Alright...in light of recent events and the unbelievable whirl of muddle-headed commentary and sloppy journalism that has arisen from them (an issue that I'll address in a future post, because these--i.e. knee-jerk punditry and slap-dash reportage--are a problem occupying a field far larger than the field of national security and municipal safety these days), I've decided that I have to present the following basic, cut-to-the-heart-of-the-matter points, because people are so caught up in side issues that no one is thinking clearly anymore and some very basic aspects of the problem are being missed...by everyone, apparently.
So here we go, and I'm ashamed that I have to be the one to point it out:
Once you get inside the giant robot, the rest is simple. It's just that easy, people.
Now, in order to be fair, I'll acknowledge that there are good reasons why a lot of people--up to and including the "experts"--seem to have forgotten this basic fact. Yes, those things are fairly heavily armored on the outside (for the most part--we'll get back to this), and yes, they're supposedly rendered reasonably unapproachable by the ground and air support that always seems to accompany an attack. Yes, the effects of even a single successful municipal attack are devastating, given the scale involved. Yes, the combination of past attacks and powerful propaganda on the part of our enemies is quite compelling to that part of the brain--just a little more evolved than the basic Reptile Brain--that's preoccupied with survival and security, with the result that the ability to think about this stuff gets trumped and the "oh my god, what will we do?" reaction takes over.
But let's review the salient facts:
1) Because they have to be dropped by huge and ungainly air carriers at some distance from any large target, and because they move slowly, there is always plenty of time for a sufficiently-prepared AGRT (or an AGRU, if you prefer) to respond. Past discussions among the military elite about finding ways to locate said carriers during their approach and disable them in mid-air have missed the point: OK, they do present a huge and inviting silhouette, but their stealth capabilities and surprising maneuverability make them more of a decoy than a viable target (and don't think that the people on the other side of the opsdirops ["operations-directional-operating beams," for you non-specialists] that control them haven't considered that and used it to our disadvantage).
2) The accompanying ground and air support is, admittedly, formidable, but is designed to oppose just the sort of large-scale military defence that we're notorious for providing (see my previous post about the historical inertia of military buildup for more on that), not, say, a small, well-trained, locally-based strike team with a good sense of the lay of the land and the relative advantage (to many, seen as a disadvantage) of lack of encumbrance by heavy equipment and slow-moving tread-based battle vehicles.
3) Similarly, the formidable armor of a GR (and I treat them as a generic class in this sense, since there is very little--verging on no, other than cosmetic--variation in the design parameters of every single GR that's ever attacked an American city) is also designed to fend off a large-scale military defence, meaning that they're damn-well protected against damage caused by any standard ordnance that we have (up to and including nuclear, ultrasonic, and particle-accelerator-based weaponry), as well as, I'd bet, several technologies that are currently on the drawing board and have been fast-tracked by the big weapons developers. But if anyone remembers the abortive attack two years ago by the gargantamech ironically named Achilles Jr., you'll remember that that one was thwarted not by our own power but by the robot's scraping its left foot on the pinnacle of Topcat's Ridge, opening up a huge gash and causing a massive lubricant leak that all but crippled the machine, as well as cracks along the weld lines running all the way up to the sternum control module (which then fell out). The fact is, these robots have feet of clay, if you take my meaning.
4) Finally: despite their imposing outer shell, giant robots all have a shockingly-simple internal mechanism, as we all know. At the risk of sounding like I'm lecturing here, let me remind everyone that it's a simple economies-of-scale thing, coupled with an ease-of-maintenance issue. Can you imagine the cost to build a device like Tango Atlanticus 1 Roger and fill it with a massive web of microminiaturized relays, nanofeedback dermasimulators, and quantum neuron emulators? The cloaked leaders of S.N.O.R.D. can, and it gives them nightmares; after all, well-funded as they must be, their resources can't be unlimited. Especially when good old-fashioned hydraulics and one big ol' antilock flux capacitor will do.
All of which means?
(Let me state once again that I'm embarrassed I even have to write this, but I really see no choice. Why are we even still talking about this? Because you, the American people, have let me--all of us, in fact--down once again. So let me make it simple:)
Robot lands outside city. Strike team (perhaps one of several, in a sort of "redundancy equals contingency" scheme) evades air and ground coverage. Specialist1 cuts hole in slow-moving robot's foot. Specialist2 cuts a whole mess o' wires. Robot goes boom.
Any questions?
So here we go, and I'm ashamed that I have to be the one to point it out:
Once you get inside the giant robot, the rest is simple. It's just that easy, people.
Now, in order to be fair, I'll acknowledge that there are good reasons why a lot of people--up to and including the "experts"--seem to have forgotten this basic fact. Yes, those things are fairly heavily armored on the outside (for the most part--we'll get back to this), and yes, they're supposedly rendered reasonably unapproachable by the ground and air support that always seems to accompany an attack. Yes, the effects of even a single successful municipal attack are devastating, given the scale involved. Yes, the combination of past attacks and powerful propaganda on the part of our enemies is quite compelling to that part of the brain--just a little more evolved than the basic Reptile Brain--that's preoccupied with survival and security, with the result that the ability to think about this stuff gets trumped and the "oh my god, what will we do?" reaction takes over.
But let's review the salient facts:
1) Because they have to be dropped by huge and ungainly air carriers at some distance from any large target, and because they move slowly, there is always plenty of time for a sufficiently-prepared AGRT (or an AGRU, if you prefer) to respond. Past discussions among the military elite about finding ways to locate said carriers during their approach and disable them in mid-air have missed the point: OK, they do present a huge and inviting silhouette, but their stealth capabilities and surprising maneuverability make them more of a decoy than a viable target (and don't think that the people on the other side of the opsdirops ["operations-directional-operating beams," for you non-specialists] that control them haven't considered that and used it to our disadvantage).
2) The accompanying ground and air support is, admittedly, formidable, but is designed to oppose just the sort of large-scale military defence that we're notorious for providing (see my previous post about the historical inertia of military buildup for more on that), not, say, a small, well-trained, locally-based strike team with a good sense of the lay of the land and the relative advantage (to many, seen as a disadvantage) of lack of encumbrance by heavy equipment and slow-moving tread-based battle vehicles.
3) Similarly, the formidable armor of a GR (and I treat them as a generic class in this sense, since there is very little--verging on no, other than cosmetic--variation in the design parameters of every single GR that's ever attacked an American city) is also designed to fend off a large-scale military defence, meaning that they're damn-well protected against damage caused by any standard ordnance that we have (up to and including nuclear, ultrasonic, and particle-accelerator-based weaponry), as well as, I'd bet, several technologies that are currently on the drawing board and have been fast-tracked by the big weapons developers. But if anyone remembers the abortive attack two years ago by the gargantamech ironically named Achilles Jr., you'll remember that that one was thwarted not by our own power but by the robot's scraping its left foot on the pinnacle of Topcat's Ridge, opening up a huge gash and causing a massive lubricant leak that all but crippled the machine, as well as cracks along the weld lines running all the way up to the sternum control module (which then fell out). The fact is, these robots have feet of clay, if you take my meaning.
4) Finally: despite their imposing outer shell, giant robots all have a shockingly-simple internal mechanism, as we all know. At the risk of sounding like I'm lecturing here, let me remind everyone that it's a simple economies-of-scale thing, coupled with an ease-of-maintenance issue. Can you imagine the cost to build a device like Tango Atlanticus 1 Roger and fill it with a massive web of microminiaturized relays, nanofeedback dermasimulators, and quantum neuron emulators? The cloaked leaders of S.N.O.R.D. can, and it gives them nightmares; after all, well-funded as they must be, their resources can't be unlimited. Especially when good old-fashioned hydraulics and one big ol' antilock flux capacitor will do.
All of which means?
(Let me state once again that I'm embarrassed I even have to write this, but I really see no choice. Why are we even still talking about this? Because you, the American people, have let me--all of us, in fact--down once again. So let me make it simple:)
Robot lands outside city. Strike team (perhaps one of several, in a sort of "redundancy equals contingency" scheme) evades air and ground coverage. Specialist1 cuts hole in slow-moving robot's foot. Specialist2 cuts a whole mess o' wires. Robot goes boom.
Any questions?
posted by Jeff Edwards at 5:27 PM
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