© Photo pulled from sxc.hu
Armageddon – the end of humanity or the planet earth as we know it. Some fear the end of humanity will come at the hands of zombies, some fear a nuclear holocaust and Mad Max futures, others are in the Al Gore camp and expect to be living in Water World; but me, I fear a robot doomsday. Big red-eyed machines with lasers, missiles and synthesized voices, stepping on my house and blowing up the neighborhood – that's what keeps me up at night. Let's face it, in that reality, the odds aren't in our favor. As constant sources of new things to fear and routine inspiration for ways to survive, I turn to TV and movies for answers. I'm going to go over a brief synopsis of several resistance campaigns to demonstrate the best ways to pull out the metallic hearts of our future robot oppressors.
Let's start with the most basic and Monty Python approach to dealing with robots: "Run away!" That's right – when the going gets tough; the survivors are the first to run. This approach has worked famously for the Battlestar Galactica series, which are centered on the fleeing of a single great ship: The Battlestar Galactica. Although not the sole-surviving ship of the human fleet, this ship serves to also keep the attention of their pursuers, the Cylons, away from the others. The human approach in Battlestar Galactica is one of survival by fleeing and regrouping. This plan of regrouping works out surprisingly well; so well, that it manages to fill years of television and create a cult-like following. This following then leads to a side TV show: Caprica and a great game: Battlestar Galactica Online. The first of which is a precursor to the series and the second is a tangential universe where the Galactica and Cylon fleets end up stranded in an unknown corner of the universe. This fate forces both sides to attempt to regroup and gather material in a never-ending fight to the death. Power struggles such as these should typically be avoided, when forming a robot resistance, but at least in this case it's a fair fight. Despite significant odds throughout the TV series the humans manage to hold their own and eventually earn their survival.
But what do you do when you don't have a space ship to run away in? Well in the Terminator series humanity manages to survive without this luxury. Their methods for survival include: Full-military fighting, guerilla tactics, turning machines against each other and time travel. Their campaign starts as many dire struggles begin, with ugly odds and an uphill battle. The robots manage to suppress the human resistance by forcing them underground and even underwater, and then trick the humans into giving themselves away to finish off a lot of their remaining military leadership. The humans eventually manage to get their act together against the machines through guerilla tactics to ultimately see their leader get assassinated. This leads both sides to using the secret weapon of time travel. How can there be a resistance if the human leader is killed before he's born? This robot plan is thwarted by a soldier sent back in time by the humans and creates a loop in the space time continuum, where the present can't exist without having altered the past. The hope was to break free of the cycle by preventing the future from happening, yet the routine trips to the past only serve to make humanity's victory possible. The moral of the story: Use time travel wisely, because chances are it's already been used to get you where you are today.
Now what if time travel isn't possible in your universe? Or humanity is too far away from inventing it? The Matrix universe also provides us with a helpful lesson. Matrix survival is based on a blend of guerilla tactics, last stand defenses and ultimately giving the robots something they want. Now the Matrix series includes a hyper-advanced computer system in which humans are plugged and farmed for electricity, while a few who manage to break free from this system fight to release the rest. This is tragically another form of control where the machines give humans the illusion that they're on the road to salvation, but really about to just start the whole cycle over. How do the humans break free of the cycle? A single human is brave enough to walk his way right into robot central and say: "If there's a problem, yo I'll solve it. Check out the hook while my fist revolves it." He offers to create a truce by giving the robots something they need: The end of a renegade computer program at his bare hands. The hero sacrifices himself for the good of both humanity and the robots and the war is over.
When you're forced to defend the last of humanity against robots, don't forget to: Run when you can; use guerilla tactics to get them where it hurts; don't be afraid to do some historical sightseeing; and when all else fails: Try to be friends.
This guest post article was written and provided by Matthew Kiddman who is an avid online gamer and has been playing Battlestar Galactica online since its release. Look for him in the online Galactica game.
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