Non-lethal force vs cybershell suspect

[jacobmuller]

Trying to get my head around a load-out for local law enforcement units but can't determine best first-choice weapon for cybershell restraint.
Lethal force is not a problem; 10mm ETK with razzle-dazzle, bells and whistles and a gyroc in the vehicle.

What options are there for use against cybershells: tangler shells, stingray bullets and microwave disruptors?

Would dazzle lasers blind a cybershell?

What could they use against building AI and vehicles or should that be reserved for the tactical support teams?

TQ in advance for any pointers.

[Phil Masters]

I've generally assumed that electrolasers will work against cybershells, unless they have some kind of appropriate defence or advantage; high-frequency electrical pulses should cause significant temporary disruption to electronic systems, I'd assume. However, a lot of cybershells have significant built-in armour, which tends to make that approach less reliable.

Dazzl/blinding lasers should be even more likely to work against civilian shells; cameras don't like a face full of too-bright light any more than eyeballs do. However, military and paramilitary shells (and some others) should tend to have some kind of dazzle protection on their advantage list.

Tanglers will of course work fine against small shells, less so against bigger stronger ones. Stingray bullets are a bit of Ultra-Tech eccentricity that I've never taken to, so I don't have them in my TS games, but if they're around, they'll work against shells like against everything else. They're not very non-lethal, though, although the surge effect will help.

In general, I'd expect misbehaving or hijacked shells to be regarded as the bane of police work in 2100, triggering escalation to the gyroc from the car or a call for quasi-SWAT backup rather quickly. But even if local law regards AIs as people, or at least gives them limited rights, the police won't feel too hesitant about going to pseudo-lethal force in those cases; (a) the public regards rogue infomorphs as bad, and (b) an infomorph is usually backed up, so blowing one up isn't so permanently-dead-making.

I'd also believe in the creation of a shell-based intermediate reaction force in a lot of police departments - not as scary-deadly as full-on SWAT, but capable of deploying anywhere in minutes, and of putting down rogue civilian shells and immobilising getaway vehicles. Persuading the first-line cops not to activate them too often is left as an exercise for departmental procedures.

("They were helicopters, but too small to carry anybody. Smaller than the smallest micro-light. Kind of dish-shaped. French Aerospatiale gun-platforms, the kind you saw on the news from Mexico City ... One of them swung by, about twenty feet over his head, and he saw the clustered tubes of some kind of gun or rocket-launcher.

"'Damn,' Rydell said, looking up at the future of armed response.

"'POLICE EMERGENCY. REMAIN CALM.'")

The invention of decent tangler tech will be good news for ethical police generally, of course; pretty reliably non-lethal, less unpleasant in actual effects than taser/electrolaser technology, and effective regardless of armour. Along with the gyroc, that car may well carry a case of 64mm tangler grenades (or saucer grenades, if the guys like to show off their cool moves); ST 36 restraints will slow down even somewhat larger shells.

[Flyndaran]

Permanently dead making? That assumes that people don't think individuals actually exist. I find that THS meme silly. Death is permanent even if you reproduced copies somewhere else.
I understand that many real world people think that, but I cannot imagine a future that isn't grotesquely distopian to have a majority believe that.

[Phil Masters]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

Permanently dead making? That assumes that people don't think individuals actually exist. I find that THS meme silly. Death is permanent even if you reproduced copies somewhere else.
I understand that many real world people think that, but I cannot imagine a future that isn't grotesquely distopian to have a majority believe that.

Then kindly take this to a thread where people complain about what imaginary people in TS believe not matching their own fixations. Now.

(And any TS infomorph with a sole executionism hang-up will be grossly dysfunctional, for practical purposes. A cop faced with a dangerous armoured cybershell will have other things to worry about.)

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by Phil Masters

Then kindly take this to a thread where people complain about what imaginary people in TS believe not matching their own fixations. Now.

(And any TS infomorph with a sole executionism hang-up will be grossly dysfunctional, for practical purposes. A cop faced with a dangerous armoured cybershell will have other things to worry about.)

Sorry, wrong thread. No need to get worked up. My mistake.

Of course if lethal force is required to save others, then it is required.

But the topic is non-lethal, not lethal but there's a clone somewhere.

[DaibhidC]

Originally Posted by Phil Masters

(And any TS infomorph with a sole executionism hang-up will be grossly dysfunctional, for practical purposes. A cop faced with a dangerous armoured cybershell will have other things to worry about.)

Of course, an AI without such a hangup is probably impossible to capture. Sure, you can disable the cybershell, but you can't capture the infomorph; it just sends a message to wherever its backups are stored and deletes itself.

[Phil Masters]

Originally Posted by DaibhidC

Of course, an AI without such a hangup is probably impossible to capture. Sure, you can disable the cybershell, but you can't capture the infomorph; it just sends a message to wherever its backups are stored and deletes itself.

Catching smart rogues with their honesty programming completely trashed is hard work, yes - and by definition, that's what makes them one of the big public bogeymen of the age. But there are countermeasures and methodologies. Their movements will leave a log trail if they're not careful, there are ways of blocking communications, and to get anything much done (including setting up more escape routes), they need low-level access to multiple systems; however good they are as hackers, they're fighting a mature IT security environment.

But that's a question of chasing infomorphs. This thread is about chasing cybershells.

[jacobmuller]

Thanks Phil - Tangler it is.
Sooo many options... like flying spotter/ designator shells with stand-off units launching homing gyroc rounds - tangler to capture, HEMP to kill.

Stingray: did you see that shotshell with built-in taser? Like a mini baton round with a shocking follow-up. That's a Warhead option to add.

[sn0wball]

I don´t have looked it up, but as far as tanglers are concerned, what about anti-tangler munition chemicals, nano or microbots ? It seems logical that people will develop specific defenses against this as soon as it appears. Shells or armor could be coated so that the tanglers veins don´t attach, chemicals could dissolve the tangling material, microbots could cut it, eat it or simply dispense said chemicals. Sure, a malfunctioning household shell won´t have any of these, though.

Also, it certainly wouldn´t take long until the rumor about malfunctioning tangler shells strangling law-abiding biological bystanders appear. Such a rumor might make the usage of defenses fashionable.

[Phil Masters]

Originally Posted by sn0wball

I don´t have looked it up, but as far as tanglers are concerned, what about anti-tangler munition chemicals, nano or microbots ? It seems logical that people will develop specific defenses against this as soon as it appears. Shells or armor could be coated so that the tanglers veins don´t attach, chemicals could dissolve the tangling material, microbots could cut it, eat it or simply dispense said chemicals. Sure, a malfunctioning household shell won´t have any of these, though.

Oh, anti-tangler spray is commonplace, making tangler rounds totally cr*p on the battlefield. But the military tend to show a strange lack of interest in less-than-lethal munitions anyway.

Fancier protection is going to be fiddly, expensive, and subject to legal controls. And as you say, rogue domestibots and ro-peds won't be fitted for that sort of thing.

Originally Posted by sn0wball

Also, it certainly wouldn´t take long until the rumor about malfunctioning tangler shells strangling law-abiding biological bystanders appear. Such a rumor might make the usage of defenses fashionable.

The meme only works when the vectors include convincing footage on YouInVid. (Though that could be faked, natch.) But heck, one could generate far more effective rumours in 2011 about tasers causing heart attacks or being abused as torture implements by angry cops, or plastic bullets causing life-threatening injuries. (After all, those things really happen.) That doesn't make law-abiding citizens go round in metal-lined shirts and crash helmets.

Plus, sure, some street punks will be wandering around with aerosols of tangler solvent in their pockets. BFD. Even aside from that becoming prima facie evidence of criminal intent, they'll have to get the aerosol out and apply it - so the tangler buys the cops time, at the very least. In which time, the punk will hear the words "Let go of the can and do your best to fall over face down. The next round is buckshot."