History Headscratchers / GalaxyExpress999

*** Some people are evil inside and lose any restraint once they get stronger and apparently immortal mechanized bodies. Maetel's mother, on the other hand, became completely mad due the particular way she was mechanized: she wasn't just taken from her old body and placed in a robotic one, [[BodyHorror her human body was slowly transformed in a robotic one by nanomachines implanted into her]] in an attempt at making her BrainwashedAndCrazy, with seeing that many being mechanized in a more traditional way at the time were being brainwashed damaging her sanity even more and her inability to be killed when she realized what she was becoming making her finally crack. ''Then'' she became fully mechanic, [[FromBadToWorse and she became evil and even crazier when she partially defeated the brainwashing]]. I say partially because she [[KickTheSonOfABitch absorbed and consumed the one responsible for her mechanization]] when she was supposed to be completely subdued to his will, but then prosecuted his plan to mechanize the entire universe...

* At the end of episode 63, Miru is shot by Lelan as she reaches for the artificial sun's kill-switch, then after [[{{KirkSummation}} Maetel's tongue-lashing]] [[{{TalkingTheMonsterToDeath}} sends Lelan reeling]], Lelan bolts outside and is killed by the daylight. So now that Lelan is dead, and Maetel and Tetsuro know where the kill-switch is...''why don't they pull the kill-switch and save 99.9% of the population from a horrible, screaming death?!''

* Are the brains of machine-humans electronic or biological? It's very strongly hinted that they have human brains, but on the few occasions we get to see a machine-human's brain it appears to be a smallish boxy wifi-router-looking doodad that couldn't possibly be big enough to house a human brain. But if they have electronic brains, how does that square with the episodes where a computer the size of a tennis court is needed to host a human consciousness that still [[{{CameBackWrong}} comes back wrong]] anyway?

* The Filament episode incorporated an interesting idea that I'd long thought would make a good SF story (basically a ''[[{{TheSixthSense}} Sixth Sense]]'' reveal with an entire ''planet'' of beings that don't realise that they are ghosts courtesy of some sudden cosmic catastrophe) but it just gets tossed out with a few cursory words in the middle of an {{Infodump}} and is never mentioned again. I wish they had expanded on this rather than just done yet another Tetsuro-held-hostage story. Still, you have to love that even fricking ''ghosts'' get taken in by the Machine Empire's [[{{VillainWithGoodPublicity}} propaganda]].

** One episode shows a man doing exactly that, so yes.

* Episode 29 has a woman state that although she doesn't have a pass, the Galaxy Express will take someone who's a refugee, since she crashed on the planet. This should have affected an awful lot of other plots, including the previous episode, which had a man stranded on a planet. The episode is also a FamilyUnfriendlyAesop about [[spoiler:staying with an abusive boyfriend]].

** Maetel was meant to be a honey trap. Promethia intended for her to go, pick up "lost" people and give them the promise of hope as a machine body and take them to the planet to be inserted into it. Promethia didn't expect Maetel to be a traitor and tell the truth to her charges who made the sacrifice willingly. The only reason Tetsuro wasn't told until the last moment was because Maetel didn't intend for him to be sacrificed.

* Is it possible to ride the 999 without a pass? If you live on a planet that only gets one train, the 999, can you buy a ticket for passage just to the next world over instead of a full pass?

** Different technologies: the one used to make the normal machine people is superior when it comes to house a human consiousness than the one used in that episode.

* Why hasn't Maetel been mechanised? Given her backstory it seems like it would have been heavily pushed on her even without consent.

* What period of time does the show cover? There's multiple references to the 999 coming round once every year and other statements seem to heavily imply it is a unique train. So that would mean on a round trip Tetsuro took six months to get from Earth to Promethium. Or about 21 weeks. In that 21 weeks he manages to have over 100 episodes worth of adventures (excluding the two parters it's probably close to a round 100, not motivated quite enough to check). That means he's having about five episodes worth of adventures per week. And considering they stop at each station for an on planet day, it must mean the travel time between planets is absurdly quick. Like less than a few hours. I guess it really is more train than spaceship.

** The engines house sophisticated AIs. Several episodes show this quite clearly.

* Who or what pilots the Galaxy Express 999 and the other train-spaceships? Are they basically automated/semi-automated robots?

** They tend to sit in the more empty cars, and the most of the passengers are from Earth in the first place. Some take the train at the various stops, but there's more people who leave, and others die when the misadventure of the week doesn't involve only Tetsuro and Maetel (rare, but happens).

** [[GenerationShips Ahem.]]

** It's early, so I forget the episode number specifically, but it's the first episode with Antares. Antares robs a car connected to the car Maetel and Tetsuo are in, which seemed decently occupied. I guess the two tend to sit in the more empty cars.

*** Some people are evil inside and lose any restraint once they get stronger and apparently immortal mechanized bodies. Maetel's mother, on the other hand, became completely mad due the particular way she was mechanized: she wasn't just taken from her old body and placed in a robotic one, [[BodyHorror her human body was slowly transformed in a robotic one by nanomachines implanted into her]] in an attempt at making her BrainwashedAndCrazy, with seeing that many being mechanized in a more traditional way at the time were being brainwashed damaging her sanity even more and her inability to be killed when she realized what she was becoming making her finally crack. ''Then'' she became fully mechanic, [[ItGotWorse and she became evil and even crazier when she partially defeated the brainwashing]]. I say partially because she [[KickTheSonOfABitch absorbed and consumed the one responsible for her mechanization]] when she was supposed to be completely subdued to his will, but then prosecuted his plan to mechanize the entire universe...