Headscratchers / Wreck-It Ralph — Hero's Duty

• Calhoun berates "Markowski" for breaking the first basic rule of the game: never get in the way of the player character. But... isn't that a basic mechanic of games in this genre in arcades? The fellow soldier or civilian who pops out at inopportune times and penalizes the player for shooting them? Or was it just the face-hugging that went too far?
  • I think it had more to do with "breaking the script" as it were. CERTAIN NPCs are allowed, nay, SUPPOSED to get in the player's way at CERTAIN times. Ralph, however, wasn't playing to the script, and was actually physically interfering with the robot, hence Calhoun's ire.
    • Covering the entire damn screen with his face for too long, and with no way to see the attacking Cy-Bugs, went too far.
    • And by "going too far" we mean making the Moppet Girl quit in disgust after assuming the game is ripping her off (that is, deliberately making her lose so she''ll have to insert more coins to continue; in a game that costs TWO WHOLE DOLLARS FOR ONE LIFE!). In arcade with frequenting customers, developing such a reputation is a surefire way to get unplugged.
  • What if it's not a basic mechanic of games in this genre? Maybe every soldier or civilian who pops out at inopportune times and penalizes you for shooting them is some character in disguise who wandered away from their own game!
• So what's with Markowski's PTSD? Isn't the rule that you can't die forever as long as you stay in your game?
  • He's programmed that way.
  • He can't die forever, but he can still die painfully and repeatedly then get sent back out to fight the same enemies that keep killing him.
  • It may be that part of the script calls for him to get killed because he's a buffoon. Meaning his job is to die every day for all eternity. Not exactly the best job in the world even by WIR standards.
    • On that logic, we only saw the opening minute or so of the game. Given that 'Cybugs become what they eat', it's very likely that at some point a bug eats Markowski and becomes an 'Armored Cybug' as a boss encounter before you earn the medal.
  • As established by Ralph, a character in a game can be unhappy with the lot they are given, even if it's non-lethal. Markowski was unhappy with the danger of his game.
    • He'd also only been doing it for a week.
    • A very intense week where every day is climb the building and fight bugs, not to mention taking orders from an intense commanding officer like Calhoun. And repeating every time there's a "Quarter Alert."
• What the hell kind of game like Hero's Duty costs $2 in quarters to play?!
  • Standard practice in video arcades, now. Any time a new, high end, cool looking game comes out you're going to pay extra money for it.
    • Also, keep in mind that it might just cost $2 to START play. Quite a few games cost $1 or $2 to start - but then only cost 50 cents to continue.
  • Part of it also the decline in popularity of arcades means that either they need more plays to break even or more expensive ones. It's pretty typical for arcades to be that expensive unless they have something else going for them like a restaurant or what have you.
  • In addition to the above, the game uses a custom-designed big-screen cabinet; it's not uncommon for a game in such a cabinet to cost more than the games around it, even if it's an older game.
  • Furthermore, it appears that the game releases "smoke" (like those decorative Halloween cauldrons) and flashes a ring of lights on the right side of the cabinet each time a new game is started. An effect like that is probably relatively expensive, in contrast to a game that just ends its title screen and starts a round.
• It's established early on that the Cybugs "become what they eat". And, as we learn at the end of the film, when a Cybug eats a sentient character, its AI gets (mostly) overwritten by that of the character it devoured. With that in mind, did Calhoun really have to kill the Cybug that ate Brad? All she'd have to do is wait a few seconds for her fiance's brain to overtake the Cybug's body. Granted, he'd be a hideous, malformed version of his original self, but he'd still have all his original memories, feelings and desires (and he'd still love her just as much).
  • Because it's a programmed backstory, not the actual real story told in the movie. Brad was never real; he is a part of Calhoun's programming so that she'd have a reason to be tougher in the game.
  • By merit of Cy-Bugs becoming people, the Cy-Bug seems to have a whole lot more control than the person it ate. And be honest, would you really, really want your true love to exist in that monstrous, destructive form? Face it, Calhoun didn't exactly have time to philosophise on the matter - she had to kill that hideous cy-bug right there. It's even possible that the end-game boss of Hero's Duty is something like that - maybe even Calhoun herself. Hey, it's in the job-description.
  • Turbo as a Cy-Bug went from "I'm the greatest racer ever!" to "I'm the strongest virus in the arcade!" and was even eviller than before (although it's hard to tell, admittedly.) There is absolutely nothing to say that Cy-Bug Brad would love Calhoun just as much or be anything more than an evil version of Brad.
• What would happen if one of the Cy-Bugs ate the first-person shooter?
  • Considering that one of the Cy-Bugs is clearly shown at least trying to do so (resulting in game over for Moppet Girl) but the FPS robot seems fine when Ralph tries to apologize to it immediately afterwards, it can be assumed that the model itself has some sort of Mercy Invincibility that protects it from Cy-Bugs to that extent, even if it is somehow attacked outside of a play session (or maybe the Cy-Bugs have some code that prevents them from eating the robot specifically). Additionally, considering that a Cy-Bug eating and thus fusing with a soldier is probably not too uncommon an occurrence in Hero's Duty, that'd probably be the imagery to be invoked if the first person robot were to be eaten. As for the interfacing-with-the-player part, who knows, the developers might've stuck that in as a game over screen that lets the player see the game through the eyes of the Cy-Bug that killed them.
  • I had imagined that the Hero's Duty characters either have some form of Cy-Bug immunity, First Person Shooter robot included, or, since it's a death in their own game, just eventually respawn back to normal. The Cy-Bug that ate King Candy took on his properties because he wasn't programmed with Cy-Bug immunity, and he didn't respawn when he hit the beacon because he was a Hero's Duty-slash-Turbo Time character.
    • More likely at some point the script of Hero's Duty calls for one of the Marines to be eaten by a Cybug as a boss, rather than mindlessly attacking it now is able to think up strategies other than, 'charge at FPS and try to eat it'. I could very easily see a Calhoun Cybug as the Final Boss of the game. King Candy probably triggered the Cybug's 'generate Boss' code, which is why he is so much more powerful than a normal Cybug.
• If a player finds out the portal to exit the game, can he visit the Game Central Station? Ralph does so ridiculously easily, by accident, using the escape pod. What if he brought the first-person shooter with him?
  • Hero's Duty would be unplayable without a player character so it would be put out of order. Alternatively, considering that the first-person shooter is a robot and not an actual character like Felix it could be impossible to remove it from its game like when Vanellope was a glitch.
  • Hero's Duty is an on-rails light gun shooter in the vein of Time Crisis and Virtua Cop. The player has no control over the robot's movement.
• How the heck did Ralph's hands fit into Markowski's battle suit? I couldn't have been the only one who noticed that the fingers looked too small...
  • Perhaps One Size Fits All applies to the Wreck-It Ralph-verse. A lot of games allow characters to put on whatever clothing or armor they find with minimal fuss, like The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, Hitman and just about all MMORPGs. Same thing happens here.
• The first person shooter robot in Hero's Duty has treads. The platform to get the medal has stairs.
  • Depending on the length of the treads, the robot could climb them.
  • One complaint about stairs in many first person shooter games is that they tend to feel like you're floating up them. Now we know why.
• Where is First Person Shooter in the wedding? All of the other characters from Hero's Duty are present (including General Hologram, the applauding space marines, and Markowski back in his battlesuit). Is First Person Shooter required to stay within Hero's Duty for some reason? I mean, we see a number of player characters present: Felix, Vanellope, Zangief, M. Bison, Sonic the Hedgehog, Q*Bert, Taffyta, Rancis, and Candle Head. It must be for a reason other than that.
  • The one shot we get of the attendees doesn't show the entire chapel. The robot ^note She? It? was probably near the back, out of range of the shot. In fact, his tracks might not have been able to fit between the pews, which would mean that he would have to stand in the very back.
• In the scene where King Candy is eaten by the Cy-Bug, we can clearly see that he drives directly into its mouth. Wouldn't that mean that the bug should've assimilated his kart along with him?
  • I have a theory for this one: Cybugs "become what they eat" by blending the code of the object/entity they've eaten with their own code. When they first spawn, they're in a sort of "blank" state, where their code is entirely their own. Then when they eat an object, that object's code is assimilated into theirs in a way that modifies the bug's physical appearance (and in some cases, its abilities). After that, they will no longer be able to assimilate objects.
  • But wait: Some people in the fandom think that the Cybug that ate King Candy is the same one that Ralph first brought into Sugar Rush with him. If that's true, then that Cybug had already eaten and assimilated something (i.e. the candy cane tree root in that underground tunnel we see after the Laffy Taffy scene). So why did it assimilate King Candy/Turbo?
    • Maybe it depends on how complex the object's code is. That candy root is simply a part of the game's scenery, barely worth a few zeroes and ones, and won't make much of a difference to the Cybug (except give it a new colour scheme), while King Candy is a playable character, with an incredibly complex code that uses HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of zeroes and ones (as we can see from his code box in Sugar Rush's code vault). Also, when he ran into the Cybug during the Random Roster Race, he had his kart with him too, which is worth its own fair amount of code. So when he was eaten and was in the process of being assimilated, the Cybug's coding was like "Oh, looks like there's two different objects here, better assimilate the more important one". In this case, the "more important one" was King Candy.And this did a lot more than just give the Cybug a new colour scheme...
    • The bug that eats King Candy also has a purple cerci and the same colour legs as King Candy's bug form, so some features got into the new model.
    • Never once do we hear that one Cy-Bug can only eat and assimiliate one thing per game. In other words, if the FPS lets a Cy-Bug eat and assimilate a weapon and doesn't/can't kill it, it can eat and assimilate other things/people, growing more powerful.
  • Who said it ate his kart? Maybe the Cybug scooped up King Candy, and the kart zoomed by directly underneath it.
• Wouldn't Calhoun's fiancee not actually exist since he's only a programmed memory?
  • The same could be said of Ralph's former home. He's as real as everyone's memory is, and that doesn't make the pain any less real.
  • The memories may be real in some form, as the same wedding chapel from Calhoun's traumatic memory appears in the ending. Perhaps non-interactive cutscenes such as those regarding backstory are merely "filmed" once, then characters like Brad and General Hologram retire to pixel paradise or something.
• Rail shooters are the one genre where you can bank on having unlimited ammunition. Why doesn't Calhoun have it?
  • There's a Hero's Duty game on the Disney website. IIRC, it doesn't have unlimited ammo.
    • The only unlimited ammo in the real Hero's Duty games is for your starting weapon, the one that deals the least damage with the lowest firing rate, naturally.
  • Because Calhoun's outside her home game at the time. Stuff doesn't respawn when you're outside your game.
  • Possible FridgeBrilliance brought on by reading this just now: Because she's an NPC. Think of all the events in Time Crisis or House of the Dead or what have you where you need to cover your teammates while they reload. The First-Person Shooter might have had infinite ammo, but it makes sense to me that Calhoun and her team wouldn't.
• Shouldn't the game have a health or life system? It seems like getting hit by a Cy-Bug is game over.
  • It's an Arcade game. To keep you pumping coins in, they are a lot harder, with shorter life-bars.
• What would happen in the game if more than one player plays? Would the First-Person Shooter have more arms?
  • Depends if the movement is on-rails or is controllable. If the former, then possibly more arms. If the latter, then there would be two robots.
    • Most likely the former, there doesn't seem to be any way to manually control the robot's movements.
• The programming of the Cy-Bugs. They're a virus and, given game hopping, could destroy an entire arcade's worth of cabinets. However, there was no way for the in-universe game developers to know about game hopping, so they just wrote a simple "Attack->Eat->Assimilate" code instead of several other complicated checks to make sure that cy-bugs don't do this or that. Rather, they were confident that stuff works inside the game. Only after Cy-Bugs are removed from their natural environment do they start to cause a mess. They never naturally tried to leave Hero's Duty. The developers at least put in a simple removal code that just checks if there's a beacon (as opposed to the game-specific Beacon) in order to kill the Cy-Bugs.
  • There probably were some safeguards against Cy-Bugs leaving via network. The developers just didn't anticipate code spreading via power cords.
  • Alternately, Cy-Bugs aren't actual viruses, but they act like a highly invasive species (think Zerg) within the parameters of Hero's Duty. Unfortunately, what the Devs didn't know was that Art Initiates Life in video games, so they didn't think to put in extra safeguards beyond "kill all cy-bugs and return to Attract Mode upon game over." In that case, the heroes were lucky that there was a suitable metaphorical representation for the Cy-Bug Zapper in the first place!
• Assuming, as is seen in a brief scene, that the "shuttle" connecting Hero's Duty to Game Central Station is some sort of subway or train, how was it that Ralph's escape pod could've left the game through the power cord? Shouldn't that have wrecked either the pod or the train, or both?
  • Presumably there was enough room between the end of the train and the entrance to the power cord for the shuttle to fit.
• The Cybug that traveled from Hero's Duty to Sugar Rush did so while still within its egg, and it was the only one to do so. How was it able to reproduce? Or do these things reproduce asexually?
  • The Cybugs do not appear to be a biological species, so it is entirely possible they reproduce asexually.
  • And pretty much confirmed by the fact that just one of them was able to produce an entire underground cavern full of eggs.
• Here's my question: If the Beacon that triggers upon player-character death kills all the cybugs, why doesn't the military command just fire the Beacon remotely from orbit rather than wasting 100 space marines wearing a million bucks worth of hardware each? I know, I know, "there's no game otherwise", but it's one of those things that sticks with you...
  • Maybe because, in-game storywise, they can't turn it on from afar (basically the aversion of Everything Is Online), and the cybugs just happens to attack it first. Turning it on is the objective of the game. it's just that, for some asinine reason, the Game Developer chooses to, in case of player failure, destroy the bugs via the beacon instead of just deleting them on the spot.
  • Perhaps it was sabotaged? Hero's Duty's narrator mentions that something went horribly wrong when the Cy-Bugs were being created. Presumably that's what went horribly wrong.
  • The beacon isn't a part of the game. That is, it's part of the program, but it's background code meant for behind-the-scenes. It's similar to asking "Why can't they just stop Darth Vader by getting the director to use the clapboard and say 'Okay everyone, take five!'"
• Why does Calhoun tell her troops that she would only say the "Fear is a four-letter word" speech once? I mean her game would still be plugged in for the foreseeable future (i.e. for at least six years). Wouldn't she run out of speeches to tell?

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