E-mail from readers can be interesting for an author. I particularly like e-mails that ask specific questions about why a character did this or why did your story line take this twist, etc. I’d like to use this newsletter to answer one reader’s question in particular.

Why did you give Sully a cybernetic eye?

It’s a good question. At least I think so.

Once I made the decision for the Inspector to not be completely human, to have a few parts that aren’t human attached, I could have given Sully just about anything. Legs that would allow him to run super fast or jump over buildings. Arms that have multiple types of weapons built in. Armor beneath his skin to protect his vital organs. The sky was the limit.

But I chose to give Sully a cybernetic eye.

I based my decision on two primary reasons. Not that I intend to fill my stories with deeply profound hidden meanings, but there are things I build in for readers to catch and ponder. If a reader doesn’t pick up on it, it’s not a big deal. If a reader sees the hidden gem, great!

Sully sees the universe differently. Using his robot eye and not a human one to tell that part of the story brings attention to what Sully sees and thinks. He’s a damaged individual who sees things differently. Being a cynic, he trusts little of what he sees and hears. Actions and motives are what Sully looks to see.

More important than a story telling device is the fact I love the first two Terminator films! My kids and I also loved the short lived television franchise Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles.

I am convinced the show’s short run was due to the fact the writers and producers did not understand one very important fact. Sarah and John Connor are key elements of any Terminator story. But let’s make one point clear. They are NOT the stars

The Terminator is!

Summer Glau, who brought Cameron to life in the TV show, and Arnold Schwarzenegger, who brought the first Terminator and Uncle Bob to life, were the stars of the franchise. Miss Glau did a wonderful job as Cameron and the show would have been better served had the story line evolved around Cameron more.

I digress.

One of the features I found fascinating was the HUD Terminators used within their cybernetic eye, or optics if you prefer. Terminators can replay old memories, access data files, call up protocols, identify objects and individuals, and most importantly, select whether not to terminate a human.

In one episode of TSCC Cameron dressed up in an enticing outfit and visited a bar frequented by employees of a nuclear power plant in order to obtain the bar codes the Connor’s needed to gain access to key parts of the plant. Acting like a naive and unknowing young woman, she flirted with a pair of males from the plant who happened to be playing pool.

It didn’t take Cameron long to get invited to play a game she “didn’t know how to play” and wager money. Like fools the men let Cameron break. She promptly pulled up her HUD, used her targeting software, calculated the optimal break point, and sank four or five balls in the break.

I follow developments in robotics and artificial intelligence. Both technologies are coming whether we like it or not. In some ways these new technologies will be of great benefit to mankind. I can also see the potential for evil and great harm to society. All too often we as humans never stop to ask the question should we. We just plunge ahead and focus on “how do we?”

Given how fast technology advances, I don’t think it’s far fetched for Sully to have a cybernetic eye. I’d even venture to say within a hundred years humans will have the ability to replace a damaged biological eye with a cybernetic eye with some of the same features Sully possesses in his replacement eye.

So now you know.

If you have any questions about any of my characters that you would like to ask, please do! Just drop me an e-mail (SciFiThriller@kcsivils.com) and ask. I might even include the answer in a future issue of The Inspector’s Report.

This was first published in The Inspector’s Report, Volume Two, Number Eight.