The pilots aren’t even that young other than Cammie for real life fighter pilots expected to be doing high intensity maneuvers, mid 20s is completely normal. Also besides (once again) Cammie, all of them have a military background.
They mentioned that Captain August (the lead strider pilot) is Gen:Lock compatible, but out of the age range regarded as safe. Who wants to bet he's going to end up making a Heroic Sacrifice using Sinclair's Holon at some point?
Edited by CaptainCapsase on Feb 9th 2019 at 4:12:16 AM
It depends on what part of aging makes things dangerous. If it prevents gen:lock from occurring then it would be hard for August to make a meaningful sacrifice if it kills him right away. If it means his amount of free time is reduced then I can see him having to use Sinclair's holon past him allotted free time.
The question is that we know going over that limit means your consciousness can't be transferred back into your body because too much has changed, but what about staying in the e-brain?
I do believe we haven't seen the last of Sinclair, but I'm not sure if I believe he's the pilot.
I do notice that the other mech was taking a lot of punishment without flinching but one shot to the head from Valentina and they ran off. Perhaps the head is more of a weakpoint for that mech? Or it has no effective defence against long range attacks?
I'm talking about the real Sinclair, not the Union spy who replaced him since it's not confirmed he's dead; that's just too much of a Chekovs Gun.
Edited by CaptainCapsase on Feb 9th 2019 at 7:17:19 AM
Two things:
One, is it safe to say that the Union Mech is an Expy of Bardiel from Rebuild of Evangelion? I mean, it's black, has four arms, acts and behaves inhuman, attempts to strangle a protagonist who can feel synchronized pain in a mecha. And given Gray's Evangelion shirt in an interview ...
Two, is it okay to infer in WMG that the Union is an allegory for Trump supporters? Given the focus on "diversity" of the Polity's members and safeguarding "refugees", the Union's war crimes of attacking civilians, combined with an interview of Gray studying the 2016 election, is it fair to say that the Union is used to compare Trump and his supporters to authoritarian regimes?
I'm a bit mixed on Cammie - at first I found her endearing, but her 'cute hacker/gamer/nerd girl' thing a bit idealized. Still, this episode really demonstrated her lack of military experience and her psychological issues seem pretty well done.
Surprised we've already seen the Union mech this early. That's pretty interesting.
Also glad to know the Union seems pragmatic with minimizing collateral damage and such. We still have a lot we need to learn about them.
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Not really. Were it not for the out of universe info on the Union my guess would be that they followed a leftist ideology based on the implication that the Union is more of a global uprising than a proper state; that implies an ideology that is internationalist and universalist like Marxist-Leninism.
Trump and the alt-right are also populists, and generally support democracy (albeit in the form of the style of mob rule that classical thinkers such as Plato were concerned about), but without the “liberal” part that concerns itself with the rights of minorities, women, free markets and free trade, ect.
If anything they’d be more dark enlightenment style neoreactionaries.
Err wait, as far whether or not it’s okay to WMG that they’re based on Trump, idk, ask a mod.
Edited by CaptainCapsase on Feb 9th 2019 at 8:17:33 AM
What about the comparisons to Bardiel for the Union Mech?
https://twitter.com/TheFloofArtist/status/1094389742672568320
EDIT: Does the mech count as an Expy?
Edited by AceTriad on Feb 9th 2019 at 5:36:50 AM
Okay, that was a decent episode. There's definitely a lot going on in the backgrounds of these episodes, not just world-building but clues. I've been paying attention, but I think I need to pay even more.
The fight was well-done, the Union holon felt like a threat. I like the fact that we're dealing with Pragmatic Villainy, where the Union would prefer to keep infrastructure intact — but that just makes the Ether attack a puzzle, which seems to be puzzling the commander as well. So, that looks like it's a plot clue. I wonder if it's connected to the information we were previously given that the Polity is estimating that it's only got six months left before the Union takes North America. If we're going full Shadowrun-meets-Matrix here, then taking over the Ether and corrupting it as territory that can be conquered is a concept. The obvious question is whether it's a decoy attack: was it a test of their holon technology versus the Polity's holon technology?
That was a much needed info dump on some of the pros and cons of the holon technology. Obviously, the reference to Leon being in the age-unsafe category is a set-up for when he's going to be needed. My guess is that the problem is linked to download. From what I can gather from this episode, the reason for an Uptime limit is because the brain chemistry changes too much after a certain period of time for a compatible download back to the body to occur. So, the ageing-out process is either going to burn through Uptime, or make successful download from the Cyberbrain more dangerous regardless of how much Uptime is left.
From watching the computer screens (I had to freeze a few as I watched), I noticed the following information about Uptime:
- Total Uptime is just under 34 minutes (it was 33:37:14 for most of them).
- Uptime switches to Warning mode when it drops below 10 minutes (One Holon was in Warning when we see the screen, one Holon drops below 10 minutes and the 'High' rating changes to 'Warning' by 09:37, the other two are on 10+ minutes and 11+ minutes and have 'High' statuses).
- Criticial Uptime warnings kick in when the Uptime drops below 5 minutes (Chase was Overclocking and and his Uptime was burning out fast; he was dumped out of the Cyberbrain by the time his Uptime hit 04:37).
The critical dump appears to be automatic. Chase didn't seem to choose to leave his Holon, the system appeared to trigger a safety feature that dumped him back to his body. I'm assuming that we're going to see them override that safety feature at some point.
Panic seems to burn through Uptime in the same way as Overclocking, judging by Doc's comment to Marin about Cammie's racing mind. And there's obviously something about Mindshare we've not been told since Valentina lampshades the fact that Yaz hasn't got prior experience of a successful Mindshare. It's possible that we're simply going to learn that Chase can't Mindshare because of his circumstances, but it could be something else.
Cammie clearly is being set up to bring massive improvements to the gen:LOCK project. She complained at the beginning about not having had chance to go over Doc's coding, and now she's got an illegal download at the specs and some of the new modifications. She's also been commenting on both the centre of gravity of the Holons and of the body suits themselves. I expect she's eventually going to be responsible for addressing some of the compatibility issues that currently exist since Doc said in a previous episode that it's partially due to the technology still technically being in an experimental phase.
Judging by the way the Union Holon went for Cammie's head and then seemed to go for Chase's head, and the way Valentina sent it running with a head shot, the Union Holon weakness is the head. For the audience's benefit, we now know that severing the head of a Holon does not disengage or kill the Holon pilot, it just blinds them. The obvious question is whether ripping the head off the Union Holon actually does kill (or at least disengage) the Union pilot. That said, it did seem to be going for something in the centre of Cammie's torso, so that suggests the Union does know more about the Holon specs than they should — either Sinclair's not dead, or he was able to transmit a certain level of information to the Union before he died...
Or there's another Union mole inside gen:LOCK. Sinclair got through on the Doc's side, so there might be a mole who came through on Marin's side.
It's also worth observing that Marin's aide is cybernetic, and therefore hackable — we've already seen Doc do it as a joke last episode. I won't be surprised if that's foreshadowing something more serious later on.
They've spent the first four episodes really pushing the fact that Kazu is not going to be a stereotypical honourable Japanese warrior. I think they've done enough there, otherwise he's going to end up being a caricature of a dishonourable Japanese warrior instead, which is too far the other way. I won't be surprised if, at some point, the cybernetic translators get damaged and we find out that Kazu can actually speak English if he has to. But, for now, I'm fine with characters speaking different languages and understanding each other fine — it's got Firefly vibes.
The one thing that didn't really work for me was the camouflage mode of the Holons. What's the point when they've still got light blazing out of their bodies? I can appreciate it may blur the edges of the unit (at a stretch) but they're still giving off too much light for that to be effective.
So, we've had quite a bit of groundwork laid in these first four episodes for both setting and technology. Now what we need is for the Union and Polity information to start being built up, too. I'm hoping that will begin as they start to ask questions about why the Ether was targeted and what the Union Holon technology was.
If my post doesn't mention a giant flying sperm whale with oversized teeth and lionfish fins for flippers, it just isn't worth reading.I still say it looks like a Virtual On mech, the Cypher
◊ in particular.
I’m still not ready to say “we have the best example of a Western mecha show since Sym-Bionic Titan” just yet, but it is definitely showing appreciation for the mecha, rather than ignoring it or having disdain.
Edited by Beatman1 on Feb 9th 2019 at 8:57:47 AM
https://twitter.com/TheFloofArtist/status/1094389742672568320
EDIT: Does the mech count as an Expy?
No. Expy requires author intention, for starters. Without creator confirmation that something is definitely X from Work Y, don't even bother with the Expy trope.
If people think that kind of appearance started with Evangelion, they haven't seen many of Evangelion's predecessors. The first thing that popped into my head was Tekkaman Evil
◊ (Tekkaman predates Evangelion by decades, and even Tekkamon Evil, which is what I was thinking of and came out in the much later Tekkaman Blade, predates Evangelion by 2-3 years).
And, honestly, a lot of these designs can be seen in the more basic Mazinger Z forms, which is probably the grandaddy of all our modern mecha (not the first, but definitely a major influence on what came after).
Edited by Wyldchyld on Feb 9th 2019 at 2:20:06 PM
If my post doesn't mention a giant flying sperm whale with oversized teeth and lionfish fins for flippers, it just isn't worth reading.I think the mech reminded me of something but even then I wouldn't say it brought up Eva.
More a general "Oooh multi-armed mecha, cool & huh it reminds me of something".
Okay that actually looks closer, especially the head-shape.
Edited by slimcoder on Feb 9th 2019 at 6:19:54 AM
"I am Alpharius. This is a lie."I haven't actually read or watched Evangelion, so I just looked up Bardiel, whom everyone seems to be comparing it to, and Bardiel really is a generic mecha form... this comparison is baffling me.
Edited by Wyldchyld on Feb 9th 2019 at 2:32:36 PM
If my post doesn't mention a giant flying sperm whale with oversized teeth and lionfish fins for flippers, it just isn't worth reading.Really any comparisons to Bardiel at the moment is pretty shallow because Bardiel is more than just a skinny multi-armed black mech who strangles people.
The full story is that its an Angel who hijacks an Eva unit in the middle of a training exercise which includes taking the pilot hostage. Thus when Shinji is forced to deal with it, he can't because he doesn't want to hurt the pilot who is friend, even when its strangling him.
This leads to Gendo triggering an auto-pilot function in Shinji's Eva against his will that forces it to go berserk and take out the Angel in a bloody Curb-Stomp ending with the berserk Eva biting the pilot's plug (usually the pilot is killed, though in Rebuild just horribly injured for a while) causing further trauma to Shinji & even more hatred towards his father.
The entire scene from start to finish was to put it lightly, horrifying especially in Rebuild where they putted cheery music to add in some fucked up sound dissonance.
Edit: Huh checked out more of that twitter feed & it appears the person hates the show. One phrase they used to describe Val being gender-fluid is & I quote "Made up nonsense".
Edited by slimcoder on Feb 9th 2019 at 7:07:47 AM
"I am Alpharius. This is a lie."I feel like I'm supposed to be taking something from this thing with the eggs, but for the life of me I can't think what.
"Sensei-chan?" Uh...
Chase is just coming off a little skeevy at this point. ("Keep moving forward"... of course.)
Wait, Scotland's not part of the Polity? And "with a meal" - Waller's bringing in minors? (EDIT: Also, looking it up, at least here in 2019, that exception only applies in England and Wales.)
...I really should've seen the RWBY gag coming, especially after the Halo armor, but I still didn't. (I'm guessing the pirates are a reference to something as well, but I'm not sure what.) (No ears for Yaz? Especially with Cammie running the controls...)
Well, I guess the Union can't represent Republicans if the Polity is sending out teams Charlie and Baker... (seriously, not Bravo?)
Oh hai Sinclair.
On another note, I'm not really sure what name to use for Val/entina without a temporal reference point - this thread seems to be going with "Val," but last episode she jumped down Kazu's throat for calling her that while presenting as female, so...?
Edited by TwinBird on Feb 10th 2019 at 12:08:42 PM
My posts make considerably more sense read in the voice of John Ratzenberger.Oh man, Cammie hesitating attacking human soldiers and then inadvertently killing them anyways with a ricochet was a hilarious bit of Black Comedy.
I really do like how all the characters' personalities are shown through their fighting style too. Kazu in particular is really enjoying the benefits of what a Mecha can make an Improvised Weapon out of.
Anyways, things are moving faster than I thought. Union mech did not expect the heros' aversion of Cranial Processing Unit.
Edited by ShirowShirow on Feb 9th 2019 at 11:50:50 AM
You are not alone.Nah, the head's important but I think it's pretty clear the brain unit's inside the chest cavity.
You are not alone.Dat was Yaz, and it went through her Holon's waist in between some hydraulics. Probably would have compromised the cockpit if these mechs had them.
You are not alone.
