Both S.M. Stirling’s Draka (see http://www.smstirling.com) and Gordon R. Dickson’s Dorsai are trained for war from early childhood. If there was a crossover battle between an army of each, assuming rough equality in numbers, technology and equipment, who would win?
I am assuming the Draka in this battle are human, not the genetically-engineered New Race Homo drakensis, any one of whom could eat five Klingons for breakfast and a Predator as a mid-morning snack.
I don’t know too much about the Draka, but the Dorsai consider any battle to be horribly botched if even a single one of their men dies. And this is the norm just from having a few Dorsai officers in the command structure, not a whole Dorsai army. So on that basis, I’m going to favor the Dorsai, here.
Posted by Chronos:
But the Draka think the same way, kind of. Their state, the Domination of the Draka, is a slave society. Freeborn citizens, comprising less than five percent of the total population, are a military aristocracy and serve in the Citizen Force. They also recruit some serfs – slaves – to serve in the Janissary forces, which are about twice the numbers of the Citizen Force – never more than that, because they figure that’s the largest number of serfs they can safely arm, without having them revolt against their masters. The citizens are much better soldiers than the Janissaries because they are raised in military boarding schools from the age of five, and live under a scientific diet-and-training regimen which enhances their bone density and their physical strength and speed. (Whether such a thing would be possible in real life, I don’t know.) The system is consciously modeled on the Spartan agoge, although among the Draka both males and females are so trained (in separate schools). The Draka think of Janissaries as expendable – they can always get more. But every citizen they lose in war is an expenditure of capital, to be avoided except as a last resort. Of course, the Draka go to war so often that a lot of citizens do get killed anyway.
I am envisioning a battle between an all-Dorsai army and a Draka Citizen Force legion, with no Janissaries or others involved.
If you’re not familiar with the Domination of the Draka series, it’s an alternate-history scenario: During the Revolutionary War, the British seized control of the Dutch Cape Colony in Africa (much earlier than they gained the Cape in our timeline); after the war, American Loyalists and Hessian mercenaries were settled there (not in Canada, as in our timeline), swamping and assimilating the less numerous population of Dutch colonists. The new colony was named the Dominion of Drakesland, after Francis Drake. The settlers, faced with a vast and martial native black population, set about conquering and enslaving the blacks – and that gave their culture its lasting shape. Eventually the Draka, as they came to call themselves, conquered all of Africa and kept on conquering and enslaving everyone on their borders, regardless of color; they modeled their society on classical Greece and Rome in many ways; they developed a might-makes-right ethic that glorified power and the domination of the weak; and the white citizen caste developed into a military aristocracy. All these tendencies were reinforced at the end of the American Civil War, when the slaveowning aristocrats of the South relocated en masse to Draka Africa, taking some of their slaves with them.
No takers? Okay, how about Draka vs. Klingons?
Draka vs. Batman?
Draka vs. Smurfs?
Draka vs. Hobbits? Hobbits with a 1920s-style death ray?
Draka vs. Cthulhu?
Which group knows more about kicking people in the nuts?
I would kick those pansy’s ass from here to wherever the hell I wanted too.
I decided to revive this thread, since the CS forum’s thread-bumping rules have been relaxed and there’s been a recent spate of interest in “crossover” threads. This time, let’s have some serious responses from Dopers who actually are familiar with both series, if we can.
I’m not deeply familiar with the Draka – I’ve read some of the early ones, but not the later ones (with the genetically engineered superpeople). I am more familiar with the Dorsai.
I’d call this one for the Dorsai, for two reasons.
The first is totally irrational – I just think they are cooler. This may be because I read the Dorsai books earlier, or it may be because the Draka are reprehensible. Whatever the underlying reason, the simple fact is that I *want * the Dorsai to win.
The second is better-founded. The Draka approach to war and battle is that it’s about conquest. We Must Win, For We Are Superior. The Dorsai, on the other hand, focus on tactics and understanding of the opponent as the key to victory. We Will Win, Because We Understand. I think that’s a better approach.
Now, the Draka against Hammer’s Slammers, on the other hand… 
I’d say the Draka would win. There’s nothing they won’t do to win. Torture opponents for info, slaughter civilian populations to simplify their supply situation, all part of the Draka methodology.
This is because their only alternative to victory is destruction. If the serfs ever saw the Draka as vulnerable, they might rise and destroy them. The Draka have to be invincible because otherwise they’d be destroyed.