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Battlefield Robots and Other Delights, Part 2

© Dane Mitchell Donato

Last time out, I was discussing "Second Variety," the ending of which had the human race losing agaist a weapon that couldn't be controlled, the battlefield robot. And of course, while the real technology of the time was not sufficient to create such highly sophisticated weapons, the Cold War still did promise exactly that -- that in just the time it takes to make an unthinkable decision, the human race would be obliterated.

In the Dick story, it's not the radiation that's killing us in a nightmarish landscape of blast craters and miles of empty ash fields, nor is it the destruction of our precious farmlands, the pollution of the water supply, nor any of the countless variables that come with any conflict. It's a case of our own invention turning against us. The American side's lethal new weapon are the killing robots. These robots, called "claws," are far more relentlessly efficient than we can possibly be:

"Across the ground something small and metallic came, flashing in the dull sunlight of midday. A metal sphere. It raced up the hill after the Russian, its treads flying. It was small, one of the baby ones. Its claws were out, two razor projections spinning in a blur of white steel."

This story is not nudging us toward the fact that the Americans happen to have been the side who went and developed these nasty geared assassins. As one characters states, "If we hadn't invented them, they would have." Which is undoubtedly true. Worse than just the act of creating these claws, we've also gone and built automated factories, then trusted the robots to design and build even better robots, robots who can imitate humans well enough to trick the Soviet enemy, get into his fortified bunkers and slaughter everyone before they know what is now among them. Shades of the Trojan Horse here.

Unfortunately for both sides, the robots are building better and better simulacrums, and they are very fast learners.

And they don't like either side.

No rosy, comforting Asimov' Laws of Robotics protecting us from our metal servants here. And why should there be? In fact, for the purposes of fiction, which, among other things, is supposed to teach us important lessons (hopefully in an entertaining fashion) it would probably be better if our mechanical troops don't stop the fighting to lecture us on the moral and ethical principle of waging war.

Combat machine stories both predating Second Variety and have followed it with good, bad and indifferent manifestations. The Terminator films are some of the more recent (and well done) variations of this idea, and I don't doubt more versions of this idea will come along. The recent film Red Mars features an excellently realized exploration and combat robot named AIMEE

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