Tuesday, November 3, 2009

Ogre's premise

Looking over Steve Jackson's Ogre today, I wondered if it's central premise makes sense anymore, given the way technology has evolved.

A key premise of Ogre is that an artificial intelligence robot tank would be a powerful weapon, but the trend these days seems to suggest dispersion, rather than a concentration of power will be the effect of advances in computing. Ogre was designed in a pre-PC age, when mainframes were room-sized, so it made sense that you might need a large, heavily armored tank to carry it.

But now it appears that small, maybe even "nano" bots are more practical.

2 comments:

  1. I have to agree, even though the premise is still fun. Personally though, the idea of microscopic nanobots running around could be even more terrifying than a giant tank.

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  2. I agree. A lot of mdern war-fighting would seem very hard to capture in a wargame -- suicide bombers, nano-bots, drones, chemical weapons, nukes, cyberwarfare, etc.

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