Mecha-Mooks: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

 

* A subversion of this trope are the Pacifistas in ''[[One Piece]]'' {{spoiler|as they are cyborgs modified to be human weapons by the evil World Government, and they are anything but as just one of them took the Straw Hats everything they had to beat just one pre-timeskip.}}

* ''[[Star Blazers]]'' was infamous for, as an American adaption of anime, having enemy soldiers who were killed described as "robots".

* ''[[Gundam Wing]]'' makes this a major plot point with the introduction of Mobile Dolls, mecha controlled by an AI program rather than a human pilot. Its introduction widens the pre-existing ideological fissure within OZ, between [[Worthy Opponent|noble-minded soldiers]] who hate them for dehumanizing war, and [[War for Fun and Profit|heartless war profiteers who love them for being good business]], which results in an outright civil war between the supporters of Treize (who is the former) and Duke Dermail (the latter).

* Jail Scaglietti's [[Anti-Magic]] Field protected Gadget Drones in ''[[Lyrical Nanoha|Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha]]''. Precia also had her own small army of Mecha-Mooks protecting the Garden of Time.

== Comics ==

* Spoofed in ''[[Tom Strong]]'', where Timmy Turbo realizes that "We can be as violent as we like with these teachers, because they're just ''robots''!"

* Codified in an issue of ''[[Exiles]]'', when Mimic reflects that superheroes really, really love fighting robots for the sheer pleasure of unfettered destruction.

* The robotic aliens who hunt the title character in ''[[Omega the Unknown]].

* [[Superman]] is one of the few ''good guys'' to keep a contingent of Mecha-Mooks, the Superman Robots in the Fortress of Solitude. In the Silver Age, he mainly used them as [[Robot Me|decoys]] to preserve his secret identity, and occasionally to pinch hit for him when he'd been incapacitated by Kryptonite or some such. A [[Dropped a Bridge on Him|bridge got dropped]] on the bunch of them in the [[Bronze Age]], but they were reintroduced in the [[Post-Crisis|modern era]] and occasionally appear in the present day.

* The minor [[Spider-Man]] villain Armada was a [[Robot Master]] who liked to build little flying robots to attack enemies with. The interesting thing is that he ''cared'' about their welfare, and would [[Berserk Button|freak out]] when they inevitably started getting destroyed.

* A major plot point in ''Savage'' from about 2007 onwards is the introduction of robot soldiers by both sides in the war. It began with the Allies deploying Hammersteins in Wales, which were so effective that the Volgans had to develop their own robots, the depraved Blackbloods, to compensate. These robots invert the normal rules of mecha-mooks by being much stronger and tougher than human soldiers, what with being made of metal and all.

* [[Moon Knight|Doug Moench's]] ''[[Electric Warrior]]'' had a [[Heel Face Turn|refomed]] Mecha Mook as the main character.

 

== Films -- Animation ==

 

 

* The Robot Santas from the ''[[Doctor Who]]'' episode "The Runaway Bride" were robots under the control of the Queen of the Racnoss. They also appeared in "The Christmas Invasion", although there they were working by themselves.

** Also, while the Doctor might pay lip-service to [[Wangst]] over killing those poor defenceless rampaging armies of death that are Cybermen and Daleks, imagine the difference if organic beings were killed off in similar numbers. [[Fridge Logic|Despite the fact that, under the armour, they are organic beings.]]

** The Second Doctor fought [[Doctor Who/Recap/S6 E1 The Dominators|the Dominators]] and their army of Mecha Mooks, the Quarks. The spiky-faced little dudes seem to have made an impression: when the Time Lords put him [[Doctor Who/Recap/S6 E7 The War Games|on trial]], the Doctor mentions the Quarks alongside the Daleks and Cybermen in his list of cosmic evils who need to be fought.

 

** Played straight with Tau Gun Drones, though they are only used in a supporting role to the living Tau Fire Caste soldiers.

** Imperial Servitors are this to any Techpriest. Their biological components are more or less used to support their technological ones, rather the other way around for conventional cyborgs.

* Unmanned combat drones are ''everywhere'' in ''[[Shadowrun]]''. From spy-cameras disguised as pigeons to robot tanks.

* These are the main troops of the genocidal human civilization Wreathe in [[Mortasheen]], all modeled after Pre-Cambrian creatures. In a subversion, these are usually more powerful than lower level characters.

** In the German version of ''[[Command & Conquer]] Generals'', the "real world" GLA soldiers were replaced with cyborg clones that bleed green. Referenced in ''[[AH Dot Com the Series]]'', which has The Germans (a mercenary group of recurring characters) use "Cyborg Robots with Green Blood" as their disposable muscle.

*** Most (probably all) earlier Versions of ''C&C'' did the same, with soldiers being cyborgs with black "blood" (supposed to be oil) and also cyborg guard dogs... even in the booklets the pictures of these units were crossed with a bar noting "top secret" so you couldn't see the faces... in the GAME itself tho those faces were still used as the build icons, so one must wonder what that was all about.

* The [[Starfish Aliens|Ceph]] from ''[[Crysis (series)|Crysis]]'' use an army of tentacled [[Powered Armor|exosuits]] and small man-sized octopus robots to take over the Lingshan Islands. They all explode upon death (with [[MacGuffin|one]] notable exception), but it has more to do with preventing humans from acquiring alien technologies than with dealing damage.

* ''[[God Hand]]'' has a great deal of robot enemies in the fourth level. They aren't too different from the regular type, but it helps emphasize the level's mechanical theme (as opposed to Western, wasteland, or circus, the themes of the preceding levels). The boss of the level is a mecha [[Giant Mook]], Dr. Ion.

* ''[[Mass Effect]]'' has the Geth, an entire race of these. The sequel adds a series of cheap, mass-produced robotic security troops (called "Mechs" in-universe, natch), that are roughly on-par with an Imperial Stormtrooper in terms of intelligence and accuracy, though Imperial Stormtroopers never had robotic dogs and giant missile-firing robots backing them up. Unlike the Geth the Mechs do not use true AI, and may even be more in-line with the trope's definition as they do not think for themselves, are surprisingly resilient - blowing off a limb only slows them down, doesn't stop them (they actually have a taser-like device on their non-gun arm. Even if you take off its legs it'll still crawl towards you with the intent to self-destruct in your face. Usually encountered in hordes.

** The Geth themselves seem to be a slight subversion of the trope. They have a smooth organic appearance, bleed some sort of white blood-equivalent, give off odd electronic death-squeels when shot, and don't explode upon death. This doesn't stop the heroes from mowing them down by the score without batting an eyelid, however.

* Many ''[[Transformers]]'' games have you fighting numerous generic or nameless enemy chassis (the Armada game, called simply "Transformers" in the states, coined them as "Decepti-clones"). Different from the TV shows in that every character shown was given a name.

* The [[What Measure Is a Non-Human?]] part got a nice Lampshade Hanging in ''[[The Incredibles|The Incredibles: Rise of the Underminer]]'', where Mr. Incredible spots the first robot enemies in the tutorial stage and quips, "I guess that means we don't have to play nice!"

* ''[[SD Snatcher]]'' gives Gillian a large variety of Metal Creatures to do battle with.

* [[Serious Sam]] 2 has the Floaters, Spawners, Rollers, Rhino Cybertoys, Rocket Turrets, Fatso Fighter Planes, Seagull Bombers, and Giant Cyborg Spiders which are usually mixed in with the various other enemy types, primarily zombies, aliens, and bio-machines.

* Parodied in ''[[Ask a Ninja]]'', where the ninja says that [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evkMVb839Lc robots are no fun to kill.]

* ''[[Whateley Universe]]'' example: in "Ayla and the Great Shoulder Angel Conspiracy" and "Ayla and the Birthday Brawl", Team Kimba are going through a Team Tactics course. Their first 'pop quiz' is against robots and mechanical weapons. Their big 'invading the supervillain lair' simulation includes an armada of Mecha-Mooks. In neither of these are there tons of exploding robots, except where Tennyo and Fey unleash their powers.

 

 

** Modern audiences may remember this as the Walking Eye from ''[[The Venture Brothers]]''. Walking Eye!

** Though in general the original ''[[Jonny Quest]]'' series [[Moral Dissonance|didn't have many problems killing off human Mooks]] as long as it wasn't ''too'' graphic, like the two frogmen crushed by the leaping motorboat in the title sequence.

* Heavily subverted by ''[[Samurai Jack]]'': although he only ever cut the Mecha-Mooks (or [[Demonic Invaders]]) with his sword, they always seemed to be [[Ridiculously-Human Robots]], either outside or internally ("veins" and "bones" in the interior of a roach-robot Jack cut in two, for instance). This allowed the show to get away with the [[High-Pressure Blood]] trope and other extreme scenes of carnage, because [[Symbolic Blood|it was just oil]]. ''Really.''

** Additionally subverted in one episode in which an episode is told through the perspective of a mecha-mook, and his very real, very human emotions are made painfully apparent to the viewer. Then he fights Jack and gets cut up like any other robotic malcontent.

*** There's also the Terrorcons from the five-part pilot, robot zombies whose on purpose in unlife was to get gloriously dismembered by Optimus Prime and Ratchet.

* ''[[Duck Dodgers]]''

** In an episode, due to [[Applied Phlebotinum]] Cadet is transformed into a gruff, testosterone-fueled, hulking [[Action Hero]] and viciously blows up two enemy fighter ships.

{{quote|'''Dodgers:''' Uh..., those were just ''robot''-piloted ships, right?

* ''[[Buzz Lightyear of Star Command]]''. Hornets. Interestingly enough, the [[Robot Buddy]] protagonist is the target of more violence than any villain, [[Good Thing You Can Heal|since he's capable of being rebuilt from ridiculous amounts of damage.]]

* In ''[[Challenge of the Go Bots]]'', the "robot" protagonists are actually [[Brain In a Jar|cyborgs,]] living beings despite their mechanical appearance. However, the villains used nonsentient, inorganic [[Humongous Mecha]] called Zods which the heroes could destroy without any ethical quibbles.

* Referenced in ''[[Darkwing Duck (animation)|Darkwing Duck]]'', a series famous for averting [[Never Say "Die"]] (at least in the earlier seasons, before [[Executive Meddling]] came in full force). In the first season episode "Bearskin Thug", villain Steelbeak's trained bear turns out to be a robot. Upon learning this, Darkwing says "Then I can take off the kid gloves!"

* The Brigadiers from ''[[Skyland]]''.

* ''[[Teen Titans (animation)|Teen Titans]]'' has a surprisingly wide variety of Mooks, but some definitely fall into this category. Slade's robots from the first two seasons are clearly there just to get blown up (though they serve the dual purpose of allowing him to [[Hannibal Lecture]] his enemies remotely from the comfort of his own home). Brother Blood in the third season uses human soldiers at first, but then switches over to [[Elite Mooks|Elite]] Mecha-Mooks based on Cyborg, which are actually quite tough, especially when there's a lot of them. In season four, the mooks are [[The Legions of Hell|demons]], which while not technically robots blow up just as nicely and painlessly. The fifth season, however, features [[The Chessmaster|the Brain]] using a pretty even mix of mechanical and human Mooks.

** Very nearly done in ''[[Teen Titans: Trouble in Tokyo]]'', too. In fact it would have been, had they been robots instead of living ink.

* Averted very subtly in ''[[Adventures of the Galaxy Rangers]]''. The Crown Agents look and sound like robots. However, they take bribes, argue, go rogue, scream and throw up their hands when their plane crashes into a tower, etc. More damning is that the Ranger [[Technopath]] Doc Hartford ''never'' used his powers against them, though he could subvert most any technology with ease. "Lord of the Sands" topped it by having Zach admit "''As far as we know,'' Crown Agents are some kind of robot..."

* Deuce's robot army in ''[[Loonatics Unleashed]]''.