Conference noted::sf

949.0. "Martians attack Iraq, film at 11" by RGB::REDFORD () Thu Jan 31 1991 01:59

    While watching the news for the last two weeks I've been struck 
    by what an SF war Desert Storm is turning out to be.  It has 
    rockets (the SCUDs and Patriots), robots (the Tomahawk cruise 
    missiles), and even Space Command (the Air Force recon satellites).
    
    The pictures from Baghdad remind me of nothing so much as 
    Wells' "The War of the Worlds".   This time, 
    though, we're the Martians and the Iraqis 
    are the helpless Earthmen.  The Martians can attack any time, 
    anywhere.  They can see in the dark (via light-amplifying 
    goggles) or through clouds (via radar).  Their machines are 
    almost alive.  Their bombs can seek out elevator shafts and drop 
    down them.  Their robot airplanes can fly down streets and attack 
    specific buildings.  They are watching every move from outer space.
    The Martians swat aside the Earthmen's missiles with almost 
    contemptuous ease.  At any one time there are only one or two 
    hundred Martians attacking the whole nation.  The Earthmen have had
    thousands, maybe tens of thousands of casualties, and the 
    Martians have only lost a couple of dozen.
    
    The Iraqis bought the very best weapons they could.  They had 
    lots of money, lots of ambition, and combat training from the 
    Iran-Iraq war.  They're fighting on their home territory and 
    we're fighting from halfway around the world.  They've had months 
    to prepare and had a well-defined deadline.
    They spent hundreds of billions on the military, 
    and seem to have lost most of it in these first two weeks.  
    
    That's the difference that ten years makes in military
    technology.  The Tomahawks and Patriots didn't exist ten years
    ago, and the Iraqis couldn't get them today.  By the time they do get
    them, we'll have cruise  missiles that can read street signs and
    anti-missile defenses based on beam weapons.  It isn't hard to be
    a Martian.  A ten year difference is all it takes.
    
    /jlr

    Hmmm, a very depressing comparison, when you remember HOW the War of
    the Worlds ended. I hope that you dont excpect Hussein to win with
    Biological Weapons.
    
    Rob (probably a Rathole for Soapbox here)

for the big fish coming up with its mouth open rather than focussing on the
juicy-looking little guy in front?

I forwarded the base message of this topic to my favorite iconoclast under
the subject "Greetings Earthling, How is Ground Zero?" and he sent me the
following reply:

I understand what this guy is saying, but I think that the "Martians"
have yet to realize how difficult it will be to dislodge the "Earthlings"
from their positions.  And it is a pretty big step from a Patriot
defense system that can (barely, usually) defend against single-digit
numbers of Scud missiles operating at the extreme range of their capability
to a "beam weapon" system that can work against tens of thousands
of ICBMs, made, incidently, by the Jovians...

    Definitely a rathole for SOAPBOX here.
    

Off the SF theme, but after gorging myself for several months on Tom Clancy, I
was halfway into "Red Storm Rising" when the shooting started. It was quite
bizarre. I would hear the latest from the gulf every morning and evening on NPR,
then go read more; occasionally I would confuse the (fictional) US/Russian
actions with the (real) allied/Iraqi ones. Even more bizarre, I could 
understand what they were showing on CNN! I could see real footage of what 
Clancy was talking about. Talk about fiction and reality colliding!

    I celebrated the rumors of war by reading M. J. Engh's "Arslan", about
    a North African military dictator taking over the United States and
    becoming fond of small town life. I finished not long before the first
    fighting.
    
    Ray

    A disturbing book, "Arslan".  I think the dictator was from
    Turkestan, though, not North Africa.  That's in the USSR
    somewhere.  He was able to conquer the world by first capturing
    the Soviet nuclear arsenal.  /jlr