Who says you need workers? You build a robot to help you build more robots and then you and your robots build a giant robot!

Once you attack the city with it that will be the last time someone parks IN YOUR PARKING SPACE, DELORES!!! MWAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

Lin Chiao Feng wrote:

Advertising to potential buyers.

This is literally the underlying plot line for the Griffon Wars in Patlabor (truly great 80s anime for the win!).

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Notably, the J-9 Griffon made TWO appearances in the series ... first in [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Patlabor_episodes]episodes 30-35[/url] (yes, a full 6 half hour episodes of mecha on mecha combat! plus lots of story!) with episode 28 as the introductory setup of the characters involved in what was later known as the Griffon War ... and then AGAIN in the Patlabor New Files, with an updated design of the Griffon in an entirely NEW fight to defeat the AV-98 Ingram Patlabor over another 4 episodes!

And the whole thing was MASTERminded by a rogue genius mecha designer at Schaft Enterprises Japan (SEJ) as a showcase for his company's advanced engineering, by pitting his design against the best mecha the world had to offer ... including against military AND civilian opponents, in actual combat. The Griffon started its campaign by hunting down and defeating military airdrop(!) mecha on maneuvers! The whole thing is basically a story about [i]industrial supremacy[/i] in the market of Labors, which are about 4-5x man sized mecha.

[youtube]Z9UtUzjUA5Q[/youtube] [youtube]fHiEhbEQxyE[/youtube]

Speaking of which, it would be a shame if the TCPD didn't have mecha of this scale in its arsenal to deal with threats to the city ...

BiotopeZ wrote:

notears wrote:

Money making scheme? Maybe he makes a giant robot so that he can go "If you don't pay me $100,000,000 I won't stop punching your city my giant robot!!"

Problem with this logic: It would easily take $100,000,000 to make the robot in the first place. So at best you'd break even.

Similarly, if you were doing damage deliberately because you own the company that repairs the damage, you'd have to do A LOT of damage to get that many contracts to make up for the cost of the robot.

Showing off the technology to get buyers makes the most sense, but then, it would make far more sense to attack a military instillation, if you really believe you've made something unbeatable. "Cops cant' stop giant robot" is not nearly as impressive as "major military base could not stop giant robot."

It's not just giant robots. Most "mad scientist" stories don't make sense when you bring economics into it.

"Mad scientist creates giant monster!" Seriously, if you had the tech to do that, you could cure any biological disease ever, and be a trillionaire. Instead, you probably get stepped on by the thing you made. Oops.

"Mad scientist kidnaps people for genetic changes!" Again... tech to do that = tech to cure anything. Also, why did you kidnap people? There are people who'd volunteer for that.

"Mad scientist builds space laser fleet to enforce his laws!" Okay... if he could afford that, he could afford his own private independent city-state with whatever laws he wanted. Or, lobby/bribe to control the law directly.

"Mad scientist creates sentient sludge and releases it on the city!" When asked to comment, scientist said "...I was drunk."

You'll find most real world "mad scientists" weren't actually doing science, though there are exceptions, like extremely unethical early disease tests. Still, most "mad scientists" were just crazy people who conned their way into having "test subjects" provided. Most produced no usable scientific data, because they were just torturing for fun with no real understanding of science. This is what happens when those who have the authority to grant access to test subjects are scientifically illiterate and thus easily conned.

Still "they had a psychotic break" or "they're sadists" is pretty good explanation for any behavior, including giant robot attacks. If you assume insanity, then anything's possible. That's where the "mad" comes from. A Sane Scientist has no reason to cause giant robot attacks, but a Mad Scientist could do anything, even make a giant swarm of angry bees that all have acid in their stingers and the face of Gary Busey.

Sorry if anyone has a nightmare of that tonight.

Well mad science I guess, is a lot like magic for what it can do, and the practitioners tend to be crazed and make weird decisions that don't necessarily make sense. They build things that man should not build all while using tech that only someone living in the sewers of Titan city could afford. They're bizarre creatures, who have the power to make the world a better place but use that power for petty reasons.

Step 1. Build a giant robot.
Step 2. Sell robots to clean up after the devastation caused by the giant robot.
Step 3. ????
Step 4. Profit.

notears wrote:

Well I guess t's like this, when people who aren't familiar with the subject think of mad science, they think that it has more to with a researcher with a mental illness, but well that a lot like saying a computer mouse is a type of rodent because it has the word mouse in the name. Mad science is more closer to psionics than anything really scientific. It's a fantastical ability that is n quite magic, sometimes you can learn it, but sometimes you're just born with it, or a random fluke gives you it. It's the ability to have no limit on what can be built, and the necessary process of gaining that power means that you have t thin in ways people just don't, and it's not really something one can replicate all that well. Like if a mad scientist gave a regular scientist a formula it would just across as gibberish, which is why things like this can't be reproduced. A mad scientist could build a laser pistol out of a soup can and a toaster sure, but they would have no way of making it so a non mad scientist could do the same thing. As it stands a mad scientist could build a giant city destroying giant robot out of 3 cars and a garbage truck but they could never teach you how to replicate that feat yourself. That's it's weakness, a mad scientist can build things that shouldn't be possible but they can never really industrialize there inventions unless they can only employ their own robots.

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