IDW Publishing Forums

[Veritas]

[maczero]

I've grudgingly learned to accept the "out there" sci-fi in the IDW verse because for the most part I enjoyed the writing. However in my perfect Joe-verse, you'd see the following:

1) Joe and Cobra tech would be between 10-20 years ahead of the real world.

2) Destro wouldn't wear an iron mask or a containment suit 24/7.

3) Zartan wouldn't be a shape changing clone or have hologram tech. He'd simply be a skilled master of disguise.

4) No ninja mysticism.
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[shanecdavis]

[Machete Phil]

in my ideal joe-verse, the sci-fi levels would be limited to advanced tech about a decade or so out. agree that gi joe definitely needs SOME level of sci-fi... but shape-shifting clones and teleportation are just way too far out there for my tastes.
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But from that point on... Phil Coletti was forever known as... Machete Phil.

[Torpedo]

How do you fans feel about characters like Flash and Grand Slam, two of the original team members who embody sci-fi elements in their specialties/functions?
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[Phil Kost]

[Torpedo]

[Phil Kost]

[RG1701]

Ya know, that's not the most unrealistic concept introduced into Joe, in fact, it's probably one of the most realistic science elements written into the series. I do not call it science fiction, because it's not. We routine create genetically modified animals, such as fish, which glow neon colors, or goats which have a spider gene inserted into their genetic code so they can produce silk webbing in their milk which we harvest for various applications. Spider cows. We've been doing that for the last ten years, and we possibly were able to do it as early as the 80s. Genetic manipulation has been one of the easiest sciences to use, while being amongst the most unpredictable and powerful of the sciences.

In theory, it should be possible to introduce new genetic information, even into an adult, using perhaps a viral medium to introduce the new info throughout the cells. If that were successfully done, it would only be a matter of time until the body started making the new proteins and the chameleon abilities would start to manifest. This stuff is real and is being researched right now. Transhumanism is something we'll all have to come to terms with in the next 15-20 years. I can easily imagine a government already experimenting with the process to create a superior soldier.

In contrast, the high quality holographic projectors Zartan uses are still not available even in 2011 and he had them in the mid-80s!

Another element less credible than the chameleon powers, are the bipedal war bots that are BATS. Our scientists are just now developing bipedal robots, and even then they still need the support of a big metal rod attached to them to keep them balanced. Cobra had them in the 80s.

So, the chameleon powers never bugged me and was the science that could be most easily mastered compared to the other sciences Cobra ended up mastering.

Clone Zartan however, ironically from the "grittier" newer continuity, has no biological basis for his powers as far as I know, and is totally within the realm of science fiction. It's one thing to give a man the ability to change skin color, it's quite another for a clone to randomly pick up the ability to change skin color and bone structure! While, I derive some enjoyment from his character, his funky backstory diminishes it for me.

Stuff like MASS, I would prefer not be in GI Joe but not because it's “science fiction”. Scientists claim to already have teleported single, elementary particles, that is they didn't move from point A to point B via some pathway, but they teleported from A to B without “traveling”. What prevents them from teleporting larger, more complex matter/energy patterns is stuff like the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle which states you can never with 100% accuracy state the position of a particle. That would leave quite a problem for the reassembling of anything.

Yet, that doesn't mean I don't think science will ever find a solution. Which means, I can actually see Cobra developing such a device since it has trillions, no governing laws and no morals to restrict researchers, and is generally 10-15 years ahead of the rest of the world in technology as a consequence. So while I would prefer it not be in Joe because it is improbable that anyone today could make the technological leap required to create the machine, that's not the primary reason I don't accept it because as improbable it could still happen.

No the primary reason I dislike technology like that, is because it's hard to deal with in an adequate logically consistent way. I mean, Cobra stopped using MASS because the recent turmoil prevented them from rebuilding the device. Now that the Civil War is over, why would the new Cobra Commander not want a MASS device of his own? The BET(another feasible bit of technology) would have been a nice countermeasure for MASS, except that the writers haven't quite caught onto that, and so MASS remains unsatisfactorily “resolved”.

It's the same problem I have with the brainwave scanner, which actually was used logically throughout the series, which led to boring and predictable results. I mean yeah, a power mad individual would use a machine like that over and over again to control his underlings. Did that make for interesting stories? Nope. The brainwave scanner is possible though. In fact, the way it works is downright quaint compared to some of the “brainwave scanners” scientists are developing. A few years ago, some scientist claimed they would literally be able to translate data stored in the biochemical machinery of the brain and be able to present it via electronic medium. Two or so years ago, Scientific American had an article claiming that grainy images of what a person was thinking could now be projected on a screen for all to say. So, brainwave scanner is possible, but IMO it should never have been introduced because it allowed for lazy storytelling like MASS it was never satisfactorily dealt with in, either in Marvel/DDP or Marvel/IDW. I mean, in DDP a virus is introduced into the main scanner which corrupts its programming forcing Cobra to rely on the less powerful portable one to control Storm Shadow. The same kind of happens in the IDW continuation of Marvel, except the device gets destroyed outright at the end by Mindbender.

All of that should leave the reader asking WTF though. I mean, Cobra makes billions, possibly more, per year. It employs thousands of engineers and technicians, but even if they all fail to reverse engineer Venom's magic machine, they still have Mindbender, who pioneered the creation of the world's first bipedal war bots(in the 80s!) , developed the machinery and techniques to create a synthetic genetic recombinant man, plus programmed the scanner to give that synthetic man a stable personality, created the technology to clone, created a weather machine, created stealth armor to rival that of nations, left detailed instructions for cloning himself, and he can't help in the reverse engineering of the scanner? WTF?! How does that even make sense? No one in Cobra can? WTF does Cobra R&D do? Sit around a crystal ball waiting for mystical engineering insights? (That may actually explain Mindbender and Crystal Ball :p )

I do have one more reason for not liking MASS and brainwave scanners. They're depressing technology. I read to get away from the real world. When Joe brings that stuff in, it only reminds me of the potential for abuse of such technology. I prefer not to have that reminder in my face.

There are three other “science fiction-y” things I'm totally okay with.

Weather dominators, or Tempest. I always theorized Tempest by ionizing the atmosphere and it looks like I was right:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1343470/Have-scientists-discovered-create-downpours-desert.html

Nanotech. Also something that hasn't bugged me. I remember yet another Scientific American talking about researchers trying to develop programmable nanobots that could hunt down and destroy cancer cells. Weaponization would be an expected evolution.

EMP. Though scientist haven't yet figured out how to create a weaponized EMP without producing a nuclear explosion, I'm sure that's just around the corner. (IDW Joes already have EMP grenades!)

[Viceroy]

[Torpedo]

[Veritas]

[Veritas]

What a post. Wow!

[RG1701]

Which is why I had no problem with the plot used in Rise of Cobra. I had a problem with some of its presentation, some of the physical feats performed maybe...definitely the ice sinking in water....but not the nanotech idea itself. It's coming.

I also feel that unlike MASS in IDW Joe, the nanotech plot was dealt with pretty well in Image/DDP Joe continuity. After all, once the Joes had the access codes and were able to take control of the nanites, the weapon was pretty much rendered unusuable by Cobra, lest they risk starting some nanobot Cold War, since the enemy now had a way to counter Cobra's ace in the hole. That has yet to be done satisfactorily with MASS.

[Torpedo]

Call me old fashioned (and drunk) but I always preferred the S.N.A.K.E. exo-suit to the B.A.T. I guess having a human operator made it seem a lot more credible and interesting to me.


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