Tag Archives: weapon

ZF-1

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Amongst its many holdings (including taxi cab companies) Zorg industries manufactures weapons, including their flagship weapon, the ZF-1. It has a great many features. It stores as a sealed pod, and can be activated by a remote control. With a press of a button, shielding retracts and parts extend so it can be handled like a traditional small arms weapon.

Zorg makes a pitch to the Mangalores for the ZF-1, so we’ll just let his own words sell it.

It’s light. The handle is adjustable for easy carrying. Good for righties and lefties. Breaks down into four parts. Undetectable by x-ray. Ideal for quick, discreet interventions. A word on firepower: Titanium recharger. 3,000 round clip with liquid bursts of 3-to-300.”

Next he pitches something quite unique to the weapon.

“With the Replay™ button—another Zorg invention—it’s even easier. One shot…and Replay™ sends every following shot to the same location…”

As he turns and points the weapons at the Mangalores, the ammunition arcs around to home in on the first shot.

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But wait, don’t answer. The ZF-1 has other features as well.

…And to finish the job, all the Zorg oldies but goldies: Rocket launcher, arrow launcher with explosive, poisonous gas heads (very practical), our famous net launcher, the always-efficient flamethrower (my favorite), and for the grand finale, the all-new Ice Cube™ System.

After the Magalores fail to uphold their end of the bargain, Zorg leaves them to play with the weapons. As they do, one discovers that the glowing red button on the side is actually an explosive self-destruct.

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Analysis

I know Mangaglores are not meant to be shining examples of intellect, but if I was considering a purchase, I would yes, compliment the incredibly nifty technology of Replay, but follow it up with four more important questions about the design of the thing.

First, Mr. Zorg, what good is the remote control? Doesn’t this make the weapon hackable remotely? Isn’t that device easy to misplace? What on-weapon means do we have to unlock it?

Second, how are you selecting from among the six different types of ammunition?

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On the exterior, we only see that red button. There might be some other subtle switches somewhere on the exterior, but you had to support the weight of the device with your left hand, so it’s fairly immobilized and I didn’t see you moving it. Unless it can only fire in exactly the order we saw, there’s got to be some other control. With your right hand hidden up inside the weapon, there must be other activation switches there. What switches are tucked up in there that are easy to differentiate by touch and easy to activate with your palm remaining against the grip?

Third, there’s that red button. Sure, who wouldn’t want to carry around a device that could erupt as an all-consuming fireball, but I notice that it doesn’t have a safety cover on it, gives no pause or warning during which the command can be retracted, and draws attention to itself by its glow. Isn’t that going to be increadibly easy to, you know, accidentally kill all my troops?

Fourth, during the demonstration we got a good glimpse at the front of the weapon. It’s got animated, blinking red LEDs whose pattern merges together to form a bright red diamond shape near the top of the weapon before looping over again.

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I’m not a militarily-minded person, but isn’t it counter to a soldier’s goals to have anything blinking, glowing, or pinpointing the soldier’s exact midline to enemies, much less something that does all three at once, and in red, the color that travels the farthest in atmosphere?

What was that about “discreet” interventions?

The Positronic Ray

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To combat the Resistance uprising, Durand-Durand unleashes his dread Positronic Ray. To control it, he approaches a high backed chair and touches a spot on the back. The curved tip of the chair extends upwards a bit allowing him to sit down. As soon as he sits, the tip retracts to rest just above his head and the video panel slides close to him. The ray itself is mounted on a two-axis swivel just behind him, with the barrel pointing out of a horizontal window.

The interface consists of a complex array of transparent knobs mounted on a glowing flat panel, set beneath a large rectangular video screen. While he is using the weapon, we see his hands twiddling some of the shapes clockwise and counterclockwise.

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The chair interface seems fine, if technically unnecessary, giving the gunner a small ritual feeling of power. The weapons interface, on the other hand, is a disaster. It has around 50 visible controls, none labeled for what they control or their extents, none have the slightest ergonomic consideration, and few are differentiated from the others in shape or placement. Also they’re all transparent, so add a lot of visual noise to the difficultly of use.

From his video screen we can tell that there are only a number of things to control: target (coupled to the camera), beam size (coupled to the camera zoom), and a trigger. Control for these simple variables could be accomplished with a joystick for targeting, a thumb button for triggering, and a slider at his left hand for zoom/beam size. Three controls which Durand-Durand could really think of as two.

Additionally, the screen only shows him what he’s currently focused on, failing to grant any of the field awareness that he’d need to keep the enemy at bay. Ultimately it’s a weapons interface that only a pacifist could love. Admittedly, he’s a mad engineer, and not a mad interaction designer, so maybe it’s just his insanity that explains this fiddly spread of extraneous controls with poor mapping and myopic feedback.

I’d love to credit this bad interface with saving the people of the city of SoGo, but unfortunately if its destruction hadn’t come from the Positronic Ray, it would have come from being swallowed by the Mathmos. Ultimately, they were doomed.

SoGo, destroyed

Atom transmitter

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To equip Barbarella for her perilous task, Dianthus sends her things using the atom transmitter. The device looks like a glowing table with a plastic dome sealing the top. One section of the dome is hinged on one side so it can be lifted and set back into place. The sender places the item to send on the surface and lowers the lid. The table glows brightly and the object disappears.

A “boing” noise repeats while the item is in transit. The person receiving enters a shared three digit number into her machine. (Dianthus has her set her “personal atom transmitter to 0-3-5.”) The receiving table begins to glow brightly. The transmitted item appears, the “boing” noise stops, and the table dims.

In this way Dianthus equips Barbarella with weapons and a means to identify Durand-Durand.

Let’s bypass the whole question of whether teleportation is possible. The key information a sender must provide is which matter is to be sent and when to send it. People are generally pretty good at simple physics, so using a physical space with a tangible interface to provide both sets of information is going to be pretty usable. This is also at a very comfortable height for placing and viewing objects.

The device, in turn, needs to communicate when it is in progress and when it is done. If Make It So has taught us nothing else, it’s that technology glows, so using light to communicate this state also makes quite a bit of sense. Using a transparent material lets the user see the progress and visually confirm that yep, it’s been sent.

The receiver needs to know when something is being sent to her and the ability to retrieve it. Having those things be similar to the sender’s device makes it easy to learn, once, and to infer use from watching the sender.

There are all sorts of exception case questions that would need to be answered for a complete design of such a system, but for the basic interaction of atom transferrance, this is a pretty awesome design.

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Robbie the Robot

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Dr. Morbius creates Robbie after having his intellectual capacity doubled by the Krell machines. The robot is a man-sized, highly capable domestic servant receiving orders aurally, and responding as needed with a synthesized voice of his own.

Robbie exits the cockpit of his vehicle.

Robbie invites the men inside.

Robbie first appears steering a special vehicle to pick up the officers. It is specially built for him, accommodating his inability to sit down. From this position, he can wirelessly maneuver the vehicle, and even turn his head around to address passengers.

Robbie fires Adams’’ sidearm.

Despite his having only two wide, flat fingers on each hand, he is able to grasp and manipulate objects as a human would. To demonstrate this, Morbius has him aim and fire Commander Adams’’ weapon at a nearby tree. How he pulled the trigger is something of an unanswered question since his hands are hidden from view as he fires, but he does so all the same. This makes him quite useful as an interface, since he is able to use any of the devices already in the environment. Additionally, should he become unavailable, humans can carry on in his absence.

Alta thanks Robbie for offering to make her a new dress.

Given that he must interact with humans, who have social needs, his stature helps ingratiate him. In one scene Alta wishes to express her gratitude for his promise of a new dress, and she gives him a hug. Though he does not hug back, she still smiles through and after the expression. Had he been less anthropometric, she would have had to express her thanks in some other way that was less pleasant to her.

Robbie warms the coffee for Alta and Farman.

In addition to being physically suited for human interaction, he is quite socially aware and able to anticipate basic human needs. In one scene, as Lt. Farman walks with Alta towards a cold pot of coffee, without having been asked, Robbie reaches down to press a button that warms the coffee by the time the two of them arrive. He also knows to leave immediately afterwards to give the two some privacy.

Despite these human-like qualities, some of his inhuman qualities make him useful, too. He is shown to be incredibly strong. He is tireless. He can synthesize any material he “tastes.”

With eyes behind his head, Robbie shoos a pesky monkey.

He even has “eyes in the back of his head,” or a 360-degree field of vision for surveillance of his surroundings. In one charming scene he combines this observation with small nonlethal lasers to shoo away a pesky monkey trying to steal fruit behind his back.

Morbius shows Robbie’’s “sub-electronic dilemma” when asked to harm a human.

Addressing safety concerns, Robbie is built to obey Asimov’’s first law of robotics. After having his creator instruct him to point a weapon at Adams, and “aim right between the eyes and fire,” Robbie’’s servos begin to click and whir noisily. His dome glows a pinkish-red as blue sparks leap across it. Morbius explains, ““He’’s helpless. Locked in a sub-electronic dilemma between my direct orders and his basic inhibitions against harming rational beings.”” When the command is canceled, the sparks stop immediately and the red fades over a few seconds.

This failsafe seems quite serious, as Dr. Morbius explains that if he were to allow the state to continue, that Robbie would “blow every circuit in his body.” Since the fault of such a state is with the one issuing the command and not Robbie, it seems a strange design. It would be like having your email server shut down because someone is trying to send an email infected with a virus. It would make much more sense for Robbie to simply disregard the instruction and politely explain why.