Re: Medtch 2180

>By the way if this technology advances to a point where all of Tom's
>suppositions are fact, then it's pretty obvious that weapons would have
to
>advance ahead of this technology to ensure the complete obliteration of
>anything you hit since a "kill" as we know it not would not really be a
kill in
>the future. I would submit that personal weapons would inevitably have
to
>advance to the point that if you hit something, then it simply would
not
exist
>any further since any weapon that didn't do that would not be
accomplishing
>anything to further its cause in the long run. For every action a
reaction....
>

Or, and maybe this is a big "or"), maybe the morality of war in 2180 is
such that the complete obliteration of the enemy soldier is not
necessarily
a desired outcome.  We know that the other guys' wounded will be back
after
"treatment", but rather than giving each grunt a
super-dooper-trooper-zapper gurarenteed to atomize an enemy (and what
kind
of weapon would this be?  not much for "surgical precision" if you miss
with one of those....  kind of like shooting a trooper with a main gun
from
a Slammers' tank... sure he'd be gone if you hit, but don't miss...) we
just assume that a big percentage of "kills" will be back, and we aim to
win in a SHORT period of time.	Absolutely obliterating the enemy
troopers
isn't the objective - but rather whacking a whole bunch of them quickly
and
winning the campaign so that they don't have a chance to come back,
becomes
the objective.	And if the "small but really well trained and equipped
army" idea pans out, only a few casualties inflicted will have a bigger
relative effect anyway...

Besides, I don't buy the idea that a troopie with his legs missing will
be
up and going in a few days - I think much more likely that treatment
will
be more along the lines of what the PA soldiers in "The Ten Thousand
Year
War" got - main character lost a limb, the suit stabilized him, he
shipped
back to rehab world where new limb grown BUT it took weeks/months of
regrowth and dexterity therapy before he was "combat ready" again.  In
this
kind of case, sure the LONG TERM survival of the badly hurt goes up
LOTS,
but in the short term (the days or weeks of these short, sharp
campaigns)
he is out of the fight - and tieing up medical resources, etc.	

An odd idea here, following this line of thinking:  if the medical
technology develops to the point that they can fix nearly anything, and
the
weapon technology develops in response to the point that the objective
is
to destroy then enemy utterly with each hit, doesn't that kind of change
the psychology of war a bit?  Now (here in 1999), we want to win, and
though there will be soldiers who want to whack the enemy dead, not many
(well, actually none) of the soldiers I know really WANT to KILL the
other
guys.  That may be part of the job, but they don't specifically want to
do
it.  If the weaponry becomes such that a hit equals a kill, and killing
utterly (like, no chance of regen) becomes a necessary part of winning,
then is it not a short step to "well, if we have to kill him utterly to
win, then why not whack his family as well so there aren't going to be
any
more of him...".   Maybe I'm stretching here, but I kind of wonder if
changing the objective from "taking the other guy out of the fight or
out
manoevering him so we don't have to fight" to "kill him" would make wars
rather different.  Nuke his cities, do it fast, and make sure you do it
utterly so he can't do yours.  It "ups the ante" rather a bit...

Anyway - just a thought.

Adrian

Adrian Johnson
ajohnson@idirect.com

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To win one hundred victories in one
hundred battles is not the highest 
skill.	To subdue the enemy without
fighting is the highest skill.

Sun Tzu

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