It's a Gundam thread!

I dunno, I've never seen the mini-cylinders depicted in Gundam. I was under the impression that division of Agriculture/Industry infrastructure was generally on a colony-to-colony basis, since it's probably more economical to do so in terms of exporting.

Also I think actually Industrial 7 had it's manufacturing in the Zero-G zone.

Created a page for Stargazer if anybody wants to help out with that.

Yeah, the wording of it makes them sound like pants-on-head dumbasses. What they should have said is "While Loni is a murderer and a terrorist, Banagher couldn't kill her because of the psychoframe resonation. Soldiers are taught to dehumanize their enemies because humans have a deep-seated aversion to ending another person's life, even in situations where it is obviously warranted. Not doing so can easily result in the soldier undergoing a psychological breakdown. Banagher is not a soldier, and even if he was the resonation made it impossible for him to dehumanize Loni.

He could literally feel everything she was undergoing, including the mental anguish she was being inflicted with as the Shamblo's psychoframe twisted her mind apart. This, combined with a human being's fundamental ability to empathize with others, meant that he couldn't pull the trigger. Under these circumstances, if Banagher actually had killed her, he would have undergone the most horrifying psychotic break imaginable. One that could only end with him either dead or permanently insane.

In summary: yes, Loni had to die, but Banagher couldn't be the one to end her life."

That is how I would have explained it.

Also, on a related note, I think Riddhe taking the beam magnum and using it to kill Loni was an incredibly irresponsible and stupid thing to do. If his aim had been even the slightest bit off he would have set off the Shamblo's reactor, likely killing everyone within a mile of the resulting explosion, himself included. In hindsight, it was a miracle that wasn't what happened.

One of the reasons A Million Is a Statistic is due to the difficulty empathizing with people you are aware of only in an abstract sense. Kira was probably subconsciously holding back due to Creuset's revelations about Mendel (This is just a theory, mind). The way he described it can almost make him sound more like a victim than the villain he actually is, and it wasn't until the bastard's wicked, spiteful, and utterly pointless murder of Flay - someone Kira personally knew - that it became apparent to him Creuset was beyond all hope of redemption. Only then did Kira do everything in his power to end Creuset's miserable life. Patrick, on the other hand, lost his wife to Blue Cosmos fanatics and decided to murder every Natural in existence. There's no real comparison here.

Yeah, I got that feeling too after I learned enough about him. It actually tied into an idea of how I would rewrite SEED. Basically, people start deserting both the EA and ZAFT as it becomes increasingly clear how psychotic their leaders are. By the time the Archangel and company launch their assault on GENESIS, they've got an entire fleet made up of of ships and MS from both sides backing them up. Later, when it becomes apparent that GENESIS is pointed at Earth and getting ready to fire, most of the EA and ZAFT loyalist fleets immediately drop what they're doing and empty their magazines at the superweapon. When this happens, Rau looks like he's about to have an aneurysm as his plan to wipe out humanity goes up in smoke, capped off by Mwu, Athrun, or Kira radioing him: "What were you trying to prove, Creuset? That the rest of humanity is just as twisted and broken as you are? (*roaring*)YOU'RE ALONE!!!"

You know, I remember hearing somewhere that the gassings were only mentioned in side materials released later, never in the actual show itself. Is this true?

edited 27th Jul '14 10:55:54 PM by Valiran

"Is this the light of the human heart?"

Sorry I couldn't resist.

I think having Kira, La Flaga, or anybody else quote the Bale!Batman would be an absolute tragedy, but maybe that's just my utter loathing for those films shining through. The reason the ending you suggested didn't happen is because, at the end of the day, SEED just isn't that idealistic a show. The fact that Kira and Lacus are as messianic as they are can hide the fact, but in the end, SEED as a whole is pretty comfortable with the notion that people will just accept that their leaders are right, and will let their fears govern their actions.

Is it strange that the respective plots of SEED and Ace Combat 5 are giving me vibes of each other?

No, they're pretty much the same (terrible) plot. Ace Combat 5's Take a Third Option is arguably worse though, to SEED's credit.

Being a little hipsterish aren't we? :p

edited 28th Jul '14 4:35:14 PM by Scherzo09

Why is it worse? Because the reasonable leaders weren't killed off and thus at the end, both sides decided to go after the third option who tried to get the other two to kill each other?

I think it could've been called a straight-up ripoff of SEED if Hamilton would've killed Nagase during the tunnel run, don't you think?

Those who are not familiar with AC5, watch this and draw your conclusions.

edited 28th Jul '14 4:54:51 PM by amitakartok

It isn't a ripoff of SEED, it's a ripoff of The Sum Of All Fears.

Really they're both pretty in trying to portray War Is Hell by having both sides being a bunch of Evil Idiots who at a certain point resort to practically genocide, where the good guys are a small faction of Cosmopolitans who realize war is dumb and create a third faction to fight the warmongers...

tl;dr they're both stupid.

edited 28th Jul '14 5:04:34 PM by Scherzo09

Complete with both sides accusing the third faction of being traitors, one of the protagonists calling out to the enemy to stop shooting or he'll have to shoot back (while he himself is busy gunning them down) and the Big Bad going on a rant during the final battle about ending all wars forever by nuking both sides.

On the other hand, I don't think either Osea or Yuktobania was evil. They both thought the other was evil and only started hating each other due to the Belkan False Flag Operation. However, at least Osea was still stupid for not noticing the giant manufacturer logos of their own defense contractor on the shot down Yuktobanian planes. At least LOGOS hid their involvement through front companies; Gründer Industries didn't even try.

edited 28th Jul '14 5:20:10 PM by amitakartok

Eh it's a belief that Media drives Culture and not the other way around, at least mostly. AC 5 is especially egregious because it expects everyone to sing Kubayah at the end even though several hundred thousand people are dead between both sides. You can't just wipe that under the table.

You're talking as if Lacus was any different.

Given that things don't work out and there is another war, and that the second one ends with the protagonists having to take over the world themselves in order to prevent yet another round, I'd say that yeah, it's pretty different.

@Scherzo

Why, because I think The Dark Knight sucked? Because I hardly see how calling SEED cynical could be seen as "hipsterish". It's cynical. So's UC, and at least half the other entries in the franchise.

edited 28th Jul '14 7:57:13 PM by AmbarSonofDeshar

That's an understatement. The only works in the Gundam canon that I can think of being even remotely positive would be Afterwar X and Turn A, and those two still took place after freaking apocalypses. Makes you wonder if there's a message there; maybe we'll only realize just how precious and beautiful the world is after it's been blown sky-high?

After Colony thinks it's idealistic, though I would disagree.

How so, if I may ask?

SEED has the case of thinking it's smarter than it actually is, though to be fair basically every 'serious' Gundam falls prey to that, 0079 and 0080 being probably the only exceptions. It's just SEED is just so banal to me. There's a kernel of a good idea in there, but it's just such an underwhelming execution.

I don't think Dark Knight Trilogy is idealistic, unless you think believing in the fundamental goodness of average human beings is idealism. Which, you know, practically every Gundam does.

edited 28th Jul '14 9:11:20 PM by Scherzo09

TDK proposes that hardened inmates on a prison barge will choose to save the passengers on the other boat rather than blow them up to save themselves. That's about as idealistic as they come.

Most entries in Gundam—especially the CE and late UC verses—don't accept that. The world is saved by a small elect while everybody else is either apathetic or actively engaged in burning the world down. There are exceptions to that rule—both 00 and AGE end with sudden magic understanding solving all problems—but cyncism about human nature is the general rule across the entries I've seen.

@kkkhohoho

Wing has a WWI redux convince everybody that war is bad and awful and should never be allowed to happen, and ends with the implication that the world is united and there will never be another conflict again. It wants us to believe that this is a happy ending and that the right thing happened. Now in reality, the notion that murdering thousands the way that Treize and Zechs did, is the right thing to do, is horrifically cynical, but the show doesn't seem to register this, and behaves as if their actions were right and good.

Luckily Endless Waltz came along and undid at least some of the damage, by having another conflict kick off, demonstrating that the plan didn't work.

edited 28th Jul '14 9:14:46 PM by AmbarSonofDeshar

To be fair, it wasn't a full barge, it was one conscionable dude who chucked the detonator out the window. Plenty of other prisoners wanted to blow up the other barge. It's not that 'everyone' has the will to make the hard decisions, but that lucky for us there are a few people willing to make a stand. But that doesn't make the average person, who lacks the power or will to make a stand, bad. Batman itself is based on the idea of Great Men fighting corruption everywhere, but that society is still worth saving.

Gundam is the same way. It has a group of Great Men saving the world from Evil Men who take advantage of the corruption of system for their own evil ends, but the Great Men do it because they believe that average human beings are good and are worthy of protecting. Otherwise ZZ, for example, would argue that Haman's perspective is fundamentally correct.

And no, Endless Waltz is doubly stupid because at the end of it they go, "No, srsly gaiz, this really is the end of all conflict; throw the Gundams into the Sun."

edited 28th Jul '14 9:26:38 PM by Scherzo09

And then comes Frozen Teardrop and suddenly Gundams are needed again.

It's kind of funny how the Wing series doesn't believe its own pacifist stance works.

Initial Victory (finally a UC TV series that isn't older than I am!) impressions:

• You can't fool me, super-peppy opening theme, I know how dark and depressing this show eventually gets!
• It's kinda hard to comment much on the setting or characters when we're just dropped into the middle of things in a story that wasn't originally intended to be told in media res.
• The mobile suits look more toyetic than ever.
• The bad guy mook suits aren't mono-eyed? Blasphemy!
• Unless the UC somehow discovered how to make Hard Light in the years since the Zeon conflicts, the Zanscare suits' beam rotors make no sense as a means of transportation.

I'd argue it was being self-aware in the idea that throwing away man's weapons will not fix man's nature, but the truth is the war's eternal for the same reasons Battle Tech did that: if there's peace the franchise ends. Though Battle Tech was MUCH better at the political realities.

Also Frozen Teardrop is the result of the writer having head trauma, kind of like the last thirty seconds of Endless Waltz extending forever.

You appear to be under the impression that beam weaponry, particularly the sabers, wasn't always hard light.

edited 29th Jul '14 12:43:45 AM by Night

They aren't though. They're plasma held in place by I-fields.

Sabers and other beam weapons repel each other due to opposing I-fields holding the beam in place, but when they "cut" something they're just passing through the solid object and vaporizing it where it intersects them.

So they aren't Hard Light. You couldn't hold up a physical object with a beam.

Anyway, the beam rotors don't actually work by displacing air. Alterations to the I-field during rotation allow the beams to be used in a manner similar to an externally-mounted Minovsky Craft System (the kind of engine UC warships use to remain airborne on Earth). They're not nearly as powerful as an actual Craft System, but generate some lift that eases the burden on the MS's thrusters, giving it extra thrust and flight power. They can't hold up a Mobile Suit entirely on their own, for example.

edited 29th Jul '14 2:06:27 AM by DarkHunter

The beam btw isn't Light; it's superheated Plasma.

That's my feeling on a lot of war series that have peacenik themes but then go on forever, it's not that they're skewering their own message; they just want to make more product.

edited 29th Jul '14 8:41:11 AM by Scherzo09

re: Gundam on the Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism, I'd say it falls somewhere in the middle. Generally speaking, it shows that most people are basically good, but can be manipulated into following evil people — and the only way to deal with those evil people is to fight, and probably kill, both the evil people themselves and their basically-good followers. Sometimes Gundam protagonists are good enough to pull off Technical Pacifism, but largely they simply fight and aren't especially concerned about using lethal force against people who are trying to kill them.