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Edited by Mrph1 on Jul 29th 2024 at 3:09:00 PM
Zero acceptable casualties in a paramilitary organization is a pretty asinine
I mean, it's a lovely sentiment, but it also sends a pretty shitty message to the men under your command.
Remember Cap's speech in Avengers about being the guy to lay down on the wire and let the other guy climb over you? Yeah, that kind of self-sacrifice is intolerable if acceptable casualties is considered zero. It means you are to put survival first, completion of the mission second. Under no circumstances are you to give your life in the line of duty.
edited 14th Apr '17 12:23:07 PM by TobiasDrake
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.Given Cap's reaction to the footage of damage from their previous battles, I don't think he takes nothing but zero casualties. He tries to avoid them (I think he himself only killed three people in all of The Winter Soldier), but he accepts that they're sometimes unavoidable and will try to at least minimize what happens by orders like closing a portal with Tony still on the other side or Helicarriers shot down with himself still aboard.
Coulson is the one who gave the speech about how they were all recruited "to be the shield." He's accepted SHIELD agents dying in the line of duty before (though he's never happy about it). It's the job of the shield to take the hit, and he knows that.
Writing a post-post apocalypse LitRPG on RR. Also fanfic stuff.Again, since I my post ended up at the bottom: This refers to civilian victims, not Agents or hostiles. And I think Cap agrees. He knows that sometimes you can't avoid innocent victims, but his goal is always to keep the number to zero if possible. Fury was actually doing the math how many civilians could die for the mission still being considered a success.
If that's how Coulson meant it - I don't actually remember that line - then he's using the term incorrectly. Acceptable casualties refers to how much damage to your forces is considered to be within the parameters of a successful mission.
There is no threshold for acceptable civilian casualties. It's generally agreed by just about every branch of military and paramilitary that I know of that minimizing harm to civilians is the top priority. Like, Coulson would have to be a complete f*cking moron to honestly think Fury sat in his chair going, "Hmm...only five thousand civilians have been killed. That's okay. Let me know when it hits ten thousand."
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.HYDRA had corrupted everyone's way of thinking, remember? Like dropping a missile on a civilian convoy to hit a terrorist leader. Are a dozen civilian lives worth getting the terrorist? Arguments could be made—and apparently, Fury made them.
Writing a post-post apocalypse LitRPG on RR. Also fanfic stuff.Okay, if we're talking about foreign civilians, that's different. That's where the cruel mathematics of war enter the picture. Dropping a bomb on an enemy city is typically weighed much differently than dropping one on your own.
I don't honestly remember the context of Coulson's acceptable casualties line.
edited 14th Apr '17 12:43:30 PM by TobiasDrake
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub."Ye Who Enter Here"
- Coulson: There are 3 million people on this island, and I won't let Hydra turn them into collateral damage.
- Morse: With all due respect, sir, this kind of op, Fury would have a number.
- Coulson: A number?
- Morse: Of acceptable losses.
- Coulson: My number is zero. For the record, I hate that phrase.
Sure enough. Objection withdrawn.
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.What exactly is wrong with the Avengers taking orders from someone else like any other military or police force? These people wouldn't even be a team if not for an established authority. By contrast, they've shown following their judgement doesn't always produce perfect results as seen with Sokovia and Lagos.
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The one who commands the police is a police officer/detective. the one who commands soldiers is a soldier/general. So shouldn't the one who commands the Avengers be an Avenger? Also, I don't have necessarily an objection to it, I just point out that it actually makes no difference if Steve leads the Avengers or someone else does it regarding to collateral damage aso. But Steve is actually in the field, General Ross isn't, and his attitude towards powered people is more than a little bit questionable. General Ross is in no way less likely to make a mistake than the Avengers are...as Steve said, it is just shifting the responsibility.
After the talk? Well....there was a earth quake and the most useless heroic dead ever......but I guess the people on the island survived just fine.
edited 14th Apr '17 1:40:29 PM by Swanpride
Go high enough in either of those chains of command and you hit a politician.
EDIT: Seriously, most useless heroic death. Dying in the line of duty is one thing, but that character died in the line of pulling off a really sweet spin kick for no reason.
edited 14th Apr '17 1:41:44 PM by TobiasDrake
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.
Yeah...but those organisations work for a country....the Avengers are supposed to work for the world. Plus, we are talking about in the field/mission decisions. Those politicians usually have at least a general sitting beside them to get advice. Unless they are called Trump...then they ask their daughter and just throw out the biggest bomb in the arsenal which isn't nuclear.
Well, he had a reason, but like I said, Hindsight is 20/20.....
edited 14th Apr '17 1:44:40 PM by Swanpride
I think you mean, "Hindsight is 2020".
Generals don't make decisions in the field. That's what sergeants are for. At least in the U.S., our military is broken out into officers who sit behind a desk and make big-picture calls about where units will be deployed, how many units, what the overall goal to achieve is, etc. etc. and NCOs who lead the men in combat and call the shots for how the battle will actually be won.
For the purposes of Civil War, Ross is the Avengers' commanding officer while Stark is their NCO.
Also, there's a bit of a rivalry between the two. You never call an NCO "Sir". Learned that one the hard way, and I'll never forget the words, "Don't you Sir me, I WORK for a living."
edited 14th Apr '17 1:53:37 PM by TobiasDrake
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.Actually, I think the actor wanted to leave the show for some reason. I don't remember all the details.
But in-universe, it makes sense. Trip thought the cocoons were lethal, he had reason to suspect the effect might go world-wide, and he had a distant hope that destroying the Diviner might reverse the process. None of these things were true, but you can understand how he came to the conclusion "Gotta destroy this thing but I can't touch it and have no tools, gotta kick it."
Writing a post-post apocalypse LitRPG on RR. Also fanfic stuff.He got a starring role on a new show, IIRC, so they had to write him out.
And while it may make sense in-universe, it's unsatisfying from a narrative perspective for a character to die like that. There are so many other ways he could have gone out. The episode featured a clusterf*ck between three separate villains who he could have died fighting - Whitehall, Ward, and Cal.
But no. He dies stupidly from kicking a rock really hard, which doesn't even accomplish anything.
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.It's kind of a bold move, though. I mean, as useless as him dying was, there is something to say about dodging the usual clichés.....someone recently described Ao S as the show where clichés go to die. And that is pretty much spot on. You can usually trust that Ao S doesn't do the expected - except when it does to ensure that the unexpected doesn't become the expected.
edited 14th Apr '17 3:48:28 PM by Swanpride

You need to find a balance...no matter how you put it, putting people on lists is wrong. Putting them in prison without trial or due process is also wrong. On the other hand there should be someone the Avengers have to answer to, but not in the sense that someone is ordering them around, but in the sense that they have a rulebook and someone reviews their mission and looks into the question if they followed the rulebook. And if they didn't, there has to be a regulation how to deal with it. That is fair. But putting the decision what the Avengers should do and what not into some random persons hand won't prevent any causalities. Depending on the person in charge it might even lead to more dead.
For example in one Ao S episode it is mentioned that Fury always had a number for "acceptable causalities" for any mission. And Coulson says his number is zero. I think that Cap would agree. I don't think that Ross would.
edited 14th Apr '17 12:16:09 PM by Swanpride