Broken? that blade is at least 18 inches past his hand. considering the milspec training and equipment he has (and my bet is the blade is monoedge), she will be lucky to be in less than 6 pieces by the end of this.
Actually, even a mono-edge sword wouldn't be able to cut steel "like butter" as you would still have to force the rest of the thick blade trough the steel as well, which is not easy at all.
This is a pet peeve of mine, it's sloppy physics, which you see way too often in comics/movies.
The only thing that I know of, that can "cut steel like butter" is a laser with enough power to vaporize the steel fast enough that it can pass through it at high speed.
Everything else, will have to slow down, at the very least.
Metals, any type of metal, really - are very dense materials.
You have to either add enough heat energy, or enough kinetic energy, to liquify the metal, in order to cut it "like butter", and that's a pretty tall order.
It can be done, heck, that's what armor penetrating rounds are all about.
But a blade swung by an arm, will not achieve that kind of energy.
It would have to go supersonic, and it just can't.
Well, we could rephrase to "sharp and hard enough to score steel and strong enough to go through a body like it's made of pudding when swung by a human-portable enhanced-strength limb"? :)
It's also made of connected segments unless my eyes deceive me (the only way a blade that long could fit in the arm housing), so it wouldn't have a continuous blade edge. Thus it hacks in stages like saw teeth rather than slices in a smooth stroke, providing lots of snagging potential.
I get it, I get it.
Sometimes hollywood physics and pencil genetics make the story better by ... circumventing a few real physical laws.
I'm just saying, that if you want something to go trough hard metal at high speed, you have to get it up to super sonic speed first, in order to get enough energy into it. And not even a robotic arm can do that.
That said, regular meat 'n' bone is perfectly susceptible to be cut apart.
And no one *ever* listen to the robots! Do everyone just assume they are trying to emulate Robot B-9 from Lost in Space? She is going to get a hard-ass lesion on the benefits of taking a robot's heed — its not going to look pretty, folks!
I think Pensri was TRYING to heed Widget's advice, Malcadon. The problem is the Colonel is so much FASTER than she is that she barely got moving before he is getting ready to turn her into fertilizer. :-p
This is going down fast enough that unless your actually there, it will likely be impossible to effect this event in any meaningful way.
The problem with the red shirts, is that they had a low survivability when stuff went down! This guy is going to have guilt issues if he survives I think. We have no guarantee that someone else isn't going to take him down to stop his rampage.
The ship's standard maintenance robots aren't military-grade, but they are VERY tough little buggers, for much the same reason that most construction equipment is built very ruggedly. It's expected that they'll encounter situations where they'll get knocked around and damaged. This just happens to make them pretty well-suited for a potentially dangerous mission. :D
The combat computers are intended to supplement the user, not supplant them; the most Betty can do is give advice or yell warnings. Having a combat system that could blind you or deafen you or lock up your body would NOT be a good thing.
well yes and no. you attack with something else until your primary weapon(blade) is back in position to attack with. while kicking he can bring the sword back into place to strike his secondary target or hit the robot again. After all he was seeing the robot in an aggressive stance, the other "alien" was not.
Broken bones I am sure he can handle, death takes a specialist... (deliberate Engineer misquote!)
The sub-text pretty much sums it up... Definitely not going to end well...
This is a pet peeve of mine, it's sloppy physics, which you see way too often in comics/movies.
Everything else, will have to slow down, at the very least.
Metals, any type of metal, really - are very dense materials.
You have to either add enough heat energy, or enough kinetic energy, to liquify the metal, in order to cut it "like butter", and that's a pretty tall order.
It can be done, heck, that's what armor penetrating rounds are all about.
But a blade swung by an arm, will not achieve that kind of energy.
It would have to go supersonic, and it just can't.
I get it, I get it.
Sometimes hollywood physics and pencil genetics make the story better by ... circumventing a few real physical laws.
I'm just saying, that if you want something to go trough hard metal at high speed, you have to get it up to super sonic speed first, in order to get enough energy into it. And not even a robotic arm can do that.
That said, regular meat 'n' bone is perfectly susceptible to be cut apart.
For the monster to eat, I mean.
The problem with the red shirts, is that they had a low survivability when stuff went down! This guy is going to have guilt issues if he survives I think. We have no guarantee that someone else isn't going to take him down to stop his rampage.
However .. all the ship board bots are built to take a beating.. due to the mission..