Suisei no Gargantia - Episode 9 Discussion / Poll

[rpgkiller999]

Damn it now I want this anime to be 26 epi!!

[taofd]

Originally Posted by Triple_R

They've made a nest out of an ancient ruin of human civilization. They don't appear to have built anything on their own. Their behavior is very much like a communal pack of animals that lack higher understanding.

Arguably, couldn't we say the same for the Gargantia fleet?

Your last criteria, is arguable-- whether or not they display intelligence will be seen in coming episodes.

[taofd]

Originally Posted by Jan-Poo

You can find a lot of laws stupid, but you are still supposed to respect them. You can protest and ask them to be changed, but if they don't. Well you can either adapt or be prepared for retaliation.

Sounds like you'd be right at home with the GA.

Governments are held accountable to the people. It's the duty of the individual to challenge laws which are arbitrary, unjust, and/or are unrepresentative of the population. "Prepare for retaliation?" Sounds like you don't have a good grasp of civil liberties or that of history my friend.

As Ledo is quickly finding out, he's been living in a bubble and spoon fed propaganda his entire life. If your entire concept of morality and right and wrong is based on what authoritative figures have arbitrarily decided for you, then I truly pity you.

[Guardian Enzo]

Originally Posted by Triple_R

We have no way of knowing if the "space Hideauze" only exist on animal instinct. Its certainly possible that they're sentient and sapient and maintain some degree of human-level (or even above) intelligence.

But what we've seen of the "Earth Hideauze" is pretty suggestive, in my view. They've made a nest out of an ancient ruin of human civilization. They don't appear to have built anything on their own. Their behavior is very much like a communal pack of animals that lack higher understanding. I think that they're probably harmless if you leave them and their territory alone, but I also don't get a human-level intelligence vibe from them. They make me think of hornets, and bears, and actual squids, and so on.

An ancient ruin of human civilization - a ruin they built (not just humans, but Evolvers). How is that any different than the Gargantians, who appear to be using technology that would be old by our standards? I think this is strictly habitat chauvinism - the biped society looks like ours and the whalequid doesn't, so they must be mindless beasts.

I wholeheartedly ascribe to the notion that Urobuchi is condemning both Evolvers and the C.U. equally - it's the way he works. But the only thing we really can say for sure that separates the Hideauze and the G.A. - and their Terran descendants - is that we've seen the G.A./humans attack unprovoked, and we know they pre-emptively murder their own young.

[-Sho-]

Chamber is so overcheat , wonder if Evolvers are so cheat like him. Ledo should have told him about the classified restriction earlier...
Anyway , this episode show once again how Humans are so stubborn & are their own enemies...


And fuck u Chamber for Elaine T_T

[Jan-Poo]

Originally Posted by taofd

Arguably, couldn't we say the same for the Gargantia fleet?

Originally Posted by Guardian Enzo

An ancient ruin of human civilization - a ruin they built (not just humans, but Evolvers). How is that any different than the Gargantians, who appear to be using technology that would be old by our standards? I think this is strictly habitat chauvinism - the biped society looks like ours and the whalequid doesn't, so they must be mindless beasts.

Not really, you can clearly notice that the Gargantians have heavily modified and changed salvaged technology to their needs. The comparison really doesn't stand.

The Gargantians would have never left the carcass of a whalesquid untouched near they nursery for years.

Originally Posted by taofd

Sounds like you'd be right at home with the GA.

Governments are held accountable to the people. It's the duty of the individual to challenge laws which are arbitrary, unjust, and/or are unrepresentative of the population. "Prepare for retaliation?" Sounds like you don't have a good grasp of civil liberties or that of history my friend.

As Ledo is quickly finding out, he's been living in a bubble and spoon fed propaganda his entire life. If your entire concept of morality and right and wrong is based on what authoritative figures have arbitrarily decided for you, then I truly pity you.

You clearly haven't read what I wrote or you don't know how civil movements work.

I said that you have the right to protest and to advocate the necessity to change the law. That's how you should do it, if you want to keep it peaceful.

Simply ignoring the law doesn't change a damn thing and it can only lead to conflict.

"Prepare for retaliation" doesn't mean "submit". If you go directly against the law, you'd better be prepared to fight. And to expect that any government will not act against repeated infractions, you'd need to live in a dream.

And honestly can you really respect a government that doesn't enforce its own laws?

[Cosmic Eagle]

Originally Posted by rocket

What I'm wondering is where do all the 'squids have lost their humanity' assumptions come from?

All we've seen is that they've transformed their bodies. There's literally no data about their minds or culture.

Just some overly squeamish assumptions with no demonstrated basis. Yet.

Anyway humanity...just what is it really. Would you lose your humanity or lose your true nature? I know which is far more significant for one. You are still you even if your form is different as long as the core of your being is still there.

You may also think that the GA are the aggressors since they launched an all out attack, but that's also just a speculation.

What's clear though is that the war started on Earth and that the Continental Union fired the first shot. Did that give an opportunity for hardliners amongst the squiddies to take over is debatable though I say quite likely

[zeando]

Originally Posted by rocket

What I'm wondering is where do all the 'squids have lost their humanity' assumptions come from?

All we've seen is that they've transformed their bodies. There's literally no data about their minds or culture.

there are a few hints which lead to that assumption

but i'm thinking there is some confusion on it
the whalesquids aren't human, and weren't humans, what the record showed was that the whalesquids were the symbionts which were used to merge with humans to generate hideazue
so the squids (whalesquids) were never human, so they couldn't lose their humanity to start with
in that the whalesquids are only genetically modified squids (maybe with something human to make the merge easier, but are more squids than humans)

whalesquid + human = hideazue
whalesquid =/= hideazue

an other thing instead are the hideazue, or humans merged with whalesquids, like elanie looked like to be
in the records it got showed a leader of the evolvers having a speech while in hideazue form, so back then the evolvers could still communicate in an human language
but there is no info if the current hideazue ever tried to communicate with the GA, to form some kind of truce
and the merged humans still on the earth (assuming elanie wasn't the only one) never tried to communicate with the surface humans
the doubt is then if they didn't for some reason, or because they lost the ability to communicate with humans

it's also possible the hideazue which ledo had a fight in the first episode were just modified whalesquids, with no human in them, and the evolvers with merged humans were back in their nest to give orders to the soldier-whalesquids

[aohige]

It's also possible that few Hideauze (Evolvers) that stayed on Earth is co-existing with their brethern, the whalesquids (symbiotes).

The girl that got squashed could be an Evolver while all the squids up to the point were whalesquids.
I could see Evolvers being pack leaders of whalesquids.

[Jan-Poo]

There's a bit of confusion about that and it isn't really clear in this episode.

I generally agree with what zeando said, but I'm not quite sure that the whalesquids are simply simbionts or that they don't have any human dna in them.

In the recovered footage we see some sort of whalesquids with a clearly different morphology. Some of them look like crossbred with dogs and other animals.

Considering that the whalesquids have some distinctive human features which are even more marked when they are younger, I'd say that the chances that they posses human DNA is very high.

That being said in my opinion it's not really relevant how much human DNA they have, what matters is if they have a human mind or not, and neither the whalesquids nor the nautilus Hideauze (which are shown to be closely related) displayed any kind of behavior that would suggest so.

Originally Posted by aohige

It's also possible that few Hideauze (Evolvers) that stayed on Earth is co-existing with their brethern, the whalesquids (symbiotes).

The girl that got squashed could be an Evolver while all the squids up to the point were whalesquids.
I could see Evolvers being pack leaders of whalesquids.

Yes, it's possible that some Evolvers were left behind the same way some normal humans did. However there is no sign of their presence in the whalesquid's nest. The childlike thing that Chamber squashed could have simply been a young whalesquid.

[cf18]

There is a small change in the OP sequence. Did you spot it?

Spoiler for answer:

The Rigid part - much smaller group on the bridge.

[GreyZone]

For people who know StarCraft:

Hideazue = Zerg
GA = Protoss
Gargantians = Terrans before spaceflight

It all makes sense now


and while I am at it:

Pirate Queen = Ancestor of Arturus Mengsk
Chamber = Ancestor or Sarah Kerrigan
Ledo = Ancestor of Jim Raynor

[Funkatron]

Originally Posted by zeando

there are a few hints which lead to that assumption

but i'm thinking there is some confusion on it
the whalesquids aren't human, and weren't humans, what the record showed was that the whalesquids were the symbionts which were used to merge with humans to generate hideazue
so the squids (whalesquids) were never human, so they couldn't lose their humanity to start with
in that the whalesquids are only genetically modified squids (maybe with something human to make the merge easier, but are more squids than humans)

whalesquid + human = hideazue
whalesquid =/= hideazue

an other thing instead are the hideazue, or humans merged with whalesquids, like elanie looked like to be
in the records it got showed a leader of the evolvers having a speech while in hideazue form, so back then the evolvers could still communicate in an human language
but there is no info if the current hideazue ever tried to communicate with the GA, to form some kind of truce
and the merged humans still on the earth (assuming elanie wasn't the only one) never tried to communicate with the surface humans
the doubt is then if they didn't for some reason, or because they lost the ability to communicate with humans

it's also possible the hideazue which ledo had a fight in the first episode were just modified whalesquids, with no human in them, and the evolvers with merged humans were back in their nest to give orders to the soldier-whalesquids

Where was it said the whalesquids are just the symbiotes? Quite the contrary: they showed twice in the episode that whalesquid have human guts:

1. The whalesquid eggs have human-esque embryos
2. the squidling Chamber killed looked humanoid.

Thew whole point of the episode was to show that the whalesquid/hideauze were once human; otherwise, there would be no reason for Ledo to cry in anguish when Chamber killed that squidling. I don't think it makes sense to confuse the issue that some were part human and some weren't; there is no indication to indicate that at all. There is more evidence, however, to say they all had human ancestory; why would Ledo feel guilty otherwise?

[Avrorrange]

Originally Posted by Cosmic Eagle

What's clear though is that the war started on Earth and that the Continental Union fired the first shot. Did that give an opportunity for hardliners amongst the squiddies to take over is debatable though I say quite likely

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.

[apotheosis]

Originally Posted by Funkatron

Where was it said the whalesquids are just the symbiotes? Quite the contrary: they showed twice in the episode that whalesquid have human guts:

1. The whalesquid eggs have human-esque embryos
2. the squidling Chamber killed looked humanoid.

Thew whole point of the episode was to show that the whalesquid/hideauze were once human; otherwise, there would be no reason for Ledo to cry in anguish when Chamber killed that squidling. I don't think it makes sense to confuse the issue that some were part human and some weren't; there is no indication to indicate that at all. There is more evidence, however, to say they all had human ancestory; why would Ledo feel guilty otherwise?

They were clearly first introduced as symbiotes in the video & then they started experimenting with merging.

The whalesquids resemble the symbiotes more than the merged Hideaze IMO, but we don't know that for sure. The one killed at the end of the ep could be a juvenile or it could be a human merged. However, if it was really a human merged Hideaze, I would think it'd be smarter than to just waltz into the area where all its brethren had been destroyed ..

Ledo has been killing human Hideaze for a long time, so even if the recent ones were just symbiotes he still has a heavy load of shock to deal with.

[Funkatron]

Originally Posted by apotheosis

They were clearly first introduced as symbiotes in the video & then they started experimenting with merging.

The whalesquids resemble the symbiotes more than the merged Hideaze IMO, but we don't know that for sure. The one killed at the end of the ep could be a juvenile or it could be a human merged. However, if it was really a human merged Hideaze, I would think it'd be smarter than to just waltz into the area where all its brethren had been destroyed ..

Ledo has been killing human Hideaze for a long time, so even if the recent ones were just symbiotes he still has a heavy load of shock to deal with.

The one that was killed at the end had to be a "merged" creature because it looked like that girl squid in the video. The symbiont only creatures never looked like that, even in the video

The most damning evidence that these have human ancestory ie descendents of human/symbionts are the larvae:

Squiddy outside, human-esque center










They look so human that Ledo had to ask if these were truly Hideauze children. Having the whalesquid be just the symbionts 1. Has not been hinted at all 2. confuses the overall message of the episode: Ledo and the GA has been killing humans this whole time. There is more evidence that they were human than that they are just symbionts

[rocket]

Originally Posted by Jan-Poo

Not really, you can clearly notice that the Gargantians have heavily modified and changed salvaged technology to their needs. The comparison really doesn't stand.

Actually Gen made a point of showing us that's not the case. Gargantia's irrigation system is fatally busted and they can't fix it. Best they can do is send a kid on a glider periodically to restart a backup pump.

Gargatian's are salvaging and repurposing but in a state of slow and inevitable decline.

We even spend time in the story exploring Ledo and Chamber's initial assessment. From the GA's perspective Gargatians are savages with no "organization"... effectively they've reverted to animal form.

Hmm... sound familiar?

Squid haters have no basis for assuming that space squid colonies are any less sentient or civilized than the 'devolved' GA.

Frankly I consider the GA to have made the ultimate devil's bargain - they've kept the exterior shape of what it means to be human and given up everything that actually defines human ideals. Perhaps space squids have lost their humanity as well (it *is* Gen after all) but to jump to that conclusion simply because they are hideous is falling into the very same irrational fear of the 'other' that justifies all wars.

[zeando]

Originally Posted by Funkatron

Where was it said the whalesquids are just the symbiotes?

in the records, where it got shown when the whalesquids got created

[Triple_R]

Originally Posted by rocket

Actually Gen made a point of showing us that's not the case. Gargantia's irrigation system is fatally busted and they can't fix it. Best they can do is send a kid on a glider periodically to restart a backup pump.

Gargatian's are salvaging and repurposing but in a state of slow and inevitable decline.

Whatever one thinks of such "salvaging and repurposing", it is enough to demonstrate sapience. Besides which, we have conversations between Ledo and the Gargantian crew that clearly demonstrates that the Gargantian crew have human level-intelligent and sapience.

We see no such evidence with the Earth Hideauze. They do not appear to have built, salvaged, or repurposed much of anything.

So there is legitimate reason to doubt that the Earth Hideauze are sapient. In other words, there is legitimate reason to doubt that they enjoy human level intelligence.

The Space Hideauze could well be a different matter. Chamber noted some differences between the Space Hideauze and the Earth Hideauze.


But while you take issue with "squid haters", the fact is we have no proof that the Space Hideauze are sapient or enjoy human level-intelligence. So those who insist that the Space Hideauze are sapient and have human-level intelligence have no more basis for that insistence than those who insist the contrary. Its a completely open question at this point.

[Funkatron]

Originally Posted by zeando

in the records, where it got shown when the whalesquids got created

They showed how the symbiotes got created. Evidence that I posted shows these are not just symbiotes