Re: power armour and ants

At 02:01 PM 9/23/98 -0700, Los wrote:

<snip stuff about powered armour and mental conditioning and stuff>

In the BodyArmor:2000 collection of short stories, there is an amusing
little piece in which the Americans and the Soviets are fighting over
the
ruins of Paris and encouraging their troops with hokey "Mom and Apple
Pie"-style propaganda.	Brainwashing is S.O.P. for both sides and it
seems
most of the troops have fought on both sides at one point or another. 
The
ones that have been "wiped" the most often are fine soldiers, but a
little
dull personally.  The reader picks up the idea both homelands have been
nuked and the war is still going on just because no one really remembers
how to do anything else.

> <snip ant story>  What a sight! Why they were fighting I will never
know.

I've read about this before.  What you saw was essentially a slave raid.
The red ants attack a colony of black ants, killing off all the adults
and
stealing the eggs or pupae.  These are then carried back to the nest and
raised as workers.  Apparently, it's fairly common.

Jeff