[Znozzy]

Originally Posted by Haak

Exactly: The cons heavily outweighed the pros which is the main reason why I think Orb can deter EA as well.

Let's see now, in Seed, the EA got whipped, lost their mass driver(s) and invaded orb because of the following:
1. They had facilities
2. They had a Mass driver
That's why, since the EA needed a mass driver to get to space, that was the effort it was worth, thats why we don't see anything from Orb after the Mass driver is blown up, the maincrew moved to space with Azrael's forces on the ground. (for now)

Where did they ever say " SHIET, ORB IS SO POWERFUL THEY COULD POSSIBLY DETER OUR ARMADA " they never did, and Orb surely did fall, two days after the battle ensued with lots of losses aswell, Orb took its armed forces and ran off to space, with the only warship they had, pretty desperate for a country that could deter them, no?

And besides, they already blew up Heliopolis and they didn't seem to regret that.

Yeah, they did, Athrun sure did regret it aswell

My point was that Orb successfully deterred ZAFT from going to war with Orb is irrelevant because ZAFT never went to war with Orb?

it's irrelevant because Zaft never planned on attacking orb at all, Orb deterred a small conflict on their waters, which every neutral country should do, armed conflicts happen alot in real life too, do you see every country go to war every time it happens? no, you don't, its a waste of efforts, resources and usually money, and not to mention soldiers

I said Athrun shot down any escalation of war with Orb after the Archangel incident in SEED because he knew it would be problematic for ZAFT. You argued the only reason he did it was because he had friends at Orb but then used examples of of his friends being in Orb at Destiny which is way after the event I'm talking about.

Problematic for Zaft? Zaft could curbstomp Orb if they felt like it.

Once again, let me try and explain this in a simple manner so you actually understand what i'm trying to say, since you seem to have a hard time getting the point.

Zaft was chasing one ship and one mobile suit.
the AA was one ship and one mobile suit
Orb's naval fleet came to defend its own waters from an outside attack and to prevent the two parties from having an armed conflict on their waters.

Athrun understood that, so he pulled his forces back because a threeway fight with those small numbers would be suicide.
Athrun is a decent commander and decides to go with Stealth over brute force and infiltrates Orb because:

1. Waging war against a country, regardless how small or big it is for ONE SHIP and ONE MOBILE SUIT is not something you do when you are already fighting a close to planet-scale war
2. It is called making a good choice to not run in guns blazing, what Yzak Joule thinks is irrelevant, he was immature and constantly hung up on revenge throughout most of Seed after he was scarred by Kira in the strike.
3. If the Zaft high council, which i highly doubt since they are engineer'd super-humans agreed to attack Orb because they had ONE SHIP and ONE MOBILE SUIT there, they might aswell start start nuking themselfs because there would be no plot in the show at all anymore.

It's not speculation, it's just common sense. If Orb is going to be hard-line with soldiers of a superpower, then it stands to reason that could very easily lead to problematic relations with said superpower later down the line. The reason it never happened is because, like I said, Orb is not just some small nation that ZAFT could easily crush if it wanted to. It has the ability to become a problematic nation when pushed (Something both EA and ZAFT found to be true)

Common sense doesnt apply to a show where main characters proportions are inhuman, Giant robots are the norm, engineer'd super humans are also the norm living in giant blue hourglasses in space. Irrelevant. the Ea could've won over Zaft if they just nuked them off the bat, but they didnt.

Orb is a peaceful nation, you leave it alone, they leave everyone alone, poke it and they will defend themselfs, but they will not attack anyone else.

I'm not denying Seirans were practically running Orb

Good, moving on.

but the fact of the matter, but there is nothing to suggest the Seirans were following their own family ideals and those three ideals which were repeated ad verbitam in SEED was exclusive to Uzumi. On the contrary, the way those ideals were presented in SEED very much seemed like they were integral to Orb as a nation. The show never explicitly mentioned the five noble families having their own motto.

Overanalyzing, clearly Uzumi's leadership and the Seiran's differ on some major points which we see in Destiny. accept what Destiny showed us.

Maybe not that high in the command chain but reasonably so. My point still stands.

No, it obviously doesnt since your entire point about him being high in the command fell. Don't be a stubborn loser.

Not just Yuna, but his dad too. It was another Seiran thing (and by your logic that must mean they were running Orb). And it being a Seiran thing is even more egregious since they were the ones who decided Orb couldn't deter EA. But they still thought they could deter ZAFT.

Seriously, stop making things up, Orb never thought they could deter the full Zaft force that came at them, Yuna somehow though he could pull the same PR thing Usumi pulled with the AA. If they thought they could deter them, wouldn't they've assembled their army as soon as Zaft came?