Clash Of Steel

I'm going to say three words.

Giant Robot Duel.

Giant. Robot. Duel.

...okay so...I was far more hyped for this than my usually-sensible mind would allow me to be. Often I will see the obvious difficulties in achieving something, like health and safety and planning and stuff like this, and just understand that it won't work out the way I want it to.

This, though?

This hyped me. But it hyped me for a very different reason.

So if you actually watch the video you will probably be unimpressed and I can think of a few reasons why. They had one presenter too many (the dude was just there to annoy us I swear to god), it's over-produced, it's scripted, and it's cut in an odd and irksome way.

The thing is, though. The thing IS.

We just watched two robots fight. With pilots. Technically they aren't robots. They are MECHS. We watched a Mecha Duel.

And even if it was scripted - even so, even given that assumption - fucking robot just grabbed a lighting rig and used it as a shield. What? WHAT!?

Okay. calming down now.

Don't look at it as the first match of a new sport. Look at it as a proof of concept that such a sport could even exist. Look at it as a statement - that the three bots that were brought out were all built, and built by relatively small teams, and were built in such a way as that they could be multi-functional. They made robots, and then made those robots capable of fighting.

Imagine ten years from now.

Imagine if the concept gets carried. If teams, BIG teams, put together proper robots and organise proper duels. In order to arrange something like that they'd have to be remote controlled, and you'd have to have safety measures like Robot Wars on steroids - but if you were careful, you could show something like that in an arena.

Because WE CAN BUILD THE ROBOTS.

We CAN build them. We CAN make them move. We CAN use them as weapons. (Just ask the Pentagon.) The technology exists, and can be utilised, and as is proven by this rather cheesy video, it can be used to create a sporting event.

It CAN HAPPEN.

And if my future is going to be a late-capitalist mid-cyberpunk nightmare of Running Man-type proportions, then at least, I want to distract myself from the awful predations of my pitiless corporate masters by watching Giant Robot Duels.

It's not too much to ask.

Surely.