Heroic vehicles in fiction

[Sarevok]

I grew up on Battletech and it's Mechwarrior computer game derivatives. For all it's disadvantages the mech has a distinct appeal. It's a heroic vehicle. The pilot and his machine become one in the heat of battle. You can really identify with the man in the cockpit blazing away against a superior enemy with PPCs and autocannons, his battle damaged armor shattering under gauss rifle hits...

But that was when I was younger and even more dumber. My very first posts here in 2002 involved Battletech. Since then I came to realise that 30 feet high robot versions of mythical knights is a very bad idea in real warfare. But at same time stories need heroic characters. Space opera get away with fighter pilots. Ground warfare these days seem to have moved on to cyborgs in power armor to explain main characters incredible combat abilities. But what about ordinary humans who also wish to become protagonists but in a believable way without character shields ? What kind of vehicle or weapon is there for human scifi heroes to battle overwhelming enemies of equal tech level in a realistic manner ?

[Peptuck]

What kind of vehicle or weapon is there for human scifi heroes to battle overwhelming enemies of equal tech level in a realistic manner ?

Oh, wait, realistic.

Um. I'll get back to you.

[Shroom Man 777]

Fighterplanes, man! Maverick! Spruce Goose! Your cocky maverick renegade fighter jocks played by Tom Cruise and Val Kilmer, their fighters - be they in air or space - are totally iconic heroic vehicles in fiction! Come on, what blew up the Death Star?

Move S-foils into attack formation!

Launch Vipers!

Fox 2! Fox 2!

[FOG3]

Well that would depend upon further parameters. One doesn't need ubervehicle with a well written story, and it's arguably true the closer you get to ubervehicle the less well written it will be. Ignoring the appeal of the invulnerability concept to certain sectors, as long as empathy can be maintained.

You could for instance always go to the other end where you have a short story about a plucky crew with a Tank Destroyer harassing a vastly superior force by wreaking havoc on their logistics, and managing to survive the occasional encounter with search parties from the main forces by a combination of guile, crazy tactics, and luck which if handled properly would not be excessive. I'd do it with the implication they're ultimately screwed, but making the best of a bad situation. Victory would derive only from the Militia aka populace actually rallying against the superior force.

Another vector of course would be along the lines of the comment at least present in the Patton movie about the two facing off in a duel, he in his tank and me in mine.

Really the only real strategy to fight a superior force is the guerilla plan, where you're doing your level best to prevent the enemy from being able to mass on you enough to wipe you out. It's ability to operate based on limited resources and the fact nobody can be everywhere at once. However with ever increasing technology the guerilla plan becomes less practical due to improvements in C4ISR and countermeasures.

[DrMckay]

the SheVa Self-propelled Anti-lander gun from Ringo's Polseen books.

Gotta love the 16 inch self-propelled gun platform...adn they called it Bun-Bun

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl= ... N%26um%3D1

I'd agree with Shroomy though. Fighters are the last vestiges of "Gentleman's combat" and individual recognition.

The T-65 X-wing takes it for me. Preferably flown by Wedge Antilles or Wes Janson.

Also, Don't forget the Enterprise. NCC-1701, no bloody A, B, C, or D

[open_sketchbook]

I wrote a short story in a post-apocalyptic universe where tanks were extremely rare and aircraft non-existent; in it, tank crew were likened to knights and even flew heraldry from their turrets. The electronics long-fried, all sighting, steering and loading were done manually and tanks had long and glorious battle histories. A universe where technology is scarce lends itself well to literately any vehicle becoming 'heroic'.

As well as fighter planes, another good one is attack helicopters or some futuristic equivalent, especially because they claim such insane casualty ratios against forces not designed to combat them.

Battleships are good for the iconic imagery of their huge weapons and dramatic shape. Equally good are submarines, for a more subdued heroic action.

[Nephtys]

I suppose in some setting with that sort of thing, the entire Total Annihilation/SupCom 'Commander' idea works. Some sort of vehicle (whatever) that can defend itself, and control massive numbers of drone tanks, planes, etc.

So your brave protagonist in her giant robot/space cruiser/command tank and her non-existant/small/large crew can fight off thousands of enemies while not being quite as silly as 'knights in shining battlemechs'.

[JointStrikeFighter]

Fuck! Why has nobody mentioned Bolos? 50,000 Ton tanks that are literally humanities Knightly protectors.

[Erik von Nein]

Yeah, I was going to mention them, as well. Almost all of the short stories involving Bolos have them taking on superior foes, either numerically or otherwise. They all tend to have heroic deaths, as well.

[Lusankya]

A thread on heroic vehicles and nobody yet has mentioned Chitty Chitty Bang Bang? Shame on you, the lot of you.

[Shroom Man 777]

The DeLorean from Back to the Future! And, mang, the Millennium Falcon! Ships like the Enterprise, and the Nimitz in The Final Countdown!

[wautd]

Durrr... Galactica (aka the Bucket) offcourse

[CaptJodan]

Durrr... Galactica (aka the Bucket) offcourse

Yeah, I was going to mention that.

In the old ST Armada games, you used to have your typical Sov and Defiant class ships, and then you had the Enterprise, and the Defiant itself, which miraculously had more firepower, speed, and defenses. Galactica fits the defense category here perfectly. A 40 year old battlestar falling apart just gliding through space somehow pulls another massive battle out of itself and (barely) survives. That's a hero (wank) ship.

[Starglider]

In the old ST Armada games, you used to have your typical Sov and Defiant class ships, and then you had the Enterprise, and the Defiant itself, which miraculously had more firepower, speed, and defenses. Galactica fits the defense category here perfectly. A 40 year old battlestar falling apart just gliding through space somehow pulls another massive battle out of itself and (barely) survives. That's a hero (wank) ship.

The Liberator from Blake's 7 is a more rational hero ship; it's (apparently) one of a kind super-advanced alien starship. It has a cool, distinctive look and has lots of neat design features as well.

However my favourite hero vehicle remains the Golden Condor from Mysterious Cities of Gold (yes it's sci-fi damnit, it has robots and fusion reactors, what more do you want ).

[FOG3]

Fuck! Why has nobody mentioned Bolos? 50,000 Ton tanks that are literally humanities Knightly protectors.

Well...

But that was when I was younger and even more dumber. My very first posts here in 2002 involved Battletech. Since then I came to realise that 30 feet high robot versions of mythical knights is a very bad idea in real warfare. But at same time stories need heroic characters. Space opera get away with fighter pilots. Ground warfare these days seem to have moved on to cyborgs in power armor to explain main characters incredible combat abilities. But what about ordinary humans who also wish to become protagonists but in a believable way without character shields ? What kind of vehicle or weapon is there for human scifi heroes to battle overwhelming enemies of equal tech level in a realistic manner ?

He didn't say death machine becomes protagonist, and he said realistic without character shields. Bolos are too big, for a realistic land vehicle, to be realistic for many reasons including the real history of the Bismarck/Yamato/etc.

Having read the short stories, they also run on character shields in a very Mary Sue fashion. Nothing including starships is treated as either a real counter or superior to them, they have the near constant persecution complex related to people believing their AIs might go psycho, etc. I distinctly recall one short story where they have the one on planet and a slew of them in orbit who proceed to wipe out the invasion fleet of a "equivalent technology" force despite being in ridiculously bad condition from wear & tear and pure time.

Honestly Bolos are more absurd then Battlemechs. Battlemechs might be utterly impractical, but at least you could actually deploy them within reason and argue they're just irrational technology. Bloody Land Super-Battleships cannot work with more handwaving then a high school cheerleader squad.

[Sam Or I]

Moya from farscape, and the Andromeda, literally were characters.

But almost any sci fi space opera, the "ship" is considered a character. From Serenity, to the Whitestar, to the Galactica, are treated almost as characters themselves. ("It's Serenity, not the Serenity")

On the ground it is a little more difficult unless the show is named after the vehicle. Kitt is a character, but Airwolf, Blue Thunder, ect...ect.. are all considered heroic vehicles.

In Mad Max, the black interceptor is my personal favorite of ground based sci fi vehicles.

But even in reality, it happens, aka the Memphis Bell and such

[Ford Prefect]

The 'realistic' qualifier really narrows down the potential machines you can suggest. For example, I'd say there's nothing more 'heroic' than the Mazinger Z or the original Gundam, but as mecha they can't really be called realistic.

[Jonen C]

Read a novel about a Soviet Invasion of Sweden called Operation Garbo (which is about comparable to Red Storm Rising, only less realistic and set in 1992... but still) in which the premier example of a random heroic vehicle was a PvPjTgb 1111 (one of these with one of these) which was (temporarily) crewed by (IIRC) the Minister of Defense, the Supreme Commander and a random grunt as the loader.
See what had happened was that a Sovvie AFV (which was part of a special unit which had been hidden in a tractor factory before the War) had killed the driver and gunner of the vehicle, leaving the loader severely shocked, and the two MVPs happened along (their chopper had been shot down while evacuating the capitol) and commandeered the vehicle, disabling the tank before retreating.

[Batman]

I don't really see how WhiteStars were considered almost characters, really. Romy, the Bucket, the Big E, Moya, Serenity sure. But there were tons of WhiteStars. Most of them didn't even have names. And they got destroyed by the truckload too, which is something that rarely happens to pseudocharacter vehicles and NEVER without a goodly bit of drama happening (like the death of the E-Nil in TSFS). The general feeling about WhiteStars in B5 was they were warships, and in a war, warships get destroyed. It happens.

As for an unrealistic hero vehicle (you CAN'T realistically take on hordes of enemies of technological parity without character shields) I nominate the Gunstar from The Last Starfighter.
'One Gunstar? Against the whole armada? It'll be a slaughter!'
'That's the spirit!'
Nuff said.

[Sam Or I]

I was referring to the prototype Whitestar in season 3.

[Starglider]

As for an unrealistic hero vehicle (you CAN'T realistically take on hordes of enemies of technological parity without character shields) I nominate the Gunstar from The Last Starfighter.

The GunStar seemed to be a generation ahead of the enemy fighters (e.g. F-15 equivalent versus Mig-21 equivalent), but it still only won because it had an experimental superweapon that the enemy fighters weren't prepared for. That said there's no sane reason why the point defences on the enemy carrier were so ineffective.

[Coyote]

Why, the Road Warrior Truck, of course!

[tim31]

As Batman says, hero vehicles require hero sacrifice, re Galatica/Pegasus, Delorean, various ships named Enterprise...

[Shroom Man 777]

Hah, the Batmobile!

Also, one of the recent and most shiny and somewhat realistic examples, the Icarus 2 from the recent Sunshine film! *cue awesome soundtrack*

[tim31]

I'm going to watch that again tonight now that you mention it Shroom.