Sci-fi rant: Why giant mecha robots are stupid | Geekend | TechRepublic.com
Jay Garmon has written a very well thought-out article on why giant mecha robots are stupid and will never work. I am afraid I must provide a counter to this article. Giant mecha robots are also totally awesome, and I think he’s wrong. Here’s why:
1. Collateral damage.
Okay, so yeah, it’s hard to make robots that can walk bipedally. They fall over a lot. That’s part of the charm! Who wants a giant robot that doesn’t smash everything in it’s path? Tanks can roll over cars and stuff, but can they shove other tanks so that they go flying through the air, crashing into skyscrapers and causing massive gasline explosions everywhere? No? Tanks are stupid.
2. Giant energy swords are awesome.
Robot hands exist on giant mecha so that they can wield giant energy swords. Do you think lightsabers are cool? Of course you do. A four story energy sword is like, 400 times more awesome than a lightsaber. That alone is enough reason for me to have giant mecha hands. However, there is one other thing that Jay Garmon has overlooked here. If giant mecha robots did not have all-purpose hands, they could not rescue kittens from trees. You are not going to build a special kitten-rescuing attachment for a mecha. That would just be silly.
3. Giant Mecha Robots make cool sounds.
If I could fill my iPod with just the sounds of giant mecha robots walking around and shooting up shit, that is all I would ever listen to. And millions of people just like me would do the same. The music industry would collapse. Thanks to giant mecha robots. Bonus!
4. Giant Mecha robots are our only defense against the Daikaiju threat.
What else are we going to build to protect us from giant monsters? As the recent Daikaiju documentary Cloverfield demonstrates, conventional military weaponry is not sufficient to defend our citizens against the menace of giant monsters that rise up from the sea. As to the cost? $725 million is a small price to pay to prevent some damage to New York City. I say some damage of course, because it is inevitable that in fending off the beast, the giant mecha robots will do considerable damage itself. But sometimes you have to burn the village to save it.
5. Giant Mecha battles will be cooler than any other sport ever made.
Giant mecha wars will be televised. All the violence of Ultimate Fighting combined with the metal-on-metal crunching of demolition derby. Sports bars will turn to the Giant Mecha Battles channel and throw away the remote. All other sports will fall before the juggernaut of Giant Mecha Robot Wars!
6. Giant Mecha Robots when damaged explode.
Some giant robots will undoubtedly be powered by nuclear reactors. I think you know what that means. Explosions are totally awesome. If you cannot agree to this, you should stop reading my blog.So there it is. Six very good reasons why, despite the cost and technical difficulties, we will build mecha robots. Because they’re totally awesome should be the only reason we make anything at all.
This post brought to you by the Infernocrusher Movement.
