Giant super-robots made up from smaller, yet equally impressive killer robots.

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I think this is an idea whose time has come, what with the war we (the US) are in. We have incredibly advanced computer technology. I think it's time we use it in the form of killer super-robots made up of smaller, yet equally impressive robots. It's a great idea, don't you think? What would Osama think if he heard a knock at the door, opened it, and saw, standing before him, a giant super-robot made up of smaller, yet equally impressive killer robots? I tell you what he'd think. He'd think, "I need to change my underwear." That's what he'd think, right before the killer super-robot made up of smaller, yet equally impressive robots pounded its rapid-fire fists into Osama's face.

We could release them all over the world and have them be controlled by specialy trained Battlebots champions. I mean, it only takes them a few thousand dollars to make a Battlebot, right? Why not spend a little more for government-subsidized super-robots made up of smaller, yet equally impressive robots? Not only would they be effective war machines, but they're great entertainment for the kids! Could you imagine being a 6-year-old and going to see the Giant Super-Robot Made Up Of Smaller Yet Equally Impressive Killer Robot Rally? Wouldn't that be the coolest thing? It's also a great way to raise funds for the super-robot made up of smaller, yet equally impressive robot project.

This is truly an idea whose time has come.

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<A HREF="http://"http://www.iusb.edu/~preimers/monkey.jpg"" TARGET=_blank>It's a monkey!</A>
 
Flying cars? Bah! That's just romanticized science fiction, if you ask me. Giant super-robots made up from smaller, yet equally impressive robots is a very real and possible option.
 
But what if the smaller yet equally impressive robots that made up the killer super-robots made up of smaller, yet equally impressive robots were actually themselves made up of even smaller, yet equally impressive robots? Then we would have killer super-robots made up of smaller, yet equally impressive robots which are in turn made up of very small, yet equally impressive robots.

And what if the factories who were producing the killer super-robots made up of smaller, yet equally impressive robots which are in turn made up of very small, yet equally impressive robots accidentally made a few of the small, yet equally impressive robots and a few of the very small, yet equally impressive robots a little less impressive than the other small, yet equally impressive robots and very small, yet equally impressive robots? Then they would have to be called...

"The killer super-robots made up of smaller, yet equally impressive robots (with the exception of a few which are less impressive than the other small, yet equally impressive robots) that are made up of very small, yet equally impressive robots (with the exception of a few which are less impressive than the other very small, yet equally impressive robots)."

And that would never fit on a T-shirt.
 
Wasn't there a "Go-Bots" or "TransFormers: Robots in Disguise" that consisted of several individual robots that could be adjoined into one larger robot?
 
Speaking of factories, I think the giant robots made up of smaller yet equally impressive robots wich, in turn, are made up of even smaller, yet also equally impressive (for the most part) robots should be built in giant super-factories made of smaller, yet equally impressive robot factories which, in turn, are made of even smaller, yet also equally (for the most part) impressive factories, and in these super-factories and factories, the giant super-robots made up from smaller, yet equally impressive robots which, in turn, are made up from even smaller, but also equally impressive (with the exception of a few) robots could be built by other, not quite as impressive robots, but still very efficient super-robots which are composed of smaller, not-quite-as-impressive-but-still-quite-efficient robots.

The company should also sell coffee mugs.
 
And, yes, that was Transformers. The original super-robot made up from other smaller robots was Voltron. Remember Voltron? Anyway, Voltron was such a success, Transformers copied the idea and created Devestator, which was a Decepticon super-robt made from the Constructicons, the Decepticons' construction robots. After Devestator, several other similar Transformers came along. After Transformers lost popularity, the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers came along, and they did the giant super-robot made of smaller, yet equally impressive robots. It worked well, but it had the misfortune of looking a lot like Voltron, which made a lot of Voltron fans and 80's nostalgia people pretty upset.

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<A HREF="http://"http://www.iusb.edu/~preimers/monkey.jpg"" TARGET=_blank>It's a monkey!</A>
 
NotGeorge,
I think we disagreed in some heated discussion thread once. No animosity, but I figured we just didn't see eye to eye. That clearly is not the case. You are now my life-long friend. This is the most important thread in the history of Interference. Thanks for making a difference.

Your pal,
Spiral Staircase

p.s. I should also thank Squid for contributing and for the clarification about the factories who produce the killer super-robots made up of smaller, yet equally impressive robots which are in turn made up of very small, yet equally impressive robots that might accidentally make a few of the small, yet equally impressive robots and a few of the very small, yet equally impressive robots a little less impressive than the other small, yet equally impressive robots and very small, yet equally impressive robots.

[This message has been edited by Spiral_Staircase (edited 11-08-2001).]

[This message has been edited by Spiral_Staircase (edited 11-08-2001).]
 
Originally posted by U2Bama:
Wasn't there a "Go-Bots" or "TransFormers: Robots in Disguise" that consisted of several individual robots that could be adjoined into one larger robot?

I think that could have been the admit-if-you-dare Power Rangers. I say admit-if-you-dare because I still digress from mentioning how captivated I was by the first season.
 
The construction of Giant Super Robots Made Up Of Smaller Yet Equally Impressive Killer Robots is actually a good idea, but there are caveats:

1. They tend to lead to a war of increasingly dangerous (and silly) technology.

Look at the Transformers. The Constructicons were a great idea which lead to other groups of combining Transformers - Arielbots, Combaticons, etc. (Though these newer teams eschewed the less-than-stable combination of six robots of the same size for the more Voltron-esque four robots of one size and a larger leader.) But this great idea lead to an escalation on all sides.

First, the Autobots responded with the Dinobots: a cool idea at the time, but - clearly - this idea led to the madness of Beast Wars. Why? Because the Dinobots don't disguise themselves as an everyday piece of modern technology.

When you saw an Autobot in car mode, you thought, "Is that a regular mini-van, or is it a Transformer?" With the Dinobots, what were you supposed to think?

"Look, a giant robotic T. Rex! Surely that can't be a Transformer!"

Riiiight.

It also led to the development of larger robots that were not formed from other smaller robots (less the occasional robot that served as a "head"), including Omega Supreme, Metroplex, and Trypticon. It reached its apex, of course, with Unicron, a planet-sized robot that, for the purposes of scaring the shit out of bin Laden, would simply be more trouble than it worth.

2. The smaller robots are generally useless.

It's the Voltron Principle at work here, a principle that was first noted in the "Lion" Voltron series, that could be applied in some degree to the Transformers, and also applied to the Power Rangers - that live-action farce that should be considered nothing more than the bastard child of the ultra-cool 1980's.

What is the Voltron Principle? With the possible exception of hiding the giant robot from your enemies by separating and hiding the individiual constituent robots, the smaller robots are useless.

Let us recall the typical tactics of a 30-minute battle involving Voltron: the space-witch would develop a brilliant idea to target one of the lion robots to prevent Voltron from forming. The plan nearly succeeds, causing the other four to spend 18 minutes saving the one robot. The monster is then unleased, and the Voltron Force spend another 8 minutes trying to attack the monster as the lion robots. They then realize that they need to form Voltron, do so with a two-minute process of bells and whistles and easily dispatch the enemy.

Had Voltron been formed from the beginning, the individual robot would not have been targeted. Moreover, the successful strategies INVARIABLY begin with "Form the giant robot". The sooner the team abandons the idea of fighting as a group of smaller robots and forms the giant robot, the sooner the team wins.

3. Control of the robots will continue to be an issue of concern.

This comes down to the question, who should control the robots? A human team, like the Voltron Force or the Power Rangers? Or artificial "intelligence", like the Transformers?

I don't like either alternative. By the ISO's rules and standards of robot teams, the team must be heterogenous above all else, and the risk of an affirmative action program in this branch of special forces is a less capable team.

While I would have enjoyed dinner and a movie with the first Pink Power Ranger, I still recognize that she shouldn't operate a mechanical pencil, much less a Ford or Zord or whatever the hell they called their robots.

As an alternative, we could use artificial intelligence, but Transformers showed that "intelligence" is used in a very loose sense. If Megatron had a single working logic circuit, he would have blasted Starscream long before the events of Transformers: The Movie. The Autobots do not fare much better - especially in the movie, when they get decimated (and their warranties start expiring, explaining how Ironhide was so easily killed), and when no-one thinks of repairing Prime (as later episodes demonstrated that his memory was intact after he died).

4. The Blazing Sword should be our focus of development.

Yes, the team of robots would be "neat", but when we return to an analysis of Lion Voltron's battle tactics, the team won only when they combined to form Voltron.

And Voltron won most easily (usually in less than five seconds) when he "formed Blazing Sword".

That sword is our best weapon to develop in that it is the most devastating.


So, in conclusion...

Teams of robots lead to a war of escalation, aren't that effective until they form the giant robot, still raise the issue of robot control, and ignore the prospect of the much better weapon in the "Blazing Sword".

I recommend we build one complete giant robot, arm him with the Blazing Sword, man him with G.I. Joe's finest (Sgt. Slaughter), and send the robot against our foes.

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- Achtung Bubba

What did you find, Dad?
Me? Illumination.
 
Achtung Bubba - You raise several good points. I'll address them in turn.

1. They tend to lead to a war of increasingly dangerous (and silly) technology.

I believe it is safe to assume that you're using this argument based on past fictional super-robots made up from smaller, yet equally impressive robots. The fact is only time will tell. Yes, it is true that the Constructicons and the like sucked as individuals, and that the Dinobots were tactically a bad idea, but that's where government funding comes in. With government funding comes government regulation. If the military were to use giant super-robots made up from smaller, yet equally impressive robots, it would have strict regulations regarding the structure, use, and very nature of them.

2. The smaller robots are generally useless.

Yes and no. In combats situations, the Constructicons were useless. However, as a construction crew, they proved to be very versatile, both as vehicles and as robots. In my plan for giant super-robots made up from smaller, yet equally impressive robots, the giant robot form would be the default, as it were. The smaller, yet equally impressive robots would be used for menial, noncombative tasks.

Furthermore, you addressed the issue of the robots fighting a large, intimidating foe. As far as we know, bin Laden has no such thing to worry about.

3. Control of the robots will continue to be an issue of concern.

I mentioned earlier the possibility of having the robots be controlled by Battlebots champions. This would be done by remote control, not unlike the Federation droid control ship from The Phantom Menace. Naturally, we would make improvements on this, with each robot being controlled by a different person in a different place, and, of course, it would have strict governmental supervision including, among other things, a panic button which would cause the super-robot to split up into the smaller, yet equally impressive robots and evacuate the area. The same would happen if the connection between controller and super-robot were broken.

4. The Blazing Sword should be our focus of development.

I agree with the Blazing Sword. Each super-robot should be equipped with one to use as its primary weapon. Naturally, there would be other weapons as well, like guns and missile launchers.

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<A HREF="http://"http://www.iusb.edu/~preimers/monkey.jpg"" TARGET=_blank>It's a monkey!</A>
 
Thank you for addressing my concerns. You've responded quite well, but I still have a few observations:

1. They tend to lead to a war of increasingly dangerous (and silly) technology.

Yes, it appears strict regulation seems to be the only way to avoid many of the pitfalls of our robot fighting forces, but even regulation is an imperfect fix at best.

2. The smaller robots are generally useless.

Indeed, having the robots serve non-combative roles is a great idea, especially if we place them in areas of high risk (such as Afghanistan, once we begin rebuilding the country, as we did with postwar Japan). They would help with the rebuilding efforts, make less necessary the commitment of a large force of American troops, and be right in harm's way if some misguided malcontents started jeopardizing our efforts.

I would, however, still suggest having our robots built so that they are of equal size (like Devastator rather than Voltron) and of a greater modularity to prevent the oft-used tatic where the enemies "attack one robot and prevent the formation of the giant robot". That is, any "leg" robot can become either a right leg or a left leg, and can join to form any giant robot.

As a quick example, say we have 10 Construticon-style groups of six robots in an area; 60 total robots so that, again, any "leg" robot could form a right leg or left leg of any robot.

So, our force of 60 robots have 20 "leg" robots. In order to prevent even ONE Devastator from being formed, guerilla forces would have to capture, destory, or distract 19 "leg" robots.

(...or 19 "arm" robots, or all 10 "torso" robots, or all 10 "head" robots. At this time, it's worth noting that a geurilla's tactics should be to target "heads" or "torsos", but even that can be eliminated as a weakness if the two robot types become interchangeable.)

OR, if a robot could serve as ANY part of the giant robot, then, in our example, ANY six robots would form Devastator, and 55 robots would have to be successfully detained by our enemies to prevent them from doing so.

Granted, that's a stretch, technology-wise, but it should be a goal; and, at least, we could make the robots virtually indistinguishable, so "leg" robots cannot be specifically targeted.

3. Control of the robots will continue to be an issue of concern.

Again, a good idea in principle, but there are very few Battlebot champions (really, very few successful controllers in the first place), and they may not be well-suited to handle the complex maneuvers of our robots and the unpredictable terrains of the real world.

The Battlebot champs would need to be trained extensively - and their ranks increased by heavy recruitment (especially if we do use multiple teams of robots to, again, prevent the successful targeting of one robot and the prevention of giant robot formation).

My gut instinct is that our current forces, particularly tank and helicopter pilots may be much better suited for the task. There are more of them, and they are used to operating truly complex machines in a real-world setting.

Also, using military men and women would allow us to place them inside the robots rather than force them to operate the machines by remote - eliminating the strategy of interfering with the control signal (a strategy that worked incredibly well in The Phantom Menace).

Having a panic button in case something went wrong is a great idea. But we should ensure as best we can that nothing goes wrong.

And, either way, we simply cannot afford to use quotas in assembling our teams of pilots. Again, the Pink Ranger fiasco shows that this technology is too important to leave it to complete imbeciles.

4. The Blazing Sword should be our focus of development.

Yes, other weapons are a good idea, but I would like to make recommendations on two other weapons common to the world of giant robots:

A. Fist rockets are a bad idea. Voltron used the heads of Red Lion and Green Lion (that is, its "fists") as projectile weapons. This is a terrible idea, in that one would also have to develop a retreival system and, more importantly, one couldn't "form Blazing Sword", much less use the sword, if you don't have your hands.

B. Boobie rockets are a great idea.

Okay, I don't know if ANYONE else remembers this one, but there was another giant robot cartoon in the 1980's. I remember it came out before Voltron - and it appeared that it was also produced before Voltron. The cartoon? Tranzor Z.

For a quick "refresher" course:

http://www.angelfire.com/sc/enforcer/

The robot was a single giant robot controlled by a human in a hovercraft that linked with the robot through a port on top of its head. It also used "fist missles", but an ally of Tranzor Z, Aphrodite A, had a much more interesting weapon.

Aphrodite A, a female robot, had "boobie rockets".

I am not making this shit up:

http://www.yesterdayland.com/popopedia/memories/show_mem.php?ID=SA1467

"Boobie rockets" are, simply put, a great idea. It keeps the hands free to form the Blazing Sword - and perhaps frees up the robot's movements to use the sword. It guarantees Congressional funding, and it's sheer BRILLIANCE as a weapon against the Taliban.

Imagine, you're a member of the Taliban, hiding in your cave, waiting for US bombing to cease so you can continue your human rights abuses against your own women, and what do you see?

A giant robot. A giant American robot.

A giant FEMALE American robot.

The robot, with its shapely figure free from the constricting fabrics of baggy robes, then fires its "boobie rockets" right at you.

If I was that guy, I'd be scared SHITLESS.

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- Achtung Bubba

What did you find, Dad?
Me? Illumination.
 
there is a sick amount of thought,and copying & pasting(i hope) going into this thread.

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always wear your safety belt
 
No copying and pasting here, my friend.

And what would you have us do? Walk into the world of giant robots made up of smaller but equally impressive robots without thinking it through?

Frankly, that's a risk we shouldn't take.

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- Achtung Bubba

What did you find, Dad?
Me? Illumination.
 
I agree. Although we may disagree on a topic this important, it is vital to think it through. To do otherwise would be foolish.

Saying which, I think Achtung Bubba's arguments have great merit. I tend to agree with him. Giant super-robots composed of smaller, yet equally impressive robots have an inherant weakness. They're designed to come apart, which meaans it's not terribly difficult to make them come apart. The enemy could use that to its advantage. It would be wiser to make giant super-robots that aren't made up of smaller, yet equally impressive robots.

But what about incredibly huge super-robots made up of smaller, yet still giant and equally impressive robots?

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<A HREF="http://"http://www.iusb.edu/~preimers/monkey.jpg"" TARGET=_blank>It's a monkey!</A>
 
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