Predictions and Observations:
Pipe Dreams

Episode Aired: September 27, 2008
This Post Posted: October 1, 2008

It occurred to me today why shows have theme songs. Since I YouTube this (not unlike the lengths to which satellites must go to get THEIR duel fix, lol), I have to sift through the sub versions and everything else. This morning when Hyperdrive started playing, I knew I had the right video.

Rally's dad's card, Turbo Booster. First thing to say is that cards that are gifts usually end up being very, very important (Heart of Ice duel being the exception, sorry Chazz and Atticus), such as Time Wizard, Red-Eyes in Battle City, and Fiend's Sanctuary. Paraphrasing from what has been said before, Rally is part of Yusei's deck in this. And so is Rally's dad. We're still waiting, by the way, to canonly know whether, canonly, Rally is a boy or a girl, so pardon my being very stingy with the use of pronouns. At this point I'm leaning more toward girl, and I'm pretty sure that in this duel if Yusei mentions where the card came from, he'll mention Rally enough to say a certain useful pronoun. It's a silly thing, but I'm getting tired of not using pronouns, so, fingers crossed. Anyway, since they mentioned Rally's dad, that means we're probably going to find out more about him, such as why he's not there to give Yusei the card himself. For now, the card seems to be something of a keepsake.

So we know, BTW-this-is-canon, that a street called Montague and one called Davis Drive are both in the East Sector of the satellite, which is near the sewage plant. Does "sector security" only have responsibility for one sector? As in, is the sector security for the East Sector the same as for all the sectors, or is there a "sector security" for each "sector"?

"Don't you know it's two hours past curfew, or can you still not tell time?" Y'know, Chazz said Jaden couldn't tell time back in A New Breed of Hero (I or II, don't know which). Education must be pretty bad in the satellite, but Yusei definitely knows that it's midnight; Trudge may be referring to an entirely false excuse made when he and Rally got caught trying to sneak out after curfew in the Reeducation Center. I completely made that up, but it would make sense. 'Did we know it was past curfew? Um, no! Of course we didn't! We thought it was twelve NOON!'

Two hours past curfew-- meaning curfew is at ten.

Yusei BUILDS runners; how could he not see this coming? How did they manage to make the chip so Yusei couldn't figure out that he was being tracked and could get hacked? Then again, acceleration chips seem to sort of come as a package, and also seem to be hard to imitate. Yusei couldn't build a chip as good as the one Rally gave him, while he builds better runners than they use in the pro league (with Jack being the exception), which suggests that acceleration chips are rare and delicate pieces of hardware. Maybe Yusei didn't even know it was possible to tamper with one like that. My big question for now is, is an accel chip hardware or software? It seems to be somewhat both, since Yusei physically plugged it in but it took over his duel runner and initiated programs (like the one that duels).

Hey, cool-- when Yusei's wrist-deck-holder thingy activated, I saw it also automatically shuffle Yusei's deck. Come to think of it, in the old dueling traditions, opponents cut and shuffle each other's decks; since the second revolution (mentioned by Banner in an early GX; the beginning of holographic dueling, circa Duelist Kingdom or a bit before), this seems to only happen at the highest echelons, such as tournament final matches, probably because duelists begin a lot further than arm's length apart. But the option was still there, if you didn't trust your opponent; in turbo-duels this can't happen, especially ones such as this. Then again, usually, the opponents agree to duel before they do which means they talk to each other, so they can stop and swap decks; Trudge forced Yusei into this match, which is something that's not even legal in the Shadow Realm, so he'll just have to live with it if Yusei didn't get a chance to fairly shuffle his deck. However, it shuffled itself anyway, which brings me to ask, do they even observe the convention of shuffling each other's decks anymore, when an automatic shuffler would, in theory, be unbiased and save the trouble? Yusei's probably mechanic enough to tweak it, but we all know he wouldn't.

Why didn't Trudge just remote-control the duel runner to STOP? Why, to humiliate Yusei the old-fashioned way, of course. You'd think these guys with egos would eventually learn when to cut their losses.

So speed counters increase by one every standby phase? My brother has one of the 5D's-themed decks; I ought to borrow it and see what I can glean from the rulebook. He might even have a Speed World card (which can still apply the speed rules without runners? Maybe? Or maybe it's just for fun?).

Just like last time Trudge said "No matter how you patch it up, trash is still trash", this time the statement that was essentially thrown back in his face along with the match was "Just like your life, you're goin' NOWHERE."

This duel, we note, has spectators-- in a way. It's still one-way, as in they can't talk to him or anything, but I guess it's comforting just to know that his friends are keeping an eye out. I specifically made a note that Yusei himself asked if they would-- he asked if they'd be on monitor.

The Facility= jail, I guess. Handy bit of vocabulary.

'He might...he might...he might...he might...then, of course, he might not.' One thing I've noticed about Blitz is, he is optimistic, and he does get excited, and hopeful, but he's also really, really cautious about it. He and Tank told us last episode about how, when Yusei first summoned Stardust Dragon with his duel runner, Blitz was cheering and yelling the loudest of all, so much so he lost his voice. However, he's one of the most reluctant to say that all of this is a good idea: "Let 'im go, bro; don't risk your freedom for some wheels and a card." "Yuse, are you sure that card is worth the risk? I mean, you really think that card's gonna make a difference?" "Hey, Yusei-- can you REALLY do this?" He wants to believe in the future like Rally does, but he's afraid he's going to be disappointed. Maybe that's why he's so critical of Rally and kinda protective of Yusei; in his lexicon, they're being set up to have their hopes dashed against reality. But, if they're going to do this, they may as well give it everything they've got: "And don't slow down for NOTHIN'!"

Last time I checked the rulebook, it's standard etiquette, such as not touching other duelists' cards (which, we've seen a few times in the canon, is considered a minor sin), to call out all your moves. I didn't hear Yusei call that counter-thingy of his. I'm bringing it up because it's a rule that does get bent now and then, and usually the person it gets pulled on is a) not very nice and b) too busy being stupid to pay attention anyway. Trudge is a good example of this, and so's Weevil from his first match with Yugi, but my point is that this custom, like that of shuffling each other's decks, flipping a coin to determine playing order (One Step Ahead! That's the only one!), and so on is something that often gets brushed aside for the sake of plot.

"Yusei: ...So by trying to slow me down, you only made me faster!
Trudge: That's just like you! Waiting for handouts, latching on to someone else!" Yusei repeats the theme of his last duel with Trudge: "Don't underestimate us satellites or our decks, because what you see as weakness is what truly makes us strong." The City's junk is the Satellite's fastest runner in the league; Trudge's attempt to catch Yusei only gave him the last bit of good hardware he needed to make a duel runner fast enough to go after Jack. And it's interesting how Trudge misinterprets this strength from weakness; for example, if Trudge hadn't handed Yusei that chip, he would have found one in the trash, perhaps made one himself, or waited for another opportunity. He might even have stolen it. Either way, my point is that he didn't need Trudge's "handout"; he just got lucky by having someone decide to try and push him around. How many people even call that lucky?

"Trudge, after all these years you still don't know anything about me. All you see are rules and them being broken, but you never stopped to ask WHY. I guess it pays well to be ignorant, doesn't it!" This is another interesting line. Does Yusei mean that Trudge never stops to ask why the rules exist in the first place, which is incidentally rather unjust, or does he mean that he never stops to think that satellites are human too and Yusei breaks the rules because he believes in a brighter future for him and his than life in the satellite. Or he might mean that Trudge was too busy scolding him to think about why he did this tonight and why here; he was way too slow to know what Yusei was up to. Either way, by having it pay to be ignorant, he must mean Jack pays Trudge well to be his stooge. Or just generally it pays good money to do what you're told and not ask questions. I wonder if Trudge will listen to this advice?
OH!!! That's right! I nearly sent out my post before I remembered that there was another line that sort of reminded me of this one. It was said in Back to Duel, by Aster Phoenix: “When you accepted my challenge, did you ever stop and ask yourself- what do I want? Why did I come here?" There was a raised eyebrow for that, and as a matter of fact there still is. Aster is such a weird guy to figure out in Year 2.

253 km/h was the reading on Yusei's runner toward the end of the duel, which is equivalent to 157.21 mph. By the way, being that kinda nerd, I looked it up, and actually that speed is faster than some motorcycles today can go, but not faster than others. I was expecting some outrageous figure, but the fastest motorcycle I can find has a maximum speed of 280 km/h. 253 is a bit faster than the average motorcycle CAN go, and right after I saw that figure, we saw Yusei go a whole lot faster. This is a hint into the mechanics of all this. However, I'm still trying to figure out how the runners tie into the duel itself, especially if one gets a speed counter at every standby phase. Maybe if they're going at least a certain speed? And the Blocker things kept Yusei going below that speed, hence no counters? And such things as, say, losing thousands of lifepoints, tend to slow you down a bit or at least distract you, hence the duel ties in with your driving, but if you're going a whole lot faster to begin with, you don't mind that much; maybe that's why Jack's runner has made him a champ.

That is kind of an evil laugh...

Unless this is a regular duel, where's Jack's runner?

I think I misjudged this... slightly. In a way. Yusei still seems to be aiming to settle a score with Jack. I really didn't believe it, and I still don't. Dueling for revenge is one of the serious red flags, and I really do have trouble believing it of Yusei that all he's after is payback. Jack was his main rival, Kaiba to his Yugi (or vice versa even); Rally, Tank, Nervin, and Blitz are great, but they aren't duelists, and Jack understands even more than they do just how Yusei ticks, because how else would he match Yusei as a duelist? In a duel, the truth always comes out; will Yusei come to tell himself the truth that he didn't come here for revenge?

Jack knew Yusei would make it, even though he also knew that Trudge was tracking Yusei and would want another chance to not only show up Yusei but save himself from a life giving parking tickets. Jack knew everything that would happen that night, it would seem, including Yusei's plan to come via sewer pipe (either that or sector security alerted him, I guess). Jack seems more or less omniscient except that he doesn't appear to know that he's getting played.

Why would Jack come out to meet Yusei, though? On one hand, he's probably the only person with an actual chance to STOP Yusei, but on the other, in a duel the truth always comes out. I get the feeling that if Jack and Yusei duel (which is practically a certitude at this point; it's a silly question to even ask), Jack's going to be in some turmoil; he WAS Yusei's friend and he DID turn on him just to get to the City, and here Yusei is even though life gave him an even shorter end of the stick than most satellites. Jack's going to have trouble justifying the past to himself, is my prediction.

I've been noticing the full moon in this episode and the last one. They happened within the same day; Yusei said midnight TONIGHT. Therefore, the same moon they both saw from opposite sides of their world earlier is the one they're standing under right now, face-to-face. Kinda poetic, that.

Here's an interesting theory on how Yusei got so much technical know-how on duel runners having grown up far away from where one can legally own one. If anyone would have that kind of information, it would probably be KaibaCorp, the makers of the original duel disk, because duel disks smoothly merge with runners. If Kaiba were to get a letter from someone who wanted to try to build a duel runner out of scrap... not only does Kaiba identify with fighting your way up from the bottom of the heap, not only does he like to mess with people, especially thugs like you'd find in sector security-- he would probably love to see Yusei try. Just a thought I had.

For the first time in the series, we're going to see Yusei's runner going up against one that can actually keep up with it. The question is, has Jack's runner been souped up that much more with the benefit of having money to spend on parts not scrounged from recycling heaps? Then again, Yusei's been building this runner with taking on that one clearly in mind; he's sure to have made sure in all those test-runs that, not only can he make it through the pipe, he can give Jack one heck of an unpleasant surprise. And he's been keeping tabs on Jack's runner, because Jack is in full view of the public; Jack can probably only guess on everything but one piece of Yusei's runner. Jack also isn't expecting Turbo Booster, though he's probably familiar with the rest of Yusei's cards.

It occurs to me that what will probably ensue next is a turbo-duel like nothing anyone in the City has seen, at midnight, through the streets. Someone call out the news! Then it occurred to me: Yusei wouldn't even get caught, because they'd be moving too fast to be seen. Then it occurred to me: they probably have special cameras to shoot pictures of turbo-duels, since it's something of a regular thing now. Either way, if they're seen, the people who see them won't believe their eyes.

A Blast From the Past I is the next episode. Our first multi-parter. GX's was The Shadow Duelist and Yu-Gi-Oh's was Arena of Lost Souls, unless you count Duel With a Ghoul/Give Up the Ghost. But aside from the multi-parter-ness, it's pretty much a case of, okay, we're game for whatever's next. 99.9999% chance of Yusei vs. Jack.

And if it is, by the way, I'll reserve my "Who Will Win" for next week because one, we've barely seen Jack duel and two, we are lacking some crucial pieces of information around the relationship and dynamic between these two characters.

By the way, I learned how to synchro-summon. I borrowed my brother's new 5D's starter deck (I'm not much into the cards, but I do have a deck and I do occasionally cream somebody, 'cause I still understand the rules a whole lot better than anyone else in my house; I'm a duelist like Tea is-- I learned by watching duelists closely.) and looked at his rulebook. The fusion deck is now the "extra deck", because it also contains synchro monsters. Synchro-summoning requires one to tribute at least one tuner monster (like Junk Synchron) and monsters that add up to the same amount of stars as the number on the synchro monster you want to summon. Some synchro monsters are specific about their summoning, like Junk Warrior can only be synchro-summoned with Junk Synchron.

By the way, there's still no new GX on the horizon. I've even heard someone say they were told the show ended. The rumor's disquieting, but it flies in the face of sense, unless we were just out-and-out canceled mid-season with no warning, in which case we must vow painful vengeance. For one, I happened to surf into a spoiler that I won't divulge unless someone specifically asks, and if they're going all the way to the end of the series, we are definitely not there yet. For another, if you go by precedent, they're one episode short of three full seasons-- one episode! Ridiculous, absurd, to end it here and have this be the end. Probably more likely, they're letting us get our duel fix from 5D's while they take a bit of a breather with GX. I'll keep everyone posted, of course.

Well, that's all, folks! -Clio

READ A TRANSCRIPT OF THIS EPISODE HERE