Cyborg Tax, where are your clients?

We couldn't help but snap this photo of a Midtown Houston business that looks like it's closing its doors. That's right, it looked like Cyborg Tax is powering down its systems and heading toward the biomechanical business junkyard.

So, where did their clients go? I don't know, but in rummaging through their dumpster I found a partial list of their clients. Here it is in order of revenue:


1. Darth Vader (worth a percentage of the $4.2 billion revenue from Star Wars)



Probably the biggest client was Darth Vader. We know from his MySpace page he's still living large off all his movie dough. Does the Death Star count as a home office? Is the Sith religion eligible for non-profit status? That could save him a bundle.

2. The Terminator/CSM-101 (worth a percentage of about a billion and a half dollars)



He's ruthless, relentless, and unstoppable. He's more industrial than a thousand Soviet tank factories. He's "a hyperalloy combat chassis, micro processor-controlled, fully armored. Very tough." But you wouldn't know it on the outside because he's covered in "living human tissue—-flesh, skin, hair, blood...grown for the cyborgs."

And, because his advanced AI allows him to learn, he's picked up some new tricks. He can pick up new language skills and "not sound so much like a dork." He can learn not to kill, which is impressive since he's a Terminator. And he learned to take advantage of some really cutting-edge tax breaks thanks to Cyborg Tax—-like how to depreciate new parts, "own" himself through an offshore shell corporation, and avoid "technology transfer" issues when touring Asia.

All in all, he can expect a very respectable return on his investments. So he can afford a nice lifestyle until his power cells run down in the 2090's

3. Master Chief (with part of a billion dollars in revenue)



Master Chief Petty Officer John-117--known simply to all as 'Master Chief'--is the last hope for the survival of the human species. Mankind faces extinction at the hands of technologically advanced aliens known as the Covenant, whose religious leaders pronounced humanity as 'infedels' and declared a 'jihad' to purge the galaxy of homo sapiens.

Beat back from planet to planet, the Marines of the United Nations Space Command (UNSC) and Master Chief--the only surviving cyberneticaly enhanced SPARTAN super-soldier—-are the only thing standing between the Covenant and their final assault on Earth.

Sound as epic as Star Wars? It is, but it's an interactive, internet-enabled game you can play as a campaign or against other players around the world. Master Chief doesn't just save humanity, he propelled Microsoft's XBOX game console to the forefront against industry leader Sony's PlayStation franchise. The original Halo became the "killer app" that ensured the success of XBOX.

Then came Halo 2. It's launch broke records for video game sales--with $125 million in sales in the first 24 hours. It rivaled the revenue and media coverage of a major motion picture and cemented the power Master Chief had over his fans. Like Star Wars fans who camped out in front of theaters, teens and adults, fathers and sons, queued up late Monday night for the 12:01 AM November 9, 2004 release.

With Halo 3, the launch wasn't just a video game release. It was a major story, fueled by huge promotions and viral marketing, covered by the Wall Street Journal and CNBC, as well as live coverage from G4TV and thousands of bloggers. Master Chief took a place of honor on the homepage of Microsoft.com.

And so many people called in to work sick to play Halo 3, researchers measured the productivity loss to the American economy, dubbing it Halo Sickness.

So what is Master Chief doing with his hard earned cash? Probably just collecting interest, he's not the kind of guy to get a huge TV or pimped out ride. Like the original Spartans he's named for, Master Chief is the consummate professional soldier who ignores the niceties of life and concentrates on defending the rest of us. Bungie concept artist Eddie Smith said of Master Chief: "He does his job, walks off, doesn't even get the girl, he's that cool he doesn't need her." Thank you, Master Chief.


4. Seven of Nine



"I knew exactly what I was in for when I had my first costume fitting," explains actress Jeri Ryan. "Clearly my character was added to the show for sex appeal, which remains the one way to get attention very quickly." Say hello to the sexiest cyborg on our list: Seven of Nine, Tertiary Adjunct of Unimatrix 01. Also known as Seven of Nine, or just Seven.

Seven's story in a nutshell: Born a human named Annika Hansen, her parents were exobiologists who took her along for a deep space mission to study the Borg when she was just six years old. Not a great idea as it turns out. After nearly two years of shadowing the Borg, making over 9,000 log entries, and collecting 10 million teraquads of data, the Hansens are discovered and assimilated. About twenty years go by and Annika, now known by her Borg designation Seven of Nine, is a mature Borg drone serving on a Borg vessel in the Delta Quadrant.

This where we meet Seven, during the Star Trek: Voyager two-part episode Scorpion. The Voyager crew and the Borg face a common enemy called Species 8472, and are forced to work together. Seven is the designated representative from the Borg assigned to the U.S.S. Voyager. After she tries to assimilate the crew, they disable her ability to communicate with the Borg collective consciousness--and she begins a long journey toward reclaiming the individuality lost when she was only six years old.

It is this struggle to understand individuality and humanity—a role filled in other Star Trek series' by Spock and Data characters—that provided a needed element to the series. Although Ryan acknowledges her sexy attire as a way to boost ratings, it was Seven's outsider perspective, honest probing of human behavior, and even pointed questioning of the Captains decisions that she says "brought conflict to the show, which was sadly lacking."

Smart, sexy, and cybernetic. When it comes to Seven of Nine's charms, resistance is indeed futile for most male sci-fi fans. But why was she at Cyborg Tax? Unknown. It's common knowledge that money is irrelevant in the 24th century.

Labels: Halo, Houston, naming, sci-fi

posted by Mark @ 11:16 AM