Lieutenant Fusilier in The Farthest Reaches

Reader mode
ancusohm said:
I mean, I'm guessing that they could eventually find some way to create a machine mind with enough cognitive plasticity (or whatever you would need) to adapt to non-human bodies or senses (like extra arms or the ability see in ultraviolet or whatever), but I would think that would involve a lot of trial and (probably pretty unpleasant) error. Even if they found a way to make it work, there could be side effects for the successes. Like, maybe they manage to stop machines from being discomforted when houseed in non-humanoid bodies by 'turning off' the part of the mind that identifies with your body, and, like... sure that would technically achieve the goal, but it sounds like it would make a bunch of new problems.

But maybe not. There was an experiment a few years back that genetically modified mice to have an additional color sensing-cone in their eyes. Baby mice that grew up with the extra colors seemed to handle it just fine. And I think that's kinda neat.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Ahah, thanks for reminding me about the other Big Deal study on this topic, which demonstrated that primates - not even humans, monkeys! - already have the necessary degree of neuroplasticity to directly accept arbitrary extra limbs.

You know the feeling you have when you're using a broom to sweep a floor or cutting up an onion with a knife or drawing with a pencil? How you don't really have to think about moving your fingers individually and you just kind of go "Move the broom there" or "Put a line here" or "Cut this bit" and your body does it? That's the same bit of neurological circuitry that handles driving, jet fighters, and Halo; you don't have to think about "move the stick up" or "wrap fingers around wheel and pull to the right", you just go "park there" or "pull up" or "shoot that" and your brain has incorporated the car or jet fighter or Master Chief simulation into your proprioception. Well, it turns out that that precise system is also flexible enough that you can drop a grid of electrodes into a monkey's brain and hook the electrodes up to a robot arm and the monkeys will immediately begin learning to use that arm. It won't even take them very long to get good enough at it to feed themselves. As far as your brain is concerned, a broom or a car is an extra arm.
Article:
Here we describe a system that permits embodied prosthetic control; we show how monkeys (Macaca mulatta) use their motor cortical activity to control a mechanized arm replica in a self-feeding task. In addition to the three dimensions of movement, the subjects' cortical signals also proportionally controlled a gripper on the endof the arm.
 
Last edited:
open_sketch said:
A lighter had come down and evacuated the remaining civilians, though I spotted Doctor Zsanett afterward: I imagine she might be staying to study any more aliens we confront.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Hmmm, I wonder if our rebellious sergeant went with them? I suspect they are not done making trouble for us.

open_sketch said:
"What's our position in the line?" I asked, and Captain Murray shook her head.

"The rear, I'm afraid. We're on artillery guard duty. We're going to hold the base camp while the main force pushes down into the field, then escort the guns and Volta wagon down to the dig site. That'll be where the battery sets up, we're hoping if they value the gateway they'll be too afraid to use counterbattery fire. All we have to do is play keep-away with any skirmishers or cavalry, if they have them."
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Sorry Captain, but you are likely going to be disappointed. I am glad they are not going to be in the van so Thea to get some more confidence being a Lieutenant, but I suspect this is going to blow up in their faces.

Oh, maybe they are going to have to retreat through the gateway to escape the overwhelming odds! That would be fun.
 
Want to say, absolutely love the story! I get the feeling that Theodora "I hope this doesn't ruin our friendship" Fusilier was built with a significant Osmium/Iridium impurity, however, given her wonderful density. Kennedy's gonna need a lot more than artillery to get through that, assuming I'm reading the situation correctly (what a dreadful thought, being correct).

And now to ask about military technology! I do want to clarify that I love the concept of laser musketry and mechanical line infantry in an age of golden sail. This isn't intended as criticism or trying to poke holes in things, I just like talking and hearing about worldbuilding and the gritty little cogs of stories. Love nothing more than a state of affairs strongly supported by in-universe justification.

Now, as far as I can understand it, the ability for robotic line infantry to reign supreme in this universe is that by being supremely tough, they are able to weather enough firepower to be able to bring their own to bear or even engage in melee. However, why only field artillery and infantry? Would a tank not be able to mount similar or greater armor while allowing the same amount of concentration of firepower that mechanical infantry can? Given the presence of human-sized force screens, would it not be viable to mount a similar device on a heavily armored carriage, creating a gun platform that is nearly invulnerable, likely faster than infantry, and capable of mounting guns like revolver cannons, gravitic howitzers, or similar weaponry? It would be perhaps less effective in a melee, but a heavy vehicle could reasonably be expected to outrun most things while being able to perform a nasty charge if called for (a bayonet is probably not going to be able to stop a force-screened hunk of metal barreling towards you at speed). Is there some factor in-universe as to why a tank or similar vehicle is not effective?

And for in-universe theorizing, I like the idea that machines could be built almost like razors, with a very narrow frontal profile. It would allow for more units to be packed closer together, with the side benefit of making getting hit less likely without sacrificing reach. Long arms and legs more like boards than cylinders, small torsos more like the prow of a ship or a well-angled cuirass. Perhaps with the ability to adopt a hunched forward, almost raptor-like stance to reduce frontal profile further while not sacrificing reach.

Of course, I'm basically proposing bird mechs at this point.
 
Last edited:
flatly, tanks don't fit the aesthetic, so yeet! out of the setting they go. that said, we don't know how far the definition of horse or field gun goes in this universe.

it may also be an inverse square law thing, with the robots at just the right size for their armour. but finally, this is napoleonic starship troopers, and neither of those settings have tanks. if anyone can come up with an excuse, i'd love it.

also yeah, no go on bird mechs. the robots are human shaped because they like being human shaped.
 
Last edited:
open_sketch said:
flatly, tanks don't fit the aesthetic, so yeet! out of the setting they go. that said, we don't know how far the definition of horse or field gun goes in this universe.

it may also be an inverse square law thing, with the robots at just the right size for their armour. but finally, this is napoleonic starship troopers, and neither of those settings have tanks. if anyone can come up with an excuse, i'd love it.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

My thought is just - tanks came from a very specific need in warfare, right? Entranched positions that could be overrun by a tank, and wouldn't be able to repel it, where standard cavalry stopped working.

And why would any of that have happened here? For one thing, they aren't actually drilling or wargaming WW1 / WW2 style tactics and defenses. For two... cavalry probably still work in this setting, and you can simply take those and increase the armor on them. There's no natural niche or need that would establish tanks as a military doctrine, that I can think of.
 
If you want to not have tanks, it's easy enough. The optimal tank form for satisfying lanchester's law goodness is a gun that can adequately hit its targets, an engine that can move the thing around, armor that makes it a pain to take the thing out, and as many of the things as possible. That way you can spread out hits as much as possible and have as many independent cracks at hitting the target. That sounds a lot like doras.

If there's something that requires a serious step up in protection from the robot baseline, then there's a question you need to answer with a tank.

If you really want tanks, honestly the column earlier bogging down in mud has the best argument for AFVs and that's being able to be comparatively lower ground pressure. I bet Theo/Doras sink in rough terrain something fierce, while an all-tracked tank can be surprisingly comparable to a human.
 
xthetenth said:
If you really want tanks, honestly the column earlier bogging down in mud has the best argument for AFVs and that's being able to be comparatively lower ground pressure. I bet Theo/Doras sink in rough terrain something fierce, while an all-tracked tank can be surprisingly comparable to a human.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Yeah, it's a tradeoff - tracks work better through mud and snow, feet work better through forests and buildings. Maybe it's a question of flexibility? Those electromagnetic snowshoes probably let Theo/Doras deal with mud better than an AFV could be outfitted to deal with trees.

Maybe the problem is that Theo/Doras make good enough combat engineers that czech hedgehogs and similar anti-vehicle fortifications are too easy to build?
 
War wagons were a thing for ages but they eventually fell out of use once cannons became a thing.

If airplanes aren't around due to how effective theatre shielding is than you can just go with the explanation that field guns are so strong nowadays that being small and fast is way more effective than being a large, relatively slow target.
 
Vebyast said:
Yeah, it's a tradeoff - tracks work better through mud and snow, feet work better through forests and buildings. Maybe it's a question of flexibility? Those electromagnetic snowshoes probably let Theo/Doras deal with mud better than an AFV could be outfitted to deal with trees.

Maybe the problem is that Theo/Doras make good enough combat engineers that czech hedgehogs and similar anti-vehicle fortifications are too easy to build?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Seems as if a force screen in the configuration of a snowplow would help a lot with dealing with any light anti-vehicle fortifications. Or trees for that matter. Even modern tanks are capable of driving through large dirt berms. Something with more motive power and an energy field projector could probably do a lot worse.

(past this point I'm more going off on my own tangent rather than responding to this post in particular)

One thing to remember is that a "tank" built with this universe's tech doesn't necessarily need to be as large as a modern one, or even tank-shaped. Equivalents could range from "giant dora" to a sort of hover technical.

Perhaps it's possible to make relatively compact artillery that can functionally kill any one thing? After all, those thermal lances seemed to be rather strong, punching straight through armor like it's not even there. They might be able to penetrate even the strongest force screens and armor plate at close range. At that point numbers could be a better defense than heavy armor. The problem is that being able to kill something is very different from being able to reliably kill it. Tanks were considered viable even in periods where they were hideously vulnerable to all sorts of things.

I would argue that a tank is hardly "slow", however, when compared to infantry that do not appear to be appreciably faster than humans. Modern tanks can travel faster than infantry on pretty much any terrain that's passable to the tank at all.

One thing I'm surprised we haven't seen yet is railgun canister/shrapnel shells. Hypervelocity shotguns sound evil and I would very much like to see them.
 
Last edited:
Enderminion said:
Armored Trains are always a fun thing, mostly because trains are funs.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Trains are not a prominant part of the setting either way, being as trains are distinctly Victorian. It's why there's mostly carriages instead. The only trains, I think, are fairly small and used for freight and mining and such, more like horse-drawn rail carts of the era.
 
Vebyast said:
Today in /r/shittytechnicals: A Dora with two muskets riding piggyback on another Dora.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
"Double pay - once as a Dora, once as a Mule*."
"That's what, an extra electric charge? What do you even do with it?"
"Dunno. Makes the bookkeeping easier apparently."

*A Mule is, of course, a Horse but with more torque and better balance, but a somewhat lower top speed.
 
I think a big factor discouraging the development of tanks is the very small scale of most of the warfare we've seen so far. Something recognizable as a tank would be at least several times heavier and bulkier than a Dora. Logistically, it'd take the place of several Doras, maybe a dozen or more. Given that infantry seem to mostly deploy in platoon or company strength except for the biggest, ugliest battles, what would a tank even DO most of the time?

Tanks aren't just a response to enemy firepower and the need for mobility. They're a response to the ratio of force to space, a very important military concept. The same military technology, dispersed at an average density of a few riflemen per square mile and a few artillery pieces per thousand square miles, requires very different solutions than when it is concentrated at a density of several thousand riflemen and a battery of heavy guns per mile of linear frontage.

Here, the average inhabited world has a population measured in, what, the dozens? Hundreds? That's including machines, by the way, since they are very much people too, but still. And it sounds like a large fraction of the total population lives in stations anyway- they're the equivalent of cities in what is still a moderately "urbanized" setting.

When the population of an entire planet fits into a single settlement, and when the obvious response to any place with a truly hostile environment is to just... go somewhere else... There's just no point in heaping up a huge pile of firepower in one location most of the time, or of concentrating firepower into individual units that are too large.

And it seems as though the automated defenses and whatnot are all basically the same- past civilizations seem to have followed similar settlement patterns; adventurous explorers like Miss Polestar don't find the ruins of ecumenopoli. The violent threats that Theos and Doras exist to overcome tend to be isolated locations defended by something that could not possibly justify the deployment of more than a handful of tank-equivalent war machines.

At which point, sooner or later it just makes more sense to deploy a hundred Theos and Doras instead. Because that gives you a lot more tactical flexibility. You can maintain a perimeter of sentries. You can subdivide your force several times before reaching the smallest 'atom' of a tactical unit capable of watching each other's backs in combat. Breakdowns in individual machines cause a more gradual, incremental decrease in unit effectiveness, rather than the first breakdown being an emergency like it would if all you had were half a dozen tanks. Sure, the Doras can't move very fast overland without suitable vehicle transport, but then, everything in the setting is aerospace mobile anyway because of just how stupidly much space travel is involved in a world where nearly every human family has its own planet-manor.

We might see a move towards some kind of recognizable heavy war machine that functioned as a tank-equivalent... IF we saw a form of warfare that involved protracted actions whereregiment or division-sized units of Doras and Theos clashed against strong opposition that operated on a similar scale.

So far, none of that.
 
Another thing to consider is that with all the robots already around, and with mechanical, computer and other developments focussed on robots, it may make more sense to just build a Heavier soldier robot, rather than abandon the paradigm to develop war machines.
The solution to soldiers being shot is to armor them better, not to put them inside a box restricting their movements.

So, you'd end up with Big Bertha, not a tank.
 
10ebbor10 said:
Another thing to consider is that with all the robots already around, and with mechanical, computer and other developments focussed on robots, it may make more sense to just build a Heavier soldier robot, rather than abandon the paradigm to develop war machines.
The solution to soldiers being shot is to armor them better, not to put them inside a box restricting their movements.

So, you'd end up with Big Bertha, not a tank.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I did propose a Big Dora when I talked about some of the other potential heavy-armor shapes. Now the question is, how big a Dora. I feel as if there's a bit of a size constraint given that machines aren't shipped in flat packs while conscious, needing actual crew quarters. That might be enough to scupper the Big Dora right there. Maybe they just crawl around.

There's also the issue of human shapes being far less efficient for armoring than vehicle-shapes. Humanoids are too tall and broad and articulated, with all those limbs needing to be armored on every side and such. A tank presents a smaller frontal surface by far (again, for a given mass). Vehicles also have the advantage (mentioned before by someone else) of lower ground pressure for a given mass, meaning they can be heavier before they start having issues with soft ground.
 
Last edited:
Adastra said:
I did propose a Big Dora when I talked about some of the other potential heavy-armor shapes. Now the question is, how big a Dora. I feel as if there's a bit of a size constraint given that machines aren't shipped in flat packs while conscious, needing actual crew quarters. That might be enough to scupper the Big Dora right there. Maybe they just crawl around.

There's also the issue of human shapes being far less efficient for armoring than vehicle-shapes. Humanoids are too tall and broad and articulated, with all those limbs needing to be armored on every side and such. A tank presents a smaller frontal surface by far (again, for a given mass). Vehicles also have the advantage (mentioned before by someone else) of lower ground pressure for a given mass, meaning they can be heavier before they start having issues with soft ground.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
On the other hand, we know that mechanical systems and command and control systems in this universe are not great, unless they are robots. Sails are not controlled remotely, a robotic crew has to do it.
A tank becomes a whole lot less useful when the loader has to get out to swap the barrel after every shot to clean the stray gravitons, when the driver needs to get out to hammer the engine, and the commander wants to get out to smash things with her sword.
 
Just stumbled across a (hopefully) fun fact that seems related to this setting's unique definition of "horse".


mapsontheweb.zoom-maps.com

Maps on the Web

Horses may have been replaced by cars on the roads, but the words are actually (distantly) related. by u/LlST-
mapsontheweb.zoom-maps.com mapsontheweb.zoom-maps.com
 
They have tanks. They're called the King's German Legion Hussars and they can smash any line you care to mention atop their cool horses

Why would they want to crawl inside a box to do the same thing but slower
 
veteranMortal said:
They have tanks. They're called the King's German Legion Hussars and they can smash any line you care to mention atop their cool horses

Why would they want to crawl inside a box to do the same thing but slower
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I mean. That's actually a fair point. Since "horse" in this setting basically means "any mechanized vehicle that you ride," there's essentially nothing stopping you from building a "horse" that is functionally a tank, crewed by machine operators who may or may not be firing mounted weapons too heavy for even them to carry, from behind the cover of a giant slab of armor.

The boundary here between what this setting would call a "warhorse" and an armored fighting vehicle is so blurry as to be nonexistent, and Theos don't really need to be tucked away inside an enclosed fighting compartment because they're 'ard enough that anything capable of hurting them would probably have breached the fighting compartment anyway.
 
I would like to propose proper mechanical horses with legs, but they are also 4 meters tall and breath plasma. Just big enough to be extra intimidating, but small enough to be feasible to ride by one or more Theos/Doras with lances and carbines.

Then perhaps couple them with "giraffes" with a big gun mounted in that neck.



Skip to 8:17 for one possible implementation of a carbine/lance combo. It's fun just on its own merit, however.
 
Last edited:
Random thoughts from reread:
open_sketch said:
"Ha! But… glad to." she said, taking my hand. The contrast between her delicate porcelain fingers and the worn steel of my own was stark. "So… what are we waiting for?"
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
So how long did it take April to realize that Dora's processor was milled out of solid tungsten and give up and go find a boyfriend? :p
open_sketch said:
For character references, I had none.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Odd that Dora didn't write anyone down here - it looked like basically every person in her unit would've written her a nice letter, machine or human.
open_sketch said:
I had only once ever before had to sign anything, the day I was activated: they still put a contract in front of you and gave you the option to refuse. I'd still never found out if any machine did: I couldn't imagine it.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Hmm. Are there any robots in the military that didn't start out with the Theo/Dora body plan? Or it'd be interesting for Marie over in Maid Quest to run into a Theo/Dora that didn't sign the paper.
open_sketch said:
Would they tolerate such sloppiness in the Tsar's army?"
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Even though it's only like 1810 here, I have to think that the Faberge Eggs, or something very much like them, still happened and they must have been magnificent.

...Maybe they were one-off Lady's Maids that're absolutely carpeted in engravings and jewels?
 
Vebyast said:
So how long did it take April to realize that Dora's processor was milled out of solid tungsten and give up and go find a boyfriend? :p
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Rookie mistake. What you do is parade a series of paramours around that are unified by being close to Dora but not quite and make a show of dumping them for their differences from Dora.

Yes I am specifying Dora. No this does not mean I have any willingness to actually be demonstrative of my affection to other people, I'm using her as a placeholder who I know wouldn't notice that subtext. :p
 
Vebyast said:
Even though it's only like 1810 here, I have to think that the Faberge Eggs, or something very much like them, still happened and they must have been magnificent.

...Maybe they were one-off Lady's Maids that're absolutely carpeted in engravings and jewels?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
The Muses from Girl Genius, only sparklier?
 
machines and emotions
  • Informational
    • re: April, she's straight and has been dating the same guy for like thirty-five years now. they are basically married, machines just don't make it official very often for a variety of reasons.

    Dora mentions at one point having a crush on April but deciding to drop it and move on once she realized that.

    By the way, for readers who haven't read Maid to Love You, that is something she just can do, simple as that; most machines have the capacity to simply... stop feeling many things that they don't want to feel anymore, at least in the moment. Marie in Maids notably lacking this ability leads to much of the drama. The way this works is that the machines basically have a powerful ability the rationalize their emotions in a way that would be frankly unhealthy for humans, and we see Dora use it when she's trying to manage her anger and frustration. Her mantra is "ought ought ought", how she ought to feel different if she was thinking clearly, what a proper machine would do. It's strong enough that, after she gets her wits about her following a panic attack, she manages to dismiss the rest of it fairly handily.

    This power isn't absolute, doesn't entirely prevent you from feeling something again if it's prompted, and it's also voluntary. Dora increasingly embraces her anger with Theda, for instance. But it does sometimes lead to some pretty weird stuff from robots: breakups are rarely dramatic as both sides just dismiss their feelings for each other and go back to being friends/coworkers, fights require deliberate antagonistic behaviour, they never have to grieve a loss. They can literally just go "he wouldn't want me to feel this way" and it'll work, just like that.

    They don't always reach for this tool right away, but it's probably the single largest psychological difference between machines and humans. It's got it's advantages, especially when genuinely the healthiest and most affirming thing for you as a person is to keep your chin up and get back to work, but it's more than a little creepy to many humans, and it has it downsides, especially when a machine starts using it in an unhealthy way. It is a considerable factor in Dora not getting treatment, physical or mental: she just says that she ought not care, and then she doesn't until next time. And the fact that next time keeps coming faster and faster isn't emotionally resonant with her.
     
  • Informational
    • Reader mode
    You must login or register to reply here.
    Back
    Top