Aldnoah Zero

@Mistborn

We're not talking about "one person". That went out the window as soon as royalty was involved. We're talking about ''the only legitimate government of an empire made flesh" - and that assumes that the Martians aren't completely reliant on Aldnoah for survival, in which case the assassins just attempted genocide on a far grander scale than the Orbital Knights could commit in your wildest dreams.

It's funny you should mention that, because I've had and won this debate before. "International Law" is directly opposed to any concept of independent sovereignty, popular or otherwise. Depending on the extent to which you believe in human rights, it's opposed to those as well. The notion that "International Law" brings peace is especially humorous to anybody with more than a passing familiarity with current events.

Are we seriously having a discussion here on the ethical merits of committing genocide?

@High Velocity Pointy Things

o_o are you actually a monarchist, or has this all been a game of devils advocate (I'm really hoping for the latter).

I find that difficult to believe. You can make a number of good arguments against the current regime of international law, but "things prohibited by international law are actually a-ok" is not one of them. Especially when the issue in question is the crime of aggression.

edited 12th Oct '14 7:37:38 PM by Mistborn

@Kuro Bara Hime

I thought we were having a discussion about whether or not Aldnoah Zero was a case of black and white, grey and gray, or blue and orange morality. Unfortunately, the debate had suffered from a rather extreme case of Scope Creep.

I take whichever position I need to in order to get the point across.

In this case, you seem to be either missing the fact that a monarchy operates on fundamentally different principles than a democracy, or seeing that fact and refusing to accept that the different principles might be equally valid approaches to the same problem.

Sure I can. "International Law" demonstrably prohibits the peaceful secession of the Crimea and other territories from within Eastern Ukraine, as evidenced by the fact that the U.N. does not recognize the democratic referendums held, continues use the pre-secession borders, and does nothing to stop sanctions leveled against Russia for honoring the aforementioned referendums. We can thus conclude that either "international law" prohibits humans from changing their government via democratic means or that "international law" views violence as the only legitimate mechanism for redefining international borders.

I am not going to join into this discussion (I am dropping mine since it is pointless anyways). Consider how much the conflict is based on WWII, a rule of thumb is to never analyze historical conflict with Black-and-White Morality, even if it is a fictional derivative of one.

And both of you miss that there is such as thing as a Constitutional Monarchy.

edited 14th Oct '14 12:16:45 AM by Greenmantle

Which the Vers empire isn't. Regardless I don't see this conversation going much further. The consent of the governed is the only legitimate basis for government, that should be manifestly clear from the harvest of blood and suffering produced by the alternatives.

@High Velocity Pointy Things

The this is Crimea is both complicated and not at all relevant to the issue at hand. It's legitimately a grey on grey conflict where everyone involved is varying degrees of dicks, but the West does not see the Crimean vote as being legitimate on account of both it being rigged and preceded by the occupation of Crimea by Russian troops. I don't see how you can read that as seeing violence as the only legitimate means of redrawing borders when the core of the anti-Russian argument is that Russians are using violence as a means of redrawing borders and that's terrible. But that's entirely beside the point the Crimean crisis is nothing like the Vers-Earth conflict one involves a democratic process of questionable validity the other involves WMD attack on population centers.

@Knightof NASA

I'd disagree. WWII is as close to a black and white conflict as we get in the real world all things considered(When you have Canada one side and Nazi Germany on the other it's not hard to see who the baddies are). There is good reason Putting on the Reich is a sure mark of villainy in fictionland. Though that's as much because the Nazis lost and lost hard as it that they were actually that bad, plenty of historical regimes just as bad have not been appropriately villainized.

edited 14th Oct '14 7:11:35 AM by Mistborn

@Mistborn

I'm willing to tolerate a certain amount of historical ignorance for the sake of furthering the debate, but this is getting silly. "Democracy" has no better track record than any other form of government, and in many cases is far, far worse: Tyranny of the majority has led to more genocides than anything else in the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries.

Nope. The question was whether or not something prohibited by "international law" was morally permissible. I'd accuse you of moving the goalposts, but I'm not sure you've ever set them on the field to begin with. Regardless, your understanding of the matter is superficial enough that further discussion is pointless.

Hardly.

@High Velocity Pointy Things

I suspected you were a neoreactionary but this basically confirms it. I know the specifics of this argument already, but please proceed I'm sure it will work out great for you.

Yes and the Crimean crisis is not an example of that, because both parties claim that international law is on their side.

edited 16th Oct '14 6:24:47 AM by Mistborn

Now I can die happy.

*kills Eggs-kun back in Episode 4*

Stay dead. Stay dead forever.

edited 19th Oct '14 8:37:08 PM by KSPAM

@ Mistborn

Why should I when you're conceding the argument so beautifully?

Case in point.

@High Velocity Pointy Things

No that does not prove your case. You have a situation where two parties have differing claims about how international law applies in a situation. It in no way follows from there that actions that are condemned specifically by international law are morally permissible. The Russians say they are safeguarding the rights of self determination of the Crimeans under Article 1 paragraph 2 while the E.U., Ukraine and U.S. say that Russia's actions violate Article 2 paragraph 4 through their use of force. On the other hand Vers Empire in invading earth with the purpose of annexing it that's a clear violation both Article 1 and 2.

No.

You don't get to do this.

You made the claim

And I'm asking you to back that claim up. I'm 90% sure I know what your argument is going to be (you'll probably use the made up term "demotist") but you're going to complain about me strawmanning if I make that argument for you. So either concede the point or make your argument in full.

edited 20th Oct '14 8:02:41 AM by Mistborn

Dat Slaine cake tho

The best part of the Inaho and Slaine image is the way Slaine's looking at Inaho and Inaho's just looking at the camera. There's a metaphor there, I'm sure.

Just in case everyone missed it (or ignored it) the staff had a "press conference" that showed Asseylum in a wheelchair◊. Wish I had other images, but it was a press-only event, so if there were preview videos shown, no one's leaked any yet.

Guys, they failed killing her not only once, not twice, but THREE times. VERS kind of suck at this coup d'etat thing.

edited 6th Nov '14 4:24:41 AM by MyssaRei

At least she is still alive

Well, if there ever was any chance of taking the VERS seriously, it's gone now.

Wow. Wooooooooooow.

Second season gunna be gud.

Let's shoot for another trainwreck guys.

The Pain Train is a coming!

Is anybody really surprised? At this point I'm seriously starting to doubt whether any named characters have actually died since episode 7.

The real question is what kind of shape she's in and how it's influenced her attitudes.

At this point I'm not going to be surprised at all if Inaho reappears with an eyepatch and wearing Captain Harlock's pirate outfit.

That said, what IS it with Japan's fixation on princesses in wheelchairs?

I thought it was a "Nice Train"?

No! It's the pain train.