Mobile Suit Gundam 00 - Episode 25 Discussion / Poll [END]

[4Tran]

Originally Posted by Vallen Chaos Valiant

The only person responsible for threatening the security of his country was Corner and his Thrones. The Union had in fact benefited from the actions of the original Meisters.

Countries benefit from the actions of their enemies all the time. It doesn't alter the fact that they're still enemies. As a matter of security interest, Celestial Being penetrated Union borders multiple times, and made various attacks while doing so. No sovereign government can allow that kind of activity to continue regardless of how much actual damage is done or what effect such activity had. About the only thing that can be argued is that Ptolemaios had been inactive for a period of time, and no longer represented a viable threat. Still, none of the governments had any reason to consider Ptolemaios group any differently from the Trinities: they can conveniently lump all of them as terrorists and treat them accordingly.

Originally Posted by Vallen Chaos Valiant

Actually, President Brian didn't see it that way. He viewed CB as a convenient replacement for the Union to leave the world-police job to. The greatest clue that they aren't directly threatening them is the fact that there wasn't anything they could do to stop CB from blowing up the WhiteHouse, but CB had not performed such acts or made any such threats. CB was unstoppable, and yet their sovereignty was not threatened.

The fact that Celestial Being could have done more to threaten the Union's security isn't an argument that they didn't threaten said security.

Originally Posted by Vallen Chaos Valiant

Funny you mention not respecting sovereignty or international law. President Brian doesn't seem to consider that at all unusual, or even that bad. His own words was that "CB is doing our job for us".

This is the same guy that was seriously considering surrendering to the ridiculously small threat that the Gundams represented, so I wouldn't take his words at face value.

Originally Posted by mougrim

It is a perfect chance for Setsuna to break up with CB if he really want this. But this is really pointless suggestion until we see second season.

Even with the letter, it seems like Setsuna's ideas are still firmly in line with Celestial Being's stated goals. He probably won't break with them unless they change their approach drastically.

[Vallen Chaos Valiant]

Originally Posted by 4Tran

This is the same guy that was seriously considering surrendering to the ridiculously small threat that the Gundams represented, so I wouldn't take his words at face value.

Have you thought about WHY?

It's because CB wasn't a threat!

"Surrendering" would involve nothing more than leaving CB to do its business. No sovereignty would be violated, as CB wasn't interested in ruling anyone. There would be no humiliation, no signing of shameful treaties. The Union will go on as normal, using peaceful and yet significant means to force other nations into doing what it wants. CB would even help prevent the Union from fracturing.
CB wasn't even classified as a Terrorist organisation by the Union! They had to hide their Gundamjack attempts from their own people!

Unless you think Union had plans for world conquest that was thwarted by CB, the existence of Gundams is of great benefit.

Quite simply, the argument that CB threaten security doesn't hold water, because security had IMPROVED with CB around. And if the threat was real, Union would have declared CB a terrorist organisation with HRL. You can talk about threats all you like, but the fact that Union wasn't willing to declare war against them means it obviously wasn't enough of a threat.

[Vorenus]

Originally Posted by 4Tran

As far as credibility goes, there are plenty of areas that could use improvement, but this particular bit (at least in regard to the Meisters) isn't really one of them. You do have a point of all the questions (justified or not) of "is he/she dead or not?" It's okay to see it once in a while, but when it's applied all over the place with Kinue, Aeolia, Patrick and Ali

WTF? Kinue is alive ? (j/k)

I think that it was a good idea for all the subsequent Gundam creative teams to ignore what he did with Turn A.

If they wanted to go on with making another Gundam after Turn A, (I've read several times there and there that Tomino was personally against it), they didn't have much the choice to ignore it indeed...

There was no way that any explosive device would escape the notice of the engineers working on the GN-Xs, irrespective of whether such devices are in the suit or the drive. Moreover, if such a device were to be found, it'd instantly undermine Alejandro's credibility.

I probably didn't choose the best word : when I meant "time-bomb", I was not actually referring to exploside but rather something inside the Mobile Suit OS allowing them to shut them down at will (a trial system of sorts), which would in turn allow him to dispose of them very easily, especially if they were in the middle of a fight.

[Renegade334]

...And since its GN drive doesn't emit particles anymore...a mere radar will suffice in order to locate it, provided, of course, it's pointed in the right direction and has sufficient range for a solid response. Nearly all countries scan the sky above for obvious reasons, be it for security purposes or safety (in a couple decades already, the amount of debris and other pieces of junk floating in space has multiplied at a dramatic pace, which is cause enough for some governmental concern) and sooner or later, I imagine one of those radar arrays will unexpectedly (and I have serious reasons to believe there are quite a number of them due to space colonization and the orbital elevators) locate the Exia. Of course, it's highly likely that the first party to find the Exia will not be CB-aligned but part of the UN but I doubt it'll be the case...lest season 2 will start by a massive meister jailbreak instigated by the masked CB guy.

Also, I seriously doubt any possible distress beacon on the Exia (and I'd be really surprised if the engineers didn't think of it) would be leeching power directly from the GN drive, not be fire/waterproof or unarmored against possible external damage. Even on ships, tanks, aircrafts and submarines, those emergency transmitters have their own batteries or generate power on their own in case there is a catastrophic power failure. If the emitter is using quantum technology to make itself totally invisible (and quantum comm. also has the neat advantage of being hard to eavesdrop on, as the legit interlocutors would easily notice someone else is listening on), then CB might have the wherewithal to retrieve Setsuna. But can they do it in time? I'm not certain.

As for the Meisters' survival...
- Setsuna's letter is indeed deceiving, as you can interpret it in several ways, both in-context and personality-wise. One avenue of thought would be that Setsuna doesn't expect to see her again due to the different paths they'll be treading and, indeed, it's a farewell with a small amend at the end (as he hopes they'll meet again). The other possibility is that he predicted that he might get KIA and he had to convey his feelings before his time'd be up. Whatever fate befell him, the letter's not exactly to be taken as a sure-fire sign that he kicked the bucket and shazam! here comes a new meister cast. He can still survive as long as CB (or the Ptolemaios crew) thought of equipping the Gundams with spare oxygen tanks for the pilots.
- Allelujah - there is no sign that there is an air leak in the cockpit (had it been the case, to make things a little more ominous, I believe the staff would've shown it aside from sparks erupting from ruptured casings and the dramatic like). The fact that the screens blew up could always be a power surge causing certain electronic or hydraulic components to blow up. We've seen it many times in Gundam, and it ain't as catastrophic as what happened to Cima in 0083 (yes, I know she got impaled on the Orchis' cannon and the comparison is blotchy at best). His chances are still good as his cockpit hasn't been breached and he's still okay aside from his injuries.
- Tieria: if he knew rescue would come for him, why would he eject the GN drive in the first place? Simply because he wants it to survive his possible demise. The only thing he might have hoped for was materiel retrieval or salvaging and not downed personnel rescue. His final words clearly show he's resigned himself to a painful, slow death and he wants CB to continue despite whatever type of death awaits him - exhaustion, starvation, internal bleeding or asphyxia. I do expect him to make it to season 2, though, so don't get me wrong. I'm merely questioning his purported motives in accordance to previous posts.

[4Tran]

Originally Posted by Vallen Chaos Valiant

"Surrendering" would involve nothing more than leaving CB to do its business. No sovereignty would be violated, as CB wasn't interested in ruling anyone. There would be no humiliation, no signing of shameful treaties. The Union will go on as normal, using peaceful and yet significant means to force other nations into doing what it wants. CB would even help prevent the Union from fracturing.
CB wasn't even classified as a Terrorist organisation by the Union! They had to hide their Gundamjack attempts from their own people!

Most classifications of this nature are done for purely political reasons, and any annoucements are made to produce a political effect. The lack of such an announcement can be attributed to all sorts of reasons (not least of which involves a lot of back-room dealing). Besides, all nations reserve the right to change their attitude towards a particular group at any time. Simply because the Union didn't immediately label Celestial Being as terrorist doesn't mean that they'd never do so.

Originally Posted by Vallen Chaos Valiant

Unless you think Union had plans for world conquest that was thwarted by CB, the existence of Gundams is of great benefit.

Not really. They had already demonstrated that they were willing to attack all sorts of innocuous targets like military exercises, demonstrations, and facilities. There's no way to construe any of this as a benefit to the victim.

Originally Posted by Vallen Chaos Valiant

Quite simply, the argument that CB threaten security doesn't hold water, because security had IMPROVED with CB around. And if the threat was real, Union would have declared CB a terrorist organisation with HRL. You can talk about threats all you like, but the fact that Union wasn't willing to declare war against them means it obviously wasn't enough of a threat.

There are two different levels of threat: the first is a threat to a nation's borders, citizens and properties, and the second is one to the very existence of the nation itself (or at least its government). Celestial Being represents a threat of the first variety; and hence provides a reason for military action. However, it takes a threat of the second variety to make surrender a viable option.

By the way, reasonable nations don't generally declare formal war on small groups like Celestial Being - they simply destroy them. Any declaration of principle is usual much shorter and to the point; the one in episode 20 is precisely what's called for.

Originally Posted by Vorenus

If they wanted to go on with making another Gundam after Turn A, (I've read several times there and there that Tomino was personally against it), they didn't have much the choice to ignore it indeed...

It's easy, all they have to do is treat Turn A as its own microcosm that doesn't affect any other show. And in this case, there's no reason for any creators to abide by what Tomino wanted.

Originally Posted by Vorenus

I probably didn't choose the best word : when I meant "time-bomb", I was not actually referring to exploside but rather something inside the Mobile Suit OS allowing them to shut them down at will (a trial system of sorts), which would in turn allow him to dispose of them very easily, especially if they were in the middle of a fight.

All of these things can be quickly found out by engineers, and then Alejandro would have been revealed as a traitor. It's an awful lot of risk for practically no gain.

Originally Posted by The Small One

IIRC they have two ways of knowing where the Gundams are: A (beacon) signal, sent by the Gundams themselves, or they locate the position of GN particles.

Ptolemaios has never demonstrated any difficulty in tracking down the Gundams (including the Trinity Gundams), so it's not hard to imagine that the container would have a similar capability.

Originally Posted by Renegade334

- Tieria: if he knew rescue would come for him, why would he eject the GN drive in the first place?

It doesn't make any more sense to eject the GN Drive if he thought that he was going to die.

[Renegade334]

^Unless it is his way to incite the CB remnants to go after the drive instead of him. A pilot is, in the current state of affairs, expendable, as they're easier to come by compared to the extremely rare and irreplacable solar furnaces. Why waste strength on a pilot who's already resigned himself to his death instead of an invaluable contraption that will allow his fellow fighters to pursue Aeolia's plans? Besides, there is also the possibility he might get captured along with the drive - therefore jettisoning it does make sense from a seemingly dying person's point of view. The furnace must get in CB's hands ASAP before it's too late.

[nutype]

Originally Posted by Demongod86

Graham loves gundam, not Setsuna. Graham is not a homo. He's just obsessed with gundams.

graham: looks like you and I are intertwined by the red thread of destiny!

setsuna: sore, sekuhara desu yo.

[mougrim]

Originally Posted by The Small One

IIRC they have two ways of knowing where the Gundams are: A (beacon) signal, sent by the Gundams themselves, or they locate the position of GN particles.
However both don't apply here. Exia was severly damaged and completely out of energy. It's highly unlikely that it could sent any signal by itself, and it didn't have any GN particles anymore. So technically it was just a piece of scrap metal drifting through space, and there is a lot of this out there, expecially after this battle. And since space is dark, you have to be really close to identify something like this visually.

If I will develop device for sending emergency distress signal - I will make this device with independence power supply. It emergency distress signal after all

[Terra]

Well they were tracking Nadleeh in the container, and it looked the worse out of the 3 Gundams. So I would imagine the same of the others.

[Terra]

You just said it yourself that as long as the drive is intact. Well they looked reletively intact on Kyrios and Exia. And Kyrios was shown to still have some power as one of it's eyes was still lit.

[Wesley84]

Originally Posted by Vallen Chaos Valiant

As for damaging the economy, do you mean the Poppy Fields or the Blood Diamonds?

It's a convinently overlooked fact that it's stated multiple times Celestial Being's actions were having serious economic consenquences on a global scale. First casually and flirviously stated by Christina who wanted to save a few bucks before they had their first major mission in Europe.

It's naive to think the private arms and military industries essentionally being told to stop or else would not have severe economic repurcussions on other industries that cater to their material, developemental, and logistical needs. Not to mention what kind of fear would be generated in investment markets and the like.

Basically, Celestial Being has no self-interests other then whatever they decide their interested in, something they aren't interested in telling anyone ahead of time. You can't depend upon them to act rationally and have on numerous occasions demonstrated suicidal tendencies i.e. "It's obviously a trap. Let's go in anyway".

They were an unnecessary, unacessible and alien influence introduced into a stable and peaceful world that was much better off before they came. And only an ignornant fool like Marina would think otherwise.

[Vorenus]

Originally Posted by 4Tran

All of these things can be quickly found out by engineers, and then Alejandro would have been revealed as a traitor. It's an awful lot of risk for practically no gain.

We are not told how much data and details the powers where given along with the reactors and the GN-X themselves but if the OS' source code is not available they will have difficulty to find what's going on inside them.
Real-life militaries and government are very careful with that and it is why even Microsoft actually gives the source code of its programs to some militaries organizations and governments as they are not going to trust there are no back-door or to simply have its own programmers review its security.
Actually, skilled security researchers do not need the source code and can reverse-engineering programs and find security issues or back-doors in programs (having the source code just making it quicker and easier), but a Mobile Suit OS is embedded and there are no existing tools to make such a reverse engineering in a time-efficient manner.
Celestial Being has been shown to have a technology light-years ahead of the current world and you would think they have their own cryptography algorithms etc that are not that easily breakable.
Furthermore, even Livonze who had a full access to Veda didn't notice the Aeolia's System Trap until it actually came on screen, neither was any known CB character aware of the existence of the Trans-Am, including Ian which supposedly knows the Gundams very well... so hiding such a little routine to shut them down remotely shouldn't be a big matter.

Once the superpowers received their GN Drives, the first thought they had was using them to get rid of CB and the immediate second was to mass-produce them.
Once they are mass-produced Alejandro is nothing to be either needed or feared for the superpowers. Why would they listen and agree to everything a maniac like Alejandro would want and how would they be forced to agree with his vision of the future.
Alejandro may have some tricks like his golden MA, but in the end, the superpowers have way more resources than he could ever have, and can deploy enough GN mobile suits to overwhelm him.

I wonder how Alejandro had planned to keep the upper hand and still make the superpowers listen to him, even though they didn't need him anymore : making sure that they somehow wouldn't be able to use the gift he offered them seems the best option.

[Vallen Chaos Valiant]

Originally Posted by Wesley84

They were an unnecessary, unacessible and alien influence introduced into a stable and peaceful world that was much better off before they came. And only an ignornant fool like Marina would think otherwise.

Perhaps it is because the Meisters and Marina came from parts of the world which are NOT peaceful, and NOT stable, and that they see the world powers not doing anything about it?

It is easy to say the world is stable and peaceful if you are not the one who's house just got bombed, or got brainwashed to kill your parents, or got dumped in Space with dozens of other children with oxygen running out. For the Meisters, their world was not peaceful, no matter how you try to averaging it out.

[4Tran]

Originally Posted by Vorenus

We are not told how much data and details the powers where given along with the reactors and the GN-X themselves but if the OS' source code is not available they will have difficulty to find what's going on inside them.

The power blocs were given enough information about the GN Drives and GN-Xs to be able to construct their own. The problem boils down to the fact that this kind of booby trap can't be hidden forever, and there's very little advantage to gain in putting it in place in the first place. We still know little about Alejandro's master plan, but a key element of it was that he'd ingratiate himself by handing Celestial Being to the Allies on a silver platter.

Originally Posted by Vorenus

neither was any known CB character aware of the existence of the Trans-Am, including Ian which supposedly knows the Gundams very well... so hiding such a little routine to shut them down remotely shouldn't be a big matter.

That's just a matter of bad writing .

Originally Posted by Vallen Chaos Valiant

Perhaps it is because the Meisters and Marina came from parts of the world which are NOT peaceful, and NOT stable, and that they see the world powers not doing anything about it?

The question then becomes "what did Celestial Being hope to accomplish by attacking nations that were relatively stable?"

[Dean_the_Young]

Originally Posted by 4Tran

The power blocs were given enough information about the GN Drives and GN-Xs to be able to construct their own. The problem boils down to the fact that this kind of booby trap can't be hidden forever, and there's very little advantage to gain in putting it in place in the first place. We still know little about Alejandro's master plan, but a key element of it was that he'd ingratiate himself by handing Celestial Being to the Allies on a silver platter.

Actually, I think that may have been about it. He didn't seem the most intelligent badguy in anime history: more like the successor to the long scheming of his family.

That's just a matter of bad writing .

Deus ex machina that it was (). Honestly, though, it's really, REALLY easy to hide a computer program in the coding, so not knowing it's existence as long as it requires no additional hardware is pretty plausible, if not the device itself.

The question then becomes "what did Celestial Being hope to accomplish by attacking nations that were relatively stable?"

In the end, wasn't it only the Thrones (under the conrol of Alejandro) , who attacked stable nations (when they weren't provoking conflict)? CB attacked people/sources of conflict, but only the Thrones attacked countries that weren't really doing anything at the moment.

[wingdarkness]

Originally Posted by Vorenus

Gundam can still be Gundam without using the same tricks over and over again...

What you see as tricks I see as treats, and I have a bag full of candy left...Gundam is arguably the only genre of anime that's it's own genre...It has a successful history of keeping these elements alive because of tradition(vis-a-vis IT CAN DO THIS)...Furthermore your skating on room temperature water if you think all the people who post here know about the oldschool history of Gundam...So for them seeing a mask-character or some other traditional element opens them up to the history, keeping it alive without forcing them ( a better word would be "hoping" for them) to watch the older stuff...

I understand your subjective longing, but I like these traditional elements and while you may look at it as eating the same food over and over, my grandmother makes pancakes much different from my mom's...Her's are crispy, almost like funnel cakes, while my mom's are fluffy and fat...Both still taste good^^...My point, aside from idle hunger, is that many different directors and writers have taken these same elements and cooked them in their own way providing completely different atmospheres when viewing...That's the great challenge of making Gundam...Gundam has always been about universal themes...No show in the history of the franchise (Even SD GUNDAM FORCE ) has ever neglected simple universal themes...It's just how you tell it

I mean, hell, GSD just aired a couple of years ago and Gundam 00 examined almost every single theme GSD tried to examine and did it better in just 25 episodes (Doing it in a vastly different style)...You can do the same thing over and over and tell it differently over and over...Only Gundam SEED (In an effort to re-energize the franchise after Tomino purposely wanted to conclude it), really just ripped a G-story from the roots, which it it did for the first half pretty good (I'm not even commenting on GSD which everyone knows is the one exception in all of Gundam History for unlimited ripping)...But to capsulize my feelings here, same don't equal same in Gundam all the time...

As for Tomino trying to close the Gundam history with Turn A...It was a great effort...Turn A is an amazing anime, period...However I don't see in the slightest while that makes Gundam 00's attempt at a prequel of sorts invalid...The minute another Gundam show came out, that absolute was vaporized and the franchise was re-open for business...

I'll comment on your stuff about Graham a bit later...Right now I have a craving for pancakes^^...

[ReddyRedWolf]

Originally Posted by 4Tran

The power blocs were given enough information about the GN Drives and GN-Xs to be able to construct their own. The problem boils down to the fact that this kind of booby trap can't be hidden forever, and there's very little advantage to gain in putting it in place in the first place. We still know little about Alejandro's master plan, but a key element of it was that he'd ingratiate himself by handing Celestial Being to the Allies on a silver platter.


That's just a matter of bad writing .


The question then becomes "what did Celestial Being hope to accomplish by attacking nations that were relatively stable?"

Push human colonization faster and I suspect advance human evolution. (Pretty much UC spacenoids and Newtypes)

Eifman suspected CB's endgame involved human colonization.

This is somewhat confirmed by Wang asking Sumeragi if humanity deserves to be out there.

The Trinity siblings, Super human soldiers, and Innovators are the vanguard of things to come.

Though the exact plans of Aeolia Schenberg has been thrown out the window because of the Corner family and Livonze.

[Funkatron]

Here is a thought: If Alejandro had survived, he probably wouldn't have been made world leader per se, but he would have been the leader of the EF world military. He was the man who advanced the military of the 3 power blocs, practically handing CB to them on a silver platter. He would have been the perfect man for the job.

[Wesley84]

Originally Posted by Vallen Chaos Valiant

Perhaps it is because the Meisters and Marina came from parts of the world which are NOT peaceful, and NOT stable, and that they see the world powers not doing anything about it?

It is easy to say the world is stable and peaceful if you are not the one who's house just got bombed, or got brainwashed to kill your parents, or got dumped in Space with dozens of other children with oxygen running out. For the Meisters, their world was not peaceful, no matter how you try to averaging it out.

A bad lot in life doesn't justify their actions, and only explains their reasoning (or lack thereof), not to mention not everyone in Celestial Being had a weepy background and they are just as culpible as the Meisters. Do you really think it's okay for Celestial Being, a faceless, mute, and unstoppable destructive force, to destroy the lives of thousands, possibly millions of people around the globe simply because it can?

[Vallen Chaos Valiant]

Originally Posted by Wesley84

A bad lot in life doesn't justify their actions, and only explains their reasoning (or lack thereof), not to mention not everyone in Celestial Being had a weepy background and they are just as culpible as the Meisters. Do you really think it's okay for Celestial Being, a faceless, mute, and unstoppable destructive force, to destroy the lives of thousands, possibly millions of people around the globe simply because it can?

Not because it can; because it wants to. And CB will follow its ideal even if it means charging straight into a trap set by the world powers, because they don't want terrorists to get their hands on nuclear material.

On the other hand, the world powers, greedy for technology, deliberately did nothing while terrorists try to steal uranium under their nose. How is THAT for social responsibility?