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--- Don't worry, it's harmless (http://www.gatchamania.net/threadid.php?threadid=5409)
Posted by GrumpyGhostOwl on 11-05-2017 at 00:41:
Don't worry, it's harmless
Something one of my beta-readers said the other week kind of stuck with me. It was just a casual remark about a movie: “It’s Japanese, so of course they all die at the end,” or something like that. I don't watch a lot of Japanese media so I can't really comment.
Which made me think about the ending of Gatch F, which made me think about Ken and the hyper-thingy, which made me think about oncology,* which made me think about radiation, which made me think about the whole Bird Go transformation/transmutation/transmogrification** business.
And that made me wonder what sort of damage might be done to a person who regularly (and quite unnecessarily, really – I mean, the transformation process saves, what… ten minutes, changing your clothes?) exposes themselves to some pretty intense radiation in the workplace.
Which made me think about chromosomes and telomeres and DNA and stuff. (Which makes for some pretty complex mental imagery, let me tell you, especially when you start thinking about nucleotides and the translation thing.)
And THEN I thought, wow, maybe the Science Ninja Team was doomed to die of premature aging and cancer regardless of the hyper-thingy and Sosai Z anyway because of the damage they would have taken just from the first series with all the pretty glowy transformative stuff. And maybe the hyper-thingy just accelerated the process in Ken’s case. So maybe dying at the end of Gatch F was kind of a mercy in a way, because it meant they didn’t have to go through all the horrible shit they would have faced had they survived the third war.
And THEN I thought, would Nambu have known? Would anyone? Radiation-related cancer is a thing in Japan, for obvious reasons, so you’d think that it might have crossed their minds at some point. “Hey let’s save ten minutes per mission by giving these kids cancer instead of getting them to change their clothes!”
And then I thought, if that's true, then Nambu’s a bit of a bastard really, isn’t he? In his defence, he's not a medical doctor, although I think (from Katblu42's thread) he's a Biomedical Engineer. I suppose a person with the kind of mind that comes up with a Hurricane Spin Mop neurosurgery machine,*** an Archimedes burning glass, a giant horseshoe magnet (complete with poorly-cured quick-set concrete footings) and a ship that defeats its enemies by setting itself on fire every other week isn't going to win the Nobel Prize for Sane and Rational Reasoning any time soon.****
And then I thought, there's a story in here somewhere. (Because, you know...)
Discuss?
* Not my favourite subject. Smoking really can kill.
** I have to admit that I am very fond of the transmogrifier device from Calvin and Hobbes and would love to incorporate it into a story but have no idea how I'd go about it... Yet.
*** I think of Joe whenever I mop the floors.
**** Although he could have become a regular on Mythbusters, and not in a good way.
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Posted by Ebonyswanne on 11-05-2017 at 04:50:
Nambu/Anderson. I have trouble at times with their values. I have especially Anderson to highly Narcissistic in nature because of how he picked them from childhood, with no choice of their own, basically brainwashed kids. Anderson more so, after all in the opening credits Zark mentions he's had them since they were toddlers almost. (Lab rats.)
Note: Its easy thing to stereotype Narcissism since it's become more known in disorders. Generally they're likeable people as long they are getting their own way. (Its more in emotional content, how a person views others and connects, than personality. M/F/A)
I still like Anderson/Nambu, he's interesting to write, I'm not putting down a liked character by others. Observations.
I have few conclusions when it comes to the open ending they left. The amulet Nambu gave Ken. Thats the biggest one for me. Why give him a magical mysterious necklace and all does is a magnificent firebird across the skies.
Why??? It was pretty and mystical, but didn't do anything for the five ninja's in the poison apple if it played out how they indicated. The ship just took off and left them there.
A Condor narky moment. "Thanks boss... for nothin." Condor signing off.... then exploding and dying cause our ship up and left us there...
Yeah I have thought of that with the birdstyles, so t' save the whole radiation idea I changed it to being a different field of some advanced alien tech that no one has a name for.
Then they could have had the cure on the ship....
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Posted by GrumpyGhostOwl on 11-05-2017 at 09:04:
Yeah, there's a lot of Fridge Horror in BotP. The word 'cerebonic' implies something to do with the brain, then I ask myself, what with Don Wade having been a 'former member of G-Force,' how many others were there? Are the five we see on screen the survivors?
Big Voice Narration Guy in the opening credits does mention that they've been trained 'almost since birth' or something along those lines. We don't actually know who trained them. A lot of fanfic writers (like me) put Anderson in charge to carry over the Nambu role, but canonically, it could have been Andy the Jolly Swagman for all we know. We also don't actually know who thought up the cerebonic implants and who did the implanting or what they are, or anything much about them, really.
More Fridge Horror: in canon, Zark uses 'thought probes' to gauge the emotional well-being of the team. Thought probes. Yikes.
Applied Phlebotinum is always a good out if you're looking at Sufficiently Advanced Technology. Heaven knows, I use enough of it that I should probably buy it in bulk.
Back to the radiation, though, and on the topic of applied Phlebotinum... Could it be possible that the numbered jeans and t-shirts provide some kind of radiation shielding? Wouldn't do much for the head or the thyroid (I hate wearing the heavy lead thyroid guard in the x-ray room, but, hey, it beats the alternative) but could the uniforms double as the equivalent of a lead apron? And if so, how would they continue to provide protection while they transform?
Ooooh, maybe they've got magic underwear!
Or maybe the kids are just expendable, like the Mark 1 pilots in Pacific Rim (Stacker Pentecost*: "The last thing we were thinking about was radiation shielding.")
* Stacker Pentecost is like, Awesome McCoolname, and he gave himself a case of future-cancer-terminal-nosebleeds with his lack of radiation shielding. However, I find it hard to believe that they simply "forgot" to include radiation shielding for the pilots when they were building the Jaegers. I mean, history shows that we should have learned that lesson in WWII with the Hawker Hurricane,** where the designers simply didn't think to include armour behind the pilot, which resulted in rather a lot of unnecessary casualties before someone at Fighter Command realised they really ought to have the stuff installed by the time the Battle of Britain came long.
** The Hawker Hurricane is often under-appreciated in favour of her more glamorous cousin, the Supermarine Spitfire, but the Hurricane is a magnificent piece of machinery and deserves just as much love as the Spit.
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Posted by Ebonyswanne on 11-05-2017 at 11:36:
I've come up with fanfic explanations for things. Crafted whole plot lines linking things together
Heck I even made Zark become human in an artificial body in a fic... cause why not it was his dream. (I remember as kid thinking he wanted to be like us even though he was painful.)
The whole transformation thing... will be seeing this happen in the next 60 years??? Curious minds wanna know? Is there a Nambu/Anderson out there secretly working on it. Scary stuff...
The cars and the planes etc get me!! Thats more than clothing its whole car, plane make over in two seconds. Imagine daily getting around in an ordinary Cessna plane with an engine of a Fighter jet!! Then there's the fuel... Whooo hoooo.... Wonder if the Eagle gets a kick out of it. I can imagine a teenager being tempted... to test it out in civilian.
I'm wondering if they used kids cause its cheaper, they wouldn't think to ask for 'danger money,' Nope they get told to live dangerously, save the planet and we'll pay you NOTHING for the trouble and you get to all die in the end... if not... radiation will kill you or the hypershoot. Take your pick kids your cannon fodder. No life for you ever.
At least the Condor had some ambitions outside. He wanted revenge and being on the team enabled him to follow his dream and purpose. Becoming a cyborg wasn't part of the bargin, all things considered. He adjusted well emotionally. Even swapped personalities with Ken for a time.
Then BOTP... Ending with the three of them enjoying a nice sunset on Spectra. Wonder if they ended up taking a holiday there and discovered the place wasn't so bad after all. Once you got past the Swamps... lol
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Posted by ChrisW on 11-05-2017 at 18:28:
Yeah there's a lot of room for writing Anderson and Nambu anywhere as benevolent and caring to cold and manipulative. I've certainly done the whole range. 
Something about the voice acting definitely makes Anderson feel colder to me, that and some of the editing choices.
I would argue that 10 minutes is worth saving in their line of work if there's an emergency. Especially since it would never be just 10 minutes unless they were in an ideal location at the time, and didn't have to find someplace to change. Could be the difference between their survival or not, or the survival of other people or not. We certainly see them transforming in a wide variety of situations where stopping to find a secure spot to change and wrestle into incredibly tight suits wasn't really possible or wise.
It also means that they don't have to carry their uniforms around in a backpack or something and risk them being stolen. The transformation also might make it possible to make the uniforms harder for the enemy to remove.
All of that said, it's definitely possible that the transformation process could be damaging. How much they were told is a good question. And how much the people who developed it understand what the process can do is also a good question. In BOTP it might be a little better as you'd think that they could program the cerebonics to counteract the damage to a certain extent. Not so much in Gatch. Though, I suppose there could be something they're given in their medical check-ins to help.
If they're the first to go through this process (particularly in Gatch) then it literally may not be possible for the full set of side effects to be predicted, which could get ugly.
On the BOTP side with the cerebonics I always wondered if Don Wade still had fully active cerebonics after leaving, or whether his cerebonics were either removed or turned off. If they were turned off he could have asked Spectra to try and turn them back on and let Spectra collect data, etc, about them. Maybe he was concerned about becoming their lab rat instead of a scientist.
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Posted by GrumpyGhostOwl on 12-05-2017 at 00:56:
Some interesting ideas, and (of course) they got me thinking (again).
Phlebotinum could be applied as follows:
The transformation process itself could include repair of damaged chromosomes, particularly the telomeres, which are probably the most vulnerable bits. Given that DNA was really only analysed in the 1960s, for this to occur in 2000 (Gatch) is highly unlikely. Had we even had Dolly the Sheep by then? And look what happened to her. (Telomeres again, probably.) In BotP, it's all taking place in an unspecified Bright Future Among the Stars, so they could have the technology. (And they're using it to produce replica 1970s Nissan Skylines... go figure.)
Depending on what cerebonic implants are, yes, they could be used to mitigate or even repair the damage. Cerebonics definitely fall into the categories of Sufficiently Advanced Technology and Applied Phlebotinum. To repair damaged chromosomes, they'd have to be very, very small. You could probably make them out of proteins on a whizz-bang version of a 3D printer and have them duplicate organelles such as the mitochondria (our tiny little cellular engine rooms where adenosine triphosphate - better known as ATP - works its chemical magic to produce energy) and you could have other flavours of nanite floating around to repair tissue and such. (This is pretty much how I envisage cerebonic implants.) The kids could have regular treatment sessions where they get their genome scanned and sorted.
I have a feeling that in Utoland, the health care is a bit screwy. I mean, you look at their hospitals: there's nobody in the car park. Have you ever visited a hospital and found an empty car park? Joe even parks in the Ambulance Bay and nobody bats an eye! This suggests to me that people are not keen on going to hospitals there. (Maybe in Utoland they didn't have the effective Y2K working parties and all the systems really did crash on January 1.*) In a world where Nambu builds the Hurricane Spin Shrapnel Remover (Only five payments of $50,000 plus postage and handling! Call now!) I think a lot of people would be going to see their naturopath instead.
Don Wade is definitely prime fanfic fodder. There's so much left unsaid.
* There are those who say that the Y2K bug was a non-event. There's a reason for that: Y2K Working Parties identified the systems that would be affected and we replaced them prior to Y2K. There was one in my department. I replaced it but kept it running as a stand-alone to see what would happen, and sure enough, it was unable to deal with the century ticking over. It continued to operate, but you couldn't get any sense out of it. I kept it to show people.
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Posted by ChrisW on 12-05-2017 at 21:04:
Yeah you're totally right on the Y2K bug issue. People who say it was overblown drive me nuts. It was such a panic that it got FIXED.
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Posted by ElectricWhite on 12-05-2017 at 23:10:
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I feel compelled to throw up a caution flag about using modern expectations and thought processes when discussing past expectations. Back when Gatch and BotP were created, it was perfectly reasonable to expect several lunar bases and possibly a couple of Martian colonies up and running. ("Hey, I'm going to the Sea of Tranquility Galleria to get a Mother's Day gift. Wanna come with?") Heck, the whole Space Shuttle program was based on the assumption that two or three shuttles would be launched each day by 1985! And this was before the microchip.
And, considering futuristic Earth spaceships were shown with tail fins (like the cars) until the early 1960's, it doesn't seem like too much of a stretch for it to be a trend to replicate 1970's Nissan Skylines....just so long as they stay away from 1974 Ford Pintos!
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Posted by Ebonyswanne on 13-05-2017 at 03:41:
BOTP- Space travel in a day and you don't lose any time on Earth. Its like going on an international holiday... in space. What happened to light years???
I have the Condor into vintage cars in fics. It was his request to have a Skyline in 70s style. Secretly he has a full wardrobe of 70s gear he goes to ABBA bjorn again concerts in his spare time between racing and missions.
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Posted by ChrisW on 22-05-2017 at 20:14:
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LOL ... is it his fault that all their uniforms are in what would be a "Retro" style?
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Posted by Becky Rock on 22-05-2017 at 23:14:
Most of the Japanese anime I've seen have teenagers being the stars and saviors of mankind. I often wondered why the heroes weren't adults. Of course, the audience was teenagers, so that might be why. Or it could be those involved never made it to adulthood for many of the reason discussed above.
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Posted by Redbird on 22-05-2017 at 23:32:
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In my head (and my stories) I kinda have a mashup of 70's vibe with a futuristic twist. I always have Joe being into muscle cars and classic rock, etc.
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Birdstyle is always in style! (Just ask Caladon. LOL)
Wow, BR--nice to see you back. I was actually thinking about you the other day!
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Playing darts with the Condor's feather shuriken...
Posted by Daniella T on 23-05-2017 at 08:14:
Maybe Nambu had found a way to protect the team from radiation cancer, i.e., maybe their birdstyles were an advanced form of radiation-protection clothing? Okay, the fact that it took radiation to produce the birdstyles may have been a spanner in the works but... you know... suspend all belief all who enter the sci fi universe.
If we look a bit deeper (heaven knows, I shouldn't be doing this first thing in the morning), perhaps the whole Fiery Phoenix idea was meant to give the Japanese a way to overcome the horror of the nuclear bombs, a bit like Star Wars was also meant to boost US morale after the Vietnam War. Or is that reading too much into the scriptwriters' intentions?
Also, in a way 1970s sci fi could be compared with Jules Verne's books: some things came to be, other not, but both act as catalysts to the imagination.
About ten years ago, one TV show (I think it was "24") showed its heroes using handheld, tablet-like computers without any keyboards. Still in the realm of fantasy at the time. Okay, so we don't have flying cars yet... although... wait a minute... wasn't there a story in the news this week about a company testing a flying car?
ENOUGH rambling, DT!
Edited to correct typos.
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Posted by ChrisW on 23-05-2017 at 20:30:
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Oops, I forgot to clarify that I meant the civilian uniforms.
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Posted by ChrisW on 23-05-2017 at 20:36:
Apparently the tech for flying cars is already here. The problem is that people are bad enough drivers, do you really want the average driver FLYING around on manual?
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Posted by ElectricWhite on 23-05-2017 at 22:43:
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Or maybe the explanation changed with the hopes of nobody noticing, ala Spider Man's origin story -- at first, Peter Parker was bitten by a radioactive spider. But, once the general public gained a better understanding of how radiation works, the spider became mutogenic.
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Posted by Ebonyswanne on 24-05-2017 at 08:47:
EW- thats a good point. But they don't really disclose the birdstyles secret??? I know the eps where Juns shoe goes under tests by some fortunate goons messing around.
But I don't recall radiation being mentioned as part of the process.
The detransmute gun... mmmm.... haven't watched those eps in ages.
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Posted by Ebonyswanne on 24-05-2017 at 08:50:
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Im still shaking at tge thought... traffic is hard enough on the ground along with idiots behind the wheel worldwide.
What happens when it does eventually happen... won't be a drivers licence. Will be a minibus pilots licence.
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Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up- Pablo Picasso.
Posted by Daniella T on 24-05-2017 at 09:03:
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As a non-driver (can't, won't, don't want to!), I definitely see your point!
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They were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Naturally, they became heroes -- Princess Leia Organa of Alderaan.
Posted by Katblu42 on 24-05-2017 at 13:30:
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I don't remember radiation being mentioned either - I thought it was something to do with radio waves at ultra high frequency (I actually read somewhere 3600mhz). One website I recently visited said it was "electrical waves".
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