The Conceptual Failure of Orbital Lasers

Watch this essay's Nebula-exclusive companion video to find out what on earth "CHECMATE" stood for and how it did not, in fact, end war as we know it (as well as lots of other stories): nebula.tv/videos/jacob-geller-the-failed-space-wea…

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

"Polls of the time often showed that Americans believed the US already had a system that would defend them from foreign missile strikes. Fitzgerald attributes this to the fact that the alternative– that they were, truly, vulnerable to nuclear apocalypse– was almost too existentially terrifying to accept." got such crazy goosebumps from this line i had to play it again just to process it my god. having not known about SDI in any capacity before now makes it hard to believe this is all real history and not some spectacular piece of fiction, so, fitting i guess

Saw Nolan's Oppenheimer today and god damn that movie basically had the same thesis as this video. We watch a man who put his life into building the Atom bomb because he lived under the delusion that this will be the weapon to end all wars, he torn apart by the realization of what he's done once he realizes that it was all delusion. The atom bomb was the bomb to end all wars... until they built a bigger bomb, and so on.

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.

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.

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

I like when Jacob takes the time to go off about how cool something was, which I think a lot of video essayists think they are above while clearly still feeling that way. The cool factor is an important part of this! and Jacob's recognizing of it only helps his analysis while grounding him. Because the fact we simply enjoy this media at all is the reason we feel so compelled to look at it so closely.

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.

"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.

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?'

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.

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.

"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!

One of my favorite depictions of an orbital weapon and its unreliability is actually the Hyper Disintegrator Cannon from Redline that you covered. Much like the others, it shows off with flashes and drama, but still fails spectacularly. The night before the race, two racers snuck up to the cannon to sabotage it, giving us a slight glimpse of the inside. It breathes and stares ominously, building up expectations of its capabilities. During the race, the cannon had its target set to the rampant Funky Boy who just broke out. The energy accumulated, charged and... dissipated. Nothing. No fanfare, no unleashed potential, just disentchantment. "Why is it not firing?" "We have a malfunction..." "WHAT?! This is unacceptable!" Just a few minutes later, it was ready to fire again. Minutes. It took the repair crew minutes to find and fix the seemingly miniscule internal damage which rendered this cannon larger than the city it's meant to protect completely inoperable. The shot seen in 6:24 onward then hits the creature dead-on, burying nearby soldiers and racers in bus sized chunks of rock. All the racers survived, but almost none of the soldiers. Even worse, a chunk of Funky Boy remained, and it grows back to full size within seconds. Ultimately, the cannon only hurt its own faction without being of any help, knocked out and recharging from that point on.