Watching GI Joe: The Pit of Vipers
Lately I've been wanting to do a Joe post, if only as a morale booster. Picking an episode proved tough. I could pick the episode where Cobra at the start successfully destroys the world's oil infrastructure and then attempts to ransom the six remaining loaded supertankers into global domination. I could pick an episode where Cobra establishes Fox News. I could pick one of the 'crazy even by GI Joe standards' episodes. Instead, I pick one where the Joe command structure is subverted by a smart Cobra plot - and AI.
link to full episode
We start strong, with Fort Kickass:
This is detected by the Joes! All hands on deck!
By the watercolors of dawn, the Joe attack begins. A gopher is disturbed.
Air-dropped assault buggies charge the cobra armor and just when this is working, a voice says "Simulation complete. Defenses deactivated." Then the Cobra units and troopers vanish. Bazooka is confounded mid-battle cry.
Joe F-14s land on the carrier-like upper deck while the Awestrikers roll into the ground floor entrance. Lady Jaye leads the charge from above armed with nothing but her javelins. Bazooka: "Hello?" Flint: "Shhh! They could be anywhere!" The Joes discover a 1980s cartoon computer lab.
Jaye arrives and confirms the Mesa Death Cathedral is completely empty. Flint says "call Col. Sharp" and Col. Sharp appears on a monitor, apparently having watched the whole thing. GI Joe in season one had a very ad-hoc command hierarchy. It went [generic joes] -> [named Joes with action figures] -> [female Joes, sometimes, depending] -> Flint -> Duke -> Col. Sharp. The Colonel only shows up a few times, and while it does make sense that a Colonel is in charge, that's the hard stop to things making sense. I recently found this, it's an archive of all the collector cards that came with the toys. Y'all can spot the incoherence yourselves, but it does amuse me anybody who's ever been in the US Military comments how wildly out of regulation the hair/facial hair is.
Anyway, Col. Sharp explains what is going on. They are inside a massive new DoD computer named Watchdog, the world's most advanced computer. The computer can also project holograms, the 1980s most favorite magic technology, though I don't think it comes up again. It's also going to be GI Joe's new commander, as Prof. Hamler designer of watchdog, appears to explain.
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| Col. Sharp left, Prof. Hamler right. Sharp is not angry, he's just drawn that way. |
This computer as you might guess is far more than a computer, it's a communications and reconnaissance network that can synthesize commands to deal with any conceivable threat. The Joes are going to be issued these communicators:
The Joes are nonplussed, so Prof. Hamler arranges a demonstration.
Later that morning back at Joe HQ, Watchdog announces he's found the Cerberus, Destro's private yacht, in the Indian ocean. Flint asks what forces the Joes have in that area, and Breaker (comms guy, in grey,) says "there's not much point; Watchdog has already dispatched the Flagg [Joe aircraft Carrier and MEGATOY] to attack it."
The Joes intercept the Cerberus, and after a battle, (where the Cerberus gets absolutely walloped by the Joe aircraft) the Cerberus appears to sink. That done, Watchdog is already vectoring the Joes on a new target, but Flint gets Shipwreck to see if there are any Cobra VIP signs. Shipwreck [Sailor, brawler, the only male Joe who has the full range of human emotion] is in a Joe Shark, which is an...airplane / submarine/its complected, which Shipwreck uses to dive into the water and finds no sign of the Cerberus - or its sinking hulk.
[joe commercial interstitial]
Watchdog basically says not to worry about that, the wreck is covered in sediment, CPO DelGato (IE Shipwreck) is wrong. It orders him back to the Flagg. But of course this is Shipwreck, so he mumbles "sediment my left barnacle" and drops his Watchdog comm box into a torpedo tube.
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| audio: a computer protesting |
Shipwreck gonna snoop around
MEANWHILE
We cut to the Cerberus, (it is, naturally, a submarine) and Cobra Commander is with Destro, and is in hysterics - but this time that means he is laughing so hard he can barely talk. In short, Watchdog is a Cobra project which Cobra conned the US DoD into building, to the point that not only did the US fund the thing, it even gave Cobra tax breaks and assistance securing financing. And game respecting game, that is hilariously funny. The Cerberus has docked at what for Cobra is a modest undersea base:
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| Mario is going to want those pipes back, though |
so we can get Cobra's plan:
1. Get the US Government to fund building the world's most advanced computer so the Joe team can be automated onto targets. [x]
2. Use the computer to spread out the Joe team as much as possible on a snipe hunt. [x]
3. Use THE PIT VIPER to destroy Joe HQ.[ ]
The Pit Viper is being finished as Destro and CC look down. Things you need to know about the Pit Viper: first, the model for it has been used before on GI Joe and will be used again. Second, it is a digging machine that is completely automated, although clearly built to be controlled by a human crew. Third, because it apparently can drill through the earth's mantle like it ain't no thing, it's invulnerable to most weapons.
MEANWHILE, BACK AT JOE BASE
Scarlett (martial arts and crossbow infused intel officer, wearing what possibly is the only female bodysuit that seems actually optimized for freedom of movement and practicality rather than sexiness) asks Breaker where everybody is. He tells her that Watchdog has everybody out across the world, looking for Cobra targets. There's a detail here that in midst of, well, [gestures at episode] that doesn't get quite established: that the Joes have some sort of defense in depth, a defense system that makes them almost impossible to attack, even with just 2 people on base. This is why Cobra is sending the Pit Viper rather than, I dunno, a wing of its helicopter carrier fleet.
Anyway we see the results Watchdog's orders, of this, and they are not very impressive. A convoy of awestrikers rolls through a jungle, and find a long crashed Fang copter. A second group driving the tiniest tankettes through blowing sand find a single dead Hiss tank.
The snow joes in an arctic biome find an actual base - long abandoned, except by a giant spider?
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| The size of the cobwebs are concerning. |
Scarlett has a feeling something is up as the AI fails again and again. She asks about Shipwreck ---
----who's just found the Cerberus, docked to a Cobra base. Shipwreck attempts to report, but before he can, he's knocked out by an attack that wrecks his shark. He survives this, of course, I just want to point out Shipwreck was blown out of the sky and hits the water at a few hundred kilometers per hour before sinking. Anyway---
Shipwreck wakes up in an infirmary, Prof. Hamler is there, saying Watchdog managed to save him. Shipwreck tries to pass on the message about the Cobra base, and Hamler is all "Oh, you didn't get the warning off? Well, that doesn't matter, now. Come with me." In the next room and Cobra Comander and Destro.
Shipwreck puts two and two together that Watchdog is controlled by Cobra. Also the Joe base has an automated defense system, but Watchdog turned it off?
Anyway, Shipwreck could really use a flash grenade.
The unconscious Shipwreck is brought to the control center so CC can "watch him squirm" as the Joe base is destroyed.
{commercial break}
Meanwhile, the Pit Viper is off.
In possibly the only time the technology makes sense, Destro uses Watchdog to get access to all the Joe base security cameras, allowing Destro and Cobra Commander to watch the destruction live.
MEANWHILE
At the Joe Base, all comms and systems suddenly go out. The Pit Viper, somewhere in size between a railway locomotive and a small warehouse, erupts from the floor and begins tearin' shit up:
As you might guess with Cobra Commander almost throwing out devil horns, he is over the moon with happiness. Shipwreck scoffs "I'm surprised you don't call them long distance to brag." Cobra Commander thinks that an excellent idea! CC: "Let's reach out and crush someone!" The Commander enables Joe Comms over Destro's objection, and then calls in by videophone to mock Scarlett.
Of course, here is shipwreck's chance:
Shipwreck yells "Watchdog is a Cobra agent, destroy it" before being beaten into unconsciousness. Cobra Commander denounces Shipwreck's action as foolish, but Destro points out the Joes have their comms back, and now know Watchdog is the enemy. Naturally, as a contingency Cobra has the Death Cathedral Mesa re-stocked with real Cobra troops.
If Shipwreck proven he's not a trifling son of a bitch, Breaker and Scarlett are about to do the same. Breaker contacts the disparate Joe forces and recalls them to attack Watchdog mesa. Meanwhile Scarlett discovers explosive crossbow bolts don't do much damage to something that can burrow though the earth's mantle.
Meanwhile, a big battle happens:
Scarlett is running out of room to escalate:
Breaker, however, has a different idea that starts with Scarlett being permanently deafened:
MEANWHILE:
Back at the mesa, the Mesa continues to pump out fire. Flint, exhausted, is about to order a retreat to regroup when the ground begins to rumble.
Don't ask me where Scarlett and Breaker found parachutes in a mole machine, the Mesa explodes but good
Naturally Cobra Commander is now wailing in misery, ever the eternal bad 5 year old. He grabs the chair Shipwreck is tied up in, and breaks the monitor with it. Destro pipes up with "this was still a good plan, we wrecked the joe base, and a shit ton of their vehicles" and CC tosses the chair at Destro's head, the start of a frank exchange of views
Shipwreck quietly escapes, likely helped by any Cobra knowing very well to steer clear of anyplace Cobra Commander and Destro are arguing.
Later, literally in the ruins of Joe HQ, a telepresence Col. Sharp says "he was against this from the start." 'Prof. Hamler' sold the Joint Chiefs on the idea so quickly nobody did a background check, which would have shown the Professor had died in 1978.
Moral: AI is shit, giant fuckoff mole machines are pretty awesome
FIN
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