From: JLOCK00@RICEVM1.RICE.EDU (Joseph L. Lockett)
Subject: Re: Genres
Organization: Rice University  
Date: Fri, 24 Jul 1992 20:21:00 GMT

In article <3651@blue.cis.pitt.edu.UUCP>
hummell+@pitt.edu (Andrew G Hummell) writes:
>
>In article <1992Jul23.212026.21107@Princeton.EDU> woodhams@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Michael Woodhams) writes:
>>case, by the neck until dead) but there's no way giant huminoid robots
>>will ever be a better military buy than something like a tank.
>
>This is just *your opinion*, not a fact.  It can never be proven to be
>a fact (to us anyway, we'll be dust by the time it can be proven one way or
>another).
 
     Okay, Andrew, one more time.  I am more than willing to believe that
you COULD build a giant humanoid robot -- we can quibble about how the
control interface would work until the cows come home.  My disagreement
is whether it makes GOOD SENSE, militarily or economically.
 
>Tanks are already pretty much obsolete now.  The average infantry soldier can
>carry a tank killing rocket.  An A10 Warthog can chew up tanks like bubblegum,
>with proper air support.  Tanks are only effective against troop transports,
>buildings, and other tanks.
 
     And, considering steady improvements in weapons technology, you STILL
advocate Battlemechs as a viable military option?  You've dug yourself a
hole in which the only viable army consists entirely of infantry. Luckily,
as another poster's pointed out, tanks are still useful.  Buy your point
is well taken, and points out that mechs are even less survival-suited
than tanks -- they have a MUCH larger target profile for those A10's, etc.
 
>Giant humanoid robots (if such beasts *could* be built -- I beleive that is
>*very* unlikely) would have advantages such as terrain (a walking robot can
>move across terrain that is impassable for tanks), more armor, more firepower,
>more manuverability, more versatility (a giant humanoid robot could be used
>to pick heavy things up and move them, i.e. construction work).
 
     Give me a break. Yes, you have a terrain advantage -- but insectoid,
multi-legged robots would work better yet, and could eliminate your oh-so-
glorified neural interface and its timing problems.  More armor?  A mech
has more surface area TO armor, meaning it gets less protection for equal
weight. This is efficiency? As for versatility, you don't build military
hardware, particularly for tank jobs, to be able to handle construction
projects in a pinch -- you build it to kill people. What's the Army Corps
of Engineers for?
 
>If you can't bring yourself to beleive that giant robots are a *possibility*,
>how can you play *any* science fiction game?  FTL travel is no more unlikely
>giant robots.  The same goes for any other type of fantasy as well.
 
     Because suspending my disbelief in FTL, or normal-scale androids, or
whatever, doesn't require a complete rejection of common-sense military
and economic truths, a devil-may-care attitude about logical consistency
in my universe. Consistency is the goblin of little minds, perhaps, but
I find my gaming worlds more entertaining and rich with it.
 
>If giant-robot-type genres are not to your taste, don't play those type of
>games.
 
     I don't. But if you can't defend them sensibly, don't try that either.
 
>Andy
 
Joseph L. Lockett
jlock00@ricevm1.rice.edu