The Rise and Fall of Stupopolis or The Birth of Pryo-Kaiju Battle

The Plan
Long Time Friend always wanted to be a giant robot, attacking a city. He held out through the early years of life—inspired by (the original) Star Wars trilogy and by the animated role models of Gai King, Grandizer, and even a bit of the Transformers—holding on to the faint hope that maybe our nation, in all of its glory would develop something as cool like this. Alas, 200+ billion dollars later, and we don't even have well armored jeeps, so it fell upon Long Time Friend to take up the robot-battle banner.

He spent minutes— literally dozens and dozens of minutes—planning. The design was simple: a suit that protected the eyes, face, neck, torso, arms, hands, and legs—and crotch, of course. Being mere civilians, and not possessing the appropriate licenses and/or political clout to attack real cities, we would build a city ourselves. And then Long Time Friend, in armored robot battle suit, would destroy it. A-la Godzilla.

The city would fight back, but it would be hopeless. Mwah-ha-ha-ha!

Ordinance
The suit was bristling like a porcupine with attached consumer-grade fireworks. These are the types of mostly-safe July fourth treats that many have used before us. They are designed, however, to be lit with a match one at a time, pointing straight up. These were to be launched via a wrist-mounted control computer (read: model rocket remote detonator). They would be aimed horizontally. At the city. Our inner ten-year-olds were grinning with delight... but it gets better.

The city was armed too. Each building, like all decent buildings in all decent cities, was armed to the teeth with even larger pyrotechnic rounds. Good thing Long Time Friend was wearing that suit—that painstaking design, which was the result of almost twenty minutes of R&D and had passed one or two tests, even. This battle was going to be good.

Equipment Failures & Quick Thinking
The electronics proved unreliable. Although it was by far the most difficult aspect to set up, it failed us in the end. Some good old-fashioned yankee ingenuity came through, however. The robot's helper (aka., evil genius side-kick "Fire man") and the mayor of Stupopolis (aka., me) would be dashing in and out amidst firework volleys with some lighters, to manually alight each fuse. It sounds dangerous, but we had plenty of gasoline with us to make sure we could light the fuses quickly and get the heck out of there.

The Robot's head was only lit on fire once, and it was quickly put out by flailing one largely unmovable arm at the flames. Overall, I say it was a success.

Attack!

The event went off wonderfully, although the Armed Forces of Stupopolis proved to have very poor aim. Only one direct hit (to the center torso) was recorded, although there is some debate that a round may have ricocheted off of Mr. Battle Robot's blast visor. This piece of photographic evidence shows the one direct hit clearly, though. Yup, he's in there, somewhere. We're sure of it.

There were some flaws in the robot's design that made some more advanced maneuvers difficult. For example, Long Time Friend could not see or move his arms. When he fell over backwards, he couldn't get back up without help. We were a bit worried when Long Time Friend tipped over and shot an entire salvo of leg-mounted anti-city rounds straight into the air, but it turns out that—in the tradition of the evening—he was just being cautious, and did not want to attempt standing back up while he was firing round after round of titan fireworks from an area dangerously close to his own private parts.

So there were, You know, a few little things. But in the end, he was still victorious. Stupopolis may be a city of the sturdiest cardboard in all the world, but it was no match for science.

Future Planning
As was told, all friends and family told us we were crazy. However, afterwards, all are no eagerly awaiting the next round of battle, which will occur on Dec 31, 2006. Only this time, there will be as many as four different robots. The designs will be better—a better ignition system has already been conceptualized, as has a far superior joint actuator. I'll need to make sure my insurance is paid up, the authorities are paid off, and that waivers are signed and dated, but the 2006 extravaganza is going to be even harder to forget than this years brave beta-assault. Until Then, folks, remember: Safety First!