Slashdot Mirror
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
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.
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.
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?
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/