Suisei no Gargantia - Episode 9 Discussion / Poll

[Funkatron]

Bravo, Urobuchi.

How intelligent are the whalesquids? They were once human but has their
intelligence regressed over time?

Also this makes me think the eugenics aspect of the GA is an alternative to the genetic manipulation of the Evolvers. They need only the best because the best will breed the best and will ensure survival in space. Weak offspring are "disposed of" so that their weak genes don't propagate to future generations. The war not only protects their ideals but it shifts the wheat: the best come back, have kids and create a next generation of fighters.

Both sides are pretty scary, imho

[Libros]

Originally Posted by Revan21

Episode 9

I have to admit I did not see this development coming.

Spoiler for Revelation:

Sure, it was easy to guess that it was humanity who created the Hideauze but to think that they were actually modified humans too. Totally unbelievable, if you ask me. No one in their right mind, or at least not many would agree to turn themself into sem hideous creature just so they can live in outer space, not even on the brink of extinction.

And the irony is that the Galactic Fleet has already proven that humans can live in space for centuries, so that leaves the Hideauze experiment an entirely unnecessary one :P

Not totally unnecessary. The Hideauze get to explore space without a Mech/space suit & apparently since they're supposed to last for long stretches of time in space, they may live longer than regular humans too?

[Mangaka-chan]

Holy c!@#, we just got a load of PLOT dropped on us. o_0

[Helius]

Originally Posted by Libros

Not totally unnecessary. The Hideauze get to explore space without a Mech/space suit & apparently since they're supposed to last for long stretches of time in space, they may live longer than regular humans too?

All at the "expense" of becoming what they've become...

[mikeomni]

Originally Posted by Endless Knackwurst

..snip...
Which raises the question of whether the whalesquid of Gargantia's time are able to create the humanoid whalesquid on their own or... if people from the surface are being merged into whalesquid—and in that case, whether that's voluntary or not.

Well, that thoroughly answers the question posed by the freeze-frame bonus whalesquid butt shot from a couple of episodes ago.

Ledo/Chamber conflict looms. It was interesting that Chamber would defer to Ledo wanting to see the video, but went completely autonomous with regard to squishing Ika Musume (nod to the image thread here).

Next issue: We know that the Evolvers planned to go through the wormhole gate and then blow it up, but the Continental Union managed to get around that somehow (and became the Galactic Alliance). Obvious remaining question is whether the gate really did get blown up, because that part is left off of the end of the video.

I had a thought GA vs Hideauze was a human against human turf war, but that was like rank 10 on my list of possibilities. Mind blown!

Spoiler for Speculation:

Now what would be even more mind blowing is if the burial at sea from the previous episode has a link to the Whalesquid's reproduction. Maybe Grandpa Fairlock gets reborn as a whalesquid ... or at least his body does.

[Libros]

Originally Posted by Helius

All at the "expense" of becoming what they've become...

That is true.

[Funkatron]

I seriously doubt the GA does cloning and/or genetic manipulation now because it'd be too close to what the Evolvers did. This isn't just defeat all monsters; this is a friggin holy/race/tribe war against people who gave up their humanity.

[Revan21]

Originally Posted by Helius

All at the "expense" of becoming what they've become...

Not worth it.

I, and I would suspect most of humanity, would rather die on our backwater planet than become spaceslugs

[Awrya]

So the Galactic Alliance is the Evolver faction and the Hideauzu are the ones that wanted to leave the rest of humanity behind?
Episode with shocking information.

Do Hideauze still have human intelligence and are capable of communication? Maybe the reason earth language was regarded as an ancient language is because they tried to prevent any communication between Hideauze and their soldiers and introduced a new language?
Do they even remember why conflict has started?

Just wondering, did Ledo kill the brood mother of that nest?

[apotheosis]

Great episode after some doldroms in the sea of Gargantia. No foreshadowing of humans ~= whalesquid, so that was quite a shock!

The battle ... the flashback ... the discovery all added up to the tension and intrigueing SF premise that I looked forward to after episode 1. Ledo's "oh noes, don't kill that whalesquid!!!" was a bit interesting of a total reverse course at the end, but it shows he has at least changed some due to the time spent on Gargantia & will consider things himself instead of just believing the official line. I'd have expected him to be a bit more skeptical or need more time to consider whether it was true or not .. but it made a fine cliffhanger ending.

This episode raises a ton of questions:

Have the space Hideauze lost what it means to be human as much as/more than the Galactic Alliance? They don't seem particularly intelligent, communicative or empathic in episode 1. I suppose they could have bred different classes that have more/less self awareness though. Maybe we are just seeing the battle drones?

How intelligent are the Hideauze that are on Earth? If they were human-merged, wouldn't they want to communicate with the peaceful seeming humans left on Earth? (or maybe this was tried and failed and we'll get another flashback for it).

The other possibility is that these Hideauze are not human merged & are just intelligent helpers, like the ones shown early in the video. If that is the case, maybe they are around the old lab because it's an ancestral spawning ground.

The Hideauze that was crushed at the end though, looked exactly like the one in the video (which it implied was human merged) ... but it didn't seem to try to communicate at all. One would think if it was human merged, it wouldn't just wander into Chamber's range after their whole base was annihilated?

Also .. they showed all kinds of Hideauze & clearly stated the Evolvers were into genetic modification, so clearly they continued to change their genetics as they evolved on earth and in space. So ... why did the genetic test come back "identical" for modern space Hideaze vs Whalesquiid??

[Funkatron]

Originally Posted by Awrya

So the Galactic Alliance is the Evolver faction and the Hideauzu are the ones that wanted to leave the rest of humanity behind?
Episode with shocking information.

Do Hideauze still have human intelligence and are capable of communication? Maybe the reason earth language was regarded as an ancient language is because they tried to prevent any communication between Hideauze and their soldiers and introduced a new language?
Do they even remember why conflict has started?

Just wondering, did Ledo kill the brood mother of that nest?

I thought the evolvers are the ones who turned into Hideauze?

[Theo]

So the Hideous are (a little) sympathetic, but I also liked they were portrayed as conquerors as well and not just generic "we misunderstood them waaaah".

There is no peace amongst the stars.

[Libros]

Originally Posted by Funkatron

I thought the evolvers are the ones who turned into Hideauze?

That's right. Also, am I the only one wondering how that huge Hideauze that Ledo fought was made? I mean, the way Elaine & the other whalesquids looked like compared to it. It has, what look like eggs in it's head?. Speaking of Elaine, why did she still look so human and not squid-like like the rest of the Hideauze and Whale squids.

[Mangaka-chan]

Originally Posted by apotheosis

Have the space Hideauze lost what it means to be human as much as/more than the Galactic Alliance? They don't seem particularly intelligent, communicative or empathic in episode 1. I suppose they could have bred different classes that have more/less self awareness though. Maybe we are just seeing the battle drones?

How intelligent are the Hideauze that are on Earth? If they were human-merged, wouldn't they want to communicate with the peaceful seeming humans left on Earth? (or maybe this was tried and failed and we'll get another flashback for it).

The other possibility is that these Hideauze are not human merged & are just intelligent helpers, like the ones shown early in the video. If that is the case, maybe they are around the old lab because it's an ancestral spawning ground.

The Hideauze that was crushed at the end though, looked exactly like the one in the video (which it implied was human merged) ... but it didn't seem to try to communicate at all. One would think if it was human merged, it wouldn't just wander into Chamber's range after their whole base was annihilated?

Also .. they showed all kinds of Hideauze & clearly stated the Evolvers were into genetic modification, so clearly they continued to change their genetics as they evolved on earth and in space. So ... why did the genetic test come back "identical" for modern space Hideaze vs Whalesquiid??

I think the space and the ocean Hideaze are one species but are different breeds adapted to different environments, much like how dogs have evolved to handle different environments and tasks.

As for why the whalesquids can't communicate with humans, maybe the genetic merger process changed their physiology to such an extent that mutually comprehensible communication between humans and whalesquid are no longer possible? That might also explain why the GA and Hideaze cannot negotiate with one another, because the avenue of communication was so dissimilar.

I don't think the squidling that Chamber crushed was a recent merger between a human and a whalesquid. It's shown that the whalesquid go through embryogenesis with distinct vertebrate-like characteristics, so the squidling is just a juvenile whalesquid who has yet to fully acquire the gastropod-like features of an adult. This is actually a point I really like about the episode, to show that even though humans and whalesquids look very different now on the embryonic level things still harken back to a time before the evolutionary lines diverged.

[aohige]

Originally Posted by Mangaka-chan

I think the space and the ocean Hideaze are one species but are different breeds adapted to different environments, much like how dogs have evolved to handle different environments and tasks.

As for why the whalesquids can't communicate with humans, maybe the genetic merger process changed their physiology to such an extent that mutually comprehensible communication between humans and whalesquid are no longer possible? That might also explain why the GA and Hideaze cannot negotiate with one another, because the avenue of communication was so dissimilar.

I don't think the squidling that Chamber crushed was a recent merger between a human and a whalesquid. It's shown that the whalesquid go through embryogenesis with distinct vertebrate-like characteristics, so the squidling is just a juvenile whalesquid who has yet to fully acquire the gastropod-like features of an adult. This is actually a point I really like about the episode, to show that even though humans and whalesquids look very different now on the embryonic level things still harken back to a time before the evolutionary lines diverged.

Well, the fact that they breed on the exact same place where the prototype squids were researched, I do not think they are the exact same species as Hidearuze.

The squid-girl that got squashed at the end looked just like the prototypes in the videos.
The "Whale-Squids" are most likely, IMO, the descendants of the prototypes, created at the laboratory.

The Space-squids a.k.a Hideauze are a hybrid of humans and the above creature. Matsumoto was the first of its kind, and obviously highly intelligent and galactically territorial.

The whale-squids may have some human genes to make them "adaptive" to humans (since their purpose is to merge with humans to become the Evolvers), but probably lack human intelligence due to them being, well, mostly super-squids gene.

[apotheosis]

Originally Posted by Mangaka-chan

I think the space and the ocean Hideaze are one species but are different breeds adapted to different environments, much like how dogs have evolved to handle different environments and tasks.

I agree, but the different breeds of dogs are not 100% geneticaly identical. Even individual dogs of the same breed are not 100% genetically identical. I guess they just meant the creatures had some sort of Hideaze genetic marker, rather than really being identical *shrugs*

Originally Posted by Mangaka-chan

As for why the whalesquids can't communicate with humans, maybe the genetic merger process changed their physiology to such an extent that mutually comprehensible communication between humans and whalesquid are no longer possible? That might also explain why the GA and Hideaze cannot negotiate with one another, because the avenue of communication was so dissimilar.

That seems like a good explanation. But you'd also think space is vast enough, that they could just go separate ways? Particularly if the Hideaze can live anywhere in space without the need for suits/etc .. I guess the GA's tech is one of the best sources of "nutrients" for the Hideaze though.

Originally Posted by Mangaka-chan

I don't think the squidling that Chamber crushed was a recent merger between a human and a whalesquid. It's shown that the whalesquid go through embryogenesis with distinct vertebrate-like characteristics, so the squidling is just a juvenile whalesquid who has yet to fully acquire the gastropod-like features of an adult. This is actually a point I really like about the episode, to show that even though humans and whalesquids look very different now on the embryonic level things still harken back to a time before the evolutionary lines diverged.

Good point. It would be really like to find a juvenile around the babies too, I suppose.

[mikeomni]

Originally Posted by Theo

So the Hideous are (a little) sympathetic, but I also liked they were portrayed as conquerors as well and not just generic "we misunderstood them waaaah".

There is no peace amongst the stars.

The conflict between the GA and Hideauze in space probably changed way beyond the original conflict in beliefs. They're also competing for the same resources and they've both lost some of their humanity. In their hate and desire to survive they chased each other across the stars for hundreds of years. On one side they've made themselves alien. On the other they've formed a draconian society fueled by genetic intolerance that would make the Nazis proud. The only "true" humans left are those that live on Earth. They are flawed, technologically backward and trapped into subsistence living but moral and happy. It makes the watcher think about which path for humanity they would choose.

[Funkatron]

Originally Posted by mikeomni

The conflict between the GA and Hideauze in space probably changed way beyond the original conflict in beliefs. They're also competing for the same resources and they've both lost some of their humanity. In their hate and desire to survive they chased each other across the stars for hundreds of years. On one side they've made themselves alien. On the other they've formed a draconian society fueled by genetic intolerance that would make the Nazis proud. The only "true" humans left are those that live on Earth. They are flawed, technologically backward and trapped into subsistence living but moral and happy. It makes the watcher think about which path for humanity they would choose.

Makes sense. All this time, we thought there were only 2 ways of living (GA vs Gargantia ) when there was a third way that was in front of us the whole time (Hideauze)

[Freeter]

Spoiler for ep 9:

Was that Amy in the video? It might explain why she doesn't have any parents on Gargantia...

[Dop]

Excellent.

Spoiler for episode 9:

I had been suspecting that the Hideauze were just 'uplifted' whale squids, but this is just so much better.

So you had the Evolvers, who decided that if man was to go into space it should not be in tin cans, but they should become a spacefaring species and so merged with the symbiont, a kind of ur-whalesquid and eventually become known the Hideauze.

Then the Continental Union, who are racial purists who want to keep the human race pure, and my guess is they eventually became the Galactic Alliance.

So maybe the humans left on earth represent a third way - who decided to stay behind and tough it out (in a kind of Dr. Strangelove way)?

The evolvers left behind probably became weaker where the ones who went into space evolved further and became stronger.

But what about this wormhole generator? Will it still be there or did it get blown up?

Yes! Some decent science fiction.