Why I love DW II (and hate it):
I know, I know; the last bit is harsh. Maybe a bit too harsh. I'll get to my problems with DW II in a bit. But first, the fulsome praise.
The greatest strength of DW II is, of course, the main character, Doug Blackblood. He is, unlike so many of the Mary Sues and S.I.s, he's a fully realized character, for good or ill--mostly good, sometimes ill but always compelling. He's funny and smart and doesn't take himself too seriously and, above all else, he deals with his problems without getting so damn angsty about it. Doug's a fun guy.
The writing, too, is great. Madigan is actually coming off as a sympathetic character. And the plot is going in directions I would not have guessed at. It's surprising, innovative, respectful of the source material but not derivative (or at least not so derivative that you'd notice without squinting and being bitter and even then you'd have to make up most of it). The characters from the series are the characters from the series and the original characters fit in the world well. Character, plot, dialogue--all great. But it all goes back to Doug.
So why would i hate DW II?
Again, it's Doug.
Here's the "ill" part of Doug--he's surprisingly self-righteous. For someone who claims that no-one who's good can ever be comfortable with their "good-ness," he's amazingly high-handed, preachy, and arrogant in his supposed moral high ground. His attitude is just wrong-headed.
All this goes to the whole "Boomers as slaves" analogy. And I say analogy because I think it is so. Should I be this turned-off from a work that I otherwise enjoy just because Mr. Schroeck has a different interpretation of Boomers than I do?
Yes. Maybe I'm being unfair, but there it is. I was thrown way for a loop when Doug accused the Knight Sabers of being slave-wranglers or whatever it was.
Mostly, it was just because during the course of the canon, the Knight Sabers were never seen to destroy ANY boomer that wasn't a) out killing people, "rampaging" if you will and b) part of a scheme by some group, most of the time GENOM or Largo.
And this also has to do with the fact that I don't see Boomers as being enslaved (except of course for those poor 33-S boomers in space) mostly because they are not sentient (except for a few exceptions, and those jerky military boomers. Man, are they jerks. And I'd argue as to their "sentience" there, too). And I realize that this is a lot of exceptions, but 33-S's and experiments like Cynthia are exceptions to the rule, boomers built with sentience.
This wouldn't be so bad if Doug wasn't so darn high-handed about it. Based on my take on Doug from the previous chapters, I kept on expecting him to sit down and have a spirited philosophical debate with Sylia Stingray on Boomer intelligence and the morality of it all.
I guess it just seems to me that this "conflict" was done simply to have Doug and the Knight Sabers fight. And I realize that Doug is from a super-hero inspired world, where conflict resolution and moral decisions are made in a giant fight. It just seems distasteful, and it lessens the Knight Sabers but it mostly just makes Doug into a badly preachy character, somewhat cliched and just not smart. It lessened Doug more than it did the KS and just seems so cliche. So . . . Mary Sue.
But maybe I'm wrong. Maybe Doug's wrong. Maybe he's going to get his well-deserved comeupance soon. Maybe this was all done to show how Doug isn't perfect.
Or maybe it wasn't.
Could Mr. Shroeck have a different interpretation of Boomers and as such has his character do what is the right and noble thing and I should just accept it? Maybe. That doesn't mean that I have to like it.
But that doesn't mean that I'll stop reading, either, nor stop loving the things I love about DW II. And hating the things I hate about it, too.
So until Doug stumbles into the Telletubbies world, make mine DW.
"With what little I'd managed to read over the months,
it was clear that they had both software *and* hardware blocks controlling their behavior. Even assuming I could calm a rogue boomer down and spirit it away to some sanctuary, it'd *still* be enslaved. I needed to find a way to shatter those blocks permanently without harming the boomer. " Chapter 11. some where in the middle of it.
"And afterwards, they had gone in and inserted
their controls and overrides and governors with all the delicacy
of an epileptic rhinoceros. I mean, I'd known they were there,
but I'd thought they'd've at least been part of the original
architecture." Ch. 11, near the end.
The reason why you haven't seen any acts that show that a boomer is sentient is because thier ability to be sentient has been locked away. When you take a sentient being and take away that witch defines it as being sentient, and then force it to do any order you say you have commited the ultimate act of slavery. ALL the boomers have been enslaved both physically and mentally EXCEPT for the 33-S boomers who are only enlaved physically.
The reason why Doug called the Knight Sabers slave-wranglers was because knowingly or unknowingly they were killing boomers who had somehow broken free of thier mentally inscribed slavery and trying to flee to some safe place where no human slaver is. If I somehow was enslaved like they were and also somehow broke free of whatever bonds that enslaved me and was sorrounded by an alien life form who I might see as the reason to why I was enslaved I'd go on a rampage too.
Why does Doug seem to be self-righteous, high-handed, preachy, and arrogant? It might be in his character, his main job on his homeworld was to go out and completely destroy certain people or groups of people with complete athority. It might be because the entities who control past, present, and future say obscurely that the boomers were enslaved and that if Doug wanted to ever have the CHANCE of going home he was to free them. Or it might be because Doug comes from a world where AI, sentient machines are normal and that somewhere stated in the written chapters he says that he has friends who are AI. Seeing a world where all AI are enslaved would probably piss him off as much as me seeing a world where all the women in the world are similary enslaved like these boomers are.
I will agree with you that this story didn't need the fight scene, but then again it might have since what doesn't seem necessary now might be necessary for the story later on. While this story is almost over the next story involving Doug has yet to be told, and it's always a good idea to build up on reapearing characters, especially the main ones. But still, I don't think the fight scene was necessary for this story, not under the given circumstances.
!!!
Thank you both, that's what had been bothering me.
From where I sit, the potential for sentience does not, in and of itself, imply the constant existance - or _rights_ - of same. When all of a boomer's blocks are working right, there is, quite literally, nothing there.
When a boomer is first booted up at the factory, the point where a sentient being would "wake up", those blocks are working. So there's nothing but a machine.
The precise order and sequence of how those blocks fail shapes the sort of mind that develops - if 'thought' goes first, followed some time later by 'control', you get Sylvie... Or Armstrong.
A boomer that loses 'control' first exhibits the same behavior as a combine harvester with no one at the helm - performing a given task unceasingly, independant of what it's doing it -to-.
Memory first? MALF-I/O ERROR BARF. Please return unit to depot for refund.
'Thought', then 'memory' isn't so bad - you have a mind in place that's already placed the data in storage, but it's aware... and it's hurting, given how the memory components were placed. It's when 'control' fails afterward that you have -real- problems.
As to Doug? He's wrong. But he's wrong in a way that's forcing the Sabers to take a second look at themselves and the way they view their lives.
What was bothering you, I think, and I know has been bothering me, was that the Sabers haven't yet had the time and mental 'togetherness' to answer Doug's charges in a satisfactory fashion.
Blessed be.
-n
(Well, except maybe "What else would you have me do?" which was just pure genius.)
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===============================================
"V, did you do something foolish?"
"Yes, and it was glorious."
Quote:
Why does Doug seem to be self-righteous, high-handed, preachy, and arrogant? It might be in his character, his main job on his homeworld was to go out and completely destroy certain people or groups of people with complete athority. It might be because the entities who control past, present, and future say obscurely that the boomers were enslaved and that if Doug wanted to ever have the CHANCE of going home he was to free them. Or it might be because Doug comes from a world where AI, sentient machines are normal and that somewhere stated in the written chapters he says that he has friends who are AI. Seeing a world where all AI are enslaved would probably piss him off as much as me seeing a world where all the women in the world are similary enslaved like these boomers are.
Bob mentioned, in another thread, that in Doug's homeworld, sentience is
so loosely defined that last week's Chinese food has a decent chance at getting basic rights. Coming from a bacground like this, his outrage at something as advanced as a boomer being denied those rights would be akin to a modern-day doctor experiencing first-hand the state-of-the-art surgical techniques of the Dark Ages... a sort of enraged "How can anyone
put up with this?!????!!!!" combined with a desire to change it. Throw in some people telling him that "leeches and exorsism are the only way to handle the flu" and you have the makings of exactly what happened in the story.
Is Doug preachy? A bit.
Is Doug right? Partly.
Are the Sabers evil? No.
Are their action not the best choice? You can ask that about anything you care to name and never be satisfied.
Is the scene exagerated? It's a fictional story, not a historical account. You might as well ask the same thing about
The Odyssey. I think that, within the reality of the story, everyone's actions are consistent and in character, which is really all that matters. It's certainly a damn sight better than most fanfics out there, and even some published works I've had the misfortune to read...
-Z, Post-reader at Medium
----
If architects built buildings the way programmers write programs, the first woodpecker to come along would destroy civilization.
I think the only time that the Knight Sabers have fought boomers, in the series, who were not part of someone's plot (Mason, Largo, Quincy, Miriam, Largo again) was in Scoop Chase, which is when Lisa took a picture of nene in her suit. And even then, it could be argued that they were a part of another Genom's plot.
Frankly, all those boomers weren't so much rampaging as much as purposefully destructive and dangerous. There's very little evidence, in canon, that "berserk" boomers "broke free" from their "shackles" and decided to get the hell out of dodge.
and it's been shown that when boomers do go on a "rampage," they kill pretty indescriminately all the while growling and what-not instead of sitting down somewhere and singing "We shall overcome."
Except for Armstrong, from the AD Police manga. And even then, I'm not sure how much of canon that is.
And Armstrong was a jerk and jerks get to be killed with no mercy. No mercy!
But Armstrong didn't fight the Knight Sabers, did he . . .
Sorry, my fault.
I'm sure that the AD Police have fought their fair share of boomers who have gone berserk for various reasons, but most of them probably in the outmoded hardware, badly maintained, programmed to do things not in the specs area, beyond the whole part of genom plot or someone else's plot or, in the case of Armstrong, got struck by cosmic rays and got the fantastic power of being a complete jerk.
I'm running out of time before work starts this morning, so I'll have to wait until lunch before I can read everything properly and reply, but let me point this out: Firstly, I agree that the "combat boomer rampage" is a myth, and if you read between the lines (and some of the lines, in fact), you 'll see that's the case in DW2. The only real "rampaging" boomers in the entire story are the band of overworked construction boomers, one of which attacked Hot Legs while Doug was there with Lisa. Almost all the rest are deliberate actions by GENOM or other parties. The "rampaging boomer" image is just a cover story, and Doug's bought into it. For the moment, at least.
-- Bob
(Edit: grammar correction)
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.
Going back and looking at everything, now that I have the time, I don't see anything else I really need to address. Doug's first couple (combat) experiences with boomers, combined with his exposure to the "urban myth" of the rampaging boomer, have led him to believe that they are the rule, not the exception. But I think I make it pretty clear that the opposite is in fact the case -- Madigan calculating the extent of a boomer "rampage" down to the building number where it'll be stopped, the fact that Boomer incidents had dropped dramatically that in the years before Doug's arrival (during the "truce" that had evolved), and the like all suggest or show that there's almost nothing accidental about it. The one big exception -- the boomers at Bunko's -- really is a case where they "went mad," but that was more because IDEC shot itself in the foot when trying to reprogram them than any inherent flaw in the boomer brain itself.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.
So, I guess, the question remains... just how sentient -is- the average buma, under all those locks and governors and such?
And, more importantly, how good is Doug's technical knowledge of this sort of thing, to recognize it from the schematics?
--
Sucrose Octanitrate.
Proof positive that with sufficient motivation, you can make
anything explode.
IIRC, canon says that Stingray used orangutan brains as a basis for his prototypes.
What would have to be done to move an orangutan to the level we see in boomers, I don't know, but I'd guess at the least you'd need language processing, mathematics, kinesthetics (since boomers seem to come out of the box knowing how to move, which I don't think most apes do), and maybe a few other things.
Hmm. My personal inclination is that Sylvie and Co. were pretty typical of that failure sequence (different sequences would occur most often in different models, due to minor differences in wiring and input and such) - not neccessarily genii, but well within the spectrum we would call normal intelligence. I'd guesstimate they'd fall somewhere closer to the low end of that range, but that you wouldn't be able to tell past the (still working) chips and such.
Blessed be.
-n
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===============================================
"V, did you do something foolish?"
"Yes, and it was glorious."
I thought that the canon stated that Katsuhito Stingray used a human brain as the template for the prototype boomer brain design.
But you've given me an idea - Maybe the combat and sexaroid brains are templated off of the human brain, but maybe some of the dumber types, like waitress bots and worker boomers, are based on orangutan brains? That might explain a few things in Bubblegum Crash.
-Logan
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Legolas - Obviously an Elvish word meaning "Gatling Gun".
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According to the BGC game, there are "cheap, dog-brained robots" and androids who "are only identifiable by dissection". This, plus the section detailing the two basic "grades" of boomer brain, suggests that Logan may have the right of it -- two different "chassis" for the two different grades.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.
As to whether Doug can tell how sentient a boomer is from the specs he has, well, as he said in chapter 11, the bioware isn't his forte; his strengths are the electronics side of the equation.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.
Quote:
Originally posted by Bob:
... the bioware isn't his forte; his strengths are the electronics side of the equation.
What's a Canadian based RPG developer got to do with it?
Quite frankly, this whole boomer sentience bit seems more like what they did in BGC: Tokyo 2040. But...eh. Never saw much in the original series that said "boomers are oppressed sentient beings", but that doesn't necessarily mean that Bob-o here can't construct a piece of fiction in that mindset.
I don't see why everyones' tossing around cannon this and cannon that...isn't that the point of a piece of fan fiction? To get away from that, a little? So long as you got the basics right, that is...
Edit: Oh, I have to agree with Murmer here just a little. Doug comes off as a bit haughty and zealous, but I was happier with the nonstandard outcome, with him not teaming up with the Sabres at the first reasonably decent juncture.
Quote:
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Originally posted by Bob:
... the bioware isn't his forte; his strengths are the electronics side of the equation.
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What's a Canadian based RPG developer got to do with it?
[Can I groan here? Cause this is a groanworthy pun. Peeeeyeeeeewwww]
Quite frankly, this whole boomer sentience bit seems more like what they did in BGC: Tokyo 2040. But...eh. Never saw much in the original series that said "boomers are oppressed sentient beings", but that doesn't necessarily mean that Bob-o here can't construct a piece of fiction in that mindset.
[except for the sexaroids. gotta love them oppressed sexaroids. they're so tragic. sniff.]
I don't see why everyones' tossing around cannon this and cannon that...isn't that the point of a piece of fan fiction? To get away from that, a little? So long as you got the basics right, that is...
[it's cause the author's been very particular about being true to canon. You can see how in the concordance he mentions bits of continuity and related information from canon sources.]
Edit: Oh, I have to agree with Murmer here just a little. Doug comes off as a bit haughty and zealous, but I was happier with the nonstandard outcome, with him not teaming up with the Sabres at the first reasonably decent juncture.
[yes, that WAS cool. And not just the whole agreeing with me part. Though that was also cool. No, Doug not teaming up with the Sabres, having a relationship with Nene and or Priss was very surprising.]
Quote:
What's a Canadian based RPG developer got to do with it?
Quote:
Quite frankly, this whole boomer sentience bit seems more like what they did in BGC: Tokyo 2040. But...eh. Never saw much in the original series that said "boomers are oppressed sentient beings", but that doesn't necessarily mean that Bob-o here can't construct a piece of fiction in that mindset.
You should also realize that what Doug thinks and what I think aren't necessarily the same thing. I'll admit that I certainly saw things enough from that perspective to prompt me to use that entire plot line, but between comments here, comments from my prereaders, and rewatching the series, it seems the question isn't as clear-cut as Doug thinks it is and I thought it was. And the final developments of the story are going to reflect that.
That being said, the canon background material available on the BGC world
does make it clear that Dr. Stingray was creating useful,
disposable thinking creatures for use as labor. That comes close enough to the concept of breeding a slave race for me...
Quote:
I don't see why everyones' tossing around cannon this and cannon that...isn't that the point of a piece of fan fiction? To get away from that, a little? So long as you got the basics right, that is...
Well, basically, yes. But I also set myself the challenge of trying to stay as close to canon as I can and still provide a viewpoint that's radically different from the usual run-of-the-mill BGC fic.
Quote:
Oh, I have to agree with Murmer here just a little. Doug comes off as a bit haughty and zealous,
Well, he's supposed to, a little. As I've said a number of times, I
am trying to poke a little fun at the usual self-insert behaviors, and the know-it-all with complete recall of the series deciding what's best for everyone is one of the classics. Here's someone without that godlike knowledge pulling the same attitude -- looks a lot different from this angle, eh?
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but I was happier with the nonstandard outcome, with him not teaming up with the Sabres at the first reasonably decent juncture.
Oh, good. That was one of my first "design decisions" -- that he
wouldn't do that, and wouldn't
want to. Joining the Sabers, or just allying with them, has been done to death. In some cases very well, but still...
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.
Quote:
except for the sexaroids. gotta love them oppressed sexaroids. they're so tragic. sniff.
True, true. If there are
any boomers who are inarguably enslaved sentients, it's the sexaroids. It's a pity I couldn't actually work any of them more directly into the story, but setting it past the events of
Crisis and
Crash! was another of those anti-SI design decisions.
Quote:
No, Doug not teaming up with the Sabres, having a relationship with Nene and or Priss was very surprising.
All very deliberate. That's why Doug's married, faithful, and celibate during the Walk -- if I had a dime for every SI character who's boinked their favorite anime character(s), well, I wouldn't need my tax refund this year. Being "safe" will let him build friendships with the women in the various Steps without the otherwise inevitable sexual tension, and will let him (and them) play against type in a number of situations. Like the Doug and Misato fragment from DW-Eva I posted a couple weeks back -- and once Misato grasps the concept of a man who's
not a) hitting on her or b) going to respond to being hit on, and c) still acknowledges her desirability while respecting her brains and skills, she's going to ... well, I won't get into that, it's a bit of a spoiler, but let's just say she grows, and some of the steel she has as a military officer begins to seep into her as a person.
Anyway, because Doug is "safe", and doesn't bed-hop his way through the universes, he picks up "little sisters" rather than romantic interests, who end up devoted in their own way to him. Well, "devoted" might be too strong a word. But it's still a strong, affectionate feeling. (The unintentional parallels to "Sister Princess"
have occurred to me, and there's a story idea slowly developing there. Nothing solid yet, but still...)
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.
Quote:
(The unintentional parallels to "Sister Princess" have occurred to me, and there's a story idea slowly developing there. Nothing solid yet, but still...)
Eep!
--
Sucrose Octanitrate.
Proof positive that with sufficient motivation, you can make
anything explode.
I wonder if Ed Becerra would mind if I posted teasers from our co-written "Legion's Quest: Girls, Girls, Girls" here... Not that it's anything close to finished, and the cast list keeps mutating...
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.
I am relieved.
Doug is MEANT to be an officious jerk!
Phew! that's a load off my mind.
Now I can enjoy all future chapters with gleeful anticipation at his comeuppance.
I don't know how much comeuppance he gets, but he certainly realizes that things are nowhere near as black and white as he thought they were, and that maybe he overreacted. But one of the things to remember is that above everything, Doug is _human_ and not infallable...
Offsides
(Friendly Edit by Bob: Doug is not Pop'N'Fresh.)Drunkard's Walk Forum Moderator and Prereader At LargeDrunkard's Walk Forum Moderator and Prereader At Large
Exactly. And in regards to the specific case of the Bubblegum Crisis universe, he's had a lot of his personal and professional buttons pushed -- it's no wonder he goes a bit extreme for a while.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.
So, are you saying that Doug is going to even out after a while?
-murmur
That depends on what you mean by "evens out". He'll find out something that will force him to realize he owes the White Saber a bit of an apology, but he doesn't change his mind on the status of boomers as enslaved sentients.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.