Brothers (yen and yang in personality)
One is a robot. He’s the methodical, organized, patient, etc. The other is a chimp—a crazy poo flinging ape. They are not necessarily related as brother in a literal sense, but there relationship is tight like that. The monkey makes messes and is energetic about it. The robot just takes his primate’s crap and cleans up after him. Their differences make them good foils for each other. Deep down inside, they enjoy working together.
2. Communication (sign language)
These characters use sign language to talk. They don’t speak vocally. [Jared mentioned using icons.] Communication is on a very simplistic level—like animals. They know each other so well that they wouldn’t even need to talk if they could. Their communication skills gained in their muteness actually benefits them at times when they have to work outside the ship. The robot took out the radios in the suits because the monkey likes to scream for unexplainable reasons.
3. Space Travel (Ray Bradbury Style)
These two guys are traveling though space in a starship/rocket. They are going somewhere, and they have a job to do. But, space travel takes a long time no matter where you are going. They often end up with a lot of down time. What do you do on a spaceship everyday for days on end?
Limitation for the robot brother, he can't run 24/7 he needs to be plugged in and recharged. Maybe every couple of days he has to power down completely. This means the ape brother could do whatever he wants while the robot brother is shut down. It could add some shenanigans humor
ReplyDeleteThere are several limitations that come to mind such as spare parts, food, wearing of parts, etc. An interesting limit that I came up with is that the robot runs on a bio-fluid that doesn't only have energy uses, but has life restoring capabilities. So everytime the monkey gets sick, the robot has to give a little of himself in order to save him. This could create inner conflict and provide an interesting story arc about what the definition of life is. Is it sentience and personality or is it natural creation? He is a robot that is manufactured, but has personality and can actually give life.
ReplyDeleteIt could be possible that this bio liquid could also self replicate but at a very slow rate.
Limitation: The monkey doesn't have very good long term memory.
ReplyDeletePart of the ship breaks, and in order to fix it the robot must give up some part of his (power core, processing whatever thing...)
ReplyDelete(Younhee)
ReplyDeleteLimitation for the monkey: the monkey is actually deaf! That's why he screams randomly, because he can't hear himself, hence he naturally communicates in sign language and don't bother talking. Maybe that fact could be revealed well into the story for an element of surprise.
An air problem causes the robot to scramble to save his oxygen-in-taking brother.
ReplyDeleteYeah, most of my ideas are like the ones mentioned above.
limitation that already exists - the monkey is aging.
ReplyDeletealternatively - the monkey could be immortal!