Ode to Fukuda Vol. 1

by Ben

May 19, 2006

It's been a great road. Back in March of 2005, a weekly editorial on
Mecha called Mecha Musings : The future in Anime began. It started
innocently enough -

There is a question that is commonly asked - how far off are the true technological developments all MAHQ readers yearn for?

Such answers came at the price of some sanity and a true need to be
completely immersed in the mecha universe. I grew up on Voltron. How
cool was five gigantic robot lions that form a humanoid mech that can
summon a magic sword and thwart evil space bugs, especially to a 5-year-old. It's no surprise that I eventually began to question the reality that was being portrayed.

How many mecha out there have heads? And in those heads, possibly the
most exposed and easily severed part of the mecha, is the most
important and powerful optic systems. I have always wondered why you
would choose to put a head on a robot. It wasn't until I was in my teens that I started truly understanding computing technology. That fascination and understanding has been passed on to my viewing habits of current mecha anime. So what makes the operating systems in Gundam SEED which require more adaptability not only to new software but new hardware on the fly so much more usable and stable? How is it that the Strike Gundam, and now the Impulse Gundam are the ultimate plug-and-play devices?

It's questions like that. Those things run through my head. I don't really know why, I just think about these things. Then again, there are times I just want to watch a show for its pure "kick ass" attitude. Surely in a real war, the head unit might contain the most able optics and communications but I would be surprised if it didn't contain backup and redundant equipment. Still, the Shining Finger is in my opinion, possibly the most effective and useful of the close range weapons in the Gundam universe.

My fascination is also spurred on a lot by mecha's relation to the real world. So how big will a stable fusion reactor be? We'll know soon. The first prototype fusion reactor is almost ready to be built in the European Union. It will be one of the biggest particle accelerators in the world, so expect the reactor to be the size of a small city. Things like that. Then again, sometimes we laugh at the completely ridiculous ideas in mecha. Michael starts moving towards first base, but before he even gets 10 feet, he falls over. He yells out in pain, his leg feels broken. Michael didn't do anything too strenuous, He's just top heavy. He has a weight problem, and because of that, he can't move quickly and he has poor balance when he does try to. In addition, his lower body is not designed to carry the excess weight. That's why his leg snapped.

Oh, the absurd nature of the beast! We spend our time worrying about
things like balance and defenses, when really we should be worried about how smart our computers are getting. In mecha anime, we've seen many ways that machines have been given life, or at the very least, a sort of automatic pilot, that allows the machine to perform without a pilot. How messed up is that?  We all remember robocop don't we? Yeah, that's where mecha might be going.

A few times, when I was struggling with content for Mecha Musings, I
took to my fan mail for ideas. One such idea was - Is it possible a mobile suit, the Strike Gundam for example, could ever survive an atmospheric re-entry with no special equipment? Please reply.

Now I made a full on editorial on that question, but being honest, I'm not a scientist. Hell I never even made it to Calculus when it came to math, so being 100% honest, I'm talking out of my ass. In theory, and logically, my argument works, but then again, so does Communism, in theory.

Now one thing about mecha anime that gets to me is how easily people
can come up with transforming robots. It makes me laugh because in
reality, the idea of a transformable weapon is so difficult, so expensive, and so difficult to support and maintain that no military on Earth would ever support it. Henshin isn't a perfect technical thing. Rarely if ever is does a robot transformed look battle ready or as it should when the transformation is complete. Through the magic of cinematography, magic and or technical wizardry never quite explained, sometimes components mysteriously disappear.  The U.S. military just recently retired the F-14 Tomcat, the closest thing we have to a transforming piece of hardware. Random guess on why? Because it cost almost 10 times as much as its successors to maintain, especially when problems occur. Add to that the fact that most transforming mecha somehow manage to do so without ever affecting the cockpit, which gives the machine even more that can go wrong. I feel for the people in the Gundam universe who got stuck in a busted mobile suit. I discuss the reality of the Gundam universe, and to be honest, I don't know many people who can "hold it" for the entire flight from Earth to the space colonies. Mobile suit cockpits are small, confining spaces, and since they are designed to operate without the use of a
specialized suit if need be, they don't have… ehem.. tubes, either.

Now there are some amazing technologies in mecha that we can only hope do come to life in our future. Colonies and energy barriers are great
ones. Usually, the design of a gundam colony is pretty typical: a long
tube made of metal and transparent, reflective material (I'm reluctant
to say glass because I know it isn't glass) with three attached mirror wings that extend out of the colony at 25-30 degree angles. How cool is it to live in a giant rotating tube??? And of course beam deflection and energy barriers are going to be necessary, especially with the new innovations of the airborne laser by Boeing and the Nautilus ground-to-air Intercept system. I-field technology is for all intent and purpose a generation of an energy barrier than encompasses an objected that forces beam energy on certain wavelengths and energy patterns to be deflected or dispersed. Now we have that same kind of technology now, we just need to make it portable and energy efficient and we're golden.

Ah yes, Mecha Musings is very entertaining and goes over some very
interesting topics, but alas not everything is meant to last forever.

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