*Biomimetics* - Mother Nature Inspires Military Tech Design

[virgilglyph]

.

I find endless inspiration in nature for all sorts of creative, active, passions.

Nothing new there as this has been going on for millenia with our species.

Here I propose gathering instances that inspire war machine design now and could inform possible futures like that created in the fictional world of WZ 2100. Stuff that makes for plausible and fun extrapolation, mods, etc...

Anyone is welcome to contribute along these lines anything they come across in their learning travels as well.

First up - Crysomallon squamiferum. Discovered some ten years ago 2km beneath the Indian Ocean near a hydrothermal vent, this scaly foot mollusk or deep sea snail has a triple layer shell or exoskeleton that has been declared the strongest ever in nature.

Based on the study of this creatures exo over the last 7 years, military designers & scientists are working on developing new materials for body armor (think cyborgs or body armor for Scavs) and protective coatings for all military vehicles (think tanks, vtols, hovers) and base structures (bunkers, etc).

In my own personal vision I've been thinking along WZ T4 lines. 'Course imagination being the agile wonder it is, can apply this inspiration in many, many, different ways.

MIT Researchers state after extensive study that copying the micro structure of the exo can be applied to military design as mentioned above and have just published their work in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and it's available as 1.1mb PDF File Here. This is a super detailed and technical doc that may not be to everyone's taste (though I suspect some, like Olrox will like these details ) so here is a more general reader link:

Science News article: Deep-Sea Snail Shell Could Inspire Better Body Armor

You can also find some 23,000 + links by Googleing - "deep sea snail Indian Ocean"

Cheers, VG
.

[virgilglyph]

.

Ok... let's put this topic in a context that is both pragmatic, integrated into a whole and expansive.

The following is a treasure trove for altering WZ GPMs in ways that broaden and deepen martial strategy possibilities and winning tactical opportunities (fun & balanced, to be sure) well beyond what is the present WW 2 norm presumed to still hold 150 years into the future. Heck, it doesn't even hold now. The last decade, from when the following doc was first assembled, has validated in RL conflicts many components of the plan brought to life in current RL battle theaters.

1998 Army Science and Technology Master Plan

Let's state it baldly - while WZ 2100 GPMs would have stayed pretty much frozen as they are now, WZ 2120 would have built upon them along the lines of this doc (a great part of the diolog in Pumpkin's bbs in '99 was about altering GPMs for 2120), and of course 2120 would have also had improved GFX - a new engine in fact, as well a.i., PF & online MP, and so forth.

For the past year plus I've been using the WS 2113 Mod as a proof-of-concept test bed for altering WZ GPMs inspired by current RL Military as summed up in the above master document from 10 years ago.

How I've gone about implementing is not the best way - of that I have no doubts. The techniques used are similar to what was done in v.1.12 Mod which someone once summarized in the phrase as being done with "smoke & mirrors" which simply means making do without source changes.

Now that I'm sure these altered GPMs do work at vastly expanding winning strat and tac opportunities in MP game play, the focus shifts to doing it the right way - NOT with "smoke & mirrors".

NOT with "smoke & mirrors" amounts to utilizing BetaWidget / LUA when they are completed thus my focus is now on mastering LUA to that end. I'm also having a blast working with Flail13's brand new WZ Map Editor.

On the back-story front - the last 10 years of science has also obsolesced the world scenario prognostications of the 2100 CAM.

Much like some good movies from the '80s and '90s whose plots were driven by the total exclusion of tele com tech we now take for granted like the Net, cell phones, wi-fi, broadband - it's just no longer credible.

Again, this closely parallels the game's military strats and tacs no longer being credible (in light of current successfully deployed military tech) as a Sci Fi forecasted world.

Playing a Civil War, Medieval Fantasy or WW 2 strategy game can be quite fun and timeless, expectations-wise and ergo the immersion factor is not readily obsolesced. However, I just cannot close my eyes to a Hard Sci Fi forecasted world that's got many of the key motion forward details all wrong.

But what about the parallel universe Sci Fi of like Steam Punk, you ask ? Yea that could work. Steam Punk is way cool... but WZ 2100 is clearly not in that category. Though a steam punk mod sounds interesting & could work very well.

Anyway, just a quick summation of how this topic thread specifically fits speaking to WZ 2100, past, present and future (in my brain at least) ....covering a lot of diverse but intimately related areas. IMHO, natch.

Cheers, VG
.