But it’s enough of a game changer that large and emplaced targets will be overwhelmed. Watching those drone shows and their ability to communicate with each other like a hive mind blew my mind thinking about that from a military standpoint. I think it will be like stealth technology and radar. Most planes are not stealth so old radar is still effective. Some things will be able to protect themselves from drone attacks, but most will be vulnerable in one way or another. I’m just a military gamer and I can think of hundreds of types of drones I’d create if I was planning for a defense or attack, the experts have likely thought of those and thousands more; diggers, crawlers, flyers, dummies until signaled, attaching things coming in and out from ground, air, etc, and on and on.
Imagine pods dropped like old parachutes but they become embedded in the ground with a drone controller and all the drones needed for the job at hand. You could drop hundreds of those in an area and create fortifications and drone weapon bases in one swoop. I imagine drone bases would be heavily protected from EMI type attacks
Neal Stephenson’s The Diamond Age has a “forcefield” of anti-personnel drones around one compound. They form a dome and drift into one another to share power from the ground.
I don’t remember if there’s a reason they’re not just wirelessly charged, aside from mass air-to-air refueling sounding cooler.
The drones were powered by atmospheric static, I think? Or was it solar power? They recharged each other by close contact. The black dust created by constantly battling nanobots was terrifying. More terrifying than the amount of money Stephenson must have spent on stimulants.
Have you read Neuromancer? Snow Crash must seem even goofier than intended without the fresh context of whiz-bang 1980s cyberpunk. It’s satire. It’s satire of the whole Johnny Mnemonic, True Names, Lawnmower Man brand of futurism, from people who’d never seen the internet and figured computers are magic. Stephenson turned that flying-through-numbers mysticism into a shopping mall - and a shocking number of influential people did not get the joke.
If you like Stephenson’s writing when it’s a doorstop, Cryptonomicon bounces between World War II and 1999’s view of 2001. It freely borrows from historical events as much as it makes shit up… and I’ve been surprised by which parts weren’t fiction. Yamamoto’s assassination, for example. US fighters really did fly to the edge of their range, in the middle of nowhere, and fly back five hundred rounds lighter.
If you like Stephenson’s writing when his editor has a short leash, Zodiac is basically his whole formula writ small. Literally and figuratively.
I don’t know that I get the jokes. I prefer to read fast and in binges,but I had to put down Diamond Age, often at the most exciting parts, and go touch grass.
But it’s enough of a game changer that large and emplaced targets will be overwhelmed. Watching those drone shows and their ability to communicate with each other like a hive mind blew my mind thinking about that from a military standpoint. I think it will be like stealth technology and radar. Most planes are not stealth so old radar is still effective. Some things will be able to protect themselves from drone attacks, but most will be vulnerable in one way or another. I’m just a military gamer and I can think of hundreds of types of drones I’d create if I was planning for a defense or attack, the experts have likely thought of those and thousands more; diggers, crawlers, flyers, dummies until signaled, attaching things coming in and out from ground, air, etc, and on and on.
I remember basic designs being bought out by governments in 2007 when I was following development, so yes, there are years of work already into this.
Imagine pods dropped like old parachutes but they become embedded in the ground with a drone controller and all the drones needed for the job at hand. You could drop hundreds of those in an area and create fortifications and drone weapon bases in one swoop. I imagine drone bases would be heavily protected from EMI type attacks
Neal Stephenson’s The Diamond Age has a “forcefield” of anti-personnel drones around one compound. They form a dome and drift into one another to share power from the ground.
I don’t remember if there’s a reason they’re not just wirelessly charged, aside from mass air-to-air refueling sounding cooler.
The drones were powered by atmospheric static, I think? Or was it solar power? They recharged each other by close contact. The black dust created by constantly battling nanobots was terrifying. More terrifying than the amount of money Stephenson must have spent on stimulants.
I think that’s just how he is. It’s not like Colombia naming a library after Stephen King.
I just read that! So much better than Snowcrash
Have you read Neuromancer? Snow Crash must seem even goofier than intended without the fresh context of whiz-bang 1980s cyberpunk. It’s satire. It’s satire of the whole Johnny Mnemonic, True Names, Lawnmower Man brand of futurism, from people who’d never seen the internet and figured computers are magic. Stephenson turned that flying-through-numbers mysticism into a shopping mall - and a shocking number of influential people did not get the joke.
If you like Stephenson’s writing when it’s a doorstop, Cryptonomicon bounces between World War II and 1999’s view of 2001. It freely borrows from historical events as much as it makes shit up… and I’ve been surprised by which parts weren’t fiction. Yamamoto’s assassination, for example. US fighters really did fly to the edge of their range, in the middle of nowhere, and fly back five hundred rounds lighter.
If you like Stephenson’s writing when his editor has a short leash, Zodiac is basically his whole formula writ small. Literally and figuratively.
I don’t know that I get the jokes. I prefer to read fast and in binges,but I had to put down Diamond Age, often at the most exciting parts, and go touch grass.