The Conceptual Failure of Orbital Lasers

Sources:
Way Out There in the Blue (Frances Fitzgerald, 2000)
The Faulty and Dangerous Logic of Missile Defense (Laura Grego, 2018)
Ronald Reagan Presidential Library

Additional Editing by Isaac Holland
Additional Research by Phosphene
Additional Production by Icarus

Media Used: AKIRA, Star Wars: A New Hope, Star Wars: Return of the Jedi, Andor, Rogue One, Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars, Command & Conquer Renegade X, GoldenEye, Diamonds are Forever, Die Another Day, Redline, Tekken 7, Vanquish, Yakuza: Like a Dragon, Gears of War, Gears of War 4, Gears 5, Gears: Tactics, Arrested Development, Bedtime for Bonzo, A Wing and a Prayer, God of War 3, Katamari Damacy, Halo Wars 2

Music Used (Chronologically): Swan Lake Act 1 (Tchaikovsky), Mos Eisley Cantina (Leg Star Wars 2 DS), Main Menu (007: Agent Under Fire), N.M.H (No More Heroes), Alien Manifestation (Nier Automata), Der Monde (Wolfenstein: The New Order), Invention No. 4 in D Minor (Bach, BWV 775), Frustration in Disguise (Taylor Crane), Dies Irae (Giuseppe Verdi), Mad World- Dom’s Version (Gears of War 3), Outpost (Gears of War), Kait’s Theme (Gears 5), Panama (Max Payne 3), Pleasure of Tension (Snatcher), Memory (RUINER), Paradise for One (Mike Franklyn), Clair de Lune (The Evil Within)

[NecoLumi]

I'm so glad Jacob is talking about orbital lasers, my father was killed by an orbital laser when I was four years old. Apparently, it was by some mailman with a weird space gun.

[goodzillo]

One of my favorite takes on the Orbital Laser is the ARCHIMEDES II from Fallout: New Vegas. Elijah, in his time as an Elder of the Brotherhood of Steel, discovered it and spent vast resources on trying to make it operational. Not only did he fail, but his intense interest in the power plant that served as part of the satellite's weapons array attracted the NCR, who were rightfully convinced that the Brotherhood would only be interested in this place if there was a powerful weapon there.

You can succeed where he failed, if you locate the gun which acts as the targetting system, but only if you intentionally choose to divert the potential power of the solar array away from everyone else who needs it. And yeah, it feels pretty good to have the option, recharged daily, to call down the wrath of the heavens on your enemies, but every time it's fired you're reminded of the fact that you chose this one cool but impractical weapon over delivering a vital resource to hundreds, if not thousands, of people.

[Hahahahaaahaahaa]

Even without any context, "maybe that's why I can't stop thinking about orbital lasers, " would clearly be a Jacob Geller quote.

[buriedpet]

I’m disappointed that Eggmans piss didn’t get an honorary mention as an orbital laser. He used it to blow up the moon after all.

[mememachine-]

My favorite orbital laser is the one in Robocop. It's literally just a news aside, but it vaporizes like half of the west coast and kills two former presidents because of a misfire during testing. It's so hilariously cynical.

[sator_project]

The thing I love about Akira's orbital laser is it really feels like Neo-Tokyo is holding a gun to it's own head on a planetary scale.

[TheLyricalCleric]

“Fire the cannon at Funky Boy!” Somebody had to give that voice line with a straight face. Pure gold.

[MightyMurloc]

If there was a fragrance called "Essence of Orbital Laser" I would buy it instantly.

[sugar-rice]

Shoutout to Redline for not only not explaining the giant laser, but not explaining ANYTHING in the movie! I love it!

[fermiLiquidDrinker]

I'm actually really surprised you didn't bring up the Gatling gun. It was America's first weapon to end all wars, and the world's first useful machine gun. It was drafted and patented by a pacifist, and was instrumental for the US during the Civil War and westward expansion.

Nowadays they're not handcranked, but instead mounted in planes like the A-10 or F-35, firing several thousand rounds of high-explosive or armor piercing rounds per minute. One weapon made to end all weapons always leads into another.

[garrettmarshall]

In college I actually had an older engineering professor that worked on the “star wars” nuclear defense system back when it was active. He gave a lecture one day on those experiences and it was fascinating, he talked about the Apollo space program was used as a talking point in favor of the development star wars systems. He said something along the lines of “many people were highly skeptical of wether it would work or not, but that didn’t matter, all that counted was that the Soviets believed, and they had just watched the Americans land on the moon, so it would be difficult for them to deny what may have seemed impossible to us”. Even if it that wasn’t strictly what the Soviets thought, it was really interesting the propaganda on the American side for it.

[krinkrin]

Potentially apocryphal story: during the Cold War there were several exercises/what if scenarios conducted by the US that pretty much shown that politicians have a tendency to disproportionately escalate any conflict they are put in charge of. The military usually tried to go slowly, test the opponent and see what can be done to de-escalate, while the first question of a politician was 'can we nuke them?'

[Trivial_Whim]

I feel like there should be an honorable mention for the EDF games.

Specifically because the operator, upon firing, cackles like a madwoman, compliments your taste with a sadistic tone to her voice or demands that someone fix those circuits or reroute power… when she doesn’t just shout “Beam!”.

Which sort of implies that the long wait between each use isn’t because the thing needs to cool or recharge but because it literally breaks every time you fire it.

[chronoflect]

"Superweapons, in reality, in fiction, offer only the illusion of invincibility. A false claim, that utopia can be ushered in with a tool that deals in death."
Great quote. Thanks for the video.

[TheGlooga]

The more I learn about Reagan the more horrifying it gets. The fact SDI's preliminary tests were faked though reminded me of Sophocles' Philoctetes, one of the Greek plays that ended in a genuine Deus Ex Machina. The play is about Achilles' son Neoptolemus and Odysseus going to an island and trying to convince the disabled Philoctetes, an archer with Heracles' bow, to join the Trojan War. The problem is that Philoctetes hates Odysseus, because the latter actually abandoned him on the island for having a diseased foot, and refuses to help him in any way. For much of the play, Odysseus tries and fails to trick Philoctetes into getting on his boat so he could kidnap him, and eventually Philoctetes ends up convincing Neoptolemus to take him back home to Greece. Heracles then is craned from the top and tells him to join the war, ending the play. The thing is, in the initial showing of the play, the same actor that plays Odysseus also plays Heracles, possibly implying this is another of his tricks. Even within the story, the god is still from a machine, manipulating Philoctetes' emotions to get him to sack Troy. It's interesting to see SDI sort of parallel this ending. It couldn't actually shoot down missiles, but it could fake it convincingly enough to get its funding and bring the US closer to war.

[Vanq]

You know Helldivers 2 is satire because it has an orbital laser that actually works

[erikbholm]

"Superweapons, in reality, in fiction, offer only the illusion of invincibility. A false claim that utopia can be ushered in by a tool that deals in death." Is such a cool quote!

[palmtree]

"Now let's talk about Ronald Reagan" is unironically one of the most terrifying sentences you've said in a video. Whenever a subject like this pivots back to real life it gets worrying, and Reagan only ever makes things worse when it comes to that. Fantastic work.

[Dingghis_Khaan]

Something to note about the Ion Cannon in Command & Conquer is that it doesn't even do its job in the story. The first strike against the Temple of Nod in Sarajevo fails to kill Kane, and the second attempt only fails harder because Kane deliberately put a fuckton of Tiberium under the new temple _specifically so that GDI would shoot it again with the giant space laser._

It made the environmental disaster caused by Tiberium to go past the point of no return, _and_ it drew the attention of extraterrestrial forces.

[tri-sapien]

What you concluded with Akira kind of reminds me of Metal Gear Rising: Revevengeance. Throughout the entire Metal Gear series, the peak of war is the focal point of each game, the Metal Gears, the large mechs that can fire nuclear missiles from any location and can move anywhere in the world. They were always the final boss of each game excluding MGS3, but it's in MGRR that it's special. It's the last in the timeline, and it's in the opening that everything changes. The game opens WITH a Metal Gear, the entity that is supposed to be the final boss. The final boss is now the first boss, and the song that goes with it as well the difficulty and visual of the boss fight all highlight one concept, Metal Gears have been outclassed. The peak of warfare is no longer the peak.