Help with 0083 at the end (spoiler alert)

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Black Knight
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Re: Help with 0083 at the end (spoiler alert)

Zeonista wrote: Gihren Zabi thought it was a good idea, and most beneficial to the Principality's war goals. So he drafted the plan and had it executed. This is not the thread aimed at radical ideology in Gundam, although I remember a few such at Evolution in the past. :) But as I've said, in the Principality of Zeon morality was made subservient to the cause of militant Zeonism. Degwin Zabi had already proclaimed that the Zeonists were on the side of right, so anything done to further the inevitable victory was good. It must have been a great shock to Degwin to discover that his son not only accepted all the fine words verbatim, but had actually decided to follow through with proactive strategy?
According to the Setting Notes, it wasn't just the Zabi's who said this, but Zeon Daikun himself:
MSG Setting Notes wrote:After Zeon Zum's death, Degwin Zabi tried to put Zeon Zum's ideals into practice—in other words, the two goals of regulating the excessively large human population, and putting the Federation under Zeon control.
The boldface emphasis is mine. It's not just Gihren's evility which enabled him to get the SAF to murder half the human population, he had the great Zeon Daikun's own philosophy to back him up -- though it's possible Daikun didn't want to "regulate" the population by slaughtering people. And it would explain how Char can claim to be carrying out his father's ideals by dropping rocks on Earth.
Zeonista wrote:In our post-Cold War POV of 2011 this seems really off, but the Universal Century universe is ideological, and bent on deciding the viability of such ideologies in the most direct way.
Mmm, I don't know if I'd say the UC is inherently ideological, since ideology is very much in the background of everything but CCA and, perhaps, F91. It's certainly the central theme of CCA, however, as seen with Amuro & Char's philosophical repartee whenever they get close to each other. There's a lot of moral critiques, showing the bad parts of all factions, but I don't really see much of a philosophical underpinning to anything other than those movies.
Zeonista wrote:Zeonism, like other ideologies both real and imagined, is upheld by the wishes of its supporters. Most of the Zeon characters do believe in the words of Zeon Zum Daikun, believe they are doing the right thing for the future of humanity, and feel that if they can win a war and overthrow the corrupt & uncaring Federation, they can institute independence and reform, and look forward to a better life. Otherwise, why would any of them bother with fighting after Operation Odessa? Which is why Delaz and Gato are willing to try again in 0083.

"Most" of the characters? I can think of a lot more who didn't buy into the Zeon or Zabi ideology than I can who lived and breathed it. So I'm not buying this unless you want to start getting into the nuts-and-bolts quantification, which will be a long, painful discussion. Even in Unicorn, by far the most pro-Zeon show to date, there don't seem to be a lot of dyed-in-the-wool Zeons, but a bunch of people fighting for "their people", whom they feel have been disadvantaged. (I'd argue that they're disadvantaged because they keep fighting the OYW over...but I'm cynical.)
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Re: Help with 0083 at the end (spoiler alert)

Black Knight wrote: Even in Unicorn, by far the most pro-Zeon show to date, there don't seem to be a lot of dyed-in-the-wool Zeons, but a bunch of people fighting for "their people", whom they feel have been disadvantaged. (I'd argue that they're disadvantaged because they keep fighting the OYW over...but I'm cynical.)
Granted, I'm not totally up to date, but any show is going to have a hard time "out-Zeoning" 0083 or MS IGLOO. Sure, Unicorn makes a point of saying the people who fight for Zeon are a disenfranchised lot desperate to find something to believe in, but Banagher, the POV character with whom we are clearly meant to agree, consistently points out that none of this gives them the right to become a terrorist cell, which is a much more scathing condemnation of Zeon than anything the flag-waving IGLOO crew have to say about it.
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Re: Help with 0083 at the end (spoiler alert)

Again do we know the number of fed forces inside the colony?

Even now various groups in the real world try to control the size of the population [contraceptives etc]. It is interesting to jump to the opinion that Zeon Daikun would prefer killing the population over other means of population control.

And the nuttiness and morality of Zeon forces [ones who command and ones who get the job done] won't be much difference or may be a notch higher than Titans forces. In the same token Titans is working to enforce the fed's rule by mindlessly and actively butching everyone in 30 bunch, trying to drop colony on Granada [fail], trying to gas Colony 25 of Side 2 [failed] and this is before Dakar speech. And even after Dakar even more brutalities were executed by Titans forces [more gassing and colony laser] before they can be eliminated. Like it or not Titans is still part of the fed, and since just one part of the fed can deliver the same or worst atrocrious act against spacenoids -rebels and innocents alike- repeatly before the rest of the fed try to stop it, how can the fed be trusted?
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Re: Help with 0083 at the end (spoiler alert)

domtropen wrote:*Snip*

Like it or not Titans is still part of the fed, and since just one part of the fed can deliver the same or worst atrocrious act against spacenoids -rebels and innocents alike- repeatly before the rest of the fed try to stop it, how can the fed be trusted?
The difference, in my mind, exists mainly in that the Titans are only a part of the Federation. The Zeonic nuke-and-gas strategy was army-wide. Not just one or two colonies were gassed. Not just one nuke was accidentally fired. There was a clear, consistent scheme of mass murder put into place.

What's more, Zeon "wins" by virtue of scope. Yes, colonies were dropped and gassed. ONE was dropped. TWO were gassed or nearly gassed. ONE more was blown open by the colony laser. Compare to Zeon's Side-wide attacks, which were enough to annihilate the Side 5 down to almost its last cylinder. (And even that was written off as a wasteland.)

And it's not as if the Titans went unopposed. The AEUG existed for that very reason.

Of course, this doesn't absolve anyone of anything. I wasn't at all surprised to see Char receiving support for his Neo Zeon movement in spite of Zeon's reputation for the very reason that the Titans did do all of these things to rile up the colonists.
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Re: Help with 0083 at the end (spoiler alert)

And Titans can commit that atrocious act even with the need to borrow the fed's forces to fill in the ranks. Zeon commits most of its forces to fight the much bigger fed forces at OYW and commits atricious act as part of its effort to quickly win the war. What puny reason is for Titans to commit its crime? It is not up against another massive enemy forces or anything. Killing the whole population just to stop uprising is not going to make spacenoids think it is a good idea to stay under the fed's thumb.

What would the fed do if AEUG lost before Dakar? What if Titans takes over?
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Re: Help with 0083 at the end (spoiler alert)

domtropen wrote:Again do we know the number of fed forces inside the colony?
Numbers in general in Gundam is a tricky subject; we can't even decide how many people, on average, lived inside a colony. We can't even figure out how large humanity is at any particular time. So, no, there's no idea of how large the Federation Forces presence in a colony was, but some of the sourcebooks claim the garrisons were merely constublary forces; no one claims that the pre-OYW Sides were armed camps stuffed to the gills with EFSF personnel.
domtropen wrote:Even now various groups in the real world try to control the size of the population [contraceptives etc]. It is interesting to jump to the opinion that Zeon Daikun would prefer killing the population over other means of population control.
In fact, I specifically pointed out that Zeon Daikun might not have intended to go the mass-murder route for population control, only that -- according to the Setting Notes -- he advocated "regulating the excessively large human population." It's entirely possible Gihren corrupted that to "exterminate the other sides for lebensraum", but that such was at best merely a perversion of Contolism, rather than something Gihren invented out of whole cloth and tacked onto things.
domtropen wrote:And the nuttiness and morality of Zeon forces [ones who command and ones who get the job done] won't be much difference or may be a notch higher than Titans forces. In the same token Titans is working to enforce the fed's rule by mindlessly and actively butching everyone in 30 bunch, trying to drop colony on Granada [fail], trying to gas Colony 25 of Side 2 [failed] and this is before Dakar speech.
Agreed completely. The Titans were different from Zeon only in that they didn't represent the controlling (political) faction of the Federation, but rather it's active military faction.
domtropen wrote:And even after Dakar even more brutalities were executed by Titans forces [more gassing and colony laser] before they can be eliminated. Like it or not Titans is still part of the fed, and since just one part of the fed can deliver the same or worst atrocrious act against spacenoids -rebels and innocents alike- repeatly before the rest of the fed try to stop it, how can the fed be trusted?
The Titans were indeed part of the Federation, but they were also keeping their misdeeds under wraps, such that even 18 months after gassing 30 Bunch its demise was still rumor to those who'd heard anything, and many people hadn't even heard the rumors -- the reactions of Emma and Lyla when Argama visits the colony makes this clear. And as soon as the Federation government is confronted with the excesses of the Titans, the government repudiates them and declares them outlaws, making it clear that the Titans committed these atrocities on their own, rather than as the official policy of the Federation. This doesn't absolve the Federation of complicit complacency, but it does show that ethnic cleansing was not an official policy of the Federation, and this is where the Federation and Principality of Zeon governments differ with their treatment of spacenoids.
Imperial wrote:Granted, I'm not totally up to date, but any show is going to have a hard time "out-Zeoning" 0083 or MS IGLOO. Sure, Unicorn makes a point of saying the people who fight for Zeon are a disenfranchised lot desperate to find something to believe in, but Banagher, the POV character with whom we are clearly meant to agree, consistently points out that none of this gives them the right to become a terrorist cell, which is a much more scathing condemnation of Zeon than anything the flag-waving IGLOO crew have to say about it.
I clearly should have spent more time on this topic. Yes, 0083 and Igloo show the military superiority of the Zeons, despite them (seemingly inexplicably) losing the OYW, but I don't remember them saying much about the justice underlying Zeon's cause, which gets a fair amount of play in Unicorn. Sure, Delaz gets all hot and bothered about the Federation building a nuclear-armed Gundam and tries to twist this into "Federation = Evil! Zeon = Righteous!" despite 1) Zeon's track record and 2) there being no proof that nuclear weapons aren't allowed to exist, just a prohibition on using them (which he builds his plan around violating, too). So, while there's a lot about how cool & badass the Zeons are, there isn't a lot of screentime devoted to justifying the Zeon war of aggression -- unlike Unicorn, which spends a fair amount of Episode 2 delving into this very topic. And while there are shills for the Zeon perspective, there's no one arguing the Federation side, just Banagher saying "Well, maybe you're right -- but you shouldn't have killed so many people!"
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Re: Help with 0083 at the end (spoiler alert)

domtropen wrote:And Titans can commit that atrocious act even with the need to borrow the fed's forces to fill in the ranks. Zeon commits most of its forces to fight the much bigger fed forces at OYW and commits atricious act as part of its effort to quickly win the war. What puny reason is for Titans to commit its crime? It is not up against another massive enemy forces or anything. Killing the whole population just to stop uprising is not going to make spacenoids think it is a good idea to stay under the fed's thumb.

What would the fed do if AEUG lost before Dakar? What if Titans takes over?
So...it's okay for Zeon to commit mass murder because it's at a strategic disadvantage? If you have to resort to those kinds of tactics just to make victory even remotely possible, maybe you're better off not even bothering. Zeon didn't even need to do that. It had persisted for more than ten years after Zeon declared Side 3 independent, even with Federation sanctions. They didn't NEED to start a war they couldn't win without war crimes.

As for the Titans, I'm not here to defend their actions. They're evil. They needed to be destroyed. They can claim keeping the population in check, but that's no excuse for the horrible things they did. In this, you and I are in total agreement.

The Federation isn't perfect. No one is claiming they are. But at least they aren't Zeon.
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Re: Help with 0083 at the end (spoiler alert)

Imperial wrote:
Black Knight wrote: Even in Unicorn, by far the most pro-Zeon show to date, there don't seem to be a lot of dyed-in-the-wool Zeons, but a bunch of people fighting for "their people", whom they feel have been disadvantaged. (I'd argue that they're disadvantaged because they keep fighting the OYW over...but I'm cynical.)
Granted, I'm not totally up to date, but any show is going to have a hard time "out-Zeoning" 0083 or MS IGLOO.
This is true! Compared to Aguille Delaz & Anavel Gato, Full Frontal is Zeon Lite, or maybe that new manly 10-calorie Doctor Pepper. :D His Good Zeon/Bad Zeon interview scene with Angelo & Banagher was great stuff. He tries hard, but we all know he's not Char, 'cause when he opens his mouth we don't hear Shuichi Ikeda. ;)

Black Knight: Your cynicism is forgiven, in the hopes that your soul will eventually shed it and soar away from Earth to join all the shiny happy Gundam people in space! (Wow, actually typed that with a straight face. Time to go watch some fan service anime and wind down...) Actually I'd rather not get into litmus testing of various Zeon-faction characters, since that sort of thing is too much like ol' Gihren already. Plus the idea of various characters writing Maoist-style self-criticism reports on their commitment to Zeon seems like bad comedy...or really good comedy compared to some of the groaners the SD UC shorts forced on us. :lol: Anyway, what I meant by saying that staying in the fight = dedication to Zeonism is that everyone crewing a Zeon MS, servicing it, or crewing the transport carrying it beyond a certain point in the UC timeline is still believing in The Revolution. Otherwise, they can climb out of the cockpit, put down their gun, and go home, or to Luna, or to Jupiter. They could quit if they want to, but they don't, and so they keep Zeonism alive for another day.

JEFFPIATT: Hmm, the GP-03 launch incident does seem kind of fishy. But, I think it could be said that the GP-03 was being witheld as a future asset, or at least one not approved for deployment at the time. The proto-Titans don't want to use GP-03, they have a solar mirror, so they forbid its deployment. Being proper elitist bastards, they're not going to stand for insubordination by some uppity Albion crew who don't know when to shut up, salute, and stop meddling with things they don't need to know about.
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Re: Help with 0083 at the end (spoiler alert)

I won't used the word atrocious for Zeon if I think it is ok. And it is not ok for Titans to commit it and should I trust its boss who fail to stop its repeated acts? I agree that both Zeon and Titans are evil, but I do not agree that spacenoids have to like the fed because it looks like the lesser of the evil. And after all these wars and tragedies the fed still doesn't correct one of the root causes for all these messes: any plan to grant independence or equality to spacenoids. What does spacenoids get after OYW? naval review, Titans, Londo Bell, and that colony laser still hanging in the sky.

And we discussed so much about the Zeon independence and the fed's reaction and such already so why it is still brought up that Zeon doesn't have to do anything to maintain its independence.
Imperial wrote:
domtropen wrote:And Titans can commit that atrocious act even with the need to borrow the fed's forces to fill in the ranks. Zeon commits most of its forces to fight the much bigger fed forces at OYW and commits atricious act as part of its effort to quickly win the war. What puny reason is for Titans to commit its crime? It is not up against another massive enemy forces or anything. Killing the whole population just to stop uprising is not going to make spacenoids think it is a good idea to stay under the fed's thumb.

What would the fed do if AEUG lost before Dakar? What if Titans takes over?
So...it's okay for Zeon to commit mass murder because it's at a strategic disadvantage? If you have to resort to those kinds of tactics just to make victory even remotely possible, maybe you're better off not even bothering. Zeon didn't even need to do that. It had persisted for more than ten years after Zeon declared Side 3 independent, even with Federation sanctions. They didn't NEED to start a war they couldn't win without war crimes.

As for the Titans, I'm not here to defend their actions. They're evil. They needed to be destroyed. They can claim keeping the population in check, but that's no excuse for the horrible things they did. In this, you and I are in total agreement.

The Federation isn't perfect. No one is claiming they are. But at least they aren't Zeon.
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Re: Help with 0083 at the end (spoiler alert)

domtropen wrote:And it is not ok for Titans to commit it and should I trust its boss who fail to stop its repeated acts? I agree that both Zeon and Titans are evil, but I do not agree that spacenoids have to like the fed because it looks like the lesser of the evil. And after all these wars and tragedies the fed still doesn't correct one of the root causes for all these messes: any plan to grant independence or equality to spacenoids. What does spacenoids get after OYW? naval review, Titans, Londo Bell, and that colony laser still hanging in the sky.
I guess I should clarify my POV a little bit.

I don't think Spacenoids should blindly support the Earth Federation. The Feds clearly don't give much of a care about Spacenoids unless they're arming themselves with mobile suits and radical agendas. As I said earlier, I'm not at all surprised by the train scene of Char's Counterattack after all of the antagonism and neglect that characterized the Federation's treatment of the colonies in the Gryps and First Neo Zeon Wars.

The Federation does a piss poor job of living up to its role as humankind's steward, but I still come out of most shows supporting them because they don't go to the insane lengths of Zeon or the Crossbone Vanguard or any of the other contenders for supremacy. You wind up rooting for the Federation by default when the other guy wants to start a nuclear winter.

But I don't think the post-War scenario is quite as bleak as you make it out to be. The Naval Review is seemingly a Federation tradition. It's something that has been conjectured to happen every year alone with the annual arms updated. It's business as usual. What's more, how many Spacenoids really know or care about it? How well-informed are any of us (non-soldiers) about our country's military structure and deployment? Before Gato made it a turkey shoot, it was just a way for the Federation to strut and peacock about without doing much of anything.

The colony laser isn't "still hanging in the sky." With the damage Sirocco and Haman inflict on its innards and the sheer logistics of channeling that much heat through a man-made structure, it couldn't have survived the final shot that destroys the Titans fleet. Otherwise, Haman would be letting an invaluable asset sit idle, and that's just not her style. Superweapons like the colony laser and Solar Ray are a big deal in Gundam. It's not just going to get brushed under the rug unless there's nothing left to brush.
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Re: Help with 0083 at the end (spoiler alert)

The colony laser isn't "still hanging in the sky." With the damage Sirocco and Haman inflict on its innards and the sheer logistics of channeling that much heat through a man-made structure, it couldn't have survived the final shot that destroys the Titans fleet. Otherwise, Haman would be letting an invaluable asset sit idle, and that's just not her style. Superweapons like the colony laser and Solar Ray are a big deal in Gundam. It's not just going to get brushed under the rug unless there's nothing left to brush.
Look like it is good enough [or worse if the fed make a shiny new one] for someone to press the button to fire a shot for Unicorn to go rainbow and block it.

So the buildup of fed fleet is for fighting space aliens?
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Re: Help with 0083 at the end (spoiler alert)

domtropen wrote:I won't used the word atrocious for Zeon if I think it is ok. And it is not ok for Titans to commit it and should I trust its boss who fail to stop its repeated acts? I agree that both Zeon and Titans are evil, but I do not agree that spacenoids have to like the fed because it looks like the lesser of the evil. And after all these wars and tragedies the fed still doesn't correct one of the root causes for all these messes: any plan to grant independence or equality to spacenoids. What does spacenoids get after OYW? naval review, Titans, Londo Bell, and that colony laser still hanging in the sky.
I'd have said they get to "continue living" which is more than any of the other factions offer them.

Sure, the Federation isn't perfect, but since the first century of the UC calender is effectively a two-party system, the "everyday spacenoid" really only has the options between "would exterminate you for your land" and "don't really care about you, but will violently react to challenges to our authority".

If there was a "Grant spacenoids indpendence" movement which wasn't tied to Zeon, I think a lot of spacenoids would support it. But there isn't. So, while "neither of the existing choices" is indeed the best answer, it's not seemingly an option for spacenoids -- just as "I don't care, I just want to keep living" doesn't seem to be an answer, either.

On the other hand, there's also some question as to how well-known the Titans' atrocities are -- 30 Bunch wasn't widely known even 18 months after it happened; if you didn't participate or happen to stop by its physical location, you might never have heard about it. It's only Char's Dakar speech which lets the government know it and later Titans atrocities took place, so it's possible that John Q. Spacenoid still doesn't know about any of the Titans attacks on whole colonies in 0090. If Moon-Moon can be lost, it seems even spacenoids may not care about much more than the doings of their own individual colonies, which paints a much more isolationist and non-communicative view of spacenoids than what seems to be assumed by many people due to our highly-interconnected modern world.
domtropen wrote:And we discussed so much about the Zeon independence and the fed's reaction and such already so why it is still brought up that Zeon doesn't have to do anything to maintain its independence.
Agree 100%; Side 3 had been truly independent for 20 years when they started the OYW.
domtropen wrote:So the buildup of fed fleet is for fighting space aliens?
What "buildup"? There's not much evidence to support that the EFSF (or EFF in general) ever got as large as the size they were pre-OYW, and its arguable that by 0093 the EFF have shrunk to fairly small sizes as part of austerity measures (Minister Paraya's comments seem to provide the Gov't position on the usefulness of the EFF). By 00912 Kai[/i]s are shown seemingly-mothballed tied up to colonies.
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Re: Help with 0083 at the end (spoiler alert)

Agree 100%; Side 3 had been truly independent for 20 years when they started the OYW.
and completely ignore all argument about the fed not accept it, build up EFSF, and put sanction on it?
What "buildup"? There's not much evidence to support that the EFSF (or EFF in general) ever got as large as the size they were pre-OYW, and its arguable that by 0093 the EFF have shrunk to fairly small sizes as part of austerity measures (Minister Paraya's comments seem to provide the Gov't position on the usefulness of the EFF). By 00912 Kai[/i]s are shown seemingly-mothballed tied up to colonies.
0083 naval review [and iirc it is being planned to be broadcasted everywhere]. And I would be very surprised if the fed can rebuilt its fleet quickly again after being wipped in 0083 and 0087.
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Re: Help with 0083 at the end (spoiler alert)

domtropen wrote:and completely ignore all argument about the fed not accept it, build up EFSF, and put sanction on it?
What about the Federation "not accepting" Zeon's independence? They essentially ignored the Side, just like the Federation ignores all problems in space whenever it can (and sometimes when it can't). That doesn't change the fact that Zeon declared independence and governed itself independently, or that the Federation appeared to be completely content with this situation, or at least unwilling to act in any forceful way to change it. While sourcebooks attempt to justify Zeon's War of Aggression with claims of economic sanctions from the Federation, there's nothing on Earth which can't be found in space, and everything in space is more economical to move to a colony than it is to ship it up from Earth. Not that, as modern international affairs show, economic sanctions have every done anything.

The timing of things also make it possible that the EFSF wasn't given warships until the Zeon began building warships. We don't know which came first, the SAF or the EFSF, but there's not a lot of verified anti-Earth sentiment outside of Zeon pre-war, which suggests the colonies didn't feel like they were either occupied territory or being shortchanged. Side 2, in fact, was said to be extremely pro-Federation in some accounts. When the EFF are shown in org charts, the pre-war structure looks very heavily geared towards peacekeeping and internal security and not very well geared for fighting wars -- otherwise the major fleet base of the EFSF would probably not be as far from Side 3, the only potential military threat, as it is possible to be in the Earth Sphere.

As it is, if Earth was North America and all the other continents were the Sides, when Africa (side 3) declared independence, the Federation put MPs and internal-security forces throughout the world, but to counter the nascent African Military Force, they built the main EFSF base in Hawaii, where it's hard to sortie against the AMF directly, but they're well-placed should it try to attack South America or Southeast Asia (L4 and L5). Sure, building it in the Mediterranean would be smarter, but there's just one squadron there because its commander is a hardcase and believes in exercising his fleet over major holidays (Revil at L1).

So, yeah, people can claim that the Federation didn't like the idea of an independent Side 3, or that it built up a strong military to force them back into the fold, but such would run counter to everything we know about the Federation's dealings with space and the locations they decided to fortify.
domtropen wrote:0083 naval review [and iirc it is being planned to be broadcasted everywhere]. And I would be very surprised if the fed can rebuilt its fleet quickly again after being wipped in 0083 and 0087.
If your fleet can be nearly wiped out by one nuke in space, physics says your fleet consists of two ships; one which got hit directly and one which lost its radios due to radiation but suffered no other major damage. Unless the ships are practically docked, your nuke is going to have a hard time destroying more than one ship at a time.

Or I could say that 0083 provided a very expensive indication of the dangers of a large military, and the Federation didn't continue the experiment. Certainly it exposed the dangers of a concentrated military, and the Federation avoided that pitfall for the rest of its existence, leaving itself open to a number of others.

But, yes, there's not much indication that the Federation spent much effort rebuilding its fleet post-war. Only 0083 ever claimed the contrary, and it conveniently also had the fleet destroyed (making physics cry, again) in order to avoid countering the shows which took place later showing a very militarily-weak Federation. And, after all, with the Republic of Zeon made weak by treaty, there's not much need for a strong EFF after the OYW -- which also moves the Federation in line with the common practice of nations following huge wars, which is for disarmament rather than rearmament.

Consider, too, that the Titans, for all their power in 0087, seemingly consisted of a very small force until the AEUG went public. Regular Federation Forces troops garrison Titans facilities in Side 7/Green Noa, and other than a handful of Alexandria-cruisers the Titans steal every last one of its ships (predominantly Salamis Kais but also the Hario) from the Earth Federation Space Force or the Republic of Zeon, and we've also seen the Titans forcibly inducting EFSF pilots. (Yes, AoZ and other stories try to counter this, but in the animated works, the Titans force is sufficiently tiny that it's militarily commanded by a single naval Captain, the same position Bright has in CCA as the leader of Londo Bell -- it's possible the Titans were about the same size. And field commanders are mere lieutenant commaders -- only one step above what Bright was at the end of Movie III.)
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Re: Help with 0083 at the end (spoiler alert)

This is driving me nuts as I cannot for the life of me find the Japanese publication I read the timeline event in. If memory serves me, the Federation at one point recognized Side 3 as being separate (by some small measure) but Gihren was already in his "destroy them all" mode and overlooked this fact and pressed on with the war.
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Re: Help with 0083 at the end (spoiler alert)

Black Knight wrote:If there was a "Grant spacenoids indpendence" movement which wasn't tied to Zeon, I think a lot of spacenoids would support it. But there isn't. So, while "neither of the existing choices" is indeed the best answer, it's not seemingly an option for spacenoids -- just as "I don't care, I just want to keep living" doesn't seem to be an answer, either.
Yes, a middle-ground independence movement would probably gain a lot of traction, but most of the people who give a damn in the UC gradually gravitate to one of the existing factions cicra 0085-87. AEUG is probably the most visible in the "defenders of those who wish to live" category, but they don't want real change either, beyond removing the Titans from power. It's a fact of life that a lot of people don't want change in their lives, or at least don't want change that is going to change their lives too much. "'Prudence indeed will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed." Which leads to the problem of abolishing said forms...
On the other hand, there's also some question as to how well-known the Titans' atrocities are -- 30 Bunch wasn't widely known even 18 months after it happened; if you didn't participate or happen to stop by its physical location, you might never have heard about it. It's only Char's Dakar speech which lets the government know it and later Titans atrocities took place, so it's possible that John Q. Spacenoid still doesn't know about any of the Titans attacks on whole colonies in 0090.
I'd say that the Titans were well-known as a bunch of power-tripping villains well in advance of the Dakar speech. The AEUG isn't some rag-tag outfit, it's a full-scale volunteer military force supported by corporations like Anaheim Electronics, who collectively employ millions of employees to design and build AEUG's equipment. So already at the beginning of the Zeta story, there are many people who know what happened at 30 Bunch, who did it and why, and they are ready to "do their bit" to prevention of future repetition. If the Karaba on Earth in the heart of the EUG can get organized to stop the Titans, the dead cat is out of the 30 Bunch bag. (If the Titans' bullying behavior of the anime is taken at face value, there are probably many eyewitnesses to such acts who would hear the rumors of 30 Bunch and think "yeah, they could do it.")

Now, the big challenge of AEUG and Karaba is to get the general populace off their butts and into motion stopping the Titans. It's easy to cry out for something to be done. Actually getting it done takes some effort, and a willingness to confront the Titans, who have already proved that independent action will be punished! The side trip to 30 Bunch by Argama isn't just to inform Camille and Emma of the atrocity, it's a "why we fight" lesson/inspiration.
domtropen wrote:So the buildup of fed fleet is for fighting space aliens?
In the POV of mouth-breathers like Monsha, yes, it is for fighting uchuujin, so to speak.
What "buildup"? There's not much evidence to support that the EFSF (or EFF in general) ever got as large as the size they were pre-OYW, and its arguable that by 0093 the EFF have shrunk to fairly small sizes as part of austerity measures (Minister Paraya's comments seem to provide the Gov't position on the usefulness of the EFF). By 00912 Kai[/i]s are shown seemingly-mothballed tied up to colonies.
Well, the planners shrunk the Sallies, to be sure! :lol: Stardust Memory acts out the transition of the EFSF from a quantitative to a qualitative force. Wyatt Green is the strategic equivalent of the stereotypical commander ready to fight the previous war, or at least the previous war as he would have preferred it! However, in the post-Loum UC world, warships deployed without MS are fodder for enemy MS and MA, and their crews sacrificed to no purpose. The commander who expects a set-piece battle will be undone by the MS-dominated battlefield, where advances and retreats are swift, and capable of devastation disproportionate to the numbers used.

The future of the EFSF relates to the pattern seen in Zeta Gundam and subsequent anime. It is to more or less copy the ZMF pattern, using semi-independent mobile strike forces of fast ships equipped with the most up-to-date MS, ready to pursue Zeon Remnants to their hidey-holes, and respond quickly to their appearances. Few can do the task of many, if they equipped and trained well enough, ne? And if they mobile force falls short, at least the death toll will be merely tragic, instead of assuming government-rocking scandal proportions.
Last edited by Zeonista on Thu Oct 13, 2011 11:31 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Help with 0083 at the end (spoiler alert)

Yep, the Federation, at least with how 0083 looked, seemed like they expected Mobile Suit combat to fade into obscurity after the One Year War, after mopping up Zeon forces, hence why they focused so much of their rebuilding on their battleships more so than their Mobile Suit force beyond the Gundam Development Project (which itself felt more like a psychological-based move to intimidate Zeon forces when unleashed). The fact that they made no new Mobile Suit-based carriers outside of the Pegasus-class battleships, but rather just bigger battleships like the Birmingham seemed to support this too.

Unfortunately, 0083 proved that Mobile Suit combat wasn't going anywhere soon on top of 2/3 of their rebuilt battleship-based fleet being wiped out or disabled by a single Mobile Suit that managed to break through their whole wall of battleships firing on it, one of their own design no less.

Basically, it's another WWII reference. In this case, like how France first responded to the Nazi attacks at the beginning of WWII, building, moving, and positioning their forces based on assumptions that it would be a repeat of WWI static maneuvers, only to end up completely outmaneuvered by the new blitzkrieg tactic and resulting in France's occupation.
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Re: Help with 0083 at the end (spoiler alert)

Basically, it's another WWII reference. In this case, like how France first responded to the Nazi attacks at the beginning of WWII, building, moving, and positioning their forces based on assumptions that it would be a repeat of WWI static maneuvers, only to end up completely outmaneuvered by the new blitzkrieg tactic and resulting in France's occupation.
That doesn't seem like sensible comparison. France was basing their defense on their preivous "success". Battleships clearly failed in OYW. It's almost like saying US went back to building giant battleship after WWII instead of carrier groups. Not that I am trying to say 0083 is supposed to make sense with all that GP non-sense. How many of the ships in the naval review were actually newly built ships?
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Re: Help with 0083 at the end (spoiler alert)

Zeonista wrote:I'd say that the Titans were well-known as a bunch of power-tripping villains well in advance of the Dakar speech. The AEUG isn't some rag-tag outfit, it's a full-scale volunteer military force supported by corporations like Anaheim Electronics, who collectively employ millions of employees to design and build AEUG's equipment. So already at the beginning of the Zeta story, there are many people who know what happened at 30 Bunch, who did it and why, and they are ready to "do their bit" to prevention of future repetition.
That doesn't follow. Just because the AEUG was well-funded and well-organized, that doesn't imply that the 30 Bunch incident was common knowledge. It also flies in the face of what we see in the animation -- most people are shown to simply not know about it, including the Earth Federation Assembly. High-ranking government officials certainly have more resources to draw from than the average Joe Spacenoid -- if the bigwigs don't know the score, how can you expect the masses to?
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Re: Help with 0083 at the end (spoiler alert)

Most of the AEUG's material success loops straight back around to Anaheim. They're on the cutting edge of weapons development, so of course the AEUG will come out of the deal with some pretty neat toys. What's more, Anaheim wanted the AEUG to provoke the Titans enough to spark the kind of arms race that would line their pockets very nicely.

I take the AEUG as less of a grassroots movement and more of a radical agenda that found legs with the help of a bunch of well-connected warmongers.

Indeed, much of the AEUG's struggle in Zeta Gundam consists of making the Federation realize how far out of hand things have gotten. They didn't really appreciate any of this until Dakar. Nor did the Earth Sphere as a whole, which is why the Dakar speech was such a big deal. There may have been resent and innuendo swirling around the Titans, but the bulk of the Earth Sphere doesn't appear to have realized how deeply the corruption went until Char tore away the veil.
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