Gordon Pedersen
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27 lines
No EOL
3.8 KiB
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title: B1.12 Story idea involving futuristic mechs
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date: 2011-04-01
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location: /B1.12
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tags: Pro Tanto, idea, story
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# Story idea involving futuristic mechs
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This is an idea I’ve had in my head for a long time. I think it would be most suited to an anime series, but it’s just a story idea.
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It’s a pretty typical setup: distant future, war-torn countries, human-controlled bipedal robots… But one side of the war has developed a new technology: remote-controlled mechs. Of course, all parties involved in the war have been experimenting with the technology for some time, but only one side has perfected it to the point where there is no more lag. That is, the soldiers controlling the mechs remotely have no delay in their actions apart from their own reaction time. They feel to the soldiers like their own bodies.
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The soldiers themselves are kept in a top-secret “soldier warehouse”. Vast numbers of soldiers strapped to beds and hooked up to machines nourishing their physical bodies and connecting their consciousness to the battlefield. A lot of these soldiers would not be physically up to fighting in a war, but have brilliant tactical minds and lightning-fast reaction speeds (in short, gamers), making them ideal candidates for this kind of program.
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A number of these advanced mechs are sent into battle against a relatively minor foe: an army with old-hat weapons which have pretty much no effect on these mechs. Outnumbered and clearly outgunned, their soldiers fight on in vain, clearly desperate not to lose. They also have one advantage their highly advanced opponents are unaware of: they know the location of the soldier warehouse.
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The side with the mechs concentrate on the battle at hand, and completely fail to notice an antique stealth bomber approaching the warehouse location until it is too late: the stealth bomber drops an equally ancient nuclear warhead. The warhead itself is not enough to penetrate the warehouse, but it is enough to irradiate a large area around the warehouse and send out a massive electro-magnetic pulse which shorts out pretty much all the electronics inside. The mechs on the battlefield begin to shut down and become unresponsive.
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But… There was an unintended side-effect of the pulse. A power surge was sent through the soldiers of the warehouse. Most are killed, many are badly burned. For some through, something extremely unusual happens…
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While consciously they are on the battlefield as mechs, they watch their comrades collapse before them. Realizing something has happened at the warehouse, they decide to initiate the override commands that will bring their consciousness back to their physical bodies. But the override doesn’t work. A small number of soldiers are now “trapped” as robots. Unknowing of what exactly has happened at the warehouse. Unaware of the status of their physical bodies. Are they dead? Are they still lying unconscious, strapped to their bed?
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Grappling with these questions they must also come to terms with the fact that they must not only begin to attempt living as robots, but they are deep in enemy territory and being hunted. Can they survive? Can they escape? Are their bodies still alive somewhere? And if not, what then? Must they attempt to continue living as robots? Would that mean they are immortal? How could they go back to their families like that? Will their government allow such beings to continue to exist?
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I think it would be entertaining to watch. There’s the psychological element keeping people interested, as well as enough action to get people to notice and pay attention. There’s also a lot of avenues to explore. There could be radiation-sick survivors, government coverups… An awful lot to continue the series. In many directions, too.
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What do you think? Good idea? What would need to be changed or developed better? |