The Armory - Guns, Knives, and Axes

[Smitty-48]

Not to mention that the Expanse has an Alien Stargate

This is more gritty and realistic than the Expanse.

The technology is not super advanced, they just took the US military tech we have now, and sent it to space.

All the kit works in space, there was no reason to invent new weapons.

[Smitty-48]

There's no aliens to fight, so there is no drive to advance the technology to fight the aliens

The enemy here is the Russians, the Americans have the better equipment.

There's no Bug Hunt.

The only aliens they discover are under the ice of Europa.

But turns out the aliens are just fish, it's not E.T. they're just lobsters or whatever.

[Smitty-48]

There's no Stargate, there's no Wormholes, there's no constant acceleration as in the Expanse

There's no intelligent alien enemy, the enemies remain the same, mostly the Russian Cosmonauts

They are working on starships, but it's the Orion, nuclear pellet with push bad.

The Orion is still in testing, they haven't set out for Alpha Centauri yet,

The Orion is first exploring the outer solar system, to test it out.

[Smitty-48]

The A.I. is the most advanced thing they have. HAL 9000's from Lawrence Livermore. USS Kubrick

However, the main driver for A.I. advancement, why it's so advanced, was commercial

The future Internet is VR. It's like a nascent version of the Matrix

The biggest driver of A.I. advancement, was pornography.

Sex dolls. All the dudes in the future have A.I. Waifu's in VR

That's where the money went, they didn't invest in conventional weapons,

they can't fight on Earth anymore, too many nukes, too many nuclear powers, Earth is a stalemate.

[Smitty-48]

So what happens is, the Cold War expands beyond earth, to the higher ground

The Space Race. It's a colony war, it's about building colonies, that's the main component of the "war"

It's a Cold War, there are only very specific theaters in space were the Cold War goes hot.

In the Asteroid Belt. In and around Saturn

Jupiter is not hot war at this point, the Jovian system is like East & West Germany

Saturn is Space Vietnam. Contested Volume.

Mars is Spaceghanistan, Ungoverned Space.

[Smitty-48]

The original plan for the Battle Droids, was that they would fight autonomous, the man would just supervise

But what happened was the men couldn't just sit back and watch their fates come at them, so they took control

Then what they found out is that it works better as a Man-Machine Team. (MMT)

there was synergy between Operator and A.I., they fought better as a team, they got better as they went.

So this is what led to the Main Battle Droid™ (MBD)

the Droid to dominate all the other droids in close combat.

[Smitty-48]

What they also found out, is that once the Operator was VR controlling the MBD, he was good at CQC

The quickest and easiest way to kill things was to just close with them and chop them with a big fire axe.

So it became like French & Indian War in Space. 18th century styile

You run out of gun ammo relatively quickly, then you close to CQC and kill the target with a melee weapon.

Then it became ; the man was fighting the Melee while the A.I. was covering him, watching his back.

Because they don't trust the A.I., it is not programmed to be aggressive. It's programmed to be passive

All aggressive action is taken by the man in the loop, the A.I. is just the co-pliot

[Smitty-48]

There is a Law of Robotics in effect

It is a war crime to program your A.I.s to kill autonomously.

The man in the loop is the constitutional representative of the National Command Authority

Only he is legally empowered to kill people, the A.I. is prohibited, it can only defend him, it doesn't attack.

[Smitty-48]

There are Red Lines in the Cold War Space Race.

First off, they don't attack each other's colonies ; Mutual Vulnerability (MAD)

Second, they don't fight everywhere in the System, because they fear lateral escalation back to earth

So most of the forces just sit in the Jovian system eye to eye with each other, but don't fight, Inner Jovian Border

What they do is like the Falkland Islands War, they establish Total Exclusion Zones (TEZ)

Within in the TEZ, the war can go hot. At the edge of the TEZ, you have to check fire.

The TEZ's are in the Contested Volumes ; The Asteroid Sea & Rings of Saturn

The Asteroid Sea is called the Silent War. It's like Submarine Warfare in Space.

The Rings of Saturn, are Space Vietnam. The moons around Saturn are Space Cambodia

What they are contesting at Saturn, is Titan. The most valuable asset in space.

What they are contesting in the Asteroids, is water. The most valuable commodity in space

[Smitty-48]

So the A.I. on the MBD is more of a housekeeper. HAL 9000 runs all the secondary tasks.

HAL 9000 keeps watch so the Operator can relax, workout, sleep.

It's a one man crew, the crew compartment is tiny, there's nowhere to go, there's nothing to do.

Most of the time, there is no action, most of the time they are just standing by, on picket duty.

For weeks and months on end. War is Boring.

So the other role of the A.I. is to foster morale. HAL 9000 keeps them company, in VR.

It's not the Internet, it's a secure Intranet, so they can't leave their VR construct, it's a closed loop.

It's a tiny little version of the VR Internet, just on the MBD. Like a nascent Holodeck.

The higher functions of HAL 9000 are not for war, it's not like a person for tactical reasons

The purpose of the A.I. Persona is to keep the Operator company, so he doesn't go stir crazy,

The purpose of the VR construct is to give him a larger house to live in, outside of the beer can.

This is also where they train. Man Machine Team (MMT) training area, VR Intranet Simulator.