Suisei no Gargantia - Episode 9 Discussion / Poll

[Triple_R]

Originally Posted by rocket

As far as I recall from watching the show no one's tried talking to them - so that's kinda moot.

No, it isn't moot.

The point is we know that the Gargantian crew is sapient. We know that, and conversations between them and Ledo is part of the reason why we know that.

We definitely do not know if the Earth Hideauze are sapient or not. But I think there are good reasons for doubting that, and no significant basis for considering them sapient at the moment.

On the other hand they are 'squatting' in the remains of their base more or less analogously to how the Gargatians are squatting.

Shaky analogy, imo. The Earth Hideauze have done nothing with their base other than make a nest out of it. The Gargantians have done plenty with their base.

The main difference being that because of their biology they don't need to make machines to shelter or protect themselves or to feed themselves.

Machines could still offer them all sorts of benefits. For example, it could make it easier for them to collect and store food. Whatever they eat, machines could be helpful here.

Sorry, rocket, but the lack of any evidence of them having built anything really is a mark against the idea of them being sapient, imo. Maybe this will change in future episodes, but working with what we have now, there's not much there to imply sapience.

So what? They could still have as 'rich' and complex a social and aesthetic life as the Gargantians.

I doubt that. Do they read? Do they have any sort of culture to speak of? The Gargantians have both of this, but I see no evidence of it with the Earth Hideauze.

Why do we assume that technological or economic activity is required to be sapient?

You might not need that specifically, but you need something, imo. I don't see anything that hints at sapience on the part of the Earth Hideauze.

Furthermore the argument was that the whalesquids are just animals so it's OK TO KILL THEM.

I don't think it's Ok to kill them for the sake of killing them, which is what Ledo was doing. Even if they're not sapient, that still represents extreme cruelty towards animals, which isn't something I'd personally look kindly on. If they are sapient, then it's no less than an atrocious war crime, albeit a somewhat unwitting one.

Given that the space squids can live out in space and humans v1.0 really just want planets its really quite a tragedy that they can't coexist.

Agreed.

[LKK]

Originally Posted by zeando

the question is then why did the evolvers need to use the gate too?
they should have been able to live in space, so they didn't even need a planet, they had an infinite space they could have used, and they already solved their problem of survivalism caused by the ice age.

That's a very good question. As far as we know, the evolvers had no need for the gate in order to survive. They should have been able to live within the solar system and the surrounding interstellar region. What we do know is that their leader expressed an expansionist empire agenda and that seems to have been what drove them to follow the unionists into deep space. (The unionists needed the deep space wormhole gate in order to discover inhabitable planets.)

[Funkatron]

Speculation on the intelligence of the whalesquid:

I don't think its fair to judge their sapiency purely based on whether they use tech, mainly because they don't necessarily need tech.

Necessity is the mother of invention. The Gargantians salvage for tech because they need it. They are at a disadvantage in the current climate: the world is almost completely covered in water. They need the ships and the knowledge to learn how to operate and maintain those ships. They rely on the tech for food, shelter, transportation, etc.

The whalesquid don't need the tech in comparison. They were designed to live under water. They have everything they need down there. They are their own transportation, they already have shelter and the sea life is there food.

Another thing to speculate on is the level of knowledge each civilization had when the ice age happened. Its possible the humans just knew more and were able to pass the knowledge down the generations better than the whalesquid. I'd assume any smart Evolvers left to go into space, taking with them the knowledge to use technology. The ones who were left behind just don't see the use for tech, if they even know what it is or what it does. Id the whalesquid are sapient, they are basically just underwater cavemen

[Cosmic Eagle]

Originally Posted by darthfanta

The Continental Union may have fired the first shot, but that's only because the squids violated agreements. That's more than enough to start a war in the real world.What the squids did was extremely reckless.

It's quite clear from the videos that actual testing of human subjects was only conducted for a limited amount of time, most likely not even a decade before the same procedures were conducted on a wider population--since Elaine was still a small child when she got turned into one. ONe might argue that changing the appearance wouldn't affect their intelligence and behaviour, but that's dead wrong. Changing your genes WILL affect your behaviour. Afterall, how you behave is influenced by both your experience and your genes. Adding a 'symbiont' most definitely doesn't help. The scientists are forgetting that the symbiont is also an separate organism. It's going to evolve in such a way that's most beneficial to itself. Evolving in the favor of their symbiont isn't their first priority. It's likely the symbionts could evolve to become something that dominates 'human' they are supposed to be symbionts with.It's blatant reckless that they believe they could tame easily tame another organism like how eukaryotes incorporated cyanobacteria and purple bacteria--even if they engineered the symbiont.

BUt of course, my reasoning is only based on current principles of biological science, they have found a way to pinpoint the functions of every single gene and manipulate it with precision.

Exactly...you will be going deeper into question of self and its link with the physical frame which to western science, is practically unknown territory.

But recklessness or not they could have left the squids alone since I don't recall them forcing experiments on enslaved captives or the like. You are already well advanced into your plan to flee the planet. Why start a war in the bargain. It's like the very last thing you should be doing at that stage, giving yourself extra trouble like that

[mikeomni]

Originally Posted by Cosmic Eagle

Exactly...you will be going deeper into question of self and its link with the physical frame which to western science, is practically unknown territory.

But recklessness or not they could have left the squids alone since I don't recall them forcing experiments on enslaved captives or the like. You are already well advanced into your plan to flee the planet. Why start a war in the bargain. It's like the very last thing you should be doing at that stage, giving yourself extra trouble like that

There were probably other factors and all we're seeing is the propaganda. The being hideous is just a hook to get the population to follow along. There is power and wealth in the stars! If the Evolvers get there first the Colonial Union politicians and their backers will have less. You can't have less, that's unacceptable! Hey, the population will follow you like sheep when faced with an external threat, while you line your ducks up in a row then reap the benefits. Sounds like a good plan. May it last a thousand years!

[Gravitas Free Zone]

Originally Posted by mikeomni

If the Evolvers get there first the Colonial Union politicians and their backers will have less. You can't have less, that's unacceptable!

You forgot "Mister President, we must not allow a mine shaft gap!"

Anyway, the hideousness didn't help. People already kill each other for far less.

(Starting a war also has the coincident bonus, if you're trying to leave a dying planet behind, of reducing the number of people that you end up having to take with you... though if Avalon is the last refuge of humanity and it's down to 470 million people, that might not have worked out very well in the end.)

[FlareKnight]

Regardless I do feel for Ledo who doesn't have the ability to sit back and consider this situation from a safe distance. He's right in the middle of it. How will he regard the Hideauze from this point on? How will he regard his own actions to this point? His perspective has been changed because of what he's learned here. Whether or not they are sapient might not even matter at this point. Hard to fight when the line is blurred like this.

A lot of things are up in the air at this point. I can't imagine they are going to find a way to make contact regardless since I doubt Chamber was designed to cross that kind of communication gap. Also they are still a threat for those trying to salvage in areas where the Hideauze have nested.

Just curious to see how Ledo is going to respond. That war is going to continue without him and he's going to have to decide how to live from this point on. Hard to see him continuing his attack with the mental state he's in.

[Hamster]

Originally Posted by scr

Once, I said I'm with the kill-Hideauze camp because they are just animals.

Guess what? I changed my mind.

I'm now with the kill-Hideauze camp because they are xenos bastards who will corrupt humanity if nothing is done. Anyone who want to defend the Hideauze can go become squids.

Sorry bud, if the first episode is anything to go by then the Hideauze Master Race has already won.

The best the GA can do is to run, run as far away as they can.

And no, they don't want to corrupt humanity, they just want to kill the GA.

[Anh_Minh]

Originally Posted by Triple_R

Machines could still offer them all sorts of benefits. For example, it could make it easier for them to collect and store food. Whatever they eat, machines could be helpful here.

They eat ambient nanomachines. Or get energy from them, anyway.

I don't think it's Ok to kill them for the sake of killing them, which is what Ledo was doing. Even if they're not sapient, that still represents extreme cruelty towards animals, which isn't something I'd personally look kindly on. If they are sapient, then it's no less than an atrocious war crime, albeit a somewhat unwitting one.

Ledo's killing them because he has pretty good reasons to be afraid of them.

Besides, "we want stuff that's in your territory" is generally considered a good reason to kill animals and, sometimes, humans....

Originally Posted by zeando

the question is then why did the evolvers need to use the gate too?
they should have been able to live in space, so they didn't even need a planet,

They still need power, like every living organism. I guess they meant to build generators and store enough fuel for the decades it'd take to reach another star, but the wormhole's faster.

[zztop]

Re ep 9's twist, and the release of that After Earth movie,

Could M Night Shyamalan ever have made such an Urobuchi style twist in his movies? Considering that Shyamalan loves making twists...

[triplez]

Whoa there's a lot of good stuff here.

After watching this episode I still feel its too early to pass judgment on the GA or Hideauze. All Ledo got was snippets of news footage and what amounts to a declaration of war in the last shot showing the full might of the Space Hideauze. We finally got the origins of the conflict - irreconcilable views on how to response to a worldwide disaster - disagreement turn to confrontation to escalation and events keep spiraling out of control.

Remember it took years even decades for it to get as bad as it did. The United Nations was still around who knows if mediation took place and failed. Neither side was willing to come to terms, its all or nothing .I suspect the Continental Union attempt to abandoned the Evolvers on earth was the last straw. I don't think the current leadership of GA or Hideauze care anymore after so long.

What's funny is how it reminds me of a Civilization player trapped in a 3 way Eternal War for control of a world in flux caused by global warming. I read it online. He had to drop all notions of democracy as it tied his hands to response to enemies who would break their treaty at every turn. All manpower and resources had to be marshalled for the war effort. There is no point to diversify to other goals.

I'm looking forward to seeing what choice Ledo will make. As there's only a few more episodes left it's unlikely we will see more of the galactic conflict. There is still the wormhole gate mentioned in the video logs. It could be the means for Ledo to go back home if he can get to space but will he want to? Will he bring the GA back to earth? Will he continue his so called 'mission'? Or will he call Gargantia his new home?

I can't wait to see what choice he will make.

[zeando]

Originally Posted by LKK

That's a very good question. As far as we know, the evolvers had no need for the gate in order to survive. They should have been able to live within the solar system and the surrounding interstellar region. What we do know is that their leader expressed an expansionist empire agenda and that seems to have been what drove them to follow the unionists into deep space. (The unionists needed the deep space wormhole gate in order to discover inhabitable planets.)

yup, that's how i'm seeing it too currently

Originally Posted by Anh_Minh

They still need power, like every living organism. I guess they meant to build generators and store enough fuel for the decades it'd take to reach another star, but the wormhole's faster.

Sunlight you mean for power?
Wasn't only the earth to be in ice age? didn't looked like there was a problem with the sun activity yet.
why did they want to get to other stars?

even if, as someone already noted, with the tech level they had during the ice age (they=both evolvers and CU) looking for an other planet to live on or manipulating dna were pretty extreme solutions, since they could have focused on tecnology about atmospheric/weather control instead, and have no need for the other solutions of leaving the planet or forcibly adapting/mutating
it may be that in part both sides used the ice age as an excuse to develop their solutions

[ReddyRedWolf]

Originally Posted by zeando

Even if, as someone already noted, with the tech level they had during the ice age (they=both evolvers and CU) looking for an other planet to live on or manipulating dna were pretty extreme solutions, since they could have focused on tecnology about atmospheric/weather control instead, and have no need for the other solutions of leaving the planet or forcibly adapting/mutating
it may be that in part both sides used the ice age as an excuse to develop their solutions

I can imagine a third party going.

Mad Scientist: Sure go to deep space you fools while I figure out how to heat this planet!

Later Earth becomes a Waterworld.

[zeando]

Originally Posted by ReddyRedWolf

I can imagine a third party going.

Mad Scientist: Sure go to deep space you fools while I figure out how to heat this planet!

Later Earth becomes a Waterworld.

lol, they overdid it xD
but maybe they really tried but failed?

[FredFriendly]

Originally Posted by triplez

Or will he call Gargantia his new home?

But he's already abandoned Gargantia and is part of the new [unnamed?] fleet. Would the leaders of Gargantia even want him back after mass-murdering the Hideauze? Especially if they hear about the babies, let alone if they find out what Ledo discovered about the origin of the Hideauze?

As to the reliability of the videos, I suspect that what we saw was from both sides of the issue. Chamber seemed to have collected bits from various storage devices, and even the "opposition" would have had footage of the other side stored on the devices.

[Jan-Poo]

Originally Posted by Funkatron

Speculation on the intelligence of the whalesquid:

I don't think its fair to judge their sapiency purely based on whether they use tech, mainly because they don't necessarily need tech.

Necessity is the mother of invention. The Gargantians salvage for tech because they need it. They are at a disadvantage in the current climate: the world is almost completely covered in water. They need the ships and the knowledge to learn how to operate and maintain those ships. They rely on the tech for food, shelter, transportation, etc.

The whalesquid don't need the tech in comparison. They were designed to live under water. They have everything they need down there. They are their own transportation, they already have shelter and the sea life is there food.

What about culture? What about art? Are they so "evolved" that they no longer need those either? What happened to the innate tendency of humans to create and innovate?

I refuse to believe that in a large population of humans gifted with intelligence and knowledge nobody would dare to touch a single thing of their environment and never create or modify anything. (Remember, they simply left the yunboroid there for who knows how many years)

If whalesquids are content with just swimming around all day and reproducing then something must have radically changed their minds to a point that they can hardly be distinguished from beasts.

I have more respect for ants and termites, at least they create something.

Originally Posted by Anh_Minh

Besides, "we want stuff that's in your territory" is generally considered a good reason to kill animals and, sometimes, humans....

Agreed on that, but that's not a good excuse to exterminate them.

People get eaten by tigers and sharks, but you don't exterminate them. The first are actually being protected.

Besides at this point the whalesquids might play a role on the ecosystem of this new world, so before going that far it would be wise to check the consequence of removing them completely. They might play an important role on regulating the flux and behavior of the lightbugs.

Originally Posted by FredFriendly

But he's already abandoned Gargantia and is part of the new [unnamed?] fleet. Would the leaders of Gargantia even want him back after mass-murdering the Hideauze? Especially if they hear about the babies, let alone if they find out what Ledo discovered about the origin of the Hideauze?

You forget that they are Gargantians.

[orpheus2]

As expected, Gen delivered. From the debates here, I guess he wanted this to happen. He may have wanted examine ourselves.

In this case, I can not side with either the Evolvers or the GA.

[FredFriendly]

Originally Posted by Jan-Poo

You forget that they are Gargantians.

I was under the impression that the humongous conglomeration of ships was Gargantia Fleet (confirmed by the synopsis) and, since the other ships had left it, they are no longer "Gargantians" per se. They are now Unnamedfleetions. Do you think that they would be readily welcome back into the Gargantian fleet?

I suppose if an individual had been born on the Gargantian Fleet, then that person could be considered a native Gargantian. But we don't know the history of all of those people and ships that left. Ships seem to join and leave the Gargantian Fleet at will, as indeed there was a new ship that just recently joined. If a ship had, say, just joined the Gargantian Fleet a month ago, but left with Pinion and crew, would you still consider them Gargantians?

I also may be entirely wrong, but I expect that what triplez alluded to was Ledo returning to the Gargantian Fleet to live out a happy blissful life with Amy.

Although I doubt that Pinion and his cohorts would be bothered by what Ledo has discovered (whether or not they are Gargantians), and certainly were not bothered by his barbaric behavior, we do know that Amy and many (if not most) of the other inhabitants of the Gargantian Fleet would be abhorred at his genocide-like actions.

[Jan-Poo]

No, Fred, when I said "they are Gargantians" I was referring to Ridget and all those that are with her.
What you are forgetting is that they do not think like you do.

You seem to be under the mistaked assumption that the Gargantians follow some kind of ideal, when they are actually a pragmatic society that doesn't have any sense of pride or higher moral apart: "help me, help you".


When Ledo exterminated the pirates their concern wasn't much "poor pirates", but "oh noes! now they will attack us!"
The only ones who expressed some slight trace of concern about them were Amy and Bellows. But nobody actually went as far as to say that Ledo was a mass murderer.

Similarly when Pinion proposed to kill Ledo, nobody felt outraged by the thought of killing a human just for personal gain. What Fairlock actually said was "What if he has companions?!"

Still not convinced? Then remember Ridget when she stopped Ledo. She said "if the whalesquid attack us, then you can go and massacre them". That's how much they care about whalesquids really.


Now do you actually think they would think twice about taking Flange again with them considering that:

1) Flange's fleet is an important asset for defense
2) They are coming back with valuable technology

Remember that Ridget wanted to disassemble Chamber to study it. She is not a luddite, she has an interest in technology as much as Flange, but unlike him she doesn't want to take any risk.

In the end they won't give a damn about the fact that Flange left or that they killed whalesquids. The only thing that would make them think twice about accepting them again would be the thought that they might be bringing with them the hatred of a powerful foe.

[triplez]

I have the sneaky suspicion that they will want him back. If killing one whalesquid brought thousands to Gargantia it be quite something to see how the whalesquids will attack a fleet either Flange's newly formed fleet or Gargantia's.

I can't believe that is the only whalesquid nest. If they still have some human impulses left they will call for help from other nests. Ledo has upset the status quo there must be some repurcussion from that.

Even better if Ledo found a ship or some way to get to the wormhole gate he receives a call for help. What will he do then?