Rock Beats Laser: Difference between revisions

[[File:rock_laserrock laser.jpg|link=Iron Man|frame|<small>[[Some Anvils Need to Be Dropped|Some Anvils]] [[Civil War (Comic Book)|Need To Be Dropped]].</small> ]]

[[Bellisario's Maxim|Don't think too hard on this one]], suffice it to say these rocks tend to de-emphasize the "elite"ness of the supposed crack troops in a [[Redshirt Army]]. Historically, every industrialized nation on Earth with imperialist goals regularly steamrolled over the militia army of soon to be conquered natives (without help, that is. Though in places where the natives had help such as Ethiopia--whoEthiopia—who famously beat the Italians twice during the Scramble for Africa--thereAfrica—there tends to be more emphasis on giving their development a crash course rather than use [[Bamboo Technology]]). It would take a while before a conquered nation could get a decent [[La Résistance]] or revolution to kick out these powers... usually using their own technology against them and with guerilla tactics. [[Bamboo Technology|Bamboo]] usually wasn't involved. (The fact that the colonial forces were often commanded by [[Upper Class Twit|arrogant aristocrats]] who [[General Failure|completely underestimated the capabilities of the primitive natives]] and [[Modern Major-General|knew more about "matters vegetable, animal, and mineral" than actually leading an army]] tended to help things along, too.)

In certain [[Speculative Fiction]] circles, especially those revolving around [[The Singularity]], this is called the [https://web.archive.org/web/20121105143231/http://inkless.danmcminn.net/2008/05/fightin-ewoks/ the Plucky] [https://web.archive.org/web/20090120074302/http://orionsarm.com/intro/pluckybaseline.html Baseline].

In short, [[The Empire]]'s [[Achilles' Heel]] is anything [[Traveling At the Speed of Plot]].

== [[FanficFan Works]] ==

* ''[[The Open Door]]'' sees [[Battlestar Galactica Reimagined(2004 TV series)|Bill Adama and the nBSG crew]] dance around the antimatter-equipped Praxis despite only having chemically-propelled kinetic energy weapons. Admittedly, they had fire support from the far superior ''Stiletto'', but... Also averted in that the odd ideology the Praxis had towards technology means that the Colonials are more advanced in some ways. "Apparently these nutcases used antimatter weapons, a technology the Colonials didn't possess because they had cheaper, more stable fuels that wouldn't destroy the ship on a lucky hit. Who strapped a bomb to their frakking asses like that?"

* An even more literal example is in ''[[Fallout Equestria: Pink Eyes|Fallout Equestria Pink Eyes]]'', where the lead character Puppysmiles' only weapon ''is'' a rock. So far, her rock has claimed the life of anyone caught on the wrong end, even killer robots and manticores.

* The Ewoks in ''[[Return of the Jedi]]''. Although to be fair they did have the element of surprise, massive numbers and familiar terrain. And experience, in that while Ewoks didn't have a habit of fighting advanced forces, considering Leia's new dress and an Ewok successfully piloting a hoverbike without any training, they obviously have dealt with humans (most likely killed and ate, too) before, while the filmStormtroopers didweren't prettyprepared muchenough showto have the Imperialsright gettingcamouflage theirfor actthe together"forest aftermoon" awhere fewthey momentswere garrisoned. Still, it wasn't one-sided, the tide of battle shifted back and forth: the Ewoks attack with impressive results, the Imperials get their act together and start utterly slaughtering them, untilthen Chewbacca managedmanages to take over an AT-ST.

*** In the same trilogy that introduced the Noghri, they "adopt" Han (due to their reverence for Lord Vader, and him being "Lady Vader's" consort). He muses that he's been adopted once before, by the Ewoks... but while they managed to bring down a legion of Imperial troops by being camouflaged, fighting on their home terrain, and sheer massive weight of numbers, that he knew ''exactly'' what the Noghri were capable of and the adoption process didn't feel quite as silly this time around.

* In ''[[Star Trek: First Contact]]'', Picard pumps some Borg drones full of Holodeck-simulated lead from Tommy guns (with the [[Failsafe Failure|safeties off]]), because Borg shields are calibrated to stop phasers, not old-fashioned bullets. The debate on whether holodeck-generated bullets are more phaser than bullet is something that fans debate to this day (plus, the number of Borg drones defeated by the holographic Tommy Gun is roughly equivalent to the number of drones defeated by phasers before they adapt... two). Later on in the film, Worf kills another Borg with a ''sword''. He's a dangerous man, [[The Worf Effect|allegedly]]. Indeed, people tend to fare better against the Borg in close combat in general, until assimilation occurs. But that only really comes into play when dealing with inhumanly strong people like Worf or Data. Early on, a [[Red Shirt]] tries to rifle butt a Borg drone after his phaser is adapted to. The Borg shrugs off the hit and promptly hands the man his ass. Some of the expanded universe material does take the "kinetic strikes are effective against the Borg" approach.

* Used more realistically in ''[[Avatar (film)|Avatar]]''. On the one hand, when the Na'vi fire up at human vehicles, their arrows do little more than scratch the windows. On the other hand, arrows fired at a right-angle from power-diving [[Giant Flyer|ikrans]] ''can'' punch through aircraft canopies([[wikipedia:Sloped armour|which is]] [[Truth in Television]]). But on the other ''other'' hand, {{spoiler|the Na'vi still get their blue butts kicked by machinegunsmachine guns and missiles, at least until [[Gaia's Vengeance|the planet itself sends its wildlife in as reserve]]. Turns out rocks can't beat mecha, but a stampede of armored alien rhinos that shrug off gunfire like its a gentle shower ''can''.}}

** To be fair, they did accomplish the main objective, even before {{spoiler|the planet intervened}}. The bomb-carrying dropshipdrop ship is destroyed, meaning the tree is saved.

* ''[[The War of the Worlds (2005 film)||The War of the Worlds]]'' - The alien race dominates earth, but succumbs ''en masse'' to common bacterias as soon as they exit their machines.

* About half of ''[[First Blood]]'' was made of this trope, when Rambo hadn't yet gotten ahold of a gun and had to use Nam-style mantrapsman-traps against his pursuers.

* Quite literally in ''[[Yor, the Hunter from the Future]]'', the main character, a caveman is cofrontingconfronting a robot with a lazerlaser arm, and Yor bashes its head off with a rock.

* And in another way too literal approach, ''[[Short Circuit]]''{{'}}s [[Robot Buddy|Number Five]] successfully blocks another [[Fun with Acronyms|S.A.I.N.T.]] robot's tank-busting pulse laser with a big rock.

* Subverted in ''[[Cowboys and Aliens (film)|Cowboys and Aliens]]'', in that the only reason the cowboys win against the bigger and [[Sufficiently Advanced Alien|Sufficiently Advanced Aliens]]s is by using stolen technology and {{spoiler|help from another [[Sufficiently Advanced Alien]] fighting against the first}}.

* Genre SF's [[Trope Codifier]]: ''[[The High Crusade]]'' by [[Poul Anderson]] (1960). Many later instances contain [[Shout-Out|Shout Outs]]s to this one. A Medieval English army, fully prepped on the eve of leaving to join King Edward's crusade, crushes a small alien invasion force, by dint of cunning, superior numbers, and having no EMP-susceptible equipment or depletable bullets/explosives/laser charges - but plenty of reusable arrows, swords, sheer brute strength and a sense of righteous Christian indignation. Then, using the captured spaceship and the grudging assistance of a surviving alien interpreter (taught ''Latin'' by the army's cleric), they launch a counter-invasion of the evil intergalactic empire, whom they view as the more prolific, Heaven-soiling brethren of the heretics overrunning Israel. (This after said alien sidetracks their initial plan to free the Holy Land by launching them into interstellar space.) Because the invaders to our world have been dominant for so long over such a wide area, nobody up in the stars has any damn idea what politics are any more. The human leader manages to convince every single alien he meets, through bravado, underhandedness, trickery, and good old-fashioned lying, to assail their opponents. When "''future"'' Earth finally reaches the stars, they are met by the emissary of the trans-galactic feudal Christian empire, run by Human descendants of the would-have-been Crusaders. And it is beyond awesome.

* The ''[[Uplift]]'' series has this as a running theme. As newcomers to a galaxy filled with [[Sufficiently Advanced Aliens]] with eons-old technology, humanity and its [[Uplifted Animal|clients]] must rely on their wits and the technology that they've learned to understand in a few short centuries. In ''The Uplift War'', humans and chimps with jungle camouflage and crossbows manage to slaughter the technologically reliant Gubru -- afterGubru—after realizing that their initial severe losses were due to the Gubru having rigged the humans' technology so they could track it. Later in the war, they also manage to capture some Gubru weapons.

** There's an incident with a less-extreme tech difference later in the series. Sten took charge of an old but heavily-armed strongpoint. When enemy tacships tried strafing and bombing his position, he activated the air-defence system, not expecting much from the archaic guns. But they ripped the tacships out of the sky -- becausesky—because the guns were targeting, and the proximity fuses detonating, with radar frequencies so out-of-date that ''no one remembered to jam them anymore''.

* ''[[The War of the Worlds (novel)|The War of the Worlds]]'', be it the book, radio broadcast, or film: Alien beats Human Army, {{spoiler|Water, or at least the bacteria in water}} beats Alien.

* A [[Dangerously Genre Savvy]] ''[[The Culture|Culture]]'' in [[Iain Banks]]' series of novel has spent more than 10,000 years using her Special Circumstance elite agency to learn to beat lasers with rocks, rocks with lasers and [[Scary Dogmatic Aliens]] with apparently unarmed and captured spies, making them [[Crazy Prepared]] masters of [[Bamboo Technology]] while still being able to [[Weapon of Mass Destruction|throw blackholesblack holes]] when needed.

* In ''[[Anathem]]'', although they have femtotechnology they find {{spoiler|that defeating the interuniversal menace}} it is much more awesome when done with space blankets, protractors, and mixed martial arts.

* In [[Robert Heinlein]]'s ''[[Tunnel in the Sky]]'', many colonists on their way to new worlds take horses with them instead of motor vehicles, since horses have any number of advantages in a rural setting: they run on a renewable fuel which can be found all over the place, vs. fuel that needs to be refined and transported; they have a moderate ability to repair themselves; and if one gets too severely damaged, well, it's pretty easy to make more horses. Plus, if you start running out of food, they're edible.

* The Battle of Yonkers in ''[[World War Z]]'' could be considers an extreme example of this trope, in that living soldiers armed with every state-of-the-art weapon their publicity-minded superiors can load them down with get their asses kicked by zombies armed with ... teeth. Indeed, the advanced-''against-humans'' nature of their weapons makes the soldiers' attacks far less effective than simple bolt-action rifles would've been, and their sophisticated communication links only serve to spread panic. Eventually, someone realises the problem and "invents" the Lobotomiser--moreLobotomiser—more or less a modified shovel. Its simplicity and effectiveness restored troop confidence in a big way.

* There's a short story called ''"Hawk Among the Sparrows''" about an advanced jet fighter accidentally sent back in time to the First World War. The American pilot thinks he can win the air war single-handed. However, his radar cannot pick up the mostly canvas-and-wood biplanes of the era, his guided missiles are useless as they are designed to lock onto jet exhausts not piston engines, his engines are fueled by what is used mainly as lamp oil and field-heater fuel, so he cannot get a sufficient regular supply, and even then needs to filter it, and his plane flies faster than bullets, so a gun cannot be fitted. {{spoiler|Eventually he works out that the supersonic wash from his plane is enough to rip apart the German planes he is up against.}}

* [[J. R. R. Tolkien|JRR Tolkien]] once gave a lecture to children about dragons where he claimed (in his view) that modern weapons such as machine guns would be ineffective against them, whereas the old heroic techniques such as the arrow in the [[Discworld|voonerables]] would still work.

** There's quite a bit more of this in ''[[Prince Roger]]''. The Marine guard have super-advanced mini-railgun weapons, plasma guns, and reactive-armor suits...but the weapons keep running out of ammo and aren't even as effective against the semi-armored local wildlife as Roger's "smoke pole", the plasma guns can't handle the dampness and keep exploding violently, and the suits, while effective against the local arquebus rounds, do absolutely nothing against slow-moving but sharp arrows, javelins and swords. Eventually, the [[Badass Army|marines]] start introducing the locals to Roman-style phalanx combat and breech-loading cartridge rifles, which works much better. (In fairness, the modern weapons really do a number on the Kranolta, but that battle pretty much wipes out the supply.)

** On every alien planet or [[Alternate Universe|Alternate Earth]] where the Goa'uld came in ships, there was a [[Curb Stomp Battle]]. Goa'uld technology is much better than Earth technology at ship-to-ship or ship-to-ground combat until the end of the series. However, five thousand years of [[A God Am I]] left them unprepared for guerillaguerrilla warfare.

** Subverted in "[[Doctor Who/Recap/S11 E3/E03 Death to Thethe Daleks|Death to the Daleks]]". A human spaceship, a Dalek spaceship and the TARDIS are immobilised on a planet. The Daleks try to exterminate the Doctor only to find their weapons don't work, one Dalek is taken out by the locals with rocks and spears, and some of the rest are captured and led off to be sacrificed. The remaining Daleks promptly replace their energy weapons with slug-throwing guns (meaning bullets, not gastropods), which still work just fine, and wreak brutal revenge.

** In the old series episode "[[Doctor Who/Recap/S16 E2/E02 The Pirate Planet|The Pirate Planet]]" (that's the ''Fourth'' Doctor), when faced with a locked door, the Doctor tries the [[Magic Tool|Sonic Screwdriver]], which fails. So he pulls out a bobby-pin, which succeeds. Quoth the Doctor: "The more sophisticated a technology, the more vulnerable it is to primitive attack."

** In ''[[Doctor Who/Recap/S10 E4/E04 Planet of the Daleks|Planet of the Daleks]]'', Thals drop rocks on a Dalek rising through a long shaft on antigravity. The rocks, after all, have gravity on their side.

* From the [[Die Hard on an X]] episode of ''[[Farscape]]'' "I Shrink Therefore I Am":

<nowiki>* </nowiki>CRUNCH*

* Referenced, if not quite employed, in the ''[[Angel]]'' episode "A Hole in the World." At the beginning of the show, Angel and Spike argue--forargue—for half an hour!--about who would win in a fight: an astronaut or a caveman (i.e., technological savvy or primitive savagery). Later, {{spoiler|when Fred lays dying from the essence of an [[Eldritch Abomination|ancient demon]], she whispers, "The caveman wins. The caveman always wins."}}

* In one episode of ''[[Myth BustersMythBusters]]'', the team was trying to find ways to fool advanced security systems. While most of them didn't work, they did find out that it is possible to fool a state of the art infrared motion detector by holding a large white sheet in front of yourself.

* In an episode of ''[[The Muppet Show]]'' where [[Mark Hamill]] was guest staring as [[Star Wars|Luke Skywalker]] was about to vaporize [[Parody Name|Derth Nader]], only to find that Nader had disabled his blaster with a [[Diabolus Ex Machina|technobabble plot device]]. Thankfully, since "Derth Nader" was really just Gonzo the Great in a silly mask, Chewbacca proved more than capable of giving him a beatdown. Unfortunantly, even Chewbacca was useless against the [[Sarcasm Mode|awesome might]] of [[Dreadful Musician|Angus McGonoggle, the Argyle Gargoyle gargling gershwin]].

* [[Battlestar Galactica Reimagined(2004 TV series)|The reimagined ''Battlestar Galactica]]'' downplays and justifies this. The ''Galactica'' avoids infection from Cylon viruses by using dumb computers, manually controlled [[Space Fighter|starfighters]] and weaponry, and hardwired communications.

* The [[An Aesop|Aesop]] of Leslie Fish's ''[[Car Wars]] ''-inspired song "The Discards":

** Also the point of Leslie Fish's song ''"Serious Steel''", in which members of the [[Society for Creative Anachronism]], using steel armor and recreated medieval weapons, fight various bandits and dictators [[After the End|after the World War III]].

{{quote|''Our armor proved half-bullet proof, our weapons worked as well.

''The townsfolk afterwards thanked us all for freeing them from Hell. }}

* ''[[Warhammer 4000040,000]]'', where the tech is so ''ridiculously'' [[Schizo-Tech|Schizo]] that hitting people with swords/[[Power Fist|giant fists]]/big blunt axes/[[Chainsaw Good|giant chainsaws]]/[[Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot|giant chainsaw axes]]/teeth and claws is frequently ''more'' effective than shooting them with the vast variety of futuristic superguns. A particularly memorable example pops up in one of the [[Gaunt's Ghosts]] novels, where a [[Super Soldier|Chaos Space Marine]] is killed with a ''crossbow''. Though to be fair, it did involve dozens of crossbows, with hundreds of bolts, directly to the CSM's exposed face, and coated with one of the most virulent poisons in the galaxy.

* [[Dungeons and& Dragons]]

* In many video games (''[[Quake II]]'' and ''[[Unreal]]'' games come to mind), the player's initial weapon is a futuristic blaster--ablaster—a pea-shooter compared with ''less'' sophisticated weapons such as a shotgun (single- or double-barrelled), which can deal out ''much'' more damage. Even bullet-using rifles/SMGs and miniguns/chainguns are more effective. (There's usually a powered-up version of the pea-shooting blaster available, though, such as Quake II's Hyperblaster and [[BFG]], or the various upgrades to the dispersion pistol in Unreal.) The futuristic but ineffective blaster does have two advantages, since it's intended as an [[Emergency Weapon]]--it—it [[Unbreakable Weapons|doesn't break]] and [[Bottomless Magazines|never runs out of ammunition]].

* The Battle Walkers of ''[[Battlefield (series)|Battlefield 2142]]'' are supposed to be the pinnacle of Infantry Fighting Vehicles. Should an infantryman wander between its legs, however, he can whittle down the hulking machine with little more than a pistol pointed at its [[Achilles' Heel]] (though you'd still need a hundred rounds or so to do so). The Walker pilot can further uphold the trope, though, by simply crouching down, beating the infantryman's pistol with a very heavy chunk of metal.

** The Worms series in general is chocked full of great low-tech ways for a savvy player to humiliate their opponent. This trope has lost count of the number of times he's sent the enemy to a watery grave with a good smack of the trusty baseball bat, or even better--thebetter—the humble prod (does no damage, but can knock someone off the ledge)!

* ''[[StarcraftStarCraft]]'': a Protoss Dragoon is a massive [[Spider Tank]] with an antimatter cannon. A Zergling is a lizard with teeth and claws. Dragoons can quite easily be ripped to small pieces by a standard-issue [[Zerg Rush]]. The sequel is taking this to an even higher level by giving the Dragoons' successor, the Immortal, shields that can stop a nuke...but which offer no protection against light attacks, like those of said Zerglings and Marines.

* ''[[Command and& Conquer]] Generals'' had stone-throwing mobs of rioters vs tanks with lasers... and the rioters often won, making this a literal example of the trope.

* During the early days of radar-guided and heat-seeking missiles many US military planners were so confident of their superiority that the F-4 Phantom fighter was initially designed without guns, as they believed that missiles would make aerial cannon fights a thing of the past. This was quickly disproven in the Vietnam War when the Vietnamese pilots quickly learned to fight close to the ground, where ground clutter and thermal reflection greatly confused early missile guidance systems to the point of practical uselessness. Worse, the old "obsolete" MiG-15s and MiG-17s had superior maneuverability to the Phantom at lower speeds and altitude, which allowed them to keep their guns trained on any unfortunate Phantom they got close enough to. Even if the Phantom managed to outmaneuver such MiGs, their lack of guns meant that they couldn't enagage at closer distances. Often the Phantoms had to resort to their superior speed and climb rate to escape. <ref>A more detailed analysis can be found [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/remarks.php?trope=Main.RockBeatsLaser#latest here].</ref>

* It is nearly legendary that a SEAL team was put up against an 'amphib' ship (looks like a small carrier-- thinkcarrier—think "helicopter and harrier carrier" and you've got it; they are used to deploy marines; an example would be the LHD) and quickly took out all the defenses...except for engineering, which was armed with foot long bits of pipe ('pipe wrenches,' used to shut water tight doors) and safety netting, which they deployed at every level of the vertical shafts... basically, there wasn't any way to invade or drop a bomb without either exposing oneself to pipes or getting caught in safety net.

* The US Navy's air division spends incredible amounts of time on "FOD" control-- thatcontrol—that is, making sure there's not so much as a pebble or an earring where it could, possibly, by any chance be thrown into the engine of a jet. It is amazing how a tiny object can utterly destroy a sufficiently advanced bit of equipment.

[[Category:Rock Beats Laser{{PAGENAME}}]]