| From: | Paul Jonathan Adam <Paul@********.DEMON.CO.UK> |
|---|---|
| Subject: | Re: Drones vs. Humans |
| Date: | Sun, 8 Oct 1995 12:34:48 GMT |
> But Paul, aren't there countertechniques for these neutralisation methods
> mentioned above? You're the expert, but if com-lasers fail, will
> switching to microwave not be an option? Ultrasonic vision as default,
> interlocked sattelite sensors, so if one is blocked, the others can
> coordinate the efforts for the blocked sattelite also, etc.etc.
Problem is that - by the time you put in enough power to burn through noise
jamming, enough encryption to keep the signal from being "grabbed" or
spot-jammed, et cetera, each comm-link has a significant overhead in weight
and bulk. Add things like the need to aim very precisely a tightbeam
microwave or laser link, and each commlink is displacing a weapon! You
reach the point where your drone can communicate with base, but has no
weapons or sensors...
The point to remember with technology is that both sides advance. Although
radar countermeasures today are far, far better than the crude barrage
jamming and "Window" chaff of 1945, the radars are also unrecognisably
more capable also. Although by the 2050s multi-sensor systems are the rule,
the ECM gear also attacks into *all* those sensors as well...
> > And you play headgames with the AI. It's only as informed as the sensors on
> > the drones... so confuse the bastard! :) Trying to fight by remote control
> > is a lot harder than it seems.
> >
>For a human :-). My main trouble with SR tech is, as I've told you before, that
> I have no firm idea of the technology available in 2053. It seems to me
> that beyond magic, there is really no advancement in 2053 that we haven't
> already begun in some primitive way. Well, if one is of that mind, even magic
> have been around for some time now.
That is usually the problem with sci-fi :) I remember reading a 1954 book
about the development of computers... expected advances were stronger
paper tape, low-friction coatings for punched cards, vacuum tubes with longer
lives and lower power requirements. Even the transistor didn't get a look in.
They were right, too....except they had no way to know about the integrated
circuit. You can only extrapolate from what you know is possible, and what
you think *might* be possible (look at cyberware, computing, and some of the
medical tech for examples where we *have* had advancement).
> With all our advanced tech, the tech evolution should have been cruising
> at turbo speed for about 60 years now. The achivements in 2053 is puny
> indeed, seen from my point of view, but then I'm not tech. Might explain
> that issue. But ofcourse, Newtonian physics is assumed to stay the same.
Here's an issue for you... look back to 1935. What exists now that was
genuinely unknown then? Radar? Microwave ovens? Nuclear power? All known
at least in theory... making it work was the hard part. Image intensifiers
are "new" from there, but there was a lot of work on active and passive IR.
Cars? IC engines worked pretty well. Guns? We're still using 1930s weapons
in the British Army today.
The integrated circuit was a complete "out of left field"... but most other
technology has improved enormously (or just been made to work) while remaining
recognisable. Artillery shoots further, tanks are bigger and faster and tougher,
radar has gone from needing a huge fixed station to being man-portable...
> > I did rip off the movies and have one possible future involve an AI, which
> > by uncanny coincidence had both developed time travel, and was called
> > Skynet :) But the AI was losing that war.
>
> I've no AI's yet. My natural ones seem much nastier to me.
We have a couple of AIs... they're more like prankster free spirits than
overpowering enemies. So far. Skynet existed in the future... after a hellish
series of runs the PCs managed to (they hope) prevent it from existing, in
this timeline at least.
--
"When you have shot and killed a man, you have defined your attitude towards
him. You have offered a definite answer to a definite problem. For better
or for worse, you have acted decisively.
In fact, the next move is up to him." <R.A. Lafferty>
Paul J. Adam paul@********.demon.co.uk
