Weird little idea
Mar. 14th, 2005 07:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bluegargantuaHeh,
So I've got this weird idea for a role-playing game:
See, it's the near-ish future and America is busy conducting military operations all over the world. The problem is that very few people are willing to sign up for the military and those who do are generally too highly skilled to shove into front-line combat.
So the military starts enlisting monkeys (well, really most members of the ape family, but there might be a monkey or two that makes the cut). The monkeys all get a bit of neural enhancement so they can operate their weapons, take orders from their (human) officer and generally fight like anyone else. It's pricey, but with some fancy reproductive technology, the army can churn out thousands of troopers every year and they're generally ready to fight in 5-10 years.
Complainers? Well yeah, there's lots of people who complain about how we're mistreating animals, but frankly, no one's complaining loudly enough to pick up a rifle and go out into the field.
In the meantime, just about anyone who does sign up for infantry duty gets an immediate promotion to Sargeant (or Lieutenant) and gets put in charge of a troop of enhanced ape soldiers. They're also the laughingstock of the military. All the other humans are in charge of high-tech drones or other weapon systems. Most of them never leave the climate controlled comfort of a command bunker halfway around the globe. The poor sodding infantry have to actually get out there and do the nastiest work they haven't yet built a drone for. And they have to do it with gorillas and chimps and orangutans (and a few howler monkeys maybe). You must be a complete screw-up to get saddled with that job.
So the game is all about you, the officer, in charge of a band of apes. Are your troopers really sentient? Are you any different than they are? Will anyone ever understand your true worth or is your job completely pointless? Also, will you survive contact with the enemy?
I'm thinking it's just a short game (I've got a desire to try and build a fun game for, like, 2 people that takes maybe 3 hours to play tops). I also want to call it "Grunt" (not Grunts, because there's a pretty good book by that name).
later
Tom
So I've got this weird idea for a role-playing game:
See, it's the near-ish future and America is busy conducting military operations all over the world. The problem is that very few people are willing to sign up for the military and those who do are generally too highly skilled to shove into front-line combat.
So the military starts enlisting monkeys (well, really most members of the ape family, but there might be a monkey or two that makes the cut). The monkeys all get a bit of neural enhancement so they can operate their weapons, take orders from their (human) officer and generally fight like anyone else. It's pricey, but with some fancy reproductive technology, the army can churn out thousands of troopers every year and they're generally ready to fight in 5-10 years.
Complainers? Well yeah, there's lots of people who complain about how we're mistreating animals, but frankly, no one's complaining loudly enough to pick up a rifle and go out into the field.
In the meantime, just about anyone who does sign up for infantry duty gets an immediate promotion to Sargeant (or Lieutenant) and gets put in charge of a troop of enhanced ape soldiers. They're also the laughingstock of the military. All the other humans are in charge of high-tech drones or other weapon systems. Most of them never leave the climate controlled comfort of a command bunker halfway around the globe. The poor sodding infantry have to actually get out there and do the nastiest work they haven't yet built a drone for. And they have to do it with gorillas and chimps and orangutans (and a few howler monkeys maybe). You must be a complete screw-up to get saddled with that job.
So the game is all about you, the officer, in charge of a band of apes. Are your troopers really sentient? Are you any different than they are? Will anyone ever understand your true worth or is your job completely pointless? Also, will you survive contact with the enemy?
I'm thinking it's just a short game (I've got a desire to try and build a fun game for, like, 2 people that takes maybe 3 hours to play tops). I also want to call it "Grunt" (not Grunts, because there's a pretty good book by that name).
later
Tom
