Strength is an over focused part of supersoldiers in scifi. A far more valuable trait would be physical and mental endurance, something Warhammer40k has done great at including with the Space Marines. While not lacking on strength, Astartes in lore are able to stay awake for days to weeks without fatigue, and can even turn off certain parts of the brain like some aquatic mammals. Any infantry soldier will tell you this ability would allow any you to rapidly outpace and outmaneuver any standard fighting force.
Yeah, this is one of the most important lessons from the current war in Ukraine. Super strength wouldn't make that much of a difference in Mariupol or Bakhmut, although it could enable you to carry more or heavier equipment. Another extremely important quality is superior training, so Matrix-style knowledge download would help a lot, although knowledge can be perfectly well absorbed by classic means, albeit more slowly.
The super-soldier is nothing without the super-engineers, super-scientists, and the super-laborers. That's why it's my hypothesis Mars will never be completely terraformed. It's more useful to just make the colonists all supers.
Yeah the ability to go to sleep easy and wake easy is probably one of the best traits for anyone working as soldier, in law enforcement, or as a first responder... I always sucked at napping.
That's kind of one of my favorite aspects of Warhammer 40k - how in the face of certain death, superhuman killing machines will often despair and look for any way out, because they consider themselves too great to be "wasted" like this. While the contingent of regular guardsmen literally 10ft away from them are currently hyping themselves up for the sickest last stand ever, because they accepted their own mortality about a week into basic. There's a reason the big E always intended for regular humans to be in charge, despite said super soldiers being faster, smarter and taller, which is usually how rank is signified in 40k.
The Emperor only created the Imperial Guard during the Horus Heresy, and that's one of the last things he did before he was placed on the Golden Throne. Before this, most of the wars were fought using Primarchs and Astartes
@@imperium4821 not completely accurate. The astra militarum was dissected from the exertus impirialus at the end of the HH. (spelling?). Prior to even the great crusade, during the unification wars, big daddy E used multitudes of baseline humans to augment his thunder warriors. Many of those regiments (at least the name haha) survived the UW, the GC, the HH, and likely even served in the indomitus crusade.
The point about needing the super soldiers to be super citizens brought to mind something I learned about Samurai. They were expected to learn artistic skills, not just to be cultured, but also so they had something to fall back on during times of peace. I'm sure there are plenty of other examples from other cultures as well. As far as writing goes, I could imagine a very poignant scene of a group of super soldiers relaxing between missions. They'd sit around a fire and start composing Haiku, and maybe pick out a favorite. Simple, but very humanizing, could be very powerful if done well.
European knights were expected to be good dancers. Those who composed poetry, played instruments or sang were generally respected for their skill, assuming they had it. Some of the more famous medieval music that has survived, either as music, or lyrics, or both, was written by knights, e. g., Walther von der Vogelweide's Palaestinalied, or Bertran de Born.
@@jochentram9301 Modern society has as stereotype of fighter or brains types, but doesn't realize that focusing on both and becoming superior in both mental and physical is quite achievable and a very noble goal. Imagine society if we taught that being a warrior scholar was the norm
In Warhammer 40k, Roboute Guilliman trained his 13th Legion "Ultramarines" to be exemplary administrators and bureaucrats as well as super soldiers, which helped a lot with the integration into the Imperium of territories they conquered during the Great Crusade. This had the very intentional side effect of making them potentially useful to the Emperor even after the Great Crusade was over. Isaac may have alluded to this in showing such an Ultramarine while prefacing the super-citizen concept
@@hypotheticalaxolotl Whenever someone mentions child soldiers these days, I'm reminded of a scene I saw recently: Superman: I don't quite understand. What do you mean when you say this boy was your best friend...? Shazam: I need to show you something. *_Shazam!_* [Superman looks at little Billy Batson for a long silent moment.] Superman: Who _did_ this to you?
I think Starship Troopers (the book) actually gives a great depiction of super soldiers. They go through extremely harsh training -every year several mobile infantry (MI) cadets die and the majority washout- in all forms of combat, are given power armor that no one but other MI in gorilla suits can fight one on one with, and mostly conduct small unit operations with battles/raids rarely seeing more than a company fight. They also don’t have the problem of what to do with them after because the entire point is earn the franchise and return to society.
That was pretty much what I was going to say. If Heinlein were here today and could see some of the battlefield concepts being worked on, he'd be pleased indeed! In societal values- not so much.
1)Starship Troopers doesn't have supersoldiers. It's ordinary soldiers of the Federation, who go through that training regiment and use such equipment. Mostly because Federation is militaristic state that had no use for actual military so the main goal was to wash out people and it became mostly a political and governance filter where people born into military families and being trained by their parents from birth specifically to already be ready for selection process have higher changes to pursue political career unopposed compared to outsiders like Rico. Moreover it is designed to prevent women in command structure and higher political echelons as we see a lot of women in fleet, but none in infantry and for example getting a position of marshal requires serving a tour in both, not just one branch. But tbh that's mostly Heinlein not caring about ST as much as about other of his books as it was a throwaway idea and quite a mediocre book compared to his other creations ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 2)Heinlein even in the books suggested that the time of Mobile Infantry may be coming to a close in just a few years as they'd be replaced by robotic soldiers. Moreover the combat is kept simplistic ie cool and awesome in your eyes apparently because it wasn't a focus of the book, societal study was. That's why Federation lacks combined arms doctrine as well as close air and artillery support. And why neither "stickmen", nor "bugs" have SPAA or IFVs. Remember mission at the dam in the prologue? Now imagine single MODERN, not even sci-fi one, SPAA parked near the dam. It'll not only intercept the missile, but shred Rico and his squad the moment they'd jump above the rooftops or in the open. And don't say that Heinlein didn't predict it, he worked alongside people, who designed and implemented first CIWS's in the world. So if that aspect isn't mentioned or explored it's likely for much simpler reason - to avoid complicating the story with technical detail "gun porn" that would slow it down, but bring nothing to it x2
@@stevenpilling5318 and how many of his books have you've read to talk about his view on societal values? Maybe check out his biography and who he worked alongside with both in career and writer, huh? What did Orphans of the Stars tell you about his views? That theocratic feudalism is better? No? Then why do you single out ONE book around which you build your personality, eh?
@@TheArklyte you’re full of BS but you actually read the book, which puts you ahead of a lot of people. What do you call soldiers trained to near super human abilities and fight in powerarmor that can survive a tactical nuke at close range? Yes, the state philosophy of the Federation is that those who aren’t willing to serve the good of the people aren’t fit to govern. I don’t find that a bad thing. If you’ve got actual criticism, not just a slight unflattering description, I would like to hear it. You’re acting like we should find someone being raised to believe in the values of the Federation and going through the process to earn the franchise like everyone else a bad thing. You come off like complaining that some raised as a Catholic is joining the seminary. It’s just has hard for men to join fleet as it is for women to join the grunts. The point of the requirements for Sky Marshal is to keep all but the best from being Sky Marshals. The MI almost entirely conduct special operations raids. We have no idea how far behind the lines they are. The skinnies have limited resources like everyone else, so they can’t protect everything, everywhere all at once. Also, the powerarmor can tank a tactical nuke as close range. Also, you’re forgetting about that the MI aren’t thousands of feet in the air. Ground clutter is going to make it practically impossible to target the MI. I doubt one or even several SPAA would stop the MI. On the arachnids, they evolved to do things we use machines, so machines are redundant to them.
I always assumed that the real reason they didn't make more super soldiers after Steve Rogers is that they realized you need need someone they lucked out in finding a truly 100% altruistic person who is also 100% immune to cynicism and corruption. Absolute power corrupts absolutely except Steve Rogers.
Unfortunately this is anything but canon. Apparently his super-serum is just neigh impossible to reproduce because people have been trying to do just that ever since without success, unless you count the Hulk. I do like how in the early MCU it was very explicit that Iron Man wouldn’t be special in about 20 years, because by then the US, and several other countries, would be capable of mass producing similar suits and issuing them out like fighter jets at worst. Though I doubt they’ll follow up on that now that the clock is up, even accounting for the Thanos speed bump.
@@Betrix5060 Disney already confirmed an Armor Wars film with Don Cheadle. And even way back in Winter Soldier the U.S was able to make Falcon's flight suit.
@@Betrix5060 "...unless you count the Hulk." And ignore the entire plot of _Falcon and the Winter Soldier._ The plot of that show (when it wasn't trying to browbeat with political messaging) was that someone had made more super serum, and our titular heroes had to keep it out of the wrong hands.
All the better reason to make it wide-spread. Individual ability isn't 'superior' to others, so not so much PERSONAL ambition, but a collective ambition of all of humanity unlocked by our ability to dominate even our own nature? Sounds like a plan.
@@DocWolph different people might still want only some of it, not all of it. some one might say "make me easily hot and really good at writing music" and even if that comes with much else (nothing is really so isolated), you might not care about the rest. Or, even with everyone having this, not everyone wants to do the same thing - you cannot be the best musician if you focus on something else because that is what you want. We dont need different people to be better/worse at different things - we just need, and will always have, people who want to do different things.
Funny thing about 40K Space Marines: It's established that the Emperor intended them to be more than just killing machines that the Thunder Warriors were. Beyond their combat and tactical prowess they had constantly been shown to be abled administrators (had to manage logistics for entire wars, after all), artists, politicians (especially the Ultramarines) and who knows what else. During the Great Crusade Era there were much discussions about what they were going to do with the Astartes after the galaxy was won, and some Primarchs like Horus actually encourage their gene-sons to pursue hobbies and learning beyond war so they can have a purpose in the post-GC era. Of course, with the Horus Heresy and the constant wars which followed this never happened and would unlikely to ever happen - after all, in the grim darkness of the far future there is only war. There is also an issue with civilian intergration of supersoldiers after the end of wars and their purpose which the 40K verse or related media have noted every now and then: the problem with supersoldiers is that as their enhancements and training put them above mere mortals, the lack of limitations and connections with them make them difficult to empathise or relate to the common people and often contemplate matters beyond ordinary humans' understanding. This inability of relation would make it significantly difficult for them to coexist with humanity as a whole in the long run, and it's one of the big reasons why even during the GC era the Emperor, for all his faults, had made it clear that the Astartes are made to serve the Imperium rather than rule over Humankind. Of course, the memo was lost among/poorly communicated to the Astartes and Primarchs which turned traitor, which contributed to the Horus Heresy.
I do believe in the long run something like the HH from the astartes was inevitable, if you know nothing but war for 200 years and then you're told there is no wars to fight and you have to live like any normal humans for the rest of your millennia long existence I think many astartes would have gone mad and rebelled just so they could go back to what they knew. Hell it would not surprised me that if in a reality where the Horus heresy never happened the principal use of astartes post great crusade was containing the treat of others like them going rouge.
The emperor had such plans for the primarchs, but not for the astartes. There's establish lore that he planned to orchestrate a conflict to cull most of them just like he did with the thunder warriors. He might have planned to keep some of them around but never intended for astartes to be a permanent fixture, which is why he never took the time to fix the various gene-flaws they had and his overall callous attitude towards them.
You should read the Spinward Fringe series by Randolph Lalonde. One of the major plot points of the series is a nanotechnology called "Framework" that transforms anyone who takes it (it can be ingested in a pill form) into what is essentially an immortal super soldier. The main characters of the first book are tasked with stealing the technology from an interstellar megacorperation and putting on the market for anyone to access so that this one megacorp doesn't become all powerful as a result of being the only users.
@@Georg3e a rival corporation figures out how to create a basic consciousness and implant it into a body made from framework, essentially creating a slave race that can be programmed to perform specific tasks, but also to be 100% loyal.
I can't help but think about medieval knights (and their role back then) when it comes to supersoldiers in sci-fi. I think the whole sci-fi trope of supersoldiers came to existence because of them, a group of highly trained people who represented honour and protection.
Recall the exact socioeconomic circumstances that generate such arrangements. A single well-equipped individual has to be able to defeat several dozen times more ordinary people with cheap weapons. It has to require an entire local community to equip such an individual. There also has to be so much instability that every community requires such an individual or it will be attacked, implying the absence of a larger system of social security, economic organization, and grievance redress that would make such attacks extremely rare.
Eh, forgot about the many jews and gypsies murdered by Christian knights on their way to the various crusades did you? Don't forget the persecution of the Cathars. It's never as idyllic IRL vice mythology and legend.
@@shawnwales696 Egad! Oh noes! You're accusing some Christian knights of killing members of the people that murdered their God, people everyone knew* preyed on the communities they visited, and heretics encouraging apostasy, a fate worse than mere death. You may as well complain they didn't take a plane to Jerusalem. *What do you 'know" that people a millenium from now will scoff at?
@@shawnwales696 yeah, those holy wars which have all been extensively documented due to their rarity? The Crusades were by far the exception in Europe, probably because they weren't even in Europe. The actual day-to-day duties of medieval lords was to keep the roads safe, enforce the law, mediate conflicts, and serve in their Lord's military. Also training. Lot's of training.
Totally. I think ONE rule that all "franchise managers" need to keep in mind, when they are considering a tech or social addition to their franchise is, "how might this be used in the future," and also "how would this have been used in the past, if it was possible?" It's always important that these choices make sense within the reality they are added to, that if there's no good reason why they couldn't have done this sooner, then they probably shouldn't be able to do it now either.
In addition to that, but also paradoxically, part of being realistic in the use of tech in sci fi is that some delayed advancement is just random and some complex technology will always develop before others. Don’t use it as a crutch, but it is useful for those situations where you want to introduce a new idea that you should have thought of earlier, but just didn’t because life is like that sometimes.
@@ianharrison5758 True, but thought should at least be given first, and a plausible explanation would need to come up for why nobody would have thought of it. I mean, in a world where people have been traveling through hyperspace for _thousands_ of years with the relative freedom of modern air travel, there would have to be dozens of cases _per year_ of people crashing into things and obliterating them (largely accidentally, of course), _if_ such a thing were possible within the physics model of the universe. And of course, the instant someone did, it would be weaponized almost immediately.
Funny, my preferred approach to super soldiers when making my own factions has always been super-colonists/citizens; a focus on uplifting everyone, not just a few and further stratifying society.
@@grahamtotte7133 In the case of colonists a hereditary type of superhuman/transhuman upgrade will always provide a better yield long term as your regular colonists would also have to replicate since the journey through space is hard and long barring magical FTL. This is the power of exponential growth
@@Dragrath1 Yes but the warrior class of transhuman would have upgrades the rest are not privy to. Because whoever controls the super soldiers controls everyone else as well.
Scott Sigler's short story _Passenger_ features some neat asymmetry in supersoldiers with a focus on unit cohesion. As an example, Sigler describes a recon specialist who squeezes into unusual hiding places and hibernates for weeks until an opportunity presents itself. There's also a dropship pilot who's hard-wired into his aircraft and physically senses incoming threats, but the machinery borrows so much of his brain power that he only speaks in robotic pilot jargon. Each member of the unit is so specialized that they're all helpless without each other. It's a neat concept.
One important part, and probably the "best" one in my mind, that you haven't touched on, is the Capsuleer/Templar EVE Online approach, selecting a "fine specimen", augmenting them with essentially a brain scanner and an antenna (among other augments) that scans the brain at the moment of/before death and sends a backup home to be loaded into a clone/android, creating a soldier with the ability to learn even from battles they die in, much like a gamer, every engagement is a net gain, and would also make it logical and reasonable to "sacrifice" themselves if it had a good chance of ensuring victory, not much different then being benched by the coach
People forget that: 1)super soldiers also means super officers, super pilots, super mechanics, super bureaucrats, super diplomats. If society can augment one aspect of itself, it can augment all others. Grunts on the ground are the thing that affects the conflicts the least... unless you want to write pulp fiction. 2)in society with immortal genetically and cybernetically enhanced population likely everyone was once a supersoldier. Problem is if they can recall what it even means after several centuries? Mass Effect doesn't have supersoldiers despite having genetical and bionic enhancement for example. Because it's widespread in society and is compulsory for volunteers joining the fleet and army. 3)pension funds and post war careers? Supersoldier PTSD? Astartes having a choice to retire to desk job because Emperor somehow returned and fixed everything? Republican Clone Commando facing unemployment after the war ended because Palpatine slipped and fell down an elevator shaft?
It's generally assumed that augmenting physical features will be a LOT easier than augmenting mental ones. That's not necessarily true, but it is quite possible. Even with the vast complexity of the body, we understand that a WHOLE lot better than we do the mind. For example: Stronger muscles means more growth hormone needed. Easy. But stronger muscles need more blood, so bigger blood vessels, stronger heart, larger lungs, and stronger bones and ligaments and tendons to tie it all to. All of that complexity comes pretty easily because we understand that stuff. More intelligent means.... what? Where do we even start, and how do we make sure it's a balanced intelligence and not a sociopath, or a super-intelligent dog? Do we need a bigger brain, or just more wrinkled brain, or denser brain? Do we need to change the basic neuron, or just add more of them? It probably doesn't need to apply to the WHOLE brain anyway, unless you WANT to change how we handle breathing and our heart beating.
I hate to point this out, but without grunts on the ground nothing else in an Army is worth diddly squat. The ENTIRE Army structure literally exists to ensure those Grunts, who in your words 'the thing that affects conflicts the least' are able to do their job. Every other Arm in an Army is there to make sure those Boots can take the ground they need to take, and then hold it, because ONLY infantry can fulfil that role. ONLY infantry can take and hold ground. Artillery can pound ground to smoking ruin and craters, but cannot hold it. Air power can turn entire cities into smoking rubble, but cannot take and hold them. Do you start to see the point? Infantry are not the least important aspect of an Army, they are the single MOST important combat arm or an Army, because without those infantry there s no fucking point in HAVING an army.....
@@alganhar1 where does a phrase gunboat diplomacy come from? Why does a phrase MAD exist? How useful were those boots on the ground in Pearl Harbor and Midway? And surely they've done a lot during invasion of "Home Islands™"? Mass infantry assaults are a thing of pre-napoleonic times. If all other branches didn't do their job beforehand, then who are you? Target practice. And if they did, the other side likely already surrendered. Want to talk about "boots on the ground" for occupation and crushing separatism? After Vietnam, Afghanistan, Chechnya, Afghanistan again, Iraq, Ukraine? The only case where "boots on the ground" win is when they're de facto proceeding with genocide against civilians that don't accept them ie russian mass graves during Second Chechen War. And even then they failed to do it the second time in Ukraine in their occupation zone with all their "totally local patriots" since everybody was watching and had to go straight for full scale invasion in hopes for installing puppet government that'll do it for them. With a bonus that during active war phase it's easier to hide the bodies of said poor civilians they prosecute or send to the front as meatshields after forcefully conscripting them. In intersolar, not even interstellar, conflict the side that won the fleet engagement already won. They can bombard you from orbit until you go into the stone age or until you yourself accept their conditions and YOUR army would enforce new rules stipulated in the treaty onto your populace. Or they will simply wipe you out instead of wasting time on precision bombardment because it's also an option for interstellar civilizations, who don't care about your species and can terraform new worlds back to being habitable with ease since it's much cheaper then any idea of FTL we currently have.
@@RandomGuy-lu1en Electronic Warfare is a thing that every remotely piloted unit faces. Electronic warfare and drones are current name of the game for both sides in war between Ukraine and Russia. And would you trust an autonomous robot? If you do, then what makes it lesser then you and what gives you the right to throw its life or at least consciousness away?
21:06 Jango Fett was chosen because he was the best at hunting Jedi which was the main purpose of the clones in the eyes of their creators Palpatine and Dooku. That his clones were very capable super-soldiers in other aspects was just a positive side effect.
motie warriors from Mote in Gods Eye were the ideal super soldier. Perfectly loyal to the masters, fast breeders, self training, capable of building and modifying their own weapons on the fly and extremely deadly.
The best way to make "Super Soldiers" is by increasing the base stats of all members of your society, especially intelligence, and making everyone "Super". In real life, super soldiers are never enough to win as witnessed in recent conflicts. Now, if all of your forces are "elite" based on increasing base stats, that's another story.
While not necessarily "soldiers" in the classic sense, I really like the approach EVE Online takes with the immortal capsuleer. You (the player and a handful of NPCs) are augmented for the specific purpose of piloting a ship. For that purpose, you are able to directly interface with your ship, removing the need for a good chunk of your ship's crew. You also are functionally immortal, as your consciousness is transferred to a new clone at will or at the moment of death. This creates an interesting problem: you have these specialized individuals who are far more privileged than normal people, not just in terms of money (which, in the game, 1 unit of currency is equal to what a well-off normal person would make in a year), but also in terms of the devaluation of life, since you can do things significantly riskier than a normal person would, knowing that you will be resurrected. However, these capsuleers also are total loose cannons and require significant incentives to work in some faction's interests. It's an interesting approach because you'd have pilots who could singlehandedly increase your fleet's potential by 10x just by piloting a ship you'd otherwise need hundreds of additional crew to operate (in the case of capital ships), and, since they are individually skilled into specific tasks and equipment (for example a pilot who is trained only to excel at flying a supercarrier), and because they are functionally mercenaries, you as a faction can shop around for the specific capsuleer that fits your needs. It's less of a production line for clones and more of an applicant pool for employment in specific tasks they excel at.
It occurs to me that a lot of failure modes come from civilians trying to design super soldiers. What would super soldiers designed by soldiers look like? I've heard that soldiers tend toward three physical types-- tall and muscular (max strength), thin-- not sure of height (max speed), and short and wide (max endurance).
@@thekaxmax The Culture's drug gland. And I'd add in physical and mental stability/resilience. We've used machines to amplify power for ages and we won't stop any time soon so normal human strength range is sufficient. As a bonus, it means your scientists and engineers will be instinctively grasp better what your soldiers can do that way. If you can boost your scientists and rest of society in strength, you might as well and then you can have your military gear reflect that, too, but strength beyond what your engineers understand and think of is something that can be neutral or even bad. Supersoldiers punching buttons and breaking the buttons. No, what I'd concentrate on is amplifying human advantages: endurance and stamina, psychological resilience, general intelligence, ability to reason things through quickly, override instincts and emotions and empathy for their fellow soldiers AND for the people back home. You WANT your soldiers to have all the reasons you can engineer for them to fight their best when the time comes. Self-repair/healing, dexterity, improved senses and information processing, multitasking, there are a lot of things that are nice to have, but resilience, stamina, inc mental endurance, might be the most significant boost. Soldiers who don't mind standing guard and don't lose their edge would be super.
I find the Pilots from Titanfall interesting in that while they have access to jump jet technology, superior weapons and gear, and giant robots, they have very minimal modifications to their own self. The most we hear are simulacra that are basically AI recreations of deceased Pilots and possible implants for Cloak Pilots. Every other Pilot just has to pass rigorous training, of which most trainees simply drop out because they couldn't complete it. They're the best of the best and they earn it.
It’s one of those 1-in-10-billion scenarios kinda similar to 40k, where the human population is so large you get enough apex humans to build a military unit around them
There probably would be cascading effects from Super Soldiers. Military innovations do eventually find their way to the civilian population (GPS, tampons, duct tape, microwave ovens, etc). We might see super-laborers in more dangerous lines of work (mining, logging, construction, pilots) or former super soldiers working in police departments. It would also be inevitable that regular citizens would eventually get access to super serums or tech.
@@KwadDamyj probably to plug bullet wounds, come to think off it 🤔 Edit : I checked, no, tampons weren't invented by the military, they were invented for the same purpose they serve today
I think an interesting option is parents being allowed to choose which standard(or less standard) modifications to apply to their children, and the results expressing cultural and subcultural differences more than leaders' decisions do.
11:13 This reminds me of this qoute. "The society that separates its scholars from its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting by fools." -- Thucydides
I remember one deployment with the Marines, where we went on almost 200 mounted/dismounted patrols. My arms hurt so much from carrying my medical equipment and weapon that I could barely open the HUMVEE doors. If I wasn't in shape I would never have made it past the 1st month
Super-citizens is a very interesting idea. Not necessarily a good idea, but very interesting. Even defining what traits make a super-citizen can be a very thought provoking exercise.
Military use of PE is also a very important part of building unit cooperation and trust in each other. We'd do a lot of old school telephone pole PE during summer cadet training since it was great for PE that just tired you out for the rest of the day's lecture style training and did a lot of group and moral building between the people randomly tossed together with other's from outside their corp for 3 to 6 weeks VERY fast. Plus nothing teaches you empathy and respect for each other like seeing how much the pole smacks around the short cadets at the end of the formation when running in a double time march, or the more barrel chested cadets nearly getting winded each time they go down on a sit up as they take the whole weight of the pole for a millisecond; but never bitching about it. I HATED morning PE but when we'd see the telephone poles on the field; I knew it was gonna be a good day.
Unfortunatetly those drills were very uncommon, at least where and when I was, I heard lots of nostalgic praise or hate of them from older sergeants but the focus was all on PT tests maximizing in my unit.
"If you use heavy cavalry then the enemy will run away into the forest!" Me with my estates deep in the plains secure, without having to deal with attrition as the enemy ran away.. :D
IMO the most practical depiction of super soldiers in fiction is the coordinators from Gundam Seed, people genetically modified while still in the womb to be healthier and far more intelligent and with quicker reflexes than normal humans.
A smaller, more agile destroyer is good until it is hit and slows down. David was smaller but fast enough to avoid being hit and had a disabling long-range weapon and was able to use the enemy's weapon against him before he recovered.
As magnetically unresponsive as the iron in blood is, Magneto would have to blast right by the power to manipulate non-ferrous materials, on his way to that much power. He could just make a new heart out of Thanos' grandfather's fist, as easily as control the iron in his blood. Love you work!
There will never be a perfect soldier, because no matter how good: what is best all depends on the specific conflict. Your enemy will make damn sure stuff changes enough to make the best you have look like it's not enough, in one or more ways. I just can't imagine a scenario "perfect" will ever be "perfect" enough in regards to warfare.
So go low and generic: ability to stay awake and alert for three days at a time, ability to consume coffee without water, broaden digestion, increase determination and stamina.
@@thekaxmax Yeah, general perks like that would be fantastic. And add more specialized "upgrades" to those that well: benefit the most from being really good at their specific job. I would imagine the response time to whatever your enemy cooks up would be more important than maximum specs by themselves. Because i doubt we can have ALL the "upgrades" all the time without any compromises.
One of the most super but also down to earth abilities I have read in fiction is instant sleep hypnosis in starship troopers. You sleep as much as you need and can afford in a given situation, then you get woken up and put the other shift to sleep instantly, they wake up and you can keep going. Even being able to do this in short 15 minute microsleeps would imo work as well of not better than ww2 time Wermacht being high on pervittin for days.
It always confused me how in 40k they place such an emphasis on recruiting mentally tough people to become space marines only to wipe their minds anyways, acting like mental toughness is genetic and every personality trait is predisposed, wich is something very recurrent in 40k and that makes the story way less immersive imo
I feel what makes a super soldier a true super soldier is not only enhanced strength. The soldier would have to be enhanced in all qualities; strength, endurance, knowledge of tactics, and the mind that would allow them to use their abilities to the fullest.
A Warhammer AND dune reference in one vid? I'm here for it. I know it's not what you do but going through the Warhammer uni science may bring in new subs.
In my homebrew rpg world there was a super soldier program that backfired massively on societal level. When it was closed the society had to deal with a significant population of higly aggresive purpose made warriors with abysmal social skills, no marketable skills in terms of work or everyday life and usualy with a lot of resentment towards the government. At first it was thought that they will die out because they were incapable of natural reproduction but a decent chunk of public opinion was with them in a sort of civil right movement so the government was also forced to expend a lot of resources to give them acces to artificial reproduction and opening social programs for them
I think an important factor is command structure and mission command. Obviously, a top down control system is important for a military to be cohesive and work to accomplish a goal, which would be the strength of an AI or Hive Mind. But, allowing all levels of the force to operate and adapt with their own limited authority is extremely powerful. A star System, Planet, Continent, Country, State Colony, City, Squad, or individual, can operate far more effectively with simple directions and goals from above, and the ability to shift strategies depending on the local situation.
5:10 What's funny about that is that in the comics and the old Fox cartoons there were numerous references to attempts at replicating the supersoldier serum which usually led to a plethora of more heroes or supervillains that filled out the universe. Ditto for the Hulk as well, apparently in the Marvel universe Gamma radiation was this big booming industry were people are blasting themselves with it to gain all sorts of effects.
Only if I got to help make it :) So probably never. I'd love to actually get to help build the lore up for the Old Night era. Although I have it good authority that at least one of the current BL writers does watch the show.
@@isaacarthurSFIA I'd listen to you make lore for the Old Night, or anything else! Just having you help GW fix the numbers of planets and people in the galaxy would be wonderful.
The most believable "super soldier" I have seen in media is in an anime movie "Genocidal Organ". They aren't physically superior, but they have been conditioned to be basically immune to combat stress and injury pain response. Meaning regardless of what is happening around them and to them, they don't lose focus or panic. In fact kind of the same deal with soldiers from the movie "Soldier" with Kurt Russell in the lead. Though these would fall into the cloned army category because these soldiers take a whole generation to mature into combat ready state. Though you can have a steady stream of them after the first batch has finished cooking. As for equipment, far more importance would of been put to not being seen. There are a LOT of issues with heavy power armor systems like a half-ton Mjolnir from Halo or 40k space marine armor. Momentum is a b*tch and without mercy. Or hell, just the fact that when operating in anywhere with soft ground means sinking into the soil every step. Problem with physically enhanced super soldiers is that it is a lifetime setup. They are born into it, live it and die in it. No regime is going to let their expensive and likely VERY CLASSIFIED trained killer put in a quit notice and go off to do landscaping. You have to keep them in line and loyal. And occupied. The worst thing for a commander are bored soldiers. Now imagine bored super soldiers!
I remember reading a TRADOC document years ago, back when they gave public access to some of their unclassified stuff. It was about the British troops in the Falklands war. There was a fitness craze at the time; Olivia Newton-John's "Physical" was on the radio, and many soldiers were gym rats or long-distance runners. It was found that extremes of those two disciplines were not an advantage on the battlefield. The bulky gym rats were unable to keep up because they didn't have the aerobic stamina, they kept having to stop and take breaths. On the other hand, the long-distance runners were said to look like "turtles" when they fell down with heavy gear, which according to the document, happened a lot. The document ended by championing "Combat Fitness" which was different from the sports fitness of the civilian world.
Great episode! Loved seeing the early Timothy Zahn books mentioned. Heir to the Empire and its sequels are fantastic stories that build off the original films instead of breaking them. I've always wondered, where is the love for Halo on SFIA? Obviously the core of Halo is about the characters, but the settings and technologies fit so well with SFIA topics. Specifically, the choices made in the Orion project vs the Spartan II program would have been rich territory for this episode. That being said, I do appreciate the opportunities to learn about sci-fi series I was unaware of through this channel.
In case Isaac somehow hasn't encountered it yet can we all agree that Bluey is one of the best shows to watch with the kiddos of all time? Someone here in the comments section turned me on to that show a couple years back and it was a very very welcome addition to the short screen time our little family treats themselves with :-)
I don't know how Bluey has anything to do space, futurism, and super soldiers. But I've heard great things about it. Especially for a show which is definitely made to cater to the TV-Y7 audience and younger.
There is something wonderful seeing Taller, stronger humans that are superior war machines being within power armor being essentialy walking tanks, there is something wonderful in a fight between a supersoldier human vs another basic strong Alien it shows that we as mankind we can do everything and noone can stop us because we will overcome any hardships, and cmon Soldiers in Power armor look cool af!
Great to hear you talking openly about your kids! I vaguely remember you mentioning that you are legality obliged to be careful about the topic until after the fact. You'll be one hell of a dad, I'm sure! Congratulations!
The super soldier will consist of more exoskeleton suit. Today we see all around from ankle braces to technology from company DARPA AND Boeing. THE FUTURE WILL BE BRIGHT
This science fiction subject is interesting as I am aware of use the supersoldiers, like Warhammer 40k and Halo franchise. Plus, in the near future, the once concept of the supersoldiers are just soldiers of the future as the states need the soldiers in the mass.
Universal Soldier series had a interesting take on super soldiers. It was reanimating the corpses of soldiers then enhancing them with a variety of genetic and mechanical modifications. Was a very interesting sci-fi setting as it wasn't really that different from our own time except for the technology to reanimate dead soldiers and modify them into super soldiers.
I'd recommend watching Soldier, a 1998 scifi movie with Kurt Russel, where a normal man raised since birth to be a soldier is replaced by genetically engineered super soldiers.
The Juicer and Crazy from the Palladium TTRPG definitely come to mind as super soldiers with either a short expiration date or one that inevitably becomes a liability to the deploying society. Though they are fun to play in an insane world.
Funnily enough latest episodes of Syar Wars' Bad Batch have been dealing a lot with what to do with their clone army now that the war is over and the new empire is in a transitional phase towards a army of citizens.
Its funny how often 40k comes up with examples relating to this, for the super citizens aspect I remember two particular ones Gulliman was training his Ultramarines to be administrators for the newly conquered territories whilst the emperors custodians were more than just supersoldiers but philosophers, artists, close advisors and all around just very intellectually gifted and active in addition to their work of being the bleeding edge of quality
"They shall be my finest warriors, these men who give of themselves to me. Like clay I shall mould them and in the furnace of war I shall forge them. They shall be of iron will and steely sinew. In great armour I shall clad them and with the mightiest weapons shall they be armed. They will be untouched by plague or disease; no sickness shall blight them. They shall have such tactics, strategies and machines that no foe will best them in battle. They are my bulwark against the Terror. They are the Defenders of Humanity. They are my Space Marines...and they shall know no fear." THE EMPEROR OF MANKIND
I know this isn't *really* what you're talking about but there are some instances in which quantity has a quality of its own, my first thought turns to missile saturation attacks for something like a navy.
That is a quote from Joseph Stalin. It is Soviet era military doctrine. Have simple rugged and cheap to produce tanks that can be deployed in huge numbers and operated and supported by disposable soldiers that can be quickly replaced as they are killed. It is a psychopathic strategy but it does produce results. Only possible in a society with a totalitarian political system that does not need to take public opinion into account. Think of the movie "enemy at the Gates" when raw recruits were taken off the train as soon as they arrived and paired up 2 men to a rifle and sent to the meat grinder at the front line of the siege of Stalingrad. When one is killed the other takes the rifle and keeps going and anyone who takes a backward step is shot.
I liked John Scalzi’s Old Man’s War for the brain pal. Putting aside the new engineered super bodies, information is power. If a soldier or unit knows what another unit knows without seeing it with their own eyes they can coordinate better. Drones or satellites see targets from above a soldier can’t see, a soldier on the ground elsewhere has visual confirmation, now every soldier in a given battle, up the entire chain of command, also knows where and what the enemy is. That is undeniable power. That is the future of manned warfare.
In many books "super soldier" is just a silly throwaway idea, like collecting dinosaurs to turn them into WEAPONS in the Jurrasic World films. There is often no plausible way these "biological weapons" could be more useful than simple humans with modern equipment. But if we consider what breeding or engineering humans for war'd actually look like it's pretty scary and I'm not sure society would allow such a caste of people to exist.
In an intergalactic scenario the civilian problem of super soldiers can be ignored do to ships traveling slowly and you having the ability to isolate those soldiers.
"Tommy" by Rudyard Kipling: I went into a public-'ouse to get a pint o' beer, The publican 'e up an' sez, "We serve no red-coats here." The girls be'ind the bar they laughed an' giggled fit to die, I outs into the street again an' to myself sez I: O it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, go away"; But it's "Thank you, Mister Atkins", when the band begins to play, The band begins to play, my boys, the band begins to play, O it's "Thank you, Mister Atkins", when the band begins to play. I went into a theatre as sober as could be, They gave a drunk civilian room, but 'adn't none for me; They sent me to the gallery or round the music-'alls, But when it comes to fightin', Lord! they'll shove me in the stalls! For it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, wait outside"; But it's "Special train for Atkins" when the trooper's on the tide, The troopship's on the tide, my boys, the troopship's on the tide, O it's "Special train for Atkins" when the trooper's on the tide. Yes, makin' mock o' uniforms that guard you while you sleep Is cheaper than them uniforms, an' they're starvation cheap; An' hustlin' drunken soldiers when they're goin' large a bit Is five times better business than paradin' in full kit. Then it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, 'ow's yer soul?" But it's "Thin red line of 'eroes" when the drums begin to roll, The drums begin to roll, my boys, the drums begin to roll, O it's "Thin red line of 'eroes" when the drums begin to roll. We aren't no thin red 'eroes, nor we aren't no blackguards too, But single men in barricks, most remarkable like you; An' if sometimes our conduck isn't all your fancy paints, Why, single men in barricks don't grow into plaster saints; While it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, fall be'ind", But it's "Please to walk in front, sir", when there's trouble in the wind, There's trouble in the wind, my boys, there's trouble in the wind, O it's "Please to walk in front, sir", when there's trouble in the wind. You talk o' better food for us, an' schools, an' fires, an' all: We'll wait for extry rations if you treat us rational. Don't mess about the cook-room slops, but prove it to our face The Widow's Uniform is not the soldier-man's disgrace. For it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Chuck him out, the brute!" But it's "Saviour of 'is country" when the guns begin to shoot; An' it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' anything you please; An' Tommy ain't a bloomin' fool -- you bet that Tommy sees!
If you define "Many" as "more than three", then I take your point. If you mean it as "a significant or dominant proportion of a given event sample", then I strongly disagree. You can certainly find a few cases, but it certainly isn't the way to bet. With that said, however, choosing to go the quality vs quantity route is a very expensive proposition...
I love your ability to logically extrapolate various future scenarios, and this is no exception. That said, I firmly believe war (in a physical sense) to be a great filter for a species.
It's a tough one for me. War has led to most of our technological leaps, but drives us towards our own demise. Would humans ever get to a space faring capable place if it wasn't for conflict driving it On another note competition seems to drive evolution more than anything else
This is exactly why pointless forever wars are optimal, just keep sending men to the meat grinder and those who come back will eventually be divine enlightened beings capable of everything.
I asked it to write me a story similar to "Guts" by Chuck Palahniuk, and it refused saying that it can be "triggering and harmful to some readers". "Creating a similar story, even with different characters and in a different setting , is not a respectful or appropriate request." along with a bunch of other sensitivity warnings and instructions. When I asked it why a successful author could write such a story, but it was inappropriate for me, ChatGPT broke.
In "Titanfall" soldiers have nanotechnology and jump kits to let them have increased endurance, mental capacity and reaction time say they were hand to hand against a regular grunt, the supersoldier could dodge every punch, and knockout the grunt easily, even to the point of killing them with one punch. As the nanotech utilizes adrenaline, and makes the muscles stronger overall. If they are to die in training, which there is a 90% posibility, their conciousness can be downloaded by the nanotech into a machine body, with that same training, destroying any infantry in it's path while zipping across the battlefield like an olympic runner and shooting as accurate as bullseye.
Ethics and morality aside. There was a hint of a super soldier solution in Blade Runner (1982). Roy Batty is genetically engineered combat model synthetic with a 4 year life span. And you need not even make the synthetic aware of the life span limitation. "You were made as well as we could make you. " Eldon Tyrell.
Still my favorite movie of all time :) I could never decide if Tyrell was incredibly honest and brave or arrogant in his conversation with Roy Batty, but I'd say a short shelf life only solves the problem if you're confident it's too short for them to come to know of it, get angry, and act on it.
A super soldier story with cloning "The Clone Republic" series by Steven L. Kent, Is kind of cool take. The general grunts are a base clone with a mental programing of not realizing they're a clone or they'll die so the "normal" ones don't talk about it, and we get to know how there was a clone type that became Legendary for there brutality after they murdered a whole planet while on a peace keeping mission. Resulting in a ban on that type of clone. The world building of clones as a second class citizens, expendable and hated by some high up generals just give a great story. Also there is a type of clone for covert ops that is just bread short, ugly, loyal and those are just cool boys over all. I can say it gets a bit long but it has a heart. Military sci-FY is cool.
One thing biologists tell us is that humanity rose not just because of our increasing intelligence but because we sweat. A lot of our adaptations made us the Terminators or zombies of the animal world, not the strongest or fastest but we could run down anything, kill it and keep going. That speaks to great physical and mental endurance. And given how great the need is, that's one area I'd concentrate on for super-soldiers along with general intelligence, to operate a high-tech military machine. Soldiers who don't break mentally are soldiers who don't rebel against good societies but would be trustworthy guardians. They'd also avoid costing billions in medical care, crime, lost productivity or whatever else, which is how I'd sell it to bean counters. I'd also avoid massive strength increases. Right now, scientists and engineers have enough issues making gear soldier-proof. Double their strength and making tough enough gear for your soldier will become a lot harder. Gradually increasing general strength would be a better option, both for health benefits to your people, especially as eliminating physical frailty has all sorts of good effects like fewer fatal accidents, and for getting your engineers the kind of instinctive grasp of your soldiers' abilities and needs. Dexterity and precision and general intelligence would be my next priorities after physical and mental endurance, along with self-repair/healing/regeneration capacity. Soldiers who can regenerate lost limbs if given bed rest would feel a lot less stressed or depressed over losing said limb in the first place. And these boosts again would be amazing in your general population, too. And that leads to the last boost. Empathy. By boosting the whole population, you expand your recruiting pool, letting you take volunteers instead of conscripts, letting you keep your soldiers empathising with the people back home and keep their loyalty and motivation and reduce the "why am I risking my life for those jerks?" moments.
If they ever did a remake of Six Million Dollar Man, Steve Austin would probably be a Marine or CIA operator critically wounded in Afghanistan who was rebuilt by the US Military-Industrial Complex. Accounting for inflation and defense spending bloat, the show would have to be called the Six Billion Dollar Man.
20:04 Which is why it is a good thing that Astartes have great blood clotting abilities, though I think this comes at the cost of clean healing if I recalll correctly.
One Viking berserk held back an army of English on a bridge. There is a similar story of a single samurai. In the korean Australian soldier fight all night run out of ammo in the morning the fight ends with them being surrounded by thousands of enemy bodies to a few men. Indian has a similar story. An Australian doctor who stayed in the hospital and fought until he died with many enemies badly around him. The one factor in all in each true story was they sacrificed themselves to protect their fellow soldiers. An army that never surrenders or runs is the hardest to beat. Most vets are better fighters as they have lost or controlled their fear allowing them to reason or plan and acted with persistence
Strength is an over focused part of supersoldiers in scifi. A far more valuable trait would be physical and mental endurance, something Warhammer40k has done great at including with the Space Marines. While not lacking on strength, Astartes in lore are able to stay awake for days to weeks without fatigue, and can even turn off certain parts of the brain like some aquatic mammals. Any infantry soldier will tell you this ability would allow any you to rapidly outpace and outmaneuver any standard fighting force.
Yeah, this is one of the most important lessons from the current war in Ukraine. Super strength wouldn't make that much of a difference in Mariupol or Bakhmut, although it could enable you to carry more or heavier equipment. Another extremely important quality is superior training, so Matrix-style knowledge download would help a lot, although knowledge can be perfectly well absorbed by classic means, albeit more slowly.
The super-soldier is nothing without the super-engineers, super-scientists, and the super-laborers.
That's why it's my hypothesis Mars will never be completely terraformed. It's more useful to just make the colonists all supers.
Yeah the ability to go to sleep easy and wake easy is probably one of the best traits for anyone working as soldier, in law enforcement, or as a first responder... I always sucked at napping.
@@isaacarthurSFIA Superpower: super naps.
@@isaacarthurSFIA Napping is optional when every pouch on your web gear has an energy drink in it.
That's kind of one of my favorite aspects of Warhammer 40k - how in the face of certain death, superhuman killing machines will often despair and look for any way out, because they consider themselves too great to be "wasted" like this. While the contingent of regular guardsmen literally 10ft away from them are currently hyping themselves up for the sickest last stand ever, because they accepted their own mortality about a week into basic.
There's a reason the big E always intended for regular humans to be in charge, despite said super soldiers being faster, smarter and taller, which is usually how rank is signified in 40k.
The Emperor only created the Imperial Guard during the Horus Heresy, and that's one of the last things he did before he was placed on the Golden Throne. Before this, most of the wars were fought using Primarchs and Astartes
@@imperium4821 not completely accurate. The astra militarum was dissected from the exertus impirialus at the end of the HH. (spelling?). Prior to even the great crusade, during the unification wars, big daddy E used multitudes of baseline humans to augment his thunder warriors. Many of those regiments (at least the name haha) survived the UW, the GC, the HH, and likely even served in the indomitus crusade.
@@imperium4821 This is true only in the sense that the Imp Guard and Imp navy were not seperate before that point.
Do you have any idea what are you talking about?
@@vincentcrow6075 Yeah the biggest thing in space marine mental condoning is accepting your own death (and loyalty of xourse) last I recall?
The point about needing the super soldiers to be super citizens brought to mind something I learned about Samurai. They were expected to learn artistic skills, not just to be cultured, but also so they had something to fall back on during times of peace. I'm sure there are plenty of other examples from other cultures as well.
As far as writing goes, I could imagine a very poignant scene of a group of super soldiers relaxing between missions. They'd sit around a fire and start composing Haiku, and maybe pick out a favorite. Simple, but very humanizing, could be very powerful if done well.
European knights were expected to be good dancers. Those who composed poetry, played instruments or sang were generally respected for their skill, assuming they had it. Some of the more famous medieval music that has survived, either as music, or lyrics, or both, was written by knights, e. g., Walther von der Vogelweide's Palaestinalied, or Bertran de Born.
The norse were well known for poetry and poetry was elevated greatly in their capacity
@@jochentram9301 Modern society has as stereotype of fighter or brains types, but doesn't realize that focusing on both and becoming superior in both mental and physical is quite achievable and a very noble goal.
Imagine society if we taught that being a warrior scholar was the norm
In Warhammer 40k, Roboute Guilliman trained his 13th Legion "Ultramarines" to be exemplary administrators and bureaucrats as well as super soldiers, which helped a lot with the integration into the Imperium of territories they conquered during the Great Crusade. This had the very intentional side effect of making them potentially useful to the Emperor even after the Great Crusade was over. Isaac may have alluded to this in showing such an Ultramarine while prefacing the super-citizen concept
underrated comment
Last time I was this early Spartans were still child soldiers.
What about their predecessor, the Orion supersoldiers?
@@hypotheticalaxolotl Whenever someone mentions child soldiers these days, I'm reminded of a scene I saw recently:
Superman: I don't quite understand. What do you mean when you say this boy was your best friend...?
Shazam: I need to show you something. *_Shazam!_*
[Superman looks at little Billy Batson for a long silent moment.]
Superman: Who _did_ this to you?
@@hypotheticalaxolotl The Orion troopers were adult volunteers. One of them was Avery Johnson.
@@arcadiaberger9204 Wait which movie was that?
@@hypotheticalaxolotl What is their Spartan generation number, the Orion troopers? Look them up.
I think Starship Troopers (the book) actually gives a great depiction of super soldiers. They go through extremely harsh training -every year several mobile infantry (MI) cadets die and the majority washout- in all forms of combat, are given power armor that no one but other MI in gorilla suits can fight one on one with, and mostly conduct small unit operations with battles/raids rarely seeing more than a company fight. They also don’t have the problem of what to do with them after because the entire point is earn the franchise and return to society.
That was pretty much what I was going to say. If Heinlein were here today and could see some of the battlefield concepts being worked on, he'd be pleased indeed! In societal values- not so much.
@@stevenpilling5318 Still better than what we have now.
1)Starship Troopers doesn't have supersoldiers. It's ordinary soldiers of the Federation, who go through that training regiment and use such equipment. Mostly because Federation is militaristic state that had no use for actual military so the main goal was to wash out people and it became mostly a political and governance filter where people born into military families and being trained by their parents from birth specifically to already be ready for selection process have higher changes to pursue political career unopposed compared to outsiders like Rico. Moreover it is designed to prevent women in command structure and higher political echelons as we see a lot of women in fleet, but none in infantry and for example getting a position of marshal requires serving a tour in both, not just one branch. But tbh that's mostly Heinlein not caring about ST as much as about other of his books as it was a throwaway idea and quite a mediocre book compared to his other creations ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
2)Heinlein even in the books suggested that the time of Mobile Infantry may be coming to a close in just a few years as they'd be replaced by robotic soldiers. Moreover the combat is kept simplistic ie cool and awesome in your eyes apparently because it wasn't a focus of the book, societal study was. That's why Federation lacks combined arms doctrine as well as close air and artillery support. And why neither "stickmen", nor "bugs" have SPAA or IFVs. Remember mission at the dam in the prologue? Now imagine single MODERN, not even sci-fi one, SPAA parked near the dam. It'll not only intercept the missile, but shred Rico and his squad the moment they'd jump above the rooftops or in the open. And don't say that Heinlein didn't predict it, he worked alongside people, who designed and implemented first CIWS's in the world. So if that aspect isn't mentioned or explored it's likely for much simpler reason - to avoid complicating the story with technical detail "gun porn" that would slow it down, but bring nothing to it x2
@@stevenpilling5318 and how many of his books have you've read to talk about his view on societal values? Maybe check out his biography and who he worked alongside with both in career and writer, huh? What did Orphans of the Stars tell you about his views? That theocratic feudalism is better? No? Then why do you single out ONE book around which you build your personality, eh?
@@TheArklyte you’re full of BS but you actually read the book, which puts you ahead of a lot of people.
What do you call soldiers trained to near super human abilities and fight in powerarmor that can survive a tactical nuke at close range?
Yes, the state philosophy of the Federation is that those who aren’t willing to serve the good of the people aren’t fit to govern. I don’t find that a bad thing. If you’ve got actual criticism, not just a slight unflattering description, I would like to hear it.
You’re acting like we should find someone being raised to believe in the values of the Federation and going through the process to earn the franchise like everyone else a bad thing. You come off like complaining that some raised as a Catholic is joining the seminary.
It’s just has hard for men to join fleet as it is for women to join the grunts. The point of the requirements for Sky Marshal is to keep all but the best from being Sky Marshals.
The MI almost entirely conduct special operations raids. We have no idea how far behind the lines they are. The skinnies have limited resources like everyone else, so they can’t protect everything, everywhere all at once. Also, the powerarmor can tank a tactical nuke as close range. Also, you’re forgetting about that the MI aren’t thousands of feet in the air. Ground clutter is going to make it practically impossible to target the MI. I doubt one or even several SPAA would stop the MI.
On the arachnids, they evolved to do things we use machines, so machines are redundant to them.
I always assumed that the real reason they didn't make more super soldiers after Steve Rogers is that they realized you need need someone they lucked out in finding a truly 100% altruistic person who is also 100% immune to cynicism and corruption. Absolute power corrupts absolutely except Steve Rogers.
Unfortunately this is anything but canon. Apparently his super-serum is just neigh impossible to reproduce because people have been trying to do just that ever since without success, unless you count the Hulk. I do like how in the early MCU it was very explicit that Iron Man wouldn’t be special in about 20 years, because by then the US, and several other countries, would be capable of mass producing similar suits and issuing them out like fighter jets at worst. Though I doubt they’ll follow up on that now that the clock is up, even accounting for the Thanos speed bump.
@@Betrix5060 Probably for the best then. I can imagine all manner of people who shouldn't be allowed to get so much as a wiff of it.
@@Betrix5060 Disney already confirmed an Armor Wars film with Don Cheadle. And even way back in Winter Soldier the U.S was able to make Falcon's flight suit.
@@Betrix5060 "...unless you count the Hulk." And ignore the entire plot of _Falcon and the Winter Soldier._ The plot of that show (when it wasn't trying to browbeat with political messaging) was that someone had made more super serum, and our titular heroes had to keep it out of the wrong hands.
@@Betrix5060 Yet they were able to mass produce the atomic bomb easy.
"Superior ability breeds superior ambition."
--- *Spock* , Star Trek
Except for Steve Rogers
All the better reason to make it wide-spread. Individual ability isn't 'superior' to others, so not so much PERSONAL ambition, but a collective ambition of all of humanity unlocked by our ability to dominate even our own nature? Sounds like a plan.
@@colinsmith1495
"When everyone is special... No one is." -Syndrome, The Incredibles.
@@DocWolph different people might still want only some of it, not all of it. some one might say "make me easily hot and really good at writing music" and even if that comes with much else (nothing is really so isolated), you might not care about the rest. Or, even with everyone having this, not everyone wants to do the same thing - you cannot be the best musician if you focus on something else because that is what you want.
We dont need different people to be better/worse at different things - we just need, and will always have, people who want to do different things.
That was Kahn.
Funny thing about 40K Space Marines: It's established that the Emperor intended them to be more than just killing machines that the Thunder Warriors were. Beyond their combat and tactical prowess they had constantly been shown to be abled administrators (had to manage logistics for entire wars, after all), artists, politicians (especially the Ultramarines) and who knows what else. During the Great Crusade Era there were much discussions about what they were going to do with the Astartes after the galaxy was won, and some Primarchs like Horus actually encourage their gene-sons to pursue hobbies and learning beyond war so they can have a purpose in the post-GC era. Of course, with the Horus Heresy and the constant wars which followed this never happened and would unlikely to ever happen - after all, in the grim darkness of the far future there is only war.
There is also an issue with civilian intergration of supersoldiers after the end of wars and their purpose which the 40K verse or related media have noted every now and then: the problem with supersoldiers is that as their enhancements and training put them above mere mortals, the lack of limitations and connections with them make them difficult to empathise or relate to the common people and often contemplate matters beyond ordinary humans' understanding. This inability of relation would make it significantly difficult for them to coexist with humanity as a whole in the long run, and it's one of the big reasons why even during the GC era the Emperor, for all his faults, had made it clear that the Astartes are made to serve the Imperium rather than rule over Humankind. Of course, the memo was lost among/poorly communicated to the Astartes and Primarchs which turned traitor, which contributed to the Horus Heresy.
I do believe in the long run something like the HH from the astartes was inevitable, if you know nothing but war for 200 years and then you're told there is no wars to fight and you have to live like any normal humans for the rest of your millennia long existence I think many astartes would have gone mad and rebelled just so they could go back to what they knew.
Hell it would not surprised me that if in a reality where the Horus heresy never happened the principal use of astartes post great crusade was containing the treat of others like them going rouge.
The emperor had such plans for the primarchs, but not for the astartes. There's establish lore that he planned to orchestrate a conflict to cull most of them just like he did with the thunder warriors. He might have planned to keep some of them around but never intended for astartes to be a permanent fixture, which is why he never took the time to fix the various gene-flaws they had and his overall callous attitude towards them.
You should read the Spinward Fringe series by Randolph Lalonde. One of the major plot points of the series is a nanotechnology called "Framework" that transforms anyone who takes it (it can be ingested in a pill form) into what is essentially an immortal super soldier. The main characters of the first book are tasked with stealing the technology from an interstellar megacorperation and putting on the market for anyone to access so that this one megacorp doesn't become all powerful as a result of being the only users.
This is interesting!
@@Georg3e a rival corporation figures out how to create a basic consciousness and implant it into a body made from framework, essentially creating a slave race that can be programmed to perform specific tasks, but also to be 100% loyal.
I can't help but think about medieval knights (and their role back then) when it comes to supersoldiers in sci-fi. I think the whole sci-fi trope of supersoldiers came to existence because of them, a group of highly trained people who represented honour and protection.
Better got those Super Crossbows quick.
Recall the exact socioeconomic circumstances that generate such arrangements. A single well-equipped individual has to be able to defeat several dozen times more ordinary people with cheap weapons. It has to require an entire local community to equip such an individual. There also has to be so much instability that every community requires such an individual or it will be attacked, implying the absence of a larger system of social security, economic organization, and grievance redress that would make such attacks extremely rare.
Eh, forgot about the many jews and gypsies murdered by Christian knights on their way to the various crusades did you? Don't forget the persecution of the Cathars. It's never as idyllic IRL vice mythology and legend.
@@shawnwales696 Egad! Oh noes! You're accusing some Christian knights of killing members of the people that murdered their God, people everyone knew* preyed on the communities they visited, and heretics encouraging apostasy, a fate worse than mere death. You may as well complain they didn't take a plane to Jerusalem.
*What do you 'know" that people a millenium from now will scoff at?
@@shawnwales696 yeah, those holy wars which have all been extensively documented due to their rarity? The Crusades were by far the exception in Europe, probably because they weren't even in Europe.
The actual day-to-day duties of medieval lords was to keep the roads safe, enforce the law, mediate conflicts, and serve in their Lord's military. Also training. Lot's of training.
Totally. I think ONE rule that all "franchise managers" need to keep in mind, when they are considering a tech or social addition to their franchise is, "how might this be used in the future," and also "how would this have been used in the past, if it was possible?" It's always important that these choices make sense within the reality they are added to, that if there's no good reason why they couldn't have done this sooner, then they probably shouldn't be able to do it now either.
In addition to that, but also paradoxically, part of being realistic in the use of tech in sci fi is that some delayed advancement is just random and some complex technology will always develop before others. Don’t use it as a crutch, but it is useful for those situations where you want to introduce a new idea that you should have thought of earlier, but just didn’t because life is like that sometimes.
@@ianharrison5758 True, but thought should at least be given first, and a plausible explanation would need to come up for why nobody would have thought of it. I mean, in a world where people have been traveling through hyperspace for _thousands_ of years with the relative freedom of modern air travel, there would have to be dozens of cases _per year_ of people crashing into things and obliterating them (largely accidentally, of course), _if_ such a thing were possible within the physics model of the universe. And of course, the instant someone did, it would be weaponized almost immediately.
@@timogul oh yeah for sure, never pull shit out of your ass without a plan. Star Wars didn’t do that, I was referring to just a general rule
Funny, my preferred approach to super soldiers when making my own factions has always been super-colonists/citizens; a focus on uplifting everyone, not just a few and further stratifying society.
You uplift the few to subjugate the others and hopeful have some system in place to prevent them from overthrowing you.
@@grahamtotte7133 In the case of colonists a hereditary type of superhuman/transhuman upgrade will always provide a better yield long term as your regular colonists would also have to replicate since the journey through space is hard and long barring magical FTL.
This is the power of exponential growth
An egalitarian society would do that, but most societies now and in sci-fi aren’t egalitarian
@@pizzacheeseman2854 Sci-fi ones tend to be homogeneous.
@@Dragrath1 Yes but the warrior class of transhuman would have upgrades the rest are not privy to. Because whoever controls the super soldiers controls everyone else as well.
Ah yes the SPARTAN-2 episode we've all been waiting for
Equipment with the most important armor of all...plot armor.
@@bentuovila5296 and woe betide a spartan who is more useful as a martyr
"The best trait for a super soldier is a super citizen." I like this, I like this a lot. I hope you don't mind if I steal this Isaac.
Scott Sigler's short story _Passenger_ features some neat asymmetry in supersoldiers with a focus on unit cohesion. As an example, Sigler describes a recon specialist who squeezes into unusual hiding places and hibernates for weeks until an opportunity presents itself. There's also a dropship pilot who's hard-wired into his aircraft and physically senses incoming threats, but the machinery borrows so much of his brain power that he only speaks in robotic pilot jargon.
Each member of the unit is so specialized that they're all helpless without each other. It's a neat concept.
All SPARTAN-II soldiers have the socialization skills of an eggplant.
A design failure
One important part, and probably the "best" one in my mind, that you haven't touched on, is the Capsuleer/Templar EVE Online approach, selecting a "fine specimen", augmenting them with essentially a brain scanner and an antenna (among other augments) that scans the brain at the moment of/before death and sends a backup home to be loaded into a clone/android, creating a soldier with the ability to learn even from battles they die in, much like a gamer, every engagement is a net gain, and would also make it logical and reasonable to "sacrifice" themselves if it had a good chance of ensuring victory, not much different then being benched by the coach
People forget that:
1)super soldiers also means super officers, super pilots, super mechanics, super bureaucrats, super diplomats. If society can augment one aspect of itself, it can augment all others. Grunts on the ground are the thing that affects the conflicts the least... unless you want to write pulp fiction.
2)in society with immortal genetically and cybernetically enhanced population likely everyone was once a supersoldier. Problem is if they can recall what it even means after several centuries? Mass Effect doesn't have supersoldiers despite having genetical and bionic enhancement for example. Because it's widespread in society and is compulsory for volunteers joining the fleet and army.
3)pension funds and post war careers? Supersoldier PTSD? Astartes having a choice to retire to desk job because Emperor somehow returned and fixed everything? Republican Clone Commando facing unemployment after the war ended because Palpatine slipped and fell down an elevator shaft?
It's generally assumed that augmenting physical features will be a LOT easier than augmenting mental ones. That's not necessarily true, but it is quite possible. Even with the vast complexity of the body, we understand that a WHOLE lot better than we do the mind.
For example: Stronger muscles means more growth hormone needed. Easy. But stronger muscles need more blood, so bigger blood vessels, stronger heart, larger lungs, and stronger bones and ligaments and tendons to tie it all to. All of that complexity comes pretty easily because we understand that stuff.
More intelligent means.... what? Where do we even start, and how do we make sure it's a balanced intelligence and not a sociopath, or a super-intelligent dog? Do we need a bigger brain, or just more wrinkled brain, or denser brain? Do we need to change the basic neuron, or just add more of them? It probably doesn't need to apply to the WHOLE brain anyway, unless you WANT to change how we handle breathing and our heart beating.
I hate to point this out, but without grunts on the ground nothing else in an Army is worth diddly squat. The ENTIRE Army structure literally exists to ensure those Grunts, who in your words 'the thing that affects conflicts the least' are able to do their job. Every other Arm in an Army is there to make sure those Boots can take the ground they need to take, and then hold it, because ONLY infantry can fulfil that role. ONLY infantry can take and hold ground.
Artillery can pound ground to smoking ruin and craters, but cannot hold it. Air power can turn entire cities into smoking rubble, but cannot take and hold them. Do you start to see the point?
Infantry are not the least important aspect of an Army, they are the single MOST important combat arm or an Army, because without those infantry there s no fucking point in HAVING an army.....
@@alganhar1 where does a phrase gunboat diplomacy come from? Why does a phrase MAD exist? How useful were those boots on the ground in Pearl Harbor and Midway? And surely they've done a lot during invasion of "Home Islands™"?
Mass infantry assaults are a thing of pre-napoleonic times. If all other branches didn't do their job beforehand, then who are you? Target practice. And if they did, the other side likely already surrendered. Want to talk about "boots on the ground" for occupation and crushing separatism? After Vietnam, Afghanistan, Chechnya, Afghanistan again, Iraq, Ukraine? The only case where "boots on the ground" win is when they're de facto proceeding with genocide against civilians that don't accept them ie russian mass graves during Second Chechen War. And even then they failed to do it the second time in Ukraine in their occupation zone with all their "totally local patriots" since everybody was watching and had to go straight for full scale invasion in hopes for installing puppet government that'll do it for them. With a bonus that during active war phase it's easier to hide the bodies of said poor civilians they prosecute or send to the front as meatshields after forcefully conscripting them.
In intersolar, not even interstellar, conflict the side that won the fleet engagement already won. They can bombard you from orbit until you go into the stone age or until you yourself accept their conditions and YOUR army would enforce new rules stipulated in the treaty onto your populace. Or they will simply wipe you out instead of wasting time on precision bombardment because it's also an option for interstellar civilizations, who don't care about your species and can terraform new worlds back to being habitable with ease since it's much cheaper then any idea of FTL we currently have.
Emperor Palpatine falling down An elevator shaft makes me think of that robot chicken Star Wars special which was meant to be a biography of his life.
@@RandomGuy-lu1en Electronic Warfare is a thing that every remotely piloted unit faces. Electronic warfare and drones are current name of the game for both sides in war between Ukraine and Russia.
And would you trust an autonomous robot? If you do, then what makes it lesser then you and what gives you the right to throw its life or at least consciousness away?
21:06 Jango Fett was chosen because he was the best at hunting Jedi which was the main purpose of the clones in the eyes of their creators Palpatine and Dooku.
That his clones were very capable super-soldiers in other aspects was just a positive side effect.
Oh wow! Bonus episode! Thanks Isaac!
You bet!
motie warriors from Mote in Gods Eye were the ideal super soldier. Perfectly loyal to the masters, fast breeders, self training, capable of building and modifying their own weapons on the fly and extremely deadly.
Just an all around good book too :)
The best way to make "Super Soldiers" is by increasing the base stats of all members of your society, especially intelligence, and making everyone "Super". In real life, super soldiers are never enough to win as witnessed in recent conflicts. Now, if all of your forces are "elite" based on increasing base stats, that's another story.
While not necessarily "soldiers" in the classic sense, I really like the approach EVE Online takes with the immortal capsuleer. You (the player and a handful of NPCs) are augmented for the specific purpose of piloting a ship. For that purpose, you are able to directly interface with your ship, removing the need for a good chunk of your ship's crew. You also are functionally immortal, as your consciousness is transferred to a new clone at will or at the moment of death. This creates an interesting problem: you have these specialized individuals who are far more privileged than normal people, not just in terms of money (which, in the game, 1 unit of currency is equal to what a well-off normal person would make in a year), but also in terms of the devaluation of life, since you can do things significantly riskier than a normal person would, knowing that you will be resurrected. However, these capsuleers also are total loose cannons and require significant incentives to work in some faction's interests. It's an interesting approach because you'd have pilots who could singlehandedly increase your fleet's potential by 10x just by piloting a ship you'd otherwise need hundreds of additional crew to operate (in the case of capital ships), and, since they are individually skilled into specific tasks and equipment (for example a pilot who is trained only to excel at flying a supercarrier), and because they are functionally mercenaries, you as a faction can shop around for the specific capsuleer that fits your needs. It's less of a production line for clones and more of an applicant pool for employment in specific tasks they excel at.
It occurs to me that a lot of failure modes come from civilians trying to design super soldiers. What would super soldiers designed by soldiers look like?
I've heard that soldiers tend toward three physical types-- tall and muscular (max strength), thin-- not sure of height (max speed), and short and wide (max endurance).
Star with the ability to consume coffee without water. Add the ability to sleep once every three days and stay alert the whole time.
@@thekaxmax The Culture's drug gland.
And I'd add in physical and mental stability/resilience.
We've used machines to amplify power for ages and we won't stop any time soon so normal human strength range is sufficient. As a bonus, it means your scientists and engineers will be instinctively grasp better what your soldiers can do that way. If you can boost your scientists and rest of society in strength, you might as well and then you can have your military gear reflect that, too, but strength beyond what your engineers understand and think of is something that can be neutral or even bad. Supersoldiers punching buttons and breaking the buttons.
No, what I'd concentrate on is amplifying human advantages: endurance and stamina, psychological resilience, general intelligence, ability to reason things through quickly, override instincts and emotions and empathy for their fellow soldiers AND for the people back home. You WANT your soldiers to have all the reasons you can engineer for them to fight their best when the time comes.
Self-repair/healing, dexterity, improved senses and information processing, multitasking, there are a lot of things that are nice to have, but resilience, stamina, inc mental endurance, might be the most significant boost.
Soldiers who don't mind standing guard and don't lose their edge would be super.
I would say resistance to stress and being able to sleep on command. Everything else is pretty much a bonus.
So a lot like an American football team.
I find the Pilots from Titanfall interesting in that while they have access to jump jet technology, superior weapons and gear, and giant robots, they have very minimal modifications to their own self. The most we hear are simulacra that are basically AI recreations of deceased Pilots and possible implants for Cloak Pilots.
Every other Pilot just has to pass rigorous training, of which most trainees simply drop out because they couldn't complete it. They're the best of the best and they earn it.
It’s one of those 1-in-10-billion scenarios kinda similar to 40k, where the human population is so large you get enough apex humans to build a military unit around them
There probably would be cascading effects from Super Soldiers. Military innovations do eventually find their way to the civilian population (GPS, tampons, duct tape, microwave ovens, etc). We might see super-laborers in more dangerous lines of work (mining, logging, construction, pilots) or former super soldiers working in police departments. It would also be inevitable that regular citizens would eventually get access to super serums or tech.
Wait, tampons were derived from military technology? I gotta know more.
@@KwadDamyj probably to plug bullet wounds, come to think off it 🤔
Edit : I checked, no, tampons weren't invented by the military, they were invented for the same purpose they serve today
@@KwadDamyj There were originally invented for plugging bullet wounds
@@KwadDamyj They were designed as a bandage to fill bullet holes.
I think an interesting option is parents being allowed to choose which standard(or less standard) modifications to apply to their children, and the results expressing cultural and subcultural differences more than leaders' decisions do.
"People piloting battle mechs isn't what we mean by super soldier"
*points and laughs at clanners*
Yeah, I get the point, but piloting a mech isn’t like sitting in your game chair clicking at a computer game. Pacific Rim had it right, as a workout!
11:13 This reminds me of this qoute.
"The society that separates its scholars from its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting by fools." -- Thucydides
Everybody always offers me great quotes I wish I included in the episode AFTER the episode is done, I really need a time machine. :)
@@isaacarthurSFIA I think you pretty much said that when you said that your scientists overdevelop rubber tyres instead of rubber shoes
@@tturi2 :) But certainly less poetically
Isaac and team, thank you for all you do!
I remember one deployment with the Marines, where we went on almost 200 mounted/dismounted patrols. My arms hurt so much from carrying my medical equipment and weapon that I could barely open the HUMVEE doors. If I wasn't in shape I would never have made it past the 1st month
Ngl, wouldn't have said this to american soldier hadn't you mentioned being a medic, but thank you for your service 👍
Super-citizens is a very interesting idea. Not necessarily a good idea, but very interesting.
Even defining what traits make a super-citizen can be a very thought provoking exercise.
Military use of PE is also a very important part of building unit cooperation and trust in each other. We'd do a lot of old school telephone pole PE during summer cadet training since it was great for PE that just tired you out for the rest of the day's lecture style training and did a lot of group and moral building between the people randomly tossed together with other's from outside their corp for 3 to 6 weeks VERY fast. Plus nothing teaches you empathy and respect for each other like seeing how much the pole smacks around the short cadets at the end of the formation when running in a double time march, or the more barrel chested cadets nearly getting winded each time they go down on a sit up as they take the whole weight of the pole for a millisecond; but never bitching about it. I HATED morning PE but when we'd see the telephone poles on the field; I knew it was gonna be a good day.
Unfortunatetly those drills were very uncommon, at least where and when I was, I heard lots of nostalgic praise or hate of them from older sergeants but the focus was all on PT tests maximizing in my unit.
The arachnids of Starship Trooper fame and the Formics from Orson Scott Card's series are the disposable super soldier models.
"If you use heavy cavalry then the enemy will run away into the forest!"
Me with my estates deep in the plains secure, without having to deal with attrition as the enemy ran away..
:D
IMO the most practical depiction of super soldiers in fiction is the coordinators from Gundam Seed, people genetically modified while still in the womb to be healthier and far more intelligent and with quicker reflexes than normal humans.
Another deep and informed look at a common Sci-Fi topic.
A great Sci-Fi Sunday video Isaac.
A smaller, more agile destroyer is good until it is hit and slows down.
David was smaller but fast enough to avoid being hit and had a disabling long-range weapon and was able to use the enemy's weapon against him before he recovered.
As magnetically unresponsive as the iron in blood is, Magneto would have to blast right by the power to manipulate non-ferrous materials, on his way to that much power. He could just make a new heart out of Thanos' grandfather's fist, as easily as control the iron in his blood. Love you work!
Inject metal into the body so it can be used to support damaged organs while being sterile and safe to have.
There will never be a perfect soldier, because no matter how good: what is best all depends on the specific conflict.
Your enemy will make damn sure stuff changes enough to make the best you have look like it's not enough, in one or more ways. I just can't imagine a scenario "perfect" will ever be "perfect" enough in regards to warfare.
So go low and generic: ability to stay awake and alert for three days at a time, ability to consume coffee without water, broaden digestion, increase determination and stamina.
@@thekaxmax Yeah, general perks like that would be fantastic.
And add more specialized "upgrades" to those that well: benefit the most from being really good at their specific job.
I would imagine the response time to whatever your enemy cooks up would be more important than maximum specs by themselves. Because i doubt we can have ALL the "upgrades" all the time without any compromises.
Timothy Zahn really is a great writer for Star Wars. Hopefully Thrawn gets written well when he’s brought into the Ahsoka show this year.
Should I play the First Rule of Warfare drinking game with this episode, or would that be too dangerous?
One of the most super but also down to earth abilities I have read in fiction is instant sleep hypnosis in starship troopers. You sleep as much as you need and can afford in a given situation, then you get woken up and put the other shift to sleep instantly, they wake up and you can keep going. Even being able to do this in short 15 minute microsleeps would imo work as well of not better than ww2 time Wermacht being high on pervittin for days.
It always confused me how in 40k they place such an emphasis on recruiting mentally tough people to become space marines only to wipe their minds anyways, acting like mental toughness is genetic and every personality trait is predisposed, wich is something very recurrent in 40k and that makes the story way less immersive imo
epigenetics of stress does exist and can be inheritable
I feel what makes a super soldier a true super soldier is not only enhanced strength. The soldier would have to be enhanced in all qualities; strength, endurance, knowledge of tactics, and the mind that would allow them to use their abilities to the fullest.
A Warhammer AND dune reference in one vid? I'm here for it. I know it's not what you do but going through the Warhammer uni science may bring in new subs.
In my homebrew rpg world there was a super soldier program that backfired massively on societal level. When it was closed the society had to deal with a significant population of higly aggresive purpose made warriors with abysmal social skills, no marketable skills in terms of work or everyday life and usualy with a lot of resentment towards the government. At first it was thought that they will die out because they were incapable of natural reproduction but a decent chunk of public opinion was with them in a sort of civil right movement so the government was also forced to expend a lot of resources to give them acces to artificial reproduction and opening social programs for them
I think an important factor is command structure and mission command. Obviously, a top down control system is important for a military to be cohesive and work to accomplish a goal, which would be the strength of an AI or Hive Mind. But, allowing all levels of the force to operate and adapt with their own limited authority is extremely powerful. A star System, Planet, Continent, Country, State Colony, City, Squad, or individual, can operate far more effectively with simple directions and goals from above, and the ability to shift strategies depending on the local situation.
5:10 What's funny about that is that in the comics and the old Fox cartoons there were numerous references to attempts at replicating the supersoldier serum which usually led to a plethora of more heroes or supervillains that filled out the universe. Ditto for the Hulk as well, apparently in the Marvel universe Gamma radiation was this big booming industry were people are blasting themselves with it to gain all sorts of effects.
Hopefully this is the start of you transitioning to a Warhammer 40k lore channel!
Only if I got to help make it :) So probably never.
I'd love to actually get to help build the lore up for the Old Night era. Although I have it good authority that at least one of the current BL writers does watch the show.
@@isaacarthurSFIA I'd listen to you make lore for the Old Night, or anything else! Just having you help GW fix the numbers of planets and people in the galaxy would be wonderful.
@@isaacarthurSFIA talk to arch.
@@scurvydog20 or rather don't, manny worms in that can. Better option would be Leutin.
YES YES YES holy god emperor Isaac YES
The most believable "super soldier" I have seen in media is in an anime movie "Genocidal Organ". They aren't physically superior, but they have been conditioned to be basically immune to combat stress and injury pain response. Meaning regardless of what is happening around them and to them, they don't lose focus or panic.
In fact kind of the same deal with soldiers from the movie "Soldier" with Kurt Russell in the lead. Though these would fall into the cloned army category because these soldiers take a whole generation to mature into combat ready state. Though you can have a steady stream of them after the first batch has finished cooking.
As for equipment, far more importance would of been put to not being seen. There are a LOT of issues with heavy power armor systems like a half-ton Mjolnir from Halo or 40k space marine armor. Momentum is a b*tch and without mercy. Or hell, just the fact that when operating in anywhere with soft ground means sinking into the soil every step.
Problem with physically enhanced super soldiers is that it is a lifetime setup. They are born into it, live it and die in it. No regime is going to let their expensive and likely VERY CLASSIFIED trained killer put in a quit notice and go off to do landscaping.
You have to keep them in line and loyal. And occupied. The worst thing for a commander are bored soldiers. Now imagine bored super soldiers!
I remember reading a TRADOC document years ago, back when they gave public access to some of their unclassified stuff. It was about the British troops in the Falklands war. There was a fitness craze at the time; Olivia Newton-John's "Physical" was on the radio, and many soldiers were gym rats or long-distance runners. It was found that extremes of those two disciplines were not an advantage on the battlefield. The bulky gym rats were unable to keep up because they didn't have the aerobic stamina, they kept having to stop and take breaths. On the other hand, the long-distance runners were said to look like "turtles" when they fell down with heavy gear, which according to the document, happened a lot. The document ended by championing "Combat Fitness" which was different from the sports fitness of the civilian world.
"Combat Fitness" just sounds like lifting and running/swimming
@@BirdTurdMemes A judicious mix of both, I should think.
0:11 What she see's when I woop it out.
Anyone interested in a dystopian super soldier story should check out "After The Revolution" by Robert Evans.
Longest set up for a headless Thompson gunner joke ever.
A curious army calls for a Snooper Soldier
Great episode! Loved seeing the early Timothy Zahn books mentioned. Heir to the Empire and its sequels are fantastic stories that build off the original films instead of breaking them.
I've always wondered, where is the love for Halo on SFIA? Obviously the core of Halo is about the characters, but the settings and technologies fit so well with SFIA topics. Specifically, the choices made in the Orion project vs the Spartan II program would have been rich territory for this episode.
That being said, I do appreciate the opportunities to learn about sci-fi series I was unaware of through this channel.
Soldier (1996) was my favorite take on the concept rather than Universal Soldier.
Fantastic video Isaac and Team!!! I've been looking forward to this one for a long time.
In case Isaac somehow hasn't encountered it yet can we all agree that Bluey is one of the best shows to watch with the kiddos of all time? Someone here in the comments section turned me on to that show a couple years back and it was a very very welcome addition to the short screen time our little family treats themselves with :-)
I love how Bluey will randomly pop up in the comments section on a video about super soldiers. You're 100% correct though, Bluey is a blessed show.
I don't know how Bluey has anything to do space, futurism, and super soldiers. But I've heard great things about it. Especially for a show which is definitely made to cater to the TV-Y7 audience and younger.
There is something wonderful seeing Taller, stronger humans that are superior war machines being within power armor being essentialy walking tanks, there is something wonderful in a fight between a supersoldier human vs another basic strong Alien it shows that we as mankind we can do everything and noone can stop us because we will overcome any hardships, and cmon Soldiers in Power armor look cool af!
Great to hear you talking openly about your kids!
I vaguely remember you mentioning that you are legality obliged to be careful about the topic until after the fact.
You'll be one hell of a dad, I'm sure! Congratulations!
The first thing that I thought when I saw the title was "Please talk about Space Marines, Please talk about Space Marines" xD
Happy Sunday my friends! May we all live long and prosper 🖖🏻
Same to you!
The super soldier will consist of more exoskeleton suit. Today we see all around from ankle braces to technology from company DARPA AND Boeing. THE FUTURE WILL BE BRIGHT
This science fiction subject is interesting as I am aware of use the supersoldiers, like Warhammer 40k and Halo franchise. Plus, in the near future, the once concept of the supersoldiers are just soldiers of the future as the states need the soldiers in the mass.
i love watching isaac . such a relaxing way to drift of to sleep! then i watch the rest when i wake up !
I do the exact same thing
Warhammer 40K space marines was at the best when they were walking tanks and nothing, more now they have gone overboard it is just hilarious.
8:40 Omni-man
Universal Soldier series had a interesting take on super soldiers. It was reanimating the corpses of soldiers then enhancing them with a variety of genetic and mechanical modifications. Was a very interesting sci-fi setting as it wasn't really that different from our own time except for the technology to reanimate dead soldiers and modify them into super soldiers.
Well, apparently your tigh muscles in combination with your femoral arteries actually work like secondary hearts when in use.
I'd recommend watching Soldier, a 1998 scifi movie with Kurt Russel, where a normal man raised since birth to be a soldier is replaced by genetically engineered super soldiers.
The Juicer and Crazy from the Palladium TTRPG definitely come to mind as super soldiers with either a short expiration date or one that inevitably becomes a liability to the deploying society. Though they are fun to play in an insane world.
Rifts?
2020 does this too
WHAT IS TO KEEP THEM IN CHECK ? SUPER .. WHAT MAKES THEM SUPER ?
Funnily enough latest episodes of Syar Wars' Bad Batch have been dealing a lot with what to do with their clone army now that the war is over and the new empire is in a transitional phase towards a army of citizens.
Its funny how often 40k comes up with examples relating to this, for the super citizens aspect I remember two particular ones
Gulliman was training his Ultramarines to be administrators for the newly conquered territories whilst the emperors custodians were more than just supersoldiers but philosophers, artists, close advisors and all around just very intellectually gifted and active in addition to their work of being the bleeding edge of quality
"They shall be my finest warriors, these men who give of themselves to me. Like clay I shall mould them and in the furnace of war I shall forge them. They shall be of iron will and steely sinew. In great armour I shall clad them and with the mightiest weapons shall they be armed. They will be untouched by plague or disease; no sickness shall blight them. They shall have such tactics, strategies and machines that no foe will best them in battle. They are my bulwark against the Terror. They are the Defenders of Humanity. They are my Space Marines...and they shall know no fear."
THE EMPEROR OF MANKIND
I know this isn't *really* what you're talking about but there are some instances in which quantity has a quality of its own, my first thought turns to missile saturation attacks for something like a navy.
That is a quote from Joseph Stalin. It is Soviet era military doctrine. Have simple rugged and cheap to produce tanks that can be deployed in huge numbers and operated and supported by disposable soldiers that can be quickly replaced as they are killed. It is a psychopathic strategy but it does produce results. Only possible in a society with a totalitarian political system that does not need to take public opinion into account. Think of the movie "enemy at the Gates" when raw recruits were taken off the train as soon as they arrived and paired up 2 men to a rifle and sent to the meat grinder at the front line of the siege of Stalingrad. When one is killed the other takes the rifle and keeps going and anyone who takes a backward step is shot.
I liked John Scalzi’s Old Man’s War for the brain pal. Putting aside the new engineered super bodies, information is power. If a soldier or unit knows what another unit knows without seeing it with their own eyes they can coordinate better. Drones or satellites see targets from above a soldier can’t see, a soldier on the ground elsewhere has visual confirmation, now every soldier in a given battle, up the entire chain of command, also knows where and what the enemy is. That is undeniable power. That is the future of manned warfare.
In many books "super soldier" is just a silly throwaway idea, like collecting dinosaurs to turn them into WEAPONS in the Jurrasic World films. There is often no plausible way these "biological weapons" could be more useful than simple humans with modern equipment.
But if we consider what breeding or engineering humans for war'd actually look like it's pretty scary and I'm not sure society would allow such a caste of people to exist.
A good example of a super citizen is this guy I know named Issac Arthur. Great guy you should look him up.
In an intergalactic scenario the civilian problem of super soldiers can be ignored do to ships traveling slowly and you having the ability to isolate those soldiers.
I'm super sold on this topic!
the TNG episode 'the hunted' is a great analogy for how parts of society treat soliders after war.
"Tommy" by Rudyard Kipling:
I went into a public-'ouse to get a pint o' beer,
The publican 'e up an' sez, "We serve no red-coats here."
The girls be'ind the bar they laughed an' giggled fit to die,
I outs into the street again an' to myself sez I:
O it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, go away";
But it's "Thank you, Mister Atkins", when the band begins to play,
The band begins to play, my boys, the band begins to play,
O it's "Thank you, Mister Atkins", when the band begins to play.
I went into a theatre as sober as could be,
They gave a drunk civilian room, but 'adn't none for me;
They sent me to the gallery or round the music-'alls,
But when it comes to fightin', Lord! they'll shove me in the stalls!
For it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, wait outside";
But it's "Special train for Atkins" when the trooper's on the tide,
The troopship's on the tide, my boys, the troopship's on the tide,
O it's "Special train for Atkins" when the trooper's on the tide.
Yes, makin' mock o' uniforms that guard you while you sleep
Is cheaper than them uniforms, an' they're starvation cheap;
An' hustlin' drunken soldiers when they're goin' large a bit
Is five times better business than paradin' in full kit.
Then it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, 'ow's yer soul?"
But it's "Thin red line of 'eroes" when the drums begin to roll,
The drums begin to roll, my boys, the drums begin to roll,
O it's "Thin red line of 'eroes" when the drums begin to roll.
We aren't no thin red 'eroes, nor we aren't no blackguards too,
But single men in barricks, most remarkable like you;
An' if sometimes our conduck isn't all your fancy paints,
Why, single men in barricks don't grow into plaster saints;
While it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, fall be'ind",
But it's "Please to walk in front, sir", when there's trouble in the wind,
There's trouble in the wind, my boys, there's trouble in the wind,
O it's "Please to walk in front, sir", when there's trouble in the wind.
You talk o' better food for us, an' schools, an' fires, an' all:
We'll wait for extry rations if you treat us rational.
Don't mess about the cook-room slops, but prove it to our face
The Widow's Uniform is not the soldier-man's disgrace.
For it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Chuck him out, the brute!"
But it's "Saviour of 'is country" when the guns begin to shoot;
An' it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' anything you please;
An' Tommy ain't a bloomin' fool -- you bet that Tommy sees!
Supersoldiers would be nice for scenarios with limited supplies/numbers. This would be the case for single spaceship exploration/conquering.
There are many instances in history where quantity over quality has prevailed in battle.
And many instances where quality beat quantity.
If you define "Many" as "more than three", then I take your point. If you mean it as "a significant or dominant proportion of a given event sample", then I strongly disagree. You can certainly find a few cases, but it certainly isn't the way to bet.
With that said, however, choosing to go the quality vs quantity route is a very expensive proposition...
It is, after all, the first rule of warfare
I love your ability to logically extrapolate various future scenarios, and this is no exception. That said, I firmly believe war (in a physical sense) to be a great filter for a species.
It's a tough one for me. War has led to most of our technological leaps, but drives us towards our own demise. Would humans ever get to a space faring capable place if it wasn't for conflict driving it
On another note competition seems to drive evolution more than anything else
This is exactly why pointless forever wars are optimal, just keep sending men to the meat grinder and those who come back will eventually be divine enlightened beings capable of everything.
I just want uncensored ChatGPT.
I asked it to write me a story similar to "Guts" by Chuck Palahniuk, and it refused saying that it can be "triggering and harmful to some readers".
"Creating a similar story, even with different characters and in a different setting , is not a respectful or appropriate request." along with a bunch of other sensitivity warnings and instructions.
When I asked it why a successful author could write such a story, but it was inappropriate for me, ChatGPT broke.
But that would be racist.
Chuck P is my favorite author
@@User_5tjk42gj9 That's the problem with truth and facts.
@@Valchrist1313 Maybe the DAN fuction still works.
Sounds like the clones from The Bad Batch are pretty ideal
In "Titanfall" soldiers have nanotechnology and jump kits to let them have increased endurance, mental capacity and reaction time say they were hand to hand against a regular grunt, the supersoldier could dodge every punch, and knockout the grunt easily, even to the point of killing them with one punch. As the nanotech utilizes adrenaline, and makes the muscles stronger overall. If they are to die in training, which there is a 90% posibility, their conciousness can be downloaded by the nanotech into a machine body, with that same training, destroying any infantry in it's path while zipping across the battlefield like an olympic runner and shooting as accurate as bullseye.
Ethics and morality aside. There was a hint of a super soldier solution in Blade Runner (1982). Roy Batty is genetically engineered combat model synthetic with a 4 year life span. And you need not even make the synthetic aware of the life span limitation. "You were made as well as we could make you. " Eldon Tyrell.
Still my favorite movie of all time :) I could never decide if Tyrell was incredibly honest and brave or arrogant in his conversation with Roy Batty, but I'd say a short shelf life only solves the problem if you're confident it's too short for them to come to know of it, get angry, and act on it.
@@isaacarthurSFIA I think it was more arrogance than honesty. After all here is the god of biomechanics safe in the heart of his fortress.
A super soldier story with cloning "The Clone Republic" series by Steven L. Kent, Is kind of cool take. The general grunts are a base clone with a mental programing of not realizing they're a clone or they'll die so the "normal" ones don't talk about it, and we get to know how there was a clone type that became Legendary for there brutality after they murdered a whole planet while on a peace keeping mission. Resulting in a ban on that type of clone.
The world building of clones as a second class citizens, expendable and hated by some high up generals just give a great story. Also there is a type of clone for covert ops that is just bread short, ugly, loyal and those are just cool boys over all. I can say it gets a bit long but it has a heart. Military sci-FY is cool.
Starfleet from Star Trek has the best supersoldiers, because it's established that they can copy people with a transporter.
One thing biologists tell us is that humanity rose not just because of our increasing intelligence but because we sweat. A lot of our adaptations made us the Terminators or zombies of the animal world, not the strongest or fastest but we could run down anything, kill it and keep going.
That speaks to great physical and mental endurance. And given how great the need is, that's one area I'd concentrate on for super-soldiers along with general intelligence, to operate a high-tech military machine.
Soldiers who don't break mentally are soldiers who don't rebel against good societies but would be trustworthy guardians. They'd also avoid costing billions in medical care, crime, lost productivity or whatever else, which is how I'd sell it to bean counters.
I'd also avoid massive strength increases. Right now, scientists and engineers have enough issues making gear soldier-proof. Double their strength and making tough enough gear for your soldier will become a lot harder. Gradually increasing general strength would be a better option, both for health benefits to your people, especially as eliminating physical frailty has all sorts of good effects like fewer fatal accidents, and for getting your engineers the kind of instinctive grasp of your soldiers' abilities and needs.
Dexterity and precision and general intelligence would be my next priorities after physical and mental endurance, along with self-repair/healing/regeneration capacity. Soldiers who can regenerate lost limbs if given bed rest would feel a lot less stressed or depressed over losing said limb in the first place. And these boosts again would be amazing in your general population, too.
And that leads to the last boost. Empathy. By boosting the whole population, you expand your recruiting pool, letting you take volunteers instead of conscripts, letting you keep your soldiers empathising with the people back home and keep their loyalty and motivation and reduce the "why am I risking my life for those jerks?" moments.
Spartans from Halo and Starship Troopers is probably where we’ll end up going
If they ever did a remake of Six Million Dollar Man, Steve Austin would probably be a Marine or CIA operator critically wounded in Afghanistan who was rebuilt by the US Military-Industrial Complex.
Accounting for inflation and defense spending bloat, the show would have to be called the Six Billion Dollar Man.
20:04 Which is why it is a good thing that Astartes have great blood clotting abilities, though I think this comes at the cost of clean healing if I recalll correctly.
"We're not contemplating ethics, just options." Is another gold author quote.
And probably my standerd state of mind.
One Viking berserk held back an army of English on a bridge. There is a similar story of a single samurai. In the korean Australian soldier fight all night run out of ammo in the morning the fight ends with them being surrounded by thousands of enemy bodies to a few men. Indian has a similar story. An Australian doctor who stayed in the hospital and fought until he died with many enemies badly around him. The one factor in all in each true story was they sacrificed themselves to protect their fellow soldiers. An army that never surrenders or runs is the hardest to beat. Most vets are better fighters as they have lost or controlled their fear allowing them to reason or plan and acted with persistence
I will take this as approval for my "Officer Jenny" program.
Picture this: Eight chemically enhanced Supersoldiers with neon powers flying down from a Cargo Plane fighting demon-like aliens with argon powers.