PDA

View Full Version : Super Soldiers!


Spider
2004-02-22, 03:18 PM
When you thought US soldiers could not get possibly more F***ED... Copied from the Register.

The Defense Sciences Office of the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is looking for a few good proposals to exploit soldiers in ways Rommel and Tojo could only have dreamed of.

Imagine divisions of grunts able to go without food and sleep for days on end while performing at peak level. That's the perverse dream of the Defense Sciences Office's new Metabolic Dominance Program.

"The vision for the Metabolic Dominance Program is to develop novel strategies that exploit and control the mechanisms of energy production, metabolism, and utilization during short periods of deployment requiring unprecedented levels of physical demand. The ultimate goal is to enable superior physical and physiological performance by controlling energy metabolism on demand," DARPA explains.

Much of this will be a matter of uncapping the natural safety mechanisms against excessive strain that humans have evolved with - overclocking the grunt, so to speak. But the DoD doesn't seem much concerned by the potential ill effects; nowhere in the call for proposals is there a request for a long-term health impact study. The long-term effects will apparently be discovered the old-fashioned way.

Numerous areas of pseudo-science will be explored to achieve "continuous peak physical performance and cognitive function for 3 to 5 days, 24 hours per day, without the need for calories."

This will be accomplished without the traditional stimulants and the nervous edge they create. Firing up soldiers with amphetamines has had its drawbacks, illustrated most recently in Afghanistan, where two speed-addled US pilots panicked and attacked a group of Canadians on a training exercise, killing four and wounding eight.

Rather, DARPA is interested in forcing soldiers' bodies to metabolize their own fat reserves, eliminating the need for food. It would like to overclock muscle mitochondria, increasing output beyond levels that the skeleton can withstand. It would like to suppress the painful signs of fatigue, so that soldiers can be pushed beyond the limits of human endurance without realizing it, at least until something breaks.

DARPA has identified a number of problems that will need solving. One is body temperature management; super-metabolism will cause overheating, which can easily kill. Another is supplying nutrients to people who have stopped eating, though perhaps little white pills or transdermal patches can be used.

And finally, there has to be a way of reversing the enhancements at will, "without deleterious or irreversible effects," DARPA says. "Adverse effects are to be identified with mechanisms for intervention." These mechanisms should "reduce post-exertion recovery time and minimize negative consequences of enhanced performance."

Or at least the appearance of such.

Soldiers must return to normal metabolism when the 'treatments' stop. We wouldn't take 'without ... permanent effects' to mean 'without permanent injury,' because that's something no military organization ever apologizes for. We take it to mean that when the burnt-out, desiccated husks of men who have been driven beyond natural limits are shipped home, their families will see them eating and sleeping normally, and therefore wonder less about why they can barely walk.

DARPA will be accepting proposals from the 'scientific community' until mid-March. �

Taken from FoxDen airsoft website forums.

Let us prepare to duck, cover and kiss our asses goodbye!

Discuss!

Rbstr
2004-02-22, 03:24 PM
cool beans. Though tat article is very critical of what they are trying to do, why would they not have any though of soldiers, no llatsing effects means that your fine after you do whatever that is. Unless you get shot ofcourse

Mr1337Duck
2004-02-22, 03:45 PM
I'm against the altering of the human body. So is this like genetics, or is it like a drug?

Spider
2004-02-22, 03:49 PM
Drug. It would, in a nutshell, create energy for your body.

Bighoss
2004-02-22, 06:17 PM
woot! real live stim packs like the terran had in starcraft!

kreeten
2004-02-22, 07:24 PM
Won't work, human body wouldn't survive those types of physical and mental stresses. But a clone army, now you're talking the shit.

I Hate Pants
2004-02-22, 07:55 PM
This is a bad idea. What if we alter the wrong people????

Im now a super human!!!!! I think ill go rob 15 banks, rape 60 women, and kill half of the police force in my town.

Okay I over exaggerated a little. But the idea is still there. Very little good can come outta this.

Neon Apocalypse
2004-02-22, 07:56 PM
i wonder how theyre gonna test that shit

prediction: "alien" abductions will increase by 65%

QuakCow
2004-02-22, 07:58 PM
I Hate Pants is right, if this shit would ever get into the wrong hands were gunna have to give cops chainguns :P

RagingSpeedhorn
2004-02-22, 07:58 PM
Wow, so does that mean I'll be able to pull all night Planetside sessions and be able to talk sense at work the next day?

Rbstr
2004-02-22, 07:59 PM
its a drug, a stimulant type thing, not a thing that last forever. Also it doen't make you stronger or faster, it just lets you not get tired, have to eat or rest, while your doing physicly exhuasting things for 2 or 3 days.

Neon Apocalypse
2004-02-22, 08:03 PM
heh it might be useful, but after atleast a month of constant use there have to be some nasty side effects

my stepdad was in the polish army, and they gave him some kind of injection that allowed him to resist extremely cold temperatures, plus he never ever gets a cold, even in the thick of flu season

QuakCow
2004-02-22, 08:06 PM
we should still give cops chainguns..id love to see the aftermath

Rbstr
2004-02-22, 08:07 PM
yeah anphetmenes(sp, stimulants) are already in use for pilots and soldiers.

Bighoss
2004-02-22, 09:09 PM
This is a bad idea. What if we alter the wrong people????

Im now a super human!!!!! I think ill go rob 15 banks, rape 60 women, and kill half of the police force in my town.

Okay I over exaggerated a little. But the idea is still there. Very little good can come outta this.

you couldn't permently alter already born people. You would have to restucture the genetic code for billions of cells, although I'm sure you could figure out something... Maybe you could create a virus that would attack cells except it would inject the cell with the new DNA... but that would probauly kill you :(. Anyway genetically altering future generations would be the best thing we could do. Go rent the movie Gattica, very cool movie.

SkunkPunk
2004-02-22, 09:18 PM
.

Rbstr
2004-02-22, 09:30 PM
???

QuakCow
2004-02-22, 09:34 PM
^

kreeten
2004-02-22, 10:12 PM
When the U.S. gov't tries to make soldiers more aggressive. Check out Jacobs Ladder. Great show.

AztecWarrior
2004-02-22, 11:08 PM
SHIT! The Vanu Sovereignty controls the government!

QuakCow
2004-02-22, 11:10 PM
rofl

Peacemaker
2004-02-22, 11:26 PM
Ok they are VERY critical of this idea. What the DoD really wants to do is use nano machines to give the body what it needs when it needs it. What we see here is a perverted misinterpretation of that idea.

Spee
2004-02-22, 11:35 PM
When the U.S. gov't tries to make soldiers more aggressive. Check out Jacobs Ladder. Great show.


Mmm. Sweet sweet hullucinatory trips into a hell hospital.

SkunkPunk
2004-02-23, 12:05 AM
.