
War Never Changes, But It Does Get Cooler
None of you remember how movies end, do you? In fact, we’re just not sure most people remember the middle of these movies, or even how they began.
Why the lack of faith in the movie-going throngs who guaranteed MINIONS a half-billion-dollar opening weekend, encouraged four TRANSFORMERS movies, and have spent twenty-plus years guaranteeing that Adam Sandler keeps earning a living trolling people with taste everywhere? Oh, aside from that? Well, because if the majority of people actually paid attention to how movies ended, a gun that inflicts enough mind-melting pain via low-frequency radiation to turn human beings ostensibly into “zombies” would be strictly the stuff of Silver Age comics and not a developing project bandied about by the Australian military.
Geek.com recently stood back and surveyed the rising dawn of futuristic weaponry, and the summation seems to be, “Everything we know about consequences, we learned from movies – and not good ones.”
The DARPA tracking bullet isn’t exactly a “new” aspiration, having been everything from an urban legend to a confirmed research project for years, currently having accelerated to the Exacto program’s .50 caliber shells with their own inbound computer guidance systems. Being avowed METAL GEAR SOLID, CRYSIS, PREDATOR and HARRY POTTER die-hards – yes, we have a fan-fic, and no, you can’t read it – we can’t deny needing to pass out towels at the realization that optical “quantum camouflage” that bends light to conceal its wearer seamlessly into its surroundings is so very, VERY close to being a thing.
In our eyes, Lockheed Martin’s Human Universal Load Carrier is the undisputed mother-lode of kick-ass casual, mechanized titanium leg braces that permit their wearer to schlep up to 200 pounds endlessly without breaking a sweat. After reading this, we had to patiently explain to Duane in Accounting why his suit made of Jiffy Pop foil and Hungry, Hungry Hippos parts would not allow him to run a 40-yard dash with an ATM on his back like that crazed, ‘roided-up goof last season on GOTHAM.
Yes, what wonderful toys.
The point being, Ron Perlman, as usual, was right: war never changes. People will always keep trying to shove bigger and bigger boots up one another’s asses while trying to find ways to make the boots Rick-roll their foes while crammed up there. With all these means of making weapons leaner, more efficient, more easily remotely controlled and more – *sigh* – unholy awesome, we can’t help but think the phrase “falls into the wrong hands” has ever occurred to anyone.
Oh, well. Last one into the Vault owes us Nuka-Cola all around.
- Liquid metal missiles
- Neuromorphic drones
- Plasma forcefields
- Powered exoskeletons
- Quantum camouflage
- Centrifugal guns
- Cyborg insects
- Drone-blasting lasers
- Tracking bullets
- Zombie guns
- Thunder generators
Source – Geek