(Previously on Robotech: Broadsword.)
The animated CVR-3 armor known best as Spaceman Sam steps forward with what could be called calmness toward the Silverback SUV. Captain Sharp hops off first and helps Captain Piper down in a gentlemanly manner. They along with Murphy and Stein move off to the side of the stage providing Spaceman Sam all of the spotlight as it were. But the spaceman soon appears to be in trouble. With great energy, Sam puts one foot on the side of the Cyclone and makes playful yanking motions as if he had perhaps stepped into some gum and he can't pull "his" foot off the hull. Then, he puts his other foot on the side of the veritech and that boot adheres too.
Then suddenly, Spaceman Sam is hanging there horizontally. Defying gravity and appearing totally wacky, he "looks" at the Broadsword crew and excitedly grabs the sides of his helmet as if to say, "Oh no! Now what do I do?!" Smiles and chuckling from the crew follow.
Step by step, Sam scales the sides of the Silverback Cyclone until he reaches the top of the hood where the captains stood. There, he brings his arms up and flexes in a most manly fashion raising all manner of hoots, hollers, and whistles from the Broadsword crew. Every pose "he" makes there just shrieks he-man machoism and over-the-top grandness along with lots of pointing at himself and vigorous head-nodding. Finally, he pulls a folding tablet from his arm-sleeve. He writes on it. And when he holds it up high above his head, it proclaims in huge flashing letters, "I'M THE DUDE!" This gets the loudest, longest laughter and applause you have heard from the long-traveled and battle-weary Broadsword crew yet. Broo begin pointing and chanting, "You da Dood! You da Dood!"
Spaceman Sam puts away the tablet as the laughter slowly dies down.
When Sam talks, it is with every bit the Californian surfer. His body language, his tone, all of it - pure beach bum. It's enjoyable to watch and listen to, because for a few moments, it's hard to remember that there really is no human being underneath that suit. Just Spaceman Sam.
"So, like, every one of you dudes knows me. Because... like... I'm the Dude. And I owe it all to Captain Drake for making me." Sam nods in reverence and upon seeing this, other heads bow for a silent moment. "But I owe my snazzy new accent and gnarly ways to Miss Elinor Hall over there. Wave hello, Miss Hall. Yeah, there she is. Drake made me, yeah, but Hall? Hall made me cool." Sam does a little dance, but when that dance dies down, he takes on a stance of seriousness.
"So, dudes. It's down to this. Drake's dream, man. Let's pop the hatch and dive deep into it, dudes!" Spaceman Sam does a slow about-face as the hatch to the Broadsword's center hangar bay opens revealing a gorgeous blue ocean, a fine blue sky dotted with fluffy clouds, the warm orange sun, and the sounds of great rumbling engines filling the air which drown out the sounds of the waves far below you. Fresh, wonderful wind comes into the bay like an invited guest and there is a collective sigh as it touches each person, alien or otherwise, with its refreshing invisible comfort.
You figure you are a few thousand feet up, but to those of you with aeronautic backgrounds, the sounds of the engines sound... wrong - too numerous to be true because since when could a huge battle frigate like the Broadsword sound like it had dozens and dozens of engines? Then you see something slowly fly by the hangar about 500 meters out. It heads from your left to your right.
You see that the Broadsword is slowly turning starboard (right) and in doing so, it is allowing you to slowly see more and more of what is really out here. At first, some of you mistake the vessel that flies by the hangar bay as the Esper. And why not? It is solid black, looks recently repaired, and it glides through the sky as nimble as an interstellar cargo vessel should. But then you see another vessel above it. It, too, looks like the Esper, but it can't be, can it?
Spaceman Sam steps to his left as if making room for someone. To his right, a hologram of a human in a UEEF uniform with many commendations upon it appears, lightly bearded, brown-haired, pudgy, and facing the outside like Sam. Then you hear a familiar voice over the outside engines, over the waves, and over the Broadsword's intercoms as Captain Drake speaks like a ghost from the past. It sounds as if the man is in the middle of addressing people of importance. Perhaps you?
"It is not something everyone will understand." Captain Drake's British accent is filled with urgency and seems to come from the ship itself. "But it is of the ultimate importance that we get through the Black Binary and go back in time before all this started! Before Earth died! Before the betrayal! Before the bloody Regess... won!" The hologram puts his hand over his mouth as if he had just sinned by saying it.
More "Espers" come into view. Three at first. Then ten. Then you lose count as at least thirty of these ships fly above the water in a holding pattern made impressively stable and nigh-perfect by Sam pilots.
Captain Drake gestures, his voice and his face expressing the deepest concern. "How else is humanity going to stand a chance? The Yana-Meltrandi aren't going to hand it to us! The Zeki-Zentraedi are only looking out for themselves! We can't count on anyone else - we must change the future by altering the past - or risk our entire history, our cultures, everything we've lived for - vanishing at the hands of the Invid! Sam!"
The hologram turns to Spaceman who slowly turns to the hologram and gives it his fullest attention. "Listen to me and do everything I tell you! I might not... be there... with you... when the time comes. You might show up quite alone." He gasps and falters for a moment. "If it all works out, if the time-space fulcrum of the Black Binary is real and can take us back, back! Then I want you to start on the plans I gave you. During that time on Earth, it was comparatively peaceful. The Restoration, they called it. Hulks and hulks of millions of dead starships, some of which crash-landed on Earth. Use those! Use the Robotech Factory inside the Broadsword to work at building Pacifica!
Spaceman Sam nods as the hologram of Captain Drake reaches out and "grabs" Spaceman Sam by the shoulders, his hands blurry as the light touches Sam's hypercarbon skin. "Do not raise anyone from the ice until you find Traversers! Trouble knows how to find them so you must work together! Professor Albert Stein! Ylva Sveadotter! Reginald Booty! They'll be alive in the past! If you can't get them, get Traversers like them! Tell me you understand me! Tell me you will do it!"
Spaceman Sam slowly nods. The hologram looks down towards Sam's feet. Trouble the MechaKitten, the Mewwoo from space, lets out one long positive mew from where the Wild Cards stand. In your minds, you hear his boyish voice and he sounds quite serious. "I unnerstands, Drakey! I'll does it!"
Outside. Below. The vast blue reaches of water ripple, not just in one place, but many, many places. Each second you watch the immense blueness beneath you, more and greater ripples spread across the water. They pour downward, off of something. Somethings. Then your eyes seem to trick each one of you. Among the crew, necks crane, people fidget, and all eyes look down into the water as breaks in the water appear - incredibly-large, dwarfing people, dwarfing mecha, dwarfing the Broadsword.
"You may have to build for a very long time, Sam. Finding even a single Traverser could take years. But Pacifica... Pacifica will be humanity's chance against the Invid! Perhaps our only chance!"
Gargantuan light-blue orbs rise from those ripples in a manner that the mind cannot easily comprehend from where you're standing. They loom up from the ocean spanning miles across. The Earth's water cascades down the slick sides as one enormous island slowly, phenomenally, rises out of the ocean - a single island covered in white and green with tall buildings, moving vehicles on the air and on the streets, and starships hovering or docked at the docks of the astonishing island city. Dozens and dozens of what look like people move hurriedly like ants together across the city's surface. Everyone is carrying, working, building. Ceaselessly.
Then you realize it - they aren't humans at all - they are all Sam and Samantha units! Hundreds of them!
The hologram of Captain H. Drake - that one driven, tireless, compassionate Traverser desperate to escape the nightmarish reality he knew - holds his face in his hands for a moment, and slowly, he lets them fall. The hologram now looks so very relieved. His smile is nothing less than contagious for it contains something it lacked a moment ago - hope.
"Sam, Trouble. I am terribly sorry for saddling you with all of this, but if no one else makes it through the Black Binary... you are it. If only one starship makes it through to travel back to the past - it must be the Broadsword. No other vessel can make Pacifica happen. Can make her... real." He says this as you continue to stare down into a city that is very real despite your overwhelmed collective senses wondering to the contrary.
The grinning hologram wags a finger at Spaceman Sam. "I... don't know what I can give you that you don't already have... but you, you mental little twit," he kneels down as if picking up a kitten-sized kitten. "I know what you want! We are off to the mess for some fish! Let's go! Come on, Sam! Dine with us!" The hologram does an about-face with one hand up as if carrying something or someone and the hologram disappears, vanishing into the air.
Spaceman Sam suddenly looks so very alone. That is, until you look beyond him - at the majestic island city called Pacifica.
Drake's dream.
"I'm the Dude" by Keith Forsey for The Breakfast Club Motion Picture Soundtrack
The animated CVR-3 armor known best as Spaceman Sam steps forward with what could be called calmness toward the Silverback SUV. Captain Sharp hops off first and helps Captain Piper down in a gentlemanly manner. They along with Murphy and Stein move off to the side of the stage providing Spaceman Sam all of the spotlight as it were. But the spaceman soon appears to be in trouble. With great energy, Sam puts one foot on the side of the Cyclone and makes playful yanking motions as if he had perhaps stepped into some gum and he can't pull "his" foot off the hull. Then, he puts his other foot on the side of the veritech and that boot adheres too.
Then suddenly, Spaceman Sam is hanging there horizontally. Defying gravity and appearing totally wacky, he "looks" at the Broadsword crew and excitedly grabs the sides of his helmet as if to say, "Oh no! Now what do I do?!" Smiles and chuckling from the crew follow.
Step by step, Sam scales the sides of the Silverback Cyclone until he reaches the top of the hood where the captains stood. There, he brings his arms up and flexes in a most manly fashion raising all manner of hoots, hollers, and whistles from the Broadsword crew. Every pose "he" makes there just shrieks he-man machoism and over-the-top grandness along with lots of pointing at himself and vigorous head-nodding. Finally, he pulls a folding tablet from his arm-sleeve. He writes on it. And when he holds it up high above his head, it proclaims in huge flashing letters, "I'M THE DUDE!" This gets the loudest, longest laughter and applause you have heard from the long-traveled and battle-weary Broadsword crew yet. Broo begin pointing and chanting, "You da Dood! You da Dood!"
Spaceman Sam puts away the tablet as the laughter slowly dies down.
When Sam talks, it is with every bit the Californian surfer. His body language, his tone, all of it - pure beach bum. It's enjoyable to watch and listen to, because for a few moments, it's hard to remember that there really is no human being underneath that suit. Just Spaceman Sam.
"So, like, every one of you dudes knows me. Because... like... I'm the Dude. And I owe it all to Captain Drake for making me." Sam nods in reverence and upon seeing this, other heads bow for a silent moment. "But I owe my snazzy new accent and gnarly ways to Miss Elinor Hall over there. Wave hello, Miss Hall. Yeah, there she is. Drake made me, yeah, but Hall? Hall made me cool." Sam does a little dance, but when that dance dies down, he takes on a stance of seriousness.
"So, dudes. It's down to this. Drake's dream, man. Let's pop the hatch and dive deep into it, dudes!" Spaceman Sam does a slow about-face as the hatch to the Broadsword's center hangar bay opens revealing a gorgeous blue ocean, a fine blue sky dotted with fluffy clouds, the warm orange sun, and the sounds of great rumbling engines filling the air which drown out the sounds of the waves far below you. Fresh, wonderful wind comes into the bay like an invited guest and there is a collective sigh as it touches each person, alien or otherwise, with its refreshing invisible comfort.
"Mass Effect Legendary Edition - Official Reveal Trailer Music (FULL TRAILER VERSION SONG THEME)"
You figure you are a few thousand feet up, but to those of you with aeronautic backgrounds, the sounds of the engines sound... wrong - too numerous to be true because since when could a huge battle frigate like the Broadsword sound like it had dozens and dozens of engines? Then you see something slowly fly by the hangar about 500 meters out. It heads from your left to your right.
You see that the Broadsword is slowly turning starboard (right) and in doing so, it is allowing you to slowly see more and more of what is really out here. At first, some of you mistake the vessel that flies by the hangar bay as the Esper. And why not? It is solid black, looks recently repaired, and it glides through the sky as nimble as an interstellar cargo vessel should. But then you see another vessel above it. It, too, looks like the Esper, but it can't be, can it?
Spaceman Sam steps to his left as if making room for someone. To his right, a hologram of a human in a UEEF uniform with many commendations upon it appears, lightly bearded, brown-haired, pudgy, and facing the outside like Sam. Then you hear a familiar voice over the outside engines, over the waves, and over the Broadsword's intercoms as Captain Drake speaks like a ghost from the past. It sounds as if the man is in the middle of addressing people of importance. Perhaps you?
"It is not something everyone will understand." Captain Drake's British accent is filled with urgency and seems to come from the ship itself. "But it is of the ultimate importance that we get through the Black Binary and go back in time before all this started! Before Earth died! Before the betrayal! Before the bloody Regess... won!" The hologram puts his hand over his mouth as if he had just sinned by saying it.
More "Espers" come into view. Three at first. Then ten. Then you lose count as at least thirty of these ships fly above the water in a holding pattern made impressively stable and nigh-perfect by Sam pilots.
Captain Drake gestures, his voice and his face expressing the deepest concern. "How else is humanity going to stand a chance? The Yana-Meltrandi aren't going to hand it to us! The Zeki-Zentraedi are only looking out for themselves! We can't count on anyone else - we must change the future by altering the past - or risk our entire history, our cultures, everything we've lived for - vanishing at the hands of the Invid! Sam!"
The hologram turns to Spaceman who slowly turns to the hologram and gives it his fullest attention. "Listen to me and do everything I tell you! I might not... be there... with you... when the time comes. You might show up quite alone." He gasps and falters for a moment. "If it all works out, if the time-space fulcrum of the Black Binary is real and can take us back, back! Then I want you to start on the plans I gave you. During that time on Earth, it was comparatively peaceful. The Restoration, they called it. Hulks and hulks of millions of dead starships, some of which crash-landed on Earth. Use those! Use the Robotech Factory inside the Broadsword to work at building Pacifica!
Spaceman Sam nods as the hologram of Captain Drake reaches out and "grabs" Spaceman Sam by the shoulders, his hands blurry as the light touches Sam's hypercarbon skin. "Do not raise anyone from the ice until you find Traversers! Trouble knows how to find them so you must work together! Professor Albert Stein! Ylva Sveadotter! Reginald Booty! They'll be alive in the past! If you can't get them, get Traversers like them! Tell me you understand me! Tell me you will do it!"
Spaceman Sam slowly nods. The hologram looks down towards Sam's feet. Trouble the MechaKitten, the Mewwoo from space, lets out one long positive mew from where the Wild Cards stand. In your minds, you hear his boyish voice and he sounds quite serious. "I unnerstands, Drakey! I'll does it!"
Outside. Below. The vast blue reaches of water ripple, not just in one place, but many, many places. Each second you watch the immense blueness beneath you, more and greater ripples spread across the water. They pour downward, off of something. Somethings. Then your eyes seem to trick each one of you. Among the crew, necks crane, people fidget, and all eyes look down into the water as breaks in the water appear - incredibly-large, dwarfing people, dwarfing mecha, dwarfing the Broadsword.
"You may have to build for a very long time, Sam. Finding even a single Traverser could take years. But Pacifica... Pacifica will be humanity's chance against the Invid! Perhaps our only chance!"
Gargantuan light-blue orbs rise from those ripples in a manner that the mind cannot easily comprehend from where you're standing. They loom up from the ocean spanning miles across. The Earth's water cascades down the slick sides as one enormous island slowly, phenomenally, rises out of the ocean - a single island covered in white and green with tall buildings, moving vehicles on the air and on the streets, and starships hovering or docked at the docks of the astonishing island city. Dozens and dozens of what look like people move hurriedly like ants together across the city's surface. Everyone is carrying, working, building. Ceaselessly.
Then you realize it - they aren't humans at all - they are all Sam and Samantha units! Hundreds of them!
The islands many protective domes look like this:
(Image credit: Dreamstime.com)
Pacifica itself looks very very much like this!
(Image credit: cdn.alga.asn.au)
Above the docks in the city, where many spaceships lay quiet or hover about slowly, is one gigantic ship that makes the rest look oh so small by comparison. It too is covered by Samanthas and Sams and it looks like this.
SDCV Ikazuchi-class Carrier (click on the smaller pictures below the big picture for additional angles of this enormous space vessel). It does not look quite complete yet, but... that day appears close in coming. =)
(Image credit: Mechajournal.com)
(Image credit: Dreamstime.com)
Pacifica itself looks very very much like this!
(Image credit: cdn.alga.asn.au)
Above the docks in the city, where many spaceships lay quiet or hover about slowly, is one gigantic ship that makes the rest look oh so small by comparison. It too is covered by Samanthas and Sams and it looks like this.
SDCV Ikazuchi-class Carrier (click on the smaller pictures below the big picture for additional angles of this enormous space vessel). It does not look quite complete yet, but... that day appears close in coming. =)
(Image credit: Mechajournal.com)
The hologram of Captain H. Drake - that one driven, tireless, compassionate Traverser desperate to escape the nightmarish reality he knew - holds his face in his hands for a moment, and slowly, he lets them fall. The hologram now looks so very relieved. His smile is nothing less than contagious for it contains something it lacked a moment ago - hope.
"Sam, Trouble. I am terribly sorry for saddling you with all of this, but if no one else makes it through the Black Binary... you are it. If only one starship makes it through to travel back to the past - it must be the Broadsword. No other vessel can make Pacifica happen. Can make her... real." He says this as you continue to stare down into a city that is very real despite your overwhelmed collective senses wondering to the contrary.
The grinning hologram wags a finger at Spaceman Sam. "I... don't know what I can give you that you don't already have... but you, you mental little twit," he kneels down as if picking up a kitten-sized kitten. "I know what you want! We are off to the mess for some fish! Let's go! Come on, Sam! Dine with us!" The hologram does an about-face with one hand up as if carrying something or someone and the hologram disappears, vanishing into the air.
Spaceman Sam suddenly looks so very alone. That is, until you look beyond him - at the majestic island city called Pacifica.
Drake's dream.
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