Fullmetal Cyborg?!

[KhakiBlueSocks]

Okay, I'm in the library waiting for my car to come out the shop, (I'm just getting my spark plugs changed--a job I'm not strong enough to take on) and I decide to see what kind of information Wikipedia has on Fullmetal Alchemist. I click on "Automail" and I bring up the information, but under "See Also" there's a subheading for "Cyborg"...

Somehow, I don't see Ed as being a "Cyborg". I mean, they have thousands of people with mechanical or artifical limbs, and I don't think of them as being cyborgs...am I wrong?

[Tommy]

-Edited.-

[Debitt]

from dictionary.com:

cy·borg (sbôrg) n. -

A human who has certain physiological processes aided or controlled by mechanical or electronic devices.

So technically Ed would be a cyborg.

[mitsuki lover]

However I think most of us would define a cyborg as someone more like Seven of
Nine from Star Trek or Major Kusanagi from Ghost In The Shell.

[termyt]

It depends on how specific you want to get.

A cyborg is usually defined as a person with some mix of artificial and natural body parts. (If you are all artificial, you are an android.) However, we don't normally consider someone with prosthetic body parts a cyborg.

We are starting to experiment with robotic prosthetics in real life, but no one is calling the people with them cyborgs, so the term will probably always be relegated to science fiction.

If the metal parts of Ed are just prosthetics, then I would say he is not a cyborg. If the parts are robotic, then I would say he falls under most definitions of cyborg, but if the series itself does not use that word, then it probably isn’t accurate for us to use it, either.

[mitsuki lover]

Interesting when Ed woke up on the other side of the gate at the end of yesterday's episode he no longer had an automail arm and leg.He also looked a bit dorkier.

[Doe Johnson]

Interesting when Ed woke up on the other side of the gate at the end of yesterday's episode he no longer had an automail arm and leg.He also looked a bit dorkier.

Hehehe...I so want to give away what's happening...but I can't....

Generally when I think of cyborg, it would be of a person with most of their body being mechanical. So that would mean like a leg, an arm, part of the trunk and maybe an eye or something. So I think of Ed as simply having prosthetic body parts while I think of that one weird state worker dude as being a cyborg.

[mitsuki lover]

Only two more left,if I got the number of episodes right.This week and next.

[Joshua Christopher]

Perhaps they were talking about...


LOGIC MEANS NOTHING!

[Doe Johnson]

Perhaps they were talking about...


LOGIC MEANS NOTHING!

That's exactly who I was thinking of when I gave my example of a cyborg!
I have always found it funny that they could do things like that in this series...I mean...sure that one could have possibly been done with alchemy, but the people who work with automail are just average people. Their society has less technology than we do but we don't have prosthetics that work THAT well (although people are coming up with some nifty things).

[mitsuki lover]

That's Archer.
I think we need to remember that since the world of FMA is a alternate reality to our own that some technology may in fact be a bit more advanced than the same in our world during the same time.The reason maybe because of the existance of
alchemy and automail.But then again who knows.
It's supposed to take place sometime around 1914-1916 or during our WWI period.
Notice though that the tanks they use in the series a lot more advanced than what they actually used in WWI before America entered in 1917.

[Tommy]

ML: Um, FMA is a completly different universe.

My speculation is that the Real World, our world, is what was on the other side of the door, but who knows?

[GrubbTheFragger]

ML: Um, FMA is a completly different universe.

My speculation is that the Real World, our world, is what was on the other side of the door, but who knows?

umm it does?? never heard anymention of that .....anywhere at all but thats beside the point(mostly cuz i am not up to were AS is on there shedule). Fullmetal cyborg doesn't have the same ring to it as full metal alchemist and thats that (and by that i mean my oppion ^^)

[Tommy]

I`ve always wondered why Ed is the FMA and Al isn`t when Al is Full Metal when Ed is 1/4 metal [snipped for rambling on about nothing]

[Roy Mustang]

That's Archer.

That is not Archer.

It's Lt. Col Archinator!

The half metal Robo-junk.


Wingzero22

[Sweet Mercury]

ML: Um, FMA is a completly different universe.

My speculation is that the Real World, our world, is what was on the other side of the door, but who knows?

Well, their universe is related to ours in some way. I would classify it generally as a steampunk era anime, in that respect. For instance, Winry builds mechanical limbs much more advanced than anything we have today, yet is fascinated when she sees "one of those new refrigerated trucks."

It's related to us also in that when Ed and Azume go through Dante's papers, they find one iwth a strange date. Azume tells Ed that it's "an ancient dating system, based on the birth of a man called Christ." Ed says, "Christ?" and Azume responds, "Yes, it's a religion that was practiced centuries ago." In that sense, FMA would tkae place in our future.

One other relation I noticed, at the end of the most recent episode, Hoinheim mentioned to Ed that airships are attacking, and the symbol on the airship is the Nazi Iron Cross. I'm guessing that the city they are in is WWII era London, and this would correlate well with Ed's clothing and hair styles.

NO SPOILERS ABOUT THAT PLEASE!!

[Roy Mustang]

.One other relation I noticed, at the end of the most recent episode, Hoinheim mentioned to Ed that airships are attacking, and the symbol on the airship is the Nazi Iron Cross. I'm guessing that the city they are in is WWII era London, and this would correlate well with Ed's clothing and hair styles. NO SPOILERS ABOUT THAT PLEASE!!

[spoiler] That wasn't the Nazis or WWII, but WWI. Remember the date that Al said in preview for this ep[/spoiler]


Wingzero22

[Sweet Mercury]

[spoiler] That wasn't the Nazis or WWII, but WWI. Remember the date that Al said in preview for this ep[/spoiler]


Wingzero22

Thanks for putting that in a spoiler tag. Although I inadvertently saw it when I replied...oh well, wasn't to revealing.

[spoiler]Well, I missed the date actually, but hey, I was close enough on my own intuition! The Iron Cross was a German symbol for WWI, but I figured they were avoiding using the Swastika for decendy reasons.[/spoiler]

[Roy Mustang]

Thanks for putting that in a spoiler tag. Although I inadvertently saw it when I replied...oh well, wasn't to revealing.

[spoiler]Well, I missed the date actually, but hey, I was close enough on my own intuition! The Iron Cross was a German symbol for WWI, but I figured they were avoiding using the Swastika for decendy reasons.[/spoiler]

[spoiler] I could say more, but I don't want to. But the date giving in the preview can throw you for a loop, because its a giving date that if you know history about that era.[/spoiler]

Wingzero22

[mitsuki lover]

ML: Um, FMA is a completly different universe.

My speculation is that the Real World, our world, is what was on the other side of the door, but who knows?

Go reread my post that this is a reply to.Clearly you ignored the part where I stated it was an ALTERNATE REALITY.This means it is NOT our reality and can mean the same thing as a parallel universe.Evidently you were so
eager to reply to what I had posted that you totally ignored the total post.

As far as it goes the universe on the other side of the Gateway may or may not be ours.It depends.For example was Churchill a Lt.Colonel during WW1?
All I can remember is that he worked at the Admiralty until the fiasco at
Gallipoli.

Also I was stating that the TIME SPAN was similiar to out WW1,this was made clear when Ed went through the Gateway.

It's more than likely the divergence between the two worlds occured some time in the Middle Ages.In their world alchemy became a possibility with the discovery of the Philosopher's Stone,whereas in the Other World(and I am not saying wheter or not it is ours or another parallel reality that is closer to our own)the Philosopher's Stone was proven to be just a myth and alchemists turned their attention more and more to chemistry and the other
sciences.This led in the process to the discovery of physics.

Another way of putting it:In FMA Universe Newton was in all likelihood,if he had existed there,a famous Alchemist,whereas in ours be became one of the Fathers of Modern Physics.

Note:Alchemy was one of Newton's passions.

[Tommy]

Let`s move this discussion to my FMA fan thread. It needs attention and we`re completly off topic.