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    Barbarian in the Playground
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    Default A Magical World War, or What if Voldemort had won?

    It first came up as a point on another vs thread I've been running, (Voldemort vs Vader) as a question of how many of Vader's 501st Storm Troopers would it take to put down the Death Eaters, assuming each side was allowed access to it's respective allies.

    I dismissed it since the rules of the thread clearly state this was a 1v1 match, but it got me thinking: "Wizards against Storm Troopers? Don't make me laugh, they're outnumbered 10 to 1 and the their opponents have automatic weapons. I mean, the wizarding world could hardly take on mundane forces of Earth, let alone Star Wars."

    I didn't bring it up in the thread because I didn't want to start a new argument, but that is now what this thread is for.

    The Setup:

    Assume Voldemort was victorious at the battle of Hogwarts. He and the Death Eaters are now firmly in control of wizarding in Britain, and subsequently manage to conquer the rest of Europe (Wizarding wise that is). The Death Eaters now feel its time they turned their attention to the Muggle world, and without the ministry enforcing secrecy regulations, attacks on Muggles have increased ten fold.

    How is Voldemort likely to begin his conquest of the Muggle World?

    How long before Muggle Governments begin to catch on?

    If it looks like things are headed towards a full scale showdown between Muggles and Wizards, who is likely to win?

    Some conditions:

    1) Assume that world governments have not secretly been preparing for this day. Although I would not put it past Langley or MI6 to have some sort of contingency plan (especially since the Prime Minister and we can probably assume the President have at least an inkling of what is going on), for the sake of the argument, let's assume that only they are aware and they have not been planning for a war.

    2) No talk of nuclear weapons. It's just silly, if I wanted a Wizards vs Nukes thread I would have started one. No, it's more interesting to consider how Muggle Governments would go about hunting down these infiltrators and combat them on muggle terms, and nuking civlian population centers to try and kill a minority of the population is just ridiculous.
    Favorite Things Mr. Welch can't do during an RPG:
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    • We will not implement any plan that includes the words "And hope they miss a lot"

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    Barbarian in the Playground
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    Default Re: A Magical World War, or What if Voldemort had won?

    I'd like to start initial argument off with a question of numbers. How many Wizards are there, and is it enough to conquer the muggle world?

    I'm inclined to say no.

    I've looked around for a canon figure of how many Wizards live in Britain, and I haven't been able to find one, but we might be able to extrapolate given what we know from the books and movies.

    "In an interview with J. K. Rowling, she said there are about one-thousand students attending Hogwarts at any given time. This is supported by the fact, that when Harry sees his father doing his OWL (in the Pensieve in Snape's office), there are over 150 students. Secondly, during a Quidditch match, everybody was supporting Gryffindor except around 200 Slytherins supporting their own. However, if each year had the same number of students as Harry's, with five boys and five girls in each dorm, there would only be two-hundred and eighty students. This means that there are usually at least 70 students per House per year. (Or there are more dormitories that you don't see. The only ones mentioned in the books are the ones that house the students who are actually in the book, eg Harry, Ron, Neville, Hermione. There are likely more than two dorms for each year.)"

    So we've got some conflicting figure there. If we go by what we read in the books, we wind up with about 300 students. If we go by what Rowling envisioned or says, we've got 1,000. I think we should go with the larger figure for the sake of this argument.

    Now if we assume that each student is an only child and each child comes from a wizarding family (i.e. is not purely muggle born like Hermione), that gives us a very generous figure of 3,000 wizards.

    If we assume again (again, being very generous) that there are just as many single wizards, older wizards and otherwise unattached wizards as their are children and parents, that gives us a total of 6,000 wizards in Britain.

    I'm making a lot of assumptions here, but trying to err on the side of caution, by maximizing the potential wizard population. We come to a population of about 6,000 men, women, and children. Now, again for the sake of argument and just so that their aren't any doubts, let's double that figure, for an exaggerated total wizarding population of 12,000 wizards.

    London alone has a population of over 7 million people. That's 500 times more muggles in one city than the entire Wizarding population of Britain combined. The London Metropolitan Police Force alone has 31,478 standing officers, not including community support and part time officers or support staff.

    In a sheer game of numbers, I just don't see any way the wizarding world could ever conquer Muggles.
    Last edited by ChaosLord29; 2012-05-30 at 02:18 PM.
    Favorite Things Mr. Welch can't do during an RPG:
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    • Collateral Damage Man is not an appropriate concept for a super hero.
    • No longer allowed to recreate the Death Star Trench Run out of genre.
    • When accepting a challenge for a duel, I must allow the other guy time to find a pistol.
    • Check the door means to listen at it, not put several rounds through it.
    • We will not implement any plan that includes the words "And hope they miss a lot"

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    Barbarian in the Playground
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    Default Re: A Magical World War, or What if Voldemort had won?

    I think I'd have to side with the people who can teleport, turn invisible, mind control and loook like anyone. Even before you get into the really insane stuff like time travel and the ability to hide things so that they're literally impossible to find unless the guy hiding it wants you to find it.

    If Voldemort just continued his tactic of covertly mind-controlling or replaceing everyone in a position of power then he's win before anyone realised what was going on. Even if somebody did work it out what could they do? Litterally anyone could be an aganet working for the wizards and they might not even know it themselves so you can't truat anyone else, if you you try to confront them about it then they can just wipe your memory or mind control you, you can't try and capture them and interrogate them because they can just teleport out. At most you could try and get the drop on them and shoot them before they react, but then all you've done is kill one agent and probably volunteered yourself as the next agent.

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    Default Re: A Magical World War, or What if Voldemort had won?

    Quote Originally Posted by Axolotl View Post
    I think I'd have to side with the people who can teleport, turn invisible, mind control and loook like anyone. Even before you get into the really insane stuff like time travel and the ability to hide things so that they're literally impossible to find unless the guy hiding it wants you to find it.

    If Voldemort just continued his tactic of covertly mind-controlling or replaceing everyone in a position of power then he's win before anyone realised what was going on. Even if somebody did work it out what could they do? Litterally anyone could be an aganet working for the wizards and they might not even know it themselves so you can't truat anyone else, if you you try to confront them about it then they can just wipe your memory or mind control you, you can't try and capture them and interrogate them because they can just teleport out. At most you could try and get the drop on them and shoot them before they react, but then all you've done is kill one agent and probably volunteered yourself as the next agent.
    I'm not saying it wouldn't be hard fought. I am going to say though that Voldemort mind controlling members of Parliament and the Prime Minister isn't going to be as effective though.

    Why? Because what is he supposed to do once he's done that? It's not like they can come forward and declare Voldemort and the Wizard victorious. Firstly, no one would believe them. Second, no one would accept that decision. One of the beauties of separation of powers and republican government, is that it's terribly difficult to subvert or create massive conspiracies in, even if you could control people's minds. The sheer number of minds you'd have to control is staggering.

    Secondly, I don't think the Death Eaters are going to be content with 'subtle manipulation'. I think you're going to have most of the higher ups pushing for complete dominion, including taking reckless actions like killing Muggles in broad daylight and not bothering to cover it up. It won't be long before people start to catch on that 'something' is going terribly wrong, and react accordingly. With violence.
    Favorite Things Mr. Welch can't do during an RPG:
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    • Collateral Damage Man is not an appropriate concept for a super hero.
    • No longer allowed to recreate the Death Star Trench Run out of genre.
    • When accepting a challenge for a duel, I must allow the other guy time to find a pistol.
    • Check the door means to listen at it, not put several rounds through it.
    • We will not implement any plan that includes the words "And hope they miss a lot"

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    Default Re: A Magical World War, or What if Voldemort had won?

    The assumption here is that Voldemort has the complete 100% co-operation of every wizard alive with no dissent. I think this unlikely. The losing side of the wizarding war will no doubt attempt to assist the muggle governments. These advisors will provide the technical expertise necessary to identify wizards and neutralize them.

    If this does not happen, it's only a matter of time before muggles start noticing things like shapeshifting, teleporting et al in the context of a war once the authorial plot shield is removed. Then there will be captured subjects and an area-51 research laboratory, followed by countermeasures.

    Wizards individually have great power, yes, but as Rowling herself pointed out a single man with an automatic weapon is a match for a wizard in combat.


    You side with the people who can teleport? I'll side with the people who have greater organization, greater numbers, and greater expertise in the military and intelligence fields. Also, Voldemort may be a genius at magic but he strikes me like a lot of geniuses -- completely at sea when it comes to human nature, which is much more important when motivating, leading, and governing humans.

    I believe that Voldemort would be hard put to it to defeat the muggle world, and harder put still to completely exterminate it or rule it for any length of time.

    The ultimate outcome of a general war between the wizarding community and the muggles is the utter annihilation of the wizarding community.

    Side with Voldemort if you wish. I'll side with Seal Team Six.

    Respectfully,

    Brian P.
    Last edited by pendell; 2012-05-30 at 02:33 PM.

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    Default Re: A Magical World War, or What if Voldemort had won?

    Wizards live in communities untraceable by technology or even by maps or scouts.

    Wizards can teleport, turn invisible and control people's minds.

    This isn't a war. It's a covert take over. The humans never even learn that the wizards exist. The human organizations subverted by the wizards do all the work.


    Now if we assume that each student is an only child and each child comes from a wizarding family (i.e. is not purely muggle born like Hermione), that gives us a very generous figure of 3,000 wizards.


    If we assume again (again, being very generous) that there are just as many single wizards, older wizards and otherwise unattached wizards as their are children and parents, that gives us a total of 6,000 wizards in Britain.
    That's very floopy maths. Why not start from the assumption that Muggle school sizes and Wizard school sizes are similar with population? Or go from the percentage of population in muggle society that are made up by children age 11-18? My home town high school had a population of 20000 and a high school with 1000(The issue being slightly muddled by crossover from other towns, and their High Schools). The population demographics for England say that 5.4% of the population is between 10-19. You're making the rather wild assumption that Wizard children 11-18 make up 1/6 of the population, and you're not bringing compelling book evidence to back up that fact.

    EDIT:
    Quote Originally Posted by Pendell
    The assumption here is that Voldemort has the complete 100% co-operation of every wizard alive with no dissent. I think this unlikely. The losing side of the wizarding war will no doubt attempt to assist the muggle governments. These advisors will provide the technical expertise necessary to identify wizards and neutralize them.
    That's a fair enough point. That sort of aid is absolutely needed for the Muggle world to fight, but I think Pendell is right that it would be offered.
    Last edited by Selrahc; 2012-05-30 at 02:33 PM.
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    Barbarian in the Playground
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    Default Re: A Magical World War, or What if Voldemort had won?

    Quote Originally Posted by Selrahc View Post
    That's very floopy maths. Why not start from the assumption that Muggle school sizes and Wizard school sizes are similar with population? Or go from the percentage of population in muggle society that are made up by children age 11-18? My home town high school had a population of 20000 and a high school with 1000(The issue being slightly muddled by crossover from other towns, and their High Schools). The population demographics for England say that 5.4% of the population is between 10-19. You're making the rather wild assumption that Wizard children 11-18 make up 1/6 of the population, and you're not bringing compelling book evidence to back up that fact.
    I'll be the first to admit population demographics were not my are of study at university haha. That number seems really low to me, but okay, let's use it. if the 1000 students at Hogwarts represent 5.4% of the wizarding population that gives us a total wizarding population of 5.4 million wizards.

    That seems a bit high to me based on the numbers we saw more or less in the books and films; it would mean that every 1 in 10 British citizens are wizards.

    That's a fair enough point. That sort of aid is absolutely needed for the Muggle world to fight, but I think Pendell is right that it would be offered.
    It's something I thought of that I originally didn't include in my numbers argument. I mean, it's not as though the mudbloods are just going to roll over and take it, and you've still got wizards being born into muggle families who won't know anything about what's going on.

    Getting back to the numbers though, Pendell pointed out that is assuming 100% cooperation. Let's look at Voldemort's forces. The Death Eaters, a team of less than a hundred of his most loyal and lethal followers who are chosen to wear the Dark Mark, supplemented by a couple thousand more followers not worthy enough to wear the mark or otherwise bullied or cowed into serving him.
    Favorite Things Mr. Welch can't do during an RPG:
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    • No longer allowed to recreate the Death Star Trench Run out of genre.
    • When accepting a challenge for a duel, I must allow the other guy time to find a pistol.
    • Check the door means to listen at it, not put several rounds through it.
    • We will not implement any plan that includes the words "And hope they miss a lot"

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    Barbarian in the Playground
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    Default Re: A Magical World War, or What if Voldemort had won?

    Quote Originally Posted by ChaosLord29 View Post
    I'm not saying it wouldn't be hard fought. I am going to say though that Voldemort mind controlling members of Parliament and the Prime Minister isn't going to be as effective though.

    Why? Because what is he supposed to do once he's done that? It's not like they can come forward and declare Voldemort and the Wizard victorious. Firstly, no one would believe them. Second, no one would accept that decision. One of the beauties of separation of powers and republican government, is that it's terribly difficult to subvert or create massive conspiracies in, even if you could control people's minds. The sheer number of minds you'd have to control is staggering.
    It'd take ten minds, twenty at most if you want to have the opposition as well. From there it's just patience corrupting every office from the top down. And of course you don't announce that Voldemort is in charge, you just make sure that every knows that he's in charge, that he has always been in change and that any person who steps out of line is liable to have a gang of zombies come round to their house and kill their children, if they're lucky.

    Secondly, I don't think the Death Eaters are going to be content with 'subtle manipulation'. I think you're going to have most of the higher ups pushing for complete dominion, including taking reckless actions like killing Muggles in broad daylight and not bothering to cover it up. It won't be long before people start to catch on that 'something' is going terribly wrong, and react accordingly. With violence.
    Except that's exactly how they operated in the books calmy, carefully taking control of everything step by step until they had absolute authority. They could cover up their actions just fine. And if the muggles catch on what can they do? Their armies have already gone, their enemy is litterally impossible to identify and any violence they try will be directed at the wrong people, if anything it would only aid Voldemort's plan by further spreading chaos and paranoia amoung the muggle world.

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    Default Re: A Magical World War, or What if Voldemort had won?

    Quote Originally Posted by Axolotl View Post
    Except that's exactly how they operated in the books calmy, carefully taking control of everything step by step until they had absolute authority. They could cover up their actions just fine. And if the muggles catch on what can they do? Their armies have already gone, their enemy is litterally impossible to identify and any violence they try will be directed at the wrong people, if anything it would only aid Voldemort's plan by further spreading chaos and paranoia amoung the muggle world.
    That's exactly how they operated against other wizards, an enemy they respected and knew how to handle (and even then, respect is a kind word). Do the Death Eaters and Voldemort even have the slightest idea how the Muggle Government functions? Their disdain for muggles and everything they do and create would lead me to think otherwise.

    The Death Eater's aren't going to want to do a top down conspiracy take over, they are going to want Muggles bowing at their feat and fast, and they're not the most disciplined bunch, despite the icy terror their leader inspires in them.
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    • No longer allowed to recreate the Death Star Trench Run out of genre.
    • When accepting a challenge for a duel, I must allow the other guy time to find a pistol.
    • Check the door means to listen at it, not put several rounds through it.
    • We will not implement any plan that includes the words "And hope they miss a lot"

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    Default Re: A Magical World War, or What if Voldemort had won?

    Quote Originally Posted by ChaosLord29 View Post
    ...
    There is a harry potter fanfic somewhere that deals with exact that problem...I can't find the link again. Was somethink with Harry being knighted.


    In short: Yes wizards can terrorize muggles. But eradicate or dominate? No.

    Memory charms are rendered almost useless against computers and surveilance. If you see yourself doing something you have no memory off = suspicion. Even if they execute or dominate leaders... there is something called the chain of command it's not good to loose the prime minister / a general but certainly not the end.

    The hardest part for the muggles will be to find out that magic exist. Once that is established Voldie and his goons will go down hard. And just one muggleborn who tells the government everything (he can easily prove his claims with a wand) will achieve that.


    What could Voldie do? First of all he needs to learn how muggles think. He needs to learn about our technology. He needs to learn that magic has weak spots. If he manages to do this then and only then he can start sort of a shadow government. Dominate leaders and let them rule the muggles.

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    Default Re: A Magical World War, or What if Voldemort had won?

    Quote Originally Posted by Bouregard View Post
    There is a harry potter fanfic somewhere that deals with exact that problem...I can't find the link again. Was somethink with Harry being knighted.


    In short: Yes wizards can terrorize muggles. But eradicate or dominate? No.

    Memory charms are rendered almost useless against computers and surveilance. If you see yourself doing something you have no memory off = suspicion. Even if they execute or dominate leaders... there is something called the chain of command it's not good to loose the prime minister / a general but certainly not the end.

    The hardest part for the muggles will be to find out that magic exist. Once that is established Voldie and his goons will go down hard. And just one muggleborn who tells the government everything (he can easily prove his claims with a wand) will achieve that.


    What could Voldie do? First of all he needs to learn how muggles think. He needs to learn about our technology. He needs to learn that magic has weak spots. If he manages to do this then and only then he can start sort of a shadow government. Dominate leaders and let them rule the muggles.
    Yeah, I just can't see Death Eaters sitting quietly and contently in a shadow government. They want to rule, openly and crush the muggles under their heal. I just don't see that happening, not when when their vastly outnumbered by a better organized and better armed force.
    Favorite Things Mr. Welch can't do during an RPG:
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    • No longer allowed to recreate the Death Star Trench Run out of genre.
    • When accepting a challenge for a duel, I must allow the other guy time to find a pistol.
    • Check the door means to listen at it, not put several rounds through it.
    • We will not implement any plan that includes the words "And hope they miss a lot"

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    Default Re: A Magical World War, or What if Voldemort had won?

    I'll be the first to admit population demographics were not my are of study at university haha. That number seems really low to me, but okay, let's use it. if the 1000 students at Hogwarts represent 5.4% of the wizarding population that gives us a total wizarding population of 5.4 million wizards.
    Whoa... what? If 1000 people is 5.4% of the population, there are probably around 19500 wizards. Where do you get 5.4 million? I.. what?
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    Default Re: A Magical World War, or What if Voldemort had won?

    The most obvious course of action, after securing a magical base of power, would be to suborn governments that, like the British wizards, are largely controlled by a very few people. Mind control, though an easy method, wouldn't necessarily be required or desirable to do so. Building up a muggle nation in Africa or South America would not only present few magical signs to the outside world (wizards would likely ignore it as they do most muggle things, while muggles would simply view it as the actions of a very successful warlord), but would pose little danger to his power bloc if things went wrong.

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    Default Re: A Magical World War, or What if Voldemort had won?

    Quote Originally Posted by Selrahc View Post
    Whoa... what? If 1000 people is 5.4% of the population, there are probably around 19500 wizards. Where do you get 5.4 million? I.. what?
    Sorry, my math went horribly wrong.

    Let's round up to about 20 thousand wizards in Britain. That sounds much closer to the mark.

    Really it just goes to prove my point though. I mean, of that 20,000 how many make up Voldemort's loyalists?
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    • No longer allowed to recreate the Death Star Trench Run out of genre.
    • When accepting a challenge for a duel, I must allow the other guy time to find a pistol.
    • Check the door means to listen at it, not put several rounds through it.
    • We will not implement any plan that includes the words "And hope they miss a lot"

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    Default Re: A Magical World War, or What if Voldemort had won?

    In the words of Torg, ALA-KA-BLAM!
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    Default Re: A Magical World War, or What if Voldemort had won?

    We've had this discussion on the boards before. I'm pretty firmly on the side of the magic users. If nothing else because of the dementors. Remember the whole country was falling apart. Giants attacked towns and no one did anything. Imperio is also a literal perfect mind control spell. The right people under their control, and the whole resistance collapses. And no, they wouldn't just come out for the wizarding world and rollover, they'd just subtly sabotage any resistance. It isn't a fair fight. Sure, we have nukes. Until they've taken control of those and any non wizard filled city is radioactive paste.
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    Default Re: A Magical World War, or What if Voldemort had won?

    Quote Originally Posted by Xondoure View Post
    And no, they wouldn't just come out for the wizarding world and rollover, they'd just subtly sabotage any resistance. It isn't a fair fight. Sure, we have nukes. Until they've taken control of those and any non wizard filled city is radioactive paste.
    Subtly sabotage resistance? The Death Eaters are not known for their subtlety especially with people like Bellatrix running around. Voldemort never went to civics class, and they're so dismissive of muggle everything I'm not inclined to believe that they have any inkling as to how Muggle Governments work, let alone how to initiate a conspiracy takeover on that scale.

    They did it with the ministry, sure. The Ministry is small. It's the equivalent a small city government managing a few thousand people. It's also, by my estimation pretty poorly managed.

    Secondly, you didn't read the Rules Xonodoure. Nukes are not relevant to this discussion. No government worth talking about is going to nuke a city for a few wizards. They are not worth discussing, given that a gun makes any muggle just as deadly as any wizard.

    More so, since you can't give a child wizard a wand and expect him to kill people. Compare that to a firearm which any child can pick up and have the capacity for mass murder.
    Favorite Things Mr. Welch can't do during an RPG:
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    • Collateral Damage Man is not an appropriate concept for a super hero.
    • No longer allowed to recreate the Death Star Trench Run out of genre.
    • When accepting a challenge for a duel, I must allow the other guy time to find a pistol.
    • Check the door means to listen at it, not put several rounds through it.
    • We will not implement any plan that includes the words "And hope they miss a lot"

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    Default Re: A Magical World War, or What if Voldemort had won?

    Honestly, the wizards wouldn't bother with taking over parliament, you would be more effective to target the bureaucracy underpinning it, honestly grabbing people like Mr. Weasley works better because as governments change these men and women generally don't.
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    Default Re: A Magical World War, or What if Voldemort had won?

    Quote Originally Posted by Fjolnir View Post
    Honestly, the wizards wouldn't bother with taking over parliament, you would be more effective to target the bureaucracy underpinning it, honestly grabbing people like Mr. Weasley works better because as governments change these men and women generally don't.
    Clearly someone who understands the functional framework of representative government. It would make a lot more sense to target bureaucratic underlings who manage the various government institutions. That way, they could sabotage the government from the inside, hamstring the world powers and cause civil unrest and economic collapse. It'd be much easier then to impose their will upon less organized and ill-equipped sectarian forces.

    I'm not saying it couldn't be done through the use of magic, I'm just saying that the Wizards do not have the know-how, wherewithal, or numbers to pull something like that off.
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    Default Re: A Magical World War, or What if Voldemort had won?

    Wizards are quite ignorant of the outside world, even ones with a fannish interest in Muggles like Mr. Weasley, and Voldemort and crew are extremely arrogant. Moreover, the Death Eaters suffer the problem of not making alliances well, being picky even about which *wizards* they will accept, basically giving the Muggles allies who have an understanding and use of magic.
    Given that the Muggles have numbers, word of God says that a shotgun toting Muggle wins, very strong potential for allies with magic, and the fact that Death Eaters are about as subtle as week old road-kill and have arrogance that can be measured in kilo-saurons, I'm going to hand it to Muggles.
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    Default Re: A Magical World War, or What if Voldemort had won?

    They just did it with the ministry of magic, people like Nott and Rookwood used mind control, blackmail, and influence peddling to take the reins over wizards in Britain, and did so in a relatively short time of about a year and a half from Voldy's public reveal at the Department of Mysteries. They know it's effective its just a matter of how much research they have to do to find the right Mr. Simpkins at water and power, so give it 5 years and the Death Eaters and their Ministry of Magic collaborators (Delores Umbrige Et Al.) will have something resembling total government control.
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    Default Re: A Magical World War, or What if Voldemort had won?

    Quote Originally Posted by Fjolnir View Post
    They just did it with the ministry of magic, people like Nott and Rookwood used mind control, blackmail, and influence peddling to take the reins over wizards in Britain, and did so in a relatively short time of about a year and a half from Voldy's public reveal at the Department of Mysteries. They know it's effective its just a matter of how much research they have to do to find the right Mr. Simpkins at water and power, so give it 5 years and the Death Eaters and their Ministry of Magic collaborators (Delores Umbrige Et Al.) will have something resembling total government control.
    But will they really do their research? Will their first thought be to wait five years until they've established control?
    Favorite Things Mr. Welch can't do during an RPG:
    • My monk's lips must be in sync.
    • Collateral Damage Man is not an appropriate concept for a super hero.
    • No longer allowed to recreate the Death Star Trench Run out of genre.
    • When accepting a challenge for a duel, I must allow the other guy time to find a pistol.
    • Check the door means to listen at it, not put several rounds through it.
    • We will not implement any plan that includes the words "And hope they miss a lot"

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    Default Re: A Magical World War, or What if Voldemort had won?

    They nearly took over a very small community IE smaller than Most cities while using their entire Might. I don't see them using such tactics to take over the world.

    The numbers just aren't there.
    Last edited by Devonix; 2012-05-30 at 06:17 PM.

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    Default Re: A Magical World War, or What if Voldemort had won?

    Quote Originally Posted by Devonix View Post
    They nearly took over a very small community IE smaller than Most cities while using their entire Might. I don't see them using such tactics to take over the world.

    The numbers just aren't there.
    A community they knew the intimate workings of, unlike the Muggle government.
    Favorite Things Mr. Welch can't do during an RPG:
    • My monk's lips must be in sync.
    • Collateral Damage Man is not an appropriate concept for a super hero.
    • No longer allowed to recreate the Death Star Trench Run out of genre.
    • When accepting a challenge for a duel, I must allow the other guy time to find a pistol.
    • Check the door means to listen at it, not put several rounds through it.
    • We will not implement any plan that includes the words "And hope they miss a lot"

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    Default Re: A Magical World War, or What if Voldemort had won?

    Yeah this is an easy win for the Muggles. All the Muggles need to do is capture a single wizard or have a single wizard traitor to learn exactly what the wizards are capable of. From there it's a matter of cleaning house.
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    Default Re: A Magical World War, or What if Voldemort had won?

    Quote Originally Posted by Forum Explorer View Post
    Yeah this is an easy win for the Muggles. All the Muggles need to do is capture a single wizard or have a single wizard traitor to learn exactly what the wizards are capable of. From there it's a matter of cleaning house.
    Wouldn't be hard considering the Death Eaters dislike for 'Mudbloods'.
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    Default Re: A Magical World War, or What if Voldemort had won?

    Quote Originally Posted by Forum Explorer View Post
    Yeah this is an easy win for the Muggles. All the Muggles need to do is capture a single wizard or have a single wizard traitor to learn exactly what the wizards are capable of. From there it's a matter of cleaning house.
    Even assuming that you could learn "exactly what wizards could do," it wouldn't be just a matter of "cleaning house." Wizards have the power to become completely invisible, look like anyone, control anyone (muggles would be more vulnerable to the Imperius curse than wizards, as very few of them have any training in defending against magical mental attacks), and heal from the most severe wounds in minutes. More likely, if a modern military was able to learn all that, they'd become extra cautious and paranoid.

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    Default Re: A Magical World War, or What if Voldemort had won?

    Quote Originally Posted by Gnoman View Post
    Even assuming that you could learn "exactly what wizards could do," it wouldn't be just a matter of "cleaning house." Wizards have the power to become completely invisible, look like anyone, control anyone (muggles would be more vulnerable to the Imperius curse than wizards, as very few of them have any training in defending against magical mental attacks), and heal from the most severe wounds in minutes. More likely, if a modern military was able to learn all that, they'd become extra cautious and paranoid.
    You're not even dealing with the central issue here, which is that once muggle governments know they're dealing with Magic, they can employ mudbloods and other pro-muggle wizards to root out Voldemort infiltrators, or even come up with screening processes to weed out people under mind control (I doubt they'd hold up to polygraph testing and profiling).

    From their, it's a matter of using their superior numbers, organization and combat experience to eradicate Voldemort's inner-circle from the top down.
    Favorite Things Mr. Welch can't do during an RPG:
    • My monk's lips must be in sync.
    • Collateral Damage Man is not an appropriate concept for a super hero.
    • No longer allowed to recreate the Death Star Trench Run out of genre.
    • When accepting a challenge for a duel, I must allow the other guy time to find a pistol.
    • Check the door means to listen at it, not put several rounds through it.
    • We will not implement any plan that includes the words "And hope they miss a lot"

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    Default Re: A Magical World War, or What if Voldemort had won?

    I think the issue here is that neither group can really take the other on. The death eaters aren't likely to take the necessary steps to take over the government properly and they can't win in an open war. However, there is very little way for any muggles to pick out wizards in a crowd so as soon as any attempted plan goes south, they could pull back into obscurity and try again. Granted the muggles might be significantly more prepared at that point, but I don't know if you can defeat a group of wizards who are properly prepared to counter muggles.

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    Default Re: A Magical World War, or What if Voldemort had won?

    One very important factor is are we including magical beasts into the equation? A single Dementor could theoretically kill an entire community while invisible and I'm not even sure if they can be hurt through physical means. In the movies maybe, but in the books they are kind of insubstantial, more of a presence than anything else. We also hear that giants can create effects not dissimilar to tornadoes, so without too many giants, and there are a bunch, civilian centers would take massive damage.

    Even without the creatures they do still have mind control and teleportation, so with efficient use of both hey could control most governments within a year. As for whether that happens, it doesn't with Voldemort. He would hold the muggles in contempt and go for a very aggressive campaign which would kill a hell of a lot of muggles, but a lot of wizards as well so he'd be fighting a losing war, mainly by numbers. The wizard population would not be wiped out because of all the safe havens and ability to be unchartable, but he personally would not win a war. Dolohov might be able to.
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