Tom Clancy | Forums

[AI BLUEFOX]

Tom Clancy an american author of contemporary spy fiction and military fiction. Fiction broadly refers to any narrative that is derived from the imagination. Ghost Recon Breakpoint is fiction and fantasy, looks about right.

Drones are a current military threat. The British Army was called in to help re-open Gatwick Airport using drone jamming equipment recently and anti-drone measures are standard at high profile events. Autonomous vehicles moving at speed on our roads are being tested for civilian purposes and you can go into many factories and see autonomous machines moving parts around. Amazon are testing drone deliveries. Do you think the military aren't developing and investing in the use of drones and AI? Do you think the rights to that technology and the value of it are not of strategic military significance in the same way that nuclear technology is?

As much as I yearn for the original and simpler version of Ghost Recon I have to concede to a very simple point on drones. If Clancy wrote a book now and excluded drones and drone technology that would be odd. You can't lock Clancy into a circa 2000 time bubble and insist that reality is based only on the technology that existed then. The world has moved on, Clancy would have too.

Whether the technology makes a good game is a different issue of course and certainly whether or not it makes a good Ghost Recon game is a very pertinent question. We can't keep up this pretence that the technology is fantasy, though, because it isn't. The entire original game if released now would be unrealistic simply because the Ghosts would be detected by thermal imaging drones if up against a modern military force. I know, though, let's have prone camo as a counter to that. Cue Breakpoint.

The realistic and believable story of how the situation faced by the Ghosts came about, particularly on a fictional island, can be argued as being non-Clancy, but the technology in Breakpoint can't be in my opinion, based on what I've seen so far.

[Bone_Frog]

Yeah they were.
And while I think you´re on point about drones, you have to concur that, if there actually was a near future Jane´s GR, drones would not look like they do in Breakpoint, for the most part.
Honestly, if it were up to me, that GR would be set in 2008, same as the original but with actual 2008 gear and weaponry, as Tom Clancy more or less "predicted" the South Ossetian conflict back in 2001.

Not so much. That conflict was under way with border skirmishes and threats from Putin in the late 90's. It just got interrupted when things went sideways for the Russian Federation in Chechnya.

[Bone_Frog]

Drones are a current military threat. The British Army was called in to help re-open Gatwick Airport using drone jamming equipment recently and anti-drone measures are standard at high profile events. Autonomous vehicles moving at speed on our roads are being tested for civilian purposes and you can go into many factories and see autonomous machines moving parts around. Amazon are testing drone deliveries. Do you think the military aren't developing and investing in the use of drones and AI? Do you think the rights to that technology and the value of it are not of strategic military significance in the same way that nuclear technology is?

As much as I yearn for the original and simpler version of Ghost Recon I have to concede to a very simple point on drones. If Clancy wrote a book now and excluded drones and drone technology that would be odd. You can't lock Clancy into a circa 2000 time bubble and insist that reality is based only on the technology that existed then. The world has moved on, Clancy would have too.

Whether the technology makes a good game is a different issue of course and certainly whether or not it makes a good Ghost Recon game is a very pertinent question. We can't keep up this pretence that the technology is fantasy, though, because it isn't. The entire original game if released now would be unrealistic simply because the Ghosts would be detected by thermal imaging drones if up against a modern military force. I know, though, let's have prone camo as a counter to that. Cue Breakpoint.

The realistic and believable story of how the situation faced by the Ghosts came about, particularly on a fictional island, can be argued as being non-Clancy, but the technology in Breakpoint can't be in my opinion, based on what I've seen so far.

The US military is forbidden under Federal law from producing or using autonomous drones. That was the whole Google, project Maven thing. Google's legal department thought Project Maven was violating Federal law, there were Congressional hearings. The DOD responded that Maven was only used for target identification, target prosecution still required a human. Google still didn't like their software being used to generate what were essentially kill lists and ended their collaboration with the DOD.

[El_Cuervacho]

Not so much. That conflict was under way with border skirmishes and threats from Putin in the late 90's. It just got interrupted when things went sideways for the Russian Federation in Chechnya.

I´m aware that russian ultranationalists trying their hand at rebuilding the Old Russian Empire wasn´t the cause of the conflict.

[AI BLUEFOX]

The US military have to have a human in the loop currently for any Lethal Autonomous Weapon, I think Bone, but are developing autonomous "weapons" such as Sea Hunter. I know she isn't armed yet, but my personal view is that the US will have to change its stance, they have little choice. Most nations' military are doing this now and attempts to regulate through the UN are likely to fail.

Maybe that nuance makes Aurora and a seemingly independent technology company based there even more appropriate for a Clancy story. An existential threat based on US technology.

[El_Cuervacho]

Even with how topical the whole drone debate is, I´d rather have my adversaries be human.
There´s a virtually untapped psychological aspect to combat in videogames that, in my mind, would´ve been far more interesting to flesh out. Enemies that are actually affraid of dying, that retreat or surrender in the face of aparently overwhelming violence. An aspect that would´ve worked great with the whole lone survivor vibe this game is going for. Playing games on your enemies, make them believe they´re fighting a larger force when in fact you´re just one SOF soldier (or 4 man squad).
Whilst I´m certain there will be a way to mess with or outright shut down drones in Breakpoint, machines aren´t usually all that aware of their own mortality to constitute interesting or nuanced foes.

[trakkaman]

The realistic and believable story of how the situation faced by the Ghosts came about, particularly on a fictional island, can be argued as being non-Clancy.

The situation could arise anytime in the future, It's basically just another megalomaniac like in the real world, the wolves wear what look like modern military raincoats, the masks some could argue with I suppose but then again face coverings are common place already, Auroa looks like any other real world place now and maybe even in the future, Bolivia 2019 to Auroa 2023? I think Mr Clancy might have agreed that's doable and a tad more than fiction?, depends how you look at things?[/QUOTE]

[AI BLUEFOX]

Even with how topical the whole drone debate is, I´d rather have my adversaries be human.
There´s a virtually untapped psychological aspect to combat in videogames that, in my mind, would´ve been far more interesting to flesh out. Enemies that are actually affraid of dying, that retreat or surrender in the face of aparently overwhelming violence. An aspect that would´ve worked great with the whole lone survivor vibe this game is going for. Playing games on your enemies, make them believe they´re fighting a larger force when in fact you´re just one SOF soldier (or 4 man squad).
Whilst I´m certain there will be a way to mess with or outright shut down drones in Breakpoint, machines aren´t usually all that aware of their own mortality to constitute interesting or nuanced foes.

Agree with that.

I'd like a retro GR set in the past.

[shobhit7777777]

Now, autonomous drones, and the use of drones, both are real and current threats. I get it, I also prefer an enemy that bleeds when I shoot it, however drone warfare has surged and autonomous drones are currently a possibility (at least according to legal filings by Google against the DoD).

I don't mind UGVs and UAV armies...what bothers me is the setting - a tropical, secret lair overrun by militarized drones by a poncho wearing bunch of baddies straight out of 'The Rock'

If you'd be fighting a Russian invasion which was spearheaded by a high tech faction of their shock troops...then yeah...bring on the UAVs and UGVs (Exactly how Arma 3 did). Breakpoint's plot reads like a bad fan-fic. It's cringey and tears me away from an immersive experience.

[Bone_Frog]

I don't mind UGVs and UAV armies...what bothers me is the setting - a tropical, secret lair overrun by militarized drones by a poncho wearing bunch of baddies straight out of 'The Rock'

If you'd be fighting a Russian invasion which was spearheaded by a high tech faction of their shock troops...then yeah...bring on the UAVs and UGVs (Exactly how Arma 3 did). Breakpoint's plot reads like a bad fan-fic. It's cringey and tears me away from an immersive experience.

Well I guess the fictional setting doesn't bother me all that much. I mean the Bolivia we were in was a fictional Bolivia. I know, I've been deployed to the real one. The Salt flats are in the South West not the North West. I could go on, but pretty much every GR has happened in a fictionalized place.