"What is the silliest/most useless unit in Sci-Fi?" Topic

I recently bought some sci-fi horse mounted cavalry at a flea market. They are quite nice models and the price was good, but I can't help laughing as they're armed with chain saws, las guns, and lots of what appear to be anti-tank mines.

On a modern battlefield they'd last about 20 seconds. They're clearly designed for close assault, which anyone with a modern automatic weapon would put a quick stop to.

I know 40K has nothing to do with actual, or projected, warfare. After all tons of figures are armed swords, axes, and weapons that have a range of about 20 yards. However, this unit just struck me as silliyer than most, (I don't play 40K but use the figures for home rules).

So, in your opinion, what is the silliest/most useless unit in sci-fi?

I vote for the Rough Riders, (if they're still called that, I haven't read the fluff in years). I'll use them as scouts of some sort.

Close behind would be Eldar Harlequins. They use holo-suits to make them harder to hit as they charge into melee. The obvious answer for these guys is a few grenades.

What are your thoughts?

They're fun and I've enjoyed many a game with them, but all forms of walking tank (mech) are rather silly. In real life every kilogram of a vehicle has to justify its mass and the silhouette should be as small as one's weapons and power plant will allow. Conversely, the arms and legs of these imaginary mechs are useless machinery that needs to be powered and armored, and the tree-topping heights of most games' mechs might as well come with a sashimono bearing the inscription "Shoot Me". Special extra silly points go to mechs from backgrounds which also have anti-grav technology.

Giant stompy mechs, robots, whatever you want to call them.

Ewoks. Kill them and stuff them.

Ewoks, the other, other, other, other, white meat…

I agree with Eumelus. Giant walking vehicles look cool on parade, but that's about the only thing they're good for.

Mounted cavalry and big stompy walkers are a tie for me

Hovercraft/GEV tanks.
Same issues as walking tanks— every bit of mass has to be lifted by the hover system. Tracks or wheels don't need to push that mass up into the air.
And if you shoot off that big gun, you're gonna get some recoil that will push the craft off in the opposite direction unless you've anchored the dang thing down… which ruins the point of it.
Also, hovercraft are actually very limited in terrain; they need flat, relatively smooth surfaces. So yes for water, beach, mud, tundra, but forest, mountains, hills, badlands, "cratered post-nuclear wasteland"… not so much.
And in certain environments they will send up huge clouds of dust and debris; yeah, so will tracked and wheeled vehicles, but I expect hovercraft are way worse.
But for amphibious landing and assault craft they make sense. But not for much else!

Ewoks are a race, not unit.

They can't help what they are and there would be many less physically adept races.

I see china is moving in on one of the last untouched tribes. Spears and bows. Dead if it comes to war. But they are still human.

Ewoks: be more specific.

Mecha has been similarly miss treated here.

Perhaps the idea is that they attract enemy attention, so the closer to ground units can move in unhindered.

They usually have good armour.

I see Amazon have humanoid ish robots working, Tesla, Boston dynamics, so on.

So they aren't imaginary, just small at the moment.

Mecha can carry large weapons and more variety. Their typical height can have them fire easily over buildings or other obstacles and their armour can protect them from enemy fire.

Ninja women in stilettos would on my list of silly units.

Ninja woman lying on the ground with a broken ankle, the result.

Saw red sparrow the other night.

Not a good look.

The broken ankle I mean, dah, obviously.

So that's those 40k, inquisitor assassins and modern house Escher.

Donna can take it.

B1 battle droids in Star wars. Theyre supposed to be comedic relief but aren't funny. Also they suck in combat.

Snow White Princess Leia and the Seven Ewoks.

You know, OFM, you have a point. So long as Disney keeps owning (and abusing) Lucasfilm, Leia is a Disney Princess! Beats their other live-action efforts.

But on their home ground, give me Ewoks as opposed to Imperial Stormtroopers--terrible marksmen, unable to conduct recon or do terrain assessment, and with those moronic walkers for support. (Don't get me started on maneuvering those silly flyers at high speed through dense woods.) They deserved to be made into musical instruments.

Incidentally, you can buy some very nice high-tech not-Ewoks on Etsy. Presumably after they cleared all the aliens off Endor, they found enough leftover tech to advance a few levels.

The flying buildings from StarCraft must be pretty close to the top.

Why isn't this a poll suggestion, anyway?

Do the tread mounted mobile cities from Mortal Engines count? The ones that "eat" other, smaller cities?

Honorable Mention:

YouTube link

Jar Jar for the win?

The Foot.

RoboCop 2, mk 1 and 2. And Ed 209.

The guys from Spaced invaders. The film certainly makes up for their.., short comings. Some top notch quotes.

Daleks in an Escher painting.

Expanding into space combat (my favorite form of SF combat), I also nominate the flat top space carrier. Seriously? Space fighters don't need a runway, least of all one in space. All they need is a latch-in point, which they should be able to approach from almost any angle, and detach and accelerate away from in the same manner.
Granted, if they need physical, hands-on maintenance, re-arming, etc., by live crew, then an interior hangar is a good idea. And I can see "catapult" launch tunnels like the original BSG as being of use.

But a flat top makes 0 sense. There's no gravity, no air (so wings don't need to produce lift), and no reason that fighters can only return or leave from one specific angle. The "flat top" look is entirely pointless.

Not so.

If the fighters are using rocket type propulsion, or what have you, ie lots of speed, coming in hot, possibly damaged.

Then a tiny hole ain't the best idea, but a large flat plate of armour to protect the carrier is.

Think the end of star wars, going full bore down the trench, then suddenly popping into a door on your left!!??

Or trying to put a projectile into the tiny hole. Luke had to use the force, future fighter pilots won't have that.

So returning to the carrier at full thrust, stabilisers on the fritz and one armed mini nuke hanging by a data cable and you can't shake it loose.

A big flat target would look awfully appealing, from both directions.

"Why isn't this a poll suggestion, anyway?"

Because when I looked for it to cross post I couldn't find it. D'oh!

Editors???

The H Man, Sorry, I misidentified ewoks. What about kangaroos with submachine guns? Would their shot groupings be "m" shaped? Why would kangaroos have SMGs? To defend theirselves from meat packing plants that mix kangaroo with beef and export it. If they called it "beefaroo" it probably would have been OK.

To further expand on The H Man's defense of flat tops, you may need to be partially or totally in atmosphere during an operation. Should that need arise then a flat top would be necessary for launching and recovery operations.

In atmosphere has nothing to do with flattops, unless the fighters solely use lift surfaces under atmospheric conditions— which is unlikely, and a very specific approach.

As it is, we've had flying "carriers" in the past, which did not use a flat top, but worked entirely with winged aircraft. All these vessels had were a single "latch in" point. The fighter craft did not have to land at all.

Behold, the wonder that was the US Navy Airship Akron-class:
link

Internal hangars, latch-in point with lifting crane for 5 Sparrowhawk fighters.
No flat top needed.

In any case, why would you bother to have your space carrier enter atmosphere at all? That also makes 0 sense— let the fighter craft enter atmo, keep the carrier safely in orbit and out of reach. That's the whole purpose of a carrier— to be the fighters' safe home base in "hostile space," ideally as far from a combat strike as feasibly possible. And if combat comes, the last thing you want is an easily visible, highly vulnerable "landing strip" which you don't need anyway because you're in space.