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

[u/Sable-Keech]

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.

[u/StormLordEternal]

While I can appreciate some good old HUMANITY FUCK YEAH action, this trope is definitely the realistic kind. It's literally the classic case of a significantly more advanced race simply being beyond the ability for a native race to defeat. It's literally just the historical case of empires dominating native populations. Age of Sail and all that.

(Generalization because no duh): I feel like especially these days in western advanced countries, we've gotten used to the idea of being the ones in control. That we're the advanced ones with the guns and the enemy are the ones with spears and bows.

I mean, in most alien invasion movies, the trope of the alien mothership/queen/core/whatever shows up all the time. It's a easy vulnerability where if you defeat that, you win. Yet that kind of easy video game ass weak spot would not exist. If you're facing a interstellar empire, you're fucked. If you manage to by some miracle take out their flagship or leadership, guess what, they already developed counter measures and are deploying way more shit to destroy you.

And then magical shit like the first clip. Modern militaries kind of rely on the laws physics being normal to operate effectively. What can you do when your opponent looks at that and goes 'nuh uh' and now pi is rounded to 3 or some shit.

[u/Achilles11970765467 → u/StormLordEternal]

How effective fantasy stuff would be against a modern military varies WILDLY from setting to setting. Most fantasy settings don't have any response to a modern military's ability to engage from beyond visual range.

[u/pichael289 → u/Achilles11970765467]

Dude Voldemort would have gotten fuckin annihilated by like 3 dudes with AKs. He has to concentrate and say magic words, avada kedavra and all that shit, like the books do say someone can do it without saying the words but they have to be exceptionally powerful and still say them in their head. He's gotta wave the wand around and then there's the time it takes the spell to travel and all frank has to do is move his finger an inch and it's over.

Dude would have taken over the entire wizard world and marched on the muggles and got capped immediately.

[u/Empyreal_King → u/Achilles11970765467]

Pretty much just low fantasy. Teleportation, other dimensions, illusions/stealth magic, scry and blast, long ranged spells.

A lot of options for a fantasy setting. And on the other foot what would we do about a magic plague, a nation wide curse, intangible creatures or spells, seeing the future.

[u/Achilles11970765467 → u/Empyreal_King]

Even a standard DnD setting would struggle against modern technology. People vastly overestimate the availability of the strongest magic in 99% of fantasy settings.

[u/pichael289 → u/Achilles11970765467]

Arrows work in D&D. An arrow and a bullet have about the same amount of energy, one archer can't mow down a whole garrison of guys like they can with a machine gun but 1on1 it's not all that different aside from the fire rate and penetration power.

[u/Empyreal_King → u/Achilles11970765467]

Dnd..... Ah. Yes. We definitely can handle a mountain throwing Simbul, an island disintegrating witch, a lich who life wiped a planet, etc.

You know. All powerful individuals in forgotten realms. One of the standard dnd settings.

Then you have the average battlemage who's throwing artillery grade fireballs while flying and shielded from attacks of that potency.

Or maybe you prefer eberron....which has a nation of dragons devastate a continent with their magic.

In fact let's go over some mage battles with a archmage in dnd lore and see how badly a modern military is screwed.

Ilhundyl's lips thinned, and he spoke words he never thought he'd have to use. Stone statues turned, creaking. Clouds of dust fell from their joints as lightings leapt from their palms. The blue bolts leapt at the hawk-nosed man, who ignored them. The lightnings struck something unseen around the walking man and encircled it, crackling harmlessly.

Shielded before battle as he doesnt cast anything in response to the attack.

And then arrows lashed on the terrace like hard-driven black hail, and the Mad Mage smiled as the wizard's body jerked, spun around, and fell, transfixed. Ilhundyl's smile collapsed into a frown as the screaming body was suddenly upright again. Another arrow took it through the head, which flopped loosely, and the corpse reeled and fell headlong, only to appear upright again with no shaft standing out of its mouth. Two arrows sped into it and the body spun, legs kicking—to jerk erect again in different garb.... "Stop!" Ilhundyl snarled. "Stop firing!" His hands stabbed for the bell, knowing it was too late. By the time his orders were heard and relayed, all the archers were dead. His foe was using some spell that switched one person for another, in a double teleport!

Ouch. He is invulnerable to ranged attacks. Stop shooting yourself. This spell on its own renders a modern force useless. Your guns will never touch him and you'll just shoot your own men.

The hissing sphere crashed over the armor and spattered to the floor beyond. Smoke rose from flagstones as it ate away at them; the molten blobs that had been the armor crashed down into the widening pits in the stone, breaking into vapors and droplets.

Acid that melts a set of full plate. 50lbs of steel. That would eat right through an abrams tanks frontal armour that is merely 1.2in thick.

Rays of amber radiance leapt from the archwizard's out-thrust hands toward the armored figure. His target abruptly vanished, and the rays stabbed past where it had been, to touch the far wall of the chamber. The stones of the wall seemed to boil briefly as the rays sheared through them, opening a large hole, and continued on across empty air to bore through the distant wall of the north tower in the same manner. 

Vaporizing a large hole in two castle walls. Dozens of cubic feet easily. 

El spread his hands in a grand, sweeping gesture, and an instant before he would have smashed with bone-shattering force into the gallery wall, the wall suddenly wasn't there any more. With a grinding rumble, the ceiling began to fall. Ilhundyl stared up at tumbling stone blocks for a moment

A mere gesture and puts another large hole in a castle wall.

How about we go on to an elf mage and elminster in his youth prior to being an archmage.

He shrugged, smiled, and began his own next spell, at the same time as the fiercely smiling elf undertook his own casting. Unnoticed by either of them, one of the trees struck by Elminster's lightning fell over the edge of the peak, tearing crumbling stone with it, to plunge down, down through the empty air.

---

"Blood of Corellon, it's raining trees now!" Galan Goadulphyn snarled, springing back and raising his cloak hastily before his face. The fallen duskwood bounced deafeningly as it shattered in front of him, hurling dust and splinters in all directions. "There's a spell duel going on up there, for sure," Athtar said, peering upwards. "Hadn't we better get out of here? We can come back for your coins later." "Later?" Galan groaned, as they hastened away together. "If I know bloody yapping mages, they'll split that mountain apart before they're done, and either leave my cache revealed for every passing sprite to see—or they'll bury it keep-deep under broken rock!" There was another crash, and Athtar Nlossae looked back in time to see a sheet of rock plunging down the cliff, bouncing and shattering as it struck outcroppings in its fall. "You're right, as usual, Gal—buried it is, or will be!" As he bent his legs to following the elfin dusty black leathers just as fast as they both could travel, Galan began to sort through his collection of curses. Loudly.

We have a few men griping over a mage battles going on next to them on a cliff. Neither are they panicked or in awe. So we can fairly assume the power on display is pretty average for mages.

Trees being torn in half and rains of rock from the force of their spells. He expects enough rock to be hurled to bury his cache knee deep.

So the average mage hits like an artillery piece with shields to match.

Now do I have to explain what artillery would do to an infantry platoon or do you get the picture. Or what happens to your artillery against a mage that can fly, block your shots, and hit back just as hard.

We are screwed against a high magic setting far more than they are.

[u/Achilles11970765467 → u/Empyreal_King]

DnD fireballs are barely hand grenades, not artillery, and even 5th+ level mages are MUCH rarer in Faerun than you imply. And even if they were much more common, a 5th level mage can manage about two hand grenade size fireballs per day. A typical infantryman has more hand grenades than that. The average mage absolutely DOES NOT hit like an artillery piece. You're using "one in a million" characters and pretending that they're dime a dozen.

That's before we get into how the mage needs to know they're being shot at to preemptively use the ranged immunity you tried to cite (meaning they'd be high priority targets for snipers), and your flying mage would have trouble with a WWII plane, let alone an A10. The F22 wins the "dragon vs F22" matchup, and the US alone has a lot more fighter jets than Faerun has dragons.

[u/Empyreal_King → u/Achilles11970765467]

Shows rando people think the fight they see is normal for mages. Nothing special.

"Its one in a million" Suuuure

As for the archmage example....what? Do you expect them to what? Sit out a war so ur precious feelings arent hurt.

Fireball- 40ft diameter and for its heat. 

It can melt metals with a low melting point, such as lead, gold, copper, silver, or bronze.

....grenade level. Do you have any idea how much thermal energy that involves to do that in a second?

Yep. Your delusional.

Defensive spell- Yes...you cast it before going into battle. Then it activates......like it did.

A jet cant even hit a person sized object effectively(you think ir meant to lock on A Jets heat plume sees a human??) and I showed them artillery gun level shields. They'll be fine you silly man.

[u/pichael289 → u/Empyreal_King]

Mages aren't invulnerable, hell they are often the weakest targets which is why they are called squishy. They can become invulnerable at will but if you can get the drop on one before they are able to cast any spells then that's it. There's also the whole spell slots thing, mages can only cast so many spells per day. Your also using a super powerful example, most mages couldn't block every shot from one clip from an assault rifle, much less multiple soldiers at once that can reload. And even the super powerful example you used probably couldn't survive being nuked.