US Military Builds MMO Earth Simulator

transient writes "BBC reports that the US military is creating a second Earth with help from There. At the moment, only Kuwait City has been modeled, but the ultimate goal is to model the entire Earth using existing terrain data and a super-accurate physics model. While combat will be part of the game, 'the emphasis in the artificial Earth will be on human interaction rather than conflicts involving lots of military hardware.'"

Comments

Gigantic Quake server

[Mick Ohrberg]

Oh MAN, imagine the MASSIVE deathmatch games you could play! Or even better - BF1942!

Re:Gigantic Quake server

[AndroidCat]

Quake? I want to watch people's faces when the system announces that North Korea has launched a zergling rush.

Deep Thought

[Black Rabbit]

Isn't this the flipside of building the Earth 2 to solve the Great Question of Life, The Universe and Everything, for which the answer is 42?

Re:Deep Thought

[Speare]

Not exactly-- Earth2 was just a replacement for the first Earth computer. The Earth we're standing on is the computer which was commissioned by the mice and predicted by Deep Thought to solve the Great Question. The Golgafrinchans crashed into it after boot-up and knocked the computation a bit early on, but the Vogons destroyed Earth (er, wioll haven destroy it*) five minutes before the Question could be retrieved.

(ref. vis. Dr. Dan Streetmentioner)

Why do we need another Earth ?

[dapyx]

BBC reports that the US military is creating a second Earth The first one already got blown up by the Vogons?

Oh crap

[LNO]

I hope they don't model my apartment, or else anyone can login and find out where I've hidden my porn.

i wonder the level of detail

[millahtime]

I wonder if they will simulate in extreme detail. Like all the nude beaches in Europe or the Playboy mansion. If terrorists attack the Playboy Mansion during a party they have to know how to handle that. If so, I wonder if they are taking resumes.

The Sims

[parawing742]

Now if they would just make the earth data available as a plug-in for The Sims, I would never have to leave my computer again!

Re:The Sims

[mangu]

If you put your computer by the door, can't they just slide the pizza under the door? And drill a hole in the door where they can deliver the Mountain Dew.

First of a kind?

[thehe]

Will this make the US the first dual-world superpower in history?

peeved

[DarkHelmet]

I'm so glad to be living in the US, just to know that my tax dollars go towards making a version of The Sims on crack.

But the part that pisses me off is that they won't let me pl

Virtual Wars?

[p_millipede]

Now all we need to do is convince the world's military, terrorists, militia's etc. (anyone who might be interested) to hold all their confilicts in this virtual world and just let the outcome of virtual wars be accepted as if it had really happened (minus the loss of life).

Obviously, we'd need to make sure the Americans aren't using cheats. Just imagine the standard procedure before entering combat. Press tilde, type 'AmericaRulesOK 1' followed by '/god', '/allweapons' and '/allammo'

Re:So...

[gabec]

Right-o. And they're keeping the servers on the ... (dun dun dun...) thirteenth floor.

The question is....

[Rican]

Would I be able to "create" myself as a Wood Elf Druid chick even though I'm a 250lbs guy in real life?

Why bother.

[glen]

Why spend all that money?

We already know the answer is 42.

Grand Theft auto...

[millahtime]

I wonder if they can give the detail of Grand Theft auto. They I could play dropped down in Iraq going after Sadam and Bin Laden. I could steal a tank and run them over. Maybe get some Iraq hookers. Grand Theft Auto Iraq.

Watch out for Kirk Logic(tm)

[xleeko]

Yea, we could convert all of our conflicts into computer simulations, install disintegration booths, the whole nine yards.

... but then William Shatner would drop by and screw up the whole thing. Then he would sing "Lucy [pause] in the Sky [pause] with Diamonds" just to rub it in.

- Dave

There = Evil

[richie2000]

There mandates the use of MSIE to access There.

Evil. Evil, I say!

This claimer: Having MSIE bundled with Windows poses no problem for me, I see it as they include Notepad instead of Word and Calculator instead of Excel. So why not let them include Internet Explorer instead of a real browser? However, I dislike sites that require it. It's like mailing around text files that need Notepad to read... Rude.

A new earth?

[maiden_taiwan]

The mice will be furious!

Re:Using the RFID chips implanted ...

[the_weasel]

Huh. When did you get out of the Pod?

If they are tracking my private moments they will get a lot of lying on the couch after dinner with the top button of my jeans undone, watching television.

I am basically jamming the signals with massive waves of mediocrity.

Hrm

[BenBenBen]

The detailed simulation will be drawn from a real-world terrain database and will be drawn to the same scale as the original.

They're going to need a bloody big monitor.

But I keep hearing the voice...

[abb3w]

...of Terry Gilliam saying "It's only a model".

of course ...

[Wordsmith]

... this could be used for the best game of Populous EVER.