Vivian grimaced when Varlum told his story, then shook her head. "If you ever want help finding them, let me know." she said, before she turned back into the black Ithecal. When Varlum explained what a difference in quality could make, once the talk turned to keeping the base supplied, she nodded at her squire. "See, you're learning some strategy. I'll get you ready to lead a battle yet." she said, giving her old student a friendly, if somewhat amused, pat on the shoulder. "But even with good fighters, numbers matter for a lot if it comes to holding a choke point. Even the best fighter can be killed by a lucky shot from the most amateur archer. In battles of defense, having numbers on your side is critical." she said, before looking to both Faith and Varlum with an expression Varlum would recognize as meaning Vivian had gone into full teacher mode.
"General battle theory is that your army should be half again as big your opposing force in order to guarantee victory, provided you hold the terrain advantage." she said, idly taking the echo scroll from Faith as she gave her lesson. "If both sides hold equal terrain, your force should be two-thirds again as big as your opponent. If the enemy holds the terrain advantage, your force needs to be twice again as big as theirs." she said, pausing to take a drink of her tea. "Now, this is all assuming a direct confrontation, which is not likely to happen. Unless Ellasin has significantly more resources to hand than we know about, she's not likely to attempt to a direct assault until she has something she thinks could give her a tremendous advantage over our defenders. If we can make it work, the best way to bolster our own defenses would be the ability to dramatically alter our terrain in a hurry. Causing a landslide or flooding the area around the base, for instance, could give us the ability to counter a number of methods Ellasin might use to avoid a protracted siege." she said, before pausing in thought.
"Now, past the 600 foot soldiers for the initial securing forces, what else we would need really depends on what we want to do with the base. By default, having 1200 foot soldiers would be better, since it gives more time for each soldier to rest, and of course we'll need quartermasters to manage supplies, blacksmiths, farriers, fletchers, and carves to keep armor, clothes, weapons, and mounts in good condition. We'll want engineers, builders, and manual laborers to repair any damage to the fort and do any building or alteration we need done. A lot of cooks to keep all those soldiers fed, maids and stablehands and such to do cleaning for the areas where the foot soldiers aren't going to be regularly visiting, like commanders quarters and the laboraties and such. Oh, commanders, we'll need a few of those, of course." she said, rattling off all the things a base needed to maintain full functionality for more than a few trials. "All told, another 800 people or so, just to keep the base running at full efficiency. None of which is counting researchers and their support staff, or any other things you want this base to be capable of." she said, coming to the end of her mental list.
Looking back at Faith once she was done, she smiled slightly. "On average, it takes seven people to keep your average field soldier ready to fight at a moments notice. Now, each of those seven people supports more than one soldier, of course, but still. Most foot soldiers are basically walking, talking killing machines and not much more. We're trained to fight and kill, and we're very good at it, but all that training means we don't all have the time to learn how to take care of all the things that keep us functional beyond a basic level." she said, before pausing to take another drink of her tea. "Now, this extreme specialization does have its advantages. Going back to the general battle theory I was talking about before, that theory was designed for soldier on soldier combat. If you take, for example, soldiers vs bandits, the numbers shift drastically. There's plenty of records to show bandits outnumbering soldiers 2 to 1, with a terrain advantage, and still getting slaughtered almost to a man, while the soldiers sustain minimal losses. On average, a soldier is worth between 3 and 5 non-soldier combatants." she said, before turning off lecture mode.
Looking at the scroll, Vivian pondered for a moment, then shrugged. "So doctor, do you want to just have this base running at full capacity? Or do you want to do something more with it? Because if you do, tell me and I relay what we need. The knight running the camp around your house, and presumably Special Assistent Blackwook, should be familiar with what it takes to maintain a base, so transmitting orders should be simple." she said, waiting for Faith's instructions. When Faith suggested they map the place out, Vivian nodded. "Good idea, it'll give us something to do while we wait for the securing force to arrive." she said, her tone cheerful.
