Cassettes and cassette decks
Dec. 4th, 2018 10:40 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
insecuriosityI’ve always found Cassette’s interesting. They seem so versatile- capable of hiding away in someone else’s frame and living independently outside of them. Small enough to be overlooked, but still capable of wreaking havoc - especially when teamed up with someone else!
It is the part of symbiosis that always puzzled me. Because it isn’t very symbiotic if you can only connect with a teensy tiny group of mecha that were specifically DESIGNED to allow you to make a connection.
Sure, there are other ways for mecha to connect via cables, cortic patches, or sparks - but a relationship as such is often labeled as Amica endura or Conjunx endura. NOT a Symbiote.
So, in an attempt to give more detail to how a symbiosis between two mecha would work, and how it would make sense as a frametype, I began making an AU. ( The typical last resort of anyone trying to make sense of a canon )
Symbiosis is a bond between two mecha that benefits both partakers. In the TF media seen thus far, it seems that this symbiosis comes more from doing jobs for one-another. Soundwave shelters his symbiotes in a specially made deck, and the symbiotes in return obey him and follow his orders.
It isn’t something that would naturally grow, or something that makes sense from a design perspective - unless the symbiotes were made to be drones. Mindless extensions of the bigger Cassette Deck.
But the symbiotes we see in the comics have free will, personality, intelligence, and their own motives. So that doesn’t really fit in.
A more physical symbiosis would much more resemble the original relationship between a cassette and a Cassette deck. The mechanical storage space provided by a symbiote could increase a mechs’ processing power, the legitimate equivalent of “downloading more RAM” so as to say.
Without a Cassette Deck to actually read anything that the symbiotes are providing, the symbiotes have very few ways of communicating or getting rid of their data.
Sadly, this only really makes sense from the point of ACTUAL cassette tapes. Technology has evolved, and so has our idea of what an advanced alien technology might have to offer. It no longer makes sense that a smaller robot would be unable to speak, or that he would need specialised equipment to even communicate with other machinery.
Even in a war setting, this could be more of a burden than a boon. Important Intel could go lost because of the death of a cassette deck. A small mobile spy would not be able to relay messages because it cannot speak without its host.
Here is where I started to think of an AU - something I could work into a story.
What if Symbiotes are not restricted to just Cassette Decks? What if they are the kind of small thing that gives a noticeable boost, but just gradually enough that mecha do not seem to notice?
What if the clear drop in frame performances upon removal is seen as a proof that symbiotes are bad for you instead of good? What if there are symbiotes living out on the streets, transformed into a compact data-stick mode, hoping that someone will pick them up and plug them in for extra storage space?
It is the part of symbiosis that always puzzled me. Because it isn’t very symbiotic if you can only connect with a teensy tiny group of mecha that were specifically DESIGNED to allow you to make a connection.
Sure, there are other ways for mecha to connect via cables, cortic patches, or sparks - but a relationship as such is often labeled as Amica endura or Conjunx endura. NOT a Symbiote.
So, in an attempt to give more detail to how a symbiosis between two mecha would work, and how it would make sense as a frametype, I began making an AU. ( The typical last resort of anyone trying to make sense of a canon )
Symbiosis is a bond between two mecha that benefits both partakers. In the TF media seen thus far, it seems that this symbiosis comes more from doing jobs for one-another. Soundwave shelters his symbiotes in a specially made deck, and the symbiotes in return obey him and follow his orders.
It isn’t something that would naturally grow, or something that makes sense from a design perspective - unless the symbiotes were made to be drones. Mindless extensions of the bigger Cassette Deck.
But the symbiotes we see in the comics have free will, personality, intelligence, and their own motives. So that doesn’t really fit in.
A more physical symbiosis would much more resemble the original relationship between a cassette and a Cassette deck. The mechanical storage space provided by a symbiote could increase a mechs’ processing power, the legitimate equivalent of “downloading more RAM” so as to say.
Without a Cassette Deck to actually read anything that the symbiotes are providing, the symbiotes have very few ways of communicating or getting rid of their data.
Sadly, this only really makes sense from the point of ACTUAL cassette tapes. Technology has evolved, and so has our idea of what an advanced alien technology might have to offer. It no longer makes sense that a smaller robot would be unable to speak, or that he would need specialised equipment to even communicate with other machinery.
Even in a war setting, this could be more of a burden than a boon. Important Intel could go lost because of the death of a cassette deck. A small mobile spy would not be able to relay messages because it cannot speak without its host.
Here is where I started to think of an AU - something I could work into a story.
What if Symbiotes are not restricted to just Cassette Decks? What if they are the kind of small thing that gives a noticeable boost, but just gradually enough that mecha do not seem to notice?
What if the clear drop in frame performances upon removal is seen as a proof that symbiotes are bad for you instead of good? What if there are symbiotes living out on the streets, transformed into a compact data-stick mode, hoping that someone will pick them up and plug them in for extra storage space?
