Web Animation / Internecion Cube

Pictured: IC-0n

Internecion Cube is a cartoon animatic series by Liam Vickers, the maker of Cliffside, focusing on 15-year-old Max and spoopy A.I. murder-cube IC-0n as they attempt to evade the agents of a shadowy government agency.

The video descriptions explicitly state that the series was intended to be an exercise in storyboarding practice and never a full project, so there is unlikely to be any continuation beyond Episode 3. However, the series has heavily fed into Vickers' later work Murder Drones.

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Internecion Cube contains examples of:

• 20 Minutes into the Future: According to the papers on Kirie's bedside table, the series takes place in the late 2030s.
• All Love Is Unrequited: Kirie and IC-0n have an obvious romantic interest in Max, who seems to be completely oblivious (in IC-0n's case) or aware, but trying to ignore it (in Kirie's case).
• Ambiguously Evil: Kirie, as part of the general mystery surrounding who she is and what she wants. She's really, really damn creepy, is shown brutally killing IC-52n as she begs for mercy, and sadistically fantasising that IC-0n will "scream as I peel it apart". However, it's not entirely clear if her evil behaviour is part of an understandable desire for vengeance against the things which twisted her mind and body, or serving a more sinister goal. There's a fair bit of speculation she was intended to become the Big Bad of the series.
• Ambiguous Situation:
  • Whatever it is that happened to Kirie to make her like she is. The two most popular theories are that she's a human who was 'infected' by one of the cubes and is suffering from extreme trauma and loss of humanity, or that she's a cube who has assimilated the original Kirie and is pretending to be human.
  • What exactly the 'cubes' are: A.I.s fused with nanobots? Alien technology? Something even more bizarre? Also, the relationship between IC-0n and the other 'cubes' — did she create them? Or are they improvements on her design, as hinted in the first episode? Perhaps attempts to reverse engineer her? The list, in both cases, goes on.
• Beware the Silly Ones: IC-0n often behaves rather like a goofy petulant teenager. She's still an unbelievably powerful Mechanical Abomination whose end goal is absorbing all matter in the universe.
• Blessed with Suck: Downplayed. IC-0n can absorb or create anything — but when she tries to synthesise anything organic, it turns into an Eldritch Abomination.
• Body Horror: None in the first episode, but episodes two and three both feature it prominently, particularly whenever Kirie shows up.
• Card-Carrying Villain: IC-0n is very open about her apocalyptic desires and outright calls herself evil.
• Comedic Sociopathy: Half the humor of the series comes from IC-0n. IC-0n's first solution to any problem is murder and her end goal is to consume the universe, which should give you a good idea of what kind of humor she provides.
• The Comically Serious: Kirie. Very, very apparent when she appears to 'flirt' with Max.
  Kirie: [deadpan] Are you now confused at my intentions due to me being a hot mess express quirky baka gamer girl?
  Max: Iiiiignoring that.
• Crush Blush: Both IC-0n and Kirie develop this regarding Max. Though in the former's case it's the text "RN:[BLUSH]" in pink displaying on her robotic 'face'.
• Eerie Pale-Skinned Brunette: Hard to tell due to the usual art style, but the colored artwork shows IC-0n is this in her human disguise.
• Foreshadowing:
  • In episode two, IC-0n says she can't directly harm the administrator (Max) unless his access is revoked. The fact that she has, including seconds before when she slammed him face-first into the ground, foreshadows what we learn in episode three: Max isn't actually her administrator, he just said he was and she believed him.
  • Similarly, Max says nothing when IC-0n asks if her administrator is going to harm her, foreshadowing that his goal is to deliver her to Kirie, who wants to destroy her.
• Freeze-Frame Bonus: A lot of them.
  • Anytime text flashes across IC-0n's face/display, reading it generally reveals what she's doing or noticing.
    • Before she boots up in episode two, her diagnostic notice says she's corrupted and that data recovery has failed, leading to her being booted in "safe mode."
    • In episode three we get this just before the diner confrontation:
      "SPLICED ENTITY DETECTED (DIVERGENT STRAIN IC-313n)"
  • During a lightning strike in episode three, Kirie's true form can briefly be seen.
  • During the flashback in episode two, when Kirie is getting chips from the vending machine, we see the text on its order dial switch to "WELCOME KIRIE 0u0, YOUR FLESH WILL BE REFORMED ANEW, WE'LL PEEL APART YOUR SOUL, Come back to us Kirie, come back to us Kirie, COME BACK TO US KIRIE".
• A God Am I: IC-0n is very transparent about her desire to become a god. The only time she doesn't act like she wants to be a god is when she insists she already is one.
• Goggles Do Something Unusual: Max's chunky Coke-bottle glasses seem to have some sort of night-vision capability, and are possibly more general "smart-glasses" given they transform into Scary Shiny Glasses when he's thinking.
• Goo-Goo-Godlike: Downplayed with IC-0n. She's an incredibly dangerous Mechanical Abomination and frequently claims to be a god, but her characterization is that of an immature Psychopathic Womanchild with very limited knowledge of the human world.
  IC-0n: What's a restroom?
  Max: Yeah, I refuse to take responsibility for that.
• Humanity Is Infectious: Ic-0n, although she will not admit it, has a soft spot for Max and the Waitress. She even goes out of her way to attempt to synthesize bacon and sunny side up eggs for Max.
• Humanoid Abomination: Kirie, who's something even more inhuman than IC-0n, ironically because she Was Once a Man before becoming... other.
• Hugh Mann: IC-0n's "definitely not terrible human disguise" in Episode 3 is an improvement on her robotic body, but is somewhat given away by the extra arms sticking out of her head, glowing eyes and Cute Little Fangs in a too-wide mouth, and her decision to eat the cutlery.
• Hunter of Monsters: Heavily implied to be Kirie, as she wants to take apart IC-0n, along with a flashback of IC-52n being torn apart by her true form. May be a Hunter of Their Own Kind to an extent, too.
• Know When to Fold 'Em: After seeing IC-0n "repurpose" a helicopter with very little effort, with the debris smashing into a van which blows up, the government agents in the other van suddenly remember that their fuel tank is only 3/4 full and they passed a gas station a few miles back, and get the hell out of there.
• Jigsaw Puzzle Plot: What little information we have about the series is supplied in a piecemeal manner throughout the 3 episodes, and given there is likely no continuation this 'jigsaw' will remain unfinished.
• Lonely Rich Kid: Implied. Kirie, in Episode 2, is shown living all alone in a dilapidated mansion. It's possible she inherited it from her father after he was (presumably) killed in the same incident that turned her into a Transhuman Abomination.
• Magical Girlfriend: Deconstructed, kinda. Both IC-0n and Kirie are non-human girls with a romantic interest in Max, who also happen to be horrifying Mechanical Abominations he'd almost certainly be better off having nothing to do with. And he met the former by kidnapping her, too.
• A Match Made in Stockholm: IC-0n describes her relationship with Max as a "problematic power dynamic" and "male fantasy Stockholm bullshit," specifically in reference to the fact that he "basically kidnapped [her]" and as her administrator, she literally cannot disobey him. It's further complicated by the fact that Max isn't actually her administrator, he just said he is and she believed him. So while a relationship built on a lie still isn't great, his control over/imprisonment of her is essentially a Cardboard Prison consisting of a flimsy deception that would crumble the moment she tried to make good on any of her numerous threats against him. That said, their relationship isn't, at least currently, a romantic one.
• Mechanical Abomination: IC-0n, an incredibly powerful machine capable of assimilating all matter and reconfiguring it into whatever she needs, while also being a terrifying monstrosity.
• Not What It Looks Like: Inverted. In Episode 2, IC-0n awakens from 'sleep mode' to find Max straddling her and measuring her hands/claws. He denies trying to reverse engineer her, and claims he actually has a hand fetish. For her hands, specifically.
• Ominous Cube: A recurring element of the IC-#ns. They take the form of small cubes when not forming animated bodies, and when they break things down or reconstruct them there's a notable cube effect taken by the materials in the process.
• Power Tattoo: Both IC-0n and IC-313n have their number as a glowing tattoo on their body when in human form.
• Self-Deprecation: The coloring book young Kirie draws in has a drawing of Yannis the pterodactyl from Vickers' previous work CliffSide. Under the drawing is a "dino fact" reading: "WTF is this thing? Is its head bone or something? Scorpion tail? Has this artist ever seen a pterasaur in his life?"
• Stalker with a Crush: Kirie gives off this impression towards Max, given that her bedside table consists mainly of pictures of him, with any other person's face crossed out.
• Take That!: How does the Waitress respond when IC-01n goes on a crazy Obviously Evil rant about assimilating Max's heart tissue and Taking Over The World?
  Waitress: Yes, I think my nephew's on that Facebook thing as well.
• Unfazed Everyman: Well, Unfazed Everywoman in the case of the Waitress from Episode 3, who notices, but doesn't otherwise react to, all the strange and/or disturbing things that IC-0n says and does.
  Waitress: Sweetie, you are gorgeous like one of them haunted dolls that steals souls.
• Wowing Cthulhu: IC-0n quickly takes a shine to the cheerful oversharing waitress in episode 3, who doesn't seem to care about her strange appearance and behaviour.
  IC-0n: ...I love you.

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