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US Military Builds MMO Earth Simulator

Posted by michael on from the one-is-not-enough dept.

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.'"

17 of 525 comments (clear)

  1. Gigantic Quake server by Mick+Ohrberg · · Score: 5, Funny

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

    --

    Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.

    1. Re:Gigantic Quake server by AndroidCat · · Score: 5, Funny

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

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      One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
  2. Deep Thought by Black+Rabbit · · Score: 5, Funny

    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?

    1. Re:Deep Thought by Speare · · Score: 4, Funny
      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)

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      [ .sig file not found ]
  3. Oh crap by LNO · · Score: 5, Funny

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

  4. i wonder the level of detail by millahtime · · Score: 5, Funny

    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.

    --
    Evolution or ID?
  5. The Sims by parawing742 · · Score: 5, Funny

    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!

  6. First of a kind? by thehe · · Score: 5, Funny

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

  7. peeved by DarkHelmet · · Score: 4, Funny

    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

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    /^[A-Z0-9._%+-]+@[A-Z0-9.-]+\.[A-Z]{2,4}$/i
  8. Virtual Wars? by p_millipede · · Score: 5, Funny
    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'

  9. Re:So... by gabec · · Score: 4, Funny
    Right-o. And they're keeping the servers on the ... (dun dun dun...) thirteenth floor.

  10. The question is.... by Rican · · Score: 5, Funny

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

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    Rican

    Want a free iPod?

  11. Grand Theft auto... by millahtime · · Score: 4, Funny

    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.

    --
    Evolution or ID?
  12. A new earth? by maiden_taiwan · · Score: 4, Funny

    The mice will be furious!

  13. Hrm by BenBenBen · · Score: 5, Funny
    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.
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  14. But I keep hearing the voice... by abb3w · · Score: 4, Funny

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

    --
    //Information does not want to be free; it wants to breed.
  15. of course ... by Wordsmith · · Score: 4, Funny

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