German Comic Con 2017 in Munich
The German Comic Con was present for the first time in Munich. A premiere of sorts. And a premiere for Starship Trooper German Division, because we never took part at such events prior. At the time, we had no idea what to expect. Of course, we saw some videos on YouTube before familiarize ourselves with the occasion. There were a lot of strange people -nerds and odd guys - which seemed appropriate for us.
Why not a Comic Con?
A friend, who watched our activities via Instagram, told us that we must bring our equipment to the German Comic Con in Munich. A sort of home-match,
for most of our group were located in the Munich area. On German Comic Con, I read about a cosplay contest. Right then and there, I got an idea: what
if… we took part in this contest! And not just for participation, but to make it perfect from the start. So we dove into a planning frenzy and sent out
an application for the cosplay contest. A sort of broadcast message to the group, who would have great fun at such an event. Really, I merely wanted
to see how many troopers we could gather.
Klendathu drop
For the application I selected a short clip from the film Starship troopers, the so-called KLendathu Drop. In this scene, the Mobile Infantry
were preparing for their invasion of the planet Klendathu. As the troopers sat nervously in a drop ship, they were being motivated by their officer. The
speech of the officer was emotional, electrifying the young and inexperienced soldiers.
Immediately, I was joyfully reminded of our Commander Schröder. So I sent a quick message to him, and he agreed to think about his participation. Meanwhile, I changed the scene for usage on a stage. But we had a maximum of only 2 minutes to perform. Of course, we could not get a drop ship at the stage, and nobody in the group had stage experience (except the Commander). Therefore the goal was to keep all things very simple. To do so, we simply shut up and listen what the Commander says! Snappy! This was most effective for our group because most took part in the bootcamps of Tigerland-Action-Force (TAF).
Eventually, I swapped the stage scene from the dropship to a neutral environment, which could be anywhere in principle. A handful of troopers get advised by their Commander shortly before a serious situation/combat. The troopers had no text, but they could cry loudly.
We get you, sir!
Planning phase
To our surprise, we met the very intelligent and responsible coordinator of the fan-groups in the German Comic Con - Sven Vößing, who cared about us despite all of our doubts and issues. We received permission for the cosplay contest on the evening of Thursday. Keep in mind, the Con is already at Saturday - so there was serious time pressure. However, we were offered a superior presentation space because there was an incident with another exhibitor. All this progress brought much anxiety… yet there was still more to come! We quickly jumped to a construction market to grab supplies, but I couldn’t find my MI flag! And if that wasn’t enough stress already, my car broke down! Complete outrage - great! SUCK IT UP N’ KEEP GOING. Exactly what we learned and trained for. Anyway, things finally get solved step by step. Soon, a myriad of friends become engaged and assimilated into our group on the fly.
New recruits
Our group grew by 3 new recruits, who jumped into preparation with total enthusiasm. RIA - Recruiting in Action, new horizons. The group extends by 2 heavily armed infantrymen and one woman from the staff fleet. I get ecstatic by their engagement and was convinced that we could end with good results. Soon, Commander jumped in with his agreement of participation. The group was unstoppable. On Friday, all open ends are closed, and we gained more friends with material transport along with the repair of several vehicles.
The alarm clock rings at 6 o'clock
Saturday morning.
At 7:30, we as exhibitors arrived at the MOC, an event centered in northern Munich near freeway A9. All materials and the group of 7 were distributed evenly between two cars. It begins…
The excitement was palpable, and we had to be ready with our presentation by 8:30. When we arrived at the fair ground, we were shocked, because very slowly we had the realization… that none of our plans would work (concerning the construction of our presentation area).
A plan will work, until it hits the reality!
That's it! The mount for our banners were not working and the table board was much too thick. With that, we lost the hope to earn an acceptable result. Suddenly,
Sven commands in a pragmatic fashion, "Move over to the Aliens’ Colonial Marines, use this wall over there, take 2 desks and chairs - all is good, keep calm!" From
this moment, we had significant progress, although we were definitely lagging behind the schedule. Nevertheless, now we could continue with optimal construction of the
presentation area. The big MI flag was set upon a wall behind two desks. The desks were decorated with our great green screen fabric, which later finished with a small
MI flag at front. As Sven remarked, all is good.
The visitors are welcome
Shortly before 10 o'clock. All troopers were gearing up; attaching their armor and helmets, checking their weapons, distributing guards of duty and the patrols. Soon it was 10 o'clock, and the visitors immediately flooded into the fairground, where we were involved in discussions, photo shoots, and bundled into the great diversity of countless visitors.
Trooper training
At 2 o'clock, we had to get prepared for the main stage. Officially, we had 2 minutes on stage. But our concept efficiently fills up only a minute of performance. For that reason,
we simply used the space between the visitors at the fairground to perform our training. Our Commander Schröder performed incredibly, because for him, there is no difference
between the turmoil of combat and the visitors at the German Comic Con.
Mobile Infantry LINE UP
In the audience space, the fully armored Starship Troopers ran hurriedly to the Commander and quickly lined up in front of him. The audience is totally absorbed, excited for what’s occur. Commander repeated all the instructions: "Stand still! Line yourselves up! Eyes straight ahead! Double time, march!" ... it was the full program. All is repeated until all was well memorized. By then, we optimized the choreography to fill the two minute window. We were finally prepared for the show.
Cosplay contest
We were the second performers on the stage. In the background played the soundtrack for Klendathu Drop, which was in Paul Verhoeven’s original classic. The Commander
stood proudly at the front of the stage crying "Mobile Infantry LINE UP!" So we ran one lap of honor around the Commander and lined up behind him. In summary, 5 glorious
Starship Troopers of the Mobile Infantry. The surprise of the audience was huge when a sixth trooper (in white armor) ran up on the stage. Haha, what should that mean?
Is this the wrong movie? Star Wars Stormtrooper Max was borrowed from the Empire to help reinforce our squad. Okay, in reality it was not as spontaneous as described
here. But we hit this situation during our training and Max happened to join us. Thus we were really delighted about it and integrated him in our choreography, and
the audience got a kick out of it! The Commander did his best to warm up the guests with his MI phrases. He nailed it to such a degree that the audience agreed to
our recruiting list with the load cry “We got you, sir!”
The standing ovations gave us a surprising special award for Best Show, which made us all very happy.
Conclusion
We had already made a lot of crazy things. But this weekend gives us a completely new vision. It was awesome to perform within the special atmosphere of German Comic Con. So stimulating were the conversations with our neighbors the Colonial Marines (Aliens), Marvel Superheroes, the Stormtroopers of the 501st German Garrison (Star Wars), Pirates, and the countless other cosplayers/enthusiastic visitors. It was thrilling to be in front of such a great crowd; truly a flamboyant and colourful experience, which nobody will ever miss.
