Autonomous Mapping Evaluation and Evasion
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AMEE (Autonomous Mapping Exploration and Evasion) is a fictional military robot from the 2000 film Red Planet. The film takes place on the barren surface of Mars, where the remaining crew members must battle against the deadly elements, the lack of communications and the bizarre insectoid inhabitants. With no human enemies, AMEE is the main "antagonist" of the plot, hunting and killing the humans one by one.
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[edit] Character
AMEE is shown from the beginning of the film, being shipped into her container for the duration of Mars-1's space voyage. During the trip, she is removed from her box and is activated -- revealing a wiry and skeletonized form which can be quadripedal or bipedal, and has no precise biological analog, but has elements similar to both a jaguar and a monkey. This gives AMEE a superbly well-balanced stance. The first time she demonstrates her flexibility and speed is when Ghallagher plays a trick on Pettengil by making AMEE strike out at him. Her manipulators stop inches from his chest, much to his annoyance. Her four limbs possess several joints for optimum movement. Each limb ends in a radial arrangement of eight manipulators that are similar to flattened, clawed phalanges, also jointed. Each set of manipulators is able to flex, clench, rotate rapidly, and execute a wide variety of other complex movements. AMEE can manipulate objects with ease in a manner similar, yet not identical, to a human hand -- and with at least as much precision. According to film dialog, she is a United States Marine Corps asset, and has been "loaned" (technically the term would be "placed on detached duty" for use by Mars-1). Although never made absolutely clear, it is likely that AMEE is a mass-produced reconnaissance model. She is powered by a helium-based nuclear power cell "the size of a beer can" which, when fully charged, allows her to stay active for eight months.
Her body is segmented, and she is capable of moving each segment individually. This allows her to shift, fold, and unfold in many different ways, changing shape and size 'footprint' to suit her objectives. In addition, she has metal armor plating to protect her mechanisms and joints, including her central processing unit and the sensors at the front of her head. Its ballistic rating is not known. Although she can stand on her hind limbs, gaining a 7-foot tall human-like posture, she is far more agile and maneuverable on all fours. She also has control over a small helicopter-like machine, likened to a recon-drone. She can attach or detach this drone from her back at will, and use it to support her situational awareness and scouting tasks. Approximately two feet in length, the drone is a twin-rotor design with a GPS system, several cameras, and a radar. It is controlled remotely by AMEE's processor. It can also be used as a bomb in AMEE's self-destruct program, which suggests that it could also be employed as a guided missile or smart bomb. Though AMEE never speaks, she is personalized as "female," and is jokingly referred to as "Gallagher's girlfriend" because that crew member had taken a liking to her. However, she is seen at certain points in the film making threatening sounds, such as screeching or growling, when she is in military mode. This brings to question the fact that perhaps her self-defense and physical awareness requires a deep subconscious amount of emotion, such as fear or even anger, in order to function with more clarity during military operations. Although it is highly unlikely that her human creators would risk implanting her with even a low level of humanity, as her size, strength and agility would make her incredibly dangerous during a moment of "emotional" panic or threat.
AMEE has a "navigation mode" which is used, at least in this case, for supporting the crew and mapping the planet. The other known operational mode is "military mode," in which AMEE is seen to employ sophisticated, proactive guerilla warfare and attrition methods after becoming damaged and mistakenly coming to perceive the crew as her enemies. Whether she possesses any other modes is unknown.
[edit] Role
Because the crew members have no human enemies, AMEE proves to be a powerful foe. During the beginning of the film, AMEE is simply an asset to be used for exploration on Mars, but when the landing body of the ship encounters turbulence in the Martian atmosphere, the crew is forced to detach the landing gear to lighten the ship. However, AMEE's container is jettisonned in the process. Upon arriving on the surface, AMEE frees herself from the wreckage and proceeds to use the air drone to locate the crew members. After finding the three remaining humans at the destroyed HAB base, she moves closer and allows herself to be inspected. The crew notice her internal processor has been damaged by the crash and see that the drone has already been launched. They suggest removing her guidance system and using it to control the drone, to scan the landscape, but doing so would deactivate AMEE and "kill" her. They proceed to do so anyway, but they forget that she is still in military mode. After realizing that she is under threat, she strikes back at the crew and knocks them to the ground, refusing to respond to Gallagher's commands. She attacks and defends by using her great strength and her beautiful, fascinatingly unusual martial art form. Similar to jujitsu, parkour, or taijitsu, the art form brings to mind the interesting hypothetical concept of unarmed combat forms specifically adapted for use by robots. To speculate further, far future societies might even have robots self-modifying these kinds of art-forms, with a kind of cultural diffusion to pass them on. In such a case there would be potential that the unique unarmed fighting arts of robots might be something valuable to teach and learn, to varying degrees, for both robots and humans. It is intriguing to consider the idea that in the future, some advanced robot might develop into a widely respected martial arts teacher and practitioner. However, knowing this, the robot would need to be adapted to perform at levels similar or identical to those of humans, in order to function in the same manner as the potential students. All of these factors put to mind an important idea, that perhaps in the absence of humans, machines equipped with sufficient self-defense abilities and information, having the capacity to gather information on their surroundings would mean that robots such as AMEE would need no human intervention and could, therefore, "evolve" further, gaining the ability the repair themselves and prolong there lives and even create other followers. Such ideas are present in the works of Isaac Asimov.
When Burchenal tries to defend himself against AMEE by using a metal bar, it has no effect. However, because AMEE's hand and foot manipulators are exceedingly strong and sharp, her spinning claws slicing the bar to pieces, and then knocking him to the ground, stunning him. Using her X-ray sight, she then focuses her attention on one of Burchenal's ribs and, carefully, snaps it. This is obviously a form of standard operating procedure that has been programmed into AMEE for such situations, to delay and "hamstring" opponents by requiring them to care for the wounded. Indeed, the characters comment on how clever the tactic is. The larger reason for the tactic's great effectiveness in warfare is because of the extra effort needed to care for someone who is seriously hurt. After all, this is almost always more effort than would be needed if they had been killed in battle.
After making this delaying attack, AMEE leaps to her feet, somersaults over Gallagher's head, and escapes. The crew realize that her damaged processor failed to recognize her commanders, and her self-defense mode took over, fighting back against her opponents. According to that military programming, they are able to be certain of what her subsequent strategy will be -- using a "search and destroy" method to engage and eliminate them one by one. Later, while the crew are sheltering from a storm, Pettengil steals their radio and tries to escape alone, only to be attacked by AMEE and brutally sliced apart in the storm.
In the conclusion of the story, Gallagher's only chance of escaping the planet is to somehow exploit the remains of a Russian unmanned lander that he has found. However, the lander's battery has been dead for years. In his hopelessness, he notices AMEE's air drone, which causes him to remember that AMEE has a nuclear core -- so that if he could get that core, he could adapt it to activate the drone ship. Building a way to trick AMEE, Gallagher removes the pod that holds the lander's sample tray for the vehicle chassis. He fills the assembly with rocket fuel, and attaches it to a cut wire, hiding it beneath the ship. AMEE drops down from above him, aiming a killing blow at his heart. Just as she lunges, Gallaher leaps aside and fires the sample pod into her chest, knocking her away several feet away and trapping her within the parachute. He then ignites the rocket fuel and engulfs AMEE within a ball of flames, destroying her armor and rendering her helpless. As Gallagher is trying to remove AMEE's nuclear core, AMEE activates her self-destruct program, which involving arming the explosive mechanism built into AMEE's air drone, then purposely crashing the drone into herself at great speed. As this is happening, Gallagher just manages to yank out AMEE's power core, jumping aside an instant before the collision and explosion.
[edit] Mind and vision
AMEE is controlled by a highly intelligent internal computer, which starts off with little knowledge except for crew information, mission details and commands. However, during the story she learns from the crew, and gathers information on them and on how to kill them. Despite being a machine, she moves and acts with a great resemblance to a human, and also to a wild animal. She seems to have a personality of a sort, playing with the crew and closing in on them, using coldly efficient methods to weaken them and slow them down.
Her vision is also highly sophisticated, incorporating both infrared and X-ray perception. Her head mounts a blue monocular sensor, surrounded by a protective iris port.
[edit] Design
Even though the special effects community applauded the success of all the hard work needed to create the film character of AMEE -- completely computer generated -- it is important to remember that the AMEE character was a Hollywood conception of a robot in the future, and has many characteristics that might not be possible in a real robot. For instance, it would appear that a conventional processor as advanced as hers would need to be quite large, which seems to demand that AMEE have greater volume than is seen in the movie. Furthermore, AMEE's limbs and body segments seem to be positioned on perpendicular joints for excellent freedom of movement, but joints like these might not be able to transmit force very well, which would place drastic limits on the achievable amount of strength for AMEE. Such joints might also be much more likely to buckle under pressure. Finally she seems to have only one receptor for light, located on the front of her head, and it seems to be monocular. Yet her excellent situational awareness and very high physical performance level would seem to imply binocular vision at or above human level. This conclusion is supported by the viewpoint seen several times in the film, which is supposed to represent what she is seeing. Unless there are actually multiple receptors inside this one housing, and yet still enough distance between the receptors to provide different viewpoints, binocular vision would appear to be impossible.
