I was curious if you had thoughts/comments about the analog/digital 'divide' in Jaegers because honestly it made my engineer buddy and me look at each other a bit 'u can't b serious' while we were watching. Do you think there's any actual justification for that distinction?
I have a few comments on this, so here goes:
First off, you and your engineer buddy are not alone in having that sort of reaction. I did too, along with several of my friends (with widely varying science backgrounds).
On the other hand, one of my friends told me he interpreted that differently. Iâll let his words speak for themselves.
"That analogue vs. digital thing is a comment more or less on analogue and digital film modes. And even special effects. Itâs also pretty much saying âMan, these digital special effects monsters are nothing when compared to the classic physical puppet monsters.â"
Iâm going to stick to the science rather than comment further on that interpretation (literary criticism was never my strong point), but there you go.
Second, it is incredibly implausible that Gipsy Dangerâs systems (or any Jaegerâs systems) are entirely analog. This is because all Jaegers almost certainly have digital computers in their systems. The control panels and their displays? Those need computers. The holographic displays in front of the pilots? Those need computers. The dual Pons systems? Those really need computers, because thereâs a lot of processing involved in making that interface work. The human brain is complicated. Analog computers do exist, but I highly doubt those would be useful here due to their limitations. (Low precision and having to physically rewire them in order to make changes? No thank you.) So that leaves us with the digital computers we know and love as part of every Jaegerâs systems.
(Related note: nuclear does not imply analog in any way. In fact, modern nuclear reactors are digital too.)
Third, even analog systems can be disrupted by EMPs (Leatherbackâs attack). Depending on the circuits involved it might be harder to disrupt an analog system than a digital one, but thatâs a very flimsy justification.
Before I explain why, let me clarify the difference between analog and digital. Analog signals are continuous, like lengths, voltages, and states of dimmer switches. For any two lengths, no matter how close together, there's always a possible length in between. Digital data is discrete, like the letters in this post and states of on/off switches. There's no letter between 'a' and 'b' in the alphabet. Analog vs. digital is about the data, and is not limited to circuits at all.
What makes a circuit (or a part of a circuit) analog or digital is whether it uses electrical quantities (like voltages) to represent continuous or discrete data. In fact, transistors, which are hugely important to both analog and digital electronics, are sort of like dimmer switches. Digital circuits just use them in the on/off 'positions', while analog circuits mainly use the 'positions' in between. (I say "sort of" because this is a massive simplification, but I'm not assuming a circuits background and I'm not going to teach multiple courses in this post.)
At a low enough level, both analog and digital circuits have electricity running through various materials. And that is exactly the level at which EMPs wreak havoc. Overloading a transistor, or any other circuit component for that matter, will break it no matter what type of circuit it's in.
Fourth, there are more scientifically plausible ways to say âGipsy Danger wonât be disabled by that attackâ. My personal favourite is "Gipsy's radiation-hardened. That provides EMP protection too." This is a simplification, but it's reasonably possible depending on how the systems are designed. It also has the advantage of making sense for Gipsy's stated power source, because any sensible circuit designer putting important and sensitive systems near a nuclear reactor will insist on radiation-hardening them. Especially if they also have concerns like this.
I think there is a justification for some sort of âdivideâ between Jaegers to explain why Leatherback canât disable Gipsy Danger immediately like he did with Striker Eureka. There may be a very good reason for that divide to be analog/digital, but that reason isn't scientific accuracy.
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