> At 02:01 PM 9/23/98 -0700, Los wrote:
<snip stuff about powered armour and mental conditioning and stuff>
In the BodyArmor:2000 collection of short stories, there is an amusing little
piece in which the Americans and the Soviets are fighting over the ruins of
Paris and encouraging their troops with hokey "Mom and Apple
Pie"-style propaganda. Brainwashing is S.O.P. for both sides and it
seems most of the troops have fought on both sides at one point or another.
The ones that have been "wiped" the most often are fine soldiers, but a little
dull personally. The reader picks up the idea both homelands have been nuked
and the war is still going on just because no one really remembers how to do
anything else.
> <snip ant story> What a sight! Why they were fighting I will never
I've read about this before. What you saw was essentially a slave raid. The
red ants attack a colony of black ants, killing off all the adults and
stealing the eggs or pupae. These are then carried back to the nest and raised
as workers. Apparently, it's fairly common.
> Jeff Lyon wrote:
> In the BodyArmor:2000 collection of short stories, there is an amusing
With some good brainwashing or mental conditioning, there would be little need
for propaganda. Condition them to just do what they are ordered without
hesitation.
There's a rather large gulf between what motivates people to enter service in
the first place, and what motivates soldiers to perform in combat. Two
completely different sets of motivators. The mom and apple pie stuff does not
fall into the latter category. This is a common misconception amongst
civilians.
> most of the troops have fought on both sides at one point or another.
You know, I've seen raids before and perhaps this was the motivation. But what
I failed to mention about this war was that the other ants also had formed up
in a column and travelled down the driveway, (where the bus stop was) and met
the oncoming ants out in the open so to speak. So you've got two long trails
of ants meeting in no man's land. Could both have been on slave raids
simultaneoulsy?
Ever since then (well in my kid years at least) we tried to recreate this
battle using captured ants, but it seems that though ants will fight when you
toss them into a swarm of other ants, its tough to get a whole war going. (I
know we were sadistic kids)