Selene vs Walker Texas Ranger, I really want to get that image out of my head now !
Otherwise good work on a most difficult question :)
The Big Data has spoken, and has answered the Great Question of pub/water-cooler debate: Who Would Win In A Fight? It doesn't matter just who's fighting who, as our pioneering bigdata analysis included nearly every kind of specfictional protagonist - and surely the readership of the Register contains the greatest repository of …
>Leaving aside their utter inability to cope with stairs,
Solved, turns out advanced war machines can fly/hover.
>they're continually thwarted by some bloke with a screwdriver and a phone box. Nowhere near hard enough for #8.
True, but only by the one bloke+gal and only for one day. Most of the time, they get by obliterating everything in their path.
Sorry, memory like a goldfish here - just wondering if there is some adjustment relating to 'normal circumstances', are we talking about actual victory, or just one getting out alive to tell the tale?
e.g. one person dropped on to a planet full of Alien aliens would be rightfully have M.I. translated to 'Menu Item' whereas a squad would stand a chance of at least one getting out carrying a queen's head.
Not a disagreement, but a borderline rhetorical question over the availability of arbitrary armed forces simulators to try out a lot of possibilities. Graphically of course because with all due respect, numbers just don't have enough explosions and splattered aliens.
Now, here's an important question that the wisdom of the crowd will sort for us, because nobody wants to wait 100 years to find the answer:
Will humans devolve into an H.G. Wells novel? Or Philip Dick? Or will it be more like Isaac Asimov? Or a bunch of other outcomes that I'm not being paid to write about right now?
If we're lucky, we'll develop into something out of an E.E. "Doc" Smith novel. Hopefully, not playing the role of any of the losers.
Which brings me to the question of why oh why did the original list NOT contain, say, Lensmen? I mean, if you're going to include Jedi...
(For those who don't know: if you've got fully developed Lensmen about the place, Darth Vader's a pussy and the Death Star is for wimps.
In one of "Doc" Smith's non-Lensmen works, he has his hero blow up an entire galaxy, albeit with a bit of help.)
Skylark Duqesne ? Still can't argue with a Space Opera Hero called "Dick"....
Favourite quote from that series is from the irritating Norlaminian "As for testing, know now that only mechanisms built by bunglers require testing". He could have been a public sector project manager...
Now, here's an important question that the wisdom of the crowd will sort for us, because nobody wants to wait 100 years to find the answer:Will humans devolve into an H.G. Wells novel? Or Philip Dick? Or will it be more like Isaac Asimov? Or a bunch of other outcomes that I'm not being paid to write about right now? .... Anonymous Coward
The wise, which and who be the few and far removed from the madding crowd, have answers resolving such enigmas, AC, and you are not at all wrong with your shared final solution ...... a novel bunch of other outcomes that I'm not being paid to write about right now
And one outcome you most probably will quickly discover is that you can be seriously well paid to not write about such things as fundamentally disrupt, degrade and destroy exigent exhausted establishment sources and mindlessly supporting forces until such times as they be ready, fit and able for Future Greater IntelAIgent Game Play and Immaculate Purpose, which is coincidentally and quite paradoxically a perfect device and just right enough aid to seed and feed that which be needed to create and micromacromanage the Host Virtual Realities in the AI Sector.
El Reg though is way ahead in the Field, and has told of Future Actualities in a sector of Particular and Peculiar Interest to Dark Web Enterprise in Black Watch Ventures, not so very long ago. Perhaps you missed it at the beginning of this year ........ Never Piss away Advantage for it Presents Supply Chains with Hot Product.
So we have done who's the hardest....
How about 'most terrifying apocalypse' ? We've been bombarded over the years with many, many visions of humanities downfall, from insane nether gods ( cthulhu ), vengeful 'just' gods ( Yahweh ), zombies, plaque ( plaque zombies) asteroids ( armageddon the film ), aliens ( battlefield earth etc), robots ( skynet ), our own lust to expand & consume ( soylent green ) etc.
Now yes there is a bit of a crossover there.. But my question is which is actually the most likely to wipe us out, could we survive skynet, only to be driven to madness by lower 4th dimensional beings, or is our demise to be found in a virus caused by long hair in dirty phoneboxes ?
A bit of clarity here, This is not the downfall of humanity, a breakdown in society, but it's extinction. If we can rebuild we win.
If we are totally enslaved, then we ask, is our freedom possible or are we doomed?