Build a Better Centurion

[Damocles]

Now that we have a thread about why the Cylons are running around on two legs and shooting at Colonials with rifles, the question arises, if you find that to be less than optimal, how woud you build a better Cylon?

Bear in mind that you have to design your Cylon to be filmable in groups of up to eight for a film chase/fight scene with Colonial; actors/Warriors.

That sort of leaves these out;



As the artilects must be interfaceble with a variety of tools and platforms.

So how would you harden up your Centurion to operate in an ECM/ECCM environment and be technically up to date?

As always;

[spcglider]

Do we get to use CG?

-Gordon

[Damocles]

Originally Posted by spcglider

Do we get to use CG?

-Gordon

Yes. as long as you understand that CG model sizing, shot plane perspective and shot framing with the live actors in the current state of the art; are all issues you have to confront in post-production SFX, as well as the COSTS.

As always;

[ernie90125]

Oh.....I mis-understood. I thought it meant re-design the Cylons based on technology we know exists today....so if we built one.....

Can I give my answer anyway, pretty please ?

Multiple eyes giving multiple visual input....such as heat seeking/night vision etc.

Self-Repairing armour.

Automatic camoflaging like a cameleon.

Jet packs under the feet so they can fly.

Ability to give out various signals...such a jamming, microwave to melt people's skin(US Army invention), ear splitting scream.

Ability to spread chemical weapons around the surrounding area, including but not limited to cynaide.

Machine gun.....capable of thousands of rounds a minute, armour piercing rounds.

Encrypted wireless communication, with satellite to relay messages worldwide.

Built in GPS...and satellite link for perfect 'bird's eye view'.

Shoulder mounted missile launcher.

etc etc etc.

I am sure there are other ideas....and someone will know ways to counter some of the above.....so imagine when a Cylon could be when we're advanced enough to be capable of building Battlestars !

[Damocles]

Oh.....I mis-understood. I thought it meant re-design the Cylons based on technology we know exists today....so if we built one.....

You need to understand that the Cylon must be usable.

Can I give my answer anyway, pretty please ?

Sure.

Multiple eyes giving multiple visual input....such as heat seeking/night vision etc.

Radar and Sonar. Your Centurion will be a bat. He has to be to receive echoes from his coded active scanners. If not then it can be hallucinated with induced mirage signals that will feed a virus or a worm straight into its CPU right past its Norton(TM) firewall if it relies on passive non discriminating sensors.

Self-Repairing armour.

Nanite jello is what you want between metallic glass plate outer and inner skin. Call me in ten thousand years, and I'll whip it up for you.

Automatic camoflaging like a cameleon.

Thats a plasma cloak. For the US Army that is possible. Only one problem. The man-sized machine you cloak needs a generator the size of a Mack truck to power it.

Jet packs under the feet so they can fly.

Fan jet is better. Heat, plus the rocket boost on a humanoid form that is mass unbalanced along the axis of thrust is tantamount to toppling and a sidewinder missile up the kazoo.

Ability to give out various signals...such a jamming, microwave to melt people's skin(US Army invention), ear splitting scream.

Maser requires a lot of power which we don't have available to us in a storable form short of vircator "bullets"(pulses). Radio and sound weapons are better used as appropiate-i.e. use a siren hooked up to the ducted fan to produce a subsonic stunner. Put them to sleep and as they fall out, shoot them semi-automatically, with your onboard carbine.

Ability to spread chemical weapons around the surrounding area, including but not limited to cyanide.

You don't want to do that thing. Contaminants and volatiles, you find in insecticides are bad for us, but are murder on computers.

Machine gun.....capable of thousands of rounds a minute, armour piercing rounds.

Semi-automatic carbine fire and bomblets/mines are better and more efficient. (Doesn't waste ammunition.). Besides, your robot is only going to carry fifty to one hundred rounds of ammunition, plus about ten to twenty-five grenade sized bomblets. Any more and it can't move efficiently. Too much weight.

Encrypted wireless communication, with satellite to relay messages worldwide.

Forcenet or British BFT is superior.

Built in GPS...and satellite link for perfect 'bird's eye view'.

Gyroed INS is more valuable.

Shoulder mounted missile launcher.

Impractical. You can do this;

http://www.army.mil/fcs/factfiles/nlosls.html

and it is cheaper.

I am sure there are other ideas....and someone will know ways to counter some of the above.....so imagine when a Cylon could be when we're advanced enough to be capable of building Battlestars !

You'll have this.



Its the only thing Lucas ever got RIGHT in Starwars and it is for what the US Army aims.

As always;

[ernie90125]

Nanite jello is what you want between metallic glass plate outer and inner skin. Call me in ten thousand years, and I'll whip it up for you.

Not sure about 10,000 years. This comment was inspried by this link :

http://trekunited.com/content/index....d=500&Itemid=2

You're right though.....the probe droid with better defenses and weaponry would be good....

[Damocles]

Originally Posted by ernie90125

Not sure about 10,000 years. This comment was inspried by this link :

http://trekunited.com/content/index....d=500&Itemid=2

You're right though.....the probe droid with better defenses and weaponry would be good....

http://www.army-technology.com/contr...rotection/tss/

Original WW II technology.

The nanite jello is a self-organizing Von Neumann material that repairs all of the smashed Cylon inside that is ripped up, not just the hole in its hide. So if a Colonial bullet blows out his CPU, the Cylon will have a T-800 self repair capability to restore it to factory new condition.

As always;

[Centurion Draco]

Just make sure you don't make those Nano-doohickies self replicating Damo!
We don't want a grey-goo catastrophe now do we?

[spcglider]

Originally Posted by Damocles

Yes. as long as you understand that CG model sizing, shot plane perspective and shot framing with the live actors in the current state of the art; are all issues you have to confront in post-production SFX, as well as the COSTS.

As always;

Without "tooting my own horn", I have been the studio manager for a special effects shop in Minneapolis for the past 15 years.

I've worked on films like "Feeling Minnesota", "Drop Dead Gorgeous", "The Naked Man", "Mall Rats", and others.

I've worked on more television commercials than I can recall.

Quadruple that and you'll come close to the number of still photography ads I've worked on.

I'm the guy who creates the budgets for each and every project.

So as far as your parameters go, I'm pretty sure I qualify!

-Gordon

WWW.MNFX.COM

[Damocles]

Originally Posted by Centurion Draco

Just make sure you don't make those Nano-doohickies self replicating Damo!
We don't want a grey-goo catastrophe now do we?

http://www.atsnn.com/story/139855.html

A little too late for that, I'm afraid.



http://www.eeng.dcu.ie/~alife/talks/...1/html-single/

The gray goo(us) is about two steps away from building a genuine Turing engine.(Fortunately for this generation, a ten thousand year process to cross the two threshholds of computing magnitude- a machine[quantum computer/hypermass] the size of a globular cluster.)

Once we solve that little problem(a machine able to completely duplicate the calculations needed to describe the universe.) then the replicator becomes child's play as it(the Turing engine) will automatically self-propogate its progam across a distributed architecture that includes us(the grey goo).

Hope our descendants like living like Heechee.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heechee

Say hello to the ancestor of the Turing engine, the Internet.

As always;

[Damocles]

Originally Posted by spcglider

Without "tooting my own horn", I have been the studio manager for a special effects shop in Minneapolis for the past 15 years.

I've worked on films like "Feeling Minnesota", "Drop Dead Gorgeous", "The Naked Man", "Mall Rats", and others.

I've worked on more television commercials than I can recall.

Quadruple that and you'll come close to the number of still photography ads I've worked on.

I'm the guy who creates the budgets for each and every project.

So as far as your parameters go, I'm pretty sure I qualify!

-Gordon

WWW.MNFX.COM

Okay, do you have access to a Cray for modeling the masters? And how much computing time on a distributed PC network(once you have the masters) would you need to CG a standard episode of CBSG like the HoG if you modeled the ships' and the Cylons'actions to Firefly or SAAB standards? (You should be able to do better now ; but this is possible Skiffy or CW TV we are discussing as a sale-so post production episode costs will be TIGHT.)

As always;

[spcglider]

Originally Posted by Damocles

Okay, do you have access to a Cray for modeling the masters? And how much computing time on a distributed PC network(once you have the masters) would you need to CG a standard episode of CBSG like the HoG if you modeled the ships' and the Cylons'actions to Firefly or SAAB standards? (You should be able to do better now ; but this is possible Skiffy or CW TV we are discussing as a sale-so post production episode costs will be TIGHT.)

As always;

I cannot answer your questions because they bear no weight in the circumstance. You haven't defined the terms of the project.

How many models? How many shots per episode? Give me a script and a breakdown and I can start to apply real-world dollar values. You want a per-episode budget or are you looking to establish a contract for the series? What's your preproduction schedule? Are your designs finished? When do we take possession of the assets?

The idea that you'd need a Cray to model working effects models is ridiculous. That's thinking based on years-old technological expectation. Many shows are using SG Workstations or even suped up PCs these days. There's more than one way to skin a render-farm.

As a professional, I would be an idiot to pull numbers out of my butt like you're asking me to. I'd be in a pretty poor position if I did that in my job.

Tell me, what EXACTLY are the standards applied to Firefly and SAAB? I must have missed that memo. We're not talking feature film here. Its 30 fps in NTSC.

As a studio manager, I can tell you that the workflow you establish is far more important than the random diffculties you impose on the task.

So tell me, how much do you want to spend?

-Gordon

[Damocles]

Originally Posted by spcglider

I cannot answer your questions because they bear no weight in the circumstance. You haven't defined the terms of the project.

Granted.

How many models? How many shots per episode? Give me a script and a breakdown and I can start to apply real-world dollar values. You want a per-episode budget or are you looking to establish a contract for the series? What's your preproduction schedule? Are your designs finished? When do we take possession of the assets?

I am working on a rewrite of GOIPZ to update the technical treatment while staying true to the essential story as a challenge from Centurion Draco.

Just from the first draft outline;

One Marslike artic planet in space with one moon. Red system star in the background.

One planetary ORBITAL defense grid.(satellite models required{one} to be used multiple times different backgrounds against the planet.)

One Cylon Base star.

One Alligator with;
a. standard Viper
b. scout Viper/recon drone
c. troop lander
R/T fleet with five base models
a. freighter
1. cargo shuttle
2. jolly boat
b. tanker
c. ore processor
d. transport
1. Cargo shuttle
2. Colonial crawler
e. science/surveyor ship

One Cylon ground base(Vancouver locale CG exterior superimposed over a selected mountain/valley locale[hopefully Bucky Domes] as the sat grid control station.).

One mine.(Vancouver locale CG exterior superimposed over a selected valley locale/or substitute abandoned strip mine.)

CG model of a Centurion.
CG model of a Monitor(Command Centurion)

Cylon ore extractor robot
CG model of Cylon robot snow crawler tank.

There is no space battle in the script, but there are four shots of the RT fleet ships (five ships detail framed in the first CG shot heading toward the star planet moon system to establish that the RT fleet is headed for Ice Planet Zero.)

Two shots show approach, and two framed long shots show the Alligator exchanging fire with the Cylon defense grid.

Three Baltar/Cylon Monitor two shots in a CG Basestar bridge/command center.(This may be rendered as a framed mid-shot with up to four Centurions working as Cylon bridge crew in the background. ).

One scout Viper/recon drone approach shot to Ice Planet Zero

Three shots of the defense grid(Cylon POV). One establishment shot over the northern hemispheric quadrant with three satellites to show the grid coverage. Two shots showing the defense grid firing on the assaulting RT fleet. from the Cylon point of view.

Two shots of the Cylon command base C&C interior showing three Centurions and one Monitor managing the Cylon defense.

One framed CG establishment shot of the Cylon command base that controls the orbital defense grid.

Two framed long shots of up to eight Cylon Centurions and the snow tank engaging our party of brave Colonials and locals assaulting the Cylon command base.

One shot of the Cylon mine in operation.

One shot of the Colonial shuttles headed in to land on Ice Planet Zero.

Estimated CG duration time per shot? 15 seconds average. Longest would be about forty seconds(ground assault and destruction of the Cylon command and control base.). Total number of shots fifteen to twenty. Total time about eight to twelve CG minutes out of a forty four minute episode.

The idea that you'd need a Cray to model working effects models is ridiculous. That's thinking based on years-old technological expectation. Many shows are using SG Workstations or even suped up PCs these days. There's more than one way to skin a render-farm.

Granted.

As a professional, I would be an idiot to pull numbers out of my butt like you're asking me to. I'd be in a pretty poor position if I did that in my job.

Granted.

Tell me, what EXACTLY are the standards applied to Firefly and SAAB? I must have missed that memo. We're not talking feature film here. Its 30 fps in NTSC.

1080i HDTV to meet emerging technology.

As a studio manager, I can tell you that the workflow you establish is far more important than the random diffculties you impose on the task.

I am familiar with workflow. Critical path is vital in my own business.

So tell me, how much do you want to spend?

-Gordon

This is a test pilot, How does $100,000 for CG sound?

And you will tell me that my preliminary parameters are too imprecise to cost out, and too expensive for the cost I budget on that basis.

So given what I've supplied you I await your professional criticism with great interest, so I can refine what is possible in the rewrites.



As always;

[spcglider]

You're asking for more effects shots in ONE episode than Stargate uses in a whole season.

Will we be expected to edit and composite or does that go to another facility?

Do you have storyboards? Will you be expecting animatics? Who's in charge of the new designs of all those extra ships, ore-diggers, etc.?

For a small shop like mine, 100 Gs will probably get you the modeling work done. What's your budget for the actual shots? Go to a shop like The Orphanage in LA and you'll be dropping upwards of half mil. Just for the models.

You're talking a laundry-list 4 planets, 15 space craft, and 6 composite models plus. Break that down and you've got an average cost of 4Gs per model. That's not alot in the grand scheme. But then when they're done, they are re-usable assets in your library.

We'd need a minimum of 14 months pre-production time to scratch all of them up.

We'll require location information for the static composite models (locations). Your shots for composite will have to go first on your shoot schedule. Normally they would be assigned to second unit.

You've also got ALOT of extended shots planned that I know won't survive edit. How many are you planning as lock-off shots?

Oh, and if you want Hi Def, quadruple your budget. For everything. That might cover it.

-G

[spcglider]

But I'd rather get back to designing a better Cylon.

-G

[Damocles]

Originally Posted by spcglider

You're asking for more effects shots in ONE episode than Stargate uses in a whole season.

This is a first draft. You've confirmed to me that the FX shots are expensive and you have to write the story another way to get the viewer to see it in his mind's eye.

Will we be expected to edit and composite or does that go to another facility?

That depends on cost-outs.

Do you have storyboards? Will you be expecting animatics? Who's in charge of the new designs of all those extra ships, ore-diggers, etc.?

Yes. if for no other purpose than to set up camera POV's and to frame the shot setups

For a small shop like mine, 100 Gs will probably get you the modeling work done. What's your budget for the actual shots? Go to a shop like The Orphanage in LA and you'll be dropping upwards of half mil. Just for the models.

$2,000,000.

You're talking a laundry-list 4 planets, 15 space craft, and 6 composite models plus. Break that down and you've got an average cost of 4Gs per model. That's not alot in the grand scheme. But then when they're done, they are re-usable assets in your library.

Building up that library might require a rewrite to limit this episode to the Alligator, the Viper and the cargo shuttle. Everything else spacecrafty, including the basestar might have to be ^offscreen^ and implied in the dialog.

But essentially its the expense that keeps space opera off the tube. I believe that a Canadian film company hired Cameron Mitchell to do a dreadful space opera; made the feature film inside an abandoned powerplant/refinery for their spacecraft interiors and used stock footage from CBSG to show the external space shots. They still lost money on the production.

We'd need a minimum of 14 months pre-production time to scratch all of them up.

That is surprising. I'd have thought six to nine months.

We'll require location information for the static composite models (locations). Your shots for composite will have to go first on your shoot schedule. Normally they would be assigned to second unit.

This would go into the location library. (Cylon command base and basestar bridge mining facility CG/sets would definitely be used over and over)

You've also got ALOT of extended shots planned that I know won't survive edit. How many are you planning as lock-off shots?

I don't know the final total; expect at least two look-offs for every final extended shot that survives into the final shooting schedule.

Oh, and if you want Hi Def, quadruple your budget. For everything. That might cover it.

-G

1. To cut the FX costs, that Alligator command deck might have to be redressed re-CGed to be the Cylon Basestar bridge, and the IPZ Command post.

2. I might have to settle for actors in shiny suits and cut out the snow tank.

3. But I definitely want one shot of the CG Alligator and one defense satellite exchanging fire. The Alligator firing missiles and/or its spinal gun goes into the library for future use.

4. And one shot of the Colonials assaulting the Cylon IPZ base(live action with the Cylons suggested as an offscreen defending presence.(Example Gorn assault on the abandoned Fed fort in ST/TOS Arena; but use Gorn POV.) That is STORY necessary.

The rest I can sandtable simulate in a scene as ^mapped out military operations in progress^.

In other words, REWRITE!

As always;

[spcglider]

Originally Posted by Damocles

In other words, REWRITE!

As always;

Give that man a gold star!!!

I tell you, the advent of Hi Def is going to drive the cost of sci-fi as we know it into the stratosphere. The cost of building anything (sets, props, wardrobe, models, CG, everything) to hold up under hi def will kill any potential heavy-hardware sci fi before it even hits prepro.

Unless you start farming out the work to third-world countries that pay their workers .02 cents an hour.

Its amazing how many people think that making film (or video) is easy and cheap. It is... if you aren't worried about little technicalities like professionalism. The reason movies cost so daggit-gone much to make is because of the sheer volume of people it takes to simultaneously work together to pull it off. Professional people. Its not just a matter of pointing a camera at some actors and saying "ACTION".

Dear Jeebus, the amount of cross-traffic coordinated effort crunch!

It adds up.

-Gordon

[Damocles]

Originally Posted by spcglider

But I'd rather get back to designing a better Cylon.

-G

Less expensive.

Probably will look different from our previous discussion.

Some things for what I would look.

If it is a CG Cylon, the Centurion would be a lot squatter and more stable than the bipod to which we are accustomed.

The glowing eys would be suppressed in favor of a strip or plate to represent phased array radar.

Four legs for stability in a box frame spider chassis.

Two arms jointed to the sides of a turret cylinder center body rising from the center of the chassis box.. Dome top sensor cluster head.

If there is a gun aboard it, that gun will be either be on a detachable point and elevate mount on the turret, or the gun will be a rifle that is carried in the Centurion's arms and pointed as it aimsd with its arms.

That Centurion would look a lot like a centermassed robot Centaur.

As always;

[spcglider]

So what are the limitations? We're dealing with an indeterminate level of "story universe" technology. No parameters so far. Could be anything from cast-iron steam technology to self-repairing nanobot.

Where do you draw the line?

-Gordon

[Damocles]

Originally Posted by spcglider

So what are the limitations? We're dealing with an indeterminate level of "story universe" technology. No parameters so far. Could be anything from cast-iron steam technology to self-repairing nanobot.

Where do you draw the line?

-Gordon

What I know we'll be able to do in the next twenty years.

1. Autonomous navigating walking robot with intelligence equivalent to an ant.
2. Long life storage battery able to power a refrigerator for a week.
3. Liquid metal armor able to stop rifle fire will be tough enough and light enough to clad a man sized four legged spiderbot.
4. Caseless ammunition for conventional rifles and machine guns.
5. Independent machine volition is totally unlikely.

There are limits.
-You won't have personal ray guns.
-You won't have nano-tech artilects in the near future.

Better plan on solid state fuel-celled Cylons that eat hydrogen have polymer plastic muscles, and that use guns and grenades.

As always;

[spcglider]

Boy, reality takes the fun out of just about everything.

-G

[Damocles]

This isn't Berman Trek.

A couple of hundred years out?

Short-ranged vircator shot maser gun.

Robot with the intelligence of a squirrel.

Equipped with a battery that can power a small housing subdivision.;

Maybe a small thorium decay battery instead.

Still has plastic muscles.

Probably has a Higgs field detector instead of radar.

Still shoots at with you with grenades, but these grenades are thermobaric.

And uses a hover fan for legs.

As always.

[spcglider]

Sorry, still too much like NEW BSG.

No (as defined by the series) lasers? No completely impossible technology described with inadequately evolved techno-jargon?

I'm an artist. You're limiting my pallette, man.

-G

[Damocles]

Originally Posted by spcglider

Sorry, still too much like NEW BSG.

No (as defined by the series) lasers? No completely impossible technology described with inadequately evolved techno-jargon?

I'm an artist. You're limiting my pallette, man.

-G

1. I can ignore what I consider possible reality and give you this possibility; if there is such a thing as harvestable vacuum energy. Such a device/engine would harvest the Casimir Effect using a virtual particle density difference potentiometer. The output could be equivalent to an aircraft carrier powerplant in the size of a solid state engine no larger than a basketball.

2. Your Cylon, given (1.), inside an atmosphere, can use a laser-induced plasma conduit path weapon. That is an artificial lightning gun. Outside an atmosphere he would use a particle beam composed of neutralized-charge hydrogen ions. Or he could use either a maser or a ground path magnetic field sheer weapon to tear objects electrical valence bonds apart(microwave disruptor).

3. Assuming that there is a magnetic field of any strength or a deposit of ferro/non-ferro magnetic ore to use as an influence node the Cylon can levitate on a magnetic field that is doughnut shaped. He would skate around in it like a hockey puck over ice. and he would be incredibly fast. Where he isn't in a magnetic field influenced environment he would have to use an aircushion or some kind of lift fan, in space an ion rocket ACS system. With the kind of individual unit energy production I've given you, he will use scarce 10% of his available power for movement.

4. With his magnetic field, the Cylon will be able to operate a magnetic Faraday cage such that that he can focus the field lines like a cone shaped net on any non-polar axis. He should be able to divert the path of steel jacketed bullets and steel shells and charged particle beams using that means. There is your point diverter.

5. He will have magnetic hands. His magnetic field will be that powerful and fine controlled that he can levitate and operate steel tools, such as screwdrivers, hammers, and box-end wrenches. He will be able to drive nails magnetically.

6. He most certainly will have a Higgs field detector(bonus that comes with the vacuum energy potentiometer technology) with an active phased array radar as his backup sense. For aesthetic purposes you can have the radar as a decorativew strip to coincide with the AESA weapon array. The two for all practical purposes are the same device!

7. He will be as smart as a dog.

8. He is no longer an it.

9. Shape is simple but not restricted so you can design him to suit the whim. The only restrictions you have; is that he must fit through doors and have some kind of manipulator planform symmetry and be mass-balanced. He may have 360 degree senses and zip around on levitation like a hockey puck across an air hockey table, but he still uses tools and is subject to the laws of momentum and inertia as well as acceleration and conservation.

If I was looking at this Cylon Mark III, (Marks I and II having already been described), I would expect a squat cylinder or a doughnut, with three magnetic arms, one per 120 degree arc, and the lightning gun/maser being an AESA strip around the Cylon's waist. But with this kind of technology you could do ANYTHING from old school CBSG to RepliCarter to Imperial Droid to ST/TOS Nomad.

You just won't get Buck Rogers rocket feet propelled and hominid-shaped

scanning glow eye moving back-and-forth

skeletons or Wing Commander tuning forks out of me as a practical Centurion design.

It did occur to you that at this level of technology that your Centurion is a self-contained spaceship?

As to how far off in the future this is? If the Zero Point Potentiometric Engine(Zippy) is possible? 1000 to 10000 years. We'll see the nano-jello first, so you better add that technology to your Cylon.

Sorry no transporters or artificial-gravity. Just postulating a ZIPPY is putting me in danger of practicing Berman crap science.

As always;

[spcglider]

Then MY Cylon centurion looks exactly like V.I.N.Cent from the Black Hole.

Only with a kick-ass silver chrome finish and a 360 degree double revolving eye on a retractable armored sensor package head.

He floats as if by magic or if you prefer, some unexplained repulsor technology. He talks. He has multiple manipulator appendages. He has not one, but two variable focus energy beam weapons intrinsic. And he is modular to make automated repair a breeze.

He has a soft-connect command matrix that allows him to operate any larger Cylon craft simply by socketing into the cockpit.


Oh yeah, and he's not so fat.

-G

[peter noble]

Build a better Centurion?

Nah, why meddle with perfection?



They're chrome and cool and they have that "swish" sound effect when their eye moves.

All though not capable of independent thought, if they attack en masse you ass is grass if you don't get the hell out their way!

[dilbertman]

Originally Posted by peter noble

Build a better Centurion?

Nah, why meddle with perfection?



They're chrome and cool and they have that "swish" sound effect when their eye moves.

All though not capable of independent thought, if they attack en masse you ass is grass if you don't get the hell out their way!

AMEN!

Jim

[spcglider]

Originally Posted by peter noble

Build a better Centurion?

Nah, why meddle with perfection?



They're chrome and cool and they have that "swish" sound effect when their eye moves.

All though not capable of independent thought, if they attack en masse you ass is grass if you don't get the hell out their way!

Yeah, you're right. Look at the little pookie bear! He's so cute and shiny!!!!

Who's a big bad human killing machine?? MMM?

YOU are! Yes you are!!!



-Gordon

BTW: Nobody ever really answered my question. Why can humans use cylon weapons? If I was designing the cylon centurion (in story-land) and I knew they were going to be fighting against humans, I'd arm the robots with weapons that couldn't be used against them. Just makes sense.

[peter noble]

Originally Posted by spcglider

BTW: Nobody ever really answered my question. Why can humans use cylon weapons? If I was designing the cylon centurion (in story-land) and I knew they were going to be fighting against humans, I'd arm the robots with weapons that couldn't be used against them. Just makes sense.

Because the the Cylons aren't programmed to make such innovations, they can only copy, like the reptillian Cylons copied the more versatile human form for their Centurions.

The Cylons couldn't invent a huge laser cannon for instance, they had to rely on a human, Ravishol to have the idea to turn his telescope into a weapon.

[Damocles]

Originally Posted by peter noble

Because the the Cylons aren't programmed to make such innovations, they can only copy, like the reptillian Cylons copied the more versatile human form for their Centurions.

The Cylons couldn't invent a huge laser cannon for instance, they had to rely on a human, Ravishol to have the idea to turn his telescope into a weapon.

Ravishol's pulsar is a signalling device, not a telescope. The man who modelled it just took the Palomar cage reflector as the inspiration;



for his model.

V.I.N.cent?



Have to clean him up to be a viable Cylon.

Max as a model really stank;

.

He is the redhued Cylon want-to-be that didn't work at all as a devil metaphor.

As always;