The Dredd Question...

[Jacqusie]

He's supposed to be in his 70's now isn't he?

I'm waiting for the day that he is is cryro frozen as Weapon X as per Red Razors - to be be defrosted for the big crises...


Failing that, what / when / are they going to do with Joe in his advancing years???

Cheers

Si

[JOE SOAP]

Should Dredd ever be killed off?

http://forums.2000adonline.com/index.php/topic,35801.0.html

Dredd's future, how about the next 10 years of it? And the passage of time

http://forums.2000adonline.com/index.php/topic,41172.0.html

[ZenArcade]

Justice Department would tend to have a materialistic approach to their Judges almost to the extent that they are seen more as automatons with a hardwired imperative to dispense a highly codified set of laws.
The training of Cadet Judges would certainly indicate thie: 15 years of what appears to me to be dehumanizing brainwashing. The average Judges career seems to be based on an overwheening focus on carrying out the dictates of Justice Departmnt to the exclusion of all individual feeling on the behalf of the Judge themselves. When they are 'no longer fit for purpose' they are discarded either into the Cursed Earth or put into a wheelchair or worse, vat of fluid to have their skills utilised for training of the next generation of components in the process.
It is possible to forsee that events post Day of Chaos may lead to a more parsimonious approach to the expenditure of good, proven material, who either by injury or age have dropped off in terms of operational efficiency.
We see today talk of full body transplants and other various technologies which may extend the lifespans of essential members of our present societies (the wealthy); it is not a great leap to see these trends expanded in one hundred years time to the same effect on the valuable members of Mega City One's society (Judges).
Already we see Judges such as Gerhart artificially agumented to keep them operating; it is likely a resource like Dredd would undergo similar enhancement to  prolong operational use.
The mind of course is a different matter from the body and the issues we see really impacting on Dredd's functionality are not in my opinion physical, given the technological leaps I have set out, but instead mental. Z

[Jim_Campbell]

I find the collective failure of imagination on this subject by the readers of a science fiction comic quite startling. My parents' parents had no realistic expectation of living much into their 70s, having seen their parents croak in their 60s. By contrast, I will be lucky if I get to retire when I'm 70.

The Kings Fund projects average male life expectancy could be nearly 100 by the year of Dredd's graduation, and this doesn't consider any SFnal leaps forward in medical technology.

It doesn't seem outlandish to suggest that the limitations of life expectancy in Dredd's world are far more a matter of nuclear wars and alien superfiends than actual old age and that, absent these more extreme factors, your average inhabitant of the future could expect to live for somewhere between 120 and 150 years. Which would, as John Wagner says, make 70 the new 40.

Cheers

Jim

[JOE SOAP]

Rose Knee was 122 when she croaked it.

[ZenArcade]

Heh, heh and he looks every day of it. This is the issue. Jim correctly points out that it requires no large intelluctual leap to envisage a 150 year old person in 2137. The difficulty is having a 150 year old Judge in 2210, still at an optimum level of physical and mental acuity. Thos is where I feel augmntation either organic of mechanical will be required. Z

[JOE SOAP]

The difficulty is having a 150 year old Judge in 2210, still at an optimum level of physical and mental acuity. Thos is where I feel augmntation either organic of mechanical will be required. Z

Dredd all ready seems to have brushed off cancer like it was a radroach, so at still only 70 years young, means we really don't need to worry about his ageing for at least another 20 or 30 years.

Look for it sometime around Prog 3500.

[ZenArcade]

The biological processes involved in ageing are gradual in nature and I suppose the solution would also be gradated into a series of small scale continual procedures. Z

[Frank]

Should Dredd ever be killed off?

http://forums.2000adonline.com/index.php/topic,35801.0.html

Dredd's future, how about the next 10 years of it? And the passage of time

http://forums.2000adonline.com/index.php/topic,41172.0.html

Richmond St Clements should merge and sticky these threads in the new Frequently Asked Questions section of the forum.

On the contingent nature of the aging process, my grandparents could only have been in their forties when my earliest memories of them were formed but they already looked ancient and suffered from health complaints associated with the poor nutrition, working practices, and healthcare of the UK prior to the creation of the welfare state and reform of labour laws which followed WWII.

Most of the folk I know in that age bracket today are faring much better, and an understanding of the importance of a healthy diet and exercise mean they can look forward to emulating the septuagenarians who run marathons, lift weights, and shoot it out with armed robbers. Dredd's fighting style involves soaking up more punishment than anyone else these days, rather than acrobatics, and he mostly just shoots folk from the seat of his mobility scooter.

[Richard]

Dredd all ready seems to have brushed off cancer

It was diagnosed as benign. He still has it, and he's not superhuman.

I agree with ZenArcade, it's one thing to live that long, but quite another to still be fighting fit.

[Steve Green]

[Recrewt]

Heh, heh and he looks every day of it. This is the issue. Jim correctly points out that it requires no large intelluctual leap to envisage a 150 year old person in 2137. The difficulty is having a 150 year old Judge in 2210, still at an optimum level of physical and mental acuity. Thos is where I feel augmntation either organic of mechanical will be required. Z

Well he does already have those 'magic' eyes. 

There are already several things in the Dredd world like rejuves and stookies so I don't have a problem with his age.  Perhaps it's just the post DoC thing but there has been a lot of stories where Dredd has seemed old and tired which can confuse things - is he a fit 40 year old or an older man?  Perhaps he just needs a spa break.

[ZenArcade]

My interest is more with the mind, I have no conceptual difficulties with plot devices to ramp up Old Joe's reflexes et al. The stories hopefuly lie more with an ageing, more experienced personality with the commensurate regrets, misgivings etc. My real fear is not killing Joe Dredd off but some smarmey wee get of a writer defaulting his oersonality back 50 years. Then we would truely lose the Dredd we know and, well, sorta kinda like a bit. Z

[Professor Bear]

He's already had post-Necropolis rejuvenation treatments, so you can probably knock a few years off his age anyway.

I thought this thread was to determine if he was gay once and for all - and/or if we cared either way.

[ZenArcade]

Not according to Butch, he felt the post Necropolis treatments were just a bit of a dermal scrub in the cyber-spa. Oh and we always Care Bear. Z