Aldnoah Zero

I can't get over how fucking stupid Vers' guns look.

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

Okay, to be fair, they fucked up drawing that one in the magazine. Sometimes they look alright. I like the sights on them.

@Mistborn

Sure it can. Earth started it by sending unprepared colonists off into a hostile environment and then did nothing to aid them. They then continued it by violating the terms of the cease-fire, not to mention that historical precedent has determined that using weapons of mass destruction against civilian population centers isn't a war crime if you win.

Or shitty conditions and rapid destruction of infrastructure is stopping people from fleeing to the middle of nowhere, but why should we suspect that when we can assume the other side is unconditionally evil?

He stopped the war until Sazzy convinced him that the Terrans really were behind the assassination of his only descendent.

I think starving would do that just fine on it's own. But hey, clearly starving and nobody being in charge is better than starving while led by somebody who at least tried to give the Terrans a fair shake.

In all honesty, the problem is that the only information we have about Vers comes from Sazzy, who has absolutely no reason to give a favorable impression of the Emperor or the rest of the empire to anybody. Not going into more detail about the situation on Mars is one of the first cour's many flaws.

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@Myssa

The only really interesting bit is that it implies that Slaine is still serving under somebody else.

"Alright guys, let's stop slashing NASA's budget."

FY 1974 request, which, if approved, doesn't start until July 1 1973. Until then NASA still have penny sized budget. Changing this just because of NASA is massive overkill (historically they did change FY starting dates in 1976). That's at least half a year.

Also take consideration of the fact that over 50% of Americans are against the existence of NASA. Increasing NASA's budget is political suicide, hypergate or not. Nixon already decided to sweep NASA to a corner, so he have to change his domestic policies radically. NASA is no longer competing against Rosaviakosmo. NASA will also have to formulate and review a mission plan, which at that point is based on limited data. It will be hard to do all of these in half a year.

So NASA approve Phrase one, which is just resuming production of Saturn V. At Apollo's peak NASA employes more than 400k contractors. They left when NASA suffered budget cuts from FY 1967. Time to get them back before resuming production. This also requires time.

Since there isn't a lot known about Mars NASA have to also send investigation probes. There are multiple ways to do this, all of them requires months to year of time.

"Pssst Rosaviakosmo!"

Soviet Russia is broke. Rosaviakosmo is broke. N-1 is just scrap metal. Rosaviakosmo can spearhead the cost of investigation probes, but not the cost of heavy lifting vehicle or hardware. But first there must be international agreements between US and USSR be made. There went the time.

Then astronaut selection. For simplicity assume Allusia already belongs to NASA and he already underwent Apollo related training. But he lacks Mars related training.

The probes send data back. NASA formulate Phrase two out of it, again taking time. Apollo equipments have to be altered to confront Mars condition. An expedition is submitted. All of these have to be approved in the next FY. Let's say they speed thru this magically and get to FY 1975.

Apollo hardware resume production, but with extreme modification. Apollo hardware isn't exactly designed to stay long. That's another half a year. Mars related astronaut training completed also in the same time frame somehow.

After rushing thru everything NASA finally have the hardware and the mission approved in 1975. Now let's move everything from around the nation to Cape Canaveral. A few month of assembly.

Thus, with a series of extreme luck, NASA made it to Mars in the middle-late 1975. This is all possible because HYPERGATE.

Got my hands on AZ music. It is awesome.

Completely neglecting how quickly political and fiscal winds can change, there's more than one government agency with the ability to get into space. At least one of them takes pride in being able to get into space in a hurry, and isn't constrained by NASA's minimum-cost approach.

The Apollo-era technology was already developed and proven, and the STS was on the drawing board: Critical-path for another launch would have been the procurement and construction cycle, and you can make that process fly if there's enough of an incentive.

Planning is for when the political consequences of a screwup outweigh the consequences of inaction, and this would certainly be one of those times. Mars isn't much worse of an environment than the Moon, and the gate may have emerged into the underground city-complex we saw in the flashbacks, dramatically reducing the need for shelter. The gate also means that this isn't operating under the same constraints as a real-world Mars mission: They only need to pack enough supplies for the trip out and to last until the next re-supply, not for a multi-year ordeal.

"Hypergate" isn't a strong enough incentive for American public and political climate to underwent an 180 degree change. There is no need to rush to the hypergate, as Rosaviakosmo's HLV died with Korolev. Even if at that time NASA didn't know that, Rosaviakosmo was inactive in that category for a very long time (and they knew Korolev is dead). There is no immediate need to get to the hypergate ASAP. No one have the ability to touch it anymore. Domestic issues is much much more important than continuing an already won piss fight.

@High Velocity Pointy Things

None of that justifies what the Martian's war against earth, it might very well have justified the martians seceding but not the war. Also the only reason the Atomic bombings are considered a uncomfortable necessity rather than an indelible black mark on historical record is that the Imperial Japanese government was really bad, it was argueably the only means to secure unconditional surrender short of an even bloodier invasion, and afterward the U.S. spent billions of dollars rebuilding Japan. The Maritan's are not waging war to replace earths government, they're waging a war of conquest (which is already a severe crime against international law). On screen the martian forces have never balked a civilian casualties. And we have two separate sources telling us the martian empire is a pretty terrible. Heck we already know for sure that the Vers empire is a feudal monarchy waging a war of conquest in the 21st century. That's already enough for me to have no problem labeling their leadership as evil. and that's not an valid excuse for war, it's not even an valid excuse for war in universe. He should freaking know better. The timeline diverges in 1975 so the Nuremberg Principals still exist. He is at minimum guilty of crimes against peace, and potentially guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

edited 10th Oct '14 4:28:00 AM by Mistborn

Okay, just a food for thought.

The tagline is "Let justice be done, though the heavens fall."

The tagline can be read as: "Let justice be done, though the heavens fall."

Because it's perfectly in character for Urobuchi to make a story like this.

And the "Let justice be done" part? If you know about One Piece , that phrase can have really, really creepy ring in it.

edited 10th Oct '14 5:22:22 AM by RBomber

Of course, it's a translation of the Latin Fiat justitia ruat caelum.

Keep Rolling On

@Knightof NASA

"Aliens exist and they have the high ground" is, though. Any conflict with the Soviets becomes irrelevant in a hurry once they realize that there's somebody much bigger and infinitely more dangerous than either of them lurking in the shadows.

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@Mistborn

The war was justified by the apparent assassination of Crown Princess Asseylum Vers Allusia by Terran conspirators. Assassination of a ruler or heir apparent has been Casus Belli since the dawn of time, regardless of whatever the extremely hypocritical U.N. might think.

The damage caused by the landing castles is justifiable because it's A) the result of millions of tons decelerating kinetically, not a deliberate attack and B) there are no civilian population centers when your entire school-age population receives military training and can be drafted at a moment's notice. The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were justified as an attack on wartime industrial centers, unlike the deliberate firebombing of residential areas performed by both British and American forces throughout the war.

A distinction without a difference. After all, the Martians aren't trying to conquer earth, they're trying to replace it's really bad government with one more amicable to their interests.

Which two, out of curiosity? Sazzy has an obvious bias, and Slaine isn't exactly an impartial observer either.

Oh PLEASE let it be Space Code Geass XD

An "alien" race that haven't bother humankind for centuries...since it was heavily implied Aldnoah is actually advance ancient human civilization that doesn't have any more survivors, you'd think Eugene Cernan would took notes. It is a bunch of free extremely cool shits that no one can touch in the near future. It can wait a few years.

No it is not. The assassination can not justify the war as it is being conducted. The Vers Empire and it's orbital knights do not have even the smallest fig leaf to deny that they are waging a war of aggression. It is not a war to achieve some justifiable limited aims or even to replace the earths government. It is under the most generous possible interpretation of what we have seen a war to subjugate earths population beneath the heel of the Vers's feudal aristocracy. It is a violation of even the extremely lose laws that govern the conduct of sovereign states.

The terrorist girl didn't have nice things to say about Vers either, but you are correct that we don't have any truly unbiased sources about the facts on the ground on mars. Still it is a feudal monarchy that derives it's legitimacy from the power of the Aldnoah drive rather than the consent of its population. Something tells me that life on mars is not sunshine and rainbows.

Once again what we have seen directly of the Vers empire is pretty much all atrocity, and what we can infer does not look any better. Which is going to be a pretty big problem if they expect us to root for anyone complicit in the conduct of the war.

edited 10th Oct '14 7:01:41 PM by Mistborn

Okay, one thing about your post I disagree with is calling the landing "not a deliberate attack" when they were very clearly using them as a deliberate attack. If they weren't trying to wreck major populations then they could have very easily just landed in one of the many, many empty spaces on the planet. But Martian landing castles are designed specifically for this kind of shock-and-awe attack, and it's a cornerstone of their assault strategy from day one.

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@Knightof NASA

Except that nobody actually knows that. For all they knew, the aliens abandoned their scouting post in preparation for an attack.

And "ancient humans"? Really? You're complaining about how unrealistic it is for earth to send an expedition to Mars in the 1970's, and then unquestioningly accept the idea that the aliens might be an ancient human civilization?

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@Mistborn

What part of "Assassination of a ruler or heir apparent has been Casus Belli since the dawn of time." did you find confusing?

As far as the Orbital Knights that aren't in on the conspiracy are concerned, Earth just made it personal in a big, violent, flashy way. As far as they are concerned, Earth succeeded in a decapitation strike on their government. The threat of disproportionate retribution if Asseylum was harmed was precisely why she was allowed to go as part of the negotiations in the first place. Her apparent assassination means that now the Orbital Knights have the responsibility of turning that threat into action.

The existence of Aldnoah ancient civilation is not an excuse to handwave everything. Sure, it is completely unrealistic, but the human actions as a consequence of it should not be unrealistic.

NASA historians isn't that incompetent.

edited 11th Oct '14 5:12:35 PM by KnightofNASA

@High Velocity Pointy Things

The part where you think that's an acceptable justification for war in the 21st century. The July Ultimatum was on of history's greatest dick moves and actions of the Orbital Knights only compare unfavorably to those the late Austro-Hungarian empire.

The long and short of it is the actions of the Vers empire are in violation of international laws for which there are tremendously sound moral basis.

edited 11th Oct '14 5:32:41 PM by Mistborn

>first he defends Eggs-kun

>now he says the Vers did nothing wrong

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

@ Mistborn:

You've missed one vital point — you're assuming that Vers cares about International Law. Indeed, I'm sure there are some people you hear about every day (in Iraq and Syria) that don't care about International Law.

And anyway, the July Crisis came about in a time when there no institutions to enforce international law.

Keep Rolling On

No I'm not, Vers clearly does not care about international law, that's why the Vers Empire is terrible. Waging a war of subjugation is not on against international law it is also immoral, it is immoral in the sense that few crimes more heinous are possible. All the history that taught us how immoral such wars are still happened in universe and the Martians are doing it anyway as part of their larger abandonment of human decency.

The only thing "history" has taught us is that you're only guilty of war crimes when you loose and victors dictate morality and write history.

RIP Akira Toriyama, taken from us far too soon.

@ Mistborn

It was acceptable justification for war in all preceding centuries, so I'm not sure what you think was so special about the year 2001 that magically makes the 21st century different.

And "sound moral basis"? Surely you realize that you're arguing that the only acceptable response to a nuclear strike on Washington D.C. or Moscow or Beijing is to do nothing? Because those are entirely comparable to assassination of a ruler or only heir in terms of magnitude and consequences for the attacked nation.

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"International Law" is a polite fiction fabricated by a loose collection of barely-neutral parties in order to prevent anybody from rocking the boat too hard. It has absolutely nothing to do with human decency or morals, only a desire by the strongest to ensure that they remain the strongest.

Of course, that assumes that terms such as "International Law" are relevant in a context that has only two political and diplomatic powers.

Consider how many deliberate parallel this war has with WWII (e.g. total war, MC making reference to firebombing of London, Vers deliberate genocide of Terrans, airing near a WWII anniversary where Japanese nationalist gets rather high), do you really think this is meant to be 21th century warfare?

@High Velocity Pointy Things

A single assassination is equivalent to a nuclear strike. Are you kidding me. That's like saying the U.S. Government would be justified in nuking Tripoli because their Ambassador was killed in Libya. The idea the death of any one person can justify the slaughter of millions is so abhorent a concept that I am shocked you are willing to post it where others can read.

I really hope you're just saying that to be edgy, because the alternative is to horrific to contemplate. You just positioned yourself against the principals of international peace, human rights, and popular sovereignty.

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@Knightof NASA

No but the historical parallel isn't much better for Vers, and that's not a card I like to pull lightly. The point is that the Vers/Earth Conflict is as close to being a black/white issue as you can get in real life. Which in my mind makes Vers all the worse.

edited 12th Oct '14 4:35:50 PM by Mistborn