Illegal Operation: All I Asked For Was the Name of a Battle Chip…

Carda here.

Reflecting recently on my newly acquired status as “one of The Guys” here at ELB, I really have to laugh at all the incidents and coincidences that led to all this.  And hey, I figure it makes for an awesome story, so why not share it with everyone?

It started, as many things do, with a road trip.

I was in the Army at the time, stationed at Fort Huachuca, Arizona.  Work was really stressful at the time, and my birthday, which is always conveniently close to Memorial Day, was coming up.  A couple of buddies of mine and I decided to drive up to San Francisco for FanimeCon 2004.

On the drive up, we stayed the night with an online friend of mine and her family (I later married her, incidentally) and the day before the convention we visited the TechTV studios (this was before their merger with G4) and got to be in the audience for a taping of The Screen Savers (the episode in question can be found on YouTube; that’s me in the Arizona Diamondbacks ball cap).  The next day was the start of the con (and I swear this is the last parenthetical).

I got a couple of signatures and plenty of swag, but some of the best moments of my con experience were the fansub viewings.  It was here that I was introduced to Fullmetal Alchemist and Rockman.EXE Axess.

Yep, I started with Axess.  I was one of the lucky ones.

Having played the earlier Battle Network games, I was an instant fan.  After seeing the first batch of episodes, I looked around for EXE swag in the dealers’ hall.  I didn’t find much, just a few import figures, but I did notice that a lot of the merchandise included battle chips.  At the time, I figured it was just a novelty collector’s item.

Oh, how wrong I was.

When I got back home, I picked up BN4 and started looking into import stuff… and the rest is history.  I picked up an American PET, an Advanced PET II, and a Battle Chip Gate, which I was pleased to discover worked with the American version of BN4.

My collection went into storage when I was discharged from military service, and I didn’t really go back to it for quite some time.  Then back around May or June of 2009, I pulled out my collection again and decided to continue building it.  I’d lost my Adv. PET II, but I was able to pick up a Progress PET and a Link PET, along with quite a few chips for each, including a Dark Blues Link Navi.

Problem was, the batch of chips I’d acquired included a single chip I couldn’t identify.

Now I had done my research.  I recalled several Rockman.EXE fansites from back in the day, and I knew that my best bet for finding information regarding my unidentifiable chip was to contact some guy named “FlashMan.EXE”.

I’ve heard you have a complete battle chip collection, so I’m hoping you can help me out.  I recently acquired a considerable batch of Link chips, and I’ve been cataloging them, but there’s one chip that I can’t identify, having no knowledge of Japanese.  It’s a standard chip for the Link PET, fire element, with an ID number of 281.  I would be very appreciative of any assistance you could give me.  Thanks in advance,

–Ryan Carroll

My primary email address was set up through my wife’s website, NetRaptor.org, so it had a matching domain.  This is a critical detail in understanding what happened next.

See, at one point, NR.org was home to one of the larger Sonic fan communities on the internet.  And for as many regulars, we had a considerable number of lurkers who never posted a thing.

Turns out our own FlashMan here was one such lurker, as I found out when I got the reply regarding my question about a Battle Chip.

Ryan Carroll? Of Netraptor.org, no less? That takes me waaaay, waaaaaaay back; it’s a small ‘net after all! I used to lurk on NR.org years ago though I never posted…

I’m a huge fan of Kessie’s and your own work, so help you shall have! Congratulations on your baby, by the way, I wish you guys only the best.

In regards to your question, the Link Battle Chip you’re referring to is “Punch Arm”. It’s from a series of four Battle Chips, its partners being “Boomerang Arm”, “Needle Arm”, and “Pulse Arm”.

Attached is a document you may find useful. If there’s anything else I can help you with, please let me know.

Warm regards and God bless,
FlashMan

At first, I was… surprised, to say the least.  It’s not often you contact someone for the first time ever and discover that they’re already familiar with who you are to the extent that they’re up to date on events that happened less than a month ago.

It didn’t take too long, though, for me to realize how awesome this was.  Some random guy from the internet knew who I was.  I wanted to get to know this person.

So from there, the rest is history, really.  We continued corresponding, I attended JudgeMan’s that year, I got invited in on Episode 11 (rather disappointing to realize that all our conjecture was for nothing and it was just a remake)…  Honestly I never really expected what happened right before the end of the year, when I got offered a full-fledged co-host staff position here at ELB.

And to think that all I asked for was the name of a Battle Chip.

Before I finish off this column, I’d like to take a moment to fill in our readers and listeners on what’s been going on around here lately.

The past couple of months have been incredibly fun, and we’re all looking forward to presenting what we have in store for you in the weeks and months to come.  Flash and Break are just about ready to come off hiatus, so you can expect more podcast goodness in the near future.  In the meantime, I’ll endeavor to keep Illegal Operation a regular weekly feature until we can start varying it up again.    We’ve also done some reorganization on the various pages, so definitely take a look at those.  Some things to note:

• We’ve added the Episode 4 and 5 outtake reels to the ELB DS lineup.
• The “Specials” have been renamed ELB RV.  So far this applies to just the Steakhouse and EXE4 episodes.
• We’re available on iTunes now!  You can subscribe to Eye Lazor Beams EX (and yes, that includes RV and DS episodes) via the link on the Audio page.
• The Columns page has words on it now!  And links, even!  Wow!

Here’s to more win and awesome in the months and years to come!

Because that’s just how we operate.