Dead Hand is an animated duology by Dima Fetodov.
Set in the relatively distant future, the series follows an automated warplane fighting in a Forever War long after mankind has died out. But eventually, even this war must end.
The first portion can be viewed, "Fortress", here
, while the finale, "Last Day of War", can be seen here. An unlisted video labelled "Tank3" can be viewed here or through the series playlist.
This work provides examples of the following:
- After the End: By the time the war hits ten years in duration, human civilization has been wiped out. The conflict is now handled entirely by machines, with the two warplanes shown in the first episode being flown by onboard intelligences, now acting as mobile tombs for their long deceased pilots.
- All for Nothing: Albeit in a case of Dramatic Irony, but the war machines now duking it out are fighting a completely pointless conflict due to the loss of their creators.
- Anti-Climax: The ultimate end of the war isn't some grand (and pointless) Final Battle, nor is it the machines fighting achieving sentience and deciding to stop. Instead, the bomber from "Fortress" finally succumbs to the wear and tear of time and suffers engine failure during a mission, causing it to crash. As the last combat unit of its side, this leaves its faction unable to keep fighting, ending the war.
- Brain–Computer Interface: Air Force Base No. 14, which the bomber operates from, seemed to have utilized this when humanity was still alive, featuring a server room of AI "Thinking Modules" with four pods in the middle containing (dead and seemingly mummified) human operators inside wearing special suits and helmets connected to cables, aside from the fourth pod which seems to have exploded in the past.
- Cool Plane: The automated warplanes (the big lumbering bomber, and the nimble fighter from the first part) certainly qualify as cool, having designs evocative of human aircraft from World War 2 but taken to an uncanny level as if to emphasize their AI-controlled inhumanity and regression in warfare.
- Detonation Moon: "Tank3" reveals that the Moon has been shattered, pieces trailing off it into space and seemingly, concerningly much closer to the Earth than normal.
- Dramatic Irony: Part of the tragedy of the series is how the machines can't recognize that, with the extinction of mankind, the war they are fighting is pointless - the focus plane of "Fortress" tries to get life-readings from a pilot who has been dead so long that they are no more than a skeleton, attacks cities that are now entirely lifeless, and tries to follow orders from a command that no longer exists. Emphasizing this is how, in the finale, despite the pilot being, again, long dead, the plane still ejects them before crashing after finally succumbing to age.
- Escape Pod: The bomber features one. It ejects when the bomber finally crashes in "Last Day of War". Not that it does its long-dead pilot any good, especially when it's revealed to be compromised in an underwater shot. Truth in Television as several real-life bombers, both real and conceptualized, featured escape crew capsules.
- Forever War: Despite the extinction of humanity, the creations continue to wage war, with the first short showing that the fighting is ten years long and still ongoing. It finally ends twenty years after it started when the last warplane breaks down and crashes, leaving its commanding intelligence with no more combat units to fight with or the means to produce more.
- Meaningful Name: Dead Hand is also the codename for the Perimeter system, an automated contingency developed by the Soviet Union to ensure a nuclear counterattack even in the event of a decapitation strike wiping out the chain of command.
- More Dakka: The aircraft shown employ machine guns and autocannons rather than anything more modern like missiles. The fighter from "Fortress" is even shown ejecting a shower of spent shells when engaging the bomber.
- Ragnarök-Proofing: Downplayed and eventually Subverted. Whatever war machines and artificial intelligences still left operating have been going at it for a decade by the time of "Fortress", which while impressive it's clear that they're on borrowed time from a lack of proper maintenance aside from refueling and rearmament along with implied minimal repairs, looking and having become heavily worn out due to years of near-constant operation. This comes to a head in "Last Day of War" which is set twenty years after the conflict began, and the constant wear and tear has taken its toll on the machines, culminating in the bomber suffering engine failure that causes it to crash into the sea, with Air Force Base No. 14 clearly to follow sometime in the future if not soon due to having to shut down several systems, like its secondary "Thinking Modules", and suffering damage to its reactor.
- Schizo Tech: Advanced artificial intelligence systems, alongside what seem to be human-controlled interface pods (when their operators were still alive), run whatever military installations and hardware are left, directing the war effort as effectively and efficiently as they could even long after humanity has gone extinct. However, the automated war machines used (the aircraft, what little we see of the tanks and even what seems to be a city's anti-aircraft defenses) seem limited to using projectile weaponry, such as machine guns and autocannons, while the bomber the series focuses on relies on carpet bombing its targets with what seem to be oversized cluster munitions containing nuclear bombs, implying that warfare may have regressed to that of World War 2 at some point.
- Tank Goodness: "Tank3" showcases derelict, automated quad-tracked tanks stuck in a snow-covered alley or trench.
- Used Future: Both the heavy bomber and the fighter plane sent to oppose it in "Fortress" look incredibly worn out, as they've been fighting for ten years straight, same goes for the tanks shown in "Tank3". Even Air Force Base No. 14, which the bomber operates from, has a worn-out, industrial look to it after two decades of operation, inevitably suffering severe damage to its reactor that forces the base's computer to launch the bomber early before it could be fully prepared.