Rename (alt titles crowner 4/24): Gundamjack

Is "impenetrable name" alone not a reason to rename? Not all of us are weea— I mean, watchers of anime.

You don't need to watch anime to know that Gundam has to do with giant robots. Heck, in South Korea, the term Gundam really is just a word for "giant robot".

Anyway, I guess a proposition crowner is in order.

Gundamjack is Hijacking A Gundam

I suggest this for alternative name, even though I would preffer it to stay as Gundamjack because it's cool.

By the way, I really feel that this war against tropes named after something is insulting reader's inteligence.

I hate this title. It is bad in so many ways that supporting it seems like a exercise in fan myopia.

Mecha Hijack seems so much better and more transparent. It's not even a contest as far as I'm concerned.

Well, we could always keep the pun and make it Mechajack.

edited 17th Feb '12 12:06:15 PM by lu127

Except that is not the trope.

Okay, probably Crowner time. Even if it isn't, I want to start running down the list of options we've discussed.

1. no action (if this hits a 1:2 ratio, the top option wins).
2. create one or more supertropes and indexes.
3. rename to a less specific name.
4. redefine gundamjack to just theft (and/or theft and use) of enemy hardware, which no longer limits this trope to vehicles.
5. redefine to be about stealing enemy Mechas, and trope transplant the current definition.

Possible tropes or indexes:

• stealing things
• hijacking enemy tools.
• hijacking military prototypes
• hijacking vehicles
• stealing and analyzing information on an enemy prototype.

edited 17th Feb '12 12:25:44 PM by crazysamaritan

Capturing warships and then using the warships against the same enemy you stole it from happens all the time, in the Wooden Ships and Iron Men era. As a matter of fact, I've toyed before with the idea of making a trope for that sort of thing.

I'm pretty sure the iconic western example of 'steal the enemy's specially-made military vehicle' is The Hunt For Red October.

My personal preference is we make a high level Hijacking Shit trope for hijacking stuff which would include all forms of hijacking, from hijacking someones body to the hero hijacking someones transportation to get to the final confrontation.

Next level down would be Hijacking Military Shit for when it's about important military objectives, this strikes me as a common subtrope for military stuff predominantly because it carries the mentality that the reason for the hijacking is to use it against the enemy in addition to denying its use by the enemy, a military tactics twofer.

Lower level would be Hijacking Unique Military Shit a subtrope of the above where the thing being hijacked is some sort of game changer for the war (there's always a war) because of its uniqueness and the implications of being able to copy and mass produce it later. I'd like to move the current Gundam Jack here.

Names to be decided later.

That would be the logical way of organizing things.

That sounds like an excellent argument for organizing things that way, then.

I like it!

That would leave Hijacking Unique Shit That Is Not Military without a place to go (for instance, Hijacking Unique Scientific Shit, Hijacking Unique Magical Shit, etc.). How about the Hijacking Shit supertrope plus two equal-level subtropes, Hijacking Military Shit and Hijacking Unique Shit? Cases of Hijacking Unique Military Shit would then just get both subtropes.

edited 17th Feb '12 6:06:52 PM by lebrel

Because HUMS is an extremely common example of both HMS and HUS? We could just create additional subtropes from HUSS &c if it turned out we had a lot of examples of them. We don't yet know that's the case.

edited 17th Feb '12 6:09:07 PM by Noaqiyeum

Well, I'd at least have a HUS trope in there somewhere, not just a HUMS.

[edit] I mean, there's a zillion fantasy plots about "we must steal the enemy's Artifact of Doom so we may use it against them", and about as many science fiction plots about "we must steal the enemy's Doomsday Device so we may use it against them". I don't think we have a trope to cover those cases at all.

edited 17th Feb '12 6:14:09 PM by lebrel

...

What I mean is, Deboss is describing a hierarchical tree. There's nothing to prevent us from making additional tropes fitting other points on the tree if there are enough examples for them. HUS has lots of examples? Great. Trope it.

Deboss's plan is an excellent way of combating Missing Supertrope Syndrome. We make sure that the highest level tropes are made. Further subtropes can be made as they're identified.

My experience with HUS is that it's normally not actually something relevant, and is usually used more as a MacGuffin than as something directly useful. The writer doesn't have to explain why a MacGuffin is useful, it just is something the heroes want for whatever reason. In addition, a writer doesn't have to explain why it's important to hijack the enemy ship, we know exactly what's going to happen, the heroes are going to shoot people with it.

That said, there's no specific reason that we can't have a Hijacking Unique Shit trope, it's just that we're primarily looking at a trope built around a military premise, stealing weapons/vehicles for the most part. This is essentially the same as building in a basic plot line without having to go into the hows and whys too far.

Any actual name suggestions for the high level supertrope? I'd suggest Hijack This Index, but index is usually a sign of an Index Index rather than a high level trope.

Why not just "Highjack" as the supertrope?

Hijacking might work better. So, YKTTW for index level stuff or what?

Highjack is easier to use in a sentence though as this is a trope that tends to be very verby. People tend to say: Alice and Carol Highjack Bob's toilet. Highjacking is less likely to be used in a sentence and can easily be made from Highjack.

Hijacking Stuff. Hijacking Something.

^^Good point. Hijack Stuff.

edited 17th Feb '12 7:46:42 PM by Madrugada

YKTTW permanent link for Hijack.

Update as needed and what not.

Gundamjack is a typical petty crime involving sepulkaria...