Best/Worst military forces in Science Fiction

[PeZook]

But...you could just drop a bomb on them! Every time and in every situation! Because they totally aren't hiding in bunkers and sewers and metro tunnels, right?

And of course the terminator in T1 actually FINDS the bunker he fucks up by attaching himself to a returning patrol at night, so...it basically work for finding the hideouts, just like intended?

EDIT: Although, yeah, he could've released nerve gas after gaining access, though it's by no means guaranteed Skynet can actually produce any.

[Simon_Jester]

I mean if we put ST's starfleet in Iraq, and assuming we didn't hamstring them by taking away their starships, would they really be that incompetent at winning the victory? Maybe they wouldn't do it the way the US did (not nearly as many tanks or bombings.) but I think they could pull that off. Or the 'War on Terror.'

They'd probably set the Starfleet record for "most uses of gratuitous beaming."

Five guys get into a house and two of them have guns, and you can't tell if they're terrorists or drinking buddies getting together to hunt? Beam them somewhere, double-check, and then beam them back. Screw drone strikes.

Beaming and that wacky "lock orbital sensors on this person" would be a pretty formidable combination for counter-insurgency, if you're willing to just do it a ridiculous number of times and have the facilities. People living in the area would get annoyed at being constantly teleported into your temporary holding facilities and checked for 'being a terrorist,' but it would be a lot less annoying and deadly than getting shot at or blown up with missiles.

Is it just me, or is there comedy potential in "the occupying army doesn't believe in killing people, so they just constantly use stun-blasters and teleport people out of their homes until it's about as common an annoyance as telemarketers."

[PeZook]

Also, they can reliably see through walls with their hand-held sensor devices (or, for that matter, from orbit).

It's also WAY easier to stop things like suicide bombings if you actually CAN fire into crowds (because stun phasers are, apparently, perfectly or close to perfectly safe - nobody has ever died from a stun blast on the show) to get the bomber.

Then you just arrest the bomber and give everybody else water, instead of having a pile of corpses and hundreds of angry families.

Also, sensors. Man, what would the US military give to have Star Trek "I see twenty guys in that house four of them have weapons and this guy is slightly stressed" sensors

[Daefaron]

Yeah, but knowing how often Starfleet transporters and scanners get messed up by random environmental factors (a certain type of rock or somesuch), the fellows in caves might be perfectly fine .

[PeZook]

Yeah, but knowing how often Starfleet transporters and scanners get messed up by random environmental factors (a certain type of rock or somesuch), the fellows in caves might be perfectly fine .

If they can't leave the caves to actually fight the alien opressors, then they lost already, haven't they?

[AMT]

Also, they can reliably see through walls with their hand-held sensor devices (or, for that matter, from orbit).

It's also WAY easier to stop things like suicide bombings if you actually CAN fire into crowds (because stun phasers are, apparently, perfectly or close to perfectly safe - nobody has ever died from a stun blast on the show) to get the bomber.

Actually the two assassins in ST6 were killed with a close range stun blast since a full power kill shot would set the alarms off. So it's probable that close range stuns can still kill.

[PeZook]

Huh. I didn't remember that.

[Stofsk]

That's like the only time stun has ever killed someone though.

[Batman]

Not to mention it was done on purpose.

[Daefaron]

Probably was repeated hits on a stun/heavy stun setting.

You know, like constantly hitting somebody with a taser will probably kill them.

[PeZook]

Plus, of course, their medical tech is basically magic so they could just check out the stunned crowd and fix any problems.

"Hmm, Achmed, your kidney is failing. Here, we'll remove it, and here's a pill that will grow you a new one. Come see me in a week for a check-up."

The problem in Afghanistan and less so in Iraq is that the guerillas can offer a better deal to a lot of people than the occupiers, from money to security. But here the occupier can not just viably police the place with tactics that the US simply cannot use (beaming people up, stunning potential threats at long range) but also give you magical medicine that make common problems and ailments just...go away. Wounds? Wave a magical thingie over them. Failing organs? We have pills for that. Infections? Hahahahaha. If it's not from a Delta Quadrant bug, don't worry.

EDIT: Oh. And UNIVERSAL TRANSLATORS that apparently translate not just grammar and syntax, but also tone and subtext. Just think about it.

[Skywalker]

No no, the best way to root out infantry from all those nooks and crannies is to build GIANT LAND SHARKS.

Obviously just a bad joke. I don't know why "better designs in nature" were even mentioned, there's no reason to mimic any animal at all.

Just watch Terminator 1 for a reason why you might want infantry to screen your gigantic high-profile hunter/killer tanks.

What are you talking about?

But...you could just drop a bomb on them! Every time and in every situation! Because they totally aren't hiding in bunkers and sewers and metro tunnels, right?

There are bombs for that.

Did you even read the second page? The part with the nuke-testicles. Why couldn't skynet cover its own hard drive in a layer of flesh and send itself back to a time before people? Even if, for some reason, the flesh-covered guns idea won't work, skynet still has infinite tries at killing the Connors. Why didn't it just send the T1000 back to kill Sarah Connor in the first place? Why didn't it send terminators to kill her grandparents and great-grandparents?

[AMT]

Probably was repeated hits on a stun/heavy stun setting.

You know, like constantly hitting somebody with a taser will probably kill them.

Nope. Was a single stun to the back of the head at close range, which was the difference. Was just pointing out that stun settings can kill is all.

[That NOS Guy]

Did you even read the second page? The part with the nuke-testicles. Why couldn't skynet cover its own hard drive in a layer of flesh and send itself back to a time before people? Even if, for some reason, the flesh-covered guns idea won't work, skynet still has infinite tries at killing the Connors. Why didn't it just send the T1000 back to kill Sarah Connor in the first place? Why didn't it send terminators to kill her grandparents and great-grandparents?

It's possible that whole thermonuclear war thing destroyed the requisite records for that.

[AMT]

Did you even read the second page? The part with the nuke-testicles. Why couldn't skynet cover its own hard drive in a layer of flesh and send itself back to a time before people? Even if, for some reason, the flesh-covered guns idea won't work, skynet still has infinite tries at killing the Connors. Why didn't it just send the T1000 back to kill Sarah Connor in the first place? Why didn't it send terminators to kill her grandparents and great-grandparents?

It's possible that whole thermonuclear war thing destroyed the requisite records for that.

According to the first movie yeah. "The records were lost during the war, The Terminator was just being systematic."

Course on the other side of this, I'd have sent stealth terminators like in the TV show whose sole purpose was to gather all that information that is available before the war, store it in a nice place, and bring it to me. Along with all the future knowledge that the stealth Terminator can provide.

And then once I've processed it and used it for new discoveries, do it again.
And again.
And again.

At least until the process becomes unfeasible (technological leap so far ahead that it'll take decades to leapfrog to that point even with the theoretical data, for example).

[Losonti Tokash]

If Skynet didn't send back the T-800 to get killed, Cyberdyne wouldn't find its corpse and subsequently create Skynet. John knew he was sending back his own father, it's reasonable to assume Skynet had records of the research and reverse-engineering that led to its own creation.

[AMT]

If Skynet didn't send back the T-800 to get killed, Cyberdyne wouldn't find its corpse and subsequently create Skynet. John knew he was sending back his own father, it's reasonable to assume Skynet had records of the research and reverse-engineering that led to its own creation.

Which would only show that it created itself (except for the presumed original timeline where this didn't happen)
However, this doesn't mean it had records as to the Conner's location, or their older family, etc. etc.

After all, my operating manual for my car doesn't talk about me as a driver for a clumsy comparison.

[Losonti Tokash]

Oh, sorry. Wasn't trying to say it did. I was offering an explanation for why Skynet didn't send the T-1000 back to kill Sarah Connor in the 80s instead.

[Simon_Jester]

Repeated stuns can add up damage to a person though, see TNG "Samaraitan Snare". If you were in the wrong place a lot of the times - like a serial protester - and got stunned twice a day every day, it might add up.

But, eh, that's a hell of a lot less likely than dying from bullets or even tear gas.

Plus you'd have to keep coming back over and over. Repeatedly exposing yourself to something nonlethal until you get a lethal dose... at some point people stop thinking you're a martyr and start thinking you're an idiot.

[Skywalker]

If Skynet didn't send back the T-800 to get killed, Cyberdyne wouldn't find its corpse and subsequently create Skynet. John knew he was sending back his own father, it's reasonable to assume Skynet had records of the research and reverse-engineering that led to its own creation.

Actually, no. In T2, Skynet's creation was prevented, and in T3 it's revealed that all that did was create another timeline. Skynet's creation is apparently inevitable(so to, I would speculate, is the existence of John Connor, meaning the whole series is pointless because the future can't bee changed).

Yep, the Terminator franchise makes no sense at all. But they're still fun movies because you don't think about that when you're watching.

[Daefaron]

Probably was repeated hits on a stun/heavy stun setting.

You know, like constantly hitting somebody with a taser will probably kill them.

Nope. Was a single stun to the back of the head at close range, which was the difference. Was just pointing out that stun settings can kill is all.

Did they say it was a single hit at any point?

[Batman]

Not in the movie they didn't.

[AMT]

Oh, sorry. Wasn't trying to say it did. I was offering an explanation for why Skynet didn't send the T-1000 back to kill Sarah Connor in the 80s instead.

Ah, yeah good point.
A cyborg with physical parts is much easier to reverse engineer than a liquid metal nanomachine colony

As for the stuns... no they didn't say, but the make up shows it pretty clearly. I'll try and find screenshots.

Edit: Here.
http://images.wikia.com/memoryalpha/en/ ... _death.jpg

In the picture there you can see what looks to be a single shot to the forehead (not back of the head, sorry) with some sort of bruising there.

Since their killer was Valeris, and they outnumbered her, logically speaking a single close range shot is what occurred. If you had to sustain the fire, then one or the other could have overpowered her, unless she stunned them then sustained fire after they were unconscious.

[Daefaron]

Nerve pinch, held phaser to forehead and held trigger down for a long while?

[Captain Seafort]

Nerve pinch, held phaser to forehead and held trigger down for a long while?

A nerve pinch would still involve getting close to them, with the risk of the other causing trouble - she probably just stunned both of them from normal range, then killed them with sustained close-range stun shots to the head.