Phases of the geek

... And by returning his wallet, I was gifted with the name "Honest Rodriegez".

After much debate, I have concluded I am like the moon. Calm, serene, balloon shaped, and I go through various phases. A while back I transitioned from a Fantasy phase into a Transformers geek-out phase. Then I went to superheroes. Now I'm passing into a Battletech phase. I go through phases all the time, the trick is to find something I can do that will satisfy this phase, otherwise I will be bored trying to find stuff.

For those of you not in the know, Battletech is a game about giant walking tank-like things (that would be millitarily useless, for a number of reasons mentioned later) equiped with advanced weaponry that walk around battlefields shooting each other to pieces. It's kinda like a mix of modern tank warfare and medieval Knights, the world they inhabit. The day they make a Battletech MMO I will have a nerdgasm. You snicker, but I WILL become erect at the sheer awesomeness. If the MMO allows for RP I will be arrested for indecent exposure to the developers of said-game.

What precisely is the appeal of this over other generic large robots blowing up shit? I'm glad you, my hypothetical imaginary readership asked.

Funnily enough, the precise appeal to me only partly stems from the robots. It is a vast conquest of space inhabited by broadly defined nation aspects that correspond reasonably closely to modern day (and some past) aspects of certain cultures, which while resulting in stereotypes, also allows the 'viewer' of the societies a certain understanding of what precisely it is they're viewing, through a shared set of language standards.

Next, the predefined intergalactic nations allow for in-depth and cunning potential political simulations, massive geo-economical and political movements are capable with numerous factions vying for leadership within small regions, let alone the factions contending for control of massive nations.

Even further then that, it's a galaxy that allows for enormous combats. Hundreds of mechs can meet to battle over a planet in highly considered tactical manouvers and strategies. It evokes the wanna-be general in all of us to consider how to plot and plan those conditions of warfare between these vast forces more then capable of eliminating entire cities.

Finally, the actual appeal to me over the robots. Yes, giant f-off mechs battling over a war torn battlefield is awesome, but part of the awesomeness comes from both a personalisation and impersonalisation of combat. Since there are rarely more then a couple of dozen mechs meeting at once in the one area, suddenly battles become less about masses of kills, and becomes a more 'honourable' contest of a small number of combatants, few of which can be dispatched effortlessly. But at the same time since you're not directly fighting a PERSON, but a vehicle they're riding in, the warfare becomes less of a combat of trying to cripple or kill the other person, but to destroy their capacity to contribute to the fight by destroying their mech, an action they have a quite reasonable chance of surviving. It removes from the equation a strong degree of genuine loss, and instead of war casualties being reduced to cripples if they're lucky, it allows for the possibility of survival intact, removing some of the horrific sides of war.

Although I mentioned I was going to discuss why 'Mechs are an inpossible dream. Consider for a moment the only possible advantages a Mech might have over a tank.

1. Higher point of view that allows for shots over the horizon? When you're that much taller, it just means you're an easier target for explosive weapons.

2. Higher maneouverability stemming from the use of bipedal motion? Even if a giant robot that can perfectly emulate human movement would be a rather clumsy affair, and any situation where the terrain is so bad a tank can't get around wouldn't be much easier for a footfall.

Now let's consider the downpoints.

1. Armour spread. Take a box-shaped object and cover it in alfoil. Keep a vague track of how much you need. Then take a similarly sized humanoid shaped object and cover it in alfoil. Far more is needed to cover it entirely, and to cover it entirely limits it's mobility (part of the apparent advantage). More armour weighs more, which makes moving around more difficult since it takes more energy to do so.

2. Cost. For a bipedal mode of transport and warfare to be even possible requires massive amounts of money put into things like gyroscopic balancing, 'muscle' like controls and designing a war machine specifically to emulate human movements. A Tank needs none of those.

So, in short, Battletech style mechs are a complete impossibility.

They are fucking cool, though.