Re: [HOE] Cyborgs/Scrapers vs Power Armor

[Allan Seyberth <darious@darious.com>]

Another factor to consider is total cost of ownership issues.  TCO reflects 
the hidden or secondary costs associated with having a process.  They are 
currently associated with owning a computer system in your business.

Some TCO issues in a Cyborg vs. Suited Infantry issue might be:

Handcraft vs. Industry/Economies of Scale:
Complete battlesuits can be cranked out by an assembly line, and once the 
line is rolling the need for the "super-skilled" as the manufacturing 
process is usually designed to allow for mid-skilled operators to work.
While the parts needed for Cyborgs can be mass produced, a person has to 
actually surgically implant them all.  More likely a team of people with 
skills in surgery, mad science, and engineering are needed to make each 
cyborg.

Security Costs.
While the manufacturing, operating details, and training programs for 
battlesuits are considered to be secret information, the same details for 
the cyborg program are considered top secret.  That means that everyone who 
works in a cyborg program needs far more extensive background checks, each 
site needs greater security (expensive in manpower and in construction), 
and the ability to work efficiently is hampered.  Think of the current 
modern day differences between getting to see the assembly line for M1 
battle tanks, and being able to get in to the sites where nukes are stored.

Social Popularity.
Battlesuits are great for PR.  You can put Johnny Next-Door into a 
battlesuit and march him down the center of a street in a parade.  Great 
for photo-ops with sentators. Great for funding.  Cyborgs, however, creep 
people out.  At the very best, people see the cyborgs as people who 
willingly had parts of their bodies replaced with machines.  People who 
actually KNOW the deal with Cyborgs are even MORE creeped out.  The "raw 
material" has to be either killed on the operating table or grave robbed 
within 24 hours of death.  Even sykers are creepy - but at least they 
breathe still.

Collateral damage
If something goes wrong with a battlesuit, you pull out a screwdriver and 
fix it.  Meanwhile the driver gets to walk over to a different suit and 
play with that one.  Catastrophic failures are usually limited to either 
the testing yard, the assembly line, or with the grunts at a military 
installation.  If something goes wrong with a Cyborg, you've lost the body 
and essentially have to start from scratch.  Catastrophic damage is less 
likely to end up with an explosion, true, but it's more likely to end up 
with a cybernetic surgeon with his throat cut while the unbound cyborg 
plays merry hell until it's put down.

Availability of the highly skilled.
If you need X doctorates working on you battlesuit program, you will need 
at least twice that many working on your cyborg program.  The skilled 
people working for the battlesuits are usually needed to get the program 
rolling and then they turn towards R&D.  In contrast, the Cyborg program 
would need people to constantly be putting cyborgs together, and then 
different folks to handle R&D.  Combine the higher personal requirement 
with the above three factors (Security, Poplularity, collateral damage) and 
you are looking at a critical shortage of qualified people - a shortage 
that ultimately limits just how large an operation you can have 
going.  (Economies of scale)

Availability of the grunts.
The battlesuits will be built so that the majority of the people in the 
military can be trained to use them.  This may mean a 6 month training 
course is required, but you can be training hundreds if not thousands of 
soldiers at a time.  In fact you will likely have far more candidates than 
you need.
Cyborgs, however, have some specific restrictions on them.  ie - they have 
to be recently deceased.  Even when they gained social popularity (and it 
was never admitted that Cyborgs required corpses) the pool of availables is 
small in peace.
It probably takes about 6 months to get a battlesuit operator up to 
reasonable speed.  I'd say that it takes at least that long to get a cyborg 
combat effective.  They have to learn how to deal with their new condition, 
new powers, and learn how to deal with the AI.

. . .

I could go on for hours still, but I think the point was made.




-------------------
Allan Seyberth
darious@darious.com
Deadlands fan site - http://www.darious.com/

Of course, the humans in Haiti have hope. They hope to leave.
                 -P.J. O'Rourke