Aldnoah.Zero - generic discussion thread

[Dr.]

Originally Posted by Kazu-kun

It has already been said Urobuchi only wrote the first three episodes (and this is a 24 episode series), and I think he didn't even do series composition (whoever is in charge of that is the lead writer). Basically they only hired him to have his name on the credits (you know, for the hype) but he's not all that involved in the project.

He created the series which implies he wrote the initial script. Writing an episode only means you're fitting the ideas from said script into a 22min. composition. The themes and such are still coming from Urobuchi.

[LystAP]

Originally Posted by Craxuan

It's pretty obvious that the Princess was:

Spoiler for wassssss:

Assassinated by her own people though. They wanted to fight the war a loooong time ago, but their 'honor' and 'loyalty' towards royalty is the only thing stopping them after their recovery.

I think the Princess will survive - usually these characters have plot armor. But then again, this is Uorobochi we're talking about.

Well, I presume it was an imperial edict that told the remaining Martian forces to retreat to Mars; they bluntly ignored it. That should have been the first sign to the Princess and those on Mars that their army in Earth orbit wasn't going to let "peace" come easily.

Although now with the only heir apparent to the throne dead, and the Emperor's almost guaranteed mental breakdown of the loss of his only grandchild; there will probably be a fair amount of politicking taking place on Mars.

[Irenesharda]

Originally Posted by LightningZERO

Information time!

Someone on the chinese board posted a summary of information obtained from the official website (there are some unlockable information in the website itself). While I can't verify the sources (I don't know how to unlock the official page's code game), the information is most probably real (with pics as well). This is my best translation.

Warning. While nothing major, they might spoil your enjoyment if you intend to learn about the world itself through watching the show. Oh, contain spoilers on the Princess's assasination.

Spoiler for A/Z:

The first relocated people found ancient technology on Mars and in 1982, under the lead of Ray Regalia, they rebelled against Earth and then declared themselves independent in 1985. Partly to retalliate against Earth governement for their relocation to Mars, which was difficult and unsecured, and to have the Aldnoah for themselves.

Pic below: Interior of VERS Empire and a photo captured of Mars surface (10.5.2014)


VERS prompty became a closed country once declared themselves independent. However, they explained that this was due to their unsuccessful negotiations with the earth government for the legality and the equality of their newly founded country, not an one sided close down on their side.

2014, the 30th anniversary of VERS empire, the total population has yet to exceed a million. As to why Professional Ray Regalia has such charisma to lead his people to rebel and form a country and why VERS decided to go with empire structure, it probably has something to do with the Aldnoah, and will be one of they key point of the show.

The first VERS Emperor is Ray Regalia, succeeded by his son Gillsaia. Princess Asseylum is Gillsaia's posthumous child. Until the second contender to the throne is announced, Asseylum remains the sole inheritor to the throne. Ray Regalia retired in 1997, but returned as the emperor after Gillsaia's death.

The 37 Mars Knights are appointed counts, they are armed nobels with Cataphracts. Known Knights are Saazbaum (the brown haired dude, 43) and Cruhteo (the blonde dude, 37, Saline's master) In 2002, once a route between MARS and Moon was established (Hyper gate destroyed in Heaven's Fall), the Mars army was ordered to retreat back to Mars. However, the 37 families refused the order and remained.

VERS, UFE flags, and the VERS Royal Family (plus Counts)


The discovery on Moon allowed the technology on Earth to accelerate. 1975, both eastern and western countries ended their cold war in order to proceed with the development of Mars. 1985, to counter the newly formed VERS Empire, nations used the UN as base to form UFE (United Forces of Earth). UFE used to have base on the Moon in the 90s until Heaven's Fall, and finally made their own Cataphracts in 2003.

1999, both army clashed on the moon as the battlefield, resulting the Heaven's Fall. Earth suffered heavy damage, with America and Australia suffered the worst. The total world population reduced by 50%. VERS military's supply was cut off, and both sides had to ceasefire. A peace treaty was signed in the following year. The situation on Earth was chaotic until 2007. Shown below is the world population report



After the war, VERS placed undercovers on Earth for information gathering. 2014, when the Princess decided to visit Earth, they planned for her assassination to initiate the second war. One of the agent involved in the assassination, Wolf Areash left this message: "This is my final report. If someone is reading this report, it means that I have already acted according to the plan, making an impact on this world...I will not return to this place. Glory to the VERS Empire".

The assassination plan




The school timetable. Military class is made compulsory. Students are educated in pilotting, shooting, wind reading etc.

The mecha in this anime is called Cataphract. Both sides have their own design philosphy. Cataphracts were first used by VERS in 1999. Mars' Cataphracts are huge and alien-ish designed. It is not known if they are designed by VERS themselves or are part of the ancient technology.



For UFE's Cataphracts, they were first rolled out in 2003. So far two types are known, KG6 (orange and the school training use) and KG7 (greenish and the newer model), both types are 13meter in height. Unlike the unique VERS' Cataphracts, Earth's Cataphracts are mass produced and used as main weapon and also training tools. Even VERS' undercover agents expressed their thoughts on Earth's Cataphracts as a threat in their reports.

An excerpt from the agent report dated 12th April:
"Using military vehicles as base and revolutionizing their own technology, UFE managed to build prototypes and then mass produced their own Cataphracts within a short 2 years period after the war ended. Not only they did it in such a short period, their Cataphracts were also used in riot suppression and peacekeeping, proving their capabilities. Of note is the UEF's large scale production capability, with huge supply of material and human resources. We should not let our guard down. Further investigations are necessary to assess the UFE's Cataphracts' performance in actual combat..."

UFE also have battleships that act as Cataphracts' carriers. It is not known if the UFE has space use battleships. Two earth side characters who have yet to appear are assigned to UFE Wadatsumi Base's 4th fleet.

Other info:

Slaine was born on Earth and together with his father who was a researcher, defected to VERS 5 years ago. The reason for the defection remains unknown. After his father died, Slaine worked under Cruchteo and assigned as one of Asseylum's educator.

The battle of Tanegashima, as mentioned by Marito, was wiped off in both UFE and VERS' records. The event was nonexistence in UFE's first war record, while on VERS side, only a short blurb was recorded: "During the war, we had a chance to let Mars Knights to land on Earth. But according to investigations, there are no records of any battles fought on Earth."

Originally posted by 佐々原三月

Some really fascinating stuff right there. At least we now know who was responsible for the assassination attempt. Also, it was nice to know that Earth isn't completely outmatched against Mars.

What I want to know if the stuff they glossed over, such as why exactly Slaine and his father defected to Mars? Who would really want to join a group where you're treated like dirt?

Also, it's interesting that everybody on both sides of the war wanted to hush up what happened in Tanegashima. I can expect the Earth to since they were outgunned, but I'm surprised that the Vers didn't want to praise the power of their almighty Aldnoah?

Also, despite the fact that the knights disobeyed the order to return to Mars, the princess and Cruheto didn't seem to have any problem with them being there. They didn't even mention it or treat them as if they were rebelling. Which leads me to believe that the government kind of looks the other way in that case.

However, also, now that we know their ages, it's even more strange that these counts would act how they do with Earth and how they suddenly completely separated themselves from the human race. Cruheto being 37 and Saazbaum being 43, both would have been around preteen to teen age when the Empire was formed, and while I guess you maybe could still brainwash a kid at that age, you can't tell me they're the oldest people in this society. They have to at least remember Earth. How can they now think of it as some mystical land they've only read about?

Some people are suggesting that maybe it's the influence of the alien tech on the people, which is a possibility.

[willyvereb]

Better approximation would be just that Urobutchi wanted to have a much larger drift of time between humanity and the Vers but due to executive meddling it was changed to 2014.
Makes more sense to me.

Overall don't think too hard about the timeline yet.
Just take in what you'll see.

[felix]

Ya the 2014 looks like more of a "okey guys we'll make really really obvious this is an alternative timeline okey?"

[DevilHighDxD]

Only 50 percent? I excepted more, human's population is at 6 billion on the year 1999 so about 3 billion left after Heaven's Fall.

[Anh_Minh]

Originally Posted by Moe Connection

Except they did send a war criminal to oversee the entire project, either due to the brilliance of the scientist or the UN's gross incompetence. It's not as though it's unknown the UN as an organization is deeply inefficient and failed catastrophically on a number of occasions(Rwanda e.g.).

That's how you know that:
- the UN isn't, despite conspiracy theorists' fears, the World Government;
- the powers that be don't actually care about Rwanda.

The discovery of the Hypergate is a "drop everything and jump on the wagon" moment. That's why the UN was able to get something out so fast, so well. Getting a slice of the pie was much more important than whatever petty bullshit they might have argued about. And it required at least a modicum of cooperation. The only thing more important was making sure they weren't left behind while others reaped the benefits.

Remember all the dickery that's taken place in the Middle East to ensure the oil would flow to the right hands. Now imagine if it had all of the oil, instead of just a large percentage of it. That's how the Mars' treasure trove should have been. But what do we get? They send some guy to take complete control, and tell him "we're going to give you whatever you need to get there, but then we won't care what you do, or if you send us oil at all. We won't even check if you dig some up. Whatever." That's completely implausible bullshit. Now, as it's just a show, it's not necessarily a deal breaker. I mean, mechs as war machines are implausible to start with, not to mention the Hypergate and all the rest. But still, I'm not going to accept it as plausible just because a cartoon said so.

Have you heard of people like Rolf Harris and Jimmy Savile? They were known as friends of children and honorable good men before their crimes were exposed, after abusing children for DECADES, all helped by their good name. In regards to Savile, no one even found out about his crimes until he was dead.Hence, monsters can mask their true nature if they are careful enough.

And that's how you know the Powers don't care about those two guys either or what they do either. Oh, sure, if they'd been caught earlier, they'd have faced the law and such. But the governments weren't going to spend millions to ensure that those two guys in particular weren't going to molest children. And hey, if Roy Whatshisname had just molested children, I could buy that he managed to more or less hide it. But developing a personality cult in secret, hoarding all the alien tech in secret, reverse engineer it in secret (when, again, all the relevant labs and people are on Earth)? No.

Politicians care more about votes than technological advancement due to some artifacts. In that regard, the economy, foreign affairs an domestic approval would be more important than technological finds in Mars.

The job of the NSA, or of those alleged Chinese hacking units, isn't to garner votes. States spy on each other, and on companies, all the time. And this? Well, it's a lot more important than the blueprints of the next iPhone.

Some people in the government would have had some oversight of the program, but they can hardly get any dirt if they remained on earth. The earthlings would have been happy if the colonists sent artifacts down to earth periodically. If artifacts keep rolling in, they will just see it as evidence that the scientist and everyone on Mars is doing their job well. They have no reason to suspect them at all. It's dumb, but people simply just get all over their heads as long as there's some resemblance of success.

No, they wouldn't be happy. They certainly wouldn't be happy with the information blackout you're describing.

What you're conveniently forgetting is that if they had the means to send 300,000 people up there, they have the logistics for regular physical contact (as in, people making the trip to Mars via the Moon and back). They also, most probably, had at least one Moon base to use as a staging area, housing a permanent staff and with room for guests. Between that and radios, even if communications were a bit slower than if only one planet was involved, there should have been plenty of back and forth.

The channels are open, except there's limited channels and most of them would be controlled by the project's leader, the scientist.

And why would they let that happen? If you've got spies, but they can't send reports, you have no spies. I don't get where you get that one guy would get absolute trust from everyone like that (West, East, everyone). Who do you think governs us? Carebears?

There's no reason to suspect the ulterior motivation of the scientist if he had a great reputation prior to leading the project.

Trust, but verify. If he somehow arranged for it to be difficult to verify, jump all the way over "suspect" and replace the guy.

As I've mentioned, communication devices that connect earth to Mars exists, but they would have be fairly limited. There would have been no reason to maintain large numbers of communication devices except for the absolute necessity as these things are expensive.

Radios are cheap. Send messages via the gate.

You seem to think one can send 300,000 people to the moon like one throws a bottle in the sea. And with as little care for what happens afterward. That's just not believable.

[Irenesharda]

Originally Posted by DevilHighDxD

Only 50 percent? I excepted more, human's population is at 6 billion on the year 1999 so about 3 billion left after Heaven's Fall.

I would think it would be more too. I mean, I think almost every major country lost their biggest most populated cities. America lost almost all of ours since practically all the main cities are on the coast or nearby. Canada also lost a lot. Australia lost Sydney and all of it's surrounding areas, China lost Shanghai (and it's about to lose Beijing too), Brazil basically lost Brazil, I think the UK lost London. All of those places are gone and yet somehow the world only lost 50%? I would have thought at least 75%.

And with all 19 of these ships touching down, I'd say we're going to lose another 10% or so. Beijing and Tokyo alone are going to be huge. New Orleans probably increased in size 10 fold after America was reduced to just the heartland and the south and southwest. So, we just lost that too. And I don't think poor Mozambique, or what's left of it, is going to survive it's castle drop.

[Cloudedmind]

Originally Posted by Irenesharda

I would think it would be more too. I mean, I think almost every major country lost their biggest most populated cities. America lost almost all of ours since practically all the main cities are on the coast or nearby. Canada also lost a lot. Australia lost Sydney and all of it's surrounding areas, China lost Shanghai (and it's about to lose Beijing too), Brazil basically lost Brazil, I think the UK lost London. All of those places are gone and yet somehow the world only lost 50%? I would have thought at least 75%.

And with all 19 of these ships touching down, I'd say we're going to lose another 10% or so. Beijing and Tokyo alone are going to be huge. New Orleans probably increased in size 10 fold after America was reduced to just the heartland and the south and southwest. So, we just lost that too. And I don't think poor Mozambique, or what's left of it, is going to survive it's castle drop.

Yeah, I think they just went with 50 percent because it "sounded good" without anyone really delving into how many people actually live in the areas that were affected.

[LostSome]

Originally Posted by Irenesharda

I would think it would be more too. I mean, I think almost every major country lost their biggest most populated cities. America lost almost all of ours since practically all the main cities are on the coast or nearby. Canada also lost a lot. Australia lost Sydney and all of it's surrounding areas, China lost Shanghai (and it's about to lose Beijing too), Brazil basically lost Brazil, I think the UK lost London. All of those places are gone and yet somehow the world only lost 50%? I would have thought at least 75%.

And with all 19 of these ships touching down, I'd say we're going to lose another 10% or so. Beijing and Tokyo alone are going to be huge. New Orleans probably increased in size 10 fold after America was reduced to just the heartland and the south and southwest. So, we just lost that too. And I don't think poor Mozambique, or what's left of it, is going to survive it's castle drop.

Unless they somehow had enough time to find where the biggest impacts would happen and evacuate, but it is hard to believe.

I have to ask... What exactly can destroy the Rocky and the Himalayas, but not humanity ?
The Canadian Shield have several scars of major meteor impacts, but it still standing...Whatever was strong enough to destroy half of it must have melt the ice cap in an instant !

[Irenesharda]

Originally Posted by LostSome

Unless they somehow had enough time to find where the biggest impacts would happen and evacuate, but it is hard to believe.

I have to ask... What exactly can destroy the Rocky and the Himalayas, but not humanity ?
The Canadian Shield have several scars of major meteor impacts, but it still standing...Whatever was strong enough to destroy half of it must have melt the ice cap in an instant !

I don't think the Rockies are gone, are they? I think some of them are still there. The Appalachians are gone though.

According to the episode, all of this damage was caused by "meteor impacts, gravity wave-induced crustal deformation, earthquakes, tsunami, and abnormal weather"

Even if humanity was to survive all of that, with all of this damage, it still amazes me that they could even have a functioning government and military, considering the huuuuge recovery effort that would be needed.

[LostSome]

Originally Posted by Irenesharda

I don't think the Rockies are gone, are they? I think some of them are still there. The Appalachians are gone though.

According to the episode, all of this damage was caused by "meteor impacts, gravity wave-induced crustal deformation, earthquakes, tsunami, and abnormal weather"

Even if humanity was to survive all of that, with all of this damage, it still amazes me that they could even have a functioning government and military, considering the huuuuge recovery effort that would be needed.

Yeah... Oh well, since it looks good, I wouldn`t waste too much time on something like "logic".
Those falling castles are logic breaking enough.

[Sute443]

Originally Posted by Irenesharda

According to the episode, all of this damage was caused by "meteor impacts, gravity wave-induced crustal deformation, earthquakes, tsunami, and abnormal weather"

Even if humanity was to survive all of that, with all of this damage, it still amazes me that they could even have a functioning government and military, considering the huuuuge recovery effort that would be needed.

While yes, the recovery effort would have to be huge no matter what, I think the plausibility of the casualty count and whether or not any governments could survive strongly depends on just how quickly all the damage was done, and on what caused it. If it was all caused by a few big meteor impacts, then yeah, humanity on Earth shouldn't have survived. But, on the other hand...

If it was done piecemeal by a bunch of smaller meteors spread out over the course of the conflict? After the first few meteors hit, we'd probably see a lot of people evacuating (or at least sending their children) to the countryside like was done in Britain during WWII. That would significantly reduce the casualty count.

Even things like tsunamis and earthquakes wouldn't have reduced the population that much in comparison to meteors. The 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Japan killed and injured about 25000 people over 20 prefectures, which is somewhat more than 10% of the population of the city of Fukushima, a single city in one of those 20 prefectures. It was still a horrible, horrible event, but the casualty rate was far below 50%. Depending on how much of the coastal redrawing was done by earthquakes and tsunamis rather than meteors (I'm thinking mostly in the areas that look less affected), it could seriously reduce the casualty rate.

Abnormal weather? It could cause famines that would kill a lot of people, but it's unlikely that a large percentage of people would be killed directly by abnormal weather (Please note that when talking about billions of people, even a few million isn't a huge number).

And then we have gravity wave-induced crustal deformation. We don't know how that would work. It might have given people enough time to evacuate from the areas that were destroyed.

Sure, we'll probably see Heaven's Fall turn out to be a single massive event that should have killed everyone on Earth, but for now we don't have enough information to say that a 50% global casualty rate is implausible.

[bakato]

Originally Posted by Moe Connection

Except they did send a war criminal to oversee the entire project, either due to the brilliance of the scientist or the UN's gross incompetence.

War criminal? Where did you get that?

[MeggieMay]

Originally Posted by Irenesharda

I don't think the Rockies are gone, are they? I think some of them are still there. The Appalachians are gone though.

Irene, your maps gone as of 7:15PM CT U.S. - all that's showing up in your original link is a 4Chan.org jpg Could you please either repost the picture or give out a way to find it that can get around the hot linking problem? I'd really like to see the map.

[bakato]

Hey. I just rechecked the timeline. This is supposed to be 2014, but that New Orleans scene said 2005. What gives?

[ankgembala]

Originally Posted by bakato

Hey. I just rechecked the timeline. This is supposed to be 2014, but that New Orleans scene said 2005. What gives?

2005 CDT...
that's military term for 20:05
and CDT stands for "Central Daylight Time"

[bakato]

Originally Posted by ankgembala

2005 CDT...
that's military term for 20:05
and CDT stands for "Central Daylight Time"

Oh. I thought that CDT was weird.

[MeggieMay]

Originally Posted by ankgembala

2005 CDT...
that's military term for 20:05
and CDT stands for "Central Daylight Time"

So 8:05PM CDT. Ok, I thought it was dark out - what time of year was this suppose to be set in again? I'd say something more about the fact it's roughly that time right this second for me and the suns still shining but I live about 60 miles from Central/Mountain timezone and if timezones in the U.S. weren't politically set (i.e. you get to vote on moving them if you want/need to - they aren't strictly enforced to the medians) I should be in Mountain. The sun never rises and sets correctly for me because of this (it really gets to me if I travel to places like Chicago or California because I personally pick up on the fact the sun is going down at the wrong time ).

[Iron Maw]

Originally Posted by Moe Connection

Well, as the material mentioned, the Earthlings managed to cut the colonists' supply lines while at the same time killed their emperor.Meanwhile, they lost 50% of their population. On numbers alone, the damage to earthlings would have been greater, but since there's less than a million colonists, damage to Martian society would have been pretty catastrophic.

If you're talking about their bases on the moon, VERs did reestablish contact and travel between them. So I don't see why the Empire didn't continue their invasion plans especially given how much MUCH worse off the earth is compared to them.