It's a Gundam thread!

Who are these "some", if I may ask?

Harry Ord, for one

The one from Turn A Gundam?

“Muh Bael” is pretty funny though.

The Bael is pretty good in MBON so I guess he's nicely justified there. Also any news on that new EXVS 2 revision? The one that added Suletta the tanuki and brought back the Boost Dive from Versus?

On the subject of Trailblazer, The 00 movie is essentially the human vs. bugger plot except that both sides manage to reach a truce before one side wipes out the other.

The ELS as an antagonist is designed to be a conflict that literally cannot be won by force (Veda predicts that the Qan[T] has to fight 2 weeks straight with no rest, and even it underestimatethe ELS abilities), but by communication and understanding. Both sides benefit from each other once they stop fighting and start cooperating.

AGE cant be bad because it had the Titus

It should be noted, as well, that the ELS have such a well-integrated Hive Mind that they do not know the concept of individuality. Yes, they can replicate and splinter off when necessary, but they all seem to serve one collective purpose.

The entire reason that the communication worked was that one of the things they managed to get across is that humanity is not as well-integrated as a Hive Mind, and presumably because both humanity and the ELS understood pain.

This is why I called it a Space Whale Aesop. "Humanity needs to unlock its latent psychic powers or else we'll all get eaten by unstoppable shapeshifting hive mind aliens" is not the broadly applicable "give peace a chance" moral that the 00 movie seems to think it is.

Like the whole movie is about them attacking us. Humanity isn't the aggressor here. But the movie tries to put the moral responsibility on humanity anyway. It treats the possibility of being wiped out as some sort of karmic punishment for using violence to defend ourselves against unprovoked surprise attack, while simultaneously making it impossible to communicate with the ELS except through the extremely unique combination of circumstances of having Setsuna use the 00 Qan[T] to do a Trans Am Burst or whatever.

It just doesn't work, on a thematic level. If you have to use quantum technobabble that's poorly understood even in-universe to make the other side understand that killing people is bad, then "hey maybe try to talk things out instead of using violence" isn't the message being sent there. Plenty of humans would have talked things out if they could have. But they literally could not because the aliens didn't understand them, and in the meantime people are dying. I'm not going to give anyone shit for using violence as a last resort to defend themselves against an attacker that they can't escape from and won't leave them alone. But the 00 movie sure wants us to think that they're sadly unenlightened because violence is bad and communication is good.

Except that’s wrong. The ELS themselves are trying to communicate and understand humans, but they are grossly incapable of doing so because the only method ELS know how is by assimilation due to being a Hive Mind.

The purpose of natural Innovators to begin with as the second season emphasizes is for people to communicate with each other and break down the barriers dividing people by communicating thoughts between one another, amplified using Gundams, and indeed that’s what Celestial Being who was created for this very purpose, attempts to do in Trailblazer. Celestial Being has been preparing for communicating with other species from the very beginning, while the ELS were sent into space and journeyed across the stars because their homeworlds star went supernova. They weren’t prepared to communicate with other Lifeforms in new ways that didn’t previously exist when they started their travels after losing their home planet.

Even by the end of the movie it’s clear that communication was the first step, because those who refuse to use their intelligence properly and perpetuate wars of hate and bigotry, unsurprisingly, attempt to instigate genocidal wars against both the El S and Innovators during the timeskip to the movies ending.

Just like we had Ribbons Almark and Ali Al-staches who use their ability and intelligence to intentionally harm and kill others for their own gain.

Edited by OmegaRadiance on May 28th 2023 at 10:24:24 AM

What part of what I said is wrong? I never said that the aliens weren't trying to communicate, only that humanity was unable to communicate with them and in the meantime the aliens are killing people. Both of those are true.

And had to be stopped with — get this — violence. Because communication with them would not solve the problem. The problem being that they're assholes who are willing to use violence to get their way. This is pretty standard Gundam fare, but the movie seems to forget about it entirely.

I mean, iirc, wasn't the last operation to get Setsuna to the core of the ELS a bit of a Hail Mary?

Yes. And they had to use violence to enable it to succeed. But violence is bad and only communication is good!

And the story doesn’t present it as wrong for killing some ELS in self-defense until they can communicate.

Also this is still wrong. Communication DID stop the problem, because what they needed to was to find a way to speak with the ELS that didn’t have a million voices jammed into a persons head.

x2 Yes. If that failed humanity would have been doomed. It’s why Graham Aker (almost) died sacrificing himself to make a path, and then in the core we’re able to finally communicate with the ELS.

You continuously miss the point that Aeolus spells out how the movie condemns violence: Violence done in the name of self serving interests and screwing over others because those who are intelligent would rather use it to engage in hatred and small minded interests than help others.

Edited by OmegaRadiance on May 28th 2023 at 10:50:34 AM

I want to see what other Gundam protagonists do in that situation.

Most newtypes could conceivably start the communication part pretty easily. Suletta and Aerial too.

Loran Cehack probably does some BS with the Moonlight Butterfly effect which wouldn't be explained very well but ultimately solves the problem.

Domon would punch the entire swarm and make it explode.

Edited by ShirowShirow on May 28th 2023 at 5:50:59 PM

They would be Mind Raped

Innovators are 00 take on New Types, and communicating psychically with a couple of people is a lot easier than billions of voices shrieking inside your head. It sent Setsuna into a coma for a bit.

Edited by OmegaRadiance on May 28th 2023 at 10:52:18 AM

I wouldn't trust Aerial in light of events from recent Witch from Mercury episodes...

Edited by HallowHawk on May 28th 2023 at 10:52:15 AM

So Domon could conceivably blow up the entire Solar System, you're saying?

Oh, boy. I should probably ignore anything about WFM until I can see this week's episode.

Edited by G2BattleConvoy on May 28th 2023 at 6:54:01 PM

Domon and the Fighters's punching them would be how they talk with the ELS, but they probably would think that a fistfight is how humanity talks.

Yes.

Yes.

Edited by ShirowShirow on May 28th 2023 at 5:53:18 PM

Domon and Rein would punch the ELS so hard they turn into a heart and learn love. It will be hilarious and beautiful and achieve communication.

I said "episodes", not "episode". You didn't catch the Wf M episode from last week too?

Edited by HallowHawk on May 28th 2023 at 11:06:25 AM

I didn't say that communication didn't solve the problem, either, because it clearly does. I said that the movie does a shitty job of illustrating its theme that communication is superior to violence by 1) having people make genuine attempts at communication but failing, which 2) makes violence absolutely necessary in order to prevent the extinction of humanity and possibly all life on Earth, so that 3) the protagonist could use super special ultra hyper communication to fix the problem, which has no real-life analogue so turns the whole thing into a Space Whale Aesop.

I mean, the end card of the movie◊ almost literally says "violence never solves anything". The movie is not an exploration of when violence is and is not morally acceptable, it just says "oh no, violence isn't working, we'll have to use SUPER COMMUNICATION!" and then treats that as "see? communication is clearly superior to violence" despite normal communication not working either and the day would have been just as saved if Setsuna's hail mary at the end was SUPER VIOLENCE that blew up all the ELS forever or something.

The entire quote is literally this:

“Peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be achieved by understanding. You cannot subjugate a nation forcibly unless you wipe out every man, woman, and child. Unless you wish to use such drastic measures, you must find a way of settling your disputes without resort to arms.”

Quite literally that using constant force to keep the peace by violence is only something tyrants do. The entire point of the first season repeatedly reinforces this message. Before Ribbons hijacked Celestial Being by using others within the organizatikn, Celestial Being was eventually meant to lose to the world powers because “keeping the peace” via tyranny was doomed to fail. They were meant to get the rest of the world to work together properly beyond selfish interests as the first phase of his goal.

Then Ribbons used the destruction of Celestial Being that he set up to put himself into power for season two where he ruled as a Tyrants via the A-Laws. Forcing the world into peace while seeing himself as a God.

Mankind LITERALLY could not defeat the ELS. We were the losers in a one sided war where the other side wasn’t even trying to destroy us and we would be dead in less than a day! So humanity did as the quote suggested, we learned and adapted to find a way to resolve a conflict brought about not by malice, but completely different mentalities and mindsets due to being two fundamentally different living beings. Whereas the film quote is in relation to the nature of humanity, the first part is in relation to Lifeforms that are nothing like humanity and thus are morals and thinking must find ways for both sides to communicate lest we kill each other due to ignorance.

Edited by OmegaRadiance on May 28th 2023 at 11:24:31 AM

@HallowHank: Oh, I watched Episode 18, so that's not a problem. I was just saying that because I've been conversing with other G-Witch fans on what could've happened this episode, I don't want to accidentally spoil myself, lol.