Gundam Seed/Seed Destiny General Discussion Thread

[Rising Dragon]

Originally Posted by monster

The UCP does not involve cloning.

I was referring to how Hibiki funded the project by creating clones, which is already a clearly problematic practice in SEED, given how Rau turned out. It wasn't the focus of the UCP itself, but very clearly connected to it.

[monster]

Originally Posted by Rising Dragon

I was referring to how Hibiki funded the project by creating clones, which is already a clearly problematic practice in SEED, given how Rau turned out. It wasn't the focus of the UCP itself, but very clearly connected to it.

Ah, right. Although, Hibiki and the people that worked for him probably wouldn't advertise the connection.

[Rising Dragon]

Yes, but given that the whole thing was illegal and nine kinds of wrong, they weren't going to advertise any of it. What Hibiki did was barbaric (though I feel he may have SOME redeeming qualities as a person).

As far as the initial Coordinator project... it probably wasn't as dangerous or awful as is being suggested. There's clear advances in science by then, and as it stands we're already doing genetic manipulations this day and age, so the team that put together George Glenn probably knew what they were doing.

It most certainly wouldn't have had the appalling failure rate as the UCP did. How many fetuses died for those two children?

[monster]

Originally Posted by Rising Dragon

Yes, but given that the whole thing was illegal and nine kinds of wrong, they weren't going to advertise any of it. What Hibiki did was barbaric (though I feel he may have SOME redeeming qualities as a person).

His failures and the cloning aside, I think Hibiki was going to advertise the UCP itself to the PLANTs once he feels it's ready, along with Kira and any other successes he might have made after Kira.

[S.Freedom]

Yeah but how much blood would have to be spilled before it became reliable enough to advertise even through back channels to PLANT's?

I mean from what I can remember, it took several hundred deaths to achieve just one success(Kira). And even that felt more like blind luck than an actual technical advance that could be successfully reproduced.

[monster]

Well, I've always had the theory that the reason Kira was a success was because Hibiki noticed something in Al da Flaga's gene which he then spliced into Kira, which could explain Kira's connection to them.

But, I guess we'll never know how much of a success the project ended up becoming. It certainly doesn't seem like the project was continued by any of the other scientists/researchers that were working on it (assuming they weren't all killed at Mendel).

[kaito-kid]

^ They were all killed at Mendel. But of someone were to give it another go, I guess things would be a little easier because now there is a living working example.. At the very least it would be motivating to know that it can be done.

[monster]

Originally Posted by kaito-kid

^ They were all killed at Mendel. But of someone were to give it another go, I guess things would be a little easier because now there is a living working example.. At the very least it would be motivating to know that it can be done.

Spoiler for Bogart, potentially:

I was thinking Durandal might have been one, which could explain why he was at Mendel, his connection to Rau and Rey, and possibly the Canard incident. Although I suppose he could've just been working somewhere else at Mendel and his connection with Rau is what informed him of Kira.

Also, I think only a few people should know about Kira.

[kaito-kid]

Originally Posted by monster

Spoiler for Bogart, potentially:

I was thinking Durandal might have been one, which could explain why he was at Mendel, his connection to Rau and Rey, and possibly the Canard incident. Although I suppose he could've just been working somewhere else at Mendel and his connection with Rau is what informed him of Kira.

Also, I think only a few people should know about Kira.

Spoiler for Bogart:

I'm pretty sure, Durandal was not involved in that project. I think it was explained in the manga (?) that he was an associate of Kira's father, but nothing more was implied.

I don't think he was as passionate about gene manipulation as dr. Hibiki was. And since he abandoned the field in favor of politics, I think he would have been a little out of his depth to have worked on something as complex as the ultimate coordinator project.

[monster]

Originally Posted by kaito-kid

Spoiler for Bogart:

I'm pretty sure, Durandal was not involved in that project. I think it was explained in the manga (?) that he was an associate of Kira's father, but nothing more was implied.

I don't think he was as passionate about gene manipulation as dr. Hibiki was. And since he abandoned the field in favor of politics, I think he would have been a little out of his depth to have worked on something as complex as the ultimate coordinator project.

Spoiler:

Now that you mention it, Durandal was actually in a good position to have restarted the project in secret, regardless of whether he actually worked on it. He somehow knew about the project and he had the connections/power as leader of the PLANTs. With his talk about Kira's wasted potential and his supposed knowledge of genetic, possibly helped by the Destiny system, he could've decided to make his own that would be truly superior. Add in a little cloning hyper-growth, and we could have our antagonist for the supposed movie.

[Bogart]

So I guess I'm finally entering the more controversial waters of Destiny by this point.

Lacus jacking Meer's shuttle was a riot. I especially liked it when Kira buzzed the control tower. I keep reading that people think Kira was very robotic in Destiny, but if you ask me, he's had considerable more fun so far than he ever did in Seed. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that he's probably the third or fourth character in the series that's actually enjoyed himself (without being evil that is lol). Meer and Luna are "fun" characters and while that often comes at Athrun's expense, they at least enjoy themselves.

Everyone else in the series is terribly conflicted, indecisive, and completely unable to relax. Kira is practically a calm in the storm by comparison, and he actually gets scenes where he cracks jokes or is actually happy to have people around him. Notable examples include the Kidnapping, Lacus stealing the shuttle, delivering Miri to the Archangel, fixing Haro for Lacus...

Anyway, I guess the next major event was the 2nd battle with Orb's forces. This one was much more catastrophic. Minerva was getting pounded pretty bad when Archangel arrived. Rey got his Zaku KO'd and Minerva was left wide open for a Murasame's attack (even though Luna was standing right next to it lol). I guess they wanted to convey that Archangel's arrival prevented the Minerva from sinking at that point, but between Shinn and Athrun, they might have been okay anyway.

Cagalli's now left with no choice but to return to Orb if she wants to fix the situation there, which is good. I wish I could say there were manly tears when the carrier's crew and Cagalli were apologizing to each other, but despite the obvious sentiment and the fact that the scene does in fact work all things considered, it's just damn irritating that this is all Cagalli has managed to do for the past 30 episodes. Cry a lot and watch things happen.

What good is a leader if no one listens to you? That's basically her in a nutshell, and it's just bad that there is nothing she can do. She has no one she can turn to. She has no one she can blame. She's just an honest to goodness failure. Even if she wanted to blame Yuna, it's her fault for letting him be in that position in the first place.

She did try, but all that entails is her giving an angry speech, and backing down when no one is moved. And while that's understandable and even believable, it's hardly entertaining lol

So Shinn's pretty deplorable. Stella kills millions of people and all he cares about is saving her. He accuses everyone of being heartless for not sympathizing with her, even though decisions have to be made and there was not a whole lot that could be done for her.

He's smart enough to understand the big picture, but he's ruled entirely by what he wants and what he thinks at any given moment. And he's ENTIRELY UNAPOLOGETIC ABOUT IT! He releases a super soldier back into enemy custody, completely disregarding that this is treason not just as a technicality, but he's in fact granting material aid to the enemy. Everyone that Stella kills from that point on is his fault, and it doesn't matter one bit if someone else would have piloted the Destroy instead.

And now he's blaming Kira for what happened to Stella. I get that Shinn thinks he was getting through to her, that he'd miraculously talked her down after almost everyone else on the battlefield was killed, but the fact is if Freedom and Archangel had not been there, Minerva and Shinn would probably have died or been forced to kill Stella.

Neo and Sting as well as the rest of the EA presence in the area would have been too much for them to deal with alone. Supposing they did manage to defeat them, Stella wouldn't forgive Shinn for killing Neo. And if it had been Minerva that killed Neo, Stella would have gone after them instead. Best case scenario, Shinn kills Stella without ever knowing it.

And that leaves us with Operation Angel Down. I've only got two nit-picks.

1.) Kira didn't use most of his weapons, even though he loves his rail guns and plasma cannons. He also loves dual wielding his beam sabers, and mainly only uses the shield when he's in a shoot out. It's almost like the one piloting the Freedom in this battle wasn't even Kira.

2.) I guess it's possible that Minerva has spares, but I was under the impression that Impulse only carried one of each pack for Impulse. Yet Impulse was able to replace the Force-pack, as well as the chest flyer. They've got enough weapons and parts for 3 other mobile suits just sitting around inside of Minerva for Impulse alone.

It might not be so terrible if the expectation was that eventually everyone would fly the Impulse, and that Impulse-based Mobile Suits would only use the impulse catapult system to repair battle damage, while suits were otherwise launched from the conventional catapults as per the norm, but it gives me such a headache that Minerva has more pilots than it knows what to do with and the only thing keeping them grounded are the lack of cockpits.

Anyway, it seems that Shinn is finally transitioning into being a destroyer like Athrun warned him about.

[Gundamx]

real reason: they need Kira to lose in anime but don't know how, so they downgrade his speed and power, also forbidden him from using most of his weapons and fighting style

anime reason: they don't want ZAFT to make another fake movie and this time have them as villain
(example: Destroy battle)

so they didn't attack back while Kira was hesitant and in manga they show him hallucination little in middle of battle
(see Athrun instead of shin which increases his hesitating)

[Bogart]

Originally Posted by Gundamx

anime reason: they don't want ZAFT to make another fake movie and this time have them as villain
(example: Destroy battle)

so they didn't attack back while Kira was hesitant and in manga they show him hallucination little in middle of battle
(see Athrun instead of shin which increases his hesitating)

Kira was using his full arsenal against the other suits that attacked before Minerva arrived. Against Shinn though he held back even more than he usually does. I can appreciate that Shinn put in a lot of effort and made use of the tools he had, but Kira was hardly showing his best. He didn't even start shooting back at Shinn until half-way into the battle, when Kira's never been inhibited about shooting at someone that's shooting at him.

[Bogart]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=np0BN...tailpage#t=325

So is this meant to show that Luna knows it's all bullshit, but she knows there really isn't any way out for her? Or is she actually convinced that Athrun betrayed them? That Athrun knew the chairman wasn't trust-worthy and in the end decided to side with his friends out of spite? Or something?

Either way, Athrun had more cause to kill Kira in Seed than Shinn had to kill Meyrin and both Cagalli and Lacus were quite harsh on him. Yet here's Luna seeking mutual comfort with the guy that murdered his sister. This is more screwed up than Flay's manipulation of Kira. Grief is a strange thing or are they still trying to portray Shinn as sympathetic somehow? Because seriously, fuck this guy...

[Obelisk ze Tormentor]

Originally Posted by Bogart

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=np0BN...tailpage#t=325

So is this meant to show that Luna knows it's all bullshit, but she knows there really isn't any way out for her? Or is she actually convinced that Athrun betrayed them? That Athrun knew the chairman wasn't trust-worthy and in the end decided to side with his friends out of spite? Or something?

Either way, Athrun had more cause to kill Kira in Seed than Shinn had to kill Meyrin and both Cagalli and Lacus were quite harsh on him. Yet here's Luna seeking mutual comfort with the guy that murdered his sister. This is more screwed up than Flay's manipulation of Kira. Grief is a strange thing or are they still trying to portray Shinn as sympathetic somehow? Because seriously, fuck this guy...

Yup Yup. Shinn aside, the writing in Destiny is pretty bad especially for the second half of the show. Some defenders of Shinn argued that, since the beginning, Shinn really is designed to be hated (aka. a fallen protagonist like the one in Death Note), but I personally think the writer is a bit confused about what they want to do with him later in the show.

[cyberdemon]

Originally Posted by Bogart

2.) I guess it's possible that Minerva has spares, but I was under the impression that Impulse only carried one of each pack for Impulse. Yet Impulse was able to replace the Force-pack, as well as the chest flyer. They've got enough weapons and parts for 3 other mobile suits just sitting around inside of Minerva for Impulse alone.

In all likelihood, the Impulse's main purpose in it's creation was for Gil to get rid of Kira. It is a mobile suit basically tailored to fighting against Kira's style. Durandal was clearly eyeing to remove both Kira and Lacus from the picture as early as he could. It is likely that he had plenty of spare parts sent to the Minerva for this battle alone figuring it would likely still be needed. Despite that it still took the dumbing down of Kira for Shinn to win.

[Bogart]

Originally Posted by Obelisk ze Tormentor

Yup Yup. Shinn aside, the writing in Destiny is pretty bad especially for the second half of the show. Some defenders of Shinn argued that, since the beginning, Shinn really is designed to be hated (aka. a fallen protagonist like the one in Death Note), but I personally think the writer is a bit confused about what they want to do with him later in the show.

He was fine in my opinion right up until he started freaking out over killing Athrun and Meyrin and Luna not caring that he killed her sister. At this point I want to hate the guy, but they're really forcing that he's just being manipulated and somehow not accountable for being a huge asshole that's partially responsible for the deaths of millions and derailment of a well-liked character from the previous series.

If he was going to be a classless jerk that would gloat over killing someone's best friend, the least the writers can do is follow through on it.

[kakakka]

Originally Posted by Bogart

Kira was using his full arsenal against the other suits that attacked before Minerva arrived. Against Shinn though he held back even more than he usually does. I can appreciate that Shinn put in a lot of effort and made use of the tools he had, but Kira was hardly showing his best. He didn't even start shooting back at Shinn until half-way into the battle, when Kira's never been inhibited about shooting at someone that's shooting at him.

From what I remmeber, he held back because he (and the rest of Archangel crew) knew they were being watched and branded as aggressors, so they decided to held it back just enough so they can retreat.

[Rising Dragon]

Originally Posted by kakakka

From what I remmeber, he held back because he (and the rest of Archangel crew) knew they were being watched and branded as aggressors, so they decided to held it back just enough so they can retreat.

Not a viable excuse and everyone knows it. In that battle Kira suddenly only knew how to use a beam saber and a beam rifle and that was it. It was like he completely forgot he had four extra cannons on the Freedom, and after the first set of parts switching on the Impulse, he should've realized he was better off destroying the Flyers as they came in to rebuild the Impulse.

No matter which way you look at it, no matter how nice the actual battle looked, they had to dumb Kira down to give Shinn a chance at winning.

[Aquaman OS]

One can argue he just got careless until Shinn took off one of Freedom's wings, at which point he was unlikely to win at that point.

Of course in the end yes plot took over to get Freedom destroyed, because SF was coming and also to keep Kira from interfering in

Spoiler for Bogart doesn't know about this yet:

In the invasion of Orb until it was too late to stop it.

Just like how both Kira and Athrun inexplicably kept letting the druggie trio live in Seed until the finale, or how Athrun Yzak and Dearka only disabled the Extendeds during Junius Seven even though that's not usually Athrun's style, and never was for Yzak and Dearka.

Had Kira not be writer overridden to lose, he could have just dove into the water, where his infinite PS would have kept him safe from Shinn who would have been limited to solid weapons only if he chose to follow him underwater.

Like everything in Destiny there was better ways to do this.