Team Banzai - REALLY!?

[glitterboy2098]

Someone, I think Victor S-D (early in the Blood of Kerensky Trilogy), does mention that "UFOs" were sighted over New Avalon in the 3020s.  ^-^

Kai, talking to Dr. Lear behind enemy lines. they're heading to a fedcom spy outpost hoping to find a working transmitter. kai, trying to hide the fact it's a secret outpost (that he only knows due to his position), talks about the "UAP" sightings on new avalon. (unexplained aerial phenomenon). says that the AFFC was testing some star league Hammerhead fighters based off recovered plans in the (IIRC) 3030's, and because they were top secret the sightings were subject to a disinformation campaign. he then goes on to mention how one of the fighters crashed in the "roswell district", and the clean up teams missed some ferro-lamellor armor, which the UAP people immediately claimed was impossible for humans to have made, and that the AFFC was hiding alien bodies in a hanger on one of the new avalon military bases.

it was all a quite blatent riff on the roswell conspiracy stuff.

[skiltao]

Okay, that sounds about right, although "ferro-lamellor" hadn't entered BT's lexicon yet.

it was all a quite blatent riff on the roswell conspiracy stuff.

It can be more than one thing. :)

Alternatively, you don't have Netflix Instant (cause it's on that)?

Nope. Between regular TV and my friend's expanding DVD collection, I haven't needed to sign up yet. (Watching Dr Who with neophytes is kind of tricky since there's so many spoilers in its box art.)

[ColonelCody]

Has anyone pointed out that Team Banzai was a big part of the universe? I came across my copy of 4th Succession War Atlas, pt 2 and the whoel thing is supposed to be written from his hand.

[StCptMara]

Has anyone pointed out that Team Banzai was a big part of the universe? I came across my copy of 4th Succession War Atlas, pt 2 and the whoel thing is supposed to be written from his hand.

Heck, there is a reference to Dr. B. Banzai in the recent-ish Handbook: Davion

[MOrab46019]

I always enjoyed how McCarron's Armored Cavalry was known as THE BIG MAC myself.  :D

If I recall the Big MAC attack was for the sandwich. Now at lest in Battletech it could mean the Armored Cav is coming.

[ColonelCody]

If I recall the Big MAC attack was for the sandwich. Now at lest in Battletech it could mean the Armored Cav is coming.

I think everyone should just chill out and accept that Battletech and it's associated media have a ton of various references and items that connect back to certain cultural icons we know.BB, Big mac, there's a bunch of warships and admirals named for characters in a movie. it's silly to get upset or riled up over it.

[Terra-ble]

Yvonne Morticia and her Orion, yes. :) The bit of trivia about Dr. Banzai being the designer of the Hatchetman also got its start in that book, I think -- at least that's the earliest source mentioning (rumors of) it that I'm aware of. So Mike Stackpole just expanded on what was already there.

No time to read through the whole thread, but there is a pop-culture three-for here. Morticia Addams from "the Addams Family" was played by Carolyn Jones.  The Addams butler was named Lurch. Yvonne DeCarlo played Lilly Munster on"the Munsters."

[Banzai]

No time to read through the whole thread, but there is a pop-culture three-for here. Morticia Addams from "the Addams Family" was played by Carolyn Jones.  The Addams butler was named Lurch. Yvonne DeCarlo played Lilly Munster on"the Munsters."

And she also pilots the Jumpship "The Nth Dimension."   Make it a four-fer.

[Terra-ble]

I forgot about that.

[va_wanderer]

Going back to the beginning- yes, really.

Battletech took a bunch of characters that would never get more than a few comic books after their one movie...and did their best to immortalize them as part of the game.

Which I'm all for. I've always appreciated the nods to bits and pieces of culture- from a certain Zeon pilot in Zeta Battalion to the watermelon scene in Stackpole through a bazillion nods to all kinds of fantasy and sci-fi.

And if anyone was going to manage to pull off the first Kearny-Fuchida "time jump" by accident, it'd be one Buckaroo Banzai. The future needed him!

[Cerberus_02]

I think everyone should just chill out and accept that Battletech and it's associated media have a ton of various references and items that connect back to certain cultural icons we know.

Thank God Ace Darwin's WhipIts don't have ANY references to ANYTHING in real life, entertainment or otherwise.  /sarcasm   :P

[ColonelCody]

Thank God Ace Darwin's WhipIts don't have ANY references to ANYTHING in real life, entertainment or otherwise.  /sarcasm   :P

hehehe...agreed and conceded.

[StoneGiant]

Since we're talking novels, how come there are two Kai's? I know the first one dies in the first few chapters and the second one has nothing to do with him, but it seems weird I'd encounter two characters with that name. I've NEVER met a real actual Kai in my life.

[Banzai]

Since we're talking novels, how come there are two Kai's? I know the first one dies in the first few chapters and the second one has nothing to do with him, but it seems weird I'd encounter two characters with that name. I've NEVER met a real actual Kai in my life.

Which novel? 

[Captain Vlad]

Battletech took a bunch of characters that would never get more than a few comic books after their one movie...and did their best to immortalize them as part of the game.

Which I'm all for. I've always appreciated the nods to bits and pieces of culture.

Agreed.  Didn't bother me in the slightest.

I wonder if the invention of the K-F drive involved the phrase "Don't tug on that; there's no telling what it's attached to."

[FedRatCowboy]

And remember kids: Don't touch the watermelon.

I was reading the Warrior series one night and though "what the heck does that mean?" The next day I caught the movie and saw a watermelon in a vise-grip like device in Dr. Banzi's lab. I fell out laughing. My wife was like "there is something wrong with you."

[Banzai]

"Why is there a watermelon there?"

"I'll tell you later."

I love that scene!

[Dave Talley]

Going back to the beginning- yes, really.

Battletech took a bunch of characters that would never get more than a few comic books after their one movie...and did their best to immortalize them as part of the game.

yep FASA and other companies snuck stuff in all the time, my other favorite was in the Star Trek RPG there was a class of ships in the fed  fleet that were named after cities, (Loknar Class Frigate)
 and like most completist freak I appreciated that they had a list all of the ships of that class, so I picked the Hobbiton :-)  we put round doors on the pub (10 Forward) and on the Captains quarters

of course the word Loknar itself was an homage to the movie Heavy Metal, it was the glowing ball :-)

[ColonelCody]

yep FASA and other companies snuck stuff in all the time, my other favorite was in the Star Trek RPG there was a class of ships in the fed  fleet that were named after cities, (Loknar Class Frigate)
 and like most completist freak I appreciated that they had a list all of the ships of that class, so I picked the Hobbiton :-)  we put round doors on the pub (10 Forward) and on the Captains quarters

of course the word Loknar itself was an homage to the movie Heavy Metal, it was the glowing ball :-)

oh my god. I NEVER Noticed that before. wow. I used to play with one in the old FASA RPG game. It was the class of ship assigned to my crew. U.S.S. Fall River. I read this post and looked over the entry in the old SRM: Federation....I NEVER NOTICED!

[StuartYee]

So I think I'm going to relent and just accept the ubiquitous 80's pop-culture "inspired references"

Hell, I went along with my own. I recently ran a scenario involving a Company by the name of Weyland-Yutani looking for mercenaries to find a lost survey team exploring the deep Periphery world  designated as LV-426 aka "Acheron".

Of course the Company ends up screwing over the mercs, but instead of acid-for-blood xenomorphs, they just find a hell of a lot of Smoke Jaguars (which is very nearly the same thing).

I pre-generated a mercenary force named "Sulaco's Rangers" and gave the mechwarriors names Apone, Hicks, Hudson, Vasquez, etc.

If you can't beat 'em, join 'em.

[skiltao]

"Inspired references" are just a tool, like anything else. Creativity & fun isn't about where the tool comes from -- it's how you use it.  O0  [rockon]

[Dave Talley]

oh my god. I NEVER Noticed that before. wow. I used to play with one in the old FASA RPG game. It was the class of ship assigned to my crew. U.S.S. Fall River. I read this post and looked over the entry in the old SRM: Federation....I NEVER NOTICED!

yeah I am a bit of a detail freak :-)

there are also ships named after FASA staff and other random stuff, would need to go dig to remember more, and I am in mood to  move my ass right now :-)
resting up for retail hell tonite and friday

[MOrab46019]

U.S.S. Fall River was a heavy cruiser. Before going into the scrap heap she was off shore on one of the atomic tests. Her Bow is in the City of Fall River MA at the Battleship Cove. 

[ColonelCody]

U.S.S. Fall River was a heavy cruiser. Before going into the scrap heap she was off shore on one of the atomic tests. Her Bow is in the City of Fall River MA at the Battleship Cove.

Yeah, I've seen her before, I live close by in Brockton. All of Battleship cove is a must see if you visit massachusetts.