How best to control your gigantic bird army?

Tar.Aldarion

Okit is a slow morning in work so... let us assume that you can control all of the birds on Earth, and they flock to your every whim. You also exhibit the unhealthy feeling that you want to take over the world. Do you think you could do it with your army or birds? Would you need insects too or would birds suffice?
How would you do it, stealth(not letting it be known that birds were behind everything that was going on)? An outright attack? Why do you feel this would/n't work? Maybe use them to deliver disease to human masses?
Do you think that you could enlist a lot of humans to your side after your initial attacks?

Would you keep birds in flocks of their own kind or mix and match, going for diversity as opposed to flocks of birds with a special skill and objective?
Do you think you could take the world, a country at a time or it all or none?




For those unsure of all there is to know about birds:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bird

Reku

Ransom...

pay me or else my birds shall poop all over your city and it's people, never again shall your cars have clean windows, never again shall you hang your clothes outside to dry, never again will a person be outside without an umbrella! Muuhaahaa!

Money is power people... first you get the money, then you get the power, then you get the women... then you find yourself divorced and rather broke, but lets not think that far ahead.

AlmightyCushion

Damn double post.

AlmightyCushion

Hmm very interesting but I'd have to go with mine and Duggy's plan to take over the world using atomic genetically mutated Irish wolfhound that can walk on their hind legs and have 60's style ray guns. I think there was also something to with their bark. I think it made people pop like a giant balloon on impact. It be a very weird end to man-kind all right.

trout

In terms of munitions, bird poop leaves a lot to be desired. I'm going for specialist skills, elite forces, fast moving, fearless and cheap to feed.

I would be looking to utilise the Hawks & Eagles of this world as strike-bombers, organised into squadrons of 25 or more. These squadrons would be stationed close to the enemy supply lines.

Longer range birds such as the Albatross and Andalusian Hemaphode would fill the role of long range recon, roaming across the globe seeking out strategic targets.

Common or garden birds would largely be cannon fodder, used to overwhelm enemy installations by sheer force of numbers ... there's plenty more where they came from.

I would keep budgies and such like close to me for entertainment, and the colours. Parrots and Mynah birds would act as stenographers, keeping a record of all my glorious victories.

Scavenging birds such as Buzzards could be used as a weapon of terror ... using corpses left behind by my Hawks & Eagles, I would send the Buzzards into major centres of population ... to spread fear, uncertainty and doubt among the populace with a few well placed body parts (fingers, eyeballs and the like). Buzzards also smell terribly, due to their diet ... it wouldn't take much for these guys to break the spirit of a nation.

I would go for world domination with my army of birds one country at a time ... using natural migratory patterns and the Gulf stream.

My first point of attack would be centers of bread production, and wherever they grow bird seed. (if you plant bird seed, what do you get ?).

Given sufficient reserves of food, I could grow the largest bird army this planet has ever seen!

Clearly, when planning world domination using an army of birds, communications are vital. Carrier and Messenger pigeons FTW!

I had never considered using insects as well ... mmmmm. :cool:

thelordofcheese

trout wrote:

iif you plant bird seed, what do you get ?

A giant bird tree?

thelordofcheese

trout wrote:

iif you plant bird seed, what do you get ?

A giant bird tree?

Naos

Almightycushion that was not the question asked.

Why do you feel the need to flirt with Duggy on a constant basis? I understand you two are friends IRL but it seems that every story one of ye tells has to be validated by the other.

Farohar has the right idea. Ransom is the only way forward. Plus you can get your birds to collect it, hide amongst the rest of the birds and deliver it to you, thus avoiding capture.

Slow Motion

Mear wrote:

Almightycushion that was not the question asked.

Why do you feel the need to flirt with Duggy on a constant basis? I understand you two are friends IRL but it seems that every story one of ye tells has to be validated by the other.

You may or may not have a point but did you have to repeat it three times ? repeat it three times ? repeat it three times ?

Tar would you be getting a Flock Of Seagulls haircut to go with your takeover attempt ?

a_flock_of_seagulls.jpg

Terry

You would definitely need the pigeon from the wacky races/ Perils of Penelope Pittstop.
He was indestructable.

justsomebloke

ok first gets birds to rob an american military installation of all it's bombs and also a chinese military base. As this was carried out by a flock of birds there should be little suspion as come it is only birds what harm could they do.

After this wait a couple of months and get a couple of birds to fly to china with said bombs (radar wouldn't be looking for flocks of birds) and use one of said bombs to assianate the leader of china.

The chinese will believe that the american's have caused this due to it being an america bomb and so tensions will heighten. 12-24 later when tensions are probably at the heighest use some other birds with the chienese bombs to attack american strategic power planets (specifficaly nuclear plants thus causing widespread fall out) to knock off as much of the american power supply as possible.

The americans will believe that this is response from the chinese goverment and so will respond, however due to hysteria that is happening and the lack of power in america at this point you can use flocks of birds to take out high powerded figures all over the states.

Fearing the worst america should then respond will military might against the chienese.

Ongoing at this point will be attacks on the russian gas lines and oil tankers going to europe so that there would be a lack of power in western europe again causing panic as their is not enough power.

However as I don't want to give all my plans away I am going to leave the rest to your imagination however with 36-48 hours of this I will be in full control without any need for the insects who would just try and kill me as soon as my back was turned.

So what is the moral of the story, well it is that you should of stoipped reading this post a long time ago

AlmightyCushion

Jsb sounds like he's been planning this for a long time. A couple of things jsb. Don't just start a war between the Chinese and Americans. Try and get a ot of very powerful countries acting together. Use those American bombs against the Russians as well, maybe north Korea too. Then steal bombs from these countries to attack America and the British. This might get Europe in to the was but at the very least Britain.

Also use the bombs to take out some power stations and some military target because if you leave America without power you might make the fight a bit uneven therefore making it easier for one side to win. We want this to be a war of attrition where both sides do all the work for us.

Crumble Froo

station birds... preferably small birds of prey, like the sparrowhawk or something around the residences of all the world's leaders... they would launch an attack on the leaders within minutes of them stepping outside, gouging their eyes out with those pretty talons of theirs...

id have my own puppets planted for the re-elections, and have my birds take care of all opposition.

i want to be in control of the whole operation, not sit behind the dmaned desk all day.

that's why i need my puppets in power.

i think its pretty damned foolproof.

Tar.Aldarion

I wuld have to evacuate Ireland if we wanted the british bombed too, there might be nuclear side effects over here.
I have started with a test, http://news.bbc.co.uk/player/nol/newsid_6900000/newsid_6908300/6908311.stm?bw=nb&mp=rm&news=1
Making a pidgeon shop lift.
More to follow.
Some good replies so far. My team is lining up, with the pidgeon from teh wacky races as exalt-general.

Slow Motion

Tar.Aldarion wrote:

I wuld have to evacuate Ireland if we wanted the british bombed too, there might be nuclear side effects over here.
I have started with a test, http://news.bbc.co.uk/player/nol/newsid_6900000/newsid_6908300/6908311.stm?bw=nb&mp=rm&news=1
Making a pidgeon shop lift.
More to follow.
Some good replies so far. My team is lining up, with the pidgeon from teh wacky races as exalt-general.

I think a certain Mr Hitchcock might have had an idea along similar lines !

as an aside did I hear that they are doing a remake ?

Tar.Aldarion

In his the birds attacked for no reason and were just likely there as a metaphor, and not to try to take over the world.
In this scenario you have billions of birds at your command.

Terry

Get Tippi Hedren in for support if you want to go down the Hitchcock line.

sweet-rasmus

i love it! but i'd say we'd win against the birds any day. best of luck with the army Tar!!

WindSock

Aborigines in Australia used their boomerangs to move giant flocks towards their nets. I would use this idea, and once they are in my net, harness it to myself and float away, a la James and the Giant Peach. I wouldn't let any more insects burrow into me though. I could control the flock by painting a large python to resemble a worm, then tie it onto a stick.

Reku

trout wrote:

In terms of munitions, bird poop leaves a lot to be desired.

Not really... can give disease to people and over time corrodes car paint (probably other forms of paint too), then there's the need to clean windows as a result, also the fact that if the volume is sufficient it could make britain's current worries seem like a piddly nuisance in comparison (think how many birds there are world wide and imagine the volume of poop that could quickly build up:eek: ).

WindSock

And gunpowder is made from bird poo.

trout

boreds wrote:

And gunpowder is made from bird poo.

fair enough ... and given time I accept that bird poo is reasonably corrosive to paint. Corrosive yes, potential for making into gunpowder, perhaps, capable of inducing bowel crunching fear in the enemy ... I don't think so.

My point still stands, I believe. As a primary strike weapon for my ever growing Bird army, bird poo on it's own simply isn't overwhelming enough.

I like the idea of the Hawks & Eagles, claws and sharp beaks ... I mean, they are offensive weapons right there. Also, if I can co-ordinate things just right, I could get some Haitian bird cells and quisling pigeon fanciers in line with some Voodoo practitioners, so that I could raise an army of Undead Birds ... zombie pigeons from hell, with knives strapped to their claws and sharpened diamond tipped beaks.

In fairness to my learned friends, I see no reason not to feed the birds, both living and Undead, with a lot of fibre, so that all their missions are accompanied by copious amounts of poo ... if we get the additives just right, the poo could be quite caustic and perhaps qualify as a biological weapon.

Also, I would recruit the insect nations to my cause, so that they could launch flea-borne terror attacks on the natural enemy of the Bird army ... the Cats!

Terry

Do you want a bird crapping on your head?

trout

Terry wrote:

Do you want a bird crapping on your head?

If the option is a blood crazed zombie albatross with stanley knives grafted onto it's wing tips ... I'll take the bird poo any day:rolleyes:

What would really frighten me is an Emu ... a real Emu, I mean, those things are scary when they're on their own. If they got organised into a military unit, watch out.

Also, the penguins, those boys could rule the oceans, well the cold bits.:cool:

Naos

Slow Motion wrote:

You may or may not have a point but did you have to repeat it three times ? repeat it three times ? repeat it three times ?

Twas an accident. Internet fecked up on me, wasn't posting. Came back half hour later and there was 3 posts, notice times were 10:15, 10:34 and 10:35.

Do you really think I sat there for 20 mins pressing reply? I don't have that much time on my hands

Anyway thanks for whoever deleted them.

WindSock

'Tis all well and good having an army of avian avengers, but what if they contracted the bird flu?

Raiser

I reckon you'd have enough numbers to lose the odd squadron on missions of no return - the ultimate sacrifice.

- Just get little jackets packed with semtex; theres probably loads on Ebay.

trout

boreds wrote:

'Tis all well and good having an army of avian avengers, but what if they contracted the bird flu?

that would be for the best really ... the ones that die would make excellent spare parts for my Undead zombie troops, the ones are that merely sick would become carriers of the illness deep into the enemy heartland, and the ones that are immune would be transferred to the elite ranger units for special training in crowd control, stanley knives, applied poo violence and general avian mayhem.

Terry

Mear wrote:

Twas an accident. Internet fecked up on me, wasn't posting. Came back half hour later and there was 3 posts, notice times were 10:15, 10:34 and 10:35.

Do you really think I sat there for 20 mins pressing reply? I don't have that much time on my hands

Anyway thanks for whoever deleted them.

Dude, I only deleted them so that he would look silly.
You weren't meant to reply.

Anyway, how many birds are actually on the planet?

Them penguins can fly too. I've seen it on tv.

JIZZLORD

how many birds would you need for surveilance of malcontents? and for *ahem* taking care of these malcontents

Capt'n Midnight

pigeons navigate by magnetism

get some big electromagnets and remote control them

birds use up a lot of energy, more than mammals of the same weight and both use far more energy than reptiles so you'd have to concentrate on the mobility side of things rather than brute force.

Capt'n Midnight

or if you mean the other type of birds, and you control them all and they flock to you, it could be some time before you decided to consider the outside world never mind take it over

Tar.Aldarion

Quite an interesting discussion on the merits of excrement there fellows. If it could somehow be laden with disease, we couldn hit the humans crops. However., this would not be a job for the zombie birds with diamond tipped beaks of course.
I would say there is a quarter of a billion adult birds at any one time, but they can be replaced so fast. There are billions born every year I think. That is a lot of focused poo/attack power. It is especially good with speed, and because nobody would expect the birds. It would have to be well planned.
Now, back to Emu's, nobody would want to get on the wrong side of my Emu shock troops, with their rather poisonous claws.
Since you have a handle on the worlds bird poo supply, you would have a handle on the gunpowder also.
If there was some way to make bird flu contageous to humans, it's game over baby. Alternativey, thta's a lot of suicide bombers.


Capt'n Midnight, if I controlled all those birds, taking over the world would be easy, but it wouldn't exactly be on my mind.

Terry

Tell the truth, Tar.
You just want to throw a saddle on an Emu and go into battle jarjar binks style.

JIZZLORD

which would be more efficient a giant army of birds or an army of giant birds?

Tar.Aldarion

Terry wrote:

Tell the truth, Tar.
You just want to throw a saddle on an Emu and go into battle jarjar binks style.

http://mako.cc/copyrighteous/images/emu.jpg
A dream of mine.

which would be more efficient a giant army of birds or an army of giant birds?

Militaries would be able to target giant birds way better, and they couldn't hide amongst the populus stoping large scale attacks. I suppose it depends on how giant they were, and how many you had.

Slow Motion

Mear wrote:

Do you really think I sat there for 20 mins pressing reply? I don't have that much time on my hands

Anyway thanks for whoever deleted them.

Course not I was just taking the pi$$

Terry

Tar.Aldarion wrote:

http://mako.cc/copyrighteous/images/emu.jpg
A dream of mine.


Militaries would be able to target giant birds way better, and they couldn't hide amongst the populus stoping large scale attacks. I suppose it depends on how giant they were, and how many you had.

Link doesn't work.
Unless that dream of yours is to have a site that doesn't allow hotlinking.

justsomebloke

JIZZLORD wrote:

which would be more efficient a giant army of birds or an army of giant birds?

a giant army of birds cause no offense but giant birds way cause some suspicion and thus thwart my plans

Tar.Aldarion

Terry wrote:

Link doesn't work.
Unless that dream of yours is to have a site that doesn't allow hotlinking.

Yeah, man, I wish I knew how to do that!

JIZZLORD

jsb wrote:

a giant army of birds cause no offense but giant birds way cause some suspicion and thus thwart my plans

just use puffins or other amphibious birds, if the un come to inspect, they can disappear

Stephen

Your birds are f**ked once the people are on to them.

These babies will wipe them out:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phalanx_CIWS

layke

I'd genetically engineer the birds to poop concentrated acid.

Then i'd declare myself as El Presidente for life and order a bombing run on the US, we'll see how well Bush runs the resistance with half a melted head.

Tar.Aldarion

That would be largely uneffective against birds I imagine, they can split their ranks so that you could tanka few out but that is about it. They could just avoid the ship. You can't use largely destructive weapons against them because they ar small and can be spread amongst the masses off people.

:-)

Splinter

i can see umbrellas being a problem for the poo runs though... or just being indoors.. but god emus scare me...

Stephen

The phalanx weapons can be trailer-mounted too, and they put up a massive wall of steel - they're used for shooting down missiles travelling at supersonic speeds, surely slow-moving birds would be easier targets!

Duggy747

Ah, I love the Phalanx. Here's the baby in action against some mortars:

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=31c_1174694660

So, there's that possibility ruled out. That and I'd leave pesticide wrapped in bread everywhere so that would take down your army pretty nifty.

As for MY army, the Radioactive Irish Wolfhounds with ray guns are unstoppable:

Terry

Stephen wrote:

The phalanx weapons can be trailer-mounted too, and they put up a massive wall of steel - they're used for shooting down missiles travelling at supersonic speeds, surely slow-moving boards would be easier targets!

Freudian slip?

AlmightyCushion

splinter wrote:

i can see umbrellas being a problem for the poo runs though... or just being indoors.. but god emus scare me...

See genetically engineered acid poo above.

Splinter

AlmightyCushion wrote:

See genetically engineered acid poo above.

ahh so like crossing a seagull with alien? interesting..

Tar.Aldarion

Weapons could be avoided by being in cities and every bird splitting up and staying low to ground, doing things at night etc
They wouldn't eat the bread, too full up on human. It all depends on how smart the person controlling them is.
The question is, what would you do to defeat the military if you were the one in control.