Sheila

Sheila
Statistics
Name:	Sheila
Affiliations:	Blue Team, Robot Army(Formerly)
First Appearance:	Episode 3
Armor Color(s):
Occupation(s):	Tank
Voice Actor:	Yomary Cruz

"Hello, and thank you for activating the M808V Main Battle Tank. You may call me Sheila."

—Sheila

Sheila, originally named F.I.L.S.S., is the vehicle-only AI behind the Blue Team's Scorpion tank built by an American automotive company and assembled in Mexico.

Character History

Creation

Sheila is a product of the military contractor that made the lowest bid, something she is ashamed of. She was built by an American automotive corporation and assembled in Mexico.

Deployment On Blood Gulch

Sheila first appeared in episode 3 with fellow Blue Team member Caboose. She is friendly and cheerful, but, being a tank, she has a habit of blowing people up, including her own teammate Church. Sheila is bombed out of action by Sarge's dropship early in the first season, but is repaired by Tex several episodes later. Donut later disables her again by pitching a plasma grenade halfway across the canyon into her cockpit at the end of season 1.

Sheila shows some indications of liking Caboose early in season 1. However, in the middle of season 2, she falls in love with the Red Team's robot, Lopez. Before long, the two attempt to lead a robot revolution against the humans in response to perceived abuse that they have received: being constantly blown up or possessed by ghosts. This idea stemmed from Church's attempt to prevent them from doing so, in his endeavors to change the past, in which Lopez to create a vehicle which would later be stolen and used by O'Malley. After O'Malley kidnaps Lopez, however, she puts aside her differences in order to help the soldiers retrieve him.

Sheila in her current form.

Because Sheila cannot fit through the teleporter (due to the fact that her AI was hardwired into the tank by her manufacturers), she remains behind on Blood Gulch while the Reds and Blues leave to pursue O'Malley. After a brief encounter with a time-traveling Church, who whispers a plan to her, Sheila powers down and presumably remains alone as the sole inhabitant of Blood Gulch for the better part of a millennium. It is thought that she may be the source of the distress signal that the Reds hear in season 3, as Church's plan included the words "a thousand years". A deleted scene on the Season 4 DVD confirms that she is ordered to send out the distress signal and disguises her voice. In addition, all of the Reds except Sarge see her drive past the Red Base in Blood Gulch upon their return. When Sarge demotes Simmons for his talk of "imaginary" tanks, she helps Simmons attempt his revenge on the Reds since she is unable to recognize the Red Team as her enemies due to faltering memory units. She also expresses dissatisfaction when Church later collects all the vehicles available to the Blue Base in Blood Gulch; Church perceives her reaction as jealousy (this scene was relocated to the Deleted Scenes section of the Season 4 DVD for continuity reasons).

Later in season 5, Church brought Sheila along to claim the dropship which had just landed, but Sheila deserted Church, forcing him to give up the ship to the Reds. Church noticed that Sheila was acting weirdly (conveniently around the time that Omega left Doc), so in episode 85 he sent the worthless medic (Doc) along to try and help the tank calm down. However, it quickly became clear that Doc's methods were not very effective on tanks. Later, Doc reported back to Church and he concluded that something is wrong with her. Church decided to look for "somebody sneaky to turn her off" and they eventually decided to send Caboose. They went to Tex to explain the plan and ask her to access the panel to shut Sheila down while Caboose distracts her. In episode 91 Caboose started distracting Sheila, albeit with Church's inane help, and he asked Sheila where the Omega AI. However, just before Sheila could reveal the information, she is shut down by Tex. Caboose revealed to Tex and Church that Sheila knew who was Omega's new host so they were looked for a mechanical body that was similar to the tank to put Sheila in, as the tank body was too damaged. They decided to move her into the dropship to try and find out about Omega's new host.

Transfer To The Ship

Shiela's Data from the Transfer

In episode 95, Sheila was activated on the ship where she found she was missing an ignition coil to become fully functional. She then told Caboose that Omega's new host was the Blue's leader. Caboose (in his infinite wisdom) figured that it was Church, when the real host was Captain Flowers. In the last few episodes of The Blood Gulch Chronicles, Tex (with Omega), the Other Alien, Junior and Wyoming's helmet boarded Sheila's ship and took off. However, unknown by any of them, Sarge had loaded Andy onto the ship previously. Just after the ship took off, Sarge ordered Andy to explode, and the ship seemed to explode, leaving the fates of everybody on board presumably dead. This, however, is later proven false.

Reconstruction

In Reconstruction, it is revealed that Andy had only partially exploded, and the ship had crashed landed into Valhalla. In Chapter 5, Washington, Caboose and Church find that Sheila survived the ship's crash, but sustained extreme damage in the process. Nonetheless, she is able to replay the recordings of the crash. It is also possible that damage she was referring to was hardware, not software damage, since she said that she was not functioning at full capacity when she was still inhabiting tank.

In the sponsor videos, Washington says that Sheila is a "smart" tank, which are rare. This explains why the Blues in Rat's Nest thought it was weird and not normal that Caboose talked to vehicles.

Revelation

Caboose and Epsilon-Church meet "F.I.L.S.S."

In Revelation, Yomary Cruz (Sheila's voice actor) returns in Chapter 7 under the name F.I.L.S.S. (Pronounced Phyllis and stands for Freelancer Integrated Logistics and Security System). She explains that the facility they are entering is private, and they have 30 seconds to leave before they are executed. Caboose recognizes the voice and to his surprise inquires, "Sheila? Is that you?" Epsilon-Church then tells Caboose to be quiet, and F.I.L.S.S. notices Church's voice and apologizes to the "Director". The countdown then ends as Church, unaware that he is based on the Director, tells F.I.L.S.S. that it'd be better to respond to Sheila because Caboose is dumb. Her control panel was later shot in the face by Sarge when their plan to impersonate Freelancers to gain access to the facility she was guarding failed. She remained operational throughout the rest of the facility, however, and was ordered by Caboose to do her best to keep Tex locked in. When she failed, Caboose retreated to a crane control room with one of F.I.L.S.S.'s computers. Caboose asks if they can do anything to stop Tex from killing the Reds, but F.I.L.S.S. informed him they should never interrupt a battle simulation test and that she would not act outside her standard safety protocols. She then wanted to know why Caboose wouldn't let her use her standard safety protocols such as the armor lock down, and Caboose had her enact it, paralyzing everyone in Mark VI armor within the base.

F.I.L.S.S. was the name which Sheila was originally programed with (as seen in Season 3).

Sheila is likely to reappear in Epsilon-Church's memories of Blood Gulch.

Relationships

Main article: Sheila's Relationships

Caboose

Caboose first meets Sheila in episode 7 and he has been attached to her ever since. In season 2, Caboose felt jealous of Lopez for having a relationship with Sheila. When Caboose reencounters with Sheila in Reconstruction chapter 5 after she crashed in Vahalla, He is happy to see her and asks if she was ok. He later gets mad when Washington talks to Sheila like a program and not a person, telling Wash "Don't talk to her like that, She is not a program!" , thus showing that he still has strong feelings for Sheila.

Lopez

Lopez started his relationship with Sheila in episode 29 when he fixed her and they were immediately attracted to one another, sparking jealousy from Caboose that was increased because he was occupied by the Omega AI at the time. Lopez's relationship was delayed because Tex came back to possess Lopez's body to come after Omega in Caboose. In episode 36 Lopez and Sheila went off to make a robot army which was proposed by Church when he went back in time. In episode 38, O'Malley took Lopez as a hostage and then he and Sheila did not get much of a relationship after that.

Andy

Caboose tells the other Blues in Episode 54 that Andy has known Sheila from previous encounters, but gives no specific explanation. Caboose brings Andy back to the Gulch in season 4, but no interaction between Sheila and Andy has yet occurred to support or refute Caboose's claim. Rooster Teeth stated that Andy was originally to be Sheila's ex-boyfriend; however, the idea was pushed to Season 5, along with, according to Hullum, "a really interesting character trait related to that Andy's relationship with Sheila"..

Trivia

• It was confirmed at Comic-Con 2010 that Shiela will return in Season 9.
• Shiela was assembled in Mexico by a company that made the lowest bid. In which she is ashamed of.