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I’ve been juggling around in my head for a while a way to create a counter-measure for incoming missiles. Here are a couple of concepts.

Any opinions are welcome because I’ve been trying to determine if either are valid enough to disrupt/interfere with the targeting system of either machine or organic rocket, or if they need some modifying/improving

Name: Squid (subject to change)
Requirements: Chemical Spray & at least one extra pair of eyes on the back of the head/ or pair of stalk eyes

The Chemical Spray releases a thick mist of black ink (similar to that of the dracos) in a radius around the Host Armor / War Mount. At which point the H.A/W.M can stay or leave the cloud

Targeting laser or organic eye cannot see clearly through the thick mist, which reduces the chance of the rockets striking accurately (if the H.A/W.M are still in the cloud)

I also thought about a Squid system for “Deep Recon Scouts” when if ambushed by an aggressor they could release the black ink cloud (like a squid) to make their getaway

Name: Disco Ball (again name subject to change, its just when I imagined what it looked like that’s what came to me)
Requirements: Chemical Spray, an additional pair of eyes on the back of the head or a pair of stalk eyes, & a number of light cells

This time instead of a thick mist of black ink the Chemical Spray releases a powder of crystals similar to the sweat crystals for “Resistance to Lasers” at which point the Light cells activate causing the cloud of crystal powder to sparkle thus disrupting/interfering with targeting

if the same crystals are used for Disco Ball as for "Resist Lasers" you could create an area effect resistance to lasers

Mobile Counter-Missle Turrets: This bizzare organich critter looks like nothing more than a manta-ray, with a quaretet or Bio-Cannons on its back. It's a primitive form of War mount, only sent out to patrol the perimiter with Packmasters. When it detects an incoming missile, it automaticly targets the missle and opens fire. If it is unable to shoot the missle down, it will attempt to place itself between the missle and its target, serving as a sentient, moving meat-shield. It also comes equiped with a crude Bio-Comm, in order to alert the Resistance that there is incoming danger (though the guns firing or explosions from the missles should be enough to do that), and to take up defensive position.

Barbeque-Beasties: These are medium to large sized animals that have been gene tweaked and released into the wilds in order to provide an untraceable defense network for all the houses. Basically, the animals are sensitive to the emissions of missles, and have amazing eyesight to boot. When they sense a missle passing near them, they metabolize all of their stored fat, and heat up tremendously (hot enough to boil water when its 40 below zero) to sucker in heat seekers, and begin to emit strong ECM signals, that will override the other types of missle. All missles passing over a BB must roll to strike over what they normally would have, to prevent themselves from being suckered off target.

How about these? Not quite what you were thinking of, but would they work?

The Barbeque Beastie sounds cool & you got my imagination churning

You could focus the heat generation in, say a bulbous growth in the tail section

I live in Australia & we have these lizards that can detach their tail to escape from predators & it just grows back
Maybe the tail houses a bulbous mass that could mix two volatile chemicals together to heat the mass up, it attracts the missiles, they explode, job done, bulb destroyed and the W.M can regrow the end of its tail in a few days.
Have you heard of a bombardier beetle, if you haven’t, when they are attacked they secrete these two stored chemicals which when mixed together the chemical reaction is so aggressive the temperature reaches 100 degrees Celsius (sorry if your farenheit)

I like the ECM – electromagnetic pulse idea should be effective against organic missiles, I’m just thinking if the machine would insulate their missiles against such an attack or would it deem it a waste of resources to go to that extent

I just thought of something -“firecracker” the B.B could also have a turret system like mortar’s that when it senses incoming (low altitude) missiles it fires these firecracker shells in the path of the missiles & they explode like a claymore, the missiles fly into this cloud of casting/bone shrapnel and explode or are damaged & crash

So then the B.B has three main systems to counter incoming missiles
1. the heat generation
2. electromagnetic pulse
3. firecracker

The firecracker could work as a shotgun weapon for the “Mobile Counter-Missile Turrets” because I always think of area effect weapons to improve the chance of taking down a salvo/volley of missiles

Very nice material! It very cool! Thank you for sharing both of your pets with us! I like the BB too!

Aramanthus wrote:Very nice material! It very cool! Thank you for sharing both of your pets with us! I like the BB too!

Thanks Aramanthus! I don't think I quite explained the BB as well I should have. It's released into areas with other members of its species, so the gene-tweaks are passed down to its descedants, making the use of suicide beasts less costly. Since the BB is released into the wild, it will be much harder for the machine to find where the Houses are, since the animals will migrate to different areas.

And after they 'fire up', they are pretty much dead anyways, since they are getting so hot that they literally burn themselves up from the inside out, hence the name Barbeque-Beasties. That tail idea might work, but the way I had envisioned it was mostly for bears, deer and elk, wolves. You know, big animals with a lot of bio-mass to power the 'flame-on' effect, and most of them don't have long tails. Even if they did, they would most likely be withing blast range of an M.D.C. capable missle even if they ran flat out. Not dismissing it, just saying that it would be impractical without seriously tweaking the animals, so much so that it would be obvious at a glance that they had been altered. That revelation would most likely incense Gaia so much that she would personally give the order to fry the critter.

It does make sense what you wrote. You can always flesh it out to a greater detail for the article in the Rifter or an actual Splicers book.

You could create a swarm of bugs that glow and produce heat that could be used to misdirect incoming missiles. Heck, have the swarm encompass an enemy bot and let the bot take the missile barrage.

I mean, if people can grow power armor and create bio energy weapons, they should be able to do something as simple as make insects that act like anti bodies and take out incoming missiles, or confuse missiles into guiding into enemy units.

Why not use the "Lightning Bug." A modified version of them could spoof missiles. Say the "ECCM" Bug.

my geckos tail can "fall off" to fool predators.

Yes, that is true that certain species of retiles can shed certain parts of their tails to delay predators. Igunanas can do that too. I personally always hating seeing some poor lizard who'd lost its tail because the owner grabbed it too roughly. But there is merrit in an animal that could use that technique to delay enemies. AWESOME Suggestion mr. D. NMI!!!

Another idea: glands that release a field of microbes that have a chance to detonate the missile before it gets too close to its target.

The microbes would have to be able to excrete some seriously nasty acid. Something on the order of the alien from the movie alien.

Or an electrical discharge. Though, I suppose armor-piercing would be rather resistant to it.

It could be since it is military grade electronics. Which also should hardened against EMP also.