A few months ago there was a lot of hubbub about this shitty novella written by Nojima, the writer of several modern Final Fantasy games including Final Fantasy X, that centered on how Tidus gets his head blown off and some other relatively extreme things you would never suspect from a setting like FFX. A poster on another site said such "extreme novels" are common there since you can get away wit a bit more in the written word than animated and the writers are just looking to be "shocking" as well.
How all this relates to Gundam is I just heard that Kiki is raped by Federation soldiers and commits suicide in The 08th MS Team novels.
What the fuck.
I always knew the Federation were the bad guys.
edited 22nd Jul '14 11:31:58 AM by Nikkolas
The future of warfare in UC.
You're not very good at reading this thread, are you?
We've discussed this numerous times, and while both sides have committed their sins, in the end the Federation is a representative government fighting for its life against a genocidal autocracy which has killed billions of people largely because it felt like doing so.
The Fed does bad things. Those bad things pale in comparison to the the bad things Zeon does.
edited 22nd Jul '14 12:03:41 PM by Night
Nous restons ici.
Nope.
That was answering your question.
As for the rest of it, seems to me like too many people defend a shitty government that has committed its fair share of atrocities to boot. Just accept it sucks and that people suck in general and move on.
I don't know why it has to be one or the other, Federation or Zeon. Everyone is evil.
edited 22nd Jul '14 12:05:09 PM by Nikkolas
Revy Gonna Give It To Ya
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
How representative it is, well, wouldn't say questionable because it's not really something discussed in the series, but personally I feel it's a bit suspect; but it's not 'evil' by any stretch of the imagination. Not even at its worst structurally.
Well it's a difference between passively allowing some suffering because they don't believe a better system is possible and making billions of peoples lives miserable (or just plain dead) because you want to be Emperor of the World.
edited 22nd Jul '14 1:17:27 PM by Scherzo09
These are the words that shall come from my mouth. I shall be known for speaking them.
The future of warfare in UC.
If you honestly cannot tell the difference between "a bunch of guys who happened to be wearing the uniform raped a girl" and "state-sponsored murder of roughly half the population of humanity followed up with at least two attempts to kill another quarter because we didn't go far enough the first time" on a scale of moral sins, or the difference in the culpability of the organization, then you probably have serious fucking problems.
We've already been over at length about the Titans' crimes and how they fell squarely on the Federation.
This is just another nail in their moral coffin.
I really just don't get the obsession with defending the Federation. Federation apologism is far more present on this forum than any alleged Zeon apologism.
edited 22nd Jul '14 3:58:37 PM by Nikkolas
The future of warfare in UC.
This isn't a nail in the Federation at all; it speaks poorly of the involved individuals, and probably their unit commander, but I'd really like to know what kind of moral logic you can use to justify applying it to anyone else.
And yes, we did have that discussion, and your arguments were unpersuasive and rejected by pretty much everyone, in addition to the fact that even if they were, the Federation actually turned on the Titans in the end, indicating it is possessed of a functional, if slow to correct, moral compass.
Nous restons ici.
Jupiterian Local
Even accepting that the Federation is ultimately responsible for the atrocities of the Titans, Zeon is still an order of magnitude worse. Several orders of magnitude worse, actually — the Titans killed a few million people, but Zeon killed a few billion people.
Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.
No, my arguments were ignored by people who want to pretend the Holy Federation of Pureness was somehow not responsible for the Titans even though the government 100% supported them and gave them supreme military authority. Also, as Ambar even was willing to admit, they only took this power away because of Jerid. They were SELFISH, and because they are selfish and only give a shit about themselves, they punished the Titans for putting their petty lives in danger.
People want to bitch about Kamille being a bad person because he fights the Titans for "the wrong reasons", well, here ya go. Eat your own flawed logic. The Federation only turned on tHE Titans, not because they murdered millions of innocent people for no reason, but because they threatened the lives of a few politicians on Earth.
That is the kind of government the Federation has. MURDER MILLIONS OF SPACENOIDS? A-OKAY! Vaguely put the lives of the Federation assembly members in danger? BANISH THEM FOREVER!
As I already said to Ambar months back, it's nothing more than a difference of the scale of their targets. The Titans killed millions because the colony they happened to gas only had a few million in it. What, do you think Jamitov or whoever would have said "oh no! It has a billion people in it! STOP THE GASSING RIGHT NOW!!"?
Star Wars' Galactic Empire killed more people with just the first Death Star than most othr settings ever manage but I'm pretty sure the Dark Eldar and Drow are far, far worse. It all has to do with the size of your enemies, not how good or bad you are.
As I've already said several times, stop thinking in such black and white, one side or the other terms. Zeon sucks. The Federation sucks. They're both awful.
edited 22nd Jul '14 4:20:47 PM by Nikkolas
I'll have to back this argument; saying "Zeon is worse" ad nauseam won't excuse anything the Federation did, no matter whether it's true or not.
edited 22nd Jul '14 5:22:27 PM by amitakartok
Revy Gonna Give It To Ya
To give NJ some credit, even accounting for that Zeon's still worse; implicitly what the Titans were doing was to preserve the order of the Earth Sphere; that's horrible and cynical and brutal but that's an immediately comprehensible goal. Gihren on the other hand is killing billions of people purely for the sake of his own ego, he has no pretense of doing what he's doing for some greater good (Privately I mean; publicly he of course spins some Anti-Colonial narrative to justify his atrocities, just like Assad Apologists did IRL).
I'm for shades of Gray in dealing with UC myself, but I don't think it's fair to say the feddies ever had the same murderous intent as the Zekes.
edited 22nd Jul '14 5:51:54 PM by Scherzo09
These are the words that shall come from my mouth. I shall be known for speaking them.
Jupiterian Local
If you really want to go through this again, we can.
Furthermore, while the Titans were undoubtedly evil and the Federation is ultimately responsible for that, that was just a fraction of the Federation's overall portrayal. During the One Year War, the Federation is undoubtedly the good guys, defending themselves from an unprovoked attack by Zeon. During Operation Stardust, Zeon remnants colony drop the planet as a political statement while the Federation tries to stop them. During the Gryps Conflict, the Federation splits in two as half (the Titans) go evil and try to take over the world, while the other half largely defect to the AEUG in order to fight them even before the Assembly realizes what the hell is going on and officially excommunicates the Titans — suggesting that, even if the Assembly has its head up its ass, the people on the front lines, who know what's going on, largely said Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!. In the First Neo Zeon War, the Federation is defending itself from invasion and colony drop again. In the Second Neo Zeon War, the Federation is trying to save literally all life on Earth.
The fact of the matter is, with the sole exception of the Titans (which is largely a wash, as they're eventually put down by other elements of the Federation), the Federation is consistently defending itself from outside attack. While they're far from perfect (and in a world where they weren't under constant existential threat from bloody-minded madmen and dictators I'd certainly be much less sympathetic to them), the Federation is generally the only one trying to protect things rather than conquer them. Yeah, you can be a cynic and argue that they're only trying to protect the territory that they have power over rather than the citizens that they're responsible for, but you know what? That's still better than the other side, who tries to invade that territory with a complete disregard for the lives of the people living there. So even if the Federation is just Heroic Neutral, they're still better than Zeon, who just want to Take Over the World.
edited 22nd Jul '14 6:36:20 PM by NativeJovian
Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.
Revy Gonna Give It To Ya
I have to say, attacking Dakar was a total Idiot Ball move on Jamitov/Ohm's part.
For what it's worth I do think the feddies did Counter-Reformation-style reforms to the colonial administration system to help prevent another revolt, so I do think the standard of living for the average Spacenoid was improving up until the OYW.
EDIT: Well by the same token, as much as Revel claimed that Zeon was Exhausted, I don't think the Zekes were 'practically' restrained by the terms of the Antarctic Treaty. If they could marshall a full scale invasion of Earth which conquered over half its landmass, I'm sure they could do another colony drop. In that case I attribute it more to Gihren's ego than anything else, but the 'smart' thing to do would've probably been to repeat Operation British.
I also think EF's efforts in Char's Rebellion are mitigated by the fact that they think they could buy peace from Char (Tomino actually goes out of his way to show the Feds making the deal as corrupt too by having the Zekes wheel in a cart of Gold Ingots, which I think is kind of unnecessary).
My take on the EF is that they are for the most part complacent, transnational bureaucrats who simply don't understand the hardships of many of the people who're they're citizens or see it as a necessity of a functioning society. They don't enjoy forcing people into poverty or anything, it's just the result of large societal forces. Federation to me is, at most, to blame for creating the conditions for the Zabis, Titans, and so on to gain power, but to say that makes them directly responsible to say that the WWI Entente is directly responsible for the Holocaust. That's an absurdity.
edited 22nd Jul '14 7:07:12 PM by Scherzo09
These are the words that shall come from my mouth. I shall be known for speaking them.
Obviously the Titans should've pulled a Unicorn and attacked on the weekend so no one was around to die!
The future of warfare in UC.
Frankly, Nik, you're just making stuff up now. Saying the Fed only turned on the Titans because they attacked some politicians isn't something you can possibly support from the available evidence, because the Titans attack also de facto proves all of the other allegations AEUG just made to be true. It thus becomes impossible without a direct statement to prove which happened...but their actions afterwards are highly suggestive.
The fact they turned around and appointed a former AEUG officer to Londo Bell, which is explicitly their attempt to create a force to fulfill the role the Titans do but without the crazy, really shoots your theory of what happened full of holes. Because once again, it shows they have a functional moral compass and are trying to avoid a repeat of the Titans problem.
I am once again forced to point out that this is crazy talk, and question if you are capable of understanding that there is a scale of sins and wrongs. Zeon is incredibly fucked-up. The Federation is somewhat dysfunctional. These are extremely different levels of bad. Pretending that both sides are equal merely makes you look like a fool; or worse, that you are trying to minimize Zeon's crimes.
Nous restons ici.
@Nikkolas
The rape—even the gangrape—of one girl is not proof that an entire system is flawed. To again reference WWII—both because it's what the OYW is modeled on and because it's the closest we'll ever get in real life to a black and white conflict—American and British troops committed rapes. It happened. We have the court martial documents from North Africa, Italy, France, the Netherlands, and Germany, from the Philippines, Burma, and Japan. It happened. Is that proof that the USA and Great Britain are fundamentally evil societies? For that matter, their closest ally, the Soviet Union, committed rape (and mass murder) on a nearly unequaled scale. Soviet troops raped concentration camp survivors an act that is perhaps impossible to match in terms of the sheer disgust it causes me. And yet answer me this—would you care to live in a world where the otherside won?
The OYW era EF is a heck of a lot whiter than the Allies were in WWII. There's no evidence of Soviet-scale war crimes. In fact the only war crimes we see the EF commit are in 08th MS Team, which deals with a small number of squads, fighting over a limited front, in a theatre where the war has clearly gone to Hell. The highest ranking officer we meet is Ryer (who given that he's giving orders to an army lieutenant-colonel is either a naval captain, or more likely, a colonel whose rank was translated incorrectly), who wouldn't have more than a few thousand men under his command in total. In short, however bad Ryer is, and however horrible the troops who answer to him may be, he's not representative of the EF as a whole. He's representative of a particularly terrible theatre of war, and one that receives little attention from the high command at that. Heck, Lt. Col. Kojima was trying to stop Ryer during the moments before they were both killed, and seemed to expect that the upper brass would agree with his decision.
Contrast this with Zeon. There, guys like Ryer don't have to hideout in backwater theatres and watch what they say to their immediate subordinates. There, guys like Ryer are the majority. Killing organizes the death of his own team as part of a plot to nuke a civilian colony and suffers no penalty. M'quve fires an ICBM at his own soldiers when a battle goes south. Ginias is a madman who butchers his assistants, arranges the deaths of Yuri and all his men, and then goes on an insane rampage, complete with trying to whack his own sister. In ZZ, the EF might have gotten worse, but Neo-Zeon's Rakan Dakharan blows up hospital ships to make sure that a Colony Drop kills as many people as possible, and Glemmy Toto assembles an army of cloned, psychically broken, ten year old girls. And these are just officers. We're not talking about Gihren, or Kycilia, or Haman, or Char, all of whom take mass murder to new and interesting extremes.
Using guys like Ryer to represent the EF is like using Depa Billaba
to represent the Jedi. It's inaccurate and verges on dishonest.
edited 22nd Jul '14 10:45:39 PM by AmbarSonofDeshar
Given a choice of who to root for, Stalin's USSR or Nazi Germany? Suicide is the only option. Both of them deserved to be wiped from the Earth. Stalin had absolutely nothing resembling "moral high ground." The West is an ignorant, self-absorbed place so we like to forget things like the Holodomor but we'll be taught endlessly about six million sJews killed. What about the Ukrainians who starved to death? And that's just one country under the USSR's rule. Uncle Joe was on our side so let's just quietly skim over his countless atrocities. (even more true of our self-absorption is how thoroughly ignored Imperial Japan's crimes are. Like I said, not a person alive will be ignorant of 6 million Jews killed but how many Americans can go into detail about Japan's war crimes? Comparatively few) Maybe the moral of WWII and the 20th Century in general is Humans Are Bastards. Far from becoming civilized with advancing technology and whatever else, we saw nothing but countless genocides, hundreds of millions of people killed in numerous horrible ways. We're just as barbaric as ever.
edited 23rd Jul '14 4:03:17 AM by Nikkolas
Lt. Col. Kojima was trying to stop Ryer during the moments before they were both killed, and seemed to expect that the upper brass would agree with his decision.
Actually, he just left Ryer in that Big Tray right after he refused the latter's offer of an office in Jaburo. We last see him in the Type 74 Hovertruck the titular unit own, with Michel, driving, telling him that coming to the front himself to save Shiro is commendable, only for Kojima to say that once he gets to Shiro, he'll have him court-martial-ed.
edited 23rd Jul '14 6:41:45 AM by HallowHawk
"We'll be taught endlessly about six million Jews killed". Now I'm starting to worry. I'm sure this isn't your intention, but that's language that's often used in places like Stormfront. Kindly be careful.
You don't need to lecture me on how bad the Soviet Union was. You've missed the worst of their atrocities anyway. But you know what? Given the choice between the world we've got—where Stalin took half of Europe—and the one we could have had—where Germany and Japan split Europe and Asia between them—I'll take the world we got.
All of this of course is tangenital to the actual discussion, because the EF—at least during the OYW—isn't Soviet Russia. It's the USA/Great Britain, and the conflict thematically echoes the Western Front and Pacific War far more than it echoes the Eastern Front. Only one side of the OYW is entirely in the black. Using a single isolated war crime taking place in a particularly hellish theatre of war as evidence that the EF is as bad as Zeon is laughable. Even within 08th MS Team they're not as bad as Zeon.
I could have sworn Kojima tried to put Ryer under arrest just before they both blew up. I have this very distinct memory of it. Then again, I did more or less FF through the last couple episodes of that show, so maybe I'm just recalling it wrong.
I could have sworn Kojima tried to put Ryer under arrest just before they both blew up. I have this very distinct memory of it. Then again, I did more or less FF through the last couple episodes of that show, so maybe I'm just recalling it wrong.
And to add on that, As Ghinias gets turned into hamburger, courtesy of Shiro and Aina in manner reminiscent of the final episode of Mobile Fighter G Gundam, Ghinias had the Apsalus III fire at Ryer's Big Tray,Ryer's subordinate tells him to escape, only for Ryer himself to stay and Face Death with Dignity.
Also, can I PM you now?
edited 23rd Jul '14 9:08:31 AM by HallowHawk
Revy Gonna Give It To Ya
I think the important thing is that feddie war crimes are never systemic. I think the feddies at their worst in OYW would be like US circa Vietnam, though that too is a bit unfair because while I think spontaneous abuses that get covered up like Mai Lei would happen, I don't think the feddies would do a State-Sponsored Terror Campaign like Operation Phoenix.
The future of warfare in UC.
@Nik: You're now arguing things are being said that either were not said, or the exact opposite has been said. The only way your most recent posting which can't be seen as an outright lie is if you didn't bother to read Ambar's one previous to it. Other things you say prove this is not the case.
You've never explained how Kiki's rape is in any way reflective of the Federation as a whole. That is what started you on this tangent. The concept has already been thoroughly refuted, but I want to know why you ever thought it was valid. So let's hear it. Let's hear why you thought that raping one person by a small group was even going to merit consideration when it comes to assessing both Zeon and the Federation as equally bad.
edited 23rd Jul '14 1:06:38 PM by Night
Nous restons ici.
I have always maintained that the Federation was scum. Kiki's rape, if you read my post, was just icing on the cake. What's more, it was mostly a tongue-in-cheek comment on the stupidity of the novels hence why I also brought up the FFX-2.5 novel as well.
If I wanted to build a huge case against the Federation, it wouldn't be founded on evidence from a completely non-canon source.
edited 23rd Jul '14 1:18:37 PM by Nikkolas
Hahah, Shangri-la's admin is a scumbag. I do like one of the Argama's crew members us fed up with Bright being reliant on teenagers.
It's weird how Cello was all "I can't destroy a single house!" but next episode he's "fuck it, blow a hole in the colony wall for all I care."
edited 19th Jul '14 10:48:33 PM by Scherzo09
These are the words that shall come from my mouth. I shall be known for speaking them.