Ode to Fukuda Vol. 2

by Ben

May 26, 2006

There is a golden rule in most anime; the hero never dies. My personal
opinion on this is that it's a folly, as the death of a hero can be more powerful than any other happening in any fantasy story. It's sad but true; Mecha Musings doesn't exactly follow that truth. When the column is over, it won't make the story any more deep or powerful. It'll just be over and alas, there will be no more musings for you all to read. Now that isn't to say I'm giving up, or taking off, but there isn't going to be some Mu Effect crap going on either. Mecha Musings has had its run and I've run out of funny topics to discuss.

In Gundam, it goes without saying that most Gundam pilots are a little bit livid, maybe even a little over the edge. Yeah, I guess we all are as well, especially those of us who know so much about a fictional universe that we can write a column about it for over a year. I'm no light saber carrying, cosplaying nutcase mind you, but I know my mecha, and I wouldn't hesitate twice in supporting their development. That isn't to say that I don't want to see some changes made to the obviously careless mind set of the Gundam universe.

In the UC era, Gundam pilot Amuro Ray jumped into a prototype military
weapon and with only an instruction book to guide him took it for the
equivalent of a four month joy ride. No one thought to make some kind
of lock? It was ok to just have a giant, humanoid robot at anyone's disposal? Come on now folks, lets be smart about this. Put some sensors in the damn thing. Hell, put Lo-Jack in your MS! We're smarter than this!  I can only hope that statement holds true and we don't end up in some horrible world war because the dumbass left the keys in the ignition.

So what's going through everyone's head when they make new technology?

Cost.

Corporations have to always consider their bottom line, and generally, going out on a limb to explore things that are unknown is scary, if not dangerous, so don't be surprised if little things like safety and security are what get shelved for raw power. A couple of anime series got it right.

Evil Genius A: Now that I've stolen all of GaoGaiGar's parts, I can
make GaoGaiGar!

Guy: No you can't, they didn't push the big button under glass on our
orbiting space station.. HAHAHAHA…..

Evil Genius A: well………damn.

You know, when I started writing this column, you know what ideas I
played with the most? Mecha A vs. Mecha B match ups. I know, I know,
it's corny. The truth is, that's really the only way to look at mecha as a future reality. We have to examine our logic in our fantasy realms before it would make sense in real life. Would human-sized mecha/exoskeletons really be more effective than the big guns? Certainly, smaller robots and androids have their faults. They can't carry huge railguns. They can't load up a beam saber. But if they can do everything a human can, they really don't have to to be effective either. And to boot, they are probably going to end up being cheaper than 50 foot mecha.

Then again, it could be something unexpected. Dynomutt was a robotic
dog. He talked like a human being, acted like a goofball and never quite got anything right. What's really interesting is that Dynomutt probably had MORE tools, tricks and abilities than ANY mecha I've ever seen. I mean, You cant exactly hide a Gundam now can you? You probably wouldn't want to, since you would be busy blowing everything up, but I digress.

Maybe we won't do much of anything with mecha, or if we do, maybe it'll
be the person that is so powerful, not the machine. We really don't know a whole lot about the human body or mind. The idea of spirit is something that escapes medical science, but has been held to for generations. Perhaps the machine will just be a conduit for the power of man, for example –

The Lambda driver is a mechanically driven extension of the pilot, giving them these powerful telekinetic abilities. In order for it to work, the pure force of will of the pilot has to be strong enough to activate the driver. ESP and psychic abilities anyone?

I am going to really miss writing these articles. It's been fun to get fan mail and questions from them, and I'm glad for the most part people have enjoyed them. Maybe one day, some mecha pilot sitting at his panoramic monitor will look back on these and say "Hey, that's a good idea, fix it." Then my purpose will be complete.

I can only hope that our children won't be completely and totally devoid of an opinion. Children step up to the challenges that appear before them with little or no rational thought, and will jump into a fight without any worry for themselves. It is this blind faith in their own abilities that makes them such powerful and dangerous people to deal with. It's also why I fear for the Starship Troopers mentality I fear is more likely in our future than say the logical future where we actually think to solve our problems. Fukuda, I'm looking in your direction.

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