6 Ways Military Technology Is About To Become Terrifying

Strangely enough, some experts are worried about the inherent ethical and legal ramifications of weaponizing the human brain. That link is to a 2012 report on the use of neuroscience for policing and military purposes, and it expressed concerns about turning our soldiers and civil servants into "super soldiers," with their willing brains "plugged directly into weapons systems" and turning them into "amoral, combative automatons." That actually sounds, umm, optimistic?

Army Technology

And then there's cognitive enhancement via electrical brain stimulation. It might sound kind of hideous and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest-y at first, but this area of science (along with its associated health applications) could definitely wind up being a huge advancement for our species. Yet there remains much trepidation regarding how nations might use neuroscience in malignant ways, because of course there is. Even within the realm of science fiction, this kind of thing turns out OK approximately 0.0% of the time.

Geoff Manaugh, an infrastructure theorist who was moved by a recent incident involving a self-driving Tesla manslaughtering a pedestrian, explains how the most effective countermeasure against robot aggressors may be to simply "redesign your city, even down to the interior of your own home, such that machine vision is constantly confused." Yes, literally rearranging the furniture will stop any and all hypothetical Megatrons.

It turns out that things like light-absorbent fabrics, smoke emitters, and something as basic as a preponderance of mirrors can play havoc with a machine's sensory apparatus. Sure, it's not very fair, but keep in mind that it won't be long before they're our equal at being sneaky, no-good bastards. Obviously a global ban on autonomous killdroids will be inevitable at some point, but even more obviously, there are a lot of people who couldn't care less about playing by the rules. So we may need to incorporate absurd AI-confounding remodeling into our surroundings so "a military robot wheeling its way into your home thus simply gets lost there, stuck in a labyrinth of perceptual convolution and reflection-implied rooms that don't exist."

Ha. Stupid-ass robot.

The answer to your question, startled Twitter person, is "a railgun." Yes, the ultimate heavy weapon from games like Quake and Metal Gear may soon come standard on Chinese ships. If you're not aware of the principle behind these epic bringers of kablooey, they use electromagnetic fields instead of gunpowder to send projectiles through the air faster than anything Han Solo could ever hope to dodge. Basically, if your opponent has one and you don't, you might as well forget about going to battle stations and just start applying the shark repellent.

U.S. Navy

Obviously the U.S. has a more impressive version though, right? Ha ha, nope! Due to "shifting budget priorities," we're behind the curve on this one. But wait, according to the admiral in charge of spending money on booms, we're still in the naval railgun fight:

"[We are] fully invested in railgun; we continue to test it. We've demonstrated it at lower firing rates and ... shorter ranges. Now we have to do the engineering to, sort of, crank it up and get it at the designated firing rates, at the 80- to 100-mile range."

First of all, we can only hope that he said "crank it up" in a "Macho Man" Randy Savage voice, because otherwise it just sounds weird. Secondly, this kind of progress means that the Army wants to get in on the action too. That's how all of this works -- once somebody has a new toy, everybody wants it.

And what does such a thing look like in action, you ask? Basically, it confuses your brain over whether you should be saying "whoa" or "getthefugouttahere."

DARPA

DARPA

The fun-loving psychopaths at DARPA have been fine-tuning the EXACTO program for years now, with their "smart bullets" making it "possible to counter environmental effects such as crosswinds and air density, and prosecute both stationary and moving targets while enhancing shooter covertness." That's military speak for "Even an unorganized, grabasstic piece of amphibian shit like you can knock the balls off a mosquito three counties over."

Of course the Navy, never happy with letting the ground-pounders have a fancier car in their garage, is developing their own smart ammo that should be operational this year. To protect themselves from multiple incoming threats happening at once, the MAD-FIRES system is designed to be a "medium-caliber guided projectile that would combine the guidance, precision, and accuracy of missiles with the speed, rapid-fire capability, and large ammunition capacity of medium-caliber bullets." Is it weird that their phrasing sounds like they're selling a car? "It's the comfort of a sedan, with the versatility of an SUV. It will splatter all who oppose you."

But perhaps the most frightening prospect in the arena of satellite warfare comes not from cutting-edge technology, but rather the opposite. For decades now, experts have been fretting about the "Kessler Effect," which posits that all the accumulating space flotsam that's floating around in low orbit is going to become a huge problem. And said space junk could quickly reach critical mass should a plain old crappy ballistic missile filled with ball bearings (which could be fired by any low-tech state like, say, North Korea) cause a calamitous chain reaction and recreate the most exciting scenes from Gravity.

And if you think there's nothing to fear from a flying BB, remember that all it took was a tiny particle the size of a paint chip to put a sizable dent in the International Space Station a couple years ago, scaring the Tang out of everyone onboard.

With bells and whistles like a powered exoskeleton, ballistic protection, and a heads-up display, the design seems ideal for any galactic weapons contractor looking to clinch a fat First Order account.

As for the United States, the look is significantly more heroic, with the sleek components of the Pentagon's new TALOS armor suitable for any brain-bug-busting member of the Terran Federation.

US Army Research

This climate-controlled, bullet-deflecting "Iron Man suit" is intended for point-of-the-spear SOCOM operators (and eventually the infantry in general), with a direct video feed to an Eyepro in the helmet.

DARPA

And considering it cost $80 million over the first four years of development, let's hope it at least also includes a Hulu subscription for the visor.

Support your favorite Cracked writers with a visit to our Contribution Page. Please and thank you.

For more, check out 6 Amazingly High-Tech Ancient Weapons and 7 WTF Military Weapons You Won't Believe They Actually Built.

Also, we'd love to know more about you and your interesting lives, dear readers. If you spend your days doing cool stuff, drop us a line at iDoCoolStuff at Cracked dot com, and maybe we can share your story with the entire internet.

Follow us on Facebook. Because we said so.