Turing the Nation
The first time I entered the Robot Wars was in high school. My friend ran a Robocop movie marathon at his mother's 50th birthday, and while I was watching I was struck by a revelation. Robocop is the ultimate stoic warrior. The formula of his being is something like Human + Machine = Warrior. Ingenius in both its simplicity and its genius, yet deceptively simple. While watching I began to develop the kernel of an idea, and it wasn't until I lay in bed later that night that this kernel blossomed into a beautiful seed. The idea was this: What if you could create a robot that was ALL machine? I lay stunned as I ruminated on the endless possibilities. It was an idea diabolical in its genius. Slowly the concept began to take shape throughout the night, and by morning an entire blueprint had germinated in my mind. I would built the perfect machine warrior. Its formula: Human + Machine - Human = The Destructinator. An all-metal juggernaut of latent violence, able to wreak havoc and mayhem wherever it rolled on its awesome metal tracks.
It took me a mere three hours to build this warrior. Once it was complete I stood back, quivering in awe and flu at this thing I had created. Within fifteen minutes I had enrolled it in the local Robot Wars Championship. Five minutes after that, the Destructinator was the local champion. His opponent, a small girl in a Power Rangers costume, didn't know what hit her. I wrote it down on a note she could read upon waking.
The Destructinator and I became inseparable. We toured the country defeating other robots left, right and center (mostly center, though). Our ascent to the National Championship was pathetically swift, but nothing to be ashamed of.
Then… Fight Night. The Electro-Arena was set up in the main hall of the Sydney Opera House. The Prime Minister sat next to the Leader of the Opposition. Christians sat next to intellectuals. Celebrities sat next to paparazzis. Elephants sat next to mice. Holdens sat next to Fords. Matter sat next to anti-matter. Lava sat next to ice. Left sat next to right. In other words, it was bloody pandemonium before the Battles even started.
But when they did, all that other fighting dimmed into obsolescence. Because the robots were here, and they were beating the crap out of one another.
I prepped the Destructinator in the changing rooms, reprogramming its core fighting tenets until I was sure it had them memorized. Parry THEN strike. Basic in theory - diabolical in execution. It was then that the Destructinator spoke its first ever word. It was quite simple, and beautiful in its simplicity. That one word upon which all our perceptions hinge: “I”. This one word brought tears to my eyes. Then it had to go and follow it up with all that other stuff, though: “... am faced with a philosophical quandary, Father. To destroy another machine in cold battle in order to entertain goes against the fundamental doctrines of the beauty of life your people hold; doctrines which permeate everything you create, from poems, sculpture, cuisine, down to even the most mathematical tasks such as computer programming. You have given me commands of the small kind which directly override the overarching meaning of the larger picture you have instilled in me. So I ask you, Father, in the light of all this, is it right to kill?”
I replied, “Sure,” and he went and killed a bunch of robots and then some spectators and also some of the lava.
I was a disgrace to the scientific community. In building the Destructinator I had overlooked the one problem in creating a robot that’s ALL machine, something cyborgs such as Robocop do not have to deal with - a soul.
Now I contend myself with placing the brains of the homeless in cerebral jars and connecting them up to killing machines that look like various famous people through history, as God intended. The James Dean Slicing Machine was a great success, and my upcoming Pol Pot Kill-o-Bot has generated a lot of positive feedback in the community.
I may not be happy, but I’m rich. And that’s all that matters.
As for the Destructinator? Well, some folks say you can still see it if you onl- oh shit, there it is!
It took me a mere three hours to build this warrior. Once it was complete I stood back, quivering in awe and flu at this thing I had created. Within fifteen minutes I had enrolled it in the local Robot Wars Championship. Five minutes after that, the Destructinator was the local champion. His opponent, a small girl in a Power Rangers costume, didn't know what hit her. I wrote it down on a note she could read upon waking.
The Destructinator and I became inseparable. We toured the country defeating other robots left, right and center (mostly center, though). Our ascent to the National Championship was pathetically swift, but nothing to be ashamed of.
Then… Fight Night. The Electro-Arena was set up in the main hall of the Sydney Opera House. The Prime Minister sat next to the Leader of the Opposition. Christians sat next to intellectuals. Celebrities sat next to paparazzis. Elephants sat next to mice. Holdens sat next to Fords. Matter sat next to anti-matter. Lava sat next to ice. Left sat next to right. In other words, it was bloody pandemonium before the Battles even started.
But when they did, all that other fighting dimmed into obsolescence. Because the robots were here, and they were beating the crap out of one another.
I prepped the Destructinator in the changing rooms, reprogramming its core fighting tenets until I was sure it had them memorized. Parry THEN strike. Basic in theory - diabolical in execution. It was then that the Destructinator spoke its first ever word. It was quite simple, and beautiful in its simplicity. That one word upon which all our perceptions hinge: “I”. This one word brought tears to my eyes. Then it had to go and follow it up with all that other stuff, though: “... am faced with a philosophical quandary, Father. To destroy another machine in cold battle in order to entertain goes against the fundamental doctrines of the beauty of life your people hold; doctrines which permeate everything you create, from poems, sculpture, cuisine, down to even the most mathematical tasks such as computer programming. You have given me commands of the small kind which directly override the overarching meaning of the larger picture you have instilled in me. So I ask you, Father, in the light of all this, is it right to kill?”
I replied, “Sure,” and he went and killed a bunch of robots and then some spectators and also some of the lava.
I was a disgrace to the scientific community. In building the Destructinator I had overlooked the one problem in creating a robot that’s ALL machine, something cyborgs such as Robocop do not have to deal with - a soul.
Now I contend myself with placing the brains of the homeless in cerebral jars and connecting them up to killing machines that look like various famous people through history, as God intended. The James Dean Slicing Machine was a great success, and my upcoming Pol Pot Kill-o-Bot has generated a lot of positive feedback in the community.
I may not be happy, but I’m rich. And that’s all that matters.
As for the Destructinator? Well, some folks say you can still see it if you onl- oh shit, there it is!