Starship Troopers

Starship Troopers is based upon the popular novel of the same name written by the dean of Science-Fiction writers, Robert A. Heinlein. In the novel, Heinlein describes a futuristic war involving homo sapiens from our Earth (Terrans) against a Humanoid race (nicknamed the 'Skinnies' for obvious physical attributes) and their cobelligerents, the totally alien Arachnids. Since this is a story of future wars and future advances in technology, much is changed in the fields of weaponry and tactics and strategy. One thing remains the same, however; the fighting still rests on the shoulders of the individual infantryman. Although great starships has shuttle men between the distant solar systems and the power of individual weapons has risen to awesome heights, wars still cannot be won unless men venture onto the face of alien planets and fight the enemy on their home ground. As Juan Rico, the protagonist of the novel, relates:

"We are the boys who go to a particular place, at H-Hour, occupy a designated terrain, stand on it, dig the enemy out of their holes, force them then and there to surrender or die. We're the bloody infantry, the doughboy, the duckfoot, the foot soldier who goes where the enemy is and takes him on in person."

Although the mission remains the same, future inventiveness has changed the method considerably. In a galaxy-wide war, manpower is at a premium. Platoons fight where entire armies once tred. But these platoons possess the firepower equivalence of a Twentieth-Century mechanized division. More importantly, each man in the platoon is provided with a piece of hardware that allows him to fight and survive in the holocausts of future combat-his powered armor suit. As Rico describes it: