kalvasflam

All true, but the point still stands, it doesn't hurt at all to try. ZAFT doesn't have to believe it... and odds are, they probably won't, but if Cagalli didn't try at all, she would never know what the results would be. Think of it like being dealt a free hand in a round of poker where you don't lose anything by playing, but standing to gain a lot if you won.

As for fighting back, the result is not take some damage, it would be Orb getting totalled. In my view, they're even less prepared for invasion this time than the last time. Remember, if nothing else, she might be able to buy some time. Dullindal can do whatever he wants, it would be up to her to try to counter his arguments. But if she just keeps fighting, well, she would effectively putting Orb's ideals ahead of the well being of its people.

Keep in mind, I'm looking at this based on information available to the individual, not a omniglobal view.

Use a historical analogy. Think about the end of WWII, the Japanese could keep fighting and hold on to their ideals (whatever those happened to be), even after two atom bombs. But at some point, reason had to prevail, because if it didn't, then it would have been invasion, or something even worse, and Halsey would've been proven correct, and the Japanese language would've indeed only been spoken in hell.

Damn, I think the season is over. That's too bad.. Have to wait till Sept to get new episodes. I think the show trumps the Simpsons, but that's just me.

We'll ignore super heroes and their insane machines and look at reality:

1) In reality, Orb does not have a chance against ZAFT in the long run.

2) Continued fighting will ensure that all (or more) of Orb eventually gets wrecked.

3) ZAFT commanders (as far as they know) and Cagalli wants to get rid of Jibril. In theory, if Jibril gets handed over, the best case is ZAFT goes away. The worst case is ZAFT demands even more, which makes ZAFT look pretty bad because they're moving the goal posts.

The reason for making a quick broadcast is that it is possible to achieve the following, none of which are bad for Cagalli or the citizens of Orb:

1) temporary cessation of hostilities

2) chance to realign the defenses when hostilities recommences.

3) a chance to evacuate the citizens of Orb to shelter before the battle reaches them

4) a chance to consolidate her power in Orb, and toss in a token offering

At worst, you get no response from the ZAFT commander on scene, and the fight continues. But now, Cagalli would've had an image of trying to be reasonable.

I agree with the trespasser analogy and the need to take care of ones own house, it makes sense. But Cagalli is only at this moment regaining control of her own house, and she is trying to fight multiple battles at once, not exactly a recipe for success.

The reality of the situation is that Orb can't stand up to ZAFT, unless something has changed, and Orb suddenly rivaled ZAFT in terms of real military power. Continued fighting means Orb eventually gets overwhelmed. As Cagalli continues to fight, it just means ZAFT will pour in more reinforcements, almost a guarantee that it will wreck more of Orb, which is exactly what Cagalli doesn't want.

This of course begs an answer to a bigger question, specifically regarding Uzumi's ideals. Which is, we'll stay neutral, and will defend ourselves to maintain our neutrality. The real question is, what is the cost of neutrality? i.e. what matters more? The lives of the citizens in Orb, or the ideal itself. Meaning, if you had to sacrifice one, which would go first?

I think what Uzumi is really saying is that we don't want to be involved, and to stay neutral, I'm going to play both sides off of each other, and in turn, staysafe. It's a very good plan until one side gains too much power, or if you don't have a smart enough guy in the middle playing both sides off.

Again, this is just all second guessing the situation on what real life people would consider doing. With the series so full of plot holes as it is, this is one issue that doesn't even rate much.

And F360... I wasn't as harsh the second go around Remember, I don't hate Cagalli, I just don't think she is very astute.

They way I see it Gilbert is taking Orb down regardless, Lacus and Cagali seem to feel the same way. So telling him to hold back while they look for him would just be a futile action. Archangel won't be combat ready for at least 2 days, and Gilbert isn't likely to believe them.

314561[/snapback]

Ah, you're talking reality, I'm talking politics. I know it might be futile, but a few words never killed anyone... ok, that's not true, but in this case, it doesn't hurt to try. The worst that can happen is status quo, they all keep fighting. But there is indication that the ZAFT commanders might actually hold up for a while and consult their bosses.

Gilbert might want to kill Orb regardless, but you have to remember, so far, he is supposed to be lying to his people with just "I want Jibril" Then, if Orb promises hands over Jibril, tosses in yuna and daddy, and then say: "look guys, we are neutral again, here are the offending parties." What does it hurt. For Cagalli, she gets rid of potential rivals, has a look of reasonable and intelligent leader. If Dullindal keeps going after Orb, then he looks bad.

It's all about appearences.

On the one hand, you see an unreasonable Dullindal if he presists in attacking Orb after Cagalli promises to find and turn over Jibril, and on the other if Cagalli keep doing what she does, you see Orb in chaos, harboring war criminal.

To the outside world, Dullindal looks more right as time goes on, "see those Orb lunatics, they harbor a war criminal, and to boot, they're dangerous with all their technology."

Finally analysis... Cagalli: DUMB. Ok, ok, too harsh... not very skilled in the art of politics.

I don't think it has to do with the mass driver. After all the EA itself still has one from the last war. I'm sure they've even built another I'd think. Would be smart of them to, in the very middle of EA controll land in North America just to be extra safe. So going after Orb for that doesn't seem like it would be the main reason. I think he wanted to attack Orb and is just using Dijbril as the means to do it. Orb is strong(really it shouldn't be for such a small island nation) and that's why he wants them gone. He can't risk anyone going against him.

314386[/snapback]

Here we delve into the realm of politics, and we again see why Cagalli is absolutely unfit to rule. Having thrown Yuuna into the brig, she decides to continue to fight ZAFT. Now, there is no good logic behind this. We can examine what ZAFT say they want: namely purple lips Jibril.

Orb initially responded with a lie. Having thrown Yuna in jail, Cagalli's next move should've been ordering a broadcast to ZAFT asking them to stand down, give her a little time to find and turn over Jibril, or possibly even invite some of ZAFT troops to Orb to help search for Jibril. Her excuse for needing the time is that she just threw out a bunch of people that launched a coup, and it's taking time to get things organized.

Why would this be a good move? Well, Cagalli gains everything, she tried a peaceful solution. It spares Orb's military capacity from having to fight ZAFT if it works. Keeps her people (civilians) from getting involved (we know that civvies are going to die anyway even in an action limited to just military targets) more than they have already. The worst case scenario is the plea falls on deaf ears, but Cagalli loses nothing by doing this, and gains in the eyes of others because she tried to be reasonable in spite of the ZAFT attack.

There is at least some evidence that ZAFT troops are only interested in Jibril, thanks to Dullindal saying that Jibril is the way to end the war. And better yet, Cagalli might be able to throw Yuuna and daddy to the dogs too, by saying "it's Orb's ideal to be neutral, and these people who want to ally with EA's war criminals are not a part of Orb." Th0is would be what a crafty politician would do. If it works, the battle goes on for a few minutes, and then stops.

Now in the heat of battle, it might be a little difficult to disengage, but once the commander of ZAFT troops hears this, odds are, he will probably pull his troops back, after all, why continue an unnecessary battle when the other side is going to hand you what you want. The other reason for stopping is that he would've seen things aren't going well, so, if he waits, he gets additional reinforcements for a full push if talks fall apart.

But the problem with continuing to fight and to "defend" Orb, she is ensuring that no one on the other side knows that Yuuna and company got tossed in jail, and Orb is willing to turn over Jibril. (I'm assuming this, since it's unlikely that Cagalli and company would want to shelter Jibril in the first place) So, ZAFT now keeps attacking because they are assuming that Jibril is still being protected, and idiot Cagalli keeps fighting back because she sees ZAFT invading... but now, for no good reason, because Yuuna and company are finished.

Don't you just love the irony? Just another reason why Cagalli is DUMB.

So all we know is Uzumi ordered it built right? So we don't know when it was completed. It could have just been the frame sitting around somewhere and the Alliance just had more important things to deal with than an incomplete MS.

Either that or the Alliance was only interested in occupation and didn't really go around looking for secret weapons.

314134[/snapback]

That's a good point... I assumed that this was built before, you get that kind of from the speech Uzumi made. But he could've had Erica start the project, but put it on hold after EA invaded. Ah well, Bling gundam.... bah.... I'm waiting for the gundam called Fuzzy pink bunny of love, imagine being killed by something called Fuzzy pink bunny of love Gundam.

Another interesting thought

The Bling gundam has been around for at least two years. We can surmise that because old fart Uzumi died two years ago. Now, interestingly enough, when Orb was blown, it seems that EA troops likely occupied Orb, however briefly.

Yet, they somehow managed to miss the Bling Gundam. So, either EA is incredibly incompetent, or Uzumi is incredibly paranoid enough to have so many hiding places to hide his treasure trove of weapons that these units can't be found even with an extensive search.

I'm just wondering if it's too much to ask for a gundam series that is focused on a good old fashion war without all the BS that comes up about super weapons, ultra fantastic plans, and all that.

Kind of like WW II without the genocidal maniacs running around the world. Actually, that makes it more like WWI or Napoleanic era warfare. I'd also like to see some military realism. i.e. you don't need to introduce a new super weapon every five to ten episodes, but use military strategy and tactics to win battles.

I know, I'm asking for too much.

I'd like to see a little OAV on what the Girty Lue has been doing. I doubt it's been sitting on the Moon colleciting dust.

314010[/snapback]

Not a bad idea. The Girty Lue assault on Armory One was actually one of the few bright spots in all of GSD. It had well executed action, and Neo didn't look like a total moron that he became later on.

We can title it the adventures of Girty Lue, and even if it dies at the end, I don't mind, meaningful story... that's all I ask.

Not to go off topic here but do you think the SEED universe has basicly screwed itself due to how fast they've advanced the technolgoy in it?

313980[/snapback]

Technology leaps notwithstanding, the whole let's rush the show and then not have any reasonable strategy on either side makes no sense to me. Now, may be GSD has great back story about realistic military operations, like assault on Carpenteria and Gibralter, but we sure as hell don't see it.

Heck, I didn't even think ZAFT could hold on to Gibralter base at all, considering how EAF would nearly have that rock surrounded. It's as if the writers all took a stupid pill between GS and GSD.

Now, may be the CE universe doesn't have to die, but we could have a short series (20 episodes) or OVA focusing on specific battles in a region. You can have overlaps into GSD, but kind of like 08th MS team and 0080 side stories. Those were great. That might actually really flesh out this so called second war they're having.

Example: You could have a story about how Dullindal got his hands on Destroy data. I assume he didn't just hand over a design to EA. Or something to that effect. Or may be a development of Destiny/Legend, and have a decent side story. Hopefully, it'll make up for some of the poor story telling going on in GSD.

I think it would be nice to actually see the destruction of most of the PLANTs using the simple mirage colloid thing we talked about a few pages ago. We can chalk it up to desperate people doing desperate things. I'd sure like to see EA rebound, and I don't mean with more Destroys.

The sense I have of the whole series, and the war was fought in a very half hearted manner, and there wasn't any intensity in trying to destroy your enemy. As pointed out previously, why send Destroy after civvies, when you could've sent it to one of the many ZAFT bases. It feels like people aren't seriously trying to win on either side, not like GS, when the fighting made overall strategic sense, and people constantly went for killing blows or strategies that made sense. EA held on until MS could be introduced, ZAFT went for a killing blow, got caught, and then adjusted strategy to lock EA on Earth. It failed, and EA went for the killing blow to wipe out ZAFT, and both sides unleashed WMD.

In GSD, the capabilities are there, but not so much the desire. ZAFT was mostly fighting defensive, and as far as I could tell, so was EA for the most part. The flow was, EA opens with WMD, fails, and isn't seen to try again. ZAFT fight on the defensive and so, we end up with what appears to be a war of attrition mostly until this Heaven base stuff.

After all they've taken a LOT else from the UC, why not this, especially since we are getting a Black Tri Stars rip it seems. I wonder if they'll be killed in the episode they appear in like the Black Tri Stars were though.

313947[/snapback]

Black Tristars didn't all die in the same ep, I believe it took them two episode to get all three killed. So, they will have the Destroy again... I wonder who they'll get to pilot it. I think it's already well established that Destroy as a whole sucks unless they have a decent pilot in it. If they happen to die in one episode, well, honestly I couldn't care all that much because they'll essentially be like a Sting with far less episodes.

I'm actually a bit curious to see where this story line will go from here, because this Orb thing can't last forever. And I thought the whole plan was they all go back into space at some point. It'll be weird if that doesn't happen, making it one of the few Gundam show where the final action will happen on Earth. One interesting thing about the episode, it didn't seem as if ZAFT threw in a lot of stuff against Orb, it's understandable after a fashion considering their recent losses. Hope this Orb thing gets done in a hurry.

By the way, did anyone actually catch how much time has gone by between fall of Heaven base and assault on Orb? I don't get a get sense of timing in this.

I stand corrected.  Heh heh.  Ohhh... east coast guys, watch out, another tidal wave coming courtesy of Hollywood.

313718[/snapback]

Hey dont forget the Hurricanes we get!

Hey Azrael got any email adresses for those so called 'writers' ??? That way we could vent to them properly.

313720[/snapback]

The response would be "eigo wa wakarimasen"

Yeah, about Hurricanes, that's never been a problem for the guys up NE. You don't have any real natural disasters, and no, major blizzards don't really count, you people are used to it.

Additional note, I said Cagalli was an interesting character, but then again, so was Emma Sheen, and Sirroco.... Cagalli needs to be interest that way.

If you really have a problem with the story...blame these people:

Chiaki Morosawa

Hiroshi Ohnogi

Hiroyuki Yoshino

Kazuho Hyodo

Natsuko Takahashi

Shigeru Morita

Yuuichi Nomura

The writers.

313716[/snapback]

I stand corrected. Heh heh. Ohhh... east coast guys, watch out, another tidal wave coming courtesy of Hollywood.

And at times that California has its earthquakes, I thank God everytime that Im on the East Coast!    Have fun over there. 

313603[/snapback]

Yeah, you guys just tend to be wiped on gigantic tidal waves generated courtesy of Hollywood Magic every couple of years. Oddly enough the people on East coast are really resilient and rebuild fast, never saw one bit of tidal wave damage all those times I've gone to the east coast.

As far as destiny is concerned, Effect has the right idea, Cagalli's character was brought to the forefront here, but my God. She has one look at her golden suit, and suddenly undergoes a dramatic personality shift, and gains effectiveness like nobody's business. At best, you can say her personality is unstable, and she doesn't deserve to be the ruler of Orb just because of that.

Just take Yuna for example, her lack of ability to do anything just meant Orb gets dragged through the mud, all of a sudden after Orb is through the mud, she gets a spine? No offense, if I were a citizen of Orb, I'd call for her immediate lynching. The military people are all the same way, they're happy she is back, even though she is the root cause of their problems because she choose to stand by and essentially do nothing while Yuna and daddy runs Orb into the ground, they decide to ignore that fact and instead go into hero worship on Cagalli. If nothing else, Cagalli at the end of the series need to step down from rulership of Orb because she is helping to wreck it far more than anyone because of her lack of leadership.

But the whole problem with GSD seem to be Fukuda's urgent desire to deliever a political message through his cartoon and so we keep focusing on Orb, and it's horrendous. The show started off in quite a promising fashion, but instead of fleshing out new characters and the storyline, everything reverted to Orb, and how it's ideal to try to keep neutral. Fukuda keeps trying to shove his statement across, and it reminds me of Kawamori and how he screwed up Macross Zero with his new age mysticism crap. It's quite sad if you ask me. So, in lieu of telling a good story, he reverts to the super robot show to try to get his message across, it's really annoying.

Now, one thing I will say, GSD has pretty good animation, the fact that the art team tend to be lazy not withstanding, the various MS are well drawn. The lack of god storyline is not the fault of the animators.

P.S. I don't hate Cagalli, in fact she was quite interest character during GS. Much more so than Lacus.

Wait so why are you mad again? It sort of got lost in translation for me.  We've already known there's alot of reused scenes, Mobile Suits which are just hack jobs of previously shown mobile suits thru the gundam universe....and that the Gundams many times look alot alike or look like pieces of other gundams.

I mean, last time I checked, this was an alternate universe storyline.....meaning simply, they can hack, slash, reuse parts all they want cause if it appeared in a different universe they'll damn well use it on here.

As for Episode 40, that's too bad that the Emergancy broadcast had to appear with the show taking up 60% of the screen unless it was a commerical...you notice that? It did that when the show was on, but when it came to a commerical we got full screen again UNTIL the show started up again.....

But if you never saw the raw, well, now you know.

I can tell you alot of fansubbers for the show, maybe even Haro or SEED will really be mad about this.

But hey my heart goes out to Tokyo right now for a quake that was as bad as 1992 .......woopie, California has a quake and you don't really hear much of it cause ppl are use to it in my opinion

313566[/snapback]

Mad? Don't think so... was nitpicking... it was honestly kind of fun to watch a show that manages to be so consistent in its inconsistency. The imminent start of the super robot show part 2 will be pretty good once we get pass the recap.

yeah, saw the commercials on full screen. I guess we know what's more important in Japan. Commercial over normal programming any day. Heck, commercials over natural disasters, I bet they'd have full screen commercials even if Godzilla was rampaging through downtown Tokyo.

As for people in CA being used to quakes. I haven't felt one since I've been in the bay area, and it's been eight years plus now. But then again, I'm sure people will feel it when it gets up to 7 or 8.

So much hate for her....maybe your jelous that she got  the Bling Gundam.    Haha Jk

313477[/snapback]

I'm jealous because she got a gundam that defies the law of physics. Hell, you'd be jealous too if you got a machine that can do that. (See Babi for example)

This episode seems to scream that the art team they have for GSD are either second rate or too lazy. Most of the sequences were reused. And the bling gundam is well kinda like Freedom painted gold. All the gundams are like mix and match the parts.

I wish they'd finish off this Orb sequence already. They'll put up an Orb sequence along with a recap episode, sick of Orb. Geez, the only thing I was looking forward to in the whole episode was Shinn showing up, I was so hoping he slice up the blonde bitch.

Finally, Jona gets what he deserves.

http://img53.imageshack.us/my.php?image=11...486474bc5qc.gif

Kinda funny how Cagalli got Jona to admit to her identity.

(BTW, there was an 6.0 earthquake in Japan so it will be a pain to find any clean screenshots) http://www.h-opera.com/

Apparently Kira has been teaching Cagalli some Jedi tricks. Akatsuki....No one can harm that thing...unless they get physical (i.e. melee fight, Shinn needs to perform his signature move, stab the belly with a anti-ship sword). Unlike a beam shield that absorbs the hit, the mirror coating armor reflects it right back. Not only are you wasting your shoot, you get a refund as well.

313461[/snapback]

Awwww, I feel so bad for Yuna, what did he ever do to deserve that punch? Cagalli is a bitch....

Heh heh, this is interesting, they did an MS for Cagalli that made her less vulnerable... Where are the missiles for that little bitch.

Lacus has a factory of death spewing out MS, has Kira/Athrun at her finger tips... if you ask me, she's the most dangerous of all. All Dullindal want is peace, and look what happens, Lacus frames him, and is trying to kill him....

Just a quick spoiler from the Char Blog:

(Spoiler, highlight to read)

Episode 41: Refrain

It's a recap episode focusing on Athrun and Kira.

Yeh yeh, that sucks.

313049[/snapback]

Ha, the title is so perfect for an episode of this type. It speaks out loud: PLEASE STOP IT. Fukuda needs to be shot in the head for putting up an episode like that while the bloody story is in tatters.

The problem with the Turn A design is a lot of people don't bother to see it in action. They see an image and just jump to the conclusion that it's ugly or whatever and don't bother being opened minded enough to give it a chance. Once you've seen it in action, every forum I've gone to people have said they were wrong about their first opinion and seeing the Turn A in action changed their opinion and it's look didn't bother them anymore.

It's kinda sad really that people just look at the design and automaticly write the show off as a result. It does make me wonder just how big the ratio is between those that actually care about the stories in Gundam compared to those that only care about the mechs and the action and don't really give a damn about the story or characters.

312180[/snapback]

They really could do a lot to marry Turn A stroy line with mech design from CE universe. CE has a few good designs, but the story has gone from mediocre to downright horrible.

I'm really looking froward to what this new series will be. I just hope they release more information on it soon.

311979[/snapback]

I hope it's a story driven series, not a sell toy driven series. I don't care if it's in UC or CE or anything else. Although having good mech design will be nice too.

No, you're not the only one. I liked it better the first time I saw it, when it was called the Nu Gundam. Let's face it, between the Zakus, Goufs and now the Doms (or is that Rik Dom?) Destiny has really, really REALLY run out of ideas for new and unique Mobile Suits.

311816[/snapback]

The biggest problem is saturation. With GSD, you have Strike, Impulse, Destiny, Freedom, SF... now, I don't know about the rest of you, but on the outside, they just don't look that different at a glance.

You can imagine how easily people can be confused with all those models. You can kind of say the same thing for AEGIS, Saviour, Justice types, but at least you can pick out some minor differences on those just at a glance. Now, Gundams are literally grunt suits (see Destroy). Oversaturation. Hell, in GS/GSD series alone, they have twice the number of unique gundams than all of UC put together. They are probably gonna end up rivaling the number of Gundams in G-gundam at this rate.

I remember in Zeta where they had literally a dozen MS that aren't gundams, but are perfectly capable of fighting with Gundams one on one. The O, Gaplant, Gabthley, Hambrabi, just to name a few.

The best explaination would probably be that it's a new Gaia. The translated summary I read of the episode indicated that Eternal was docked with a hidden factory. That's where they were building the DOMs, SF, and IJ. When that recon GINN found them, they decided to leave the factory and draw ZAFT's attention by launching Eternal. The factory is on silent at the moment but it wouldn't surprise me that they built their own Gaia.

311764[/snapback]

That's just so strange to hear that Lacus has a hidden war factory somewhere. And let's face it, these guys obviously have been busy, because you don't just design a new suit out of the blue. DOMs are entirely new, while SF and IJ can be considered upgrades, there are a few indications that the differences aren't just LEGOed onto the back of the original suits. Those must've taken at least years to develop from scratch even if they use a lot of existing technology.

Ha ha, essentially, little ice princess has been out setting up little weapons factory and warehouses for war long before the war actually started. Wonder if she's a member of LOGOs May be she is Anehiem Electronics of the CEverse. Which makes Orb... well, redundant.

Ah, crap, forgot it was on...

Anyone know when it's gonna re-air?

311360[/snapback]

Probably after the first run of 10 episodes or so... guessing mid to late Sept.