Robots in combat

[Icosahedron]

And: One of the bigger justifications of sci-fi as serious literature is in the form of cautionary tales...

And why, exactly, should sci-fi need justification to be taken seriously?

 

[BlackBat242]

Robots are used as soldiers, heavy infantry, guards, fire support, and recon. If a unit takes heavy casualties, robots become troop replacements until sophonts can be brought to the field. That is there upside.

The downside is they cannot interrogate prisoners, distinguish between rebels and civilians

You work for the Trade Federation?

 

[Gadrin]

That is there upside.

The other thing is that robots don't suffer from Psionic probing, so they could "get under the radar" that way.

Other RPGs and subsets of Traveller offer things like Cyber-Empathy and such which might work, but basically you can't read the robot's mind, which might work well in an area of Zhodani influence, like the Far Frontiers.

>

 

[Garyius2003]

I have never played military Traveller except one time I GMed a session where the players were MPs on a navy base.

Shipboard, they do light repair, cleaning, and some security work. Security is limited to patrol of the ship w/traqs and tasers, and most of the time they are patroling anyway looking for repair work or something to clean.

Using their 'weapons' requires remote clearance from the bridge or engineering crew on watch.

 

[samuelvss]

Here's a question: do the Shudusham Accords prevent robot gunners from merchant ships? (Here they are not "making war," but defending their ships from piracy.)

IMTU I answered this in the affirmative, going by memeory from what I recalled about the Accords, in essence trying to follow the OTU. I am interested in what y'all have done with this, specifically what your opinion of the Accords on this issue in the OTU.

 

[robject]

At the risk of thread-crapping: the latest version of Traveller supports robots, semi-organics, and genetic hybrids as players. It forces the referee and players to think about the implications in human terms, so to speak. Thus the truly battle-useful robot is just as sentient as the geneered bio-warrior... and both might be considered slaves, or not. Think Blade Runner.

 

[mike wightman]

Wonder if mongoose will do ABC warriors...

 

[Patron Zero]

Clunkers

Showing my age but I rather liked the combat robots depicted in the film Ice Pirates and don't see a TU with an absence of such if supportive tech levels are present.

 

[DaveChase]

Yeah, Ice Pirates one of my favorites

Showing my age but I rather liked the combat robots depicted in the film Ice Pirates and don't see a TU with an absence of such if supportive tech levels are present.

Why is he painted black? I wanted him to be perfect. (or something like that)

Dont for get Wendall either.

Dave Chase

 

[Commander Truestar]

Here's a question: do the Shudusham Accords prevent robot gunners from merchant ships? (Here they are not "making war," but defending their ships from piracy.)

IMTU I answered this in the affirmative, going by memeory from what I recalled about the Accords, in essence trying to follow the OTU. I am interested in what y'all have done with this, specifically what your opinion of the Accords on this issue in the OTU.

Not that I am currently loking at any source material but I seem to very dimly recall the Accords were primarily to protect against AI becoming a threat to Sentient Biological races.

I could be completly wrong in my memory, but stuck at work this is the best I could do.

So it could be that dumb and dim robots, much like today's UMV's, can be employed as well as self-capable units of slight intelligence and a limited "vocabulary" of commands and "learning storage". But anything that truely thinks, or near-thinks is strictly banned by the Accords(Again, only IIRC). So this, like the Psi-hatred, would be a uniquely Imperial thing...explaining why The Zho's do not limit themselves(after all, the Accords are not a "START" treaty between polities).

Also, and again I may be very wrong, I remember the Aslan do not use Ai much in combat because it takes away from the personal honor won in combat by the Aslan Warrior.

The only ones who heavily use Droid's in war are the Hivers who distain from personal(or even near-personal) combat.

Marc

 

[mike wightman]

The hivers employ their "client" races as troops as well as using robotic weapon systems.

The zhodani use robots in combat quite a lot too - they seem to have a higher value on human life than the imperials...

 

[Ran Targas]

Maybe the Zho leaders "feel" the deaths of their organic troops (psychic screams and all that), creating a necessity for war robots if only to prevent the leadership from going insane.

 

[Andrew Boulton]

"I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced..."

 

[far-trader]

...they seem to have a higher value on human life than the imperials...

Not exactly arguing the point, that is sort of the way I see The Imperium, a bit dark perhaps but not actually less humane. As in they place a high value on human life by employing it and not allowing machines to be raised above it. Sure people die but they die free doing what they wanted to do. Imperial forces are probably less likely to commit to total war because it is their people dying. Unlike the polities that employ other races or robots in combat. Now which seems to place the higher value on life...

And also raised in another topic the Imperials have had their brush with the "Rise of the Machines" and lived through it giving them their near pathological resistance to smart machines and too much automation without human control. A lesson they didn't have to learn again until The Rebellion.

 

[zonk]

And also raised in another topic the Imperials have had their brush with the "Rise of the Machines" and lived through it giving them their near pathological resistance to smart machines and too much automation without human control. A lesson they didn't have to learn again until The Rebellion.

I'm not remembering this bit. When did the Imperials face off the machine rebellion :smirk: ?

 

[far-trader]

I'm not remembering this bit. When did the Imperials face off the machine rebellion :smirk: ?

Waaay back Shortly after they survived Grandfather's little spat with his children. Something about leftover kill-bots running amok on the worlds they'd been transplanted to and left to fend for themselves on when the Ancients disappeared. From memory so possibly not quite right... and maybe a little embellished for mtu.

EDIT: They have had more recent*, less widespread, problems too. Prompting the Shudusham Concords limiting robot intelligence and weaponization.

* Well, recent for a strongly traditional long lasting stellar empire circa -110 the Shudusham Concords was an agreement signed by the 12 worlds of the Sylean Federation which dealt with weapons carried by robots. No longer in legal force in the current Imperium (circa 1115) many worlds have adopted similar standards.

 

[zonk]

Waaay back Shortly after they survived Grandfather's little spat with his children. Something about leftover kill-bots running amok on the worlds they'd been transplanted to and left to fend for themselves on when the Ancients disappeared. From memory so possibly not quite right... and maybe a little embellished for mtu.

EDIT: They have had more recent*, less widespread, problems too. Prompting the Shudusham Concords limiting robot intelligence and weaponization.

* Well, recent for a strongly traditional long lasting stellar empire circa -110 the Shudusham Concords was an agreement signed by the 12 worlds of the Sylean Federation which dealt with weapons carried by robots. No longer in legal force in the current Imperium (circa 1115) many worlds have adopted similar standards.

Ah... I vaguely remember something about this now.

People keep citing the Shudusham Concords and I don't recall those at all. Was that a DGP product mention? If so in which supplement? Or... perhaps LBB 8 Robots? LBB 8 is the one original book I never purchased...

 

[far-trader]

People keep citing the Shudusham Concords and I don't recall those at all. Was that a DGP product mention? If so in which supplement? Or... perhaps LBB 8 Robots? LBB 8 is the one original book I never purchased...

At least one mention in the MT Encyclopedia as a library data entry, not sure about earlier or other places but I vaguely recall an adventure or article with it included.

EDIT: Had a quick look and yes it is in Book 8 as well I'd forgotten that first(?)* cite. Quite detailed, I'll obviously have to read it again having forgotten said details...

* probably in the JTAS Robots article that became Book 8 as well

 

[zonk]

At least one mention in the MT Encyclopedia as a library data entry, not sure about earlier or other places but I vaguely recall an adventure or article with it included.

EDIT: Had a quick look and yes it is in Book 8 as well I'd forgotten that first(?)* cite. Quite detailed, I'll obviously have to read it again having forgotten said details...

* probably in the JTAS Robots article that became Book 8 as well

I went to the wiki and found the two you mention and one to DGP Traveller's Digest 8.

Looks like it's all DGP material but cannon. Now that I have MT I'll hafta get around to reading it.

 

[aramis]

It's also mentioned somewhere in T4...

it was completely ignored in TNE, since the lack of the needed hardware it would have resulted in would have made virus even less capable of being believed.