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Hey guys, now that the semester is finally coming to an end I wanted to finally get this out because itâs really important to me. Why Robots and Mechs Have no Place in Fiction: A Thread:
1.) Theyâre overdone. Seriously. There are multiple genres (Mecha, Sci-fi) dedicated to these things, and theyâre still often found outside them. I guarantee that any theme tackling these hunks of metal has been done at least 50 times over. Everyone knows that war is bad.
2.) They completely ruin power scaling. Once you introduce robots and mechs that can beat people, you gotta add even stronger robots to beat those robots, or find some BS way for humans to overcome them. This leads to a slippery slope that gets out of hand quickly (See Gurren)
3.) Robots are inorganic hunks of metal, and adding them into a work makes that experience become less organic and more artificial. People seek out these stories to live out other lives both mundane and grandiose, but a story must be organic for the reader to feel that.
4.) Listen, mechs are fundamentally useless. Making war machines bipedal is much more costly for basically no extra benefit. The next few points will be discussing this more in depth and how unrealistic they are.
5.) To make a flexible frame required for a mech, there would be way too many bending parts. Even a relatively weak weapon would be able to render a mech useless just by shooting it near the limbs.
6.) Maintaining balance without sacrificing mobility would be nigh impossible. With how large the mech is, any decent impact would completely knock it over. Furthermore, it couldnât even use that strong of weapons for the same reason, the recoil alone could knock one down.
7.) If you want to sacrifice mobility for balance, why are you even bothering to use a mech? A tank or other machine along those lines will give you much more durability, mobility and balance for a cheaper price.
8.) A humanoid frame would be very thin compared to any other armored machine. Even outside of the joints, itâd be relatively easy to take one out of commission or kill the pilot by shooting the cockpit.
9.) Your mythical metal that somehow is light enough and durable enough to make a decent mech doesnât exist. No element on the periodic table or mix thereof is making that possible. Get over it.
10.) The presence of robots in a work of fiction normalizes them in human society. With how AI is rapidly getting better and better at harvesting our data, we should be doing whatever we can to actively discourage and destroy robots.
11.) Holy shit robot/mecha designs are the least creative things in existence. âDurrr weâll just put metal parts on random places call it a day look polygons and circles!â Designs of living creatures stand at much more and also show the true power of a good character designer.
12.) Listen, any fight you do with these metal abominations would be at least five times cooler if you just allowed the humans to use magic and elemental powers instead. Hell, allow humans to use more realistic scifi technology in creative ways, thatâs sick as hell!
13.) Robots are characters that are not characters. Without emotions, they canât have meaningful development and just serve to bloat a cast that would otherwise be fine.
14.) Continuing on point 13, giving your robot emotions is just a sham to force a scuffed theme that will just take your readers out of the work (See Nier Automata). Robots in the work of fiction is just a rabbit hole that leads to this point.
15.) Making the enemies robots actively hurts society by once again painting the enemies of mankind as inhuman beings, contributing to the dehumanization of those around us.
16.) Oh my god, the ear-grating, metallic or artificial voices people give these things! Worse than nails on a chalkboard and it'll plague the entire experience!
17.) Robot/mech designs simply arenât attractive. Fictional works are filled with characters I would love to get involved with platonically/romantically (see below), and that enthralls me in every scene those characters are in. Robots/mechs completely lack that enthrallment.
18.) Normalizing mechs and humanoid robots takes away from other invaluable technological developments. Drones are miles more effective and versatile, we need to invest more into space exploration systems and begin making society more automized and efficient.
19.) Returning to point 10, robots take away human jobs. By normalizing these calamitous contraptions through fiction, we are potentially aiding in robbing people of their livelihoods.
20.) Mecha and robot fans are inherently elitist. By making sure theyâre not included in your work, you ensure that the community that forms around your work isnât welcoming to toxic individuals.
21.) Mechs and robots lower the marketability and financial success of your work. Theyâre harder to draw which means greater budget is necessary, and as stated in the previous point, theyâre really only marketable to a select elitist audience.
To recap, mechs and robots are unrealistic, inorganic, toxic and downright dangerous entities that have no place in fiction. If you put them in your work, you are contributing to the downfall of fiction and society. Thank you for reading, and I hope you can take this to heart!
