You know who's kind of a tease? Science. Yeah, that's right. Constantly dangling the next generation of technology before our eyes, but rarely following through with the delivery...

Robots, human clones, invisible tanks -- all announced and in various stages of development. But we still haven't seen them. Debates are started, tests are done, unseen progress is supposedly made, but, we don't get to see anything. I would've put super-powered exoskeleton into the same category.

Then I saw one.

I'm totally fucking sorry, science. You did it. I'm a jerk and I'm ashamed for ever doubting you.

Did I just see that thing give that guy crazy robot strength? Um, and now it's playing ball? Well, that's cool but I bet it can't. Nope, wrong again, that robot suit is totally hitting the speedbag. Like fucking Rocky. Only Rocky can't crush yer head like a ripe melon. (Sorry, the Rock, it's true.) Rambo can't even do that.

My first, second and third reactions to that video were amazement. The fourth was fear. Fear of the fact that it appears we're about a year away from an actual living, breathing, super-villain.

I can already see it now. Mild-mannered army private whose body happened to fit the skeleton receives the awful news that the gov't wants to do some typical gov't fucked up shit to him and he's got no choice in the matter. No choice but to break into the facility late at night, hop into the machine (sorta like in Stripes only with less wisecracks and much more decapitation) and go on a bloody, sergeant-slaughtering rampage.

Or maybe the scientist who designed it refuses to turn it over to the gov't once he discovers its true purpose (he was told its job was to pick fruit... coconuts or something.) He hides the suit and is tortured for hours, eventually turned into a twisted, evil psycho who breaks loose and dons the suit, before going on, yup, a bloody rampage.

So many ways to go wrong with this thing.

I guess our only hope is that some brash young soldier steals the suit after the army refuses to authorize a suicide mission to rescue his kidnapped sister, during the course of which he decides to keep the suit, paint it red and yellow, and fight crime. Yeah, not likely.

I don't know about you, but I'm spending the next few years developing a fighting technique to beat this exoskeleton. So far I've got a nice start. Yes, it involves magnets... and an outlawed jiu-jitsu technique developed for rhinos. Admittedly, at this point, the plan relies almost entirely on the close proximity of a lake filled with acid... So, you know, I've got some work to do.


Special thanks to the awesome Drake for alerting me to the story... Well, "alert" sounds a bit much, there were no sirens or blinking red lights involved. She just sent it to me.


TheCoolerKing blah blah something about Thanksgiving.