Gundam Seed/Seed Destiny General Discussion Thread

[Skye629]

Originally Posted by zeroexia

Regardless of who had the moral high ground, I'm pretty sure we can all agree that the Earth would be horrible place to be living in.

The UN was killed in a terrorist attack leading to the LOGOS controlled EA, crazy crazy people.
The N-Jammers destroyed the major source of power, crippling most of the world for a while and killing millions.

And the major one is the Junius 7 drop. The devastation of that colony drop is fully shown in Stargazer with a great number of major cities being obliterated.

I'm surprised the EA could still fight a war with the state of the planet like that.

And on another note, I watched this week's episode and it was a review episode but it did at least give insight into the minds of Rau and Durundal.

Rau is a shown bit more sympathetic here, even having multiple scenes of comforting Ray.

He hates humanity and believes that it will destroy itself and he is merely aiding the natural progression. He feels he's the culmination of all that is evil with humanity , the illegal clone. And he'll never forget it, so therefore he's the rightful person to judge humanity.

He then mocks Durundal and other humans who hope for a better future, saying it's hopeless.

Durundal himself is questioning whether or not Rau was right and if it is indeed fate. He rejects it and decides that if humanity can't undo the past, then he'll put them on a new correct path. And then citing DNA's Adenine Cytosine Guanine Thymine, he says that he of course knows the best way. (Since he's a scientist specializing in DNA manipulation. Foreshadowing here. )

Then cue smile.

Basically,

Gilbert Durundal, he is a CHAR.

Earth is a pretty horrible place to live in most gundam series lol

With the exception of Gunpla Builders/Build Fighters, that would be heaven lol

[Destined_Fate]

Originally Posted by RES-01 Perses Gundam

It's a show for godsake. How better to harden the resolve of the Three Ships Alliance than to have one of its founders perish in a fire of self-sacrifice?

Kira attacked Abyss, Neo in his Windam, Destroy in Berlin. If these are not weapons of destruction perpetuated by LOGOS and Djibril I don't know what is.

Durandal announced his Plan right after ZAFT defeated the EA and eliminated the scourge of LOGOS once and for all. It's opposition to his Plan that prompted Kira and co to attack ZAFT. ZAFT being exhausted from the previous battle merely gave Kira and co a slight reprieve.

Face it, at every turn you just want to put down Kira, Cagalli and Orb. And facts are distorted and manipulated to that end, which is frustrating me, and I believe many of us here.

It was still a very dumb decision that left Cagalli in a very messed up position in Destiny. Her father clearly wasn't thinking about the future, or at least not all that far ahead as he should have already known about the guys that weren't going to commit suicide with him.

Your point here?

The EA sided with ZAFT because of the Logis reveal. >_>

Kira opposed the plan not due to mass protests but because he didn't like it and felt the current way was better than the possibility of peace.

Not pointing down when i'm stating exactly what happened. Kira's antics cannot be justified in Destiny. He only turned out right because of poor writing when he had zero evidence to support anything he did for most of the series other than "Durandal tried to kill Lacus for some random reason to force him into the show again due to Kira Fans making mass complaints".

[RES-01 Perses Gundam]

Originally Posted by Destined_Fate

It was still a very dumb decision that left Cagalli in a very messed up position in Destiny. Her father clearly wasn't thinking about the future, or at least not all that far ahead as he should have already known about the guys that weren't going to commit suicide with him.

In case you didn't know, the producers weren't planning for a sequel. So Uzumi's sacrifice was supposed to lead to everlasting peace which was to come upon SEED's conclusion.

Nonetheless, he had little to worry knowing that the siblings had reunited, that Kira was on their side, and there are like-minded people out there who share his apprehensions and ideals for the world. Even those people who didn't commit suicide and essentially sold Orb out to the EA did it to preserve Orb's independence, without which they couldn't possibly retain their status and wealth.

Kira opposed the plan not due to mass protests but because he didn't like it and felt the current way was better than the possibility of peace.

Not pointing down when i'm stating exactly what happened. Kira's antics cannot be justified in Destiny. He only turned out right because of poor writing when he had zero evidence to support anything he did for most of the series other than "Durandal tried to kill Lacus for some random reason to force him into the show again due to Kira Fans making mass complaints".

Since when did I say Kira oppose the plan due to mass protests? Kudos to you for grasping the reason why Kira acted the way he did.

Erm it's not a random reason? They had grounds to believe that Durandal wasn't being honest and open about his plans and was secretly harboring an ulterior motive. Their suspicions were proven right with the discovery of his hand-written memo.

[zeroexia]

Originally Posted by RES-01 Perses Gundam

In case you didn't know, the producers weren't planning for a sequel. So Uzumi's sacrifice was supposed to lead to everlasting peace which was to come upon SEED's conclusion.

Nonetheless, he had little to worry knowing that the siblings had reunited, that Kira was on their side, and there are like-minded people out there who share his apprehensions and ideals for the world. Even those people who didn't commit suicide and essentially sold Orb out to the EA did it to preserve Orb's independence, without which they couldn't possibly retain their status and wealth.



Since when did I say Kira oppose the plan due to mass protests? Kudos to you for grasping the reason why Kira acted the way he did.

Erm it's not a random reason? They had grounds to believe that Durandal wasn't being honest and open about his plans and was secretly harboring an ulterior motive. Their suspicions were proven right with the discovery of his hand-written memo.

I'm thinking Destined_Fate is not someone you can reason with. Although even he acknowledged that Kira and co did the right thing and yet is still blaming them for everything.

Besides Kira and co fought Durundal and ZAFT initially only to stop the fighting with Orb, then when Durundal decided to destroy all of Orb with Requiem for refusing to join his Destiny Plan.

I think some have forgetten that Durundal was going to destroy Orb entirely with a giant laser just because they didn't agree with him. I think it's pretty justifiable that someone would want to fight when given the options of either being destroyed or submit to a dictator who decides the entire lives of every individual due to some genetic testing.

[Hagoshod]

Originally Posted by zeroexia

I think some have forgetten that Durundal was going to destroy Orb entirely with a giant laser just because they didn't agree with him.

Not really. Durandal was going to destroy Orb because they were the only ones who chose to continue an idiotic war of MUH IDEALS well before he even announced the Destiny Plan. They had already made up their minds he MUST be evil JUST BECAUSE and were blatantly going to be gunning for him no matter what he did.

He was also justified in that Orb insanely took it upon themselves to be gods among men and make the decision to reject the Destiny Plan by force for the entire planet, rather than waiting to see what the entire rest of the world said and gee I don't know maybe allowing actual democracy to take place or something. Because as always, Orb is unrelenting and can't let MUH IDEALS be defeated through any means, no matter how pretentious and selfish those ideals are.

Cagalli would have brought on Orb's destruction through her own grrrrr angry anti-ZAFT obsession if Kira and the Chuckleheads hadn't destroyed Requiem for her.


This really is a horrible thread.

[S.Freedom]

Originally Posted by Hagoshod

This really is a horrible thread.

Why thank you for the compliment. Would you be so kind as to compliment us some more please.

[RES-01 Perses Gundam]

Originally Posted by Hagoshod

Not really. Durandal was going to destroy Orb because they were the only ones who chose to continue an idiotic war of MUH IDEALS well before he even announced the Destiny Plan. They had already made up their minds he MUST be evil JUST BECAUSE and were blatantly going to be gunning for him no matter what he did.

Nope. They had sufficient, incriminating evidence suggesting that Durandal was not trustworthy and rather than him being evil, it's more like they felt they had an obligation to prevent the Destiny plan from materialising. Them making up their mind that he must be "evil" wasn't spontaneous but rather Durandal's clandestine actions backfired on him; cue the attempt to assassinate Lacus and duping the entire PLANTs with a Meer-Lacus double.

He was also justified in that Orb insanely took it upon themselves to be gods among men and make the decision to reject the Destiny Plan by force for the entire planet, rather than waiting to see what the entire rest of the world said and gee I don't know maybe allowing actual democracy to take place or something. Because as always, Orb is unrelenting and can't let MUH IDEALS be defeated through any means, no matter how pretentious and selfish those ideals are.

In times of war there isn't really a time for democracy. If Durandal could annihilate the Arzachel Base when he didn't even give the AF and its prime minister a chance to explain their opposition to the Destiny plan, it's clear that Durandal wasn't going to take "no" to his plan nor any form of negotiations/democracy/diplomacy. What could Kira and co. have done then, other than to maximise all the little time and chance they had to embattle ZAFT and stop Durandal's plan on his tracks?

Cagalli would have brought on Orb's destruction through her own grrrrr angry anti-ZAFT obsession if Kira and the Chuckleheads hadn't destroyed Requiem for her.

This. You sound like Destined_Fate. *Chuckles*

There's nothing wrong with being idealistic, but being detached from reality while embracing your ideals, that's foolish. There's something in "while principles cannot cut (defeat) your enemy, they polish the knife you use to destroy your enemy". In other words, while pure rhetoric cannot win a war, ideals are guiding principles every nation need to sustain a war effort, to give soldiers a raison d'etre for sacrificing their lives in what is otherwise a futile war. For Orb, preserving their neutrality has always been their guiding principle. Even when forced to partake in another country's battle, those closest to Orb's ideals have always rationalised it as necessary to end the battle ASAP, end Orb's commitment in the war in order to preserve that precious neutrality of theirs.

Without such an ideal, Orb wouldn't have survived two invasions and one occupation even with their technological prowess. It makes up for their lack in numbers. That is something you got to admire compared to the Logos who craved for nothing but profit and power. And while ZAFT fought well up to their defeat in the final battle, there wasn't something like Orb's ideal, not even the Destiny plan which could have unified the Coordinators. That's precisely why Athrun, Ezak, Dearka, Lacus all flocked to Orb and their allies - their impetus and ultimate objective was clear enough, morally justifiable enough.

[Wild Goose]

Originally Posted by monster

The point is, ZAFT wasn't being discriminate about its attack with the neutron jammers. Nuclear energy was the main source of power for the nations on earth at that time. Lucky for Orb that it didn't need to rely on nuclear energy, but not all nations were so lucky, and not all of them were the sponsor nations that were in conflict with the PLANTs.

Agreed and acknowledged, though I'd just offer a counterpoint that Australia and New Zealand probably weren't hit, given that both nations are ZAFT allies, and ZAFT was welcomed with open arms. IIRC the same thing happened in Africa, which technically means that the Desert Dawn fighters were rebels. (One man's freedom fighter is another man's terrorist, etc etc, let's not get into a long argument on that now, I've got Warframes to grind. )

-=-

Side thoughts on Orb: In a way, I can't help but think that perhaps Fukada intended Orb to be some sorta idealised cross between Switzerland and Japan, what with being a pacifistic island nation with a lot of Japanese styling (note how almost every piece of military hardware in Orb during Destiny has a Japanese name) that's neutral in world affairs and tries to stay out of things.

Switzerland gets away with that, however, in that Switzerland stays the fuck away from world affairs, and, more importantly, is a key linchpin in the world financial system, meaning that on point 1), nobody is pissed off at the Swiss, and on point 2), nobody in their right mind goes to war with the Swiss because it'll bankrupt them. (And also because holy shit the Swiss have mines and bunkers and all sorts of nasty surprises all over the place, including secret mountain fighter hangars that lead out into the roads.)

Where Orb failed on that regard is 1) Regardless of Uzumi's wishes, Orb was being drawn into the conflict by hosting the G-Weapons project at Heliopolis, thus causing the PLANTs to start gunning for them, and 2) by denying the Kaguya mass driver to the Earth Alliance, it caused the EA to start gunning for Orb as well, and 3) Orb had no chance of fending off one power, let alone both.

An attempt is made to secure Orb's sovreignity with its fleets and the Astrays, but while the fleet's fairly capable enough, it's no match for mobile suits, and while the Astray is superior to the Strike Dagger, it's in the same position the Germans were in with the Panther and Tigers; one Panther outmatches one Sherman, but that one Panther is always going to be running into Shermans plural. Same with this. (I recall reading Word of God stuff that Mark Simmons dug up that went into both sides ORBAT; Orb's forces were pretty much decimated by the end of SEED, hence their attempt at a crash rearmament during Destiny.) This ties into point 3 above: It's like the US vs Japan. Japan's got the most technologically advanced fleet and air force in Asia, but the US has both qualitative parity (ignoring how ten years of war trumps ten years of exercises) and quantitative advantage. Japan/Orb has quality, the US/EA has quality and numbers.

tl;dr, any hope Orb had of being left alone went right out the window when one faction of Orb's ruling families, the Sahaku, decided to work with the Earth Alliance and host the G-Weapons project at Heliopolis, and then continue working with them with the intent of getting EA support for a Sahaku takeover of Orb. Once that ball started rolling, there weren't no way to stop it.

As for the decisions made during Destiny... everyone forgets that for the most part, the cast are teenagers. I don't care whether you're a Coordinator or Natural, teenagers are not what you would call possessed of sound judgement. They make derp decisions because these are teenagers who don't have enough life experience to temper them. Kira decides that Durandal is evil because he ordered the hit on Lacus. (Which to be fair, I can understand - some dude just tried to kill him and his girl, of course he'd be pissed off.)

Though for Kira, remember that while he's hax, he was thrown into the cockpit; unlike say Athrun, he was never formally trained in the military, and thus doesn't actually consider things the way a military pilot would. Which is not necessarily bad, but in this case it's less than ideal.

-=-

That said, I think Orb's ideals are fine as a concept. It's just that the execution is a bit lacking.

Originally Posted by S.Freedom

Why thank you for the complement. Would you be so kind as to complement us some more please.

You keep using that word...

"Complement" is something that completes something. For example, french fries and a burger, fish with tartar sauce, Kira with Freedom.

A "compliment" is when you're saying something nice/good/approving/insert other positive adjective about something.

Sorry, I'm a little nitpicky about this because I'm working towards my TESOL certification. (Aka becoming an internationally-certified English teacher.)

[zeroexia]

Originally Posted by Hagoshod

Not really. Durandal was going to destroy Orb because they were the only ones who chose to continue an idiotic war of MUH IDEALS well before he even announced the Destiny Plan. They had already made up their minds he MUST be evil JUST BECAUSE and were blatantly going to be gunning for him no matter what he did.

He was also justified in that Orb insanely took it upon themselves to be gods among men and make the decision to reject the Destiny Plan by force for the entire planet, rather than waiting to see what the entire rest of the world said and gee I don't know maybe allowing actual democracy to take place or something. Because as always, Orb is unrelenting and can't let MUH IDEALS be defeated through any means, no matter how pretentious and selfish those ideals are.

Cagalli would have brought on Orb's destruction through her own grrrrr angry anti-ZAFT obsession if Kira and the Chuckleheads hadn't destroyed Requiem for her.


This really is a horrible thread.

I think you've forgotten what actually happened. Let me remind you.

Durundal announces the Destiny Plan.

The only responses were from Orb and Scandinavia. They publicly announce their opposition.

The rest of the world hasn't said anything at all but the Atlantic Federation starts to move forces at Arzachel Base.

Durundal, after hearing the report, says all who oppose his plan are enemies of humanity. He says he'll deal with Azrachel Base first then with Orb.

Durundal then decides to use Requiem on the base killing the AF's President in the process. This shocks even members of ZAFT like Talia. As he is using a weapon of mass destruction that they had just fought to stop being used against PLANT.

The TSA decides to destroy one of Requiem's rings, while announcing that such a weapon of destruction is unnecessary and can't bring peace.

This starts the final battle to stop Durundal from using Requiem on Orb. Then out of nowhere appears Messiah with a Neo-Genesis that he uses to attack Orb and the EA. He even uses it knowing there are ZAFT forces in the crossfire. Once again shocking Talia.

In summary, Durundal became a powerhungry dictator who used Requiem to force the Destiny Plan without even having diplomacy with Earth. There were no negotiations at all but Durundal still decided to use Requiem. That's pretty much forcing everybody to fall in line considering the rest of the world is in ruins and can't challenge ZAFT militarily wise.The use of Requiem in itself can never be justified in the first place. It's similar to saying it's fine to destroy an entire country just because you're at war with them. Face it, Durundal was the bad guy.

This is a horrrible thread because people conveniently forget facts to suit their emotionally fueled biases. This results in unnecessary arguing over things that shouldn't be argued over.

[Gundamx]

Agreed and acknowledged, though I'd just offer a counterpoint that Australia and New Zealand probably weren't hit, given that both nations are ZAFT allies, and ZAFT was welcomed with open arms. IIRC the same thing happened in Africa, which technically means that the Desert Dawn fighters were rebels. (One man's freedom fighter is another man's terrorist, etc etc, let's not get into a long argument on that now, I've got Warframes to grind.

have you forget?
AA can't used rader in africa because of n-jammer == which mean afirca was been hit by zaft n-jammer too

post from samsung

[CBredbeard]

I read a single N-Jammer could effect the entire planet. The reason ZAFT used hundreds of them was so that finding them and destroying them would be next to impossible.

[Gundamx]

Originally Posted by CBredbeard

I read a single N-Jammer could effect the entire planet. The reason ZAFT used hundreds of them was so that finding them and destroying them would be next to impossible.

Huh?
than why they shot a lot of them to earth if they only need one?


large range = not same as only need one

Images

Sorry; dynamic content not loaded. Reload?

[Rising Dragon]

CBred's idea has merit--the more fired, the more impossible it would be to get rid of them, but only one of them being powerful enough to span the entire globe doesn't seem plausible even for SEED. Multiples were needed. I don't know where he read that statement, but it can't be true, just as the statement of digging them all out at the end of the first war is false.

[Destined_Fate]

Originally Posted by RES-01 Perses Gundam

In case you didn't know, the producers weren't planning for a sequel. So Uzumi's sacrifice was supposed to lead to everlasting peace which was to come upon SEED's conclusion.

Nonetheless, he had little to worry knowing that the siblings had reunited, that Kira was on their side, and there are like-minded people out there who share his apprehensions and ideals for the world. Even those people who didn't commit suicide and essentially sold Orb out to the EA did it to preserve Orb's independence, without which they couldn't possibly retain their status and wealth.



Since when did I say Kira oppose the plan due to mass protests? Kudos to you for grasping the reason why Kira acted the way he did.

Erm it's not a random reason? They had grounds to believe that Durandal wasn't being honest and open about his plans and was secretly harboring an ulterior motive. Their suspicions were proven right with the discovery of his hand-written memo.

Peace doesn't work that way. Uzumi was dumb, he killed off most of his loyal staff with him when he knew that there was another faction in ORB that was working against ORB's beliefs for self-gain. Yuna also showed he didn't care what happened to ORB just as long as he gained power and remained in power. He even let Logos hide in ORB because he was bribed into it and owed them favors.

You implied that many were against it. That was wrong, far more supported the Destiny Plan than those that opposed it. After all it was Durandal that ended the race wars and it was Durandal that spearheaded the effort to destroy Logos while Kira and ORB sat on their rears twiddling their thumbs waiting for the chance to kill Durandal.

The only grounds they had was that Durandal tried to kill Lacus and than Athrun. They also ignored that the Destiny Plan was already working and far more wanted it than those that didn't. Not to mention that Durandal was right that change requires you have the power to make it happen. Hence his desire to force the minor rebellious factions to fall in line with the majority was justified.

Sadly Kira establishes that the minority trumps what the majority wants as he killed Durandal and enforced his vision against what was desired.

[monster]

Originally Posted by Wild Goose

Agreed and acknowledged, though I'd just offer a counterpoint that Australia and New Zealand probably weren't hit, given that both nations are ZAFT allies, and ZAFT was welcomed with open arms. IIRC the same thing happened in Africa, which technically means that the Desert Dawn fighters were rebels. (One man's freedom fighter is another man's terrorist, etc etc, let's not get into a long argument on that now, I've got Warframes to grind. )

Unfortunately, it's not about being hit or not being hit. The neutron jammers had a very wide area of effect such that it only takes a few of them to cover the entire earth, and ZAFT scattered many of them across the planet. So the entire earth was affected, even nations like Orb. It's just that Orb is not as dependent on nuclear energy.

[Wild Goose]

Originally Posted by Gundamx

have you forget?
AA can't used rader in africa because of n-jammer == which mean afirca was been hit by zaft n-jammer too

post from samsung

I'd forgotten about that, but I'd offer a counterpoint: we know that ZAFT warships carry N-Jammers as a complement to tactical ECM. It could simply mean that Waltfeld's got an N-Jammer he's using to hamper Archangel's efforts.

This was typed on my iPad, btw.

Originally Posted by monster

Unfortunately, it's not about being hit or not being hit. The neutron jammers had a very wide area of effect such that it only takes a few of them to cover the entire earth, and ZAFT scattered many of them across the planet. So the entire earth was affected, even nations like Orb. It's just that Orb is not as dependent on nuclear energy.

I'd dispute that; note the image that Gundamx posted. I count at least four N-Jammers being dropped in a relatively small area, that (by eyeballing it) appears smaller than a football (soccer) field.

And tbh, something's off with ZAFT's targeters if they can't segregate a goddamned continent the size of Oz from the rest of the targeting cue.

Also, this then brings up the question of what powers all the warships seen. I've heard before a suggestion that SEED warships are powered by fusion, based on Archangel's startup sequence. *shrug* i suppose it might be similar to issues with military buclear reactors for ships: they work fine enough for ships, but it's not the easiest thing to repurpose them towards civilian power generation.

[Rising Dragon]

Originally Posted by Wild Goose

I'd forgotten about that, but I'd offer a counterpoint: we know that ZAFT warships carry N-Jammers as a complement to tactical ECM. It could simply mean that Waltfeld's got an N-Jammer he's using to hamper Archangel's efforts.

Except when Sai says to activate the N-Jammer, he's told that they don't need that. That implies that they were already under the N-Jammer effect, and if both sides utilize N-Jammers in space, then the range is low enough to where one cannot encompass the other mid-battle, unless they were on top of one another.

[Washu-Chan]

Originally Posted by Wild Goose

Side thoughts on Orb: In a way, I can't help but think that perhaps Fukada intended Orb to be some sorta idealised cross between Switzerland and Japan, what with being a pacifistic island nation with a lot of Japanese styling (note how almost every piece of military hardware in Orb during Destiny has a Japanese name) that's neutral in world affairs and tries to stay out of things.

Fukuda did say that Orb was his "idealized Japan".

[monster]

Originally Posted by Wild Goose

I'd dispute that; note the image that Gundamx posted. I count at least four N-Jammers being dropped in a relatively small area, that (by eyeballing it) appears smaller than a football (soccer) field.

Which part are you disputing with that image?

And tbh, something's off with ZAFT's targeters if they can't segregate a goddamned continent the size of Oz from the rest of the targeting cue.

What do you mean?

Also, this then brings up the question of what powers all the warships seen. I've heard before a suggestion that SEED warships are powered by fusion, based on Archangel's startup sequence. *shrug* i suppose it might be similar to issues with military buclear reactors for ships: they work fine enough for ships, but it's not the easiest thing to repurpose them towards civilian power generation.

I don't think it's ever been said, but it's certainly not nuclear fission.

[CBredbeard]

Originally Posted by Rising Dragon

Except when Sai says to activate the N-Jammer, he's told that they don't need that. That implies that they were already under the N-Jammer effect, and if both sides utilize N-Jammers in space, then the range is low enough to where one cannot encompass the other mid-battle, unless they were on top of one another.

He said that because the N-Jammers on Earth effected places as far out as Plant. Probably the moon evening. It's not unusual for Archangel to come equipped with one though, even if in the current theater they didn't need it.

I also don't see what'd be hard to believe about a single one working on such a large scale. That they work at all is incredible. Rather than thinking of them as being very powerful, consider them to be very efficient at what they do. It doesn't require much energy to generate the effect.