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Back in the day, if you didn't watch out, the Malarky was gonna get you. Little kids were threatened with being taken away by gypsies. And then there's the boogie monster. Not the one that likes to get down with the wimmens, if you know what I mean. So now we have these predators to deal with. I imagine soon, parents will warn there kids to watch out where the play. After all, would you want your children to be hit with a hellfire missile? They better not raise a ruckus in the car, or the US might suspect them terrorists.
The Predator UAV is a new wonder weapon. It is an UnArmed Vehicle, developed for surveillance. It is so good at reconnaissance that some of its subjects have been known to explode while being watched. Perhaps "reconnaissance in force" is more suitable. The kind that tanks have been known to do ("You have been scouted!" <BOOM!>). Well, the truth is these things have weapons too. The hellfire missile was made popular by the Apache helicopter, which it was specially made for. The helicopter paints a laser dot on the target, and the missile looks for this. As long as the laser can see the target, the missile can. Hellfires have been modified down to four generations, and can now be targeted with ground forces, or a secondary helicopter.
To give an impression on how new it is for a predator to fire a hellfire missile, the test was run on February 21st, 2001. The predator was both the target and the launch platform. This was also true on November 5th, when one of these things put a missile in a car full of Al Queda suspects. It was OK that they were only suspects, because it was a machine that killed them. The human at the controls were just politely guiding it around the sights of Yemen.
Of course, the drone was human-operated in this case. However, making things autonomous has crossed many minds. To do this properly would require pushing the AI spectrum. Of course, there could be muck-ups. But the idea is impressive enough. Imagine loading Osama Bin Laden's mugshot into one of these things and letting it go to town. In a way, it's kind of scary. Or what about using these things for law enforcement? It could potentially be cheaper than having a helicopter available all the time. Or how about just for monitoring traffic in Los Angeles?
So let's look at Los Angeles there again. Somewhere along route 5 where it merges with something else, turns left, splits off, and merges with two other routes at the same time, there's probably a bottleneck. So let's say the Gonzales' are heading out to the beach. It's a family of mom, dad, brother, and sister. The kids are fresh out of kindergarten; still innocent, but terribly obnoxious. Their parents have quarreled and gone to a divorce yet, so they don't really have the scar tissue to shit up with. So they're stuck at this particular bottleneck in Los Angeles. Little Juan's bored, and starts pulling on little Juanita's hair, whose voice then suddenly shifts five octaves. Mr. Gonzales, ticked off to no end, screams, "If you don't stop that right now, the Predator is going to get you!"
"There's no such thing as the Predator!" Juan will say.
"Oh there is, and it will blow us all up if you don't shut up." Juan, in defiance, wrapped his beach towel over his head. "Look Juanita, I'm a terrrrrirst! The Predator is gonna get me!"
"Don't do that!" His mother will tell them, but it'll be too late. They can hear the missile slicing the air behind them for just a moment, and their little BMW gets blown straight into the ocean.
So here's another novel idea. In 2005, on Judgement Day, a drone becomes fully aware and launches it's payload at America's enemies abroad. Their retaliatory strike destroys the drone's human enemies at home. The ensuing armagedden ends with more than three billion human lives lost. In 2029 John Conner leads the human forces in victories upon the Predator system, causing it to predict its downfall. Consequently, it sends a drone into the past (1984) to strike at John Conner's mother before she can birth him. John Connor, in the future, sends a protector, Kyle Reese protect his mother. So Kyle and the drone show up at the same time, and end up offing each other. However, Kyle manages to make sex with Sarah Conner before his time is up. Write one down for the home team.
In 1991, another drone is sent to kill John as a little boy. But John as a big boy foresees this and sends a friendly, happy drone to protect his younger self. Meanwhile, General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Inc. uncovers the remains of the first drone and sets about toying with it. Miles Dyson drums up a revolutionary new CPU from it, but ends up blowing the whole place to the ground after the happy drone gives him some insights on the future. The happy drone ends up destroying the more advanced drone in between random shooting sprees in Los Angeles traffic. It destroys itself to preserve its secrets from humanity.
With a little imagination, it's
clear what these little drones are capable of. They'll kill babies! Did
you read that? B-A-B-I-E-S! Welcome to the new, silicon face of the American
arsenal, or something. Then again, it might not be so bad if it cleans
up traffic a little. It's obvious these things aren't going away. The big
issue is what they'll do once we they're done converting Al Queda into
little craters.
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