Wolverines!
by veilwar
Seeing as the remake of Red Dawn looks to be leaning toward the suck – North Koreans? Srsly? Let’s consider what would happen if something entirely more plausible happened: Goblins invade.
The story we’ve been telling here is only half the story. The men that Captain Lewis commands in the Middle East are highly trained members of the United States’ armed forces. Marines, for the most part, but also USAF, Army and Navy. (No coasties, as yet.) This is one advantage that they have in their fight against the forces of darkness – their discipline and training has allowed them to keep fighting in the face of the powerful magic that the invaders have at their fingertips. And of course, uniquely they have had the assistance of friendly forces who also have access to magic.
The invasion is world wide, of course. While Lewis fights in Iraq and Saudi Arabia; Europe, Asia and North America are also under attack. The Veil crosses the northern tier of the United States – starting in Washington and moving east across to Chicago, then dipping down to West Virginia before moving across the Maryland panhandle and heading up just inland of the coast to meet the Atlantic in the neighborhood of Boston. For the most part, there are not large numbers of military units in these areas. There are no fortresses or walls. Each state has its national guard, but many of those units are deployed overseas, or located out of state for training or other purposes.
What weapons could a resistance employ against the invaders? What sort of improvised munitions could be readily devised from supplies obtainable at the local Lowes, Walmart or Farmer’s Exchange? More to the point, how quickly could these weapons be created and deployed?
If the Veil went right by your house, what would you do?
The Veil War 
Realistically? Die, probably.
Sure, and I appreciate your honesty.
So for you, let me amend my question: what would one of your characters do?
Hmm. So many to choose from. Offhand, I’d say Mustang Sally would be the likeliest to survive, simply because of her speed. Crackerjack might seem like a good call, but in The Archmage, we learn his invulnerability doesn’t cover magic. Destroyer would probably also come out in good shape, because he can match “magic” pound for pound with his technical wizardry.
Moving on to non-superhero titles…the characters in Troubleshooters would all be dead. Ditto for those in Blood on the Ice and Rooftops. Undead Elvis from Hope and Undead Elvis would survive, such as it is. Most of the characters in Pariah’s Moon would perish, except for Piprel the Mage, because he’s stupid powerful and a former Court Mage. Everybody in The Milkman dies, but they do so with tremendous style and panache.
Interesting side note: There are some real similarities between the basic plot of The Veil War and my own book The Archmage in terms of extradimensional attacks, although I admit the scale in The Archmage is much smaller in the beginning.
Dieing would probably be the end result but, living near the Northern Rocky Mountains, I’d have to go down fighting. I’d gather what I could and go into the mountains and survive.
What’s with all this dying crap!? Intergalactically humans would be like cockroaches, we would be demonically difficult to stamp out. Just look at the history of guerrilla warfare? The big dog comes tromping along sure of victory, and then gets his sack handed back to him. High technology is NEVER a sure win against low tech. We’ve proven that ourselves. Low tech can win if they do it right. And when push comes to shove, the best of the best of the human spirit, spite and down right cussedness will kick the crap out of any aliens. Hands…down. We own the night.
Admirable, but light on specifics. What techniques would you use on the invaders?
Roadside bombs, fertilizer bombs, napalm? How would you organize your resistance?
Since I’m new and haven’t yet had the opportunity to read about the veil, which I soon will be. I’m assuming our weapons and tactics can hurt them/kill if employed creatively. On that assumption one must remember that regardless of your technological achievements if you want to capture and keep territory you have to have boots on the ground. That means logistics, that means vulnerable supply lines AND that means dealing with terrain. The United States alone has virtually every type of terrain you could imagine, and it’s BIG. Then you’ve got a population of civilians already armed and intimately familiar with the terrain. So the US alone just became one big giant Afghanistan for the aliens. We’d pinpoint specific weaknesses they possessed and exploit the crap out of them. If they’re sensitive to sunlight, we attack during the day with the sun behind us. If they eat us, we poison the corpses, if they are allergic to sugar we make sugar bombs and ballistic ice bullets with sugar water. Whatever it is we’ll find a way to exploit it. Religious beliefs and the supernatural can be exploited. In WW2 and Vietnam our special forces picked off sentries and poked holes in their necks and left them to be found. The enemy was fully convinced vampires were stalking the jungle and refused to patrol, they were scared sh$tless. Improvised munitions? Hell you can make bathroom napalm with dishwashing liquid and gasoline. There’s a lot of fiendishly nasty devices and implements we can make without getting into anarchist cookbook specifics. And in closing I must say this line of topics is very interesting and I’m sold! I think I’ll stick around for more!
Look up the nearest pagan group in the hope that they actually might have something to add. Go grab a bunch of medieval/dark age swords in the hope that some of them had powers against goblin armour.
And being British, hope that the legend of King Arthur is true and he’s on his way back. ;~)
Load up with salt pellets for shotguns, since salt is supposed to be inimical to supernatural beings. And in the UK (actually in Europe — and in the Middle East too) there are plenty of big old castles to act as strong points. Walls tens of metres thick between you and them might be a good idea. And they are usually placed on pinch points too.
Other than that, download the anarchist’s cookbook. I wonder how napalm type weapons would work against these things.
Just read Ben’s comment. Yup, thinking on the same lines from different geographical perspectives. I should think trying every chemical compound would be a good start. Salt, sugar, silver, would be a good starting point.
@pkgesic: Good thoughts. Sadly, the United States has no large amount of castles and forts as does Europe. Those we do have are largely on the coast, not at strategic points in the interior.
Clever idea about the old swords – I hadn’t actually thought about that. Hmm…
I’ve dropped a few hints about the nature of the goblins, but not recently. Suffice to say that silver or garlic or the like won’t have any more effect on them than it would on you or I.
Napalm, or at least gasoline, has been used once already, to good effect. There will certainly be more of that.
Of course, characters in the story won’t have our Olympian perspective, and will try many things.
@Ben: lots of good ideas there. Knowledge of terrain will be key, and I’m writing that part of the story right now. Another, related advantage for any defender will be not just good maps, but interactive maps. For example, an observer with a smart phone could update a shared google map with enemy locations, which could be read by dozens of resistance fighters in the next valley, who could coordinate their actions like a flash mob…
Any mining area would have lots of high-quality explosives readily available. Improvised munitions are moderately simple to make – ANFO bombs, for starters. Put under roads – an excellent addition to a flash-ambush. Local walmarts and home depots have lots of things that can be used creatively.
Surplus weaponry could be repurposed. The list is endless.
Me dieing without a fight is not in my playbook. Heavy guns and improvised munititions like I learned from my SF neighbor when I was a kid and from my time in the Gun Club. Practicing massed fires and sniping to see the effects and if those kids in this story are able to get it out to the web then borrowing their tactics to make shit miserable for the invading critters. Oh, and traps, like bear traps and the like.