On Screamers

Peter Weller versus robots. I remember wanting to see this movie for a while now because the poster for it was in the AV lab of my high school. I never figured out why.

Anyway, having seen it I can say that it's a fundamentally flawed film because the essence of military advantage exists in the balance between measure and countermeasure. The day an army invents an unstoppable weapon is the day deterrents become worthless. In Screamers, one side of a ten-year war has invented robots and bracelets to keep the robots from trying to slice them into ribbons.

Now I ask you: can you imagine the other side not developing an anti-robot countermeasure in ten years? If the other side did not have the technological abilities to deter the robot/razor-blade threat, then why has the war been going on for ten years in the first place? In the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Conundrum", we learn that a single photon torpedo could have ended a conflict in which the Federation simply wasn't involved. There are no superweapons, just periods of imbalance as the military contractors struggle to keep pace.