Biology and Military

[aitaituo]

Re: Keidran and Human magic as applied to warfare:

First, I don't think we have a strong reason to believe humans have a true advantage over Keidran in their ability to wield advanced magic. Other than the obvious fact that Humans have the Templar, a large organization for the training of mages. Humans also have the smaller advantages of longer life expectancy and lower training costs (no need for mana stones), but hypothetically there's no reason to believe Keidran can't be just as powerful mages.

Second, humans use magic by drawing mana that has accumulated in an area or by drawing mana out of the life force of plants (and as Trace has made abundantly clear, this is forbidden for a reason). So, you can't realistically have more than a few mages in a battle. The mana would run out too quickly. Keidran are limited to mana stones, which introduces many logistical problems, but if their mages carry enough with them, then they could actually outlast human mages in a battle AND have more mages in a single engagement. For this same reason, mages can't simply act as tanks, blocking all attacks indefinitely. Then again, we don't know exactly what the towers have been designed for. Perhaps they really are just mana batteries to allow humans to use a large number of mages simultaneously in defense of cities?
Realistically speaking, mages in a large engagement would need to be used in a variety of specialist roles. Some could act as heavy artillery by strategically launching fireballs at the enemy forces, others could provide shielding for other soldiers while they charge, still more could take the wind out of an enemy charge in a variety of ways. Hell, mages could even teleport small groups behind enemy lines to open gates, start fires, our just generally cause havoc. Mages also eliminate many of the problems of communication with large forces, a TwoKinds general would be able to command their forces as well as a real one using radios. A black ops type team of stealth mages could also be easily accomplished, to great effect.

Re: Politics of warfare

What are the victory conditions? It has been strongly implied that the humans and Keidran are trying to totally wipe each other out (i.e. total war working towards genocide), but let's examine that a bit later. What would the goals of a lesser war be and how could they be accomplished?

The Basitins seem to have no ambitions beyond remaining secure and prosperous, and perhaps winning their perpetual civil war. The Keidran don't seem to have any interest in invading the Basitins, so a war between them is probably off the table. The Templar have been shown to have tried to undermine the Basitins, but why? Were they trying to annihilate them to? I doubt it, since they went after the high command, so to speak. More likely, I think the Templar hoped to eventually conquer and enslave the Basitins and the Basitin political structure would allow them to do this. A conventional war could be fought with the aim of making the Basitins a client state of the human king. Hell, maybe the Templar were trying to make the Basitins a client state of the Templar which would essentially give them their own country to act with impunity. Although the Basitins would likely fight to the death before such an outcome, all that needs to be done is to convince the King and the Generals to sign a treaty to that effect. The social and political structure of the Basitins would likely mean that once this has been done, there would be no rebellions against a legitimate Templar rulership.

For the Keidran and humans, it seems the primary point of contention is border conflicts. I'm under the impression this is a typical hunter vs. farmer dispute. The humans are growing in numbers and expanding to provide enough farmland for themselves. Farmland that destroys the viability of Keidran hunting grounds. It's a matter of too many people, not enough resources, coupled with racism and slavery. Could a war settle this without resorting to genocide? Not easily, at least not easily in the favor of humans, because of the Keidran political structure. From what we've seen, the Keidran don't have a government, only clans and tribes. The humans essentially have to defeat each tribe and force a peace treaty AND potentially defeat each clan within the tribes that doesn't agree to go along with the treaty. This is a bloody, bloody road to peace. Furthermore, we've seen that the Keidran don't necessarily respect law and government, as evidenced by the Tribes' inability to join together by a marriage alliance. Realistically, I don't see how humanity can win a war and create a lasting peace without enslaving the Keidran to some extent. Not necessarily making each Keidran a personal slave to an individual human, but definitely some kind of second class citizen ship ala the Spartan Helots. Humans would need to either relocate the Keidran into their own territories or have a mass migration into Keidran lands, so that humans comfortably outnumber Keidran and can enforce the peace with police.

The humans, like the Basitin, have a king. This means a war and a lasting peace could much more easily be accomplished in favor of the Keidran. A traditional war could be won by defeating the humans (and the Templar separately, since we've seen the Templar only bow to the king in theory) and forcing a treaty. The treaty wouldn't need to incorporate humans into the Keidran social structure, only force humans to abandon the territory near the current Keidran-Human border. There was a map at some point, I can't find it, but it showed the Keidran/human continent to be roughly an upside down L-shape, with the Keidran in the foot. The Keidran have nowhere to expand to increase their food supply, except human territory. But Keidran could force humans to expand into the south, away from them. It seems a reasonable inference to assume humans have been expanding towards the Keidran because the land is difficult the other direction, that is, the Keidran lands are more viable farmland. But a successful war would raise the cost of attempting to continue into Keidran lands and that cost would make the other direction much more attractive. We also know, from real human history, that humans are more or less willing to follow treaties, so a reasonable treaty like this would likely be respected.

[Jetman]

We are getting off track here (myself included), as this is supposed to be about the biology of the races and how it applies to warfare, not their politics, although that is also a very important element.

[primalcaller ergos]

We are getting off track here (myself included), as this is supposed to be about the biology of the races and how it applies to warfare, not their politics, although that is also a very important element.

well yes but it has been shown that the two factors (biology and politics) are closely related and affect each other greatly in any society, just it's more appearent in other worlds
than this one as (sadly) there is not (yet) another race of sentient beings that we have encountered to be able to compare ourselves to (thought it is appearent when comparing different
overall societies on this planet, so long as your directly looking for them).

so i'd say including both actually is important enough (vital even, as we need to in order to get a complete sense and understanding of the disscussing topic) to allow such aditions here.

I had not thought that the lack of footwear could be used against Keidran, and maybe even Basitan, forces. I know that Basitans wear foot coverings, but a good portion of the foot is still exposed.
As for setting them on fire, well... Yeah, their only line of defence against that would be to jump into a river, or wear wet clothing to make them harder to ignite while sacrificing speed. Or a mage, but that would be counter-productive as a mage would be better used for destroying siege engines and fortifications from a distance.
I think that even a number of human soldiers would have trouble taking down a Basitan, though. In Warcraft 3 terms, an Orc Grunt is at least twice, maybe three times, as hardy as the Human Footman, and hit a lot harder. The Basitans are basically orcs in that they are really hard to kill. After all, Keith took an arrow through the gut, got up, and drove a sword through Zen's back. Add the fact he wasn't armoured, and hadn't received all the proper training customary to his race, and we're looking at a lot of problems the humans are going to have to go against. I think it's safe to say it'll take at least 5 human soldiers to take down only one Basitan soldier.
Maybe we could think about it in Starcraft terms? Humans are Terrans, a balance. Keidran are Zerg, fast, not powerful on their own but dangerous in groups. Basitans are Protoss, stupidly hard to kill, short of a ballista arrow being successfully launched through their gut and pinning them to a tree or wall.

woah, i was hoping warcraft and the like would get mentioned in here, i was even going to add such idea's and comparisons myself but it seems you beat me to it.

still since there are quite a few similarities in the two, (more than you may realize) such as how the warcrat radical undead faction (called the forsaken) do infact use the suggested biological
warfare tactics mentioned here to thier fullest extent as well, being undead they can't die from thier own artificial plague.
and i've noticed that the keidran's fighting style is remarkable similar to azeroth's night elves since due to a lack of metal supplies and smithing stations (they abhor mining as they see it as "cutting up" thier beloved earth and only dont mind thier dwarf allies doing so because they dig in the mountains instead the forest where it would kill trees and drive out wild life)

as well as usually dont build anything per se, but instead live in the forest as it is, except for the ocasional wooden and stone village built in a clearing, gather from the forest (hunting fishing and herb/fruit collecting)
instead of our style of "farming", they usually use the forest to thier advantage as only they know the "secret" paths, have way better hearing and night vision than pretty much any one else
and can both eat things in thier lands that no else can (without dying that is) as well as know how to survive thier environment better than anyone else (they laugh at orc invaders who try to cut down trees and get sick from it's spores and poison oak style defenses, to which only they know an antidote)

actually makes thier style of guilera and starvation tactics quite similar to the keidran's strategies.

-funny you should mention ballistae impale ment azerothin humans kept ballistae with them during thier missions in the second war for that very reason. also,
did anyone else who read lfg get reminded of richard's impalement on that ship from an enemie's ballistae? -to which he only "survived" because he's an undead-

also to talons idea on arrows: it is true they are more deadly in realistic terms, but game programs can get by meteors the size of the white house and still get up,
but i think tony's refering to how warcraft orc are portrayed in blizzard's graphic novels (which have way more realism even where magic is concerned): they still get injured by arrows,
but instead of just falling to ground withering in pain they get angry push throught the pain and charge harder (heck one of my books shows an orc with and axe sticking half way out of his arm and looking over and and muttering "i'm going to need a shaman in a few minutes" refering to his blood loss being slow but deadly but is also the equivalent of a human soldier getting a knife in the gut then just laughing and mentioning that "this is going to need some stiches"). sure they still bleed to death half the time but they don't leave themselves open to a finishing maneuver (which increases their survival rate dramatically) and take thier opponent with them, which is worth dying to them as demonstrated by by thier war cry
"lok'tor ogar!" which means victory or death, something i see as being worth it any basitin defending their homeland, families friends and people.

plus if you have trouble beleiveing that one (anyone) could just "shrug off" an arrow wound, just look at the scandinavians (you might know them as vikings), they did that all the time,
(they'd still bleed but they'd also at least try to makes sure that the projectile would just glance and not scuewr thier vitals) as proven by their studied remains (yes you can even tell that from what is essencially centuries old bone and maybe just a bit of flesh in some better preserved places, was even easier than the dinosaurs,
and the ancient tools, "documents" -the style of written information had to be but was easily translated- and other findings helped a lot too.)

(i was confused as to why tvtropes mentioned basitin were compared to warcraft orcs sometimes, which i now understand completely)

ait also mentioned that magical long range communication is comparable to radios to which i agree as blizz's graphic novels have shown magni king of the ironforge dwarves using a scrying glass
as a video phone, which considering it's light and sound delivering abilities, makes perfect sense even from a logical and scientific point of view.
however; his theory that many mages cannot work close together is limited by the fact that we have no way of mesureing just how much "fuel" any particular region has in abundance and density
of it's mana reserves. warcraft has shown that even hundreds of magi (nature casters like druids and holy casters like palladins use something different entirely for thier style of casting) can use the energies of a moderately sized location to blast each other for hours, even days with mental exhaustion being more of a limiting factor than "fuel supplies" in the same way hundreds of archers can keep shooting each other so long as they have tons of trees to make arrows out of, but
we cant be sure of mekkan's overall energy structure untill tom makes an exact comment on it, which i think he might not be able to do seeing as how mana doesn't have an exact
tool or numerical system of mesurement to compare to watts and kilojoules and the like in order to get an idea in physical/mathematical standards how much mana is a little or a lot.

in addition i'd like to mention that i dont really think any one or any thing could be a "one unit army" no matter how big, skilled or powerful, particullarily any skill level of magi as they have thier weaknesses too. just think of a mana shield as a halo style personal forcefeild protector, it protects well enough to make it use full enough to have, but breaks if it is hit enough or hard enough
before (the magi can cast it again in order) to recharge (it). only instead how when a metal shield breaks the user can drop it and fight with what ever they have left to use,
because the "mental taxation" effect would render the sheilder unconscious much like what a photon cannon hit does to the invisible woman and her light sheild.

even in fate stay night it is shown how spell interupts work when that strange guy disrupted that sorceress' concentration mid invocation with a simple pummeling(hence why the warroirs spell interupt in wow is called pummel and has a clenched fist for an icon), thus making her dazed to the point of paralisys
and thus defenseless. even an arch mage master can't do much but rely on allies to protect against that. i even call an entirely non-magical fighting style designed to be the bane of all spell casters
a "spell breaker" style because it usually is designed to break an enemies defenive spells (abjuration) and offensive spells via concentration disruption and usually consists of
non flamable non conductive warm protective armor -as in leather gloves a smith or electritian would use but for your entire body-.
thus allowing any non magical fighters to slay magic users with peak effectiveness and efficientcy.

finally as for the idea that ones hair/ fur could get in a wound and mess it up even more, well true it could but even humans have traits to prevent that from happening to head injuries
and there's a reason why those with head injuries are sometimes shaven as bald as possible around the wound if nessesary, i'm sure the other races would use the same idea along the idea that it's better than dying....

finally, as for ait's idea around a magically inclined special ops squad, not only does that make perfect sense to use, it's even warcraft's jaina proodmoore's favorite batlle tactic,
and extreemely use full when combined with stealth warping transports and invisiblility (jut watch x-men some time, it shows strategic warping missions -aliies with teleport powers able to be used
to take groups of others with you- at it's finest. usually.) even thought warcraft generals use magi units just as much as archer and musket shooter units on the front lines appearently.

even thought i have mentioned before that in warcraft althought the alliance does have a specific organization of magi for education and management of magical affairs (althought it's way more heroic and good than the templar as it works to save the entire planet from total annialation instead of genocide. as well as althought it was founded by humans, it is neutral from the petty violent squables of that world and thus welcomes all those of any of the races who want to peacefully asociate with it, even thought some alliance magi and most horde magi learn from thier factions war mages and/or seers by choice.)

the horde usually has it's individual magi and other magic users (especially shamans) learn from the clans main sage who teaches many people at once in various travels of having thier pupils follow them and learn along the way instead of a more class room like setting (sounds way more fun and directly practical for sure) thus althought pretty much all of the horde's clans/tribes are totally united (which makes azerothian war much more large scaled than mekkan's but still just as terrible) and the keidran aren't, there isn't a reason why the two methods wouldn't at least be somewhat similar, particularily since their both formed of a tribal society structure which would complement this style quite nicely.

that's all my ideas for now, thanks for reading, considering and replying to them. -ergos, sage and seer of many wonders-

[Jetman]

What about the Keidran's claws and padding? That might play a factor in their military.

[Thallium]

I always imagined their militaries to be quite different. I would think the Basitins to be more like the Roman Legions: highly disciplined, trained and effective as well as nigh on invincible in a straight on fight. The humans seem to be more like medieval western armies, relying on superior weapons and armour making technology as well as shock tactics like cavalry charges rather than training to destroy their opponents. And of course, the Keidran are the hit and run jungle fighters, kinda like if Rambo was a race of people.

From long experience in various games and fictions, the best way to take out a templar would be a few harriers to occupy their thinking, and a few archers to perforate them when they lose focus.

or just set Ezio on them...

[tyber13]

From what I know from the story so far their is not much detail on cities, army sizes, etc. I would assume that since the humans came from overseas they should already have large armies and be a little advanced. I don't know exactly how large the basitin island is though, so i cannot tell exactly how large they should be, but from that one scene in the comic i cannot remember, the humans dominate most of the land of mekkan. Which makes me believe the humans have an edge over the other nations. Due to the magic associated with twokinds, humans have an even larger advantage due to the fact they can draw mana without the use of crystals.
And from what ive seen from he comics as well, most towns are not even walled off, they are open to attack at any moment. This makes the attacker have an advantage.

[Jetman]

The Keidran might be able to recover from major losses in a war faster, especially if they keep their females safe, as fewer males can still produce the same amount of offspring, within certain limits.

[Talaisan]

From long experience in various games and fictions, the best way to take out a templar would be a few harriers to occupy their thinking, and a few archers to perforate them when they lose focus.

or just set Ezio on them...

Where's a rimshot smiley when you really need one?

Now I'm waiting for someone to draw up fan art of Zen in Ezio's regalia, stalking a Templar.

[Jetman]

Well, this thread seems to have lost track of what it was originally about. It may be beating a dead horse to continue it. Maybe.

[avwolf]

Has the assumption that Keidran would win a war of attrition due to faster breeding cycles involved consideration that they aren't consistently fertile? You'll end up with "waves" of Keidran, as they're only fertile, at most, every few months. For Wolves, they're only particularly fertile twice a year. I can see some war-time advantages to this, but depending on when your losses occur, it could end up being difficult to recover from those losses. And that's not even taking into account morale and available resources on reproductive rates.

[Schreiter]

Culturally , I'd say that the Keidran would be an excellent analogue to the Arabs during the Arab Revolt during WW1. Due to their independent nature they would make a horrible standing army, and every time they went into battle as such, they would get horribly owned (ie. Arab army vs. Turks). However, a regular army has extreme difficulty successfully engaging an irregular force, and as long as the Keidrans had skilled "officers" to lead these groups (ie. T.E. Lawrence and Feisal bin Hussein), they would destroy the human's regular forces (ie. the Arabs and Bedouins forcing the Turks out of Arabia). Biologically, they're perfect for it, with their improved senses, knowledge of their forests and natural dexterity (ie. picture of Flora with her feet on her head).

Humans, I'm guessing, would be similar to any medieval European army, with gratuitous amounts of lightly armed men-at-arms, archers, and a contingent of TwoKinds armoured knight equivalent. No point in going on in detail about culture and biology, just that they both make discipline and skill of such an army highly variable. Also, magic would be an important factor, but unless the battle is within range of a mana tower, the logistics of supplying the assuredly limited number of mages with mana stones would create difficulties and vulnerabilities (especially to guerrilla tactics). Seeing as standing armies are quite expensive, highly trained soldiers would likely be small, elite units, thrown into the most important parts of a battle.

And now my favourite, the Basitins. For our own world analogue, I'm going to call Spartans and German Wehrmacht pre-1933. The standing army issue mentioned above is taken care of by the fact that the entire population is the standing army, to a further extent than the Spartans (and the Swiss, God bless them). Biologically, they're predisposed to taking orders, making them excellent for a formal army, and causing minimal disruption in the chain of command when reservists (what I'm going to call portion of the population trained but not actively serving in the army) join the regular forces for war. Then, we've seen in the comic that, unlike the Spartans, they have no problem with ranged weapons. Add that with the cultural importance given to tactics (Intelligence and Master General), they probably have the best officer corps in the TwoKinds world (ie. Wehrmacht, best officer corps of the war and possibly the 20th century). One last bio point: the possibility of a small population discussed earlier. If that is true, a small, well trained force almost always beats a large mediocre one, limiting the advantage of a large human population. And may I suggest, with baited breath, the possibility of Basitin Commandos?

In conclusion (not counting the possibility of massive tacticle fails):
Keidran (home turf) vs. Human: Keidran win
Keidran vs. Human (home turf): Human win
Basitin vs. Human, period: Basitin win
Basitin regulars vs. Keidran regulars: Basitin Win
Basitin regulars vs. Keidran irregulars: Keidran Win
Basitin Commandos vs Keidran irregulars: I honestly get chills just thinking about this!

[Talonmaster Zso]

I commented on the claws and pads earlier: Claws only matter if you're throwing the armies at eachother naked with a "No magic allowed" rule in place, otherwise a guy with a knife already has a notable edge over the Kiedran through reach and damage potential alone. Pads, meanwhile, only help in very situational terms, and otherwise range from no buffs to penalties.

As for the "Army v Army" thing, it seems a wee bit more biased toward Basitans than one would expect. Especially since you do not take into account a few things.

For starters, the "honor" schtick. That plays a big part against the Basitans, as they're very rigid in their command and the like. A laterally thinking force, or one that doesn't play by the regular "rules", could very well pose an Outside Context Problem for the Basitans.

The "small number of trained beats large number of untrained"? Well, there's a few flaws there:
1) Humans aren't trained? Kiedran aren't trained? While I'll give this to you for typical archers and the like, as well as basic men-at-arms, each of these two factions is still going to have well-trained soldiers (especially if we take the time to be slowly closing in on Renaissance).
2) There is a difference between book smarts, and practicality. History is full of human officers who have had the best of upbringings and trained for their role as an officer... who muck things up so badly when they're introduced to a non-controlled environment that you're better off doing whatever it is they don't say to do. While, for Basitans, this is not as much a concern (since merit is involved in the process), it does not remove the problem entirely.
3) Er, you might have been missing some things with your "always win". For example, when that hasn't been true. "Better trained" small armies have been beaten by larger, less trained forces many times. Many of those scenarios that have "better trained armies" winning? Look at them again: It's not because they're better trained that they won. It's because they had extra odds stacked in their favor. And, considering the political jockeying both Humans and Kiedran seem to portray in the comics, plus the Basitan's rigid adherence to code, that the former two could be more skilled in "stacking" things toward them.

I'm not trying to argue Basitans are going to fall like wheat to the scythe, but saying "straight up win" is dangerous. Especially when you consider that even if the Basitans "win" a battle they could very well lose a war. Consider the Battle of Valcour Island, for an example, when the United States lost a fort, eighty deaths, 120 prisoners, and lost eleven of fifteen ships versus Britain's 40 casualties (not deaths, casualties) and three gunboats... of 25 Warships, a thousand soldiers, 650+ supporting natives, and so on.

That battle was a decisive victory in the United States' favor. Let me repeat with practically 200 Sailors in Britain's favor, ten more ships (with much more power behind them to boot), 1500+ soldiers, and so on to their name, suffering more casualties than them, losing territory, having most of their ships destroyed, and so on (with a revolutionary force as well, not a trained army), the battle was a major victory to the United States. In this case, it was a simple matter: Due to the delay this battle provided, the British naval forces could not advance due to the upcoming winter. If they could advance, the whole war would have ended practically then and there.

Hence why it's a bit odd to say it's a decisive, "always win" when a "smaller experienced force fights a larger mediocre one".

[tyber13]

You cant have one really well trained army and always win. If your at a disadvantage, your basically screwed. If you have played any strategy games you will know this. Sure, you may have an army, one thing can make all the difference.

Sometimes losing a battle can help you win a war. If i lost 10/10 kamikazi planes, and you lost 2-5 warships, i would have lost the battle itself, but i won statistically.

Anyways, id still think the humans would win. They control most of the land, they have templars, and judging by the way the templar act behind the back of the king, i would assume they would be powerful.

If anyone knows all the juicy facts on the current-standing armies of the nations, say it now. But from what i know, there is none, therefore we cannot judge so soon.

But biology doesnt really matter much. If you were in the wild and attack by a wild tiger, it could kill you easily. If you had a weapon, such as a sword, and maybe even a dagger, you could kill it easily. Now add some extra armour to yourself. That tger stands no chance. Its biology is not enough.

[Schreiter]

@Talonmaster Zso: you're right, my post does lack context. That's because I didn't think anyone would appreciate it if I dropped an essay on various tactical, environmental and hypothetical situations with plenty of historical references. It was more of a rock-paper-scissors thing with biological influences thrown in. That's why I said a small, well trained army almost always wins, (not just, "always," as you quoted me) and added a ,"not counting the possibility of massive tactical fails," disclaimer. I do agree with almost everything you said though, and won't dispute most of it. I especially liked the reference to Valcour Island; awesome example. I'll throw in the battle of Crecy. Edward III was heavily outnumbered and Phillip VI had many more trained men, but Edward still won due to better tactics.

However, I'm sticking to my guns on the topic of the Basitin officer corps. You are correct in saying that there have been officers who trained for their entire lives, and when they actually faced combat, royally failed. In this post http://twokinds.net/forum/viewtopic.php ... 6&start=72 avwolf quotes Tom saying that the Basitins are at constant war with each other. Nothing creates better officers than actual combat. Talented NCO's receive battlefield commissions, skilled officers move up the ranks, especially in a meritocracy like the Basitin's. As we've seen by the recent events in the comic, a high ranking Basitin (even the master general) can't just promote somebody they like; they have to prove their merit. So I'm still going to say that the Basitin officer corps will be flexible and highly skilled. Maybe not as flexible as a human officer corps, I'll admit that, but still the most skilled in TwoKinds.

[Jetman]

(I had a LONG reply, but the website erased it after asking me log in again, so I'm just going to shorten it here)

The Keidran are adapted to Guerrilla warfare. The goal of guerrilla warfare is not to win directly, but to break the will of the enemy to fight. 90% of the time, this is unsuccessful or only successful in the short run (until the regular army gets the will to fight back in a second war.) The two recent times it worked permanently in real life (Vietnam and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan), there was a Superpower supplying and training the guerrillas, making it far less uneven than it would otherwise have been (even the NVA had tanks, and the Afghans had American-made stinger missiles which were superior to what the Soviets had.)

There is no evidence that the Keidran are breaking the will of the humans to fight, or that they even CAN do this. Mostly, breaking the enemy's will to fight requires that the enemy not have a good reason to fight the war. Vietnam saw use of guerrilla war, and was fought for a lie (Gulf of Tonkin resolution), so the US got tired and left (serious racial upheaval, an unpopular draft, and massive expenditures on occupying other countries were also critical factors in sapping our will to fight.) By contrast, the much costlier conflict with Japan in WW2
did not produce the same malaise as Vietnam, mostly because we were attacked first and were fighting for a cause we believed in. Because of this, the Japanese were unable to break out will to fight. The humans in the comic WERE attacked by the Keidran, so they have a very tangible, very real reason to fight, unlike the US against Vietnam, a country that never attacked the USA directly or even by proxy (like a saboteur or a terrorist), not even when we invaded them.

Now, this brings up the question of why the Keidran are adapted to Guerrilla warfare. First, the lack the logistics that a serious standing army would require, such as large-scale mines, smelters, and smiths for metals to make weapons with (the evidently have a bit of these, but not a whole lot, unless the comic is holding out on us for a major plot twist), and almost certainly they lack the complex systems needed to transport the amounts of food and supplies needed for a huge standing army. Roving bands of warriors able to live off of the land, strike quickly, and retreat before the enemy can respond really seem to be their tactic, as well as attacking those who cannot fight back (we see them attack civilians).

The problem is, attacking a country directly only makes it want to fight back harder (USA after 9/11 and Pearl Harbor, Russia after terrorist attacks leading to successful reconquest of Chechnya, China being ravaged by Japan during and before WW2, the USSR continuing to fight the Nazis, despite the deaths of literally millions of their citizens). Combine the will to fight with an objectively more powerful army and guerrillas cannot hope to win.

Two possible factors which may disrupt this are magic and the fact that Keidrans may be biologically superior to humans in some ways. First, magic can do just about anything the plot needs it to, even if it is stupid and terrible. Second, the Keidran may have some traits which can reduce the inherent advantage of armor and weapons (claws, fangs, possibly faster, possibly able to march farther even without footwear?) There is no reason to believe that these traits are sufficient to overcome their technological gap, although if the war were to stop, the Keidran would be able to recover faster (they live, breed, and die quickly), unless so many of them died that there is a shortage of Keidran of reproductive age.

Yet another factor would be that both Keidran and Basitin are limited by their peculiar mating systems. The Basitin (well, one group of them, at least) only mate during a single week, so they would have to plan their campaigns around that timeframe. A skilled human general could take advantage of it, although it might backfire (Egypt tried to do this to Israel during Yom Kippur, and despite initial success, Egypt was beaten very badly for the fourth time). As for the Keidran... where do I begin? If the Keidran were on an extended campaign, they would run the risk of missing out on their mating seasons, possibly causing great stress for them. While it is the female Keidran who go into heat, there is evidence that female Keidran fight as well, although it would have to be in roughly even numbers with the males, or there would be serious issues on fighting over mates, and that goes for females as well as males. Not to mention the stress of heat that is clearly visible on female Keidran, even those trained to fight.

In nature (yes, I know there is no evolution in the comic), the Keidran were probably adapted for fighting between individuals or packs, not in combats with large armies against other large armies. This does not bode well for them. Traits that make for good pack or individual hunters do not lend themselves towards disciplined armies.