Yeah, this would be a bit too late for us to be getting squeamish.
#2
Wait! People are going to be killed by our robots?!?
Duh.
#2
Sorry for the long delay, guys. I was planning to do the update friday night, but fell into the Civilization VI rabbit hole.
Anyways, it’s another unanimous decision, with all 2’s: I watch with interest - it should help me develop better robots.
Stats:
31-year-old Sarah Connor
Humanity: 8% -
Gender: Female
Fame: Internationally Famous
Wealth: Quite Wealthy +
Romance: none
Arachne
Autonomy: Singular
Military: Singular +
Empathy: Stable
Grace: Buggy +
Relationships
Professor Ziegler (Bad): 18%
Elly (Bad): 28%
Josh (Good): 59%
Mark (Bad): 34%
Juliet (Good): 55%
Silas (Bad): 28%
President Irons (Good): 55%
World Power Balance
China: 61% US: 39%
You watch as a stubby bomb enters the camera’s view, and pay close attention to how steady the targeting reticule is during the bomb’s descent. The natural rattle of the drone makes it somewhat shaky, and you come up with some plausibly hypotheses for how to stabilize it.
The bomb detonates on contact with the man, and you find yourself strangely fascinated with the way his parts fly in all directions, each bloody arc a proof of Newton’s laws.
The speaker concludes with a bullet-pointed slide labeled “Conclusions,” and the audience claps, and it is once again like any number of talks you saw in graduate school.
With your new clearance, you find that you are able to get your company involved in much more lucrative contracts. You’re also able to design robots that fit much better with the military’s needs and culture. When your salespeople start saying “better situational awareness” instead of “better world models” and “Red Team” instead of “enemy,” suddenly they find that they’re much more on the same page as their clients.
What will your new war robots be like?
- They will be extremely intelligent missiles.
- They will be giant mecha, anime-style. But without the fourteen-year-old pilots.
- They will look identical to humans, able to replace them on the battlefield.
- They will be large humanoids, able to transform into vehicles.
I can’t help myself.
2. They will be giant mecha, anime-style. But without the fourteen-year-old pilots.
Neither can I.
4
Simple and direct, please.
1. They will be extremely intelligent missiles.
A man after my own heart. Though I’d be okay stuffing the more obnoxious 14 year olds in there, too. Not as pilots, mind. More like… Insulation!
I haven’t been reading the whole game, so I’m not sure if I should vote officially, but: Transforming humanoids seems impractical, and perfect humanoids seems like a terminator/cylon nightmare.
Intelligent missiles seems like you just wake up one morning and half the eastern seaboard is gone because the missiles decided humanity was inconvenient.
I’d go with walking battle tanks. (2) It seems like the most fun apocalypse to die in.
Where’s the answer for “They will have wooden masks and spider legs”??
2. They will be giant mecha, anime-style. But without the fourteen-year-old pilots.
Yeah hopefully this doesn’t mean we’re discarding Arachne.
Alright, we have 4 two’s, 1 one and 1 four, so we’re going with: They will be giant mecha, anime-style. But without the fourteen-year-old pilots.
Stats:
31-year-old Sarah Connor
Humanity: 8%
Gender: Female
Fame: Internationally Famous
Wealth: Quite Wealthy
Romance: none
Arachne
Autonomy: Singular
Military: Singular
Empathy: Stable
Grace: In Beta +
Relationships
Professor Ziegler (Bad): 18%
Elly (Bad): 28%
Josh (Good): 59%
Mark (Bad): 34%
Juliet (Good): 55%
Silas (Bad): 28%
President Irons (Good): 55%
World Power Balance
China: 48% US: 52%
The actual mechanics of giant robots are somewhat frustrating; anime never had to deal with the laws of physics. The mechanics of human motion turn out not to scale up. You need a huge acceleration to get a swinging arm or leg within tens of meters of the normal amount of time for a human stride, followed by an equally strong deceleration. Weight, moreover, increases as the cube of the size of a thing when you scale up, so each limb literally weighs a ton despite your best efforts to streamline their design. You find you simply don’t have the mechanical prowess to make the idea work. But you persist, and your sponsors love the idea enough to keep funding you despite your lack of tangible results. You learn a lot by tackling the tough mechanical problems involved, but the giant robots are not noticeably more effective on the battlefield than your smaller robots.
A year into the war, China attacks Taiwan. Your robots are key to beating back the assault. Drones with your AI technology shoot down the missiles from the mainland before they can reach the American carriers, allowing reinforcements to come protect the island. Submersible versions of your robots sink the Chinese transports before they can reach land, sending the robots they carry to the bottom of the ocean. You wonder how long they will last down there. If they have nuclear power, possibly a very long time indeed.
Taiwan is safe, for now.
Some days after that, you have a visitor at your apartment: a man who shows you an FBI badge.
“Sorry to bother you. I’d like to ask you some questions about your friend, Elly.”
Arachne crawls up beside you. “What’s going on, Master?”
“Are you aware that Elly is a Chinese citizen?” asks the man in the suit.
- “You’re mistaken. Elly is American.”
- “I know.”
- “No, I was not aware of that.”
Friend? I’m not sure that’s true anymore. But why can’t it be both 1 & 3. Both seem some version of ‘play dumb’ because, well, we had no idea.
#3
Tempting as it might be to throw her under the bus, Elly’s probably the only person in the entire game to have given us a single moment of normal, human happiness, soo… .
3. "No, I was not aware of that."
3. "No, I was not aware of that."
Number 3.
Looks like it’s not really necessary, but I’ll toss my vote in for # 3 as well.
Alright, it looks like we have a bunch of 3’s, so we’re going with: "No, I was not aware of that."
No change in stats.
The agent nods, as if he expected nothing more. “Has Elly ever asked you about, or shown an interest in, the technical details of the robots you create?” the agent asks.
- “Yes, often.”
- “Only once, in graduate school.”
- “No, she has never shown much interest.”
Honesty, I think.
#2
2. "Only once, in graduate school."
Number 2.