I hope Skroeder doesn.t try to destroy number five again

Probably not your best idea ever, Crosby...
This is interesting; if you decide to continue it, I would like to keep reading. I haven't seen the second movie yet, but from the clips I have seen I think you are doing a good job of keeping everyone in character.

This fanfic looks pretty good.

When should we expect the next chapter?The story is progressing fairly well.

Oh geeze this is gonna backfire. Sorry for the late reveiw, I've just had a lot on my plate recently. But I'm just letting you know I'm stil, reading and still enjoying this book ;) keep up the great work, can't wait to see the outcome of this Newton's plan.

Stephanie is frustrated, upset, and worried about the situation, which is making her lash out a bit. Which is making her friends upset in return. I understand her reaction to the situation, just as I understand Johnny's and Newton's. And Dustin's request for some help with demolition definitely sparked some unpleasant memories about Oscar. I do have my doubts about Newton's new plan on dealing with Howard. Having a robot who is alive trying to act like a robot who is not alive (but acts alive-ish enough to theoretically trick his creator) is going to be a tough challenge. I don't know if Johnny Five's acting skills will live up to the challenge. Regardless, this is a great update and I'm so excited to see more soon. Good luck.

I can't describe how awesome it is to find a Short Circuit fanfic of this quality, dealing with all the interesting scenarios set up by the climax of the second movie. You've got the personalities down pat, especially in the conflict that would inevitably arise from getting the key cast of both films together in one room.

I'm especially interested in your depiction of Howard Marner, with dovetails with the opinion I developed as a child after watching the film; that Marner is effectively a mild-mannered guy who was ultimately well-meaning but got in over his head. Heck, even the screenwriters and director admit that NOVA was in the right to capture/destroy what was (from their perspective) a highly-dangerous piece of military hardware that could at any moment melt down the proverbial busload of nuns.

In that vein, the shooting draft of the script for the first film includes an interesting bit of cut material relating to Marner's character, extending the scene after the decoy-5 is blown up by the helicopter. You might have read it already, but I thought I'd include it here 'for the record':

STEPHANIE
(horrified)
Oh, God! Get me out of here!

She stumbles to her feet and heads towards the search van. Crosby goes after her.

EXT. MEADOW - SEARCH VAN - DAY
Stephanie leaps into the van, intending to drive away... but the keys aren't in the ignition. She sits there, helplessly, crying. Crosby catches up.

CROSBY
Listen... I'll... take you home

MARNER (O.S.)
Hey, where do you think you're going? That's a company car!

CROSBY
And I'm no longer with the company, right?

Marner comes into the picture

MARNER
Not that I don't like you, personally... as far as eccentric geniuses go, you're just as good as any... but I just can't take the aggravation. I'm not a bad guy. God knows I've tried to be fair, but...

CROSBY
H... Howard... it's okay. I quit.

MARNER
Thanks. I appreciate that.
(then, to Stephanie)
Miss Thurber, we never had a chance to meet formally. I'm Howard Marner and I'm virtually bankrupt... and I feel like crying, too. I'm sorry about the robot.

STEPHANIE
Me, too.

CROSBY
Y'know, Howard... Ben had nothing to do with this. I w-want you to know that.

MARNER
Where is Ben, anyway?

Ben appears in the background, exhausted, carrying his shoes

BEN
Speaking about the devil, are my feet splitting! Walking all night is bitch and a half, but here I go fresh as a fish and ready for work.

MARNER
Come see me on Monday. Why, I don't know
(then, to Crosby)
Take the truck. It's ruined anyway.

He walks off. Crosby embraces Ben

CROSBY
It was awful. You're l-lucky you missed it

BEN
I saw it from a far distance
(sighs, then)
Well, back to the drawing room

CROSBY
Well, big guy...
(indicates Stephanie)
...I'm goin' with her f-for awhile. I'll call you soon.

BEN
No, its okay, call me Ben

*

Although there are some differences with the finished product (Stephanie's surname is Thurber, a holdover from earlier drafts, and Newton is written with a stutter), this draft is marked as the 'Final Polish, August 15, 1985', and based on interviews with Austin Pendleton I suspect it was filmed and then cut to tighten up the scene (and the absence of a wrap-up for Ben is notable in the actual film).

It also contains a subtle different version of the scene where Marner contacts Newton via radio to set up the meeting with Stephanie. The script makes clear (via a cutaway) that Marner is genuine in his promise to not involve Skroeder, unaware that NOVA's Security Chief is listening into the radio conversation from his own vehicles.

Don't know if this affects your perspective of Marner, but I thought you could find it interesting to see that he was written to be more overtly sympathetic and even a tad remorseful.

Beyond Marner, I'm incredibly interested in what you're exploring here, especially with trying to work out 'how' Johnny is alive. One thing that the films make clear is that although his sentience is of unknown providence, there is a physical element to it. We know it is linked to his memory, thus it is possibly that the lightning strike caused a system error that allowed 5's AI software to self-reprogram.

The draft script plays with this further. In the film we are told 5 was hooked up to a generator during his 'quickening', however this appears to be a post-production over-dub just to easily explain away to the audience what the device is. Watching the film I've often felt that the 'generator' has always appeared more complex than its name suggests (and begs the question why NOVA doesn't simply charge the robots off the lab's internal power).

Again the script gives an answer:

EXT. NOVA ROBOTICS LAB - DEBRIEFING STATION - DAY
Ben works with two assistants, ZACK and NORMAN, unloading the S.A.I.N.T. robots from the truck. Zack and Norman are plugging cables into S.A.I.N.T. Number One, hooking it up to an array of portable electronic equipment for downloading and post-mission bebriefing. Ben sees Marner coming and knows what he wants.

(this leads into the conversation where Marner is looking for Newton)

Later...

EXT. LAB - DEBRIEFING STATION - DAY
Under the darkening skies, Zack and Norman unload the last robot, NUMBER FIVE, from the transport truck, and connect him to the debriefing equipment. The other four S.A.I.N.T. robots wait in line at the door.

Behind them, a bolt of LIGHTNING CRACKLES across the sky and strikes the power transformer. SPARKS and SMOKE EXPLODE from it. A surge of ELECTRICITY SIZZLES along the power lines to the lab rooftop where a junction box EXPLODES.

Zack and Norman leap back as their electronic equipment INCINERATES in a BLAST OF SPARKS. SPARKS ZAP from the cables connected to Number Five. The robot leaps straight up, scintillating in a web of slithering ELECTRICITY. It's binocular eyes bulge wide and its head shoots up, then sucks back down with a SPROINGGGG.

(the rest of the scene unfolds as seen in the film)

This intrigues me because I suspect the scene was filmed with this context in mind, and then tweaked in post-production to include the 'Hey, Norman, better get number 5 off that generator man' line just to make it simpler for audiences to understand without inserting lots of dialogue to clarify the role of the debriefing equipment.

In this light, 5's quickening becomes much more interesting. Johnny doesn't just get that big zap while passively charging, but instead while his logic systems are actively interfacing and 'downloading' to the debriefing equipment.

The novelization, based off an even earlier draft, expands on this further, saying that the 'downloading' process greatly dulls down the SAINTs' operatation intelligence, transferring a good part of the operating system off the robot into external equipment, rendering them comparatively harmless (presumably there's a equivalent briefing and 'uploading' process before they go into the field).

This suggests that much of the onboard programming that puts the 'AI' in 'SAINT' is held in the robot's short-term memory (the RAM?), and is not actually written to the onboard hard-drives - coding that is possibly even DESIGNED to be forgotten in the event of total power loss (possibly for safety reasons, or to protect NOVAs revolutionary AI from coporate espionage, or even to prevent said software from being reverse-engineered by enemies if a production-model SAINT is captured whilst in combat).

And Johnny is no different. Like all living beings he is governed by the operational paramaters of his body, and this explains his greatest weakness and the possibility of his mortality: the SAINT system architecture is designed to not survive total power loss to the memory, and thus neither can Johnny. Whatever data it is that constitutes his 'life', that great malfunction of coding, that alteration to his core programming that allowed him to grow sapient (and thus attain the metaphoric soul) is held in the same manner, free-floating in the system buffer, fragile and precious.

Both films even support this with Newton's expressed desire in SC that #5's memory not be shut off during transfer back to NOVA, and repeated sentiments in SC2 that Johnny's 'self' is held in his memory, and total power loss to the memory module would 'kill' him.

Thus, as I see it, whatever makes Johnny 'Johnny' is something in the memory, some evolution of the SAINT programming that allowed him to go from Artifical Intelligence to Artificial Sapience.

Which has further implications: between them, the physical SAINT hardware and the digital system architecture is capable of supporting life. Marner, Ben and Newton have every right to be curious - the fact that the SAINT chassis, hardware and systems was capable of housing and sustaining a living intelligence is amazing, and revolutionary.

Also another possibility - if Johnny's memory systems are designed to safely interface with Nova's debriefing equipment, it might be possible to download his 'mind' safely out of his body with that same equipment - if say his physical memory systems were deteriorating and urgently needed repair or outright replacement.

...

(reads back over post)

Wow! I didn't intend to go on such a ramble, but its great to be able to talk Short Circuit in this manner for the first time in my life. Feel free to play with any of the ideas I've spewed here, if the mood takes you. Whatever happens, I can't wait to see how you develop this idea and expand on it!

Best of luck, you've keeping 5 alive!

(and I love it)

Wow this was great! I love how descriptive it is and how well you've captured the characters. I can't wait to see what Newton chooses in the end and what happens next :) great work

Very nice work and how lucky for me that I discover this story right in time for an update. Yeah, Johnny Five would certainly get along very well with the kids. And for the most part, the entire thing went rather smoothly. But Howard's presence is certainly making things a little more tense for everyone. Be careful about that job offer. It could be legit, or it could be something far more problematic. Read that contract carefully. Maybe even see if there's a lawyer working for Input Inc who can read over it for any loopholes Howard might be hoping to sneak by. But Ben is right. At least as long as Johnny Five is known as a U.S. citizen and in the public eye, it'll be difficult for Nova to reclaim him without causing a lot of bad publicity for themselves.

I absolutely love this. I was a huge fan of the movies for years, but there were practically no fanfiction about them. The fact you're writing this makes me a very happy person. You've really done a great job with the characters and showing what could have happened after the end of the second movie. I look forward to more soon. Good luck.

Awesome story thus far. I loved Short Circuit when I was little. Good to see somebody wrote something for it.

This story is great! I've been waiting to see a Short Circuit story. Nobody really has made one and the last two I've seen, the authors haven't continued. I'd love to see this story progress and more of Dr. Marner. Maybe even Skroeder could show up. :) keep up the great work.

Great story please continue