Mobile Suit Gundam 00 - Episode 08 Discussion / Poll

[4Tran]

Originally Posted by Ninjacat

Guys, can't we just agree the terrorists acted like morrons so the CB could look good blowing them up?

I agree. I'll let the matter rest until we get more story about the terrorists.

[Eidolon Sniper]

Originally Posted by 4Tran

Despite what you may believe, a bunch of random terrorist attacks don't constitute a war.

And so the "war" against current world terrorism isn't one? It could you know. There would be a collective "push" of people that would "force" governments to do something like declaring war on those terrorists, or it could be used as another reason why that country (in case the terrorists were involved or were implied to be involved with them) could declare the act as something that they might attribute to the invading country or countries as a "senseless act of violence" or even "making up wild stories so that the invading countries could be further described as countries of truth and justice and paint them as a country filled with anti-invading countries hate". You still believe such random acts of terrorist violence cannot induce a war?

Why do you think I said this? One would imagine that by writing, "Based on the requirements of the story, and the constraints the creators made on the story, it was sort of inevitable that the meeting was going to turn out badly. While it may be possible that there are ways that it could have been written better, they would certainly have taken that opportunity if they could think of it", I was stating that the creators picked a poor storyline because they couldn't think of a better one.

I was actually replying to another point you made, not this one.

What the heck are you trying to argue? My point was about the interaction between Marina and Setsuna.

That quote you quoted was actually a part of the point I was trying to make, that Setsuna's WTF outburst could be explained in saner terms. I stated that Setsuna's WTF discussion of who he really is is part of his anger at Azadistan, which may have led him to that breaking point and utter that he is a GM to Marina. I tried connecting Lockon's hatred of terrorism and Allelujah's fear of drifting alone in space at the end of that statement as well. Any person is apt to do ridiculous things when he's faced with something he does not understand, faced with something that he unbearably hates, or facing things that he is very scared of. So Setsuna's outburst is normal, because he has not yet come to terms with that fear/anger/pain he's experienced while still a kid freedom fighter in Kurdistan. Remember Lockon, the leader of their team, has almost completely lost himself when he heard about the terrorists acting in response to what they were doing. He still hasn't come completely clean of his anger at the terrorists who got his parents killed. What if he wasn't able to contain it? Methinks he'll go on a sniping rampage, and an angry Lockon is not someone you would likely want to meet in a dark alley. and ironically, he becomes one of the terrorists which he hates with a passion, if that were the case.

My point was made in regard to how the terrorists don't have any reason to go to such efforts. Are you trying to claim that they are somehow after the GN technology?

For all they have heard about GN technology or the Gundams in particular, why wouldn't they? Besides, the terrorists in question here were found to have bases in supposed "neutral" territories which you have just answered yourself earlier, so those terrorist acts could be or may not be a front to what the 3 factions are actually hoping to achieve. And yes, I was explaining this in the 3 factions point of view, kinda connected to the terrorists that suddenly declared themselves outright in a span of just 2 episodes.

Uh... What are you talking about? Did you get all your quotes confused?

You're the one confusing quotes, not me. .__.

Celestial Being was under the apprehension that the terrorists could be rooted out very quickly. Do you think that this assumption was correct, or incorrect? If it was correct, then doesn't it imply that any unknown terrorist group can be handled in this manner?

Well, if the people "knew" how and where to look. Besides, I think the terrorist act is just a ruse.

They act in "retardedly serious" ways all the time. Witness all the multi-character sentence-completing scenes.

Pseudo-seriousness? In Gundam 00? While I agree it makes for some disjointed-ness, the overall subject of a war, the contradictory nature of their "main job" (CB's "main job"), as well as how the characters are reacting to it are actually a serious matter. What would you feel if the characters treat the war like they will, as if the war is just a backdrop to a super robot show? I am pretty sure you would probably just almost die of high blood pressure if the director manages to mangle the franchise even better than what previous attempts did to it. At least, we have Graham and Sergei and Lockon to spice things up a little bit. At least, this show is not yet a point and click show where the Gundams all show up and chaos magically ensues without any solid explanation why they are there in the first place.

My points aren't contradictory. Real terrorists don't have the deluxe HQs, gigantic mobile suits, and the infrastructure and attendant materiel that such a force requires. With all this junk, a terrorist organization becomes relatively immobile and easy to find. As I said earlier, the Gundam 00 terrorists don't bear much resemblence to real ones. Can you imagine Al Qaeda maintaining a base with a bunch of M-60s and a fleet of F-5s somewhere in New Mexico? Can you imagine the Americans being too stupid to not notice a base that stands out this much or not doing anything about it?

Terrorists are more becoming your "everyday" face, and this what makes it scarier. No wonder governments have a hard time dealing with them. They do not necessarily have to build themselves very consipcuous bases when they can just blend very well with the scenery.

Anyway, the terrorists, being the "center of distraction" in episode 8, has loose ends that could be further explained or not in the upcoming episodes, so the little sidetrip to this debate.

[4Tran]

Originally Posted by Eidolon Sniper

And so the "war" against current world terrorism isn't one?

That's correct. It doesn't constitute a war any more than the war on drugs is a war, or the war on poverty is a war, or the war on crime is a war, and so forth.

[dreamless]

Originally Posted by Ninjacat

Guys, can't we just agree the terrorists acted like morrons so the CB could look good blowing them up?

Sure, the terrorists need some sort of command structure, but it's a lot more likely to be a basement somewhere or the tent of a friendly tribal leader. The September 11 attack was coordinated from an appartment in Germany. The whole point of being a terrorist is not having a huge infrastructure. And you can be damn sure the leaders won't be anywhere near instalations you can blow up with an air strike without killing lots of civilians.

well, we don't even know whether those that got blown up at those camps include all the leaders of the entire organization. and we don't know whether they have a huge infrastructure across the entire organization. all we know is that they have some forest camps that can be set up within a couple of days, some random mountain caves stronghold, and some MS. It's not uncommon in previous Gundam shows where MS can be maintained and operated by small civilian groups or even some individuals, and there's absolutely no indication that the MS used by the terrorists in Gundam 00 need any huge infrastructure for maintenance and operation.

There are real world terrorist groups with forest camps and mountain caves strongholds, and US has actually planned to bomb certain suspected terrorist base in West African desert in the past, it's nothing wrong or moronic for some terrorists to set up camps and bases in remote places in forests or deserts. The only thing is that in real world when some people blow up some terrorist HQs, it does not instantly stop the terrorist threat to them, but that's because we don't have anything similar to CB in real world. The fact that when CB destroys several HQs of a terrorist group, it ceases to be any more threat to CB, is because of CB's abnormality. As far as I can see, it's the uniqueness of CB that enable them to defeat the terrorist threat to them (not neccesarily the entire terrorist organization) so easily and ensure that they won't face any terrorist threat without a centralized system.

[Ninjacat]

Originally Posted by dreamless

There are real world terrorist groups with forest camps and mountain caves strongholds, and US has actually planned to bomb certain suspected terrorist base in West African desert in the past, it's nothing wrong or moronic for some terrorists to set up camps and bases in remote places in forests or deserts. The only thing is that in real world when some people blow up some terrorist HQs, it does not instantly stop the terrorist threat to them, but that's because we don't have anything similar to CB in real world. The fact that when CB destroys several HQs of a terrorist group, it ceases to be any more threat to CB, is because of CB's abnormality. As far as I can see, it's the uniqueness of CB that enable them to defeat the terrorist threat to them (not neccesarily the entire terrorist organization) so easily and ensure that they won't face any terrorist threat without a centralized system.

Terrorist training camps aren't rare, but they're camps, made to blend with the environment somewhat and blowing them up won't hurt the organisation too much anyway. Terrorists don't build concrete bases with a bunch of tanks lying around standing out like Nelson Mandella at an Arian Nation jamboree.

Um... What so unique about CB exactly? They're not doing anything a bunch of attack helicopters couldn't do better, and CIA operatives are a whole lot more competent than Setsuna at following terrorists around.

The only reason CB are able to even hurt them is because they're cartoon terrorists. That is all.

[dreamless]

Originally Posted by Ninjacat

Terrorist training camps aren't rare, but they're camps, made to blend with the environment somewhat and blowing them up won't hurt the organisation too much anyway. Terrorists don't build concrete bases with a bunch of tanks lying around standing out like Nelson Mandella at an Arian Nation jamboree.

And that environmentalist group in Gundam 00 didn't build concrete bases with tanks lying around. they have a small forest camp and some mountain caves, and a boat, and some MS, and like I said before it looks like MS in the Gundam 00 universe are much more common than tanks in real world. There's also no indication that the terrorist group as a whole is severely hurt.

Um... What so unique about CB exactly? They're not doing anything a bunch of attack helicopters couldn't do better, and CIA operatives are a whole lot more competent than Setsuna at following terrorists around.

like I have explained, CB is a completely new thing to the world, both in concept and existence, so there can't be any existing large terrorist group that's against them. So for an environmentalist group to suddenly start attacks everywhere in the name of fighting against CB, there must be something behind them, and the orders must be sent top-down through some centralized command system. Thus it enable CB to defeat this therrorist threat to them easily.

The only reason CB are able to even hurt them is because they're cartoon terrorists. That is all.

Again, there's no indication that CB has severely hurt the environmentalist group as a whole at all. The only reason CB is able to stop the terrorist threat to them is because of the abnormality of CB's existence itself.

[idofgrahf]

ep was okay, the only thing I don't like is the characters should have remarked that they are no different then the terriorsts, (openly attacking established governments such as Union or HLR all while CB is not another nation, causing civilian casuities, both aims for terror, CB hopes to stop war via peoples fear of CB intervention, sounds like terriorsim to me) some one should have said that and point out the hypocracy of their anger, the conversation would have been more interesting that way.

I just noticed this but setsuna seem to be a horrible pilot, this is like the thrid time he got suprised by an enemy, the first time escaped from the Union, the second time, if it weren't for the fact his gundam was that much more powerful, its head would haven torn off by the HRL suit. I mean I could understand if say Setsuna was a civilian forced to fight and suck at piloting at the start of the show (Kamillie, Amuro, Loran etc) and have to depend on their suite, but his supose to be a pro and everytime he goes against another Ace he depends more on his superior suite than he does on his skill. There's little evidence that he could have beaten any of the other aces had he been using their suite (ie fair fight). I'm no fan of Gundam Wing, but Heero could hold his own against an opponent with comparable suite in a dual, but Setsuna seem to lack that skill.