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Sci-fi Writers Join War on Terror
yoyoq writes "Homeland Security is looking for suggestions from sci-fi writers. "Looking to prevent the next terrorist attack, the Homeland Security Department is tapping into the wild imaginations of a group of self-described "deviant" thinkers: science-fiction writers."
Here's a suggestion: 9-11 could have been prevented with locks on the cockpit door."
Put a Terminator on every plane. What could go wrong?
"When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson
No. You're wrong. Everyone knows that locks are impossible to get around.
How we know is more important than what we know.
They should get a science fiction writer to create a religion to create an alternative to Islam. Oh.
Lemme see...
- train your stormtroopers so they can hit a man sized target at 100 ft distance
- don't have your war droids depend on a centralized node that, when destroyed, would disable the whole army
- make sure there are no vents leading directly to your death star's reactor, no matter how hard or unlikely to hit they are
- fun as it may be, and sure as you may be that he's a complete bastard, don't send a father to torture his daughter and duel his son. They might end up working together against you. Also, if you've decided to replace him with his son, don't tell it to his face.
- don't make yourself hated by whole populations in the first place. Destroying whole planets just to show you can, is actually pretty bad PR. It's bad for your tax income too. Noone will rise in rebellion or send suicide bombers against you for just treating them right and creating employment.
- make sure the doors, especially prison doors or doors to critical command rooms, can't be opened by shooting the control panel. And generally, security means everything should fail in the way that is the least of a security problem. Losing electricity should cause the door bolts to lock the door (e.g., they're on springs that push them to the locked state, and you need current to pull them open), not unlock it.
- for that matter, and according to the same principle, a damaged reactor should tend to shut down, not blow up. There's a reason 20'th century nuclear reactors need current to keep the moderator rods out, and get to shut down if they lose that current
- control consoles don't have much of a reason to explode when the ship takes a hit in some point half a mile away. You may need that console again, and trained specialist officers that operate them are expensive to replace too
- invest in some shielding technology, or at least armour. The Mitsubishi A6M Zero fared poorer than you'd think with only speed and maneuverability as its only defenses, and got shot by airplanes which could take a whole clip and keep flying. The TIE fighter is just repeating an existing mistake. Don't do it.
And generally, read the evil overlord's list already.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
They might as well just post the discussion here.
Here's my list:
"we've got trenchcoats and bad attitudes" - John Constantine, HellBlazer
With knitting needles someone could knit an Afghan.
Chuck Norris.
Dude must have a hell of time flying. He's a lethal weapon.
One roundhouse kick and the plane will fall out of the sky.
Not to mention the effect he has on the female cab crew.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Further to that, prior to 9/11, 99% of hijackings resulted in one of two things:
1. Hijacker is arrested the moment they get off the plane and spends a nice long time in prison.
2. Hijacker is shot the moment they get off the plane and spends a nice long time dead.
Also, what good is a think tank without tracks and armor? We need motorized brains, dammit! No wonder the terrists keep blowing up stuff (mostly themselves, granted).
USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
the idea of entering cockpits and taking over airplanes and flying them into office towers is straight out of hollywood. stupidly easy to prevent, in terms of logistical hurdles and pre-existing intelligence, but straight out of hollywood nonetheless. in fact, were 9/11 a movie instead of reality, someone in the theatre would compain: "wouldn't they just lock the cockpit door? these hollywood screenwriters are so stupid"
which leads one to conclude 2 things:
1. if terrorists get their ideas from steven seagal/ jean-claude van damme scripts, then homeland security can do two things:
a. watch a lot of old bruce willis/ sylvester stallone movies, and compile a list of possible attack vectors
b. actively feed hollywood retarded movie scripts featuring attack vectors that would never work, and wait for the terrorists to try them
2. screw sci-fi writers. elicit the help of b-grade hollywood action movie writers. who wrote "true lies" with sylvester stallone? who wrote "the pacifier" starring vin diesel? sci-fi writers? ha! tom clancey is our go to man to simulate the imagination of terrorists
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
On one hand, I really don't know if it's a good idea for politicians to read books at all, let alone speak to writers. Here in the UK someone misread 1984 and took it to be a guide book promoting the merits of the police state, complete with instructions.
On the the other hand though, if the writers really pushed the boat out and highlighted the - ever so real - danger of space based terrorism, who knows, NASA may get funding to build decent spacecraft (maybe even a Star Destroyer). Wouldn't want one of them little rascals redirecting an asteroid to hit N.Y. now would we?
They might get some great ideas, but some other undesirable ones as well. A list might look like:
1) Implanted identification chip for every person, worldwide at birth. This (if engineered correctly) would make administering a no-fly list much easier. It would also make it easier to track all fertilizer and ammonia purchases, because the chip would be required for commerce, too.
2) Remote control of the plane, so some RC hobbyist can fly it to the ground. Or, better yet, some child who is playing a flight simulator game (oops, I read Ender's Game recently).
3) Rig all planes for remote auto-destruct. Wait! There's a suspected terrorist on that plane? Blow it up now, so they cannot kill additional people. Then there are public service announcements lauding the innocent passengers who were heros to the motherland.
4) Require all passengers to be put into stasis before flying. Then you can load them in cargo tubes and eliminate the first-class/coach price disparity.
5) Use amusement park style restraints that are locked before take-off and unlocked only when approaching the destination terminal. Built-in porta-pottys would be a must.
6) Clear vast areas of ground as designated fly-way corridors. These would lead to massive airports away form major metropolitan areas and would have massive ground transport hubs. If any plane veers out of the approved flight corridors, they are shot down.
7) Permanently ground domestic flights and force people to take the train. We know terrorists would never successfully pull off an attack on a train, because people might actually converse. It would be relatively easy to spot the non-conversant-I'm-ready-to-die crowd among the other social riders [OK. Inside joke here.]
8) Revisit that implanted chip. It now includes circuitry that can be remotely triggered to induce a major coronary event. Wait! That guy in 16b is acting suspicious! I'm going to trip his chip.
9) Nuke the entire planet. With no people around, there are no terrorists.
10) Make Sesame Street mandatory in-flight viewing for all flights. The colorful, friendly characters and their message of sharing and caring will re-program the minds of all passengers toward a life of increased harmony and peace (especially after the government adds subluminal anti-terror messages every few frames)!
I use irony whenever I can, but my shirts are still wrinkled...
1. Vaporize the terrorists with beam weapons
2. Seduce the beautiful but deadly female terrorist leader and turn her to your cause
3. Send the beautiful but tough female noncom to blow them all up without needing one of those stupid 'men' to help (but she does get the sensitive, understanding, but also handsome guy she wants, of course, she just doesn't NEED him)
4. Upload a virus into the terrorists' mothership and bring it down
5. Expose the terrorists to simple bacteria, which their alien metabolisms can't handle
6. Ask for the Big Gun instead of the Good Package
http://xkcd.com/386/
Maybe not, but we may as well give the Christians the benefit of the doubt...