Macross Delta - Episode 5 Discussion / Poll

[magnuskn]

Originally Posted by Tenzen12

I don't remember them ever attacking civilians without connection to military though.

Um, episode one? Episode four? How are all the civilians in those cities "connected to the military"?

Originally Posted by deadite

Nah Windemerians are the natives of that sector. Spacy decided to just arrogantly change their destiny of their entire race. I mean its the same as conquistadors of the past. A more technologicaly advance forced muscling through primituve cultures because they can. natives lose cultural identity and when they fight back against the aliens why are you surprised? Its Windemerean terriotry not Spacy's. The intro of this ep make Macross fleet very menacing descending from the sky. thats why star trek has the prime directive to prevent stuff like this from happening.

Oh, BS. Unless NUNS unleashed a plague upon the Windermereans which wiped out 90% of their population and then turned the rest into slaves or enacted a genocide upon them, there is no comparison to the conquistadores. Get some historical perspective before making such ridiculous comparisons.

If you want a more decent comparison, you might go with 19th century imperialism and even that is very tenuous and dependent on the view of a bunch of obvious fanatical terrorists at this time.

[Tenzen12]

These civilians was not attacked, they were just in wrong time on wrong place as I said before: a collateral damage.

They were after Valkure unit which is legit military target.

[magnuskn]

Bull. Shit. The Windermerans didn't even know Walkure was on Al-Shahal. They attacked a civilian population center by sequestrating the minds of the garrison and unleashing it on the civilian populace of the city. Hundreds, probably thousands died. They. Are. Terrorists.

And "collateral damage" is a prettified way of saying "murdering the civilians", anyway. Fucking Orwellian western language spinmeister shit.

[Tenzen12]

How can you claim they didn't know? Well, you are wrong regardless so it doesn't matter. As you could see this episode Var syndrome is weapon for highjacking military might of enemy. It's target was Garrison itself AND possibly Valkures, civilian victims are just result of poor control at the time.

Anyway murder is matter of civil law (with emphasis on civil part). War has it's own set. So no there was no "murdering" lol. Of course before Western culture established it it war was far more indiscriminate.

[karice67]

Originally Posted by magnuskn

If your two first acts of war is attacking civilian populations, you are a terrorist. You may be calling yourself a "freedom fighter" but that is just window dressing for your own benefit.

According to the rules set by the people who came and imposed a system on them that the Windemereans had no say in establishing?

I don't approve of terrorism (d'uh), and I honestly don't want to start a political debate here, but as real-life scholars, commentators and even everyday people have pointed out: 'privilege is blind'.

To apply this to Delta, at this point, we have little idea about what the Windemereans have tried to do to get what they want, and thus how the system that the colonisers have brought constrains them (according to their pov, anyway). The people that benefit the most from the system (UN Spacy and the humans that have spread through the Galaxy) probably do not understand -- they may not even think that any of these worlds and peoples that they've 'lifted up' should have any reason to be unhappy about the 'good' that they have brought. Much less see that the system they have imposed may well be biased towards UN Spacy's interests in some way.

So I'm not going to condemn the Windemereans at this point. Whilst I don't like what they are doing, they may really think that they have no other choice.

[magnuskn]

Originally Posted by Tenzen12

How can you claim they didn't know? Well, you are wrong regardless so it doesn't matter. As you could see this episode Var syndrome is weapon for highjacking military might of enemy. It's target was Garrison itself AND possibly Valkures, civilian victims are just result of poor control at the time.

Anyway murder is matter of civil law (with emphasis on civil part). War has it's own set. So no there was no "murdering" lol. Of course before Western culture established it it war was far more indiscriminate.

<facepalm> They didn't declare war until the end of last episode, which is two attacks on civilian population centers (of which we are aware) ago. There are conventions of war which regulate this kind of thing in our world. The Geneva conventions. Not to mention the law of nations.

Of course you can argue that the Windermerans have put themselves out of that kind of law, which makes them nothing more than petty warlords.

So, yes, if you want to white knight for the terrorist government, be my guest.

Originally Posted by karice67

According to the rules set by the people who came and imposed a system on them that the Winderemereans had no say in establishing?

I don't approve of terrorism (d'uh), and I honestly don't want to start a political debate here, but as real-life scholars, commentators and even everyday people have pointed out: 'privilege is blind'.

To apply this to Delta, at this point, we have little idea about what the Windermereans have tried to do to get what they want, and thus how the system that the colonisers have brought constrains them (according to their pov, anyway). The people that benefit the most from the system (UN Spacy and the humans that have spread through the Galaxy) probably do not understand -- they may not even think that any of these worlds and peoples that they've 'lifted up' should have any reason to be unhappy about the 'good' that they have brought. Much less see that the system they have imposed may well be biased towards UN Spacy's interests in some way.

So I'm not going to condemn the Windermereans at this point. Whilst I don't like what they are doing, they may really think that they have no other choice.

That reasoning doesn't fly at all for what actually happened on the show. If they need this war to survive, they apparently have ways to subdue planets without massive civilian casualties (see: Vordor). The attack on Al-Shahal at least was nothing else than a terror attack. Watch the first episode again if you have forgotten that.

[ReddyRedWolf]

The Kingdom of Wind seems to be Macross' answer to Zeon. We are doing this for Independence! (They are already independent.) We will free all out our fellow Brisingr cluster planets! (Commit terrorism then invade them taking away their culture.)

Now the real reason is damn those Earthers it is we who should rule as we are the legit heirs of the Protoculture and our people need planets as that dimension weapon we used doomed our world and we are running out of time.

Know what I've seen this before with Frontier's politicians instead of asking the NUN for help they proceeded to invade another race's planet out of desperation and pride.

[Thess]

Originally Posted by deadite

Nah Windemerians are the natives of that sector. Spacy decided to just arrogantly change their destiny of their entire race. I mean its the same as conquistadors of the past. A more technologicaly advance forced muscling through primituve cultures because they can. natives lose cultural identity and when they fight back against the aliens why are you surprised? Its Windemerean terriotry not Spacy's. The intro of this ep make Macross fleet very menacing descending from the sky. thats why star trek has the prime directive to prevent stuff like this from happening.

It could be why people of another "colonized" territories are chill with Freyja-is-a-spy-or-not deal because they probably harbor some kind of resentment toward Spacy policies.

Originally Posted by magnuskn

Bull. Shit. The Windermerans didn't even know Walkure was on Al-Shahal. They attacked a civilian population center by sequestrating the minds of the garrison and unleashing it on the civilian populace of the city. Hundreds, probably thousands died. They. Are. Terrorists.

Eeh, from the dialogue, they went there because they knew Walkure was there (they withdrew as soon as they got the data on them, iirc). Not that I think their actions are fine, but they are fairly understandable in my opinion, and they made the Delta squad pause about if they should fight or not, you know. They weren't attacking those planets: they targetted the military spacy headquarters and walkure, there was just collateral damage. The surrendering of those planets they took over was peaceful, as contrast (Roid was against using violence).

Btw, I don't think a bunch of aliens of Windemere gives a damn about Geneva convention which was set up on Earth without their consent (see that would be the kind fo self-centered presumption of a single civilization to preach about like they were superior I see them hating and wishing to shake off) or any kind of imposed 'treaty' they had not partaked. That's just hilarious. I think they were fairly smart to measure up their opponents before they declare the war. I'm willing to bet that Kawamori might be going with "cultural imperialism" and "cultural genocide" breeds violence and war as message here. It's always about culture, just a different aspect of it's explored now. While the Windermere will learn to be more lax about cultural mixing and less uppity about theirs at the same time, of course.

Also since when Spacy has been portrayed in a flattering way in Macross? The 90s?

[magnuskn]

Originally Posted by Thess

It also explains why people of another "colonized" territories are chill with Freyja-is-a-spy-or-not deal because they probably harbor the same kind of antipathy toward Spacy policies.

That's kind of a speculation on your part.

Originally Posted by Thess

Eeh, from the dialogue, they went there because they knew Walkure was there (they withdrew as soon as they got the data on them, iirc). Not that I think their actions are fine, but they are fairly understandable in my opinion, and they made the Delta squad pause about if they should fight or not, you know. They weren't attacking those planets: they targetted the military spacy headquarters and walkure, there was just collateral damage. The surrendering of those planets they took over was peaceful, as contrast. Doesn't look like it was peaceful to them if there was a civil war.

They target the UN spacy by mind-raping the Zentradi into a murderous rage which (pretty inevitably, as far as the show has shown us) targets civilian populations. It's not as if they can credibly claim "Whoopsie-daisy, we didn't know that would happen", it is a feature of the VAR syndrome, not a bug. They have just as surely blown past the moral event horizon on this as any terrorist organization who willingly targets civilian populations for their goals.

Originally Posted by Thess

Btw, I don't think a bunch of aliens of Windemere gives a damn about Geneva convention which was set up on Earth without their consent (see that would be the kind fo self-centered presumption of a single civilization to preach about like they were superior I see them hating and wishing to shake off) or any kind of imposed 'treaty' they had not partaked. That's just hilarious. I think they were fairly smart to measure up their opponents before they declare the war. I'm willing to bet that Kawamori might be going with "cultural imperialism" and "cultural genocide" breeds violence and war as message here. It's always about culture, just a different aspect of it's explored now. While the Windermere will learn to be more lax about cultural mixing and less uppity, of course.

So, I guess them being powerhungry warlords who don't give a damn about innocent civilian lifes is supposed to make them admirable or relatable?

Also, as far as I can see, their entire arguments hinges on being "the true heirs of protoculture" (so they are dangerously arrogant) and "liberating the other races of the sector from NUNS (so far I can see, the Ragnans don't particularly want to be "liberated").

[Tenzen12]

Originally Posted by magnuskn

<facepalm> They didn't declare war until the end of last episode, which is two attacks on civilian population centers (of which we are aware) ago. There are conventions of war which regulate this kind of thing in our world. The Geneva conventions. Not to mention the law of nations.

Of course you can argue that the Windermerans have put themselves out of that kind of law, which makes them nothing more than petty warlords.

So, yes, if you want to white knight for the terrorist government

They didn't declared war until end of last episode because they didn't have perfect control over Var weapon. This episode showed that Windermere take no pleasure from inflicting terror and of course there is no military gain in it either. It's pretty simple math.

As for laws I don't know anything what kind they have, but until Geneva forbids song weapons, it is pretty much in line with it.

[Dark Wing]

Well this is interesting...I wonder if any of the other races "uplifted" by the NUN have had openly rebel against them?

[magnuskn]

Originally Posted by Tenzen12

They didn't declared war until end of last episode because they didn't have perfect control over Var weapon. This episode showed that Windermere take no pleasure from inflicting terror and of course there is no military gain in it either. It's pretty simple math.

Um, the only person who was like "we don't have to attack civilians" was Roid. The others seemed to be pretty down with it or at least didn't voice objections to the practice.

Nonetheless, doing weapon tests on civilian populations still is the very definition of a war crime. If you think that can be morally justified in any way, I recommend you take a long look at your moral standards.

[Tenzen12]

They were doing tests on enemy military Garrison. Civilians were probably hit by it occasionally, but compared to soldiers there was only minimum of them shown.

As for Loid his opinion is only one that matter, he is brain of whole thing and whatever other think, they follow his orders.

[magnuskn]

Actually, they seem to have an ailing king.

And I don't find your "civilians were occasionally hit" argument convincing at all. The very first episode shows us that VAR affected Zentrans go on killing sprees and it certainly does look like civilians mostly get hit.

[Tenzen12]

Yeah, it was civilians in all these Results. Lol.

[magnuskn]

I'm seriously astounded how some people will defend terrorism and the killing of innocent women and children.

[Tenzen12]

You are only one calling it terrorism, though.

[Dark Wing]

well technically they are terrorizing people by infecting them with Ver...

[LoweGear]

Originally Posted by Tenzen12

They were doing tests on enemy military Garrison. Civilians were probably hit by it occasionally, but compared to soldiers there was only minimum of them shown.

The atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were also targeted at military assets located in those cities. In that case, were all the civilian casualties simply collateral damage?

The fact that Var is known to be indiscriminate back when they were trying to use it means that they would know that civilian casualties would be likely and inevitable, given the very close proximity of said military garrison to Al-Shahal? We even see ambulances and injured civilians in episode 2.

Also, the only reason that civilian casualties were kept to a minimum was because of Walkure and Delta Squadron's fast reaction. What would've happened to all those people that the infected Zentradi launched missiles against had Walkure not used their shield drones? What would've happened to that crying mother and child about to get attacked by that Quaedluun had Mikumo not jumped in a hail of gunfire and cured it?

And that's just all that we as the audience are allowed to see. Considering the scale of the devastation we've seen, it's unfortunately highly likely that the civilian death toll was quite high for a usually peaceful place like Al-Shahal.

[Tenzen12]

Yeah, if it comes to it, I had intend mention Hiroshima and Nagasaki myself, these are all indeed example of collateral damage of legit military operations.

Point is knowing civilians causalities are inevitable is alright aiming for that is not. That's difference.

Anyway considering Windermere were able take two whole planets with literally no fight, make it all worth.