How would a goblin rebellion succeed this time where the other ones failed? How about the reason that's already stated in the challenge text? The fact that, you know, the wizards are already weak from war?

That's the main difference. The wizards are tired, weakened through conflict, and the goblins strike.

Personally, I'd like to see this one done. I can't take it up (I didn't get any inspiration from reading this; writing stories without inspiration doesn't work too well for me), but I would definitely read it if a competent author took it up.

 

....Troll much? Did you even read what the people above you wrote?

With that reasoning, how could the Vietnam War possibly be different from WW1. I don't know, maybe... Advances in technology? And it was what, 800 years since the last rebellion?

Why the FUCK would the goblins care?

Well it's too bad your opinion doesn't count for much.

Edit: Please improve your spelling/grammar, that is the most irritating thing about your post.
Ah, and sorry for losing my temper.

 

First, English, use it, and use it correctly.

Second, the main advantage the Goblins have is the element of surprise that their attack brings, at a time when the wizarding world is in the first stages of recovery after what may well have been the most devastating war it ever faced. Not other rebellion has had that advantage.

If you can attack something when it is weak and does not expect an attack, then your odds of winning are greatly improved.

The goblins have a fortress right in the heart of the wizarding world, Gringotts. It is not unfeasible that they could break out of there and take Diagon Alley swiftly. It is also not unfeasible that they could hold it long enough for some of their number to learn to effectively use the wands in Ollivanders shop. After all, the only spells they really need to know are basic healing charms, some shields and the AK.

From there they basically have the same advantage as wizards, sure they can't turn a needle into a match but in war, spells of that sort are unneeded. I can imagine Hogwarts holding out for a long time against them but with the Goblins controlling all the money in Great Britain I doubt any supplies of food etc. would come in from other countries, after all, they cannot buy it, the remaining Wizards would likely be starved out.

It would be an attack based on brutality and numbers, as well as surprise. The wizards would take many of the goblins but goblins would almost certainly outlast the wizards. Not to mention they have dragons under their control, not many wizards can take down a dragon.

Once they have the wizarding world they have the same advantage over muggles that wizards would have in a hypothetical war, unplottable, unattackable locations and swift hidden mobility, they would not be enough to destroy the muggles, but they could bring many countries to their knees.

 

If anyone writes this, don't include the underground tunnels as an offensive means.

It's like those god-awful stories in which a general has a massive castle warded against everything except an underground tunnel. Some mage sends off an earthquake, and then the poor castle's had it.

It reeks of Achilles' foot. Such an author would include that convenient weakness specifically because they wanted to write in a pseudo-clever action scene.

 

The goblin have on hell of an advantage: gold.
As we said in French: l'argent est le nerf de la guerre. Which roughly translate in: Money is the nerve of war.
I'm pretty sure there is an actual english proverb which carry the same meaning but I just can't remenber it.

So they actually have more than a mere chance of sucess since there must be more than a few willing to accept there gold and if the remaining of the British society didn't have anymore money they are pretty fucked up.

Yeah I am aware that it's quite the muggle way of seeing war but even for wizard money is vital.

 

Truth. Add to Potter Law XX

 

Yeah, a means of transportation, sure. Sieging Hogwarts, no.

Personally, I think it'd be interesting if they used their tunnels like the Japanese did during WWII.

Edit:

Anything can be boring if not written properly. Including Harry Potter.

That's why we change his looks, his personality, his speech patterns, and anything else that we can think of to make it interesting.

 

You people are missing something important - What's happening worldwide?

Think Economic Warfare.

Suppose the American Goblins hit Wall Street at the same time as Gringotts, Zurich, and Tokyo. Think about Stockholm. It won't matter what time of day the catastrophe happens, the results would be devastating. Use those super!digger skills and collapse a few buildings. When the World Trade Centers 1&2 fell, the U.S. lost TRILLIONS of dollars, tens of thousands of educated and wealthy people, and some absolutely irreplaceable artwork and artifacts.

Fort Knox holds most of the U.S. gold reserve - the campus is well protected (even from attacks below ground,) but perhaps the goblins could spend years creating a cavern down deep, and collapse the vaults thousands of feet on command. The vaults would crack open like eggshells.

On the plus side, it would be a cinch to train dogs to hate goblins - and bark and attack on sight. Even domesticated dogs wouldn't be much of a problem to condition into goblin-species-hate. Faced with a common enemy, I confidently expect that homo sapiens sapiens would react like the vicious predators we are.

Bioweapons could be tailored to be goblin-specific; the same for chemical weapons. Firewalkers could be *easily* modified to carry "clean" nukes. Security computer-controlled sensors wouldn't take much programming to train to identify goblins without error.

Edited to add:
I wonder if the U.N. would include worldwide economic warfare under the classification "attacks of mass destruction?" Then we could use nukes and chem/bio weapons legally.

 

Yes, that would be a very interesting story to read, but it's too broad a scope for a story, unless one of the really good authors took it up.

As it is, it would be hard to write an interesting story about the goblins in england, let alone trying to write about foreign goblins.

Not to mention:

Goblins vs. English Wizards. Fine.

Goblins vs. English Wizards and muggles. Possible.

Goblins vs. English Wizards and muggles, American Wizards & muggles, Swedish Wizards & muggles....

You get the picture?

 

Fair enough. I just don't feel like there's much to work with, even though that's what the basis of a challenge is. It'd be like writing a fic about the Mer-people.

 

It would be an interesting twist (and probably help balance the conflict) if you could somehow get the house-elfs to join on the goblin side...

 

Rather difficult though, seeing as they are bonded to wizards... And even the free ones punish themselves for speaking against their former masters.

 

What if the "loyalty" that house-elfs feel for wizards is actually a series of control spells and wards? What if the goblins are the ones who supply house-elfs (I don't remember JKR ever addressing the issue of reproduction,) and every passionately loyal house-elf actually has a trigger buried in their psyche that can subvert them on command?

You're right - this is mutating well away from the challenge, and is growing FAR out of a reasonable scope.

 

The problem with the whole "Goblins taking the wizards by surprise when the wizards are weak" angle is that after DH the wizarding world isn't actually that damaged.

Voldemort did not stay in power for long. Hardly anyone died. Voldemort was defeated by an uprising of the people, which means that the average witch and wizard have just gained more combat experience than they ever had before. The people are now resilient yet passionate about making their world a better place. The Ministry is still intact, but being revolutionized.

I wouldn't say the wizarding world is weaker than normal: if anything, I'd say that it's stronger for having gone through and survived a war.

 

I don't believe he ever said the war needed to follow the same path JKR took it down in books 6 and 7.

 

"That wasn't a war, that was a slapfight." - Ares, in Mighty Avengers