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revdrkevind posted:So uh... how is Julieta in a non-Zero-System MS going toe to toe with Mikazuki in the Legit A Mobile Armor Plus Zero System? The thing is, Mika's fighting to win, and Julieta's fighting to not lose, and those lead to very different styles. Mika's trying to kill her, but Julieta is a very talented pilot who's playing to slow Mika down in the most survivable suit in the setting (remember, Amida said she'd scored three killshots on it and it was still in the fight. Julia's a tough piece of work.) which means, for the moment, she's got the easier job. Mika tends to get murder tunnel vision. Normally, it works out for him, because the murder goes fast and he can kill someone else, but with the Julia, killing is slow and awkward, which meant that Julieta was winning despite being in the middle of a standard issue Mikazuki Augus brand asskicking. Her whole little "This is how I'm fighting" speech was even about that. She's not playing Rocky IV, where she can win with hard work and guts. She's original flavor Rocky, who doesn't even have a puncher's chance, and can only try to stay standing long enough to not lose.
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Mar 1, 2017 20:23
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MonsterEnvy posted:He stated he did understand him. As he already knew someone of the same type. But McGillis words and the dreams he inspires are lies, and he never would have given him what he wanted. Which is pretty appropriate, since Ein was (is?) someone with the same rough arc. An honest soldier of Gjallarhorn whose loyalty was exploited by McGillis, until all that was left was a weapon... and Gaelio's friend. (Funny. Ein's been burned down to two things, his best and his worst. The loyal friend, and the heartless weapon, with all the humanity in the middle burned right out.) It shows in the last moments with the Reincar. Last episode, Gaelio was in a position of, roughly "gently caress you, you shitbird!" on the guy. But when the story comes out, Gaelio's right back to sincere pity. Moving back to our nominal heroes, I quite liked a lot of what was going down with Tekkadan. Eugene picking up some of the Heavy Lies The Head, preventing him from calling Orga on wanting to back down when they're pretty well hosed if they try at this point because part of him's just as ready to hide in the gutters was decent, but some of the other stuff was also really solid. Yamagi's being in capital L with Shino isn't exactly a surprise, although the show was remarkably explicit about it, but I thought Norba's talk about it in the flashback was interesting. Not "Weird he doesn't want to gently caress girls", but "Aren't we kind of brothers? That's weird, since we're family and all. Anyway, good for him. Takes all kinds to make a world." But Akihiro's part was probably my favorite. Guy's had maybe the most growth of any Tekkadan member, mostly through pain, and seeing him with Derma... last family of any sort he has left, and the poor kid thinks he's worthless because he can't be a pilot any more. And Akihirio has to thank him, as his CO, for surviving, just because his survival matters, as a person? It was nice to see. Poor guy finally managed to save something that mattered to him.
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Mar 5, 2017 22:48
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Darth Walrus posted:It's really hard to say just which way Rustal would go. He makes it clear that he doesn't like unnecessary cruelty, even if he has a very broad definition of 'necessary', and seems to be mostly opposing McGillis because he agrees with Gaelio's reasons for stopping him. He clearly has enormous respect for Gjallarhorn and what it's accomplished, but it remains very unclear how he'd react to a reform package that isn't presented by a sociopathic manchild lunatic. Well, we can get a pretty good guess as to how he'd react to two plans from this season. On the positive side of the math, he recognizes talent no matter where it comes from. Unlike Ein and Isurugi, Julieta is given a position of genuine respect within Gjallarhorn. She can mouth off to Iok, one of the most powerful men in the solar system, without fear. He'd probably be fine with, or even in favor of, reform that reduces bigotry based on position of birth. On the other hand, a move for greater self governance is probably not going to be his favorite. Colony rebellions get put down. But beyond that, tricky to figure. Most of his moves have been done in the knowledge of what all McGillis did in season 1, and that's the kind of thing that makes a man go for desperate measures.
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Mar 6, 2017 11:18
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Kanos posted:Rustal, regardless of his personal feelings on meritocracy, is pretty much a walking Avatar of the Status Quo in this conflict. He stands for the preservation of the present system with its focus on the power and influence of nobility; this is exemplified by the fact that he pays lip service to Iok - despite the fact that Iok is a moron and a war criminal who has caused the wholly unnecessary deaths of many people for the sake of his pride and helped to trigger this civil war in the first place - because Iok has the right noble blood and a bunch of people who follow him because of his last name. All of the leading figures in his fleet - Elion, Kujan, Bauduin - are the bluest of the blue Seven Stars blood. Most, but not all. "Jurius" isn't exactly a seven star name. Point of fact is, she was basically in the same position as CGS third group when Galan Mossa scouted her for the big leagues. Rustal treats her as the daughter he never had, despite the fact half his forces kind of object to promoting this low born nobody over the heads of everyone who doesn't have a star by their names. (Not helped by the fact that Vidar was apparently in the same boat, seeing as everyone but Rustal and the mechanic thought of him as another no-name ace pilot.) Meanwhile, Iok got benched and had Rustal explicitly say "Hey, I'd love to can his rear end, but he's kind of necessary to keep people onboard. If I had someone else young, charismatic, and blue blooded, well. That might change things." (Things changed with the whole rebellion thing, since Rustal wanted all the guns he could get aimed at McGillis, but notice how Iok's job is 'sit in the corner and don't touch anything while the adults plan the battle out.') Again, he promoted a nobody and benched the head of a Seven Star house, because the nobody was competent and the head was... Iok. Rustal is a major outlier in Gjallarhorn culture, since he respects talent more than birth. Even with Iok, it's less "You're Somebody" and more "Your subordinates respect you. Despite you being an idiot, that matters."
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Mar 7, 2017 01:53
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Tae posted:Nah, jasley was pissed at tekkadan at the beginning of the season. He really hates the mars kids getting attention from daddy mafia. And he had a grudge against naze regardless. That probably had way more to do than mcgiilis. He's been pissed, but it took the McGillis deal to get Iok all in.
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Mar 10, 2017 11:03
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paragon1 posted:Yes, so that people will stop sending Space Pirates and other ne'er-do-wells to murder them and take their poo poo. Probably would have, after Dawn Horizon got destroyed. They were the largest pirate group around, and Tekkadan ate them alive. That kind of thing makes people think twice. The tragedy was that Tekkadan was moving forward. Not even at a slow pace, really. By anyone else's standards, they were a loving rocket, but Orga, poor Orga didn't want to spend one day more than he had to sending his guys to die. And that's leaving more of 'em dead than ever. Even the Earth arc was probably influenced by the deal with McGillis. Rustal had moles, and I figure he's got enough sense he'd go "Oh, they're on the outs. Guess someone else would be better bait", if that was how it went. Iron Blooded Orphans is a story of people making deals with the devil, and what happens when the time comes to collect. And it's pretty rare in that kind of story for the deal to be a good call for all concerned.
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Mar 11, 2017 11:11
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OnimaruXLR posted:huh The plan right now is that they burn their identities. "Tekkadan" is dead. The former CGS third group is a bunch of government contractors in decent jobs on Earth. It's just a coincidence they look a lot like some infamous, certainly dead mercenaries from Mars. Happens all the time. Once knew a philosopher whose son looked just like this space Texan, despite them not being related. They've got a little money, they have just enough contacts, and they got each other. If they make it out alive, it's a win. Taking down Rustal, being kings of Mars? That's all the crazy poo poo that got a bunch of people killed and cost Tekkadan almost everything. Three hots, a cot, and nobody shooting at you? That's what they were going for in the first place. That's the goal.
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Mar 13, 2017 00:05
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ImpAtom posted:"Recruit Mika" and take advantage of Mika aren't the same thing. With Orga dead there's very little that Mika will do that isn't in McGillis' favor unless Mika finds out McGillis was involved somehow. Even if Mika just goes batshit on the Gjallerhorn forces and dies doing so that's a win for McGillis compared to Orga's plan. Which, to be fair, seems pretty likely, given that Mika has shown a remarkably good radar for people's hidden agendas. But McGillis has spent a lot of time seeing the Mikazuki he wants to exist instead of the Mikazuki that actually exists. One more instance would be quite likely.
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Mar 21, 2017 00:49
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RottenK posted:but that would gently caress over McGillis even more because Iok is undefeatable Iok's unkillable, not undefeatable. It's an important distinction. The only guarantee with Iok is that he'll live, and a lot of people will die. This includes most of his own side.
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Mar 23, 2017 23:10
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You know, whatever else happens, I'm glad the episode remembered to take a moment for what's really important: making GBS threads on Eugene. It was nice having some of the younger recruits respond to his attempt to be cool and heroic by piloting Orga's old suit with "But don't you suck at MS piloting?", followed by running through his practice battles, starting with the minor and forgivable fact that Mika kicked his rear end in training, and slowly running through the rest of the pilot roster, reaching (at minimum) Chad before the scene cut away. I know his odds are terrible, but after wanting it to be good, my greatest hope for the finale is Eugene somehow making it through alive... and still looking like a goober.
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Mar 27, 2017 10:17
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Kanos posted:I still have trouble seeing how people read Gaelio as a character interested in reform or change at this point. Gaelio has spent this entire season hell bent on revenge at the cost of everything else. He's basically unchanged from his season 1 self except the target of his revenge boner shifted from Tekkadan to McGillis. Remember that this is a guy whose idea of honoring the wishes of an injured friend was to cyborg that friend up so he could murder a bunch of kids. His idea was cyborging up a friend so he could still move, at McGillis's insistence. He wasn't so fond of the final results. And it's important how Gaelio has looked every time Rustal says something shady. He's in, but he's taking no satisfaction in it. And now the reason he's in is gone...
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Mar 28, 2017 00:57
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ImpAtom posted:In setting terms the Gundams are basically like Strike Freedom/00 Raiser level if you consider the difference in what constitutes a powerful force. Mika or McGillis can reliably take out a dozen or more units which matters a lot more when a dozen or more units is 1/3rd of someone's fighting force. Mika isn't spewing laser beams that do the same percentage of a win but he is effectively a significant enough force that the enemies have to specifically plan and work around the fact he's basically Lu Bu. To the point where "You can slow him down" is a rare and useful qualification. Really, Rustal's line as a taunt doesn't fit with everything else about how they interact. He levels with Julieta about how going against Mika is incredibly risky and he's only asking since she's the only person he's got who can do the job done. He thanks Gaelio for bringing her back alive. He lets her backsass people who, under normal circumstances, could have her killed. And now he's just taunting the girl who seems the closest thing he has to a daughter about how he's evil just because she's expressing sympathy for Tekkadan never having someone like him in their corner? It doesn't really match. Seems more that he thinks of himself as a necessary evil. It's not a boast, but a confession.
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Mar 28, 2017 07:20
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Argas posted:The funny thing is that McGillis' philosophy isn't really wrong or delusional, it's just that he thinks he can lone wolf it and mistook Bael as some sort of ultimate power item. Not really. McGillis was all about personal power. One man reshaping the world with his hands and his wits as he sees fit, a Senator Armstrong deal. Rustal is all about political power. As a direct threat, Rustal's one of the weakest main antagonists Gundam's ever had. He's no fighter and no pilot, a man who's more at home behind a desk than in a mobile suit. His power comes from his birthright and his personal relationships, the things McGillis forswears. Rustal didn't claw his way to his position. He was born to it, and settled in.
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Mar 30, 2017 06:21
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Less Colasour. More coleslaw. Funny. The Garma clone was the only surviving Gundam pilot.
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Apr 2, 2017 21:58
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rudatron posted:The only thing that really feels unearned is the reform of gjallarhorn. Did anyone else ever hear Rustal voice that as a possible goal of his? He's shown to be a clever pragmatist, and his victory over mcgillis + tekkadan feels earned, but we aren't ever given a reason to suspect that of Rustal. It seems like Rustal basically was just being pragmatic again. The seven stars were down to four, and even most of those were pretty tarnished. Gaelio and Rustal were heroes who stopped a mad rebellion, but putting yourself as god-king after thrashing someone for trying to set himself up as god-king... not going to be helpful for stability. So Rustal weakened his political enemies (since the Mars branch was helping McGillis), kept his power (a beloved democratically elected president without term limits can still get away with an awful lot), and reduced threats to Gjallarhorn (former or current human debris made up the most dangerous shock troops of all non-Gjallarhorn factions) all by realizing that times change, and you need to change with them. (Something he made a speech about earlier!) Of course, he probably had some personal inclinations towards reform in the mix, considering his treatment of Julieta, but it all kept stability, and that's enough to explain his play. On the subject of Rustal, I had a blinding flash of the obvious, and realized his opposition to McGillis is pretty well demonstrated by their choice of weapons. McGillis, obviously, goes for Bael. The ace prototype, a Gundam whose performance depends entirely on the pilot. A lovely pilot would die in seconds, but someone with talent, with strength can tear through an army. It's been pointed out that Gaelio's work in concert with Ein is a contrast, but what's Rustal's signature? The Dainsleif. A weapon that couldn't give a rat's rear end about your personal strength and talent. Point. Click. Goodbye. A few weeks training, and any graze pilot is a threat to the toughest ace alive. It's the longbow at Crecy, the knight falling to the common man, the weak allowed to defeat the strong. It's not only a direct physical victory, but a philosophical one. Kinda neat.
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Apr 3, 2017 06:48
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Lord Koth posted:This is a very good summary of the overall situation, but minor point of order here in that you're really looking for crossbows or firearms rather than longbows. Those actually required a lot of training to use, so they don't really fit the "just give a random mook a mobile suit with a Dainsleif and a few weeks of instruction and they can take down elites" image - the longbow section of English armies WAS a significant chunk of their elite troops. The major advantage of longbows over knights is that they were cheaper to field (due to not requiring horse, metal armor, metal weapons, etc.), not that it required any less training. Yeah, 'begin with the grandfather', and that. I was just thinking of the Warren Ellis depiction of Crecy, where the focus was on how it upended the natural order, not that it quite matched one for one. Good point, to be clear.
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Apr 3, 2017 08:01
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Diabetes Forecast posted:But that's what Mika was! And Julieta, the only character to explicitly reject his power, survived pretty much unscathed. Kind of clever.
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Apr 4, 2017 10:59
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I don't, but experience is making google translate slightly less nonsensical. Basically, it's giving the same information as previous interviews. The director's original plan for the ending was to wipe out Tekkadan entirely (live by the sword...), but a number of people on the staff, most prominently Mari Okada, thought that was a bad call because the viewers had a lot invested in everyone's favorite murderous psychos (and, you know, a lot of the staff did too). The current ending was a compromise, after a lot of discussion about how to bring the plane in for a bumpy landing instead of just ramming the sucker. There's going to be more details in the official guidebook released June tenth, and some interviews in Newtype. But yeah. It's interesting the first Gundam series to straight up no question off its protagonists is also the one where they changed the ending to make it less of a downer.
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Apr 9, 2017 23:42
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Wark Say posted:Wait, so Okada fought for and got us a happier ending? Listen to me and you shall hear, news hath not been this thousand year: Since Herod, Caesar, and many more, you never heard the like before. Holy-dayes are despis'd, new fashions are devis'd. Old Christmas is kickt out of Town. Yet let's be content, and the times lament, you see the world turn'd upside down.
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Apr 10, 2017 00:39
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Kanos posted:Rustal explicitly didn't want him to use those superweapons and it would have been a really big political problem for Rustal that would have been used against him if Gaelio wasn't around to flush McGillis into open warfare. Iok's usage of Dainsleifs was one of the primary reasons Rustal put him under house arrest, because he realized Iok was dangerously naive about the political situation. He also knows the difference between a legitimate target (an enemy army that could cause you significant fatalities) and an illegitimate one (a civilian shipping company that happens to be friends with some people you blame for your own fuckups). There's a reason that Rustal goes to McMurdo to make a deal in addition to telling Iok to sit down and stop loving everything up. Rustal and Iok is like if Vetinari was friends with Lord Rust's dad. I get the feeling Rustal's response to hearing about Iok's death was, roughly "Of course he did."
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Apr 10, 2017 23:36
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Darth Walrus posted:I think that that was deliberate, as part of one of the show's tricker, more complex themes - that marginalisation and abuse are degrading, not ennobling, creating a vicious cycle in which the marginalised are easier to vilify, but that this doesn't mean we should, or that who they are or what they do is valueless. I was very much reminded of Guy Gavriel Kay's Tigana, where the health of the characters' romantic and sexual relationships is closely tied to the health of the land itself. I'm not sure I'd quite file Nadi and Merribit in the same bin as most of the relationships on the show. I mean, there's an age gap, but he seems to be somewhere in his early forties, and she seems to be in her late 20s, which... unusual but not absurd. It's not exactly Prince Andrei and Natasha, you know? That said, it doesn't disprove the theme at all, since they're unusual in Tekkadan in that they weren't on society's lowest rung. Merribit was pretty well off, and Nadi was in a skilled career drawing tolerable money. Still a long way from even Merribit's rung on the ladder (Martian cyborg is a lower class niche), but he didn't have a boot on his neck all his life like most of the protagonists.
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Apr 11, 2017 02:23
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Kuroyama posted:The human debris ban is going to be a landmark moment in that world, and Rustal does not deserve to be the one who gets to end it. Deserve's got nothing to do with it. He's not perfect. People have pointed out that he was too lenient with Iok (which gives McGillis a pretty big round of political ammunition at the start of his rebellion), and that, generally, he's a conventional strategist, going for the slow and grinding wins rather than planning for Tekkadan style death or glory runs. If Julieta was just a little worse a pilot (she's not a match for Amida or Mika, but she's still drat good) he would have gotten the Kycilia special, because he didn't think someone would pull a move that crazy when all hope was lost. But you don't need to be perfect when you can get away with drat good, and Rustal had the talent and the advantages he needed to win. Plus unlike most people on the show he didn't go in assuming things would come easy.
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Apr 11, 2017 03:15
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Lestaki posted:
She does seem to get a little stronger, (partially due to accepting her limits and working with them instead of ramming 'em headlong) but yeah. It's unusual. Most shows, someone who gets a complete arc goes from "I am not a good pilot" to "I am better than almost anyone". Iron Blooded Orphans season 2 has two arcs about people wanting to be better pilots, and neither of them reaches the top. Julieta goes from "I will do anything to be stronger" to "I won't sacrifice the rest of my life to be a better weapon" (both ensuring she'll never be good enough to beat Mikazuki in a fair fight, and saving her from his fate), while Hush just charges on to his death, never reaching the heights he aimed for, because he never had the right stuff in the first place and because his goal was as mad as every other goal Tekkadan took up in the second season. A lot of parallels going around there, looking back.
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Apr 12, 2017 02:13
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RottenK posted:But Harry wasn't even a bad guy, and he never betrayed anyone??? Harry Ord is basically the anti-Char, with some clear Quatro inspirations. He's got the shades and the shiny gold MS, and he got his start as the most dangerous foe the Gundam ran into. But yeah. Anti-Char. Where Char is continually betraying everyone, Harry's the one dude whose loyalty is never in question. Where Char is emotionally hosed up, Harry's one of the most stable and levelheaded dudes in the correct century. And where Char's relationships and life are disaster areas that gently caress up everyone who gets close, Harry winds up with a pretty solid endgame, hooking up with a woman in his age bracket who makes the world a much better place. And where Char has something at least remotely resembling fashion sense... Well. Harry Ord. chiasaur11 fucked around with this message at 04:55 on Apr 15, 2017 |
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Apr 15, 2017 03:41
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ImpAtom posted:I wish I could. See, I'm fine with it in IBO (and Turn A), since it commenting on Gundam felt intentional. It drew on past Gundam because it had something to say about past Gundam. Art responds to art, and that's been true since the first cave paintings. More than that, though, just being a Gundam series says something. If you just want to do a story about giant robots and war, you can make something new, like VOTOMs or summat. Being a Gundam show means carrying a legacy, and there's an argument you need to justify its weight, even as you do something new. That said, there's definitely a level where the legacy can become a loadstone. Commenting on Gundam because you have something you want or need to say about its themes is, in theory, good. It gives useful shorthand, and lets you engage past authors in discussion in a way the viewers understand. IBO's argument that reshaping the world with rapid bursts of violence ends in nothing carries more thematic weight when it's able to compare the imagery with serieses where it more or less works. On the other hand, things like Mr. Bushido are using themes, not because the show has something to say, but because it feels obligated. It's not so much engaging with the past argument as it is repeating it, hurting its own voice without adding anything to the chorus.
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Apr 15, 2017 04:41
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Raxivace posted:If anything I think a decent amount of non-Gundam mecha anime are better at being Gundam AU's than the actual AU's are. A Gundam character based on Rocky Balboa. And it's kind of got some problems if you're arguing for it as a Gundam AU. Like the aliens. One of the big things that made Gundam Gundam rather than being like its super-robot kin was that everybody doing the fighting and dying was homo sapiens sapien. Instead of going with the usual and having aliens that were basically humans with a color filter, so you had an excuse for the scrap from the jump, the line between Feddie and Zeek is basically arbitrary, accidents of birth that left one side fighting for a monstrous philosophy. (Reinforced in Zeta where Char is working on the side of the angels, and the Feddies were funding the Titans). It's a trend the series kept up, too. (Let's ignore Trailblazer for the moment.) It's important because, in Gundam, poo poo's hosed and there's no-one to blame but us. Macross has a lot riding on the aliens and the tech coming from outside. Whole plot rides on Us and Them being fundamentally different and the struggles to get past that. If Gundam is about things falling apart, Macross is about things coming together. It's absolute garbage as a Gundam AU, but it's good as a separate thing that takes inspiration from it. Of course, does kind of lead to the question of what makes Gundam Gundam. Cynical answer is branding, and cynical ain't all wrong. If Sunrise called a show about magic robots teaming up with plucky human kids to fight invaders from another dimension and called it Gundam, they'd be in their rights. But franchises tend to have things that stick and things that fade, new cloth that combines better with the old. For Gundam, some things that have stuck, both for merch and for narrative reasons? 1) Relatively small scale, for space opera. Gundams tend to take place in one solar system, if not pretty much entirely between Earth and its satellites. Where most shows with spaceflight go with FTL and travel speeds that make a romp across the galaxy 2) Connected, Gundams are about humans killing humans. Even AI is mostly restricted to one-off superweapons and sidestories. Usually, the beef is between people on Earth and people who aren't, but the exact nature of the conflict varies. The important thing is any poo poo that breaks is entirely the fault of the species that's been breaking poo poo most impressively as long as its been recording its own history. 3) Super-robot heritage means the protagonist's mech isn't just a slightly better grunt. It's a badass poo poo kicker, a notably above everyone else, even if things level off as it goes. Where Gundam's descendants often move away from the trend (Chirico Cuvie's mechs kick rear end because Chirico Cuvie is the pilot. Anybody else in them dies at the standard speed), in Gundam shows that's not the case. Even 08th gave the protagonist a custom jobbie that could outperform its peers. 4) Weird enhancements for at least some of the pilots that tie into the show's themes. Newtypes, whiskers, X-rounders, kickass martial arts... there's usually something that makes the protagonist special and explains why an usually untrained teenager is kicking everyone's rear end. There's also a number of aesthetic repeating themes (Gundam designs, mono-eyes for the main enemy grunt, char masks on an enemy pilot, Haros), but I think that's a lot of the core Gundam repeating beats that don't (directly) comment on Gundam. Kind of an odd franchise, looking at it from outside, but I don't think the secret to figuring out how it works is to label every show with robots in it a Gundam AU and wonder why the core series isn't as diverse. Limitations define a thing as much as its freedoms, and eliminating them tends to leave you with an amorphous mess. chiasaur11 fucked around with this message at 00:34 on Apr 17, 2017 |
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Apr 17, 2017 00:30
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Droyer posted:Me when I see a sweet-rear end robot: I want to be inside you... You're thinking about how much you want to **** Barbatos, aren't you?
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Apr 18, 2017 01:24
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Wark Say posted:Kamina was a sane mind in a crazy, weirdo universe. By comparison, Orga is crazier than a shithouse rat in a sane but cold, uncaring universe. I'm not sure I'd agree with that. Part of the reason Orga is tragic in season 2 is that, unlike most of Tekkadan and McGillis, he knows better. And in the end, he's the one who gets off the crazy train. Yes, he gets off too late to save himself, Mika, Akihiro, Hush, Shino, and a lot of nameless or near nameless grunts, but he wakes up, sees the costs, and does everything possible to get his people out while realizing that, yeah, he's pretty much getting what he deserved for his ambitions. Orga plays crazy to impress Mika, and because the desperation play was the only one available for a long time. The tragedy is how he doesn't stop until it's almost too late, long after he could have bailed and left Tekkadan to drift away from the battlefield.
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Apr 19, 2017 23:15
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Kanos posted:
Let's be fair to Orga on the Jasley thing. When it was just revenge, he actually tried to behave like a responsible adult. When his mentor was brutally murdered, his people insulted, and the funeral was crashed, he didn't strike back, because keeping his people secure was more important than his reputation. He only committed to revenge once it was clear people he cared about would die unless he acted. Once somebody's committed to murdering members of their own organization just to provoke you, it's pretty reasonable to assume they won't stop after one. There might have been better ways to handle it, but that was one of the few times he was practicing restraint and prudence. Not his fault it didn't work out.
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Apr 20, 2017 08:46
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Kanos posted:
Orga already compromised, because Jasley was loving with them, right in front of them, and he didn't do poo poo. He was actually being a leader and keeping his people in line for the good of everyone. And if he contacted McMurdo, what was he supposed to say? "Hey, I think Jasley is undermining you? I have no actual evidence, but I'm pretty sure the thing you already think is true is true." Yes. It's a sure odds bet that Jasley was going down even without Tekkadan intervening, since the old man ain't stupid, but Orga just saw his last attempt at restraint and proper procedure (Which was a loss of face.) end in the brutal, pointless murder of someone who he more or less considered one of his people. And if Orga didn't react, Jasley would probably just assume he needed to repeat the process a few more times. Yes, it would leave Tekkadan in a better position with Teiwaz, but 1) It would also leave more people Orga felt responsible for dead before Jasley finally got so out of hand he'd be officially taken down and 2) It wouldn't do Orga much good at all. See, he was betting on the (idiotic) McGillis plan still. If it worked, Orga would be the king of Mars and wouldn't need the old ties to ensure McMurdo wouldn't want to start trouble. Running a whole planet would do that. And when it failed, well, the Turbines were in better with the Jupiter mob, and they still were disarmed over an obvious false flag. Orga joined in a war against the Seven Stars. If Rustal demanded his head on a pike, there's not much McMurdo could do about it. chiasaur11 fucked around with this message at 19:44 on Apr 20, 2017 |
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Apr 20, 2017 11:11
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Kanos posted:
I agree that getting sanction from McMurdo would be smarter, but on the season 2 scale of "How did Orga gently caress up this week?", it doesn't even ding the bar. He was already in shaky territory with the McGillis deal (since, you know, it was dashing down the thin line marked "High treason" at full speed), and McMurdo had his hands full working out deals with Rustal. Yes, as I said, McMurdo was certainly going to do something, but it would probably be delayed, and Jasley would take delays as "Huh. It isn't working yet. More murder!" Orga traded a business relationship that was nearing an endpoint (because, again, IDIOTIC McGILLIS DEAL THAT ORGA NEVER SHOULD HAVE TAKEN) for the safety of others and, yes, personal satisfaction. It's not exactly the smartest move, but it's one where I can see why the cost/benefits seemed about right, especially in the context of his other (often bad) decisions. And Orga's a teenager, very early twenties at the outside. Being able to watch someone set up the murder of one of your closest friends, ruin his funeral, and piss on your reputation without even insulting the guy back is a pretty decent bar to hit in that age bracket, especially with all your subordinates screaming for blood. Asking him to then watch more people he cares about be murdered solely because he showed restraint without responding... that's asking a lot. chiasaur11 fucked around with this message at 19:43 on Apr 20, 2017 |
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Apr 20, 2017 12:08
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ImpAtom posted:McGillis is the basic end game of using fantasy and mythology to prop yourself up. You give people the idea that the heavily mythologized and incredible version of the historical figures are the real ones and make them start thinking the universe does follow narratives. It's like someone who thinks of George Washington only in terms of cherry trees. Gjallerhorn was literally built on that mythology (and that is amplified by them living in a fantasy world where a group of people in super robots beat up space dragons so hard i tblew up the moon as an actual historical fact.) McGillis bought into it wholeheartedly and at the end of the day discovered that, no, history is actually pretty lovely and anyone who is mythologized as a hero probably wasn't the guy you thought. Which kind of plays off Kudelia, in an interesting way. She had the same kind of childish desire in season 1. She wanted to be "the maiden of the revolution", not just a politician, but in the end, she accepted the second role. After the big win, she settled down in her office and made small step after small step, compromising with the world every time she had to, because the endgame mattered more than feeling good about herself in the moment. Where McGillis played politics to get into a position where he could be the mythic hero, Kudelia was someone meant to be the big mythic hero, the teenage revolutionary brutally cut down by oppressors, who managed to move into politics instead. And in the end, McGillis is going in the history books as a madman, and Kudelia's going to be the beloved first ruler of a free Mars, even aside from the fact he wound up killed by his best friend and she ends the series going home to her wife and son. It's disappointing how little she shows up in season 2, especially given how important that counter-arc is, but I can sort of understand it. Incremental reforms make for less riveting TV than mech fights.
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Apr 27, 2017 22:35
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Darth Walrus posted:This is mostly taken from interviews, though Kaeru being like Mika isn't the worst guess. Then again, Mika was treated by the show as a better person than McGillis - still deeply broken and way too fond of violence, but actually capable of making people's lives better because he didn't shut himself away from the rest of humanity. You can see it in their deaths, too - McGillis died in a lunatic ego-trip that achieved nothing, while Mika died buying time for a breakout attempt that saved dozens (possibly hundreds) of lives. I might use "prone to" over "fond of", if I had to pick. Mika is quick to go to force, but most of the time he seems value neutral on it. He does a violence since that's how his problems get solved, and if someone else stops it some other way, well, he goes back to his snacks. The times he actually seems to enjoy it are usually indications things have gone much further than usual. I agree on the larger point there. And it's not just their deaths, but where they left the people they influenced. Most of McGillis's friends are dead, his fiance was apparently in a state of serious mental trauma years later (seen that bit in enough interviews to guess at least some of them were legitimate, but I seriously doubt the suicide thing), and the one friend of his who emerged comparatively unscathed (Note: By McGillis's friend standards, 'paraplegic' is comparatively unscathed) still can only look back on how things went with regret. Meanwhile, Mika comes through much better. The women who loved him are happy together raising his son, the remnants of Tekkadan remembered him well enough to carve his name on a memorial, and Julietta thinks back on him with sympathy. Mika was a very flawed human being, but in the end, despite everything, he did some good, where McGillis pretty much just caused harm.
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Apr 28, 2017 23:15
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Kanos posted:Not universally. We never were treated to a new model Gundam frame, for example, despite Gjallarhorn's nigh-infinite resources and a really obvious pilot for one in Julietta; she had to make due with a souped up grunt unit despite being the personal servant and bodyguard of the most powerful and important man in Gjallarhorn and being forced into active combat against enemy Gundam frames on multiple occasions. They didn't build Gundams since they're tough to keep working, and nobody needed Gundams. They're high maintenance, difficult to pilot, and expensive where Gjallarhorn's whole design ethos had been making the best mobile suits they could that were cheap, easy to teach, and simple to keep working. They almost never had MS fights, and when they did, the Graze was more than good enough even aside from the fact they could almost always get a numbers advantage. Even the Reginlaze followed the same philosophy. As a next gen Graze, it was a more expensive machine built for mobile suit fights... but it still was simple to repair, and built so that any rear end in a top hat (Iok) could fly it without exploding. The Julia is one of the few machines that's explicitly built for ace pilots, and even then, it's still got the same modular design advantages. It's making Shermans over making Tiger IIs. Sure, one on one the Sherman is going to explode. but you won't just have one Sherman, and most of the time you're not fighting tanks anyway, so what the gently caress does it matter? As for the AV, it was still developed, but in secret. That's where McGillis picked up the tech from. It was indicated that McGillis's implants were a new development, and only possible thanks to the success of the Ein project. And even if you ignore that, the Vidar is a massive advancement created in just a couple years, by someone who's clearly had a long-running interest in the tech. I think I saw some interview or something suggesting the initial Gundam pilots were adults, but honestly, even if I did, and even if the translation was accurate (both in doubt), it don't scan. Thematically, it weakens the connection between Tekkadan and the first Gjallarhorn as well as the connection between the first wave of Gjallarhorn and more conventionally heroic super robot pilots. Practically, it doesn't match with how the website had some short fiction mentioning a CGS employee finding an old picture of the Barbatos's original pilot. So, yeah. Skeptical about that.
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Apr 30, 2017 22:16
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Darth Walrus posted:Well, the Reginlaze Julia and Kimaris Vidar did show the value of high-performance ace units. I definitely think that if Rustal could have got Julietta a Gundam, he would have, seeing as the Julia was pretty much the closest modern equivalent to one - a high-performance ace unit that would straight-up kill any lesser pilot who got in its cockpit, with hideously expensive weaponry (they resurrected an entire lost Calamity War technology to create the Julian Swords) and a shedload of unique parts that made it a total hangar queen. Oh, I agree they would have, but the turnaround time would have been pretty tight. They advanced a lot of tech, but until Edmonton, Gjallarhorn didn't seem to think they'd ever need Gundams again. Some tech gets lost. Doesn't prevent other tech from advancing in the meantime.
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Apr 30, 2017 22:32
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genericnick posted:Yeah, the Gallahorn founding myth looks more and more like bullshit. Nuking them from orbit isn't very heroic. Only a volley wasn't enough to finish off Mika and Akihiro, and they've got soft squishy meat centers. MAs are surrounded by self-replicating repair drones. The one known Gundam that had Dansliefs at best achieved a mutual temporary KO with Hashmal. Add in that the high accuracy setup Rustal had was cutting edge tech, and the fact that those things are expensive for one shot weapons, and you can see a setup suggesting that the Calamity war was mostly melee.
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Jun 30, 2017 09:31
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