared. They were taken by surprise by 100,000 Trollocs and still managed to fry them).

 

---------------------------------

 

An interesting note - Moridin likes to play sha'rah. I don't know sha'rah, but I do know chess and there, if you're behind, it is usually a good idea to complicate the position - something the Shadow is involved in right now.

 

On the other hand, unlike in chess, the weaker side is getting stronger - it's bringing more pieces in to play. So is the Light, but at some point the Shadow WILL overtake decisively (when the DO breaks free). Hence they muddy the waters - induce chaos on the grand chessboard - until the time when they get a new (uncapturable) Queen on the board - say the 40th move. Rand must move in such a way as to win, or draw, the game before this happens. His forces are more much powerful, but more disorganized and infiltrated by the Shadow. (Some white pieces are actually black). The optimal balance between organizing order/countering chaos, and taking pre-emptive actions versus the Shadow, has to be struck.

 

This is one way of visualizing this.

 

-------------------BTW (more speculation)

 

Let's look at where we left from at time t=20 (2 yrs after tEotW).

 

Light = 1,942,584,000

Shadow = 1,445,957,250

 

The Light has 99% of the angreal and sa'angreal, and the Horn of Valere too. Saidin is cleansed. Many Lightfriends can now Travel. The Shadow has a large margin of error, due to uncertainties in the number of Trollocs (but I have been generous to them, I think). The DO at this point is more a nuisance than a real threat (it will become serious when the rot spreading across the world results in famine and/or large numbers of people dying, which will reduce the Light's numbers and induce chaos).

 

So let's say that at t=20

Light = 35

Shadow = 20

 

At time t=0, (start of tEotW)

Light mobilization higher (less chaos), but no consolidation, no great sa'angreal and no male channelers. Seanchan are not in the arena so no damane. Consolidated standing armies but they're small. Shadow's strength is less - little direct DO influence, no Forsaken (except Ishy), less Trollocs.

Light = 15

Shadow = 10

 

At time t=10-15 (tSR-WH, etc)

Light being brought into chaos, saidin tainted, still no to minimal consolidation and low mobilization. Nonetheless Seanchan have appeared with damane and some consolidation, and Rand is starting work on Aiel/Tear/Cairhien/Andor and they have Horn of Valere.

Shadow growing stronger, with Forsaken and more Trollocs.

Light = 20

Shadow = 15

 

With full mobilization and consolidation, Light's score can increase up to 70 (even assuming no new channelers come in and Shara and mainland Seanchan remains out of play - if they do, one can imagine scores of up to 500, but that doesn't seem likely).

Shadow is already mobilized to its maximum capacity, and its power can only increase as the DO's direct power increases. Although the DO's direct power is increasing from a very low base, in the long run it will become overwhelming.

At time 20-30,

Light = 35-70(-500)

Shadow = 20-approaches infinity

 

Right now, as it stands, Light has 35 to Shadow's 20 (with wide margin of error). To guarantee victory, consolidation and mobilization must occur to double the Light's score, which is pressed down due to its still poor, but improving, mobilization and fragmentation.

 

Shadow is already fully mobilized, and ironically has no control over its future power - that is up to the Dark One himself. What they must do is keep the Light occupied and prevent it from increasing its mobilization by formenting chaos. This strategy, while initially successful, now looks like its falling apart, what with the Towers negotiation and the Seanchan alliance arising.

 

The question is - will the Light, by mobilizing, achieve a power score big enough to overwhelm the Shadow sometime in the next few months? Or will this all be in vain because by then everybody is falling over with bugs crawling out of their cadavers with the Dark One on the verge of freedom?

[aevogt]

Something Davram Bashere said sticks in my mind.

 

He is accounted one of the great generals and his tactics against the Seanchan are derived from his reading of military commanders from the trolloc wars.  He indicates that their tactics were based on always being outnumbered from a military (I read that as non-channeler, about which he would know little) standpoint, i.e. warm bodies that can hold a spear.

 

The blight is a huge place and I think even 8 million is far too low.  The number of Troolocs is more likely three or four times that.  One of the Forsaken threw 100,000 away in a few minutes, likely due to the fact that they couldn't move more than that unnoticed.  They will not have such a restriction once the real hostilities begin.  Granted, Trolloc losses are likely of little, if any, significance to the Chosen in any circumstances but that would represent a fairly sizable chunk if the numbers in the Blight were only at 4 million. 

 

Trollocs don't care what they eat as long as it's meat and we can surely assume that includes one another so likening them to a human hunter gather society doesn't really work.  Plus, nothing in the Blight would be edible to a human, but that is almost certainly not the case for a trolloc.

 

When trollocs come pouring out of the Blight, I think it means a flood.  Something in the neighborhood of 20-30 million.  Since they are shock troops and really have no tactics other than numbers, that must be their strongest advantage. That would also place the number of Fades between 100,000 and 300,000

 

 

[Majsju]

That is why DF channelers strengths get multiplied by 3 - to take into account their factor of surprise.

 

That kind of multiplication sounds more like something from an RP. It's not very likely every infiltrator will pull a surprise attack as "Darkfriend X weaves Fireblast of Dhoom for 23 dead Light channelers, before getting blasted."

 

Poison the watersupplies for an army on the marsch. Assassinate the sentries without getting exposed, have dreadlords and trllocs attack while going back into hiding. Repeat next night, and night after that, and on... If the darkfriend wants to take a suicide mission, they have always the element of surprise, which means they can choose the most crucial moment to strike. Imagine if Elza had not been "compelled" by Verin, she could easily have killed quite a few channelers during the attack in KOD, and it was about as close as it gets without such interference.

 

Add to that what it does to the moral of the armies. You know there is at least one traitor among you, very likely more. You have no idea who it is, until they strike, for all you know it can be yur best friend, or the girl you cuddle up with every night (just ask Mat). Paranoia and fear can cause a great deal of damage.

 

Can the Forsaken stand against dozens, let alone hundreds, of Aes Sedai, Asha'man, damane, etc? I doubt it. They'll either flee or die (or get captured). Besides, the Seanchan managed to rid their entire Blight off Trollocs, despite the disadvantages of fighting there. Why can't Randlanders do the same, now that such vast numbers of channelers who know how to Travel, and Aiel, and Seanchan beasts, are being mobilized?

 

Unfortunatly for the Light, the Forsaken are not stupid enough to invite to a fair fight. Hit and run, strike from a distance, assassinate key players...Basic guerilla tactics, except that they are far more powerful than any guerilla ever seen.

 

This is true - which is why Rand must move quickly.

 

But if he moves too quickly, he will not have the manpower gathered to stand a chance.

 

[Shard]

Truly then the future of Randland rests on that of a Knife's Edge.

[Myyrth]

I was under the impression that Trollocs themselves where fearsome warriors, perfectly capable of besting your average human soldier.

 

Do we even really know how large the blight is?  Could it extend beyond what is shown on the map?

 

Also if we take into count other hunter-gather societies, the Mongols nearly conquered the entirety of europe forged one of the largest empires in history.

 

The forces of good are not one cohesive force, and they probably won't be when the last battle comes. (this has already been addressed but w/e)

 

We already know that Myrddral are perfectly capable of tearing through dozens of soldiers and surviving wounds that would kill a human twice over.

 

As warlike and barbaric as the Trollocs are they are all bound together by fear of the Fades and the Dreadlords and the Dark One hovers over them all.

 

The idea that we have NO idea what the Dark One is capable of.  What has he been doing?  How far does his reach go?

 

And on the concept of an ambush?  Do you realize how spetacularly devestating just suddenly losing 10% or even 5% of your army to attacks from within would be?  That is a blow your army probably wouldn't recover from considering all the animosity that would exist between units from diffrent nations.  The whole army of light could turn on itself for a short period of time trying to sort out whos a Darkfriend and who's a Dragonsworn.  All of this happening while 4 million or more trollocs come roaring down the slopes of Shayol Ghul, Myrddral at their heels.

 

Your army would start to route, morale would be destroyed unit cohesion lost.  It would be devestating and lean the battle way in favor of the Shadow.

[Cybertrolloc]

It's tricky counting the Trolloc population and rests on assumptions and inferences. I've explained my reasoning. Blight = 2x area of Westlands. Westlands = 50 million people. Hunter-gatherer population density = 1/10 those of agricultural societies. Therefore 10mn Trollocs. Half are male, 80% are of fighting age = 4mn Trollocs. (If anything, that number is inflated. Trollocs presumably need a higher caloric intake than humans, plus the Blight is hardly a garden of Eden teeming with nice edible meat.)

Where does it say that Trollocs have sex? Why would female or old Trollocs be unable to fight? Do Trollocs even age so far as we know (as opposed to getting older ;))?

[Shaidar]

@aevogt, Cybertrolloc,

 

Where does it say that Trollocs have sex? Why would female or old Trollocs be unable to fight? Do Trollocs even age so far as we know (as opposed to getting older )?

 

The blight is a huge place and I think even 8 million is far too low.  The number of Troolocs is more likely three or four times that.  One of the Forsaken threw 100,000 away in a few minutes, likely due to the fact that they couldn't move more than that unnoticed.  They will not have such a restriction once the real hostilities begin.  Granted, Trolloc losses are likely of little, if any, significance to the Chosen in any circumstances but that would represent a fairly sizable chunk if the numbers in the Blight were only at 4 million. 

 

In the BWB, RJ says that Trollocs do indeed reproduce sexually. Their females do nothing but breed (something they enjoy doing). Trollocs mature very quickly, a matter of two to three years (this is a matter of the animal strain manifesting itself). Presumably, they die after 15-25 years. They are 'in the wild', the only 'state obligation' being to perform military service until they die.

 

This brings me to my next point. Like with animals, the population can flunctuate wildly (something which further complicates efforts to work out their population based on stats). A loss of 100,000 is small, even if it represents 100,000/4,000,000 = 2.5% of the population, because of the huge rates of natural increase Trollocs are capable of. This loss can be covered in a month or so.

 

But aevogt brings up a valid point. It is hard to estimate the Trolloc population. My guesstimate of 4mn is based on the long-term sustainable population. It would be prudent to assume that since the debacle at the end of tEotW, steps have been taken to bolster the Trolloc population and keep from mounting attacks on the Borderlands. Dark strategists might have decided, two or three years ago, that yes, this population pressure will strain the carrying capacity of the Blight - but why worry, when most of them will be going south in a few years (Last Battle) anyway?

 

So I admit that it is quite possible that there are 8mn, or even more, fighting Trollocs - meaning a total Trolloc population of around 20mn. Maybe female Trollocs will also be recruited into the Shadow's armies for the Last Battle, bringing the total of fighting Trollocs to 15-20mn.

 

@Majsju,

 

That kind of multiplication sounds more like something from an RP. It's not very likely every infiltrator will pull a surprise attack as "Darkfriend X weaves Fireblast of Dhoom for 23 dead Light channelers, before getting blasted."

 

I don't play RP's, this seemed a reasonable assumption. If you've got a better idea of how to numerically compute the value of Dark channelers, please share. For now, all I can say is that even if you make that factor 10 instead of 3 the Shadow will still be horribly outgunned by the Light in the channeling department.

 

@Myyrth,

 

I was under the impression that Trollocs themselves where fearsome warriors, perfectly capable of besting your average human soldier.

 

To which I wrote earlier,

 

The Borderlanders say that you need a 3x numerical advantage over Trollocs to assure victory. That implies, if Borderlands soldiers are worth 3, that each Trolloc is worth 6 or 7 - which would double the military might of the Shadow and put the Light into a bad spot. But then we see Aiel easily killing multiple Trollocs each, in the books. So that would give each Aiel a value of maybe 20. Is each Aiel really worth 7 Borderlanders? Doubt it. So overall I think the values I give for the soldiers are as consistent as can be achieved.

 

Ie a 2 for normal soldiers, 3 for Borderlanders/Trollocs, and 4 for Aiel. While on one on one combat a Trolloc will best the vast majority of human soldiers, Trollocs are stupid and have no notion of combined arms. Hence I do not think them worth in numbers to a well-trained, variagated human army of similar numbers. Just look at the Two Rivers battle - 500 humans versus 10,000 Trollocs, and the humans won.

 

Do we even really know how large the blight is?  Could it extend beyond what is shown on the map?

 

I'm assuming the Blight is as it's shown on the map. I doubt you could fit a third Westlands there. Besides, I'm being generous. Much of the Blight is to the north of Shayol Ghul, and we know that it is bitterly cold in Shayol Ghul. The question must be asked again...how exactly can we expect millions of Trollocs with primitive technology to survive in an Arctic desert?

 

Also if we take into count other hunter-gather societies, the Mongols nearly conquered the entirety of europe forged one of the largest empires in history.

 

Mongol armies were relatively small, despite the fact that most able-bodied men fought. The key military difference between them and Trollocs is that the Mongols had intelligent tactics which permitted them to defeat much more numerous (and more heavily armored) enemies. This is not an advantage the Trollocs possess.

 

The forces of good are not one cohesive force, and they probably won't be when the last battle comes. (this has already been addressed but w/e)

 

And on the concept of an ambush?  Do you realize how spetacularly devestating just suddenly losing 10% or even 5% of your army to attacks from within would be?  That is a blow your army probably wouldn't recover from considering all the animosity that would exist between units from diffrent nations.  The whole army of light could turn on itself for a short period of time trying to sort out whos a Darkfriend and who's a Dragonsworn.  All of this happening while 4 million or more trollocs come roaring down the slopes of Shayol Ghul, Myrddral at their heels.

 

Explicitly addressed by appealing to mobilization scores.(see mysecond big post) How exactly can Darkfriend infiltrators kill 10% of your army straight away?

[Tyrell]

Poison was suggested, as to how a darkfriend infiltrator could cause massive losses.

 

Hey, if one of the people near Rodel Ituralde, Davram Bashere, Gareth Bryne and <I forget the names of the better Seanchan generals so they go here> happens to be a darkfriend and sticks a knife in one of them, poisons their meal or assassinates them another way thats a far more grevious loss to the forces of light than alot of men.

 

Alot of men with no general = alot of men in big trouble.

[Majsju]

I don't play RP's, this seemed a reasonable assumption. If you've got a better idea of how to numerically compute the value of Dark channelers, please share. For now, all I can say is that even if you make that factor 10 instead of 3 the Shadow will still be horribly outgunned by the Light in the channeling department.

 

 

I thought I made my stand pretty clear, I don't think it is even close to possible to put numeric values to determine how the war will go.

The only scenario where hat would eventually be possible is if we were dealing with two armies, where we know all the players (which we don't, the Shadow will have a few surprises up the sleeves), standing fave to face with eachother. The current situation is quite far from that.

 

And so far I have only brought up the physical resources of the shadow. Add to that bubbles of evil, dead walking (who knows when they might be able to do more than just walk), reality itself shifting, people being swallowed by the earth...And that is just the beginning. Imagine a bubble of evil casuing all the weapons in a military camp coming to "life", similar to what happenmed in Salidar. Only, this time an army of trollocs attack. You could lose a million men in an hour. How do you put a numeric value to such things?

[Cybertrolloc]

In the BWB, RJ says that Trollocs do indeed reproduce sexually. Their females do nothing but breed (something they enjoy doing). Trollocs mature very quickly, a matter of two to three years (this is a matter of the animal strain manifesting itself). Presumably, they die after 15-25 years. They are 'in the wild', the only 'state obligation' being to perform military service until they die.

RJ didn't write BWB. He was consulted, and said it's canon until it isn't or something along that line. I gave mine away after seeing the horrid art anyway, so let me bow out.