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[Neruz]

But ratborgs guys, who cares if it is functional, imagine the terror of seeing a half rat half robot piloting a car sized armor that is wielding guns the size of a person, you can't dissmiss the shock value of that, also the coolness factor is insane 

A rat piloting a robot is indeed quite scary, for a short time, until you realise that you can plonk an anti-tank round into it and it goes down just like anything else.


The real trick to true SCIENCE! is to design things that are not only cool, but also practical. Swarms of tiny silent bladed death machines and gun drones don't look quite so terrifying from a 'whatthefuckisthat' perspective, but they strike absolute terror into the hearts of any soldier when he realises that they could be anywhere and he'll never see them coming.




Strike fear into the hearts of your enemies by being ruthlessly efficient, not by being scary. Fear can be overcome, but ruthlessly efficient is always ruthlessly efficient.

[Pandarsenic]

But ratborgs guys, who cares if it is functional, imagine the terror of seeing a half rat half robot piloting a car sized armor that is wielding guns the size of a person, you can't dissmiss the shock value of that, also the coolness factor is insane 

Personally, that sounds half-terrifying and half-adorable.

And Neruz is right that such a device would affect an enemy's long-term morale quite severely.

[Neruz]

Of course ultimately, one of the best possible weapons is always going to be von-neumann nanomachines, but until we reach that point, battledrones, indoctrinated 'clone' soldiers and other more practical weapons of war would be advisable.


Of course, one or two Ratborgs to hang around looking menacing is always a good idea; fear is a weapon like anything else, but such impractical designs should be special weapons used primarily for their fear value against civilians and as a deterrant against rebellion; should we be involved in actual serious conflict, we need serious war machines, machines that don't fuck around looking fancy, they just kill things, they kill things quickly, efficiently and cheaply.



That's why the Gun is still the weapon of choice in modern militaries; a Ratborg is a weapon of terror, a gun is a weapon of war.

[Jopax]

Fine then, have your boring efficent killing machines, but i insist that we atleast make ourselves some henchmen ratborgs

[Acanthus117]

They can be cool, y'know. 

[Pandarsenic]

You consider some more immediate plans might be helpful. You don't yet have the materials or, it chagrins you to say, the expertise for more grandiose plans.

<_<
>_>

[Acanthus117]

Go to the college, and sell our programming book to a student who needs it. Along the way, examine the campus, and look for opportunities to get parts or monies. Also, loot the junkyard that night, aiming for microchips, LEDs, small electric motors and anything else interesting.

[Nirur Torir]

Why did we decide on ratborgs? What about batborgs?

What do we want the toybots we design to look like? I think we should make them centauroids. They'd be a huge hit if we programed them to pick up other toys and put them away.

I didn't see any comments on my plan to buy an upgraded tool from somewhere. Anyone?

I think most of us who voted decided to go to the university to sell our programming book.

[Acanthus117]

Okay, but we need monies BAAAD. we can't have our scientist starve, now can we?

[Jopax]

I agree with the above plans, also Achantus hold on to the tought that they can be cool, im working on something

[Neruz]

Jopax; if you think efficient deadly killing machines cannot also be cool, allow me to introduce to you the Reeve.

The Reeve is a nanomachine weapon; it is made of billions of nanomachines that temporarily bond together into metal stronger than steel, it's form is that of a slender humanoid 6 feet tall composed entirely of blades. It has no eyes, it has no features, it has only blades. It's form shifts and changes as neccessary, flowing through tiny cracks in doors and creating new blades at will, it launches surprise attacks by sneaking swarms of nanomachines through shadows where they are all but invisible and using them to stab people in the back of the head. More advanced Reeves incorperate atomic 'nanolathe' systems into their bots, allowing them to deconstruct materials to make more bots, and build advanced systems on the fly, like lasers, railguns and bombs.

The Reeve is a featureless black humanoid made of blades, it is faster than anything you can possibly imagine, and it is so cool that people have died just from looking at it (also because it stabbed them.)



Ultimately, super-efficiency is in itself cool. Nothing says cool like "I can kill everything within 100 feet by twitching my left pinky."

[Jopax]

Yes nanobot ninjas are cool but they are endgame, if we want to take over the world Reeves would be too expensive to mass produce, now, to present my case

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Now the clone trooper would be cool only if it was enhanced so it can run like a cheetah, jump like a frog and tear tanks apart with it's bare hands
Also an idea struck me of an artifical alien invasion force, then we come in as the saviour and "kill" them all, then we rule earth as a hero

[GlyphGryph]

Panda, the decision was made a long time ago for the days actions -
It went like this:

Test drug on rat.

We need an alarm system to tell us when someone opens an entrance to our lab. At first, this should be a Vibration Sensor (1 Copper Wire) attached to a Basic Control Unit plugged into a wall outlet. The control unit detects when the wire jiggles and automatically sends a ping to a linked Basic Control Unit we carry at all times.

Requires: Invent "Vibration Sensor", Program "Alarm Pager".

We need to make a heater for SCIENCE! and also for making coffee. It needs a casing, a heating element, an insulated wire leading to the wall, and a switch to turn it on and off.

Requires: Invent "Flat Coil Heater"

Sell university textbook.

Use that as cover to find information about a potential lackey to steal from the university and prove to them our superiority. We're not DOING that yet, just making initial contact and finding out more info.

Go to LIBRARY. Acquire LIBRARY CARD. Check out a couple good SCIENCE! books.

Use one of their computers to go on the Internet. Create a couple Hotmail accounts. Look on Craigslist for people giving away free stuff. Search for remote-controlled toy gatherings coming up in the area so we can harvest more parts.

[Pandarsenic]

I don't recall a lot of those, but barring any objections I'll take that as your course of action since GlyphGryph is the only one to put it in an easily-read and easily-distinguished form. <_<

[Neruz]

Yes nanobot ninjas are cool but they are endgame, if we want to take over the world Reeves would be too expensive to mass produce, now, to present my case

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Now the clone trooper would be cool only if it was enhanced so it can run like a cheetah, jump like a frog and tear tanks apart with it's bare hands
Also an idea struck me of an artifical alien invasion force, then we come in as the saviour and "kill" them all, then we rule earth as a hero

Actually Reeves are real easy to mass produce; they're Von Neumann Machines, so we only need to make one. That one will make another one, those two will make another two, and so on, ad infinitum.

Also why would we want our troops to be able to tear tanks apart with their hands? Much more efficient to be able to tear tanks apart with their anti-tank guns. Cool too, because of KABOOM.


Remember; nothing is as scary as something you cannot see. If you open the door and see a fifty foot cockroach, yeah that's pretty scary, but a little part of you will go "Whew, at least it's not a five hundred foot cockroach." Reality can never be as terrifying as the imagination, the best weapons of fear are the ones that are never seen, never heard, never identified.



Also the second design is terrible; firing that shoulder mounted gun would cause it to fall over.

Ideally you want war machines to have low centers of gravity; that's why Tanks are the shape that they are, and why mechas will never work. Damn that recoil!

Of course, if you use railguns then you solve the recoil problem rather handily.