Suisei no Gargantia - generic discussion thread

[Xion Valkyrie]

Actually, Ledo isn't really like Sagara (start of the story), Heero, or Setsuna. All of those guys are basically robots who can only follow orders, with almost no independent thought until much later in the story.

Ledo is shown to be much more independent than all of them and has his own ideas and methods of doing things. All of those guys are also gun-ho serious 100% of the time (Heero and Setsuna especially) while Ledo seems to be more of the carefree sort when he is by himself.

[ChainLegacy]

Originally Posted by Kirarakim

It would be nice if there is some explanation of how the humans and animals survived on Earth.

That might be a good episode for one of the OVA's in fact.

I hope this is directly addressed in the storyline. It seems to be too important a question to not address. What prompted humanity to leave Earth? The planet 'froze over,' prompting a mass exodus to space... but some survived. That must mean the freezing wasn't entirely lethal to humanity as a species. I feel like there's some kind of plot element that ties in to this fact.

Originally Posted by Kaoru Chujo

I think the Gargantians not wanting to destroy a longtime modus vivendi with the pirates makes sense. But I also think it is possible that Ledo ended up doing the wrong thing both times: first by using too much force, then by using too little.

First, he shamed and outraged the pirate queen by destroying her attack group. She came for revenge in this episode and failed, so it may be hard for her to give up without being smashed. Might have been neater to treat the pirates as non-humans, as the Avalonians do their enemies (which are non-human). But the Gargantians weren't used to that, and held him back. So he went too far the first time, and they didn't let him go far enough this second time.

There definitely is something a bit silly to inflicting no casualties or major damage... It might be the case that Ledo is so much more powerful, it's pretty damn difficult not to disable the enemy without destroying them. I am definitely predicting pirate woman will be back with her egoism in tow looking for revenge, though, so one wonders if/when some actual destruction is going to be needed to resolve the situation.

[Jan-Poo]

Originally Posted by ChainLegacy

I hope this is directly addressed in the storyline. It seems to be too important a question to not address. What prompted humanity to leave Earth? The planet 'froze over,' prompting a mass exodus to space... but some survived. That must mean the freezing wasn't entirely lethal to humanity as a species. I feel like there's some kind of plot element that ties in to this fact.

It wouldn't be completely impossible for a limited number of humans to survive even if the sun stopped warming our planet. There's still the heat coming from the core, and geothermal energy can be used to create light for plants.

[ChainLegacy]

Originally Posted by Jan-Poo

It wouldn't be completely impossible for a limited number of humans to survive even if the sun stopped warming our planet. There's still the heat coming from the core, and geothermal energy can be used to create light for plants.

Well, not to get too technical, but without the sun's warming, humanity is screwed. I think the idea was the sun just wasn't able to produce *as much* heat. Seemingly minor differences in temperature could produce a snowball earth effect.

You might be right on the reason, but if that's the case, it seems strange that they'd all be leaving towards space (if some can survive off of these methods, why not all? Surely it's easier than drifting into space for eons). I feel as if this is some sort of element in the plot that will be explained later. Ledo thought the planet would still be frozen... perhaps there were ways to survive the freezing, but the spacefarers knew they couldn't be a permanent solution. Something unexpected occurred that unfroze the planet. Of course, they could just leave this a mystery... I just have some vibe it's related to the greater story.

Originally Posted by SQA

Err... I think some of you missed the dialogue. He was picking up "Thank You" because it was the first Japanese word he was hearing repeatedly. He asked what they kept repeating. It's a pretty obvious place to start actually speaking the language, as the utility is quite high.

I didn't see anything to suggest his society lacked gratitude. Roasted meat, however, they seem to lack. (All hail the food pellets?)

It did seem like he was picking it up due to its repetition, but I kind of got the impression that people don't thank each other in his culture. They may understand gratitude, but perhaps expressing it outwardly isn't a common practice. I was speculating it had to do with the focus on duty arising from their militarism and presumably harsh existence in space.

If they had a word for 'thank you,' I think chamber could directly translate it - he didn't seem to be able to find a literal translation.

[ReddyRedWolf]

Given that Chamber translated Amy's cussing as "Reproduction with one's own mother" which is literal but the meaning is lost to Ledo due to what he is taught all his life.

One may infer that the Galactic Alliance is PC about some words.

[Iron Maw]

Originally Posted by Jan-Poo

I doubt that they have large crops, but they do have plants, you can even see trees growing among the many metal structures.
They probably grow enough vegetables to prevent people from getting too scurvy and they rely mostly on fish and the occasional meat.

This just made me realize that the bird Bellows offered to Ledo to thank him for saving her was probably a lot more valuable than I originally thought.

Sounds plausible enough, didn't really notice the trees though.

Originally Posted by Helius

IIRC the fleet has enitre ships devoted to agriculture. That'd be one of their primary food sources besides fishing.

At the very least it would explain where the animals came from.

[andyjay729]

Was there perhaps a Snowball Earth in the past? That is, Earth entirely freezing over. If almost every drop of water on the planet froze down to the Equator, would that be enough to flood the entire planet? (Hey, this show probably takes place at least 10,000-15,000 years from now, since the last glacial maximum ended about 19,000 years ago.)

Of course, if that were the case, I wonder how any multicellular life would survive at all.

[ginger02]

Originally Posted by andyjay729

Was there perhaps a Snowball Earth in the past? That is, Earth entirely freezing over. If almost every drop of water on the planet froze down to the Equator, would that be enough to flood the entire planet? (Hey, this show probably takes place at least 10,000-15,000 years from now, since the last glacial maximum ended about 19,000 years ago.)

Of course, if that were the case, I wonder how any multicellular life would survive at all.

If it does take that far in the future I'm surprised humans don't look more different. Humans already look different than they did 2000 years ago.

[whitecloud]

About the gargantia ship? How big is it? If its big enough it's possible to put an entire deck of farm inside, after all it is multilevel, and from the look of it no less than 5 level, and the size is about the size of the ship from girl und panzer carrier town ship, even more maybe...and since it's a fleet maybe more than one..

[chaos_animagic]

Might have already been said and discussed before... but...

To me... it feels like these Earthbrings or Gargantians... are a bunch of crazy Hypocrites...

Since they basically said, hay killing is wrong so we're using weapons to make others stand down...

Arming yourself with a weapon = Negotiate (so... if I went into a store with a weapon and said I want a lowered priced, will I get lowered price?)

Why not just get a Nuke like RL and no one would go against you, LOL.



personally.... I like space soldier's ways. (if you're using a weapon, might as well USE IT)



Plus... it seems like they want to "fight and kill" for some sort of glory and doesn't want da space soldier to hog all of it... (as they're too using cannons and shooting at the pirates (some even aims at human pirates themselves...))

Seems like them Gargantians is willing to risk more lives from both side instead of letting Chamber just eliminate all pirate's ships and weapons right from the start... since Chamber had the element of surprise, yet they used him as a Light Tower...

It's like using a Nuclear Warhead as a Christmas Tree...

[Marina2]

Originally Posted by chaos_animagic

Since they basically said, hay killing is wrong so we're using weapons to make others stand down...

Arming yourself with a weapon = Negotiate (so... if I went into a store with a weapon and said I want a lowered priced, will I get lowered price?)

Not in that sense.......

What she meant was

"We have weapon, you have weapon. If you shoot, we shoot back. If we dead, you dead too. So, for the good of both sides, let don't start any fight"

It is similar to how many countries IRL keep increasing their arms even though there aren't any war. They do it just to tell other countries "Don't you dare attack us, we got these weapons to fight back"

[Helius]

Originally Posted by whitecloud

About the gargantia ship? How big is it? If its big enough it's possible to put an entire deck of farm inside, after all it is multilevel, and from the look of it no less than 5 level, and the size is about the size of the ship from girl und panzer carrier town ship, even more maybe...and since it's a fleet maybe more than one..

Gargantia is not just one ship. It's numerous ships, big and small, linked together to form a giant flotilla. Think the Musashi in Horizon in the Middle of Nowhere, or Macross Frontier.

There're ships for power generation, housing, agriculture and a whole load of other purposes.

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[TinyRedLeaf]

The best analogies I can think of for Gargantia are the refugee fleet of Battlestar Galatica and the Quarian fleet of the Mass Effect games, ie, a viable society based on a community of ships.

As for the "waterworld" state of Earth, did I miss something? It can't be because the Sun has "cooled". That would imply that the Sun is dying and on its way towards becoming a red dwarf, a process that takes millions of years. If anything, the Earth froze over probably because of a nuclear winter or an equivalent disaster, and has thawed only recently.

As for how life could have survived in a frozen world, don't forget that bacteria have been found to thrive in underwater thermal geysers, which create an extremely hot and pressurised ecosystem that is hostile for most other kinds of life. Most land-based life would have probably been wiped out during the Ice Age, but animals that originally lived in high altitudes, as well as marine, amphibious and arctic animals, would have adapted very well to the new ecosystem and survived to present-day, waterworld Earth.

[whitecloud]

I think the earth is frozen is an exaggeration, but rather the earth has entered an ice age, because of the sun...our earth too has several long ice age in the past, and is scheduled to entered another ice age in the future...In the ice age it's not like life can't survive, we have mammoth and the like too so it's not far fetch, and the ice age most likely do not cover the entire world, rather just about 60-80 % and most likely only covering the equator, leaving the far North and south area quite clear.

As to why they cannot found land? It's not they cannot found it, they may be unable to..the technology not that advanced, i dont think they have access to satelite...they are pretty restricted to galactic road, most of the supposed land have been submerged leaving the land far and few in between, the continent also shift, making the past map pretty useless so they have to rechart the map.

in the gargantia world, the ancestor of ledo think the earth is not exactly ideal for living because of it and opt to search for another planet rather than staying most likely, while there is another faction that want to stay because of reason we not know...

[TinyRedLeaf]

Originally Posted by whitecloud

I think the earth is frozen is an exaggeration, but rather the earth has entered an ice age, because of the sun...

Not trying to be anal, but unless a story-based reason has been given, either in the anime or its official website, an ice age on Earth would have little to do with the Sun itself. That is, it can't be because the Sun itself became cooler, as it would mean that it has become a red dwarf and is beginning to die.

Even then, it takes millions of years for a main sequence star to turn into a red dwarf — well beyond any conceivable lifespan of humanity as a species. If humans were still around after millions of years, we would have likely evolved into something completely unrecognisable to present-day Man. For comparison, remember that modern human beings, as a species, have been around for about just two million years, while historical civilisation is only about 8,000 to 10,000 years old.

But this is science fiction, so I wouldn't rule out the possibility of aliens having disrupted the Sun's lifespan somehow to cause catastrophic environmental change on Earth. Is that the case? If not, I would guess that Earth entered an ice age due to some kind of nuclear winter or volcanic winter mass-extinction event. Earth has gone through multiple cooling and warming cycles through millions of years, all caused by natural geological and climatic conditions. But I'm assuming Earth's present state in this anime was a result of something man-made?

[Guardian Enzo]

Well, theoretically, it's not impossible that solar activity could be a contributing cause of ice ages. We have hard evidence that it can produce "mini" ice-ages - the so-called Maunder Minimum, Dalton Minimum, etc. periods when sunspot activity plummeted and Earth's temperature dropped. The problem is that these cycles lasted less than 100 years and there's no strong reason to suspect ones of the magnitude that would be required to cause what seemingly happened in Gargantia have ever taken place. But given that it's a matter of scale (albeit a huge one) it's not theoretically impossible.

[RRW]

[Helius]

So theoretically 10,000 years would have passed for Earth to recover from the ice age. It makes sense as far as explaining the Alliance's technological advancement goes.

And if the Earth humans had to restart their civilisation from scratch without the benefit of being able to live on land, I guess it also makes sense they'd be about where we're at the moment.

[ReddyRedWolf]

From my perspective the Hideauze nest right next to a star is a foreshadowing of why Sol acted anomalously, creating an ice age on Earth.

It would also stage a reason why the Galactic Alliance hate the Hideauze so much. From their perspective the reason humans are an endangered species is because of them.

[RRW]