Reader D.J. Schreffler has alerted me that the Russians recently unveiled the world’s first combat walker at the Army-2018 expo near Moscow. The bipedal mech, which bears more than a passing resemblance to ED-209, was exhibited by Kalashnikov. We’re not dealing with a bunch of weebs messing around in their garage. We’re talking about a world-renowned arms manufacturer with a serious military pedigree.
Looking like a giant egg on legs, Kalashnikov’s “controlled bipedal walker” was introduced at this week’s Army-2018 defense expo near Moscow. Kalashnikov says the “development of technologies” behind the walker will be demonstrated next year.
The walker features a cockpit for a human pilot, a pair of arms ending in pinchers, and enormous metal legs ending in ski-like feet. It has no obvious signs of weapons nor does it appear to be anything more than a nonworking mockup. Important details such as power plant, carrying capacity, and armor are all left unexplained.
Combat walkers, or just ‘mechs,’ have been a part of science fiction for decades. The most famous examples are the AT-ST scout walker from Star Wars, the Amplified Mobility Platform from Avatar, and the L5 Riesig from the game Battlefield 2142. Non-combat versions include the the Caterpillar P-5000 Powered Work Loader from Aliens.
Those are the most famous examples of mecha? Granting the AT-ST, Avatar may have shattered records, but it failed to make a lasting cultural impact. Ripley’s power loader from Aliens is popular, but it’s more like powered armor than a mech.
Have the Popular Mechanics staff never played Battletech? Have they never seen the world’s single most popular mecha franchise?
We must not allow a mech gap. Now, more than ever, we need #AGundam4Us.
NB: I note with some satisfaction that Kalashnikov’s mech is following the initial weaponless engineering template of the Work Frames from Combat Frame XSeed.
Come on Elon I KNOW you have something cooking up for this!
Private sector space flight.
Pumping millions into electrical capacitor R&D.
Flamethrowers.
There's a lot of smoke there, but there's some fire.
My first thought was ED-209 from Robocop.
Same here. Don't it just put spring in your step and a song in your heart?
Same here. Not surprised the limp-twisted, fake news professional gossip had never seen the original Robocop.
Which is exactly why I suspect that this really isn't a piece of legitimate military tech at all. Here's my theory: This is all secretly some sort of Russian psy-op designed to encourage the West to overinvest in armaments that will ultimately be a drag on their armies' capability and effectiveness. Some have even argued that we brought down the Soviets with an approach like this, using Reagan's Star Wars concept instead of a battle droid.
A serious nation does not put faith in a weapon that Robocop already defeated simply by tricking it into walking downstairs!
On a slightly related note, as stated on your previous Tumblr anime post my friend and I are looking to open our own hybrid game / animation production studio. How do we police hiring to keep out SJW idealogues?
Politics is not a protected class. Discriminate against shitlibs, and because physiognomy is real you can and should quietly cull anyone with soyface or problem tells. Don't even HAVE an HR department if you can avoid it, and never go public.
Oh I’m not worried about the HR thing. We intend to run as tight a ship and as lean a crew as possible
Writing will be handled strictly by us. No shoehorning any degeneracy on our watch
Give interviews with loaded questions and pay close attention to the answers.
They’ll have to be carefully crafted to avoid giving away the ploy but definitely
Inquisitor Niemeier, what loaded questions would YOU ask to a prospective animator or artist hire to keep out SJW filth from infiltrating your organization?
I'm not Brian but I'll provide a modest set of questions to start off:
1) How many biological genders do humans have?
2) What are your influences and why?
3) What do good, the beautiful and the true mean to you and how does it shape your art?
4) What is the latest book you've read?
5) How do you regard Dursay, Aston Clark, etc as literary influences?
6) ETC
Basically you trigger responses. If they're SJW, they'll literally twitch and expose their Tourette"s logorreia spergespasm through the buzzword salad. Literally like vain and reptitious prayers that Jesus warned against.
xavier
First one might be too blunt but other than that I’ll jot those down
Upon further consideration in this crazy day and age nothing is too blunt. First one goes oncthe list then. Thank you. Any other suggestions anyone?
Question 5 might be too obscure. You can't count on them having read Dursay, Aston Clark, etc. I'm on your side and I haven't read them yet.
Still working on ERB's Barsoom. I'll get to it.
I would either replace it with a question about what they think of SJWs as literary influences (perhaps MZB?), or keep the first question and add one about SJW side.
I also would add: What should the purpose of the studio be? [Most acceptable answer: To glorify God, and to make money by providing products that entertain people.] This is a nice question because it's the sort of question SJWs will ask, but want an entirely different answer for.
Is who someone is different from what someone does? If so, which is more important?
What do you think of the following propositions?
There is no truth, only competing agendas.
All Western (and especially American) claims to moral superiority over Communism/Fascism/Islam are vitiated by the West’s history of racism and colonialism.
There are no objective standards by which we may judge one culture to be better than another. Anyone who claims that there are such standards is an evil oppressor.
The prosperity of the West is built on ruthless exploitation of the Third World; therefore Westerners actually deserve to be impoverished and miserable.
Crime is the fault of society, not the individual criminal. Poor criminals are entitled to what they take. Submitting to criminal predation is more virtuous than resisting it.
The poor are victims. Criminals are victims. And only victims are virtuous. Therefore only the poor and criminals are virtuous. (Rich people can borrow some virtue by identifying with poor people and criminals.)
For a virtuous person, violence and war are never justified. It is always better to be a victim than to fight, or even to defend oneself. But ‘oppressed’ people are allowed to use violence anyway; they are merely reflecting the evil of their oppressors.
When confronted with terror, the only moral course for a Westerner is to apologize for past sins, understand the terrorist’s point of view, and make concessions.
[These are noted by Eric S. Raymond as memes the communists weaponized against the West in general and the U.S.A. in particular. See http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=260%5D
And I am sure there are more. Camouflage for Q5 and 'What should the purpose of the studio be?' are the main ones.
Vox Day is writing his third book in the SJW series titled Corporate Cancer, witha subtitle about removing and policing the organization from SJWs. He’s a busy man, but if you email him a list of questions would make a good blog post and align with an update on the book. Might be a good supplement to what is above.
Already looking forward to it. And that certainly could be a cool blog post
Addition: limp handshakes are a big red flag
Finally!
"I can no longer sit back and allow Communist infiltration, Communist indoctrination, Communist subversion and the international Communist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids."
— Gen Jack D. Ripper
General Ripper did nothing wrong.
This brings back memories of playing those old mechwarrior games. I love it.
Fiannawolf