Fandom Pimping/Brainstorming

[friendlylocalmod]

Want to share your favorite robot-filled fandoms with others? Want recommendations of new robot-filled fandoms to check out for this exchange? Use the comments of this post! Any fandom is eligible so long as it has at least one character who fits the theme of Turing Fest; there are no requirements for fandom rarity or medium type.

(As a reminder, "robot" is just a term used for convenience. AIs, androids, mecha, machines, cyborgs, and any other character types within that technology-focused ballpark are welcome.)

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Be More Chill - Iconis/Tracz

[rosewithallherthorns]

Be More Chill is a musical about a loser teenage boy (Jeremy Heere) who voluntarily buys a SQUIP (Super Quantum Unit Intel Processor) at the offer of his high school bully (Rich Goranski) in order to become popular. It implants in his brain and tells him what to do, and things go sideways from there.

A SQUIP is a cybernetic pill with its own mind that you literally drink. It will help the user fulfill whatever their goal is, and/or take over the world. Jeremy's SQUIP is the villain, and gets depowered at the end. It spends the musical trying to improve Jeremy, and ideally Jeremy's life.

SQUIPs have the ability to "sync", or network, with other SQUIPs in close vicinity. This causes the SQUIPs' hosts to like each other, and makes the SQUIPs cooperate to accomplish their goals.

Because it's a musical canon, I will now make my point through animatics. This is not all the songs but it should be a good starter.

The chronological order is More Than Survive, The SQUIP Song, BMC 1 & 2, More Than Survive (Reprise), Upgrade, Pitiful Children.

Upgrade, a 7 minute animatic about the SQUIP convincing Jeremy to follow its orders over his own judgement, in this case to completely cut contact with his best and only friend and date a girl as a stepping stone to dating his biggest crush. Song starts at 2:04
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nIVuAZwHOgc

More Than Survive, which introduces all the characters except the SQUIP, and sets the stage for everything else.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4DJnjhKKCXU

The SQUIP Song, wherein Rich (bully) is told by his SQUIP that Jeremy might want a SQUIP, and is interrupted from bullying him in the bathroom to sing an advertising spiel about it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C20O3iUFfYY

Be More Chill Part 1, wherein the SQUIP introduces itself to Jeremy by telling him he's awful but the SQUIP will improve him, and gets a pair of popular girls to think he's not totally lame.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RfPZ-qWc9HQ

Be More Chill Part 2, where Jeremy is convinced he should listen and spews a lot of self-hate when the SQUIP tells him to, and the SQUIP paints a shiny new vision of what the future will be like once he's done with Jeremy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4QBJF6dCeuA

More Than Survive (reprise), which shows how Jeremy's life changes immediately after taking the SQUIP.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oAvTo2_dAIg

Pitiful Children, wherein the SQUIP convinces Jeremy to offer SQUIPs to his love interest and the school gossip. Aka, his villain song.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynIUUBg7zuA

There is a new version of these songs made on Broadway coming out, but there's some subtle but meaningful differences between that version and the original.

Blade Runner + 2049

[primeideal]

For those unfamiliar, Blade Runner is a movie from 1982, loosely adapted from Philip Dick's "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep"? The titular job is a type of police officer assigned to hunt down and "retire" artificial humans known as "replicants." The main character, Rick Deckard, gets enlisted to hunt down a dangerous group of off-world replicants who are fighting to survive and rebel against their makers. Noiry futuristic (and rainy!) Los Angeles, chess allusions, animal imagery, and many different releases with different implications about Deckard possibly being a replicant too. Content note there is some dubious sexual consent.

In 2017, a sequel was released, Blade Runner 2049, set 30 years later. The focus is on Officer K, a new Blade Runner who (spoiler alert for the first 5 minutes) is a replicant too. He uncovers a mysterious secret that puts him on the hunt for Deckard, now a fugitive. He also has a disembodied computer girlfriend who's treated as even less human than he is--different people have come to different conclusions about whether she should be considered sentient.

Animorphs

[primeideal]

(Disclaimer: the androids of this series aren't a major part or even my favorite part, but I saw it in the tagset and had to advertise!)

Animorphs is a long-running middle-grade book series about teenagers who are given the power to transform into animals, and need to use it to defend Earth from body-controlling aliens. It starts off fairly silly but quickly gets dark.

One of the recurring characters is Erek King, a member of the Chee android species. The Chee have holographic powers that allow them to pass as human (among other things); Erek has lived for thousands of years and rubbed shoulders with famous historical figures. The Chee were programmed by their creators, the Pemalites, with a prohibition against violence, so they're unable to help directly in the war, but cover for the protagonists by impersonating them when they're in space etc. It brings up some tough questions about hostage situations, responsibility for violence, etc.

Chee are also enormous dog-lovers, which may or may not be a selling point.

Erek first shows up in book 10, and has important roles in (off the top of my head) 26-27, and 53-54 (the last two).

Choice of the Star Captain

[(Anonymous)]

Choice of the Star Captain is a choose your own adventure style game in which you play a star captain, and you have an snide and sarcastic ship AI named Lloyd.