For the newbs: Mecha, androids, Cyborg and Robots

I've grown to love Pacific Rim ever since it's on HBO. I didn't even care about the hype when it was being hyped, but now that I've seen it, I don't even know why I like it so much.

However, during said hype, mistakes where made. Mistakes regarding what a robot is and what a mecha is. So, for all those now gettin g into Geekery, this one's for you.

The word robot finds it's root in the word roboto, the polish word for slave. The word mecha comes from the latin mechanical.

A robot is an autonomous mechanical being. In fiction, at least, these usually tend to move for themselves, and act for themselves, without imput from the outside. R2d2 is a robot. So is Johny #5 and Sonny from I Robot. So are the Sentinels form the X-Men and the Transformers.

A Geth from Mass Effect is an alien robot.

Subcategories of the robot include the android, which is a robot in the general shape of a man. C3PO David from Ai  and David from Prometheus are androids.

The Robot Wall-E, while imbued with human-like personality, is not an Android.

 Gynoids, are robots shaped like women, which are somewhat rarer, and even more rare to be described as such. EVi from Mass Effect 3 is a ginoid.

Both the T-100(left) and the T-X(right) are robots, but T-1000 is an Android, while  T-X is a ginoid.

Not to be confused with Cyborgs. Cyborgs are humans with noticeable mechanical parts added to them. The Bionic Commander, Jax from Mortal Kombat and Will Smith's character in I Robot are cyborgs.

General Grievous substituted all his body parts save his heart for mechanical ones, thus becoming a cyborg. However...

Luke Skywalker lost his hand, and had it replaced with an indistinguishable replica. Luke Skywalker is a cyborg.

But a Mecha is not a robot. A Mecha is a vehicle designed  with the appendages of a quadruped. It has no will of it's own. The Jaegers from Pacific Rim are Mechas. So is the Power-loader from Aliens, the vehicles used by the Zion resistance in Matrix Revolution, and the Evas in Evangelion.

A pilot ascends into his mech in the dormant Mechassault franchise.

So, hopefully this will clear up any confusion about that before the Pacific Rim comes out. I know many are not "in the know" of Mecha, because it's a bit of a niche concept here in the west. Robot is more popular. In fact, we tend to refer to a cyborg as "having a robot arm". We need to be working on the jargon, because how are you supposed to enjoy Mecha beating up on kaiju without correcting this technicalities?

The Probe Droid is not piloted, but the Walkers are. Thus walkers are Mecha, and the Probe Droid is a robot.

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The first woman in fighting games

Yeah...hopefully you won't have to avenge your father many more times.

Folks, they say history is written by the victors, and it's mostly true. Sometimes history is written by the victor's bitter enemies, though.

But it's true in the sense that, if someone spearheads something that becomes really popular, people are way more likely to study them instead of checking if benchmarks they made had already been made, therefore attributing them to  the more popular one.

In fighting game terms, Street Fighter, specifically Street Fighter 2 is the trendsetter, the first, the freshmaker. Sure, a little research will show fighting games existed before Street Fighter 2 made them a genre, such ar Yie Ar Kung Fu and Karateka, but generally, we accept that the genre was shaped by Ryu and Ken's shenanigans.

However, I will have to take away at least one of Capcom's most prestigious awards: The first woman in fighting games. Sure enough, most of us recognize Chun Li as the first. Games like Yie Ar Kung Fu could hardly bother letting you choose character, let alone putting a woman in there as a playable. However, Chun Li is not the first woman in fighting games

The first woman is, in fact, Gaea, from Konami's 26 Year old Galactic Warriors.

Pink. Of course.

If you've been following me, you should recognize the title. It is a 1 player, robot vs robot game. Like Cyberbots but...really sad. On of Konami's many, many failed attempts at fighting games. Gaea is merely 1 of 3 playable characters. But is she better than Chun Li? Well, It's a matter of opinion, but I guess it depends on how much you like breasts as projectiles. That's usually the dividing line.

At least Chun Li is still the first LADY of Fighting games. Haruumph!

Sure, we could split hairs on whether a robot shaped like a woman counts as a woman. But that would be (even more) pointless. The guys at Konami put breasts and hips  an d high heels on a robot so we could identify it as female.  I'd say she's as much a woman as a videogame can let a school of sprites be.

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Fighting Hero of the Galaxy

I just want to quickly, and offhandedly announce my intention to publish a book. It will be a remake of the movie Star Oddysey. I talked about ot once. Remember?

While this might seem like one of my many unfinished projects, the only thing this one is missing is a cover and some promotion. So, I'm beggining to work on promoting it.  

Some pre-viz. What? I'm a visual person.

The book will be called Fighting Hero of the Galaxy. I'm making it available after July. I take the original, silly template of Star Odyssey and turn it into a full-bore space thriller.   I don't want to let on too much, but let's just say I infused it with mordern sci-fi dynamics while subverting many conventions of the standard space story. I wrote it, then translated to Spanish, because I can.  Just stay tuned. I think you'll like it.

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