I believe it was said goblins average 2-3 years for their lives, and the Goblin King happened 26 (I think?) years ago. So not 50 generations, but probably more like 20ish, which is still pretty significant.

In human terms, that would be like history from 400-500 years ago.

Nukes honestly probably wouldn’t be that big of a deal for Antinium. Most nukes and other high-yield explosives delivered by missile are designed to explode in the air, so that they don’t lose as much of their force into the ground itself. They’d still.damage the hives, especially at first, but that could be easily solved by them digging deeper. All the dirt would also help shield them from much of the radiation and such.

Bunker busters would likely be far more effective, especially as a first attack. Get as deep into the hives as possible with those, then nuke them to try and collapse the hives even further. Depending on how far they are from the coasts, perhaps even use long strings of missiles to effectively dig a channel from the ocean to flood them out.

It would probably mostly end as a stalemate. The Antinium could burrow deep enough that our missiles couldn’t affect them much, but in turn, they wouldn’t really be able to destroy many of our jet fighters.

Realistically speaking, the Drakes probably had the best defenses via their Walled Cities and the enchantment on said walls. Earth has nothing even close to that, which would completely prevent tunneling and sapping by the Antinium. Earth forces wouldn’t really have many ways to stop Antinium advances into our territories, especially at the rate they can dig.

The current Chief of Staff of the US Army is Randy George. Would you recognize him on sight?

or for a more famous general, would you be able to recognize GS Patton on sight?

Also, no physical description is given of Zel other than him fighting with just claws. It would be a bit of a leap to assume the first drake military leader who fights with claws is the same one you read about 20 years ago

Goblin’s usually have lifespans of like, two years tops. Also, Goblin Kings only appear once every century or so and are literally soul linked to every goblin. It’s no surprise that he’s remmebered as some far off historical figure by goblins

Deus ex machina implies both that the heroes are the ones being saved, and that the act saving them seems to appear from nowhere. For wrymvr to be a deus ex machina we have to believe that sserys is the villain, and we have to know the full capacity of the Antinium. I think it’s clear that neither are true. You’re also ignoring that the entire point is how unsatisfying of a conclusion there was to the war. It’s a story of ants from australia coming to north america because of some unknown problem. A “hand wave” would be having the antinium just disappear, or sserys decide that he was tired of fighting and just leading everyone back home and signing a peace treaty after their first actual victory. Having an army formed by an entire continent filled with world class individuals get wiped out isn’t anywhere close to a “hand wave”. It’s a far more interesting conclusion to half of a backstory, not a heroic tale that needs whatever hype ending you were expecting.

For me, the storytelling just sort of stops at the final battle. It doesn’t make any kind of sense; we’re hit with a Deus ex machina. It is something a bad GM would handwave to explain something to too-curious players about a backstory they never developed. Highly dissatisfying and disappointing conclusion to an otherwise solid chapter. Wow, kind of shocking how that went off the rails.

Agreed Magnolia seems awesome.

had arrived in Issiysil’s darkest hour can be accredited to one person: Lady Magnolia.

Issiysil should be Issrysil

“beginning when the first Humans landed on the continent from Terraria”
I believe you meant Terandria.