World Watch OnLine: The Unofficial Buckaroo Banzai Mailing List
#  72 (7 February 1999)
Submissions: WWatchOne@aol.com
Editor: WWatchOne@aol.com
Homepage: http://come.to/BuckarooBanzai
FAQ: http://www.figmentfly.com/bb/bbindex.shtml

Number of subscribers: 555
(NOTE: anyone who doesn't have an "@something" behind their name is
from 'aol.com.')

Contents:
Greetings
Re: YoYoDyne Propulsion Labs
Re: World Watch OnLine 71 - 30 January 1999
Help...I don't know "the rest of the story."
100 Top Films, Plus Dates in History
Top 100 Films Addendum
Chapter 4 

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Greetings,

With the List being relatively quiet lately, it might notve been the best time
to do this, but I did it anyway...

Announcing - 

World Watch Two: The OTHER UnOfficial Buckaroo Banzai Mailing List

What is it? Well, its a mailing list in a more traditional (at least for the internet)
form. Powered by the kind folks at OneList, once you subscribe, any messages
sent go directly to all other members, as opposed to waiting for me to compile
them on the weekend. Rules, such as they are at this early stage, are basically
the same as here. Its an all ages List, so keep that in mind. Also, NO attachments.
Aside from all things Banzai I suppose some limited discussion of other projects 
from those involved will be okay. Fanfic, Im undecided on. Right now, Ill say
send them to this list, or, if you dont want to have them serialized, send them
to Strike Team Renegade.
They swear they dont make email addys available to anyone, and in the list
archives (which Ive restricted to list members) they strip the domain names
to foil harvesters. You can read the info on that at the Onelist site when you
sign up. To do so, point you web browser to:

http://www.onelist.com/subscribe.cgi/BuckarooBanzai

and well see how it goes. 

Also, another correction:
Strike Team Renegades mirror site will be located at:

http://members.xoom.com/editcat/Renegade.htm

(no L at the end like originally reported). Sorry for any problems.

Later...
ArcLight

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Subj:	 Re: YoYoDyne Propulsion Labs
Date:	1/30/99 8:23:01 PM Eastern Standard Time
From:	figment@figmentfly.com (Sean Murphy)
>
>Subj:	 YoYoDyne Propulsion Labs
>Date:	1/29/99 9:04:25 PM Eastern Standard Time
>From:	nib@monmouth.com (Robert L. Nibblett)
>
>Hello There,
>
>    Just wanted to satisfy my curiousity on something.  Is there any
>correlation between the writers, producers
>et al of this wonderful piece of cinema and Thomas Pynchon the author of
>Crying of Lot 49.  Seem to recall a
>YoYo Dyne showing up in that novel, and by damn, Mr. Pynchon's prose and
this
>movie are very similar in
>texture.  Thanks for your time, and for a job well done on your page.
>
>nib@monmouth.com

There is a question in the Buckaroo BAnzai FAQ that deals with this : "40.
What do Buckaroo Banzai and Thomas Pynchon's novel THE CRYING OF LOT 49
have in common?" located at http://www.figmentfly.com/bb/q40.html.  Hope
this helps.

Sean

--------
My new e-mail address is figment@figmentfly.com

NEW LOCATIONS!

Ridley Scott's LEGEND FAQ - http://www.figmentfly.com/legend/index.shtml

BUCKAROO BANZAI FAQ - http://www.figmentfly.com/bb/bbindex.shtml

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Subj:	Re: World Watch OnLine 71 - 30 January 1999
Date:	1/30/99 8:46:26 PM Eastern Standard Time
From:	BanzaiSGI

Just curious....is there a master listing of worldwide strike units,
commands, regions, clubs, etc...et all...an all in one compendium...a yellow
pages per se for us? 
If there is, please give the source...if not, anyone interested in a
collaboration to be done this year for publication?
Jim
Call Sign BanzaiSGI

**** Not one that I know of, and I'm not sure there's really a need for
one, but if anyone is up for it, knock yourselves out. - ArcLight ****

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Subj:	 Help...I don't know "the rest of the story."
Date:	1/31/99 7:35:34 AM Eastern Standard Time
From:	bursonb@usa.net

Please help me understand!  I've been a great fan of the
commercially-released movie since I saw it on the big screen in 1984.
I've also devoured all the BattleTech (tm) and MechWarrior (tm) material
on Team Banzai.  But when it comes to novels, Hanoi Xan, and especially
Death Dwarves (including Penny Priddy???) I'm completely lost.  I've
skimmed the FAQ and will go back and re-read it in detail, but what's a
Death Dwarf?

By the way, TABB is still available on eBay fairly regularly.  Quality
will vary, of course.  I just picked up a copy for $26 on 19 Jan 99.

Bruce ;-)
Remember, you are unique -- just like everyone else.  (If Dr. Banzai
didn't say it yet, he will!)

**** Well...checking out the rest of the sites in in the webring and the
ones linked on the World Watch page (particularly relayer's, I believe)
should help out. With a little luck, the series and attendant tie-in 
novels will get going and answer all the questions (and raise new
ones to keep us on our toes). - ArcLight ****

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Subj:	 100 Top Films, Plus Dates in History
Date:	2/5/99 9:08:38 PM Eastern Standard Time
From:	camelot@amigo.net (Scott Tate)

Having posted a list of Banzai-related January birthdays last month, I'd
be remiss if I didn't follow through with significant dates for February
as well.  The only pertinent birthday I could find among the film crew
is that of David Hardberger, one of Dream Quest Image's motion control
technicians (Feb. 11, 1948).  On a sadder note, Greenlite composite
photographer Christopher Keith died of AIDS complications one year ago
(Feb. 23).

In happier news, Sci-Fi Entertainment magazine recently conducted a fan
poll that used 20,000+ votes to determine the top 100
sci-fi/fantasy/horror movies of all time.  I'm pleased to note that The
Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai placed quite respectibly at #38, ranking
well above such notable films as the Back to the Future trilogy, the
classic versions of King Kong and Godzilla, Peter Weller's own Robocop,
and several of the Star Trek movies.  The article refers to TABB as
"Pulp Sci-Fi meets postmodernism . . . a cock-eyed but likeable tale."
Such lists are always highly subjective and open to debate, of course,
but it's good to see that Buckaroo has such vocal fan support.

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Subj:	 Top 100 Films Addendum
Date:	2/5/99 9:49:02 PM Eastern Standard Time
From:	camelot@amigo.net (Scott Tate)
To:	WWatchOne@AOL.com (WWatchOne)

Whoops, almost forgot...  I should mention that anyone interested in
viewing the complete list of Sci-Fi Entertainment's all-time top 100
sci-fi films should refer to the current issue of that magazine, with a
cover date of April 1999.  Top 10 highlights are also available on the
Dominion (http://www.scifi.com).

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Subj:	 Chapter 4 
Date:	2/4/99 8:08:30 AM Eastern Standard Time
From:	jetlightfoot@juno.com (Becky M Nelson)

Disclaimer/Author Notes:

This story takes place in Spring 1987 (between the events of the movie
and Rafterman's proposed script for the sequel, from which it takes a few
plot cues). It's written from Reno Nevada's point of view much after the
fact, which seemed the best way to avoid getting flamed by folks who own
the book, and lets me pick up a few details from there more easily as
well. 

Characters and concepts related to Buckaroo Banzai belong to other
people. See disclaimer on Chapter One for full info. In any event, the
author has no intent to make any money hereby and is just having fun.
Don't complain if details here don't coincide with the TV pilot/series;
this was started before the pilot script.

Plot elements and other characters are copyright 1998-??? and
1990-infinity, respectively, and are the property of Replay. ArcLight has
permission to archive the text version of this story as part of the
newsletter. Strike Team Renegade has permission to include an HTML
version in their archives on a delayed basis. All others should e-mail me
at BBI_Replay@yahoo.com first. Comments and questions should be routed to
the same address.
--------------------------------------------------

Previously--

After an explosion wreaks havoc on their hotel rooms, Team Banzai has
relocated rather hastily to a former school at the edge of the metro
area. Their only wounded from the incident is named Replay, who has now
been exposed to talava for the second time. She regains consciousness
after being comatose for 3 days, but proves to be far from her normal
self. Only she and Buckaroo are aware that she has "holes" in her memory,
holes that mean she has no recollection of Team Banzai in general and
only a very slight recall of Rawhide, whom she recalls from a pencil
sketch she'd once drawn. Perfect Tommy, present when Replay regained
consciousness but unaware of her memory loss, informs Reno of the
situation as he is aware of it, then "drafts" the Institute's chief
pilot, Lindbergh, to keep an eye on Replay so Buckaroo can rest. Pecos
informs a concerned Buckaroo that Reno and Wayback have already departed.
Buckaroo asks her to set up a meeting with certain Team Banzai personnel.
In Sabah, Hanoi Xan receives news from his spies. Meanwhile back in St.
Louis, Reno and Wayback have ventured out to deal with issues related to
the canceled concerts and seminar and are caught out in a thunderstorm of
such surprising properties that Big Norse admits it to be a good thing
that storms can't be aimed. At Team Banzai's safehouse, Replay notices
the storm abruptly, and is escorted down to the boiler room by Rawhide,
who is much better equipped to deal with her distaste for the weather. At
the hotel, the police are still collecting evidence when the storm begins
to threaten them as well.

--------------------------------------------------
Lock and Key
Chapter Four

"Um, Reno..."

I looked up at Wayback, just a little surprised. It wasn't like him to
sound so uncertain. "Yeah?"

"You guys think it's my fault, don't you?"

Having ridden with Buckaroo under considerably stranger circumstances
than this, I managed to answer him before he got the wrong idea. "If you
had it that under control, somebody in D.C. would have you locked up in a
hole so the Soviets couldn't get their hands on you. We're lucky Replay
saw it as soon as she did." If we hadn't still been in the restaurant, I
might have been more specific. Then again, with Wayback, maybe not.

"That's just it. I should have seen something that big days ahead of
time. Or maybe I did and went looking for an excuse not to be there when
it went down." No doubt about it; either he was feeling guilty or
convinced he should have been.

"Don't be too hard on yourself," I told him. " Tommy's the only one
around with a perfect reputation to live up to. Besides, even if you were
excuse-hunting, you kept Buckaroo out of things. Some of us think that's
worth a brownie point or two." Replay in particular would have held that
opinion, although I didn't think saying so would help. "Any possibility
she might have been catching someone's intent? Not really being
clairvoyant?"

He had to think about that for a moment. "Theoretically, I suppose so. If
the bomber was still nearby, almost certainly it's possible. We hadn't
gotten an absolute limit on her range with people she knew yet, but I'd
think anywhere in the building would have been sufficient. Depending on
how focused he was on causing trouble, maybe a block would have been."

"Then she didn't ruin your reputation or start a new one of her own. How
far along were you with testing, or is that still a closed subject?" 

"A moot one, I think. She was always well-shielded, but I knew she was
there before. Tracking was possible, if sometimes difficult. Now --" He
shook his head mournfully. "I've met concrete walls with higher levels of
psionic ability."

For a moment I was tempted to tell him that he was one of the reasons
Replay had finally come back, just to see what reaction the news would
get. Like every other intern and no few apprentices, he knew the story of
why she'd put so much distance between herself and us. Unlike most of
them, however, we'd given him an idea of what to expect from her based on
what we'd known her talents to be prior to her earlier encounter with
talava. That it was estimation and guesswork at best could not be
avoided; even Buckaroo had known there were probably skills she'd
possessed we simply hadn't seen yet. Possibly she had abilities she
wasn't even aware of; almost certainly she hadn't achieved her full
potential with those talents she had demonstrated.

Wayback had scarcely agreed to test her present limitations when she'd
started blowing all our assumptions away at their first meeting. She'd
arrived at the main house weary and travel worn, a full three hours
behind schedule and wearing the bruises and split lip one might have
expected to see on an assault victim. The smug look on her face at the
time fairly screamed that she was the last one standing at the end of
whatever brouhaha had occurred, and her first words were for Buckaroo,
whom she told she was finally convinced that it was okay for her to be
back, or the Bravos wouldn't have met her at the airport. If she was
already a threat to us, why had they been there at all? Lindbergh was
only slightly more forthcoming in regard to the fight, which had indeed
ended with only the two of them left upright, although in his case it had
been just barely; dispatched to La Guardia to pick her up, he'd felt
compelled to lend his assistance and thus had likewise drawn the ire of
bravos and thus the attention of the airport police, but I digress.

There had been other telepaths in Wayback's life before he came to the
Institute, but none of them had been in his own league, which naturally
enough had led him to believe he was very possibly the best. At first
blush, Replay had seemed so completely open and transparent that she
couldn't possibly have much of a gift, regardless of what we'd told him.
This first impression had been so outside his own experience as to
confuse him rather badly; indeed, he could have been forgiven for
mistaking her for the stereotyped "bubble-headed bleach blonde" in spite
of her coloration. If that hadn't been enough to have made him start
wondering what he'd gotten himself into, she'd further demolished our
collective expectations by managing to tell him verbatim what he'd been
thinking in spite of his own shields. 

Startled, but game, he'd vanished into his lab for the rest of the day,
only to reemerge the next morning
 and declare open testing season on her.
After several weeks, she'd gotten comfortable enough with him for joking
around a bit, some of it relatively public. She'd actually begun to think
they were on the verge of finally learning something she didn't already
know, and then a hotel blew up in her face.

"You don't suppose she's --?"

He cut me off. "No. Once I knew she could shield like that, I learned
what I was looking for. The only hope I have for her recovering this time
would be if it's equivalent to light blindness. If it's just a matter of
the channels shutting down from shock, there's a chance. If there's real
damage, then this is permanent. She might not be able to deal with it."

Knowing the lady as I did, I doubted she'd go as far around the bend as
he was hinting, at least in the short term. "So you've seen this before?"

"Just the opposite, I'm afraid. Someone I was closer to than I should
have gotten. He drank himself to death trying to block the world out for
a few hours. I can't imagine that losing the talent you've always had
could be any easier than trying to deal with suddenly gaining the
untrained equivalent." He looked at his coffee mug as though he wanted to
throw it, or anything else he could get a good grip on, through the
window just to release some of his frustration. "I can't expect you to
understand what she's going through. I'm not sure I understand; I barely
remember what it was like before I grew up to be a telepath. Even if I
did, I couldn't explain it. The language just doesn't exist."

"Not in words," I agreed. "She's been known to refer to the sensory
deprivation tank as something of a metaphor-by-example." I could not help
but wonder what Buckaroo would make of this conversation, and began to
realize we might collectively have more pieces to the puzzle than any one
of us realized. "You don't know how to tell how bad it is for certain, do
you?"

"Not a clue." 

***

Much has been made in certain circles of the Institute's security -- or
lack thereof -- in the aftermath of our first encounter with Lectroids,
and rightly so. Even while the popular press was hailing us as heros for
our successful resolution of that situation, our detractors were
bemoaning the fact that we'd permitted it to occur at all. Yet to the
best of our collective knowledge, nowhere was the subject pursued farther
than among ourselves; being rather forcefully informed that the measures
we had taken to date were insufficient was something we'd taken
personally. A great deal of debate and no small amount of research had
been given over to the issue of exactly what level of security was
prudent. Ultimately, we'd realized that we were dealing with the same
dilemma faced by anyone with a new automobile or house; if the other guy
wanted in badly enough, it was going to happen, and the entire trick was
to know he was there so he could be dealt with.

This did not mean that we left things as they had been; far from it. Some
of the new safeguards we came up with have been patented and are
presently in use by various security agencies throughout the world, as
result of which, many people sleep better at night with the certainty
that their countries are not being run by aliens from Planet 10. Other
changes to our facilities are even less visible to the naked eye, and
although some of these are perhaps known to various outsiders, I will not
be drawn into a discussion of them here. Overall, however, our biggest
objective had been to improve our collective safety as seamlessly as
possible, and I am pleased to be able to report that very few of the new
measures caused anyone problems of a significant nature. 

The real shift, however, has not been so much in procedures or premises
as in attitudes. We are perhaps more aware of our surroundings when off
campus than we had routinely been before, and if public reaction is any
indicator, rather more subtle about that alertness than in years past.
Undoubtedly, such interns as Wayback are as much responsible for that
low-key approach to these issues as the lessons Yoyodyne taught us are,
and I have no doubt that our gypsy residents are likewise involved. If
some of our personal precautions seem a bit unconventional, they are
nonetheless effective enough to have become routine, if not always
habitual.

Certainly security was a particularly pertinent issue to the residents at
this most recent briefing. Buckaroo looked around the lounge casually
enough, making sure everyone he needed to see was accounted for. He'd
just realized who was missing when Lindbergh arrived unannounced.
"Rawhide says to tell you that you may be right," the pilot reported. "He
said he was working on it."

"He know I wanted him up here?"

"I think he's planning to stay with her until this --" He was interrupted
by thunder from a lightning strike near enough to shock a couple people
who had their feet resting on metal chair legs. "Is over. They're down in
the boiler room. Any reason I should know about why she doesn't like
storms?"

"Maybe he'd better," Buckaroo allowed. "The last thing we want is to add
to her paranoia. Wayback says it's not a problem anymore, but I'm not
placing bets." This made things awkward, not so much because Rawhide
wasn't at hand as because the pilot was. It was risky enough sharing what
little he knew with the residents, even after having the room checked for
bugs for the umpteenth time. Still, Lindbergh understood better than most
of us what Wayback was and wasn't capable of overhearing, and Rawhide was
much less likely to have Replay become a problem he couldn't cope with.
"You aren't here, and this isn't happening," he said after a moment's
hesitation.

"I can live with that," said the pilot. "Won't be the first time." He
came all the way in and sat down. He'd flown contract work for several
outfits before joining us, some of them a bit on the questionable side
however official they were; we believed him.

Buckaroo nodded. "Big Norse, you'll need to get Rawhide to speed on
this."

The blonde communications expert didn't bother turning down her personal
stereo before she answered; she wasn't there merely because she'd been
involved from the beginning, although even Lindbergh's checkered past
hadn't prepared him to expect her other purpose. "Not a problem." She
still blushed rather easily, but not when business was involved. The fact
that it was common knowledge around the Institute that she and Rawhide
might have a mutual thing going on was wonderful cover under the
circumstances; Wayback was probably even less inclined to eavesdrop on
what he believed to be a romantic interlude than on a headblind telepath.
"I'll drop it in with the other updates."

"Good," Buckaroo said and began to speak in earnest. "Tommy told most of
you she was going to make it. Right now, apart from exhaustion, she's in
good shape. Physically, this was much easier on everyone than last time.
No convulsions apart from the detox reaction, and the punctures didn't
try to go septic this time, although some of them are still scabbed over.

"Mentally, I don't know. Something set her off about ten minutes before
she came to, but we're still not sure what caused it, just that she
didn't want it around."

"Harmonics blew the windows and some of the equipment," Perfect Tommy
admitted. If any of the glass had chanced to land on him, he'd long since
brushed it off. "Not much serious damage, but quite a show. Scared hell
out of Wayback." No one but Lindbergh seemed surprised to hear that.

"Not just Wayback," said Big Norse, which was completely unexpected. "We
caught some of it on the bus and had a time deciding it was local.
Evidently the monitor had more of an RF signature than we knew." The EKG
monitor she referred to had started out life as a standard model, but
whether the modifications we'd done had affected its radio frequency
interference was something that bore investigating. Replay had been known
to react badly to less.

"Unfortunately, we have a bigger problem than equipment or water damage,
or her being headblind." Buckaroo went on. If he'd stopped to think about
what he was saying, he might not have gotten this far. "She's got too
much time missing."

"Brain damage?" New Jersey brought up the question, but it wasn't far
from anyone else's mind. 

"Doesn't look like it, unless I'm way behind on my reading. This is too
selective. Right now, I'm convinced she doesn't belong to Xan, but she's
not the woman we know, either." The rest was almost an afterthought, as
subdued in volume as it was in tone. "And we know her a lot better than
she knows us."

"Amnesia, maybe?" Lindbergh recovered the power of speech first, perhaps
because he had so few preconceptions. He'd only known Replay for a few
weeks, not for the years everyone else in the room had.

Buckaroo shook his head. "Doesn't fit the pattern. I want to do more
checks, but as far as I can tell, she's not missing just one block of
days; this is spread out over years, and every hour of it involves us.
The Replay persona just isn't there."

"Does that mean she's not Jet either?" Pecos gave Tommy an odd look as
she asked that question.

Buckaroo nodded. "Closer to it, but a fair amount of that persona's gone
too. My best guess is that this is who she is at home. Which means that
calling her Lightfoot is probably a very bad idea." Tommy stared at his
shoes at that. New Jersey whistled. Pecos and Big Norse both winced at
the thought of the reaction 'lightfoot' was apt to get out-of-context
even if it was still meant as the compliment Tommy'd intended the first
time he'd said it.

"Wait a minute," Lindbergh protested. "Somebody wanna loan me a quarter
to buy a clue with?" He knew the term persona, but the context threw him.
It simply wasn't something he'd ever thought to have to deal with around
the Institute, though technically, many of the names we were accustomed
to using could be called aliases. "On second thought, make that a roll of
quarters." He hadn't seen Tommy behaving like this before, but was
convinced the engineer had something to do with the present situation.
"And point me at the machine."

"Lo Pep turned up in California a few months back with Xan's latest
overthruster prototype," Buckaroo began, which made so much less sense to
Lindbergh that the pilot took it to be the beginning of the whole story.
"From what we could put together afterward, we think this one was
intended to be a man-portable, statically emplaced unit which would
generate a crossover field you could literally walk through without
needing room to slow down on the other side. More of a  gate than ours,
evidently meant specifically for breaching walls."

"Zero escape velocity?" Lindbergh said. The concept alone would have been
astounding if any of us had proposed it; with Hanoi Xan involved, it
became frightening.

"The real 'render all conventional defense perimeters useless' thing,"
said Perfect Tommy. "We can't prove it, but we think the first test may
have been the Modesto PD evidence lockers. Which could mean that it's a
heavy piece of equipment or that it vibrates quite a bit when it's
activated, because something registered on the seismographs in the middle
of the night before they discovered they had a problem." No longer in the
papers, the strange incident had been a media field day for some several
weeks at the time. The chain of evidence so crucial in prosecutions had
been sundered for more than 300 items housed in a single locker, most of
them related either directly to the World Crime League or to those who
owed various League bosses favors. In spite of the massive number of
evidence tags apparently switched at random, no one had seen or heard
anything apart from the strange seismograph tapes and a garbage truck
hitting a light standard across the street (which had proven completely
unrelated). The few items completely missing from the lockers have yet to
be located more than six months later.

"We know they must have tested it somewhere, or Lo Pep wouldn't have been
trying to use it himself," said Buckaroo. "Fortunately for us, it turned
out to be more hazardous than they thought. We might not have known until
much later if the field had been stable. As far as we know, that line of
research has been abandoned, maybe permanently."

Lindbergh relaxed considerably. The notion that Xan's bravos might
literally have come through the Institute walls one night without warning
would have been enough to disturb any sane person in the country, for
what would keep them from stopping at that? Why not the White House, or
Fort Knox? But since they apparently didn't have the capability, he could
still go to sleep in reasonable safety. "I don't suppose they ended up in
the Phantom Zone," he joked, only a bit lamely.

The looks the residents flashed back and forth for a moment didn't escape
his notice completely. "That would have been too simple," said Pecos.
"Simple doesn't happen around some of us much, if you haven't noticed."
She might have said more but there was a momentary shadow on the other
side of the frosted glass in the door.

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