Aldnoah Zero

You're forgetting that it was his poor social skills that got him killed. Guy has difficulty explaining and talking things out, so he shoots first and spells things out later. Hence the trust shortfall between him and Slaine that eventually landed him a bullet in the forehead, and how he keeps sending in underinformed redshirts to be messily killed off. Inaho's smart, but he's not a leader or a diplomat, and this does end up being a problem.

What's precedent ever done for us?

Once. It's a problem once. And Inaho getting the bullet he so richly deserved tunneling through his brainpan wasn't a result of Poor Communication Kills. It was a direct result of him making a stupid fucking decision by (a) shooting down Slaine instead of trying something else before immediately resorting to violence (remember, he'd been trusting this guy with his life in a giant robot fight with another Martian when he had no idea whose side Slaine was on) and (b) not bothering to retrieve the sky carrier so he can take Slaine in alive and figure out what the fuck was going on. That's not poor communication, that's idiocy.

There's a reason this character pisses me off, and it's because I know what they were trying to do with Inaho. They were trying to make a Skitter; a Science Hero with limited to no powers compared to their enemies who regularly takes down much more powerful and intimidating foes by being clever and relying on knowledge and tactics rather than brute force. The problem is, they completely ignored everything that made Skitter work as a character. For one, she had a personality outside of being a smartass badass. She was sympathetic and understandable, something aided by the story's POV format. Secondly, she wasn't smart at the expense of making everyone else look fucking stupid. She was a cut above the rest, but she never made any of the real professionals (The Wards don't count) look stupid or incompetent by comparison. Third, she was fallible, and not just in a one token loss kinda way. She made terrible decisions more often than not off the battlefield, and her personal life was a fucking mess. People constantly underestimated and belittled her instead of showering her with praise like our precious little Inaho, and her only friends were people just as fucked up as she was. One of them actually did have extremely poor communication skills, and the others were either sociopaths or chronic liars. She did not attract good company. Fifth, the story settled us in gently, providing us with a gradual serial escalation that showed us how smart and capable Skitter was without shoving it in our faces.

Inaho has none of this. Is some of it because the format of the show isn't necessarily friendly to a lot of what made Skitter a great character on top of being a badass? Probably, yeah. That's why you shouldn't try to do something anyway if you know it probably isn't going to work with your chosen format.

(I could probably make this post more in-depth with some proper analysis, comparison and contrasting, but I wrote this on the bus and I can't be assed to fix it right now. So I'll probably return to a lot of what I brought up here and expound on it later)

I've got new mythological machinery, and very handsome supernatural scenery. Goodfae: a mafia web serial

Part of my beef with Inaho's character is that I have issues with one MC getting most of the success while the other(s) get jack shit. It seems too unbalanced.

It's fine if there's only one MC, but when there are multiple M Cs, having only one get all the good scenes while the others don't bugs me.

But that's just me.

What was in your right hand is hope; And in another hand is something else to fade.

I just wish the other characters were more competent. But the Martians only really know how to Aldnoah and the rest of the Earthling soldiers are apparently noobs.

& Actually, this was the big difference between Inaho and Skitter I forgot to mention. When Inaho comes up with a brilliant plan, he does it all himself and gets all the praise because he's a precious little genius who's misunderstood by everyone like he's the fucking Stanley Kubrick of giant robots (when he's really the John Romero, let's all be honest). When Skitter comes up with a brilliant plan, she uses everyone at her disposal because she and the author both know she can't do it herself. The plan is all her, but the credit goes to everyone because it requires a group effort, and she works with her teammates to achieve the best possible result.

The difference between these two things is the difference between a victory that feels well-fought and earned and a victory that feels like some smug dickwad pulled it out of his ass, pretended it was all part of some master plan he totally thought of ahead of time and won't stop passive-aggressively gloating about it.

edited 29th Sep '14 6:09:59 AM by KSPAM

I've got new mythological machinery, and very handsome supernatural scenery. Goodfae: a mafia web serial

His sister actually calls him out on only "remembering he has teammates when he needs them." It's part of Inaho's personality as I see it. If he thinks he can manage on his own, he will go and try to do it on his own. He's shown a few times that he's not good at asking others for help unless he thinks it's absolutely necessary (Showcased in episode 4 when he goes out to take on Vlad, he doesn't even consider asking Calm or Inko to join him. They're the ones who offered to go.) Speaking of which, it would have been an utter disaster for Inaho if he had gone alone that time, so he's clearly not as infallible as KSPAM would like to believe the show makes him out to be.

As for sending the red shirts to their deaths, most, if not all of them, would have died even if Inaho had the capacity to explain his plans. The one time you see his allies dying as a direct result of his plans is, ironically, the one time he explained the plan to them (airdrop from 20k meters.)

edited 29th Sep '14 8:09:23 AM by nanaya88

But the show never draws attention to it. Whenever Inaho comes close to making a mistake, it's swept under the rug.

I've got new mythological machinery, and very handsome supernatural scenery. Goodfae: a mafia web serial

Your posts do have me wondering if you're working from a starting point of Inaho's a...to quote you "smug dickwad" and analyzing what happens after from there. True, the story doesn't wave every one of Inaho's failures in the audience's face when they happen, but doing so rather than letting the audience decide on their own is a storytelling decision. In my opinion it is actually a better storytelling device than needing to explicitly point out every little detail unambiguously.

Additionally, it's not like Inaho pulls plans out his ass since one thing the show does rub in your face is his obsession over knowing as many details as he can before putting himself and those he's close with in danger. ie: having his friends help him gather info on Trillam's M-Kat, using the deaths of the other squads of Kats to figure out the properties of Fermianne's rocket fists (which I admit would be completely cold-hearted if it wasn't a life or death situation), reading up on the specs of the different Earth Kats, reading up on the properties of his Mecha Expansion Pack...The only ones he didn't do explicit prep work on were Vlad and Saazbaum, the latter for which he had a perfectly valid explanation for not preparing for in that that was their first encounter.

I agree that people do have valid complaints when they say the other characters could use more development or show more competence since they largely get overshadowed by Inaho as far as combat is concerned. In other arenas though, such as dealing with moral dilemmas and personal conflicts, Asseylum, Slaine, Rayet, and Marito all clearly outstrip Inaho. The problem of Inaho overshadowing everyone is only relevant if you're viewing the show as purely an action-oriented mecha anime.

edited 29th Sep '14 2:27:23 PM by nanaya88

Come on, KSPAM. Arguing like this doesn't work if you're making up things that never happened in the show. Slaine. Shot. First.

The rest of your arguments boil down to "Inaho isn't the kind of character I want him to be, so therefore he sucks." and "This isn't the kind of show I want it to be, so therefore it sucks."

edited 29th Sep '14 4:53:38 PM by HighVelocityPointyThings

Also, when the season ends with a character getting shot in the head by somebody who could've been a very valuable ally if they hadn't fucked up every attempt at communication, saying that the show sweeps all of this character's failings under the rug is a bit of an odd claim.

"Canada Day is over, and now begins the endless dark of the Canada Night."

As was already mentioned above, Slaine shot first, so you can't blame Inaho for starting any violence.

Firstly, why is this Inaho's fault? If you should blame anyone for that, shouldn't it be the actual soldiers, not a volunteer?

His Kat wasn't equipped for a rescue mission in the water anyway. I personally didn't see a issue with this, considering they needed to run away as fast as possible in case reinforcements showed up.

edited 30th Sep '14 1:32:37 AM by Chaosjunction

Searching for meaning in meanings

You guys want to learn something funny?

Aldnoah Zero comic is currently guest-starring in Manga Time Kirara (likely to be moved to its online service in a month or two). In Kirara Forward, to be exact.

If you do some funny logical jumps via the Kirara connection, you can claim that Aldnoah Zero: the manga is a moeblob series.

To be honest I get the impression that a lot of people have invested a great deal of emotional energy hating MC-kun. Which I really don't get. At least for me his antics were the redeeming point of the series. The "Supermech of the week appears, kills redshirts, and then gets beaten when MC-kun attacks it's weak point for massive damage" formula was a little dumb but I found it fairly enjoyable. I guess what I really don't get is how anyone ever can like the rest of the story.

It seems like they're trying to make the conflict between Earth and Mars a Gundam style grey on grey war is hell affair. I know they a least spent a fair bit of exposition trying to make us care about Sauce and his dead wife. The problem is that spaceship hasn't just sailed it crashed into New Orleans at the end of EP 1 and killed tons of people.

It's pretty much the same audio PV from a while back, except this time, we got official subs to clear out the ambiguity (or add MORE to it).

As an addendum to the above◊, a recent article on the series.

You got it, it actually says Slaine of the Rebellion. Those who compared him to post S1 Code Geass Suzaku may laugh now.

Those looking for confirmation on both Inaho and Asseylum however will be disappointed, as it just recycles shots we've already seen◊, along with summaries of stuff we already know of.

edited 8th Oct '14 11:20:57 AM by MyssaRei

@Mistborn The thing is that Saucy's not really a good source for any "grey-on-grey" information. Matter-of-fact, we haven't heard much of anything about Vers from a neutral party.

One of the early promotional items for the series was a packet of mockuments that filled in a bit of the history. One of those was a commented "Official Timeline", supposedly by a neutral historians. I've stumbled across a fan translation of it here. Comments are included with the original text of the date they reference:

---

1975: Backed by international cooperations, detailed plans for Mars colonization were created, and the Mars Treaty was put into place. The treaty prohibits the use of military forces on Mars, which was ratified by all of the U.N member nations. Soon after, the Cold War was all but resolved. Of the same year, the first Mars expedition group was formed and deployed, supervised by the accompanying Professor Rayregalia.

This timeline was written according to the standardized official history advocated by the UFE, which was taught in all UFE affiliated education institutions across the globe. While it is in the habit of UFE to burry any unfavorable informations, this entry does contain the truth, perhaps due to foolish carelessness. I advise the readers that, instead of focus on what is written, you should pay more attention to what is left out.

---

1982: Rayregalia began inciting anti-Earth sentiments amongst the colonists, calling for violent armed insurrections. While the UN immediately attempted to suppress the uprising, the situation quickly escalated none the less.

Mars, being a planet with few readily useable resources and livable environments, was extremely difficult to develop. This was well understood by the Mars Immigration Program. However, they never instructed or informed the prospected colonists on how exactly and by what means, were the colonists supposed to overcome these difficulties. The colonists, who were at first idealistic about settling on the new world for humanity, had to endure and overcome extreme hazardous and inhospitable conditions which they were never prepared for nor could even imagined. Professor Rayregalia repeatedly and desperately informed the Mars Immigration Program about the dire situations of the settlers, in hope of receiving more assistance from the home planet, all to no avail. This was a major factor that eventually led to the popular armed uprising.

---

1985: Rayegalia declares independence from Earth and the formation of the Vers Empire, crowning himself as Emperor Rayregalia Vers Rayvers. This being a one sided declaration without consent from Earth, Mars had basically closed all her ties with Earth.

In actuality, the Vers Empire did not choose to sever all ties with Earth. Rather, as Earth did not recognize Mars’s claim of independence, any negotiation with the Vers administration were prohibited. This was the reason that caused the seemingly abrupt end of all relations between the two planets. Earth eventually does recognize this problem. Perhaps creating a proper means of dialogues with the Vers Empir was part of the reasons for the Earth governments to form the Earth Federation?

---

1999: Gilzeria declares all-out war with the Earth Federation. For the first time ever, the Martians deployed military robots called “Kataphracts”, in their assault on the UFE lunar base. However, during the battle between the UFE garrison and Vers forces, a catastrophic malfunction occurred with the hypergate. Resulting the destruction of the moon, and subsequently a planetary scale disaster on Earth, this will later be remembered as “Heaven’s Fall”. The debris from the destroyed moon also formed a ring surrounding Earth, known as the “Satellite Belt”. Gilzeria who was directing the Vers forces on the moon at the time was also killed in the incident. Amidst the chaos of the aftermath, the two forces decided to work toward a cease fire.

During the war there were opportunities for the Vers Empire to land her knights onto Earth itself. However, no records of engagements between UFE forces and Martian Knights that took place on Earth’s surface were found upon investigation.

---

2002: Vers Empire successfully developed long distance space ships, and established a conventional space fare route between Mars and the moon orbit. It is now possible for the once stranded Vers forces to return home. However, a number of the Martian Knight-Lords declined the retreat order and remained in orbit, compromising the cease fire agreement.

The development of long distance space ships by Vers was designed for the purpose of transportations alone, and had no military capability. This was born out of necessity as the regular scheduled supplies from Earth for the stranded Vers forces, in according to parts of the cease fire agreement, proved to be unreliable.

---

Vers comes out as considerably more sympathetic in this timeline. Presumably this additional information will be relevant in the second cour, as it looks like they've set the plot up to introduce the actual Vers Empire as a third faction independent of Saucy's Orbital Knights and the UEF.

\#slainedidnothingwrong2015

edited 8th Oct '14 12:44:24 PM by KSPAM

I've got new mythological machinery, and very handsome supernatural scenery. Goodfae: a mafia web serial

... So basically, they went about trying to colonize an inhospitable planet without bothering to go finding ways to adapt to and overcome that inhospitality. That's the worst colony ever and everyone who decided to hop on board the ship to Mars was a titanic moron.

My Megaman and MegaTen liveblogs

The implication is that the colonists were deliberately misinformed about the situation on Mars.

"We stopped slashing NASA's budget. BAM Mars in three years, despite NASA have already reformatted its one leftover Saturn V for Skylab, the N-1 is just a bunch of scrap metal at that point, and no Apollo related hardware are produced since 1969. Somehow, for some reason, we managed to reverse the damage of NASA's massive budget cuts and accelerated scientific progress exponentially in under three years. *UN pats self on the back*"

Let's just do the magic wand trick.

it helps if you have gate powered by Applied Phlebotinum on the moon that does not require you to take all your colonists all the way to Mars, but "just" to the Moon.

But NASA getting back to "just" the moon in under three years is a huge problem in itself. You can't reverse half a decade of decline with sudden influx of money. It will be much more probable, say, if NASA discover the gate in previous Apollo missions.

Let's see how Christopher Nolan handles it.

Remember that it was only the first expedition that went to mars in 1975. The influx of colonists, which would require the serious heavy-lift capacity, didn't start until 1980.

Putting together an international expedition using whatever lifting capacity was available within three years would probably have been doable, assuming you could get the Americans and Soviets to work together to any significant degree. Moving hundreds of thousands of people starting in eight would be hard, but that's a question of scale and economics, not technological feasibility.

x8 to be honest none of that paints mars in any more of a sympathetic light because as far as I can tell the current war they are conducting is a crime against humanity that can not be justified.

Just what we've seen on screen involves mars using WM Ds on populated cities. What's going on offscreen may be even worse, remember in ep 11 one of the characters notes that there are fewer refugees than they expected at earth HQ and another worries that if the war continues earthlings might go extinct. That heavily implies that the martians are commuting some serious genocide on the population of earth.

The Vers emperor completely signed off on the war and was the one largely responsible for fomenting hatred between mars and earth in first place to prop up his regime. The fact that earth was unable to adequately supply the colony on mars was bad, but it doesn't justify Rayegalia's actions. If anything it makes his actions even more heinous, continuing the Mars Immigration Program's mistake in the hopes of building his own kingdom with the suffering of the martian people. The Ver empires seems like it was already terrible before they started adding genocide to their to do list.

edited 9th Oct '14 7:24:31 PM by Mistborn

I love how you guys are SO ENGROSSED in this argument that you totally ignore how we've not only have one magazine preview (which I posted an odd-page ago), but two so far◊ for the second season◊.

So not only have we Slaine of the Revolution, Slaine himself gets a redone Vers uniform. Asseylum though is recycled from an older interview.

edited 9th Oct '14 7:38:23 PM by MyssaRei