ninjewtsu posted:

who's saying this?

ninjewtsu posted:

who's saying this?

drrockso20 posted:

Considering some of the crazy poo poo I've already seen people make in that game it's only a matter of time before someone makes a fully functional Gundam in it

Nessus posted:

Thanks for the words

To explain what I mean by quantifiable, I mean that the theory of how psychic brainwaves works is understood well enough that Zeon is able to build the Elmeth, which seems to work fine (at least with Lalah driving it) and the same technology is used to produce Bits and Funnels. Given that this isn't mass-produced I assume it's an unusual but identifiable factor (Glemy deals with it by cloning Ple, which is an efficient way to address the issue I suppose) and it can be produced with the Cyber Newtype process, that is something that presumably people study and write papers about and poo poo.

So basically the chain would be "this psychic factor exists, and was associated with Amuro Ray, who is generally agreed to be a newtype" -> "this psychic factor is 'Newtype'" -> "this psychic factor arises easily in space and was first developed by Zeon" -- it's a chain of poo poo. Newtype is used to mean a ton of things which I like because it's a messy concept, like "freedom" or "good Star Wars."

Omnicrom posted:

To jump back in the thread a bit, I get where you're coming from now, but the problem remains that even identifying Newtypes as "people who can use a Psycommu" is kind of fraught as well. You can definitely, quantitatively state that there are people who can generate the correct brainwave to use that system, and that you can artificially (and hideously) modify someone to have that brainwave, but what does that mean? After all the chain of reasoning of "Newtype=Psycommu User=Space-adapted human" collapses instantly in multiple ways. Some people clearly become able to use the Psycommu after a period of time where they couldn't, there are people who are from Earth who can use a Psycommu, the population of natural Psycommu users is so varied and disparate it's not possible to properly call them a race of humans at all, it's quite possible there are some people with psychic or preternatural abilities that might not be able to use a Psycommu (that was a big deal in Gundam X, but the existence of that kind of Newtype is unconfirmed in UC Gundam), relatedly is using a particular weapon even necessarily an adaptation for space, and perhaps most importantly for the big idea cosmology, is being able to use that kind of weapon REALLY what makes a person a "Newtype"?

Once again that last charter is unenforceable on every level in large part, and it ties back into that repeated question of what exactly a Newtype even really is. A lot of the tragedy of Newtypes comes from them being seen only in terms of their various magic powers, not the kind of hippy transhuman things those magic powers could mean. Looking at Newtypes as Psycommu using pilots vastly restricts that whole "Potential" thing Unicorn kept banging on about.

Arc Hammer posted:

I don't know, that Char fellow and that Scirocco guy certainly had some pull.

Azran posted:

They said they were planning on further exploring the gap between Unicorn/Hathaway and F91/Victory, right? That's gonna be interesting to see

Warmachine posted:

Neither of these say anything about whether that person is 'good' or 'should be put in government.' No matter how many people Gallup say are pulling for Char in the next PM election.

Also Amuro is frowning at you all from beyond the time as you try and quantify what a Newtype is. My take is that this kind of quibbling about the definition of a Newtype is exactly what robs the box of what little real power it held. Deikun was a hilarious coincidence, and gave just enough of a hook to blow the box way out of proportion. Any push the box gives, aside from what Gaius posted, will get diluted by the debates over what exactly a Newtype is. Contolists would argue that all Spacenoids are Newtypes. The Federation will say Newtypes don't exist. Academics will argue over the finer points of psychic phenomena and what constitutes as legitimate vs illigitimate. And the general public will lose interest in three months.

And, for what it is worth, anything less that what the Contolists would claim is a massive slap in the face to the space immigrants. The space borne diaspora all have various political and material interests that could be represented by grouping them as independent nation-states, but only the super-special psychic ones are worthy of that recognition?

Seemlar posted:

"There are bad spacenoids, they maybe they don't deserve equal representation" is certainly an interesting take

ninjewtsu posted:

who's saying this?

drrockso20 posted:

The only practical definition of Newtype is that being people who exhibit psychic phenomenon, especially those that can interact with a Psycommu system or other similar technologies

Trying to attach any meaning to the term beyond that is a pointless and futile exercise in the fields of philosophy and politics

Waffleman_ posted:

The disconnect and conflict between the philosophical definition of a newtype and the practical definition of a newtype is almost the entire point of newtypes in the story lol

ninjewtsu posted:

A lack of consideration of the philosophical and political ramifications of new phenomena is exactly what leads to stuff like cybernewtypes being developed

drrockso20 posted:

The problem with Cyber Newtypes has nothing to do with the concept itself, it's that every time it's been done(or other similar projects like EXAM and HADES) is that it's being run by psychotic morons, most Cyber Newtypes* we encounter in the franchise were either forcibly put through the process(and often brainwashed as well) or were mentally unstable prior to the treatment, Gates Capa and Gyunei Guss both show that it's more than possible to create Cyber Newtypes that aren't unstable psychotic liabilities(Gyunei is a creepy loser but in a rather mundane way that was probably unaffected by him being modified)

*discounting the Ple clones since they only seem to be lumped as Cyber Newtypes out of convenience since their Newtype abilities should be natural since they're cloned from a Natural Newtype

Kanos posted:

(Aside from the aforementioned absurdity of a government writing "if evolved humans come into being, give them a place in government" into their foundational charter, of course.)

Zedd posted:

The whole UC charter/plot mcguffin in Unicorn clearly started from the premise of "What if The Federation secretly knew Zeon (Zum Deikun) was right about Newtypes?" and they went from there trying make it into a somewhat sensical secret as pivotal point of the show.
It didn't really work for multiple reasons.

drrockso20 posted:

The problem with Cyber Newtypes has nothing to do with the concept itself, it's that every time it's been done(or other similar projects like EXAM and HADES) is that it's being run by psychotic morons, most Cyber Newtypes* we encounter in the franchise were either forcibly put through the process(and often brainwashed as well) or were mentally unstable prior to the treatment, Gates Capa and Gyunei Guss both show that it's more than possible to create Cyber Newtypes that aren't unstable psychotic liabilities(Gyunei is a creepy loser but in a rather mundane way that was probably unaffected by him being modified)

*discounting the Ple clones since they only seem to be lumped as Cyber Newtypes out of convenience since their Newtype abilities should be natural since they're cloned from a Natural Newtype

Waffleman_ posted:

It's extra impressive because they somehow knew 9 years before Zeon ZD was born

Kanos posted:

If newtypes popped up "often" and "easily", there wouldn't be multiple separate horrible nightmare laboratories dedicated to brute-force creating more of them.

gimme the GOD drat candy posted:

katejina demonstrated every indication of being a cyber newtype, and it would perfectly explain her otherwise bizarre changes. the show didn't say anything about it, though.

Hunter Noventa posted:

I'm pretty sure she gets the Cyber-Newtype ability in SRW so that's something.

ninjewtsu posted:

i am not particularly a fan of the idea that, because new types are hard to define via physical phenomenon, any attempt to do so must be looked down upon (especially in universe). humans should not simply say "well guess we'll never understand it" and give up there.

Laozi posted:

The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao. The name that can be named is not the eternal name. The nameless is the beginning of heaven and earth. The named is the mother of ten thousand things.

Hunter Noventa posted:

I'm pretty sure she gets the Cyber-Newtype ability in SRW so that's something.

Gaius Marius posted:

ninjewtsu posted:

i am not particularly a fan of the idea that, because new types are hard to define via physical phenomenon, any attempt to do so must be looked down upon (especially in universe). humans should not simply say "well guess we'll never understand it" and give up there.

Waffleman_ posted:

The disconnect and conflict between the philosophical definition of a newtype and the practical definition of a newtype is almost the entire point of newtypes in the story lol

ninjewtsu posted:

Yes the problem is that they focused on achieving the practical observed phenomena without considering what an ethical way to go about it was or any goal other than military application. Determining both of these things requires consideration of philosophic and political concepts.

ninjewtsu posted:

Idk I don't think "space adapted humans" applies to spacenoids outside of the possibility of it applying to specifically newtypes. Is there some piece of this I'm missing? What other traits of space adaptation mutations do spacenoids present?-

ninjewtsu posted:

Idk I don't think "space adapted humans" applies to spacenoids outside of the possibility of it applying to specifically newtypes. Is there some piece of this I'm missing? What other traits of space adaptation mutations do spacenoids present?-