As you may remember from previous articles, I have yet to hesitate when it comes to welcoming our over-the-top weapon overlords. As technology progresses ever forward toward the future, everything is bound to get a little more creative, and military intelligence is naturally no exception. The surprising thing is that the technology of the future looks a lot like an '80s sci-fi movie. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

First of all, who doesn't love laser guns? That was a trick question: everybody loves laser guns. I dare you to show me someone who has never even secretly dreamed about charging through a bay of the Death Star, pursued by a horde of storm troopers, blaster pistol blazing for a daring escape; in turn, I'd show you someone who has never truly dreamed. Of course, the only things more awe-inspiring than swift hand-held laser weapons are mammoth ground vehicle-mounted laser weapons. Remember the Battle of Hoth -- when all those Imperial Walkers showed up, all lasers and ion cannons akimbo, lumbering over the ice planet's rebel base like creaking metal elephants of law over so many matchstick houses? You bet you do; it's some powerful imagery. The U.S. Army also remembers, and that's when their imagination really started to run wild. I can picture them saying, "Sure, we don't have any AT-ATs... yet... but what do we have?" Then, visions of felled Iraqi X-Wings dancing in their heads, they set about finding who would be willing to mount laser cannons onto tanks.

Yes! Thank you, Boeing, for getting this ball rolling. As the article points out, laser cannons have some obvious advantages over even already-advanced radar-controlled rifles: they are faster, they eliminate the worry of errant shells, and also they are awesome. Boeing's initial development contract is for a paltry $7 million, but chances are high that this will be huge. Once these get off the ground and into combat, everyone else may as well give up. Anyone can come at us with all the Molotov cocktails and dirty bombs they want; we will have laser cannons. Star Destroyers can't be far behind.

Of course, our army is not content to get just one eighties movie reference all up in their tactical warfare. DARPA, everyone's favorite semi-clandestine Pentagon research branch, is reportedly hard at work trying to design software that will predict battle outcomes for military commanders. The goal of the program, thus far code-named "Deep Green," is to identify plans going awry and develop possible alternatives ahead of time, allowing troops to always stay one step ahead of disaster. It's apparently a fairly complicated process, and if I'm reading this right it involves what sounds like back-issues of Beetle Bailey and every book I ever checked out from the school library in fourth grade.

Sweet! War is a turn-based Choose Your Own Adventure novel. I sure hope Deep Green comes with the option to surreptitiously keep a thumb in the last page visited, so that if you get to a page that says "YOU HAVE ENTERED A TRAP, AND ARE KILLED BE INSURGENTS. END." you can flip back really quickly before anybody notices.

Actually, in my heart of hearts, what I truly hope is that after searching through millions of options, the program eventually comes to the conclusion that the only winning move is not to play; then maybe we could put all the weapons down and slowly back away from World War Three.

But, then, what would we do with all these lasers?


_DictionaryGirl_ wants to know how it is that we can be building AT-ATs and WarGames computers, but she can't get her computer to work for more than a month without having to send it in to the shop for repairs. What gives, man?

Also, super-props to geniuses Admiral_Pants and baudot for pointing out Deep Green's roots in computer-based chess mastery. I've always been more of a Battleship kind of girl.