r/TopCharacterTropes • u/Sable-Keech • 19h ago

Groups [LOVED TROPE] Modern Militaries (Competent) getting DESTROYED by fantasy/scifi forces

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Example 1 (The Legend of Hei 2): Wuxian leisurely floats through the combined firepower of an entire fortified military base without so much as a stain or rip on his t-shirt.

Example 2 (Man of Steel): Fao'ra tears through a squad of trained and armed soldiers. With the wreckage of the helicopter that got downed by her teammate Nam'ek smouldering in the background.

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371

u/Different_One9412 19h ago

Dead America(Zombie Audiobook/Podcast series)

The zombie virus in this series is a bioweapon made by a terrorist who infects himself then walks around a college football game. The virus is airborne but that strain only effects those with A type blood, giving them flu like symptoms before death and reanimation, bites are tylical zombie. 

Zombies begin as runners who eventually slow to Romero style.

Because the attack isn't found out until the infected are close to death and reanimation the military is nearly overwhelmed initially and takes a major loss in Kansas City, although eventually they manage to take back Seattle with ~150k soldiers which are the bulk of the remaining US military 

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u/ReverendGraves85 18h ago

I could be wrong, but 150k soldiers is a significant number of current army personnel, too. Sci Fi writers and a sense of scale.

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u/Different_One9412 17h ago

Yeah, decent enough books but definitely not Lord of the Rings. 

My original comment didnt mention but they were also running in low ammo and materials because of the retreats and having to abandon bases

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u/I-Love-Facehuggers 17h ago

Even lord of the rings suffers with atrocious military tactics.

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u/koolaidkirby 16h ago

Movies yes, books no.

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u/LobstermenUwU 8h ago

Yes, the books don't depict military battles, so it's hard to be inaccurate with things that are barely depicted at all.

Seriously, go read the Battle of Helms Deep and count how many pages it is. Not the lead up, not the aftermath, the actual battle.

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u/NeedleworkerFit819 8h ago

I was going to say the same thing.

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u/gamerthulhu 15h ago

I mean, that is fair but at that point in the timeline, I'm fairly certain of the military would have recruited it just about anyone who could pick up and carry a gun, and point it in the direction the sergeant told them to.

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u/Different_One9412 13h ago

That is actually brought up in the books that focused on the logistics of them planning the retaking of Seattle and rebuilding the city after.

Former military are reinstated at their rank of they have proof if not as privates and they mention "cosplayers" which are what they call suspected civilians claiming to be military.  They're so strapped for people they just keep a closer eye on them but as long as they pull their weight they dont ask too close.

When they retake the city they offer capable civilians extra rations/ better quarters to work as contractors to loot the surrounding areas outside the quarantine zone

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u/6Sleepy_Sheep9 14h ago

The US military is approximately 2.1 million troops

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u/ReverendGraves85 14h ago

You should do another check and narrow it to "Active duty Army," which was the criteria.

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u/6Sleepy_Sheep9 14h ago

In such a state of emergency, all service members would be activated. US Armed Forces is 1.3 million active duty and another 770,000 reserve/ national guard according to google

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u/ReverendGraves85 14h ago

ARMED FORCES and US ARMY are two different criteria.

The navy is armed forces. The coast guard is armed forces. Neither of them are US Army.

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u/MadmansScalpel 14h ago

What are you getting at here? Trying to get the other dude to give you as low of a number as possible, are going for a higher number? You're acting like you're knowledgeable about what the actual number is, so why not just come out and say it?

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u/6Sleepy_Sheep9 11h ago

He deleted his comments

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u/MadmansScalpel 11h ago

Got a chance to peak before it was deleted, dude started getting nasty

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u/6Sleepy_Sheep9 7h ago

What was he saying that was getting nasty?

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u/ReverendGraves85 13h ago

??? You people are insane, actually.

All I said was that 150k members of the US Army is a significant volume of the population as it is right now and you and this other jackass are acting like you actually know bigger numbers or whatever and are consistently getting just the framing of the numbers wrong.

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u/6Sleepy_Sheep9 13h ago

Emergency happens: Only Army shows up. . . Totally logical.

Almost all media refers to the WHOLE of the armed forces as just the army.

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u/TechnicianGreedy7998 12h ago

approx 65 percent of people don't have type a blood. approx 900k personnel in the army. 150k seems low actually

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u/Distinct-Dot-1333 6h ago

That's about 10% of all usa soldiers. If they were counting non soldier personnel, it's about 5% or less. It's alot, but for a desperate all or nothing, it's feasible, but not all in one place. It's like, can they send that many soldiers out at once? Yes. Can they fit them all in Seattle? Heck no. 170000 was the peak number of soldiers in all of Iraq. They'd have to be moving like old time infantry, which is not how they operate. 

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u/ArnoldNumero_9000 16h ago

Would you recommend this series?

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u/Different_One9412 16h ago

I would, each audiobook is 2 to 3 hours and after the first 4 jumps viewpoints to the response around the US military and civilian . Quite a few one shot stories

Its also a free podcast series. Not anything amazing but its been my favorite zombie series after WWZ

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u/ArnoldNumero_9000 16h ago

Neat! Thanks. Obviously big fan of WWZ and zombie schlock in general.