Quote:Oh yes, the space model buma I used in Bubblegum Disaster is a canon design seen on screen, if only for a blink. (Not the Doberman, Mr. Big-Head whose designation I can't remember, who was tasked with maintaining the laser satellite and talks to Sylia after she goes all Lensman battleship against Moldiver Largo.) So is an undersea miner, for much the same reasons of easier life support and a sturdier frame to handle the dangerous environment and move heavy loads. Those were actual Stingray designed models IIRC.
Quote:Given that Bumas wouldn't need as much life support, it seems likely they're heavily in use for space operations.On the topic of space exploration, I had an interesting idea. I'm setting this reboot around the late 2060's, so in spite of the Sino-American cold war, most of the nations of the world have ponied up to pour money and their individual space programs into the SPDC (the one from OVA 5), which is supposed to deliver a luxurious lunar colony in 2069 and a Space Elevator in 2169. Trouble is, this semi-public megacorp, which holds theoretical monopoly rights for any asteroids or lunar ore it can get back to groundside or at least LEO, is a puppet of GENOM (as you've said, they need automated labor to build stuff), also prone to infighting between GENOM and the China World Prosperity Corporation (a conglomerate of old SOE's who were privatized after WW3, re-merged as 'revenge' against the Americans, and are GENOM's most fierce rival despite having no mass-automation technology of their own), and just generally bloated and overvalued for the slate of technology they actually are developing.
Which suggests that if Mason believes his bumas can take control of this, he'd have the high ground and potentially rule the world (I know, very cliche).
It does also raise the prospect of a epilogue of a buma with Mason's engrams, Largo, escaping on a sub-light interstellar ship with e a crew of bumas.
Long story short - well, you ever heard of the South Sea Bubble? Imagine that, but played out across mid-2070 or so, a big fat arc involving Sylvie (who doesn't die in the OVA 5 analogue, but gets to become the fifth Saber), a re-resurrected Largo holding the world hostage Heinlein-style, and revelation after revelation about how over-valued and behind-schedule the SPDC really is. Imagine the repercussions - the damage dealt to the megacorporate system, already teetering and unstable, and who might come up to exploit those weaknesses (The Ambassadors or allies of the Sabers).
Quote:Hey, 'I want to live in peace' isn't bullshit, especially in Cynthia is well aware of what sort of destruction is gonna be wrought if she starts triggering the orbital weapons. You'd probably not be able to address it in the movie though.Not what I mean. I'm saying that it's sort of a cliché of robot-related sci-fi media, and it might take some effort to make it work.
Also, not sure I want to bring particle-beam satellites into this particular canon. The whole concept was kinda out-there even back in the 80's when Reagan and co. tried to sink money into it (Star Wars was never its real name, but a derogatory nickname from the Democrats that stuck). Rods from God or orbital nukes I can buy, that's a matter of just getting existing technology into orbit. But even then I never was on board with the whole idea of a Boomer black-box in some 'innocuous' disguise (because, like I said last post in so many words, I don't think it would be very hard to sniff out a Boomer even if it was wearing human skin). So she's a strategic asset because she can plan everything down to the last detail; how many planes to build, how to make them, where to put them. Minimum ambiguity, a plan delivered straight from the biggest data-crunch in human history.
My sort of follow-up to that was a sort of Day the Earth Stood Still concept. Cynthia realizes no side can win, that short of mutual disarmament reignition of WW4 will mean mutual annihiliation - or that even if one side 'wins', its power-brokers, Cynthia's makers, will end up fighting amongst themselves or be ejected from office by popular discontent. Every scenario she tries ends in failure for her bosses, and her bosses will not accept failure, they'll just kill her and find some other kid to be the meat-brain. They've done this already - and so she reaches out to a splinter faction within GENOM, planning to break herself out of the government's grasp, then the megacorp's, to do - what? Live in peace? Destroy the Intellectual Asset program entirely so no one else will ever be like her? Become a pre-Largo Boomer Messiah? I wasn't really sure how to do her motive, and then tie that to good action scenes for the Sabers. So I restarted the script.