Re: power armour and ants

Jeff Lyon wrote:

> 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
>

With some good brainwashing or mental conditioning, there would be
little need for propaganda. Condition them to just do what they are
ordered without hesitation.

There's a rather large gulf between what motivates people to enter
service in the first place, and what motivates soldiers to perform in
combat. Two completely different sets of motivators. The mom and apple
pie stuff does not fall into the latter category. This is a common
misconception amongst civilians.

> 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.

You know, I've seen raids before and perhaps this was the motivation.
But what I failed to mention about this war was that the other ants also
had formed up in a column and travelled down the driveway, (where the
bus stop was) and met the oncoming ants out in the open so to speak. So
you've got two long trails of ants meeting in no man's land. Could both
have been on slave raids simultaneoulsy?

Ever since then (well in my kid years at least)  we tried to recreate
this battle using captured ants, but it seems that though ants will
fight when you toss them into a swarm of other ants, its tough to get a
whole war going. (I know we were sadistic kids)

Los