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A Quick Note: The sections of this page devoted to each of the Knight Sabers include a sub-section titled "Character Development." It includes information relating to the character development of each of the Knight Saber through various scenes in the various episodes. The sections could be considered spoilers, so please be aware of that before you read the individual write-ups. Thank you.

Background

The Knight Sabers are a mercenary group comprised of four women who risk thier lives to keep Genom from taking over the world and to protect the public from rampaging Boomers. The AD Police also exist to protect the public from rampaging Boomers, but since so many of the Boomers seem to be illegally produced combat Boomers, the AD Police are almost always seriously outmatched, and the Knight Sabers usually have to save the day.

The Knight Sabers were founded by Sylia Stingray, the daughter of the Dr. Katsuhito Stingray, the man who developed the Cyberdroid. Cyberdroids were later converted into Genom's Boomers, largely by making them less intelligent. Dr. Stingray spoke out against Genom's plans for Boomers, and was killed for his opposition. However, he was able to implant all his research on powered armor directly into Sylia's brain at the tender age of 12 through use of some very advanced technology. As Sylia grew older, she saw what Genom had planned for the world and was appalled. She applied her father's rather large fortune to the development of the hardsuits and into acquiring all the resources necessary to, if nothing else, slow Genom down.

When she was ready, Sylia contacted her team members. She sent out a highly encrypted message across the Net, knowing that no true hacker could resist the challenge. The message was picked up by Nene Romanova, who successfully decrypted it and found an invitation to join the Knight Sabers inside. Sylia recruited Priss while Priss, then a member of a motorcycle gang, was in the process of hunting down the people responsible for murdering her lover. Linna was recruited immediately after not making the cut at a dancing audition. It seems that Sylia was impressed in her abilities even if the dancing judges were not. (For the source of this information, please see the Hurricane 2032 & 2033 page.)

Sylia's fortunes are impressive, but not infinite, and the tremendous cost of maintaining the Knight Sabers home base in the Lady633 building, repairing the hardsuits, and bribing various government and corporate officials to turn a blind eye to the purchases of military hardware forces the Knight Sabers to charge a very large amount for thier services: 20 million yen minimum, half up front, half upon completion of the job. The jobs vary from surveillance and counter-surveillance to bodyguarding to hostage rescue to finding missing persons. However, the Knight Sabers don't work for just anyone. The employer must match a long list of criteria, and some people and groups, like Genom itself, are almost automatically disqualified.

In the first episode, Tinsel City, we realize that the Knight Sabers are relatively new and have never run across the AD Police before. But as the series progresses, the Knight Sabers become more and more visible. In Double Vision, Vision publically acknowledges and thanks the Knight Sabers at a concert, and the final episode, Scoop Chase, has a teenage girl writing a front-page article about them. And with all the exposure and constant conflict with Genom, one has to wonder why Genom hasn't discovered the identities of the Knight Sabers. After all, with all the resources of the largest corporation on the planet, the true identities could easily be discovered. This is one question, however, which is never answered, much to my personal satisfaction.

The 11 Rules of the Knight Sabers

1: Do not divulge any information concerning this organization.
2: Do not act upon a personal grudge.
3: Do not act without the mutual consent of all the members.
4: Do not secede from this organization.
5: Members are personally responsible for any damage done to the organization's equipment unless that damage was unavoidable.
6: Do not divulge any information concerning our clients.
7: Do not gather information on your own. The task of intelligence gathering is to be distributed evenly among all the members.
8: Keep in contact with the other members regularly.
9: The members do not know each other outside this organization.
10: Do not get involved with a man.
11: The penalty for violating any of the ten regulations listed above is death.

In the series, almost every one of these rules gets broken at one point or another, yet Rule 11 never gets invoked. Certain of the four women break various rules in one episode or another, and so the rules are most likely guidelines for behavior which must be modified to correspond with the reality of any situation.

Sylia is the daughter of Dr. Katsuhito Stingray, the researcher responsible for the creation of Boomers. At the age of 12, Dr. Stingray was assassinated, leaving Sylia and her brother, Mackie, with a large accumulated fortune. Sylia was also left with detailed files on Dr. Stingray's accumulated research knowledge and the plans for an advanced prototype powered armor suit. The latter were adapted by Sylia into the hardsuits which all four of the Knight Sabers wear. She is the most general of the Knight Sabers, and where she is generally intelligent and skilled the other team members are better in specialized area, but Sylia is also a tactical genius.

Sylia herself is only 23, and yet is an entrepeneur who owns the Silky Doll lingerie shop and is the oldest member of the Knight Sabers. She was raised in luxury, and has done her best to raise Mackie to be a standard teenager. She is driven to use the Knight Sabers as a check and a balance against Genom's greed and ambition, and to that goal she has sacraficed her personal life. She is also somewhat matronly to the rest of the Knight Sabers, and drives them better themselves. However, on occasion, that matronly interest seems to intersect with emotional satisfaction gained at the expese of the other Knight Sabers' expense. While Sylia is usually cold and calculating, and at one point "sacrifices" a team member, she usually goes for the head of a Boomer, as she feels that the intelligence of a Boomer earns it some level of compassion - a quick, painless death.

Sylia has a powerful network of contacts and informants which have enabled her to gain access to military hardware, United Nations and corporate contracts, and the intelligence assets which keep her appraised of jobs, threats, etc. Financially, Sylia owns several properties, including the Lady633 building where the Silky Doll and the Knight Sabers headquarters are located, and also where she and Mackie live. In the basement of the building is the Silky Doll minitruck which serves as a transport vehicle capable of carrying all the hardsuits and motorslaves in stored form. The garage also holds the Knight Sabers heavy-duty trailer, which can hold not only all the hardsuits and motorslaves, but is also equipped with two hydraulic booms capable of launching two motorcycles/motorslaves at a time.

As a quick and interesting aside, there are many theories going around fandom that suggest that Sylia is not human, being either a cyborg, the first 33-S Sexaroid, an android, or even a full Boomer not unlike Largo. I'm not sure whether I buy them, but the Sylia links on my Links page have links to other sites where these theories are discussed.

Character Development:

• Sylia is introduced in Tinsel Cityas meditative, perhaps even prudish, yet she owns a line of lingerie shops. She is the quintessential wealthy intellectual who suppresses her emotions most of the time.
• In Blow Up, Sylia shows that she follows the rule about personal vengeance and grudges. But Sylia also shows that she's willing to overlook the rules when necessary or expedient, or when someone (like Brian J. Mason) goes well beyond injuring just her.
• Sylia shows a couple of unpleasant sides to her personality in Revenge Road, including the fact that she just might be willing to sacrifice another Knight Saber to win, if winning was important enough. Not only that, but Sylia is shown to be more than just a little bit mercenary in this episode, and her manipulative sense of humor is also revealed.
• In Moonlight Rambler, the fact that Sylia trusts someone else to know her secret is revealed, as well as just how cold Sylia can really be, even toward her friends like Priss. When Nene calls Sylia, Nene mentions that Priss has a new friend, and Sylia's interest in Sylvie seems to be more than simple interest in Priss' social life. It seems to be more of a threat assessment, like a lioness regarding a hyena as a threat to her cubs, or that of a commander assessing a potential threat to her troops. Admitedly, it could be just curiosity, but I don't get the feel from the scene that it's that simple.
• Where Sylia might have been willing to sacrifice another Knight Saber before, in Red Eye's she nearly sacrifices herself instead. In addition, a possible connection between Largo and Sylia is revealed at the end.
• And in the final episode, Scoop Chase, Sylia has one of the most reflective and revealing conversations in the entire series, showing that she has thought in some detail about the moral and ethical issues which drive her and the Knight Sabers.

To the Character list

Priss lost her parents to the Second Kanto Quake at the age of 12, and spent the next 5 years in an orphanage, after which she joined a motorcycle gang. She fell in love with the leader of the gang, but after his murder was declared an accident by the AD Police, she went out for revenge. She hates all things Genom, and until she meets Sylvie in Moonlight Rambler, she is as overtly racist against Boomers as Leon and Daley. She met up with Sylia at this point, and she was recruited to become the Knight Sabers' heavy assault specialist. Because she spent her youth on the streets, she's a very good but very dirty fighter, willing to win using any means necessary.

She is somewhat self-destructive, but extremely strong willed. She refuses to allow people to get close since everyone who has ever tried ended up dead. She loves to eat, hates doing anything resembling housework, and is obsessed with motorcycles. She also dreams of having a professional singing carear, and her "normal" job is lead singer for a group called The Replicants, an obvious nod to the movie Blade Runner.

There are only a few times when you see any emotion other than disdainful casualness or raw hostility from Priss in the series, but those times almost revolve around the people she has either allowed close (such as Sylvie from Moonlight Rambler) or those which have a chance of becomming close (like Leon, the AD Police detective). Priss is the second youngest member of the team, at 20.

An aside about Priss: There have been a number of fan discussions (read "arguments" or, better yet, "flame wars") about Priss' sexuality. The possibility that she is a lesbian or bisexual has been raised repeatedly, and there are some interesting arguments to support those possibilities. I don't see it myself, but I do still see the possibility.

Character Development:

• Priss is introduced in Tinsel City as an aspiring singer with a hot temper. She doesn't like men in general and hates the AD Police. She's quick to shut down Leon and even quicker to rush in where angels fear to tread. But she is also relatively quick to grasp certain situations.
• In Born to Kill, Priss shows that she's not above manipulating men (Leon, in particular) to get what she needs, and she's pretty good at it too.
• As much as Priss loves to sing, her friends come first, as Blow Up shows. She hates admitting anything resembling weakness, but she also has her own dreams and a tender side to her personality that is rarely seen.
• Priss takes center stage in Moonlight Rambler, where Priss finds a friend who turns out to be a 33-S Sexaroid Boomer. A major change for a woman who is undeniably racist toward Boomers. Priss' ability to make a new, non-Knight Saber friend is something of a surprise as well.
• Priss' usually well controlled and concealed emotions are running amok in Red Eye's, but more than that is the fact that she seems to realize that not all men are scum and that Leon is a pretty good guy. She also feels responsible for Anri, another 33-S Boomer with whom she's actually friendly. That Priss can see a Boomer as a person is just shy of amazing.

To the Character list

Nene is the only member of the Knight Sabers who isn't an orphan, but her well-off and nosy parents drove her to run away from home early. She was enrolled in an all-girls school, where she cut most of her classes and managed to ace them anyway. She has an instinctive knowledge of computers and electronics, and is the supreme hacker of the group. Priss has given Nene the nick-name of "little miss cyberpunk" because she is always getting into high-tech trouble, and because Priss loves teasing Nene mercilessly. Hell, so do Linna and Sylia and Leon and....

Nene is very bright and resourceful, but she's not the most combat capable member of the Knight Sabers. In fact, when she gets into combat, she misses more often than she hits, and she often runs for cover or cowers in fear, supposedly to sneak up on the Boomer that always seems to see her before can succeed. That's not to say that she's not necessary to the team, since her unmatched hacking skills and her communications and jamming abilities have saved the lives of her teammates more than once. And of course, her job in the AD Police as a data analyst and general office worker gives the Knight Sabers access to everything that the AD Police know about any case or person.

Nene is very open about her feelings, and this often gets her into trouble. As the youngest (only 19) and most sheltered of the Knight Sabers, she is also naive and sees her helping people through the Knight Sabers in a very romantic way. Unfortunately, Nene also feels that she is underappreciated by just about everyone, especially the very Knight Sabers whose lives her abilities have saved on occation. She is also a bit immature, as we see in Tinsel City< where she scribbles a stylized face sticking out it's tongue at surveillance sattelites in the concrete. And, of course, her rampant cuteness is a good contrast to the elegant beauty of Sylia, or the angry beauty of Priss, or Linna's lithe, catlike beauty.

Character Development:

• Nene does not seem overly comfortable being out in public in her hardsuit in Tinsel City, but she seems almost exhibitionist on occasion. She reveals that she's the least mature of all the Knight Sabers as well.
• Born to Kill shows that Nene is the electronics and communications expert of the team, but also the weakest fighter of the team.
• Nene shows that she's not only alone, but a little bit sexually frustrated and jealous of Linna in Revenge Road. In addition, she shows that she's resourceful and creative when it comes to accessing computers and convincing technology to give her what she wants.
• In Moonlight Rambler, Nene reveals herself to be slightly conceited as well as able to stop the usually unfazable Leon dead in his tracks.
• Double Vision has Nene actually running into some limits when she's looking into Irene's past, since it's being protected by the Hou Bang. But Nene also pulls everything together into a coherent, and correct, whole once she has all the data.
• The entire episode Scoop Chase is devoted to developing Nene, and she shows that, in her technological element, she has a lot of courage she lacks in physical combat. She's a terrible liar, and while she was disdainful of her employers in previous episodes, she has a change of heart in this one. Most importantly, Nene proves that she really is a valuable member of the Knight Sabers.

To the Character list

Speaking of lithe, catlike beauty, Linna is the most athletic of all the Knight Sabers, working as an aerobics instructor for her "normal" job. Linna was orphaned at age 15, but her parents were not directly killed by the Quake. Instead, they were killed afterward when a Boomer went on a rampage and the then-new AD Police were totally unprepared and unable to deal with it. In contrast to Priss, however, Linna didn't let her loss drive her into depression and anger, instead pursuing her dream to be a professional dancer. After her one chance left her rejected and depressed, Sylia recruited her and she became the melee and "in-your-face" combat specialist of the Knight Sabers. I personally feel that Linna is the most skilled melee combatant in the Knight Sabers, although many people would say that Sylia is.

Linna is an underacheiver, fickle regarding men (she talks about having gone through at least 3 men in the course of the series), and she's also the most materialistic of the team. She's also the most pragmatic, concerned with worldly things like men and money, and as such is the closest to "normal" out of all the Knight Sabers. Linna's one true affectation is her headband, which she wears everywhere and at all times (she is only without it once in the entire series, and that's when she's relaxing in her apartment). And where Priss is obsessed with motorcycles, Linna is obsessed with dancing, and this obsession is precisely what makes her unmatched in close combat.

Linna is, it seems, the most understated Knight Saber in the series. But that's probably because she's so normal, and so adapted to her life that the more extreme members capture all the viewer's attention. In my experience, Linna is the Knight Saber whose name is most often forgotten by my friends. In such a world as MegaTokyo, her very normalness is what makes her so unique and what makes her unusual among the characters of Bubblegum Crisis.

Character Development:

• When introduced to Linna in Tinsel City, she is shown to be a bit impetuous when money is concerned.
• In Born to Kill, Linna refuses to take a job that's payment on delivery, instead befriending a woman who dared to try and assault a Genom VIP. She also is willing to work for free if revenge is the motivator.
• Linna's fickleness regarding men is revealed in Revenge Road, but so is her pragmatism and inability to understand Nene's romanticism.
• I'm not sure whether Linna is genuinely impressed by Sylvie in Moonlight Rambler or whether she's something of a hypocrite. It's hard to say based on just this episode.
• Linna makes an observation about reality and the perception thereof in Red Eye's that is so deep as to be scary. Linna's realism showing through again....
• Linna's discussions with Reika Chang show just how grounded Linna really is in reality and her own experiences losing family.

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