High TL 9 vs TL2+RPM

[starslayer]

Originally Posted by Gedrin

But at that point, we're not talking about TL2 with RPM vs TL9. We're talking about TL2+5 vs desperate and broken TL9 with finite resources. It's an entirely different argument. How does a TL9 space colony survive against weapons they can't detect or defend against. Simple, they don't.

TL2+5(RPM) vs. desperate and broken TL9 with finite resources, ends very quickly. Diviners receive and correctly interpret prophesy about the gen ships and the nukes, rocks and robots they carry. They locate the ships with relative ease. The local collection of wizards, cast "Break Fusion Bottle" and the problem is done.

Once the RPM society has sufficient knowledge to understand what's coming, they have sufficient weapons via RPM to destroy a space ship at TL9. The only conflict scenarios involve preventing both sides from using their "nuke from orbit" options. Both sides are essentially defenseless against each other's kill shots, even on the ground that winds up being the case. Artillery is long enough and plentiful enough that it far outnumbers RPM users capable of finishing it off (unless magery is a default talent...then you're just giving unlimited power to the Twoers). Of course, RPM users could just whip up a "Curse all My Enemies with Sterility" and wait a bit.

That's why my proposed scenario for how the 9ers ultimately win involves an initial 80% losses and it seemling like it was going to be a complete an utter victory for the 2ers until it is revealed that a major tribe of the 2ers on an outer planet forging an alliance with the 9ers and scrywalled enough of their ships that they can institute their return fire, and then rely on tactical, observational, and technological dominance to prevent any saccrifical circles large enough to penetrate those scrywalls from becoming active again (They'll probabaly have to round up some sacrificies routinely for their outer planet allies to renew the scrywalls).