(no subject)

[bzarcher]

shadrad and spiralpegasus threw down with:

Okay! It's really very simple-- I announce a theme or genre, and you
come up with a summary, as brief or as detailed as you please, of a
story you think would be fun to write/draw/animate/whatever.

Whether
your medium would be a game, manga, book, anime, movie, or something
else is up to you, and probably not that important-- we're talking
plot/characters here!

You can even write snippets, or whip up
character designs.. whatever you feel like! This is just for fun, and
/I/ felt like doing it so I can have /some/ record of the crazy ideas I
come up with and ALWAYS FORGET. And it's not like I'll ever actually
/do/ any of these, so it isn't like I worry about anyone taking my
ideas.

So this day/week/month's theme? Giant Robots.



Ironboy

The year is 1916, and the world is at war.

Since the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand, the Allied and Central powers initially struck massive hammerblows against each other, but the battles quickly mired into slow, bloody slaughters as each side became entrenched, and even new technologies like aircraft and tanks did not provide the key to unlocking the stalemate, particularly when each side copied the other.

Despite the success of the battle of the Somme, many think the war will never end.

Faced with increasing desperation, the Allied powers reached out to their erstwhile supplier of materials, the United States, who had used their "neutrality" as a thin veneer for acting as an arms merchant. They needed a weapon that would break the stalemate, but also would not be easily copied, and which the Hun could not capture and reproduce easily.

The United States government responded by summoning their greatest inventors to work on the project, basing them at the Wardenclyffe tower in Long Island. Despite the clashes between several of them (Particularly N. Tesla and T. A. Edison), they succeeded, and under great secrecy, a factory was established to produce several prototypes, and ship them to Europe covertly.

By June, 1917, the first detachment of Iron Boys stomped into the battlefields of the Western Front. Crewed by 3 men and fired by massive diesel generators in their bellies, each stands 40 feet tall, covered in rolled and riveted armor. One arm ends in a massive steel bludgeon, while the other ends in a Tesla Lightning Projection Cannon - the Zap Gun.

Armored slits provide some vision for the crew located in the head and chest, but the majority of the outside world comes in through two massive Edison Picture Cameras, feeding through to Farnsworth Remote Viewing screens at each of the control postions.

The engineer maintains the main power for the unit, with his secondary responsibility several Maxim guns located at waist and hip levels to discourage infantry.

The driver does exactly what it sounds like, though his legs are in a specially designed rig that allows the Iron Boy to mimic his walking motions while he moves on a treadmill. He also controls a pair of back-mounted mortars for long-range support.

Finally, in the head of the beast, the Commander controls both the arms and a rack of head mounted Maxims to go after armored threats, Central trenches, and thanks to the new Tesla RADAR system, aircraft. The RADAR's range is short, but it does give a slight edge in taking down the so-called "Knights of the Air."

Each Iron Boy is capable of breaking a trench siege wide open, and in worst case, can be easily rigged to destruct should they be in danger of capture.

But for all the unique technologies involved, there are many geniuses in the Central Powers, and Allied Generals know that they must push the Iron Boys forward, despite the cost of fatiguing the crews and the Doughboys behind them, or risk giving their enemies the time to find a countermeasure - or worse, Iron Boys of their own...

---------------

It's as much about the men operating the Iron Boys as the weapons themselves - the nastiness of Trench Warfare turning to a Blitzkreig push, and seeing who breaks first...

Comments

[chaoticgoodnik.livejournal.com]

That reminds me of this - which I haven't read but stumbled across somehow.

[bzarcher.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the biggest problem with most giant robot (or even science ficton stories) these days is that most people have tried a version of it before. :D

Oddly enough, I got most of my ideas from reading a Wikipedia page on Tesla, particularly the RADAR. He really did invent it, back in 1916-17, but never got a full scale version going. But the man who did gave Tesla full credit for it.