Episode 48: The Cyborgs Take Detroit

Detroit obviously has a crazy awesome heritage. I mean this one city in Michigan has given us lotsa really good stuff. Ted Nugent, just about every car imagineable and Insane Clown Posse, just to name a few. Don't even start bugging me about Eminem because I just don't give a shit.

But let's face it, Detroit has become run down. The manufacturers of cars are losing out big time and unemployment is only growing, all over the place...what else it new?

So a group of citizens banded together and made a decision, why not a statue of Robocop?

That's right, Robocop. Dead-Or-Alive-You're-Coming-With-Me Robocop.

Why? Well, why not?

I'm all for striking pants-shitting fear into the hearts of willful criminals everywhere. Maybe it might be a little frontier for most but why not a cyborg armed with an automatic pistol and an accurate-as-fuck targeting display that means he don't need no steenkin' sights on the damn gun? I know if I shot something and the goddamn thing didn't drop and nothing was doing the trick, fuck it, let's roll the dice in court and see what comes up. Robo just shows that if you can't dazzle them with brilliance, you riddle them with bullets.

Let's take a look at the life of this bad hunka steel and flesh.

Born Alex J. Murphy, he transfers to the roughest precinct in Detroit. Obviously, in this scenario, Detroit really went to hell in the absence of the Motor City Madman and Chuck Norris and ol' Murphy thinks he's got what it takes to kick some ass, take some names and restore Detroit to it's former glory. A few problems existed.

First, he's got a gum-chewing partner without sense enough to use a fucking gun to stop the people shooting her partner.

Second, you never face an armed gang alone. You call for backup.

Third, I don't care if you are a cop, padding does not count as body armor

Fourth, you're driving a Ford Taurus. Surely Detroit could have put something better than that on the streets.

So Murphy bites it in the most horrible way possible and what happens?

Enter Omni Consumer Products, henceforth known as OCP, the corporate entity aiming at building Delta City. Just one problem...

Alex J. Murphy. Remember that guy? Yeah he just got his balls blasted off for his bravery and not even a fuckin' funeral. So that kinda shows you that these coke empire-running assholes have the city. These guys are out there robbing banks, blowing shit up and peddling drugs to everyone including Robin Williams, their best customer.

So with the asshole gangs running shit and unemployment skyrocketing, there's only one solution. Get the cops to clean up the streets, right? Fuck...that's right, OCP owns the cops and the number one rule of any business is to make money, not spend it. OCP has held back their own police and now, some corporate chucklehead wants to unleash his unholy hell-raising machine ED-209 on the streets. Problem, in a product test presentation, ED-209 blasted one guy so badly that even God said, "Dude! That was fucked up!" Then some younger corporate yuppie starts in on the CEO about his creation...Robocop.

The idea is a good one. Take a wasted cop, pop some new parts onto him and voila! You got a cop that doesn't have to worry about benefits, what his pay's lookin like or even retirement. Isn't that nice?

So that program is implemented and becomes a success. Murphy's back on the street and unlike most drunks, he's bulletproof...he still drives that fucking Taurus though. At some point though, while ED-209 was more efficient, Robo has that human brain thingy which is far more advanced than any computer. It also has a memory storage that still stands unrivalled and so when recall happens...it's a bitch. And that's what happened to Murphy. All the memories start resurfacing and then, it happens. Bill Gates shat himself, Steve Jobs started pissing iPods and Robocop went absolutely bugfuck. No one could fix this. How would you like to realize that you were human and now you have a bulky as shit body that barely anything will support and every footstep sounds like a front-end loader from Aliens? Yeah I'd be pissed off too.

One by one he tracks them down. Fuck due process, your rights and motherfuck your goddamned attorney, this thing packs a gun inside his fucking leg! What's your attorney packing other than a bad case of constipation. Oh and did I mention the spike that looks like a middle finger? Yeah, a pop out USB plug just wouldn't seem as cool, I think.

Robocop has one minor problem. After he fucks off the Constitutional rights that most accused parties don't even know they have, he tracks down the kingpin; the creator/presenter of ED-209...and he can't do shit to him.

See, OCP has programmed Robo with three prime directives.

1. Serve The Public Trust
2. Protect The Innocent
3. Uphold The Law...give or take due process at tracking down and capturing your own murderers.

But there's a fourth one that completely kills his whole Robovibe...He cannot arrest any employee of OCP.

Complete diplomatic immunity. Nevermind that he's also killed the guy who started the Robocop project or that...ohhhh...yeah, he's running the coke operation, completely negating the Delta City project.

Unfortunately for that guy, he's fired by the CEO and Robocop gives him a taste of his own medicine...by pulling the ED-209 routine with him, leaving Robo and the rest of Detroit PD to clean up the city of crime and allow OCP to build Delta City.

Ummm...no. Not only no but HELL no.

Enter part two. Now there's a designer drug called Nuke on the streets and it's being manufactured by Cain, the leader of a cult surrounding this drug. How do you spell Whack-A-Mole? So Robo's on his mission to get rid of this drug and the whole works. Meanwhile, he's also got OCP's bullshit along with the corrupt politicians in office AND NOW Detroit PD's on strike. I kinda thought a corporate-owned police force would have had that bit ixnayed but I could be wrong.

Let's make a long story short, shall we?

OCP wants a new model of Robocop, since their last one performed a self-jailbreak and decided his human side was what he really wanted to go with. Oh they patch that and Robo performs a hard reset...by grabbing two really fucking big live wires. Look, OCP...he hacked HIMSELF! Nothing you do is going to stop that. He did it once what makes you think the new patch is going to take?

The new model keeps up with epic fail time and time again. So that's when some new blood in OCP decides to use wasted criminals instead of wasted cops. Cain nearly gets waxed by Robo and she finishes the job while Cain's incapacitated in the hospital. Cain proves to be anything but a Robocop 2.0...he's just a bigger, badder robotic version of his own drug-addled ass.

So now it's Robocop and Cain for another round and, true to form, Robo wins but not without the help of his friends at Detroit PD. It's not exactly a spoiler there, there was a third film not worth mentioning and a series on TV that made Robocop's footsteps sound more like a garbage can was being slammed around.

So with those kinds of insumountable odds and two self-hacks to his own programming...why not a Statue of Robocop?

Robo only proved one thing about Detroit and I'll end my sermon with this....

Tough Times Never Last...Tough People Do.