Robo-Inversions

Brian Niemeier, Bradford C. Walker, and myself each have novels about mecha out. Brian has Combat Frame Xseed, now on its third installment. Brad has Reavers of the Void, the first installment of his Star Knight series. And finally, I have Shining Tomorrow Volume 1: Shadow Heart.

What’s interesting about each of these is that each one inverts the basic premise of a well-known sci-fi property. While the stories generally bear no resemblance, the settings in particular act as photo negatives of properties that have far more spread.

Mobile Suit Gundam © Sunrise

Xseed inverts Mobile Suit Gundam, specifically its “Universal Century” continuity. In Gundam, the Earth Federation dominates the space colonies, and a set of colonies fights back to secure their independence despite only having 1/30th the resources of Earth. In Xseed, however, the colonies are swimming in wealth and power while Earth is poor and harsh. When the colonists invade the Earth to “re-civilize” it, the Earthlings resent the intrusion and fight back with all they’ve got to drive out the occupier. Where the protagonists of Gundam uphold the established order of the dominant power, the protagonists of Xseed reject their world’s dominant power and see it as fundamentally illegitimate.

Star Trek © CBS

Reavers inverts Star Trek. In Trek, humanity has largely abandoned religion; secular humanism is the dominant and favored mindset on Earth, which is a major power in that universe. This came from series creator Gene Roddenberry’s belief that religion would die out in the future, believing it to be incompatible with an age of advanced technology. This widespread atheism is also implied to be part of the reason that humanity is no longer politically divided in Trek’s universe. According to this thinking, because humans abandoned “superstitions” like gods or nations, they embraced reason and science, which naturally led to progressive, democratic values being adopted by all — and an age of technological flourishing. They even abandoned buying and selling.

By contrast, Star Knight Saga declares that in the space-age future, all of humanity will be Christian. Not only will all of humanity be Christian, nations will continue to exist, and there will be no centralized body dictating to all the different worlds; the Catholic Church, which now spans the galaxy, does not exercise direct political control of any kingdom. Of course, money continues to exist as well. This comes off as a direct rebuke of Star Trek‘s assumptions that religion will have no place in humanity’s future — and to make the point, Brad had to do so in the strongest possible terms.

Code Geass © Sunrise

Finally, my own novel Shining Tomorrow Volume 1: Shadow Heart inverts the anime Code Geass. In Geass, the Empire of Britannia (a fictionalized British Empire that retained absolute monarchy and is based out of North America) conquers Japan in 1955 AD and renames it to “Area 11.” Britannia subjects Japan to relentless tyranny while harvesting its main resource of Sakuradite (real-life Japan is actually resource-poor.) Outraged by this, a teenaged Britannian colonist named Lelouch Lamperouge starts a revolution to not only drive the Britannian government from Japan, but create a progressive social order that disregarded ethnicity and class altogether. Many giant robot battles ensue.

In ShinTomo, on the other hand, the Empire of Japan survives the 1940s due to the United States staying out of World War II (see the details of ShinTomo’s historical lore here.) In the early 21st century, it conquers the United States and shreds its independence on the basis that America is a “feral” nation that needs the guidance of a “more mature” civilization. Furthermore, the main character Irma Kaneyasu is the exact opposite of a rebel; instead of overturning society, she wants to uphold imperial rule and become a good wife and wise mother.

Good fiction thinks outside the box; I hope I’ve opened some people’s eyes to what Brian, Brad, and I are doing. All three of our books are available on Amazon right now.