Masterdramon writes...

Aloha Greg! Finally caught up with the queue again, and figured I'd "celebrate" my asking my own question for the first time in a while.

First off, absolutely loving just about everything about PHANTOMS so far. The maturity of the storytelling, worldbuilding, and character exploration on display in just the first arc has been stupendous.

I particularly appreciated your acknowledgment in a recent answer of racial blindspots you and the creative team could see in hindsight with the way Mars-16's society was set up, and the genuine effort put into course-correcting here, resulting in a far more nuanced and topical take on racial prejudice and hierarchy than most contemporary shows would even dare TOUCH.

Meanwhile the animation, sound design, and voice talent remain top-notch as ever (particular props to Greg Cipes...people who have only heard him do Beast Boy in the VERY broad take from "Teen Titans Go!" have to have been thrown for a loop by his performance here). The dialogue, both dramatic and humorous, carries a sharpness that few other shows of its type can match. And that heart of mystery and black-ops intrigue, which always gave YJ its own strong, unique identity to set itself apart from other versions of the DCU, remains as strong as ever (though I totally called the king's murderer right off the bat, LOL).

All this combines to create what is shaping up to possibly be the best season of this show yet, and the reason why Thursdays are the day of the week I'll be most looking forward to for the foreseeable future. ;)

Now, to the actual question...

One element introduced in OUTSIDERS that really interested me were the Control Chips used by the Light and their associates. While they seem like garden-variety fictional mind control devices in terms of their utility and effects, their actual origin and functionality are never brought up on-screen, as they are clearly a well-known feature of the criminal underworld by Team Year Eight.

So these are a few of the questions that I've been mulling over since my last rewatch of OUTSIDERS. If any of these are considered to be spoiler requests or touch on unseen elements of PHANTOMS, feel free to skip over, but I figured I'd give it a shot!

1) Who first invented the Control Chips?

2) In "Auld Acquaintance" Vandal mentions that one of the Light's goals was cornering the market, as it were, on "every conceivable method of mind control." As he says this, we get a quick montage of examples from Season 1, including Starro-Tech, G-Gnome telepathy, the Joker's plant-controlling gloves, Queen Bee's pheromone abilities, and Psimon's psychic powers. Were any of these precursors or bases for the Control Chip tech?

3) Anything you're willing to share about how the Control Chip's level of...well, control, compares to the above-mentioned methods? For example, Starro-Tech explicitly only allows an external user remote control of the mind, without actually altering the victim's thoughts. If not neutralized by a Cure Chip, do Control Chips have this same limitation, or do they work along an entirely different vector?

4) Is there a "standard" Control Chip model used by the various meta-traffickers around the world, or is this the sort of case where once the technology exists, unsavory characters of all sorts reverse-engineered their own "flavors"?

5) How does the Control Chip imprint who the victim is supposed to be obeying? Clearly in Jace's case, for example, she had primed the chips she used on Brion and Tara so they would obey her, but is that done by a voiceprint sample, DNA, or some other method?

I'm probably overthinking this one little part of the worldbuilding, but hey, that's what this sight is for! That, and asking for the age of every character who has ever been mentioned for a single femtosecond, LOL...

Regardless, wishing you, the rest of the cast and crew, and all of your loved ones the absolute best! Cannot wait for the next chapter of PHANTOMS to enter my eyeballs.

Mahalo nui loa! :D