"What needs to be true in this world for this story to be true?"

While I was watching Manila Skies, I kept being reminded of a favorite comic, Battle Angel Alita.

Battle Angel Alita is a Japanese Manga title featuring an assassin cyborg who looks like the average Japanese school girl fantasy—just built with a plasma laser in her fingers, and legs capable of running along her opponent's chain-link weapon while he's trying to hit her with it, so she can then kick him in the face.

Alita's first issue is devoted to her discovery in a junk yard by a gentle robot ...