|
Lemon-Lime posted:Yes, he still has no idea what that actually means beyond what I just described. Multiple characters call him out on this throughout the show. The whole point of it is that he's a child with a child's grasp on things. I don’t disagree with you, but none of that makes what I said wrong. If someone shows and thinks they should be in charge because they have the weapons to make it happen and no one can stop them it doesn’t matter that they don’t really understand what they are doing. If anything it makes it worse.
|
#
?
Nov 22, 2020 19:56
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 27, 2024 05:01 |
|
|
Rightstuff has the Origin manga on sale and I'm tempted to pull the trigger but it's still really expensive.
|
|
#
?
Nov 22, 2020 20:12
|
|
|
Arcsquad12 posted:Ein's fate is a tragedy but sympathy is subjective. I can acknowledge that he got hosed over but I still think he was an impressionable idiot who deserved what he got. Tekkadan is fighting to change their fortunes, Gjallarhorn is fighting to sustain a status quo. I may find Tekkadan disturbing but I'm not about to join the fascists over it. I can feel sympathy for Ein and acknowledge that he got ruinously hosed over by the system and the prevailing environment just as hard as the Tekkadan kids while also simultaneously agreeing that it's good that he was killed because at that point he was functionally just a monster. Ein and Mikazuki are mirrors to each other. Both of them are effectively living weapons whose morality and desires are defined pretty much entirely by the whims of the authority figure they've attached themselves to. The primary difference between them is that Ein doesn't have Mika's talent. If say, Orga had died instead of Biscuit, Mika would have spent his life on an insane vengeance quest just like Ein tried to do for Crank.
|
|
#
?
Nov 22, 2020 20:19
|
|
|
wdarkk posted:Rightstuff has the Origin manga on sale and I'm tempted to pull the trigger but it's still really expensive. If it helps, it's really good and the hardback volumes are gorgeous.
|
|
#
?
Nov 22, 2020 23:30
|
|
|
wdarkk posted:Rightstuff has the Origin manga on sale and I'm tempted to pull the trigger but it's still really expensive. Absolutely worth it. I paid full price at release and regret nothing.
|
|
#
?
Nov 22, 2020 23:32
|
|
|
Midjack posted:Absolutely worth it. I paid full price at release and regret nothing. Same here, but it probably helped that I got to spread out the buying to one volume every 3 months for a couple years.
|
|
#
?
Nov 22, 2020 23:57
|
|
|
Kanos posted:I'm on board with not really feeling any empathy for Gaelio and Carta(beyond the basic "man it sucks to be betrayed by a loved one"), because they're both pampered aristocrats who had power and influence to actually try to change the garbage fire of society for the better and instead spent their time cosplaying as knightly aristocrats wrapped up in their own superiority, but Ein is just as much a victim of the system as the Tekkadan kids are, he's just on a different side than them. Hell, it wasn't even really Ein's decision to get turned into Einborg, it was Gaelio trying to "help" him. But that's the thing. Unlike Carta (who, to be fair, is basically being used as a pawn by everyone else and kept away from the real levers of power), Gaelio is trying. That's why he's working Internal Affairs when we meet him, it's one of the main things he talks to McGillis about, and it's part of why he's so instantly willing to let Ein sign up. Gaelio sees most of Gjallarhorn as corrupt, so Ein being sincerely (if psychotically) devoted to his commanding officer's memory makes him stand out. It's also why he's disgusted with the methods on Dort, even if he's still very much on the wrong side. (As for Ein, Gaelio's thought process is "He'll get some prosthetic legs or something". It's McGillis who's pulling the strings there to make it go full killbot.) Gaelio's problem is that even his idealized vision of Gjallarhorn is still the vision of, well, someone brought up in Gjallarhorn. He might think that the Martian independence movement shouldn't be crushed with force, he might even think that Gjallarhorn needs to treat Martians better (from his response to Cookie and Cracker, he doesn't seem to think Martians are inherently inhuman or anything) but he still opposes Martian independence. He thinks that what's needed is a restoration, not a reform. It's wrong (morally and intellectually), but it's very understandable. Unlike the Titans or the A-Laws, Gjallarhorn was made for a good purpose (saving humanity from extinction) and has done a lot of good with the harm. Earth doesn't even have large scale armies any more, there's been no repeat of the Calamity War, and pirates only feel safe to operate outside the Earth sphere. Easy to think that can only be maintained by maintaining Gjallarhorn's authority if you spent your whole life in the organization. ...Well, that's one of Gaelio's problems. The other is that he's trusting McGillis to set him on the right road vis a vis reforms, and McGillis has his own agenda.
|
|
#
?
Nov 23, 2020 00:02
|
|
|
I dunno if I'd really consider "join the cops" and "join the local PMC" as being radically morally different from each other
|
|
#
?
Nov 23, 2020 01:13
|
|
|
ninjewtsu posted:I dunno if I'd really consider "join the cops" and "join the local PMC" as being radically morally different from each other The local PMC that takes in child recruits, but only after shooting them up with dangerous nanomachines with a 50/50 to kill them or permanently cripple them, and if the latter occurs leaving them to die in the street, no less. They also buy child slaves!
|
|
#
?
Nov 23, 2020 03:29
|
|
|
Kanos posted:The local PMC that takes in child recruits, but only after shooting them up with dangerous nanomachines with a 50/50 to kill them or permanently cripple them, and if the latter occurs leaving them to die in the street, no less. They also buy child slaves! Something I saw pointed out about CGS that I thought was interesting is that all of the onscreen Human Debris in the organization were about the same age, suggesting that Maruba only bought slaves once, then returned to just hiring people. If you want to be generous (and given how Nadi describes Maruba as being less bad in the past, it's not absurd to think that way) he tried buying Human Debris once, felt like poo poo, got pissed at how much training they needed to be worth the investment, and decided to never do it again. (Further reinforcing this, Dante and Chad have some pretty valuable non-combat skills, suggesting that they were at least given on the job training rather than being assumed disposable). CGS is terrible, but it had enough less negative qualities that you can believe Martian street kids would be willing to gamble their lives on 60/40 odds for a chance at a job there, and that Orga wouldn't go in for outright rebellion until it got even worse.
|
|
#
?
Nov 23, 2020 04:22
|
|
|
i wonder how many innocent people mikazuki has personally murdered in his line of work
|
|
#
?
Nov 23, 2020 04:23
|
|
|
ninjewtsu posted:I dunno if I'd really consider "join the cops" and "join the local PMC" as being radically morally different from each other ACAB but there is a pretty significant difference. Police (or police-like things ala Gjallhorn) have the benefit of decades of propaganda showing them to be necessary right protectors and presenting any flaws they have as being the result of corruption and individual failure rather than systemic problems. For people who are low information or taken in by said propaganda it is very easy to be swayed to thinking you are doing the right thing in joining an organization. PMCs are almost universally filled with the worst people on the planet and exist only to skate rules and enable abuses. IBO PMCs are basically murderers for hire who enable and support the absolute worst abuses in the setting. Tekkadan is the closest to not being that and only through the horrible tragedy of being a bunch of manipulated and abused children who feel like they have no other possibility in their life and are surrounded by terrible influences.
|
|
#
?
Nov 23, 2020 04:24
|
|
|
i'm pretty early into s2 so maybe it comes up in show but i'm kinda wondering what would happen if, between jobs, orga received a job offer for the kind of heinous poo poo that PMCs actually do instead of helping kudelia out or playing body guard or whatever
|
|
#
?
Nov 23, 2020 04:28
|
|
|
ninjewtsu posted:i'm pretty early into s2 so maybe it comes up in show but i'm kinda wondering what would happen if, between jobs, orga received a job offer for the kind of heinous poo poo that PMCs actually do instead of helping kudelia out or playing body guard or whatever It would depend on the situation. Orga would probably not accept "Hey, go kill these babies" as a mission but if he had a mission that seemed safe and it suddenly involved killing babies because they were manipulated into it and it was kill babies or his family dies then those babies are probably dead. Orga is pretty consistent in that he doesn't want to be that kind of person but he is also really bad at being in over his head. The fact that he has willing access to a terrifying murderbeast in Mika also means that it's very easy for him to take aggressive action in protection of his family because he has what amounts to one of the deadliest weapons in the setting at his beck and call and one who basically will not question what is asked of him if Orga asks him to do it. And Orga is a dumb kid with a lot to prove. ImpAtom fucked around with this message at 04:37 on Nov 23, 2020 |
|
#
?
Nov 23, 2020 04:31
|
|
|
ImpAtom posted:It would depend on the situation. Orga would probably not accept "Hey, go kill these babies" as a mission but if he had a mission that seemed safe and it suddenly involved killing babies because they were manipulated into it and it was kill babies or his family dies then those babies are probably dead. Tbh I always got the vibe that if Mika was told to kill babies that would be the point where he and Orga would be done, like he rolls with a lot of what Orga says because he unfailingly trusts him and he can’t be bothered to think very much about stuff, but if he had to help murder unarmed defenseless kids that weren’t trying to murder his friends then Orga wouldn’t be seeing straight in a pretty obvious way. Unlike the whole Kings of Mars thing, which was also him not seeing straight but at least not as obviously a bad shortsighted idea as baby murder.
|
|
#
?
Nov 23, 2020 14:07
|
|
|
Last Celebration posted:Tbh I always got the vibe that if Mika was told to kill babies that would be the point where he and Orga would be done, like he rolls with a lot of what Orga says because he unfailingly trusts him and he can’t be bothered to think very much about stuff, but if he had to help murder unarmed defenseless kids that weren’t trying to murder his friends then Orga wouldn’t be seeing straight in a pretty obvious way. Unlike the whole Kings of Mars thing, which was also him not seeing straight but at least not as obviously a bad shortsighted idea as baby murder. Depends. Does he get to eat the babies after? Because they look delicious. Like ham. (For what it's worth, we do see at least one explicitly ethical mercenary outside of Tekkadan with pre-Turbines Amida, and the ex-mercenary Julieta still has visible disgust at some of the dirtier business in Gjallarhorn. It's not a full on Macross style "PMCs are all great people!" setting or even like Maverick in Metal Gear where the hero PMC only takes good guy jobs, but overall it seems the narrative intent is that mercenary work isn't inherently unethical in the setting, unlike piracy.) On a completely unrelated note, it was interesting listening to the latest Mobile Suit Breakdown's discussion of Japanese workplace affairs in relation to Bright in ZZ. Basically, the intended cultural context makes scenes that were meant to say "Bright is displaying exceptional dedication to his family" read in other cultures as, well, him being kind of a scumbag.
|
|
#
?
Nov 23, 2020 14:30
|
|
|
I don't really remember Bright's scenes with Emery very well, so what did he do that could come off kind of scummy? The way I recall it is just him being tempted by her, but never actually giving in or doing anything of note beyond looking and maybe light flirting.
|
|
#
?
Nov 23, 2020 15:09
|
|
|
ninjewtsu posted:i wonder how many innocent people mikazuki has personally murdered in his line of work He's mainly Orga's bodyguard and the Third Group's heavy hitter against particularly dangerous opposition, so I doubt it's that many, if any. Innocent people don't usually have access to the sort of hardware that requires a triple-whisker pilot to take it down.
|
|
#
?
Nov 23, 2020 15:13
|
|
|
tsob posted:I don't really remember Bright's scenes with Emery very well, so what did he do that could come off kind of scummy? The way I recall it is just him being tempted by her, but never actually giving in or doing anything of note beyond looking and maybe light flirting. Bright spends the entire series basically leading her on, giving her the eyes, chatting with her and looking out for her over other folks right up until she tries to make a move and then he shuts it down. Emery like most of the women in Zeta get kind of a poo poo stick. She should be pissed off at him, instead it seems to only bolster her admiration of the magical capt bright right up to her sacrifice.
|
|
#
?
Nov 23, 2020 17:11
|
|
|
Darth Walrus posted:He's mainly Orga's bodyguard and the Third Group's heavy hitter against particularly dangerous opposition, so I doubt it's that many, if any. Innocent people don't usually have access to the sort of hardware that requires a triple-whisker pilot to take it down. I'm mostly thinking of his CGS work, where he would've had a lot less freedom to be an orga only guy and experience a lot more "look we were paid to burn this town down and shoot up anyone who runs away so we're gonna loving do it" over the course of his career. Even as a triple whisker dude was still just in a mobile worker so I don't think CGS really had the luxury of saving him for only when they need the big guns
|
|
#
?
Nov 23, 2020 19:54
|
|
|
ninjewtsu posted:I'm mostly thinking of his CGS work, where he would've had a lot less freedom to be an orga only guy and experience a lot more "look we were paid to burn this town down and shoot up anyone who runs away so we're gonna loving do it" over the course of his career. Even as a triple whisker dude was still just in a mobile worker so I don't think CGS really had the luxury of saving him for only when they need the big guns I mean, the organization's name is Chryse Guard Security. In fiction, the name for an organization suggests a lot about the kind of jobs it takes, either as an ironic contrast, or as a more straightforward narrative shorthand, and since we don't get any emphasis on ironic use, it's safe to assume CGS's name is more-or-less accurate to the jobs they do. That is to say, they work security. People don't pay them money to primarily to break poo poo and shoot people. They pay them to make sure poo poo doesn't get broken and that people don't get shot. Now, other people might get shot as a part of protecting the paying customers, but that's not the goal. (Bullets, after all, cost money.) Mika's the best tank pilot they have, and he's in the group sent to the highest risk assignments. He's not going to be used against soft targets, because it's a waste of resources.
|
|
#
?
Nov 23, 2020 23:13
|
|
|
chiasaur11 posted:I mean, the organization's name is Chryse Guard Security. In fiction, the name for an organization suggests a lot about the kind of jobs it takes, either as an ironic contrast, or as a more straightforward narrative shorthand, and since we don't get any emphasis on ironic use, it's safe to assume CGS's name is more-or-less accurate to the jobs they do. I have some bad news for you about how companies like Triple Canopy, Academi, and Aegis Defence market themselves. You won't find the word "mercenary" anywhere but you see a lot of references to "security" and "defense."
|
|
#
?
Nov 23, 2020 23:37
|
|
|
In the hands of PMCs, security is a euphemism.
|
|
#
?
Nov 24, 2020 00:07
|
|
|
Midjack posted:I have some bad news for you about how companies like Triple Canopy, Academi, and Aegis Defence market themselves. You won't find the word "mercenary" anywhere but you see a lot of references to "security" and "defense." Yes. That's why I used the words "in fiction". I mean, Macross Delta aired between seasons of IBO, where the protagonists are a purely heroic mercenary unit who use the power of music to cure a hate plague. Assuming a fictional PMC only uses security to mean security is pretty much nothing in comparison.
|
|
#
?
Nov 24, 2020 00:11
|
|
|
chiasaur11 posted:Yes. Macross as a franchise has had a weird attachment to independent good guy mercenary groups for ages, so it's kind of a bad example. It seems highly unlikely that a mercenary group as big as CGS on a planet as hosed as Mars in in IBO would be able to financially sustain itself off "security guard" jobs only. Who would hire what amounts to a regiment of tanks for security that doesn't have links to Gjallarhorn already?
|
|
#
?
Nov 24, 2020 00:16
|
|
|
Independent mercenaries being presented as heroic figures because they can do good outside of the constrains of the system isn't particularly anything new except for referring to them explicitly as PMCs. But IBO is not a system where "heroic figures doing good outside the system" is ever a valid choice and it's unlikely PMCs used there are not supposed to be standins for PMCs in reality. (Where they also do boring things in addition to horrific extralegal atrocities.)
|
|
#
?
Nov 24, 2020 00:18
|
|
|
ImpAtom posted:But IBO is not a system where "heroic figures doing good outside the system" is ever a valid choice and it's unlikely PMCs used there are not supposed to be standins for PMCs in reality. (Where they also do boring things in addition to horrific extralegal atrocities.) This is the important bit. Macross is an inherently idealistic property (pop songs have saved the world more than once for instance), so the idea that the independent military contractors could be unreservedly the good guys as they are in Frontier and Delta comes from that. Gundam in general and IBO Extremely specifically is not nearly as idealistic.
|
|
#
?
Nov 24, 2020 00:29
|
|
|
chiasaur11 posted:Yes. We're not talking about the franchise where pop music is one of the most effective weapons, we're talking about the show where a teenage child soldier executes a restrained prisoner on screen. I don't believe a charitable interpretation of the role of private security companies in IBO is warranted.
|
|
#
?
Nov 24, 2020 00:43
|
|
|
Kanos posted:It seems highly unlikely that a mercenary group as big as CGS on a planet as hosed as Mars in in IBO would be able to financially sustain itself off "security guard" jobs only. Who would hire what amounts to a regiment of tanks for security that doesn't have links to Gjallarhorn already? Well, there was this one Martian independence activist... Even beyond that, CGS has a spaceship, and while we mostly focus on Martian slums, there are also more "upper class" districts (mostly only shown in the finale, but the architecture would have existed for a while. We also know that Zack comes from a middle class background, and that Nobliss Gordon had offices on Mars). Given the wide spread of piracy and the number of "legally grey" trading firms, it suggests that there'd be a lot of people moving goods that they'd want protected by someone other than the relevant legal authorities. Especially when Gjallarhorn has almost no presence once you get beyond Mars. I doubt it's all they do, but in between "Poor people will want our things. Shoot them if they get too close." on one end and "There are pirates out there who will kill us and sell our children into slavery if we head out undefended" on the other, I think there's a pretty decent market for security escorts around Mars Post Disaster. Going back to the initial question, the arrangement of labor we suggests that First Group get the relatively safe jobs (like shooting unarmed protesters), while Third Group gets the gigs with actual risk of the enemy shooting back. (Like dealing with pirates, terrorist groups, and other PMCs). A lot depends on how you define "innocent", but it seems likely Mikazuki mostly killed people who could have killed him if he'd been slower on the trigger.
|
|
#
?
Nov 24, 2020 01:02
|
|
|
Yeah, there's enough heavily armed piracy and warlordism in the IBO setting that CGS actually doing security jobs as their main income source is wholly plausible. They've certainly got enough of a reputation for it that It wasn't seen as weird for Kudelia to hire them. Academi sells 'security' to a massively-armed global hegemon from within that massively-armed global hegemon. There is no actual threat to American interests that makes the use of mercenaries remotely reasonable or ethical. CGS are just frontier escorts and bandit-hunters in a region with weak central government control, where pirates actually can drop out of the sky in giant robots and steal your poo poo. Big difference. Darth Walrus fucked around with this message at 01:18 on Nov 24, 2020 |
|
#
?
Nov 24, 2020 01:15
|
|
|
Okay, so I switched from the compilation movies to the actual original show, and holy poo poo, Ramba Ral was great. I'm up to meeting Amuro's dad again - really thought he died, but drat, that was kinda hosed up. Amuro does not have good parents.
|
|
#
?
Nov 24, 2020 01:26
|
|
|
HerpicleOmnicron5 posted:Okay, so I switched from the compilation movies to the actual original show, and holy poo poo, Ramba Ral was great. I'm up to meeting Amuro's dad again - really thought he died, but drat, that was kinda hosed up. Amuro does not have good parents. The really sad thing? Compared to the protagonist of Zeta Gundam's family, Amuro's dad could win Father of the Year. Gundam parents do not have the best track record.
|
|
#
?
Nov 24, 2020 01:39
|
|
|
chiasaur11 posted:Compared to the protagonist of Zeta Gundam's family, Amuro's dad could win Father of the Year. I liked Amuro's dad so much better when he got sucked out of the Side after a Zaku exploded and presumed dead. It genuinely shocked me that there was no "How'd you get here?" or "You're safe?". I assume he suffered brain damage from oxygen deprivation while floating outside of the Side, and got rescued by someone, but now lives as a crazy hermit, right? It didn't really go through step by step there.
|
|
#
?
Nov 24, 2020 02:06
|
|
|
chiasaur11 posted:The really sad thing?
|
|
#
?
Nov 24, 2020 02:07
|
|
|
Endorph posted:yeah the only decent gundam parent i can think of who had any screentime and didnt die at the start is like, cagalli's dad Bellri's mom is cool and good.
|
|
#
?
Nov 24, 2020 02:09
|
|
|
Endorph posted:yeah the only decent gundam parent i can think of who had any screentime and didnt die at the start is like, cagalli's dad Domon's dad is pretty okay. And Mirai's great. (Bright's got a more mixed track record, but I'll reserve full judgement until we get Hathaway's Flash to cover more than the years he was away due to catastrophic space war.)
|
|
#
?
Nov 24, 2020 02:15
|
|
|
Uso's parents are good. Which is why they get horribly murdered.
|
|
#
?
Nov 24, 2020 02:21
|
|
|
Endorph posted:yeah the only decent gundam parent i can think of who had any screentime and didnt die at the start is like, cagalli's dad Dozle actually seemed like a pretty decent dad from what we see in animated works though he’s a bit of a creep when he was running the academy in Origin.
|
|
#
?
Nov 24, 2020 02:21
|
|
|
HerpicleOmnicron5 posted:I liked Amuro's dad so much better when he got sucked out of the Side after a Zaku exploded and presumed dead. It genuinely shocked me that there was no "How'd you get here?" or "You're safe?". There's also a real chance he dies not long after Amuro meets him in Side 6. The compilation movies have an extra scene where he falls down a flight of stairs, and that's the last we ever see of him. A couple of games also state he "died ignominiously" so there's reason to say it really was it for him. Basically, for all it mattered, he did die when that Zaku went boom.
|
|
#
?
Nov 24, 2020 02:30
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 27, 2024 05:01 |
|
|
MonsieurChoc posted:Uso's parents are good. Which is why they get horribly murdered. the whole training their child to be a revolutionary supersoldier was too sus for me
|
|
#
?
Nov 24, 2020 02:43
|
|
