107 replies to this topic

[Raso]

EnigmaNL, on 15 December 2012 - 03:31 AM, said:

Do you really believe soldiers are like that? Soldiers have plenty of internal conflict, that's why so many of them are messed up in the head after a war.

Children do hate, so some research on child soldiers in Africa. Sure they are being controlled by warlords but they sure do hate their enemies because they are being taught to hate them from a very young age.

Having children in robots fighting battles is just ridiculous.

Having robots is ridiculous. They are impractical, expensive and prone to many flaws which would make thing nothing more than walking death traps. Once you put giant robots in your TV show or your video games mostly everything else becomes normal by comparison.

The point of having these younger people in these situations is to make a statement and to build contrasts. It gives the point of view of an outsider who doesn't understand the point of war who is biased against it. The child (which lets be honest, is usually in his mid teens, that's not really a child) is thrust into war suddenly. He has no basic training and lacked the dehumanizing indoctrination that is part of becoming a soldier. He does not see targets he sees people and chances are the child also doesn't see the point to what ever war is being fought because he doesn't care much for politics and doesn't get why people can't just get along.

Like it or hate it but what you have right there is a complex scenario which contrast's the child's innocence along side a brutal war. It's not subversive to simply write off the setting as ridiculous it's simply ignorant. There is a point to that scenario but for some reason many western views instantly dismiss it. Perhaps our culture still has that children should be seen and not heard mentality when it comes to certain subject matter. Perhaps we are so use to war that we've become cynical so we see the notion of not fighting and getting over our pettiness as childish so when a child says war is pointless we dismiss it as meaningless idealism. Perhaps we have this ideal that maturity entails cynicism and hopelessness and that we surrender our imagination and dreams of a happy world once we cross the threshold of adulthood and that prevents us from taking such a scenario seriously.

Children piloting giant robots is no more ridiculous than cats and dogs piloting giant robots. The exception being that you can make a compelling story line and even some sort of statement with children piloting a robots while cats and dogs do not have thumbs.

[EXSODER]

Raso, on 15 December 2012 - 11:25 AM, said:

Having robots is ridiculous. They are impractical, expensive and prone to many flaws which would make thing nothing more than walking death traps.

In a ground battle, I'm pretty sure 'Mechs, expense aside, would tear any military apart without much trouble. The only problem I think they would have would be air power...they're huge targets.
In reality, probably the only thing real 'Mechs would be used for would be as tanks with more armor than usual because of their size alone. But even then, unless air dominance is already established...like you said, walking death traps.

[Raso]

EXSODER, on 15 December 2012 - 02:46 PM, said:

In a ground battle, I'm pretty sure 'Mechs, expense aside, would tear any military apart without much trouble. The only problem I think they would have would be air power...they're huge targets.
In reality, probably the only thing real 'Mechs would be used for would be as tanks with more armor than usual because of their size alone. But even then, unless air dominance is already established...like you said, walking death traps.

I disagree. A mech with enough agility, defense and fire power would be impractical. Be it an ATAT, a Jenner or a Zaku the systems are too complex and the costs make them unfeasible,

On the other hand I can see them working similar to how they evolved in Mobile Suit Gundam as multirole, amphibious assault units. They were made to assault a space colony's defenses and then hold the interior and exterior. The melee weapons developed as an evolution of breaching tools being used for desperation attacks and the hands allowed for a single unit to be outfitted with different weapons for various mission profiles. The humanoid designed allowed for the machine to use it's limbs as reactive mass to change direction in a micro gravity environment with minimal propellant. Even still that is a highly specialized and niche role and I would suspect that a planetary invasion would be conducted with less specialized mechanized forces.

Look I love me some giant robots but I'm fully aware of how absurd they are. In fact that's half of the appeal to me.

[Stone Wall]

hey Vass Rain, what do you like better than MechWarrior?

[Alfred VonGunn]

One reason it is better is that it ISN'T FARKING Gundam.....

[LaserAngel]

Why not both?

[Budor]

Nothing did it better than the mechwarrior games. Earthsiege and Heavy Gear was ok.

The Mechs in Battlefield 2142 were pretty cool cause you could shoot infantry and tanks