Japan seriously considers building real-life Gundam mechas for Defense

Way, way cooler than a big lumbering piece of murder-oriented metal could ever be, as a matter of fact.

-Adds this to the list of reasons why Australia is awesome-

edited 3rd Sep '12 10:20:41 AM by Carciofus

Looks like you just described the early guns, as well as the early artillery, albeit parts of them are made of wood too. LOL

Older Than They Think (axes, swords) and, if you remove the "metal" bit...

Exactly. "Cool" military megaprojects like this one are problematic, I think, for the same reason why our culture's obsession with weaponry (even outdated weaponry such as swords and so on) is so.

I am not an absolute pacifist: I recognize that, sadly, killing fellow human beings may at times be necessary in order to prevent innocents from being harmed. But this cannot ever be glorious: it is a sad, dirty, awful matter, that shames us all as a species.

A proctologist's probe is a far nobler tool than a sword (or a giant robot, for that matter) could ever be.

edited 3rd Sep '12 10:45:00 PM by Carciofus

But then why don't people take pains to apply Mundane Made Awesome to things that do not involve killing fellow human beings?

We definitely should.

I would say that is a False Dichotomy (as in, a focus on violence equals a focus on killing), given that the study of violence is not necessarily the study of killing. In fact, I'll go as far as to say that a true master of martial art does not need to draw blood to win a fight. There is a difference between a master and a killing machine.

Too bad that 'Giant Robot' would generally fall in the latter category.

True, unless it is this.

Giant robots (or swords, for that matter) are not precisely non-lethal instruments. In any case, I would go as far as saying that using even non-lethal violence in a Real Life situation (that is, not in the context of a match or something like that) is a regrettable and ugly (if sometimes necessary) thing, and should not be glorified.

If our society was sane, we'd tell stories about impossibly skilled gardeners, not about impossibly skilled martial artists.

Even somebody who won a fight without fighting? Because if you look at Asian wuxia literature and media masters do not even need to move to make their opponents back down. They are, supposedly, at the level where they've transcended fighting itself and doesn't even need to fight to win.

edited 4th Sep '12 12:27:43 AM by IraTheSquire

Without fighting at all, as in, without striking nor hurting the aggressor in the least — perhaps by defusing the conflict by talking, or by running away, or even by dodging the aggressor until they give up? Yeah, that's cool. And I know that there are some stories about that.

But what percentage of our narratives are of this kind, or even of the "careful fighter takes pains to use nonlethal violence if at all possible" kind, and what percentage is about crazy "badasses" cutting a bloody swath through legions of mooks?

As I said, I do not oppose violence in all circumstances; and obviously, I do not oppose fictional violence either. What I dislike is violence being depicted as "cool" — and, I think, the fact that it is and that, for example, a giant (and probably quite unpractical) weapon of destruction such as a "Gundam" is perceived as awesome is quite problematic.

edited 4th Sep '12 12:30:32 AM by Carciofus

Not to mention "giving the enemies such a stare that they knew that they've been defeated".

I tend to find that there's a trend to depict the extreme, almost psychopathic violence as 'cool' in more recent media. The original Gundam more or less shows war as a horrfying business. And in Louis Cha's stuff the main character gets horrified by his skills at some point and wishes that he never learnt how to fight: befire realizing that his skills can be used for defending others, obviously.

edited 4th Sep '12 12:54:37 AM by IraTheSquire

Sam Gamgee, is that you?!

You should have a look at Mobile Suit Gundam 0080: War in the Pocket.

Bit of a necro, but cross-posting a link from another thread: Here's you a prototype.

So, yes, this will be a thing sooner rather than later. Now they just need to make it bipedal...

edited 10th Oct '12 5:05:24 PM by TotemicHero

Would definitely not want that to be bipedal (stability and whatnot), but would like to see technology get to the point where normal people can afford that.

Or we could just keep using cars, trucks, and APC's which can do the same thing, carry more on them, and are easier to operate.

That device is little more then a glorified rich boys toy.

Also the mention of the gun is a bad example. Unlike the mecha toy the early guns had practicle use and doing something useful for warfare.

I would be more interested in power armor but the chances of it making an unstoppable killing machine rendering small arms and infantry moot is laughable as giant mecha.

edited 10th Oct '12 8:33:43 PM by TuefelHundenIV

A flying car/APC that is also capable of submarine and space operations?

Hence why I'd like to see it cheap enough for normal people to afford. It is a toy after all. (I think 1.2 mil is over the budget of all but the richest of the rich, so calling it a "rich man's toy" is a bit stretching it)

edited 10th Oct '12 10:44:57 PM by IraTheSquire

Early guns blew up and killed a lot of their users, innocent bystanders, and in a lot of cases those explosions caused fires which set light to whole villages and city blocks. The gun as a weapon of war only really was accepted at all because our ancestors were far less risk averse than we are. They had plagues, almost uniform infant mortality, doctors who would make good apostles for Cthulhu, no sanitation worth a damn (which leads back to the first point), so a little thing like a gun going boom! in the wrong way didn't bother them that much.

Just imagine what would happen if guns had to be invented now?

Thing is Kurotas costs 1.3 million. An M1 is over 6 mill. And outfitting it with real weapons wouldn't be all that difficult. Privat ownership, no, military quite possible.

Yeah, but I don't see this thing working very well on a battlefield, unless maybe it's the more urban sort, and in places tanks can't move properly.

But, you know, running droids are evolving scarily.

This is basically the mech version of the ENIAC. Laughably inefficient and nearly useless, but it's going to be the centerpiece of a museum one day.

Again, they basically built this just to prove it was possible. They weren't too worried about actually supplanting tanks or anything.

ENIAC? Well, if you really want the starting point for modern day computing, try Colossus. The first real programmable electronic computer. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colossus_computer

Everything that came in the field of computing since then owes an incalculable debt to Tommy Flowers and his team. Men and women who are sadly unknown outside the field.

This mech may be the equivalent of Colossus. The start. Genesis. What happens next with mechs is up to the kids of today. Just like kids from yesterday started with ENIAC, as that got the publicity denied to Colossus by Churchill, in one of his most catastrophically bad decisions.

And now I am in front of a computer that Tommy Flowers could only have dreamed of in his wildest fantasies. Because of him.

And I will point and laugh at the pointless tech that is hands down more useless then anything we have.

Here this what this tech is, a toy. Nothing more.

Distracting gizmos with little or no practical use. Unlike the computer which had practical applications from the second it was made, "mechs" have none. We can do the same things they do with much smaller or simpler machines.

You want something even closely related to mechs watch the steady development of power armor. Evne then it won't be some large hulking suit. Current trends are heading for soft suits that fit like a body glove and may possibly work in tandem with an exo-frame.