Muv-Luv Franchise - Q & A

[Ray]

Originally Posted by Wild Goose

Aphrah's explanation is mostly correct, save TE ends just a few weeks before Alternative begins.

Isn't that what I said? Or was I not being specific enough?

[Wild Goose]

Originally Posted by Aphrah

Isn't that what I said? Or was I not being specific enough?

Sorry - My reading was off due to tiredness and misread your statment as "TE begins just before alternative ends"

[GundamZZ]

Originally Posted by Wild Goose

Aphrah's explanation is mostly correct, save TE ends just a few weeks before Alternative begins.

According to the Japanese source, the story of serialized novel Total Eclipse is 11 months before the game Alternative. Alternative story begins at 2001/10/22. In this "Beautiful Love" universe, Soviet didn't fall....

[G147]

@GundamZZ, That is only the beginning, by the time of the terrorist/RLF attack on Yukon base took place it was already around September 2001. 21 September 2001 if i'm not mistaken

[Kyuu]

I literally just started watching this. And I must ask:

Why didn't anyone nuke the moon?

[MitchelJohn]

Originally Posted by Kyuu

I literally just started watching this. And I must ask:

Why didn't anyone nuke the moon?

Why'd you want to nuke it in the first place?

Even if we did , they'd still probably come and invade us later anyway...

[NoemiChan]

Originally Posted by Kyuu

I literally just started watching this. And I must ask:

Why didn't anyone nuke the moon?

And have the pieces (with the BETAs riding on it) crush on Earth?!

[Wild Goose]

Originally Posted by Kyuu

I literally just started watching this. And I must ask:

Why didn't anyone nuke the moon?

This also presumes that you are able to reach the moon in the first place. And it still won't solve anything here on Earth.

[Kyuu]

Hey! Don't question my strategies.

[grevierr]

Originally Posted by Kyuu

I literally just started watching this. And I must ask:

Why didn't anyone nuke the moon?

They did. They used up quite a bit of the worlds stockpile of nukes on the moon, so when the war moved to earth, they cut their losses and transferred everything back down to earth, saving the nukes for clearing BETA in the open, since it does not seem to work on Hives once pass a certain size (works on newly landed ones though). However with the presence of laser class 19 days after the first landing, nukes have become a very expensive option, so not many missile based ones are used. Even obital dropped ones have a low percentage of hit, and even lower chance of doing damage to a Hive.

[Alastor Mobius Toth]

Out of curiosity, where is that mentioned? In Integral Works?

I thought that Lunar Campaign was that kind of conventional screw-up, because humanity had no idea of what it was doing.

I always assumed that the reason no one used nukes when BETA reached Earth was because no-one wanted to blow their own country up (Soviets and Chinese, who until too late believed BETAs could be beaten conventionally), and after that many nukes were wasted on Lasers and delaying actions a la scorched earth.

[grevierr]

Originally Posted by Alastor Mobius Toth

Out of curiosity, where is that mentioned? In Integral Works?

I thought that Lunar Campaign was that kind of conventional screw-up, because humanity had no idea of what it was doing.

I always assumed that the reason no one used nukes when BETA reached Earth was because no-one wanted to blow their own country up (Soviets and Chinese, who until too late believed BETAs could be beaten conventionally), and after that many nukes were wasted on Lasers and delaying actions a la scorched earth.

Yes, in IW or one of the TSFiA, can't remember now but it came up in the various conversations before. And why people don't use it till too late is because they are greedy, no more, no less...

[Kyuu]

Originally Posted by Wild Goose

This also presumes that you are able to reach the moon in the first place. And it still won't solve anything here on Earth.

Hey... they were having gun fights on the Moon.

Originally Posted by MitchelJohn

Why'd you want to nuke it in the first place?

Even if we did , they'd still probably come and invade us later anyway...

Originally Posted by GenjiChan

And have the pieces (with the BETAs riding on it) crush on Earth?!

Originally Posted by Wild Goose

This also presumes that you are able to reach the moon in the first place. And it still won't solve anything here on Earth.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_war

To win a Total War, you must attack a beligerent's ability to sustain that war. You have to go after the enemy's economy in order to win; or else, you get whittled down by attrition.

And seeing the nature of this enemy... this is similar to many other "species" in other series. Relentless. Numerous. And having complete disregard towards individual life, for the sake of the species. This is a War of Annihilation; do or die.

[NoemiChan]

Originally Posted by Kyuu

Hey... they were having gun fights on the Moon.
You have to go after the enemy's economy in order to win;

If only the BETAs knew how to trade or even start a trade agreement....

[Kyuu]

Originally Posted by GenjiChan

If only the BETAs knew how to trade or even start a trade agreement....

So, that cuts out embargos!

And the economy on their concern -- the BETAs ability to eat and reproduce. Deny that, the war is won.



So...

Spoiler:

Send 'em a whole bunch of condoms and birth control pills

OR

Spoiler:

Nuke their mothers

[Alastor Mobius Toth]

The problem with the BETA is that they don't rely on conventional logistics in same manner as humans do. Their Hives are the only command and control units, as well as their only points of resupply. You'd need to destroy a hive, and nothing can easily do that except for G-Bomb bombardment or continuous Ion Cannon barrage.

Also, BETAs can replace their numbers much, much faster than humans do, in addition to having an even greater numerical superiority. The whole point of Alternative Plans is that the conventional human strategies (including the concept of Total War) have largely failed.

Spoiler for For nature of BETA:

And in weird way, attack BETA themselves is the only way to destroy their "logistics", since BETAs are all organic mining machines that have the capacity to self-adapt (think Terraformers from X-Universe, only organic). They can also be made from any resource that contains carbon, including human corpses.

They can't be defeated in any other way than either reprogramming them en masse, or by killing every single BETA in the universe. Manually.

[Kyuu]

Originally Posted by Alastor Mobius Toth

The problem with the BETA is that they don't rely on conventional logistics in same manner as humans do. Their Hives are the only command and control units, as well as their only points of resupply. You'd need to destroy a hive, and nothing can easily do that except for G-Bomb bombardment or continuous Ion Cannon barrage.

Playing Starcraft -- that's almost exactly what the Zerg are. And if that's what must be done -- then that is what must be done. Can't fight the hordes of BETAs forever. For every bunch of BETAs killed, more are simply spawned.

Just hope, humanity never encounter such an enemy in real life.

Originally Posted by Alastor Mobius Toth

The whole point of Alternative Plans is that the conventional human strategies (including the concept of Total War) have largely failed.

I don't see Total War as a form of conventional war though. Instead, the tactics and strategies used to implement Total War have not worked in this series. Now that I'm at Eps 16 with this comment -- every effort seen so far looks to be half-assed.

[Alastor Mobius Toth]

I call it "conventional" in the sense that it was something thought of during conflicts with humans; and BETA do not always conform to human thinking.


Arguably by this point of the series the world had suffered casualties to the point that Total War mindset is actually a set back. Given the serious misbalance between males and females (or at least the implication of thereof) human population is close to collapse. Sending out everyone into battle is actually counter-productive, since grunts killed could have been technicians, farmers etc. that are required for a society to survive. Even if the countries like Japan haven't *quite* reached this point yet, given their attrition they're very well on their way to defeat.

And honestly, all major offensives in Muv-Luv verse tend to fail. Palaiogolos (Jesus, couldn't they have picked an easier code-name?) was quite possibly the biggest military operation in world's history, given that entire USSR and NATO threw everything they had at a single Hive.

It failed spectacularly, although in no small part due to Soviet command being...well...Soviet command.

Sadogashima Hive Battle itself was likewise a huge cluster****, and would have been a complete failure had not specific events happened when they did.

Another point is that technically only a unified state can effectively wage "total war" on anything, and even then it would have to do so with iron hand (there's a reason why Chekha ran rampart during Russian Civil War). The U.N lacks both the political and military power to do so, unless all of world's governments were CHOMPed to the head overnight.

Spoiler for For G-Bombs and Ion Cannons:

As for utilizing G-bombs...well, although viable, that's pretty much a suicide strategy.

Spoilers for The Day After side-stories ahoy:
U.N and America actually go through with this at the end of Unlimited, showing just how badly the war is going. The result is physical annihilation of at least three continents, death of majority of human population and disruption of most long-range communications. Plus horrific environmental damage. Most of reminder of Earth becomes a never-ending salt field. Things get so desperate that a large group of survivors basically bands under French/Canadian flags and start genocidal war against U.N/U.S
It's also showed that at least some Hives survived, and continue to be active.

As for the Ion Cannons, they're unique weapons - there are probably no more than 3/4 of those ever made. For 26 Hives.

TL;DR:
There is no easy way with which to defeat the BETA. None. Terrans at least had Battlecruisers, and Hive leaders like Kerrigan or Overmind can be killed. However, BETA operations cannot be fully stopped unless every single gets killed or runs out of energy.

I suppose, it's the beauty of bleak setting.

[Student no.0]

So can a newbie like me watch Total Eclipse even though I'm not familiar with the Muv Luv franchise at the slightest bit? Or was this anime made assuming you've played the visual novels, like Fate Zero?

[Wild Goose]

Generally Total Eclipse is standalone enough that you can watch it without prior knowledge of the maun games, since chronologically Total Eclipse endsvwhen Unlimited and Alternative begin. Therevare continuity nods to mainline Muv-Luv, but nothing like Macross Frontiers orgy of references.