"Fembots, not Killbots!"

[dale coba]

Killer robots must be stopped, say campaigners

Join the movement this Spring.

We need to subvert the good guys,
swap out a small portion of their anti-military rhetoric
for a pro-technosexuality alternative.

"Fembots, not Killbots!"


- Dale Coba

[King Snarf]

But if we eliminate the Killbots, then who will Zap Branigan send wave after wave of his own men against?!?

[Svengli]

"Make love-bots, not war-bots"

Might be our best bet!

[darkbutflashy]

Now that killbots exist, it's inevitable we need technology to scrap those killbots whenever we encounter them.

"I sell missiles, anti-missiles, anti-anti-missiles, anti-anti-anti-missiles - and there are still people who buy the missiles "

[dale coba]

E.M.P. - the great leveler.

I have yet to see any mainstream discussions of really efficient, easy-to-make, easy-to-use E.M.P. devices.

Films haven't often used such a device all that often - the portable, cheap kind. If the only tech around is enemy killbots, fire away; but knocking out everybody's tech indiscriminately in every direction creates a mess, and then the plot is affected because you have to keep using the E.M.P. whenever it would help the heroes. Leverage kept bringing their E.M.P. hand-held back on the show, because it was too handy to avoid.

Widespread access to a Tesla-cocktail, rather than Molotov,
would royally phukup so many possible, imagined versions of the Future.

- Dale Coba

[darkbutflashy]

Widespread access to a Tesla-cocktail...

A Tesla transformer assembly is simply copper wires and copper plates. You don't need any special ingredients, only the patience to build it all your own from wires and plates, because all the components are non-standard. And the patience just to re-build it after the prototype's insulation broke because you trusted your calculations.

[dale coba]

I was naming it after Tesla, but not basing anything on his designs (did he have one?)
And what kind of a range and strength ould you get?
I should think this would be widely used in crime and war zones.
[cricket-chirp; cricket-chirp]

The simpleton's take I got from Wikipedia was that you needed the explosive compression of a charged, conductive ring. That sounds messy.

When I hear of this tech being actually used in conflict, especially by the underdog, then I'll believe.

- Dale Coba

[D.Olivaw]

*Physicist Mode Activated*

A useful handheld EMP generator ("pulse grenade" type thing) is unlikely in the near future for a number of reasons. We can use non-explosive means to generate EMP right now, but only within a few meters of a large and heavy device. Explosives will get your further, but not by much and are of course rather messy. The other route to go is generating a microwave beam. This has been achieved and miniaturized to the point where we can build a cruise missile that fries the electronics under its flight path for a certain distance.
http://gizmodo.com/5954403/boeings-new- ... socialflow

Then there's the old standby, nuclear weapons. Nuclear derived EMP is nowheres near the threat most people think it is, though. You need a very high-yield device (the sort no one has very many of anymore) to be initiated at a fairly specific altitude that isn't useful for anything else. Even then most devices can be protected by unplugging them.

EMP proofing also isn't terribly complicated from what I understand. The main provision is to just give the device a sensor and program it to shut off when it detects the precursor to the damaging event. Adds some cost and lowers performance a little. IIRC most military electronics are EMP protected.

[dale coba]

The other route to go is generating a microwave beam. This has been achieved and miniaturized to the point where we can build a cruise missile that fries the electronics under its flight path for a certain distance.

Then that would be the tech I'm looking at, anticipating its development and use by non-state actors, such as terrorists, thieves, or civilians.

EMP proofing also isn't terribly complicated from what I understand. The main provision is to just give the device a sensor and program it to shut off when it detects the precursor to the damaging event. Adds some cost and lowers performance a little. IIRC most military electronics are EMP protected.

Leaving out military targets, if the shut-off system is anything like cyber security, it will be employed spottily, and implemented and maintained poorly. Companies, institutions have taught us how often they only take a threat seriously after being bitten.

If the shut-off is widely used, attackers will adapt.
It's a new point of vulnerability, set off explosions precisely to force the power off..

- Dale Coba

[darkbutflashy]

EMP proofing also isn't terribly complicated from what I understand.

The damage an EMP does is making all semiconductors *conducting* for a short time. It's the same when you heat a sillicon chip far more than 125°C (a usual test condition) while it's being switched on. Because it becomes conducting, push-pull outputs of the circuits inside the chip are shortened from power to ground, which overheats the crystal even more and destroys it.

Simple circuits can be made safe against that by limiting the current with resistors, but for chips with millions of tiny transistors shorting the power outside the chips is the only thing which works.

[liliwinnt6]

Are we talking about how to destroy any robot or droid?

[D.Olivaw]

It was my mistake not to mention this, Dale, but the protected system comes back online less than a second after shutting off; from the perspective of the user everything flickers as the dangerous pulse passes.