Battle Thralls: Difference between revisions

** Engineers of Doom: The Umgah. Pranksome geneticists that can be helpful if you can figure out why they're so quirky.

** Enslaved Grunts: The Spathi, a race of cephalopod cowards. The Mycon might also apply here, in the "living bomb" sense - they joined the Ur-Quan Slave Empire in order to gain new worlds to terraform by burying their children into its crust.

* In the ''[[Dungeons and Dragons]]'' Dark Sun setting, Enslaved Grunts come in both slave soldiers and gladiator varieties

* You can recruit such thralls in the first Medieval ''[[Total War]]''. Specifically, the expansion pack, ''Viking Invasion''.

** Still further back, in the ''Shogun: Total War'' expansion ''Mongol Invasion'', the Mongol's basic, cheap infantry units are basically Korean captives / vassals pressed into service.

* In ''Xenology'', the Ethereals are hinted to have turned the Tau into Battle Thralls for the Eldar since their innate warp resistance meant they won't be controlled by chaos nor be wary of being manipulated by the Eldar.

* Yuber from ''[[Suikoden]]'' is a mix of Barbarian Marauder (he destroyed a whole village because he was bored while waiting), Enslaved Grunt (he can be summoned and will work for the ones responsible for doing so.. at least until he's in danger) and Sneaky Merc (he actively seeks, craves and creates chaos and participates in most wars. However once he feels that he is in danger he will flee, usually by teleporting, and abandon the squad he was commanding and the battle he was fighting).

* In ''[[Belisarius Series]]'' the Rajputs and Kushans are [[Proud Warrior Race]] guys; both of them defected though the Kushans defected earlier(the Rajputs had to be left so that Belisarius would have someone decent to fight). These two are more [[Worthy Opponents]] then the rather grim jackboots described above; the Rajputs are aristocratic warriors and the Kushans tough professionals, not totally unlike Romans. The Ye-tai are barbarian marauders and the conscripted peasants are the grunts.

* ''[[Halo]]'''s Covenant has most of these, with the Prophets in charge:

** The Elites (Sangheili) are the Proud Warrior Race Guys, of course. The Brutes (Jiralhanae) are the Barbarian Marauders. The Grunts (Unggoy) are, well, the Enslaved Grunts. The Jackals (Kig-Yar) are the Sneaky Mercs. The Drones (Yan-Me) are, you guessed it, the Dogmatic Drones. And the Engineers (Huragok) are, naturally, the Engineers of Doom.

== [[Real Life]] ==

* Near the end of its reign, Rome, the classic [[Vestigial Empire]], was hiring a lot of barbarians, because its own army was depleted. They even hired [[The Huns]] at one point to take down the Burgundians. The Huns quickly figured out there was a lot more gold where their paycheck came from, and spent several years shaking down the Eastern Roman Empire, who had fairly unprofessional soldiers. Then [[Attila]] got cocky and took on the West. The West had trained soldiers and every [[Barbarian Tribe]] that Attila had ever wronged on their side. Not surprisingly, Rome won, and Attila died on his wedding night (not of a nosebleed as is commonly thought; his heavy drinking caused a hemorrhage in his esophagus, and killed him with a combination of choking on his own blood and shock) Now here's where Rome made a huge mistake: it let its Western army slack off, and discriminated heavily on the barbarians. Then, the barbarians all teamed up to form [[The Horde]] and carried out what is still considered to be the greatest ever [[Rape, Pillage and Burn]] ever conducted. The raid was so devastating that not only were barbarians all over Europe able to reclaim their land while the Romans just stood there [[Watching Troy Burn|staring at the bonfire they used to call 'home']], but they actually destroyed 400 years worth of technology. [[Dark Age Europe]] ensued.

** Well, ''almost'' a real life case of [[Tyke Bomb|TykeBombs]]. They were taken back to Istanbul and given extensive training (in reading, history and religion as well as fighting), so it would sometimes be years before they'd see actual battle.

 

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[[Category:Servant Tropes]]

[[Category:This Index Is Expendable]]

[[Category:Battle Thralls]]