Suisei no Gargantia - Science & Technology

[duckroll]

http://gargantia.jp/#world_27

There's an update on the Gargantia site showing massive ruins of the past civilization on the ocean bed. The ruins are covered in deep fog have apparently "eluded many previous salvage attempts". It kinda looks like... a space elevator to me. ^^;

Images

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[Dark Wing]

Well Ep9 is entitled "The Secret of the Ocean's Depths" so I guess this is going to come into play later.

[Jan-Poo]

That structure stretching to the bottom of the pic could be a mass driver or... simply a monorail

I wonder what the eight structures around the center are. Some kind of emitters or receivers?

[Beltane70]

Originally Posted by Jan-Poo

I wonder what the eight structures around the center are. Some kind of emitters or receivers?

They remind me and look a lot like the Towers of Babel in Nadia!

[stormy001_M1A2]

Or gate portal to open warp holes like 1st episode space battle. Ledo might use it to contact Alliance and I willing to bet the Colonel is still alive, leading an expeditionary force thru this structure.

Just speculation.

[Funkatron]

So, do we know yet if cloning is a thing in the Alliance? We know they at least use eugenics: they dispose of the weak and only the longest lasting soldier ie the strongest are allowed to mate. I suspect they clone new embryos that are formed during pregnancy

[Ledgem]

Originally Posted by Funkatron

So, do we know yet if cloning is a thing in the Alliance? We know they at least use eugenics: they dispose of the weak and only the longest lasting soldier ie the strongest are allowed to mate. I suspect they clone new embryos that are formed during pregnancy

It's difficult to say for certain, but it doesn't seem like it. Ledo's "younger brother" (?) looked like a perfect replica, but Ledo looked and sounded quite different from his fellow soldiers in episode 1 (based on the commander that we saw and the teammates that we heard). That's point #1 for diversity. Point #2 was Chamber's statement that Ledo had proven himself a worthy human and that he would be discharged to live and reproduce on Avalon. If they were going purely by cloning then they wouldn't need reproduction of that nature, nor would Ledo need to be discharged and retired from military service for it.

The series creators probably took the route that they did for some unique storytelling elements, but it's interesting to compare the Galactic Alliance with something like Gundam Seed's Coordinators. The Galactic Alliance seems to be built around efficiency and the propagation of humanity, yet eugenics in the style that we've seen is arguably very inefficient. Compare that with the Coordinators, where genetic selection and/or modification occurs at the cellular stage of human development, resulting in humans that are disease-free and better in nearly every way than the Naturals. It seems difficult to believe that the Galactic Alliance could be as technologically advanced as they are and be incapable of producing the Suisei no Gargantia version of Coordinators, but again, fictional liberties are being taken.

[LKK]

Originally Posted by Ledgem

Point #2 was Chamber's statement that Ledo had proven himself a worthy human and that he would be discharged to live and reproduce on Avalon. If they were going purely by cloning then they wouldn't need reproduction of that nature, nor would Ledo need to be discharged and retired from military service for it.

Correction: Ledo was NOT being discharged and retired from his military service. He had earned a vacation on Avalon. In other words, he had earned shore leave, nothing more. While on shore leave, he could reproduce freely, but there's no indication whether Ledo can or would be allowed to sire children. After his shore leave was over, Ledo would likely return to military service since his time on Avalon was limited. He wasn't going to live there like you thought.

Does this information make a stronger case for cloning? Or against cloning? I haven't decided.

[Ledgem]

Originally Posted by LKK

Correction: Ledo was NOT being discharged and retired from his military service. He had earned a vacation on Avalon. In other words, he had earned shore leave, nothing more. While on shore leave, he could reproduce freely, but there's no indication whether Ledo can or would be allowed to sire children. After his shore leave was over, Ledo would likely return to military service since his time on Avalon was limited. He wasn't going to live there like you thought.

Does this information make a stronger case for cloning? Or against cloning? I haven't decided.

Thanks for the correction. I suppose it could go either way, in that case.

[Andarkoshi]

It's just a guess on my part but perhaps they use both clones and normal reproduction?

Essentially they allow the successful pilots to reproduce while at the same time they may clone them. Then if the pilot's child/children prove successful (meaning, they survive long enough to earn the rights) they receive the same treatment.

This is essentially a way to focus on efficiency (you clone only the best pilots) while maintaining diversity (making a homogeneous society is a bad idea for a number of reasons)

Alliance pretty much wants as good pilots and soldiers as they can so they mate the most successful ones and then test those kids if they will live up to the expectations. If not then they either die in battle or get "removed" by the Alliance itself.

[Funkatron]

Originally Posted by Andarkoshi

It's just a guess on my part but perhaps they use both clones and normal reproduction?

Essentially they allow the successful pilots to reproduce while at the same time they may clone them. Then if the pilot's child/children prove successful (meaning, they survive long enough to earn the rights) they receive the same treatment.

This is essentially a way to focus on efficiency (you clone only the best pilots) while maintaining diversity (making a homogeneous society is a bad idea for a number of reasons)

Alliance pretty much wants as good pilots and soldiers as they can so they mate the most successful ones and then test those kids if they will live up to the expectations. If not then they either die in battle or get "removed" by the Alliance itself.

Which is Eugenics: breeding only the best to fight and the weak are cast off

[Andarkoshi]

Originally Posted by Funkatron

Which is Eugenics: breeding only the best to fight and the weak are cast off

Yes, but the discussion was whether they use cloning or natural reproduction to make new soldiers. I just wanted to add another option ^^

[aohige]

Originally Posted by duckroll

http://gargantia.jp/#world_27

There's an update on the Gargantia site showing massive ruins of the past civilization on the ocean bed. The ruins are covered in deep fog have apparently "eluded many previous salvage attempts". It kinda looks like... a space elevator to me. ^^;

Images

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Yeah it looks like an anchor to space elevator - which would suggest the location being near or on the equator.

[Funkatron]

Originally Posted by aohige

Yeah it looks like an anchor to space elevator - which would suggest the location being near or on the equator.

So in other words, this is the future of the Gundam 00 universe

[Beltane70]

Originally Posted by Funkatron

So in other words, this is the future of the Gundam 00 universe

Or Super Dimension Century Orguss!

[Paranoid Android]

Originally Posted by Andarkoshi

Yes, but the discussion was whether they use cloning or natural reproduction to make new soldiers. I just wanted to add another option ^^

They could definitely use both. If their cloning technology is not as advanced and perfected as their civilization may seem to possess, then natural-born could be superior to a clone. So the strong and healthy citizens are allowed to reproduce naturally; while the clones will make up for insufficient military size.

[Xellos-_^]

Originally Posted by Jan-Poo

Basically: salt.

Ocean water is salt water, that means the concentration of salt (to be more precise Na+ and Cl- ions) is too high.

You probably know already that eating salty stuff makes you thirsty. That's because our body needs a precise ratio of salt/water to function correctly, so when you ingest too much salt, it wants you to drink water to compensate.

Sea water has so much salt that it offsets the water it provides, it would be pointless and even unhealthy to drink it.

Rain water on the other side has no salt whatsoever, since rain is basically condensed water that has firstly evaporated. Salt doesn't evaporate.

now there is a question,

how high would the saline level of the ocean water be after all the fresh water has been mix into it. Assuming no more arctic ice.

[Jan-Poo]

Originally Posted by Xellos-_^

now there is a question,

how high would the saline level of the ocean water be after all the fresh water has been mix into it. Assuming no more arctic ice.

Not much actually if this is just the water from the polar caps.
As some have already pointed out in this thread, all those glaciers do not contain that much water in the end (in comparison) and even if they'd completely melt the submerged land wouldn't even be that much.

Now since the Earth of this anime is completely submerged by water (or almost, judging by Ridget's map) either the authors didn't make their homework or there is additional water from somewhere else.

In the latter case it would be hard to tell the change in saline concentration, because we don't even know how much water was added.

[Unknown Soldier]

A few things:

As others have mentioned, if all the polar ice caps melted today, the entire Earth's surface would not be drowned. In order for a Waterworld scenario to occur, additional water is needed. This is explained away at the beginning by saying the Earth went through an Ice Age which is what prompted the spacefaring humans to leave in the first place. We can assume the humans who left didn't expect any humans to survive the Ice Age, but we know some did because their descendants now sail the endless sea on the Gargantia and other surface fleets.

What's bothersome is the fact that the spacefaring humans "forgot" where Earth was. How is this possible? Assuming that they didn't go through a catastrophic loss of technology of their own, which is unlikely since they can create artificial wormholes and traverse through them to any arbitrary point in space such as the Space Squids' nest, they would have starmaps which record exactly where Earth is!

Now if I was abandoning the Earth because I thought it was becoming uninhabitable, why wouldn't I leave at least a small installation on the Moon to monitor it, in case if ever became habitable again? Sure would be nice to have a homeworld to return to instead of a large space station which contains 470 million humans like Avalon.

The other problem is that the Hideous are apparently nanotechnology-enhanced Giant Squids and other sea life. Which is all very interesting, except how exactly do the Space Squids survive then? The DNA of "Whale Squids" on Earth and the Space Squids that Ledo was fighting in space are identical. So the Space Squids need oxygen, and an environment which isn't vacuum so they don't explode. How exactly did the Space Squids get there, and how are they able to survive much less attack spacefaring humanity?

It's obvious that the humans created the Hideous, but for what reason? Was it an experiment in harnessing bioenergy gone horribly wrong? We already know the nanomachines still in Earth's oceans generate vast amounts of energy, which the ships of the Gargantia fleet harvest. If so, then did they take the Hideous to space for use as an energy source, and then they escaped, and somehow were able survive in the vacuum of space, and got really big and attacked space humanity?

As you can see, this is getting ridiculous. I just hope they explain some of this before the series ends. They don't have very many episodes left!

[Jan-Poo]

Originally Posted by Unknown Soldier

What's bothersome is the fact that the spacefaring humans "forgot" where Earth was. How is this possible? Assuming that they didn't go through a catastrophic loss of technology of their own, which is unlikely since they can create artificial wormholes and traverse through them to any arbitrary point in space such as the Space Squids' nest, they would have starmaps which record exactly where Earth is!

The funny fact is that Chamber still had the map of the solar system in his database and that's how he knew he was on Earth to begin with.

Originally Posted by Unknown Soldier

Now if I was abandoning the Earth because I thought it was becoming uninhabitable, why wouldn't I leave at least a small installation on the Moon to monitor it, in case if ever became habitable again?

Because there is no moon
This has been discussed before, and it's really very strange but if you pay attention you'll notice that in spite of the many shots of the starry sky that we got never once you can see the moon in them.

It could be just a coincidence or just an error, but it is very suspicious.


Anyway I can't see many explanations apart from the theory that the alliance is hiding the truth from its citizens. I think that they likely don't want to return to Earth... ever. Not sure what's their reason though.