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kaigou[I may revise this some, once C-M or N-n-Z comes out with an avi version, or at least an mkv version o' ep6 that isn't four times larger than the average bear. Stupid mkv was too big, and even watching it on CP's comp still had to deal with dropped frames, pause and back up and hope the subtitles didn't get lost, annoying, annoying. Don't think I missed too much, though it took over an hour to watch a 28-min episode. Grrrr.]
I do plan to take a look at my preliminary impressions of some of the other characters, but first, this part's been bugging me: the politics, the economics, and more importantly, what's not happening. For starters, let's look at Taribia, which I guess is this world's version ofRandom South American Drug-Producing Country Bolivia -- and IIRC, it's even the same general area highlighted on the map displayed in the episode. So, the Kyrios is deployed to Venezuela/Bolivia Taribia, just as Acre, Katagiri, and the professor are discussing the completed modifications on Acre's Flag. Although it's relatively downplayed in this episode, the ramifications are huge. Or could be.
First, I mention Acre & his team because Acre offers/suggests going after the Gundam; I presume that they're currently stationed somewhere near the Union's centerpoint (that is, the orbital elevator system -- aka OES -- which is set as near the equator as possible for gravitational & orbital reasons). So they're within a decent distance, and yet, the professor holds Acre back, explaining he might not like the Gundams but he's against narcotics more. This may or may not be true in a personal sense, but on a political level, it's irrelevant: an officer of the Union's military has received warning that an attack may be incoming on a Union member country. Although Taribia is "near the orbital elevator" (and thus within relative closeness to the Union's major military base, going on comparison with AEU and HRL setups, which makes sense), the Kyrios arrives, bombs, and departs without a single moment of resistance.
That mission is dropped into the set o' missions, and with the attention being mostly on fireworks in Seiei's mission, it seems Taribia exists only as a means to show that the Gundams are also attacking, as the Professor insists, the "reasons for war" (Shinsen) or "the sources of war" (Conclave-Mendoi). Three things stand out when I rewatch, although at the time they seemed mostly throwaway. Haptism begins his scene, in the Kyrios, announcing he's circled for thirty minutes in a holding pattern, the warning is complete, and he's commencing operations. First time watching, it stands out mostly because of contrast with Haptism's first mission, in which he called himself a murderer; at the conclusion of this bombing run, he tells himself he could enjoy missions like the one he's just completed.
But think about that: he's been circling Taribian airspace for thirty minutes. Okay, so he gave a warning, but if I were Taribia, I'd be thinking: we're not at war, we've not beefed up our military, we've not done anything... why is he here? And given the Gundams' performance at Ceylon, who's going to send out troops to attack a Gundam... that's only circling, and not even done anything? There's a simple assumption in Haptism's report that his presence alone is warning, but there's no indication that Taribia could understand, or arrive at the same assumptions, based simply on finding the Kyrios hanging out in its airspace.
The last single throwaway moment that did stand out (at least for me) was the shot of villagers watching as the Kyrios flies off. I admit it, I'm the child of an economist, and the first thought I had was: yes, one could argue that narcotics traffic is a huge burden on social, economic, and personal structures in the recipient/smugglee country. But at the same time, those who grow the narcotics base (for pot, cocaine, heroin, whatever) are rarely those who actually get the massive sums from the sales. In fact, more often than not, they're subsistence farmers, choosing an illegal product because they're either essentially sharecroppers growing what the landlord demands, or because it's the only way to make at least enough to feed the family (compared to legal, and less profitable, crops). I mean, hell, so the illegal-crops farmers are making $5 on the truckload, which don't seem like much but compared to $1 for corn, that's a massive income increase.
The ones who 'support' war (an economic connection I'm not convinced of, with the possible exception of circumstances like Afghanistan, where terrorist groups are supported personally by certain farmers/communities) are, if they're anyone, going to be the middlemen. They're the ones who get fat off paying low and selling high, and have the money to burn. Economically, yes, destroying the cocaine fields will remove the goods the middlemen can sell -- but at the same time, it's also destroying the fields, the homes, and the livelihoods of people who work those fields. Really, narcotics money may play a role in military might, but hitting the absolute origin (the farmers/fields) seems to me to be about the equivalent of deciding you're going to make that picture on the wall perfectly level -- by taking down the entire wall with a sledgehammer. There are simply more efficient ways, with far less collateral damage, to go about it.
A gundam is, really, a sledgehammer. It is not designed for, nor suited for, the kinds of operations that would truly undermine the narcotics flow, if that were really the intention. Striking at the fields... well, for starters, it pisses off a lot of farmers, and anyone who might sympathize with them (plenty of other farmers in this world, y'know). Because if you look at the CB mission statement, it's that they'll strike at anyone seeking to do war... and I can see quite easily how a lot of people, from farmers up to Taribian presidents, might consider "working in the field" to not really fall into the category -- hell, so far out of it, it's sixteen miles over -- of "waging war."
[The other throwaway point in that episode... is that Seiei returns to Ceylon, to bomb again. What? Why? Did they not thoroughly devastate the allegedly-racial battlefield between the two groups on the island? If the fighting has halted -- and note that Seiei does not strike on the battlefield, but at a military base -- then there should be, again by CB's own definition of its mission statement -- no reason for CB to send a Gundam back to the area. Yet that detail comes and goes, with little attention.]
Thus, in Taribia's case, this is why both Sumeragi and the Union president aren't surprised when Taribia holds a press-conference with strongly anti-american sentiments. In this world, the US effectively runs/owns the Union, and is the strongarm that can be mustered for the defense of its allies (as it does when Taribia requests assistance in ep4). But the Kyrios circled for thirty minutes -- more than enough time for Acre, or anyone else, to sortie and be ready, or at least present some defense if the Kyrios did shift from holding pattern to offensive position -- and yet Taribia was completely undefended.
When Acre jumped at the chance to intercept a Gundam within Union territory, the professor halted him for personal reasons, while a political mindset would have sent Acre out -- unless there was something to be gained from not scrambling a squadron or two. In fact, the only warning we see the Union President receiving is that a Gundam has appeared in the AEU's territory -- not the Union's or HRL's -- and that it's most likely targeting the South African mining rights battlefront. Not a word about the random Gundam circling Taribia...
So, regardless of the attack being on immoral or illegal activities, Taribia has, as a member of the Union, a right to expect defense, or at the very least, assistance from its allies when attacked. This assumption makes sense to me, as a logical element of this world, when I consider Taribia's secession. In a nutshell, Taribia cannot defend itself without power to create, maintain, and run its own full-size army, and to do so, it must have more power from the Union's OES. The anti-American sentiment is running high, naturally, because Taribia was a sitting duck, and thus its response is a kind of blackmail: one of our major crops (which in diplomatic circles is probably bandied about euphemistically as "the predominant cash crop for subsistence farmers") has been destroyed, you did not protect/defend, and thus we can play the 'innocent victim' card to get severance pay.
In that sense, I think it was Taribia that got played: the Union, possibly, said, let's wait and see what the Gundam does. And after the dust settled and Taribia has to deal with the damage, letting Taribia play its hand and demand an out -- and, as a newly independent country with only ex-allies and no potential support, it would (as would any country) automatically attempt to beef up its domestic forces to defend its territory.
And when Taribia does so -- and keeping in mind that this entire series of events was solely as a result of the Gundams' own ex-scope actions -- it's Taribia that the Gundams attack -- not the Union, present to display its muscle as the one holding the cards and the extreme military power. In other words, to rebel is an act of war, regardless of whether this rebellion is on paper or in words (the Taribian president's speech) or on an actual battlefield (as in Ceylon, the first time).
This, in particular, bugs me. Non-americans may point out that the US was almost destroyed by rebellion; this is true. We often speak of a post-9/11 war, but those 3,000 deaths -- while hardly trivial -- are still a pittance compared to what we did to ourselves at Gettysburg, Chickamauga, or Chancellorsville. And yet, the US was also founded thanks to rebellion, and even a winter of starvation and bitter cold at Valley Forge wasn't enough to stop the progression of rebellion from colony to newly-formed state. One rebellion was ill-thought and ill-planned, yet it came damn close to dividing us permanently in two (and still does to some extents); the other rebellion equally divided the population and yet in the end brought significant, and positive, change. Can we really say at what point that a rebellion becomes a justified war, and that before we cross this line that it is not, and only on that side, it is?
What especially bugs me about the Taribian instance -- other than the triggering incident being CB's own intervention -- is that the Taribian government is shown insisting it will break away, that it wants to be recouped for its share in the OES investment, and that it will defend itself as an independent country. In diplomatic terms, this is logical; lacking allies, it must retain its own military. That's hardly rocket science. And yet, the extent of Taribia's rebellion, up to and including when the Union appears, amounts to a war of words. Taribia does not promise an attack on the US, does not declare war on the Union; it only announces it'll be managing its own defense, resources, and OES access. If Taribia had announced it'd attack the Union in retaliation for the lack of defense/assistance, then I'd agree that CB would be within scope to attack Taribia.
But given that Taribia's announcement was, much like the Declaration of Independence, that of a simple announcement, I see CB's actions as nothing more than provocative -- and, truthfully, as provocative and manipulative as the original attack that began it all. If we follow the events through: Taribia declares it will secede, CB attacks Taribia to make an example of them for 'building a military', at which point the already weakened (cash-wise, due to major landmass destruction) and ill-defended country must turn to its former allies to beg assistance fending off the Gundams. Which, of course, the Union jumps at the chance to do, which is no more than the Union skillfully turning the uneasy situation to its own advantage.
What gets me is that the message under everything is: if you attempt to defend yourself by increasing or strengthening your military -- even if you do not go so far as to use the military aggressively, even if your increase is domestic-only -- this will be seen as an act of war. The question that cannot be answered by the Taribian example is this: if Taribia had declared it would secede and had not also declared it would create/expand its national army, would CB have attacked it, then? Did CB attack solely because of the presence of military weapons, or would CB consider an act of secession to be an act of war in and of itself?
Here's the logic on that last one: Taribia secedes from the Union, the Union seeks to retain Taribia as part of its community (much as the US' Union attempted to retain the Southern states as part of the overall nation)... would CB consider the Union's internationally-recognized right to defend its treaties as the act of war, or would CB move back a step and declare Taribia's secession as the impetus and therefore the guilty party? (Although clearly CB doesn't step back far enough to see its own role in the house of cards, but hey, I didn't expect it to.)
The message, as Shirin implies but doesn't spell out, is one that may potentially be disastrous for Marina's country: any country, no matter how small, who attempts to rock the boat and/or defend itself independently... risks a severe stomping by CB. So if Marina beefs up her military to declare temporary martial law to return peace to the streets, will CB attack, seeing the increase of military power -- regardless of purpose/duration -- as within its scope? What if a country has justifiable, and moral, reasons for breaking away from one of the superpowers? Will CB do the superpowers' dirty work again, as it did in Taribia? If a superpower makes no effort to expand its military but merely retains/maintains the current level of power, is this within or without the stated scope -- that is, if the AEU had not sought to create a prototype & increase its military technology, would CB have ignored it, then?
This, potentially, puts all the power in the hands of those who have -- who only need to maintain, not create/expand -- and takes away all power from those who have not. CB's actions, so far, seem to me to be (to some extents) the introduction of an artificial stasis: those at the bottom cannot protest/rebel for fear of being attacked as guilty of 'creating war', and those at the top need only carry on, safe in the certainty that they can relax about weapons' development, knowing CB would attack any country doing so. It may be a good thing to externally force a cap on the arms race, but it's far from a good thing to calcify the cyclical and dynamic power among nations.
As I mentioned in earlier post, I keep thinking ofDorothy's Shirin's question to Marina: who benefits? Let's look at the missions so far:
1. AEU
Location: unknown (possibly near the equatorial line in Africa)
Primary: Exia
Backup: Dynames
Mission: Interrupt a demo event and destroy the prototype suit.
Measure: within scope, pre-emptive*
Results: AEU reveals its ex-treaty military armaments when it attempts to capture/halt the unknown suit. The cost/loss of the prototype unit also means AEU's development suffers, in part b/c of the revelation that they're outranked militaristically, and in part b/c of the heat from the other superpowers over ex-treaty development. IOW: the attack reveals AEU's hand.
* although taken as (and perhaps intended as) warning
2. HRL
Location: Tenshi / ELEO
Primary: Kyrio
Backup: Virtue
Mission: Prevent terrorist attack on HRL OES satellite/counterweight
Measure: within scope, protective
Results: no apparent negative repercussions
3. HRL
Location: Ceylon [Sri Lanka]
Primary: Exia, Kyrios, Virtue
Backup: Dynames,
Mission: halt centuries-long racial warfare
Measure: within scope, aggressive*
Results: Fighting apparently halted.
* Aggressive because the body count doesn't appear to be an issue.
Background: the northern end of Ceylon is held by the Tamil; this is the near-equatorial position the HRL requires for its OES. Thus, it must support/ally with the Tamil as part of the treaty to place its base at an equatorial position. The HRL then, becomes involved in the long-running conflict between the two native groups, and its intervention in fact further complicates and destabilizes the situation. This is, in the real world, not uncommon a move for a superpower; the destabilized nation must then lean more and more heavily on the ally for food, money, military assistance, and general commodities/services, as the local/native attention is focused on its internal strife. It's sort of like encouraging chaos in a subsidiary company so the mother-company can sweep in and clean house once the subsidiary employees have finished cannibalizing themselves.
4. Union
Location: Taribia [Bolivia]
Primary: Kyrios
Backup: --
Mission: Bomb narcotics fields
Measure: outside scope, aggressive*
Results: Taribia secedes from Union on grounds that Union failed to uphold member-country alliance agreements
* Outside stated scope by CB, except all but the broadest of a definition of 'warfare'.
5. AEU
Location: South Africa
Primary: Dynames
Backup: --
Mission: halt battle over mining territory/rights
Measure: within scope, protective*
Results: fighting apparently halted.
* Stratos makes a specific point of not shooting at the mobile suits, but simply near them -- he seeks to scare them off the battlefield with minimal loss of life. Ep6 implies that he (or someone) did destroy a good amount of the battlefield (along with mining equipment), however.
6. HRL
Location: Ceylon [Sri Lanka]
Primary: Exia
Backup: --
Mission: destroy 7th Garrison
Measure: outside scope, aggressive*
Results: Partial success
* I call this outside scope because there's no indication whether the 7th Garrison is currently engaged in battle, though the impression I get from Sergei's reaction is that he's not immediately able to think of a reason for the Gundam to return, let alone attack a military base. Also, sortie meant Segei was able to assess and evaluate the Exia and its pilot, much as Acre did in ep3's opening.
7. Union
Location: Taribia [Bolivia]
Primary: Exia, Dynames, Kyrios, Virtue
Backup: --
Mission: Reduce/destroy Taribian mobile suit army
Measure: within scope, pre-emptive
Results: Taribia rejoins Union to gain alliance's assistance for defense
8. HRL
Location: Tenshi / ELEO
Primary: Kyrios
Backup: --
Mission: Observe demo, possibly engage & destroy
Measure: within scope, pre-emptive
Revised: Halt/save loose satellite
Measure: outside scope, protective
Results: Demo suit intact, satellite saved; HRL development plan exposed
That's enough to demonstrate my questions/points (without getting into ep6 and spoilers, since I'm guessing many of you won't have seen it before I've posted). Let's see what kind of patterns there are...
-- against the AEU and the Union have been predominantly economic: Taribian crops, South African mining
-- against the HRL have been predominantly military: focusing on HRL/Tamil military alliance, a military base, and arms development
The most crippling blows have been against the AEU -- note that the AEU's demo suit was destroyed, while the Union's remains secret (Acre's Flag), and the HRL's suit wasn't attacked. (I must add that I find it curious that Haptism, having saved the loose satellite sections, was not then ordered to circle round and destroy the unconscious/non-reactive demo suit.) The Taribian crop fields (and it's important to remember that we're all assuming those crops were narcotics, based on one character's conclusion after hearing a Gundam is in Taribian airspace) were not a major economic loss to the Union, especially if that loss was of narcotics resources. The South African battleground (as described/explained in ep6) was a major mining area, and the loss of those minerals will be felt by all the superpowers, and their subsidiary-countries. The trickle-down effect of wiping out and/or rendering useless a major mining operation will be a significant economic impact, and not just in a militaristic sense; it also means loss of trade, loss of jobs, loss of cash for the country selling and loss of useable resources for the countries buying.
On top of that, the 'bad guy' for the mission in ep6 turns out to be an AEU-affiliated mercenary group. (I am watching the episode, and I am looking at you, Haliburton and Dyncorp, I am so looking at you.) Yet this AEU-affiliated, if independently owned/operated, 'private military' has not been targeted before. In fact, they're only targeted after CB has struck at the source of their economic power -- this is in stark contrast to the Union... unless, of course, the writers are saying the Union's power/might is based in huge part on how much cocaine it can buy from Bolivia, which... well, I hope that's not what they're saying.
But now it's 430am and I really must sleep...
In placeholder conclusion: maybe all this means what I think it means, and it's a sign these writers have paid attention to this shit, yo. Or maybe it's all just "this sounds good, throw that in!" and we'll end up with a mishmash of plotholes and another decade of major retconning by mechawanks on one side and the boi polloi on the other. I can only hope not, because nothing's more disappointing than thinking you're getting a seven-course meal of philosophical and political goodness, and discovering after five bites that it's nothing more than tofu and food coloring.
Slight tangents, little things of note, mostly from ep5:
1. When Louise trips on the edge of the satellite during a space walk, she falls down. Dear animators: there's no way she could fall down in ZERO GRAVITY, you twits -- she'd fall OUT. Unless, of course, she found a way to 'trip' (which should have bounced her up) and simultaneously twist herself around to kick up at something (like the nonexistent underside of the ledge?) and then she might fall down. But more likely out.
2. When the tour guide grabs the guide ropes to catch Saji and Louise from drifting farther, they swing down and thump against the colony. Again, animators, there is essentially ZERO G's when you're in freefall orbit. At the jerk on their leads, Saji and Louise should've gone hurtling up at a speed exactly equal to the amount of force the tour guide put into yanking on the leads.
3. This one's for you, writers: the tour guide tells Saji and Louise to be careful, because the earth's gravitational pull is still strong at 10,000km. Uhm, well, it's stronger than that of the moon, except by the time you get six thousand miles from the earth, there's probably something stronger around with its own gravity well. Furthermore, writers, you've been pretty good about the basic scientific elements (at least in a general, SFF-ey way), so I'd think you'd be aware that any OES would be within LEO-range (low earth orbit), especially since you've specified the orbital elevators are all equatorial, which'd make them ELEOs -- and those, from what I can tell, range around 160 - 2000 km (100 - 1240 miles). The International Space Station orbits at an elevation of between 300 - 350 km (186 - 217 miles). You might be able to get away with "a thousand miles up!" but ten thousand miles is really frickin' pushing it.
[I take it back if it turns out that's the fansubber saying, no way is it only 200 miles, it's got to be farther than that, I know, I'll just change it so it sounds more like a real space station, right-o! In which case, I revise: Hey, fansubber: STOP THAT, kthxbai.]
Scientific tangent: if a space station is sitting around 200m up from the surface of the earth, a particle beam weapon like a synchroton particle acclerator could feasibly hit something 200m straight up. In fact, there are lasers in development that could do the same (and curiously, the interference of clouds/fog would defray the laser's intensity; this has something to do with a drawback of lasers known as 'blooming' -- but at the same time, there's no known method by which we can 'split' a cloud to create clear skies, so, uhm, that would be the la-la-la-gundam clause.)
4. When you watch ep6, and it speaks of the population of a country as being 180,000 people... keep this in mind: the city of Providence, Rhode Island, has 250,000 residents. That's right. We're talking about a country that, regardless of the number of miles, has only about 2/3rds the population of the capital city of the tiniest state in the US. Hell, even Luxembourg -- at about 1000sq miles -- has 440,000 people!
Oi. Bed now.
I do plan to take a look at my preliminary impressions of some of the other characters, but first, this part's been bugging me: the politics, the economics, and more importantly, what's not happening. For starters, let's look at Taribia, which I guess is this world's version of
First, I mention Acre & his team because Acre offers/suggests going after the Gundam; I presume that they're currently stationed somewhere near the Union's centerpoint (that is, the orbital elevator system -- aka OES -- which is set as near the equator as possible for gravitational & orbital reasons). So they're within a decent distance, and yet, the professor holds Acre back, explaining he might not like the Gundams but he's against narcotics more. This may or may not be true in a personal sense, but on a political level, it's irrelevant: an officer of the Union's military has received warning that an attack may be incoming on a Union member country. Although Taribia is "near the orbital elevator" (and thus within relative closeness to the Union's major military base, going on comparison with AEU and HRL setups, which makes sense), the Kyrios arrives, bombs, and departs without a single moment of resistance.
That mission is dropped into the set o' missions, and with the attention being mostly on fireworks in Seiei's mission, it seems Taribia exists only as a means to show that the Gundams are also attacking, as the Professor insists, the "reasons for war" (Shinsen) or "the sources of war" (Conclave-Mendoi). Three things stand out when I rewatch, although at the time they seemed mostly throwaway. Haptism begins his scene, in the Kyrios, announcing he's circled for thirty minutes in a holding pattern, the warning is complete, and he's commencing operations. First time watching, it stands out mostly because of contrast with Haptism's first mission, in which he called himself a murderer; at the conclusion of this bombing run, he tells himself he could enjoy missions like the one he's just completed.
But think about that: he's been circling Taribian airspace for thirty minutes. Okay, so he gave a warning, but if I were Taribia, I'd be thinking: we're not at war, we've not beefed up our military, we've not done anything... why is he here? And given the Gundams' performance at Ceylon, who's going to send out troops to attack a Gundam... that's only circling, and not even done anything? There's a simple assumption in Haptism's report that his presence alone is warning, but there's no indication that Taribia could understand, or arrive at the same assumptions, based simply on finding the Kyrios hanging out in its airspace.
The last single throwaway moment that did stand out (at least for me) was the shot of villagers watching as the Kyrios flies off. I admit it, I'm the child of an economist, and the first thought I had was: yes, one could argue that narcotics traffic is a huge burden on social, economic, and personal structures in the recipient/smugglee country. But at the same time, those who grow the narcotics base (for pot, cocaine, heroin, whatever) are rarely those who actually get the massive sums from the sales. In fact, more often than not, they're subsistence farmers, choosing an illegal product because they're either essentially sharecroppers growing what the landlord demands, or because it's the only way to make at least enough to feed the family (compared to legal, and less profitable, crops). I mean, hell, so the illegal-crops farmers are making $5 on the truckload, which don't seem like much but compared to $1 for corn, that's a massive income increase.
The ones who 'support' war (an economic connection I'm not convinced of, with the possible exception of circumstances like Afghanistan, where terrorist groups are supported personally by certain farmers/communities) are, if they're anyone, going to be the middlemen. They're the ones who get fat off paying low and selling high, and have the money to burn. Economically, yes, destroying the cocaine fields will remove the goods the middlemen can sell -- but at the same time, it's also destroying the fields, the homes, and the livelihoods of people who work those fields. Really, narcotics money may play a role in military might, but hitting the absolute origin (the farmers/fields) seems to me to be about the equivalent of deciding you're going to make that picture on the wall perfectly level -- by taking down the entire wall with a sledgehammer. There are simply more efficient ways, with far less collateral damage, to go about it.
A gundam is, really, a sledgehammer. It is not designed for, nor suited for, the kinds of operations that would truly undermine the narcotics flow, if that were really the intention. Striking at the fields... well, for starters, it pisses off a lot of farmers, and anyone who might sympathize with them (plenty of other farmers in this world, y'know). Because if you look at the CB mission statement, it's that they'll strike at anyone seeking to do war... and I can see quite easily how a lot of people, from farmers up to Taribian presidents, might consider "working in the field" to not really fall into the category -- hell, so far out of it, it's sixteen miles over -- of "waging war."
[The other throwaway point in that episode... is that Seiei returns to Ceylon, to bomb again. What? Why? Did they not thoroughly devastate the allegedly-racial battlefield between the two groups on the island? If the fighting has halted -- and note that Seiei does not strike on the battlefield, but at a military base -- then there should be, again by CB's own definition of its mission statement -- no reason for CB to send a Gundam back to the area. Yet that detail comes and goes, with little attention.]
Thus, in Taribia's case, this is why both Sumeragi and the Union president aren't surprised when Taribia holds a press-conference with strongly anti-american sentiments. In this world, the US effectively runs/owns the Union, and is the strongarm that can be mustered for the defense of its allies (as it does when Taribia requests assistance in ep4). But the Kyrios circled for thirty minutes -- more than enough time for Acre, or anyone else, to sortie and be ready, or at least present some defense if the Kyrios did shift from holding pattern to offensive position -- and yet Taribia was completely undefended.
When Acre jumped at the chance to intercept a Gundam within Union territory, the professor halted him for personal reasons, while a political mindset would have sent Acre out -- unless there was something to be gained from not scrambling a squadron or two. In fact, the only warning we see the Union President receiving is that a Gundam has appeared in the AEU's territory -- not the Union's or HRL's -- and that it's most likely targeting the South African mining rights battlefront. Not a word about the random Gundam circling Taribia...
So, regardless of the attack being on immoral or illegal activities, Taribia has, as a member of the Union, a right to expect defense, or at the very least, assistance from its allies when attacked. This assumption makes sense to me, as a logical element of this world, when I consider Taribia's secession. In a nutshell, Taribia cannot defend itself without power to create, maintain, and run its own full-size army, and to do so, it must have more power from the Union's OES. The anti-American sentiment is running high, naturally, because Taribia was a sitting duck, and thus its response is a kind of blackmail: one of our major crops (which in diplomatic circles is probably bandied about euphemistically as "the predominant cash crop for subsistence farmers") has been destroyed, you did not protect/defend, and thus we can play the 'innocent victim' card to get severance pay.
In that sense, I think it was Taribia that got played: the Union, possibly, said, let's wait and see what the Gundam does. And after the dust settled and Taribia has to deal with the damage, letting Taribia play its hand and demand an out -- and, as a newly independent country with only ex-allies and no potential support, it would (as would any country) automatically attempt to beef up its domestic forces to defend its territory.
And when Taribia does so -- and keeping in mind that this entire series of events was solely as a result of the Gundams' own ex-scope actions -- it's Taribia that the Gundams attack -- not the Union, present to display its muscle as the one holding the cards and the extreme military power. In other words, to rebel is an act of war, regardless of whether this rebellion is on paper or in words (the Taribian president's speech) or on an actual battlefield (as in Ceylon, the first time).
This, in particular, bugs me. Non-americans may point out that the US was almost destroyed by rebellion; this is true. We often speak of a post-9/11 war, but those 3,000 deaths -- while hardly trivial -- are still a pittance compared to what we did to ourselves at Gettysburg, Chickamauga, or Chancellorsville. And yet, the US was also founded thanks to rebellion, and even a winter of starvation and bitter cold at Valley Forge wasn't enough to stop the progression of rebellion from colony to newly-formed state. One rebellion was ill-thought and ill-planned, yet it came damn close to dividing us permanently in two (and still does to some extents); the other rebellion equally divided the population and yet in the end brought significant, and positive, change. Can we really say at what point that a rebellion becomes a justified war, and that before we cross this line that it is not, and only on that side, it is?
What especially bugs me about the Taribian instance -- other than the triggering incident being CB's own intervention -- is that the Taribian government is shown insisting it will break away, that it wants to be recouped for its share in the OES investment, and that it will defend itself as an independent country. In diplomatic terms, this is logical; lacking allies, it must retain its own military. That's hardly rocket science. And yet, the extent of Taribia's rebellion, up to and including when the Union appears, amounts to a war of words. Taribia does not promise an attack on the US, does not declare war on the Union; it only announces it'll be managing its own defense, resources, and OES access. If Taribia had announced it'd attack the Union in retaliation for the lack of defense/assistance, then I'd agree that CB would be within scope to attack Taribia.
But given that Taribia's announcement was, much like the Declaration of Independence, that of a simple announcement, I see CB's actions as nothing more than provocative -- and, truthfully, as provocative and manipulative as the original attack that began it all. If we follow the events through: Taribia declares it will secede, CB attacks Taribia to make an example of them for 'building a military', at which point the already weakened (cash-wise, due to major landmass destruction) and ill-defended country must turn to its former allies to beg assistance fending off the Gundams. Which, of course, the Union jumps at the chance to do, which is no more than the Union skillfully turning the uneasy situation to its own advantage.
What gets me is that the message under everything is: if you attempt to defend yourself by increasing or strengthening your military -- even if you do not go so far as to use the military aggressively, even if your increase is domestic-only -- this will be seen as an act of war. The question that cannot be answered by the Taribian example is this: if Taribia had declared it would secede and had not also declared it would create/expand its national army, would CB have attacked it, then? Did CB attack solely because of the presence of military weapons, or would CB consider an act of secession to be an act of war in and of itself?
Here's the logic on that last one: Taribia secedes from the Union, the Union seeks to retain Taribia as part of its community (much as the US' Union attempted to retain the Southern states as part of the overall nation)... would CB consider the Union's internationally-recognized right to defend its treaties as the act of war, or would CB move back a step and declare Taribia's secession as the impetus and therefore the guilty party? (Although clearly CB doesn't step back far enough to see its own role in the house of cards, but hey, I didn't expect it to.)
The message, as Shirin implies but doesn't spell out, is one that may potentially be disastrous for Marina's country: any country, no matter how small, who attempts to rock the boat and/or defend itself independently... risks a severe stomping by CB. So if Marina beefs up her military to declare temporary martial law to return peace to the streets, will CB attack, seeing the increase of military power -- regardless of purpose/duration -- as within its scope? What if a country has justifiable, and moral, reasons for breaking away from one of the superpowers? Will CB do the superpowers' dirty work again, as it did in Taribia? If a superpower makes no effort to expand its military but merely retains/maintains the current level of power, is this within or without the stated scope -- that is, if the AEU had not sought to create a prototype & increase its military technology, would CB have ignored it, then?
This, potentially, puts all the power in the hands of those who have -- who only need to maintain, not create/expand -- and takes away all power from those who have not. CB's actions, so far, seem to me to be (to some extents) the introduction of an artificial stasis: those at the bottom cannot protest/rebel for fear of being attacked as guilty of 'creating war', and those at the top need only carry on, safe in the certainty that they can relax about weapons' development, knowing CB would attack any country doing so. It may be a good thing to externally force a cap on the arms race, but it's far from a good thing to calcify the cyclical and dynamic power among nations.
As I mentioned in earlier post, I keep thinking of
1. AEU
Location: unknown (possibly near the equatorial line in Africa)
Primary: Exia
Backup: Dynames
Mission: Interrupt a demo event and destroy the prototype suit.
Measure: within scope, pre-emptive*
Results: AEU reveals its ex-treaty military armaments when it attempts to capture/halt the unknown suit. The cost/loss of the prototype unit also means AEU's development suffers, in part b/c of the revelation that they're outranked militaristically, and in part b/c of the heat from the other superpowers over ex-treaty development. IOW: the attack reveals AEU's hand.
* although taken as (and perhaps intended as) warning
2. HRL
Location: Tenshi / ELEO
Primary: Kyrio
Backup: Virtue
Mission: Prevent terrorist attack on HRL OES satellite/counterweight
Measure: within scope, protective
Results: no apparent negative repercussions
3. HRL
Location: Ceylon [Sri Lanka]
Primary: Exia, Kyrios, Virtue
Backup: Dynames,
Mission: halt centuries-long racial warfare
Measure: within scope, aggressive*
Results: Fighting apparently halted.
* Aggressive because the body count doesn't appear to be an issue.
Background: the northern end of Ceylon is held by the Tamil; this is the near-equatorial position the HRL requires for its OES. Thus, it must support/ally with the Tamil as part of the treaty to place its base at an equatorial position. The HRL then, becomes involved in the long-running conflict between the two native groups, and its intervention in fact further complicates and destabilizes the situation. This is, in the real world, not uncommon a move for a superpower; the destabilized nation must then lean more and more heavily on the ally for food, money, military assistance, and general commodities/services, as the local/native attention is focused on its internal strife. It's sort of like encouraging chaos in a subsidiary company so the mother-company can sweep in and clean house once the subsidiary employees have finished cannibalizing themselves.
4. Union
Location: Taribia [Bolivia]
Primary: Kyrios
Backup: --
Mission: Bomb narcotics fields
Measure: outside scope, aggressive*
Results: Taribia secedes from Union on grounds that Union failed to uphold member-country alliance agreements
* Outside stated scope by CB, except all but the broadest of a definition of 'warfare'.
5. AEU
Location: South Africa
Primary: Dynames
Backup: --
Mission: halt battle over mining territory/rights
Measure: within scope, protective*
Results: fighting apparently halted.
* Stratos makes a specific point of not shooting at the mobile suits, but simply near them -- he seeks to scare them off the battlefield with minimal loss of life. Ep6 implies that he (or someone) did destroy a good amount of the battlefield (along with mining equipment), however.
6. HRL
Location: Ceylon [Sri Lanka]
Primary: Exia
Backup: --
Mission: destroy 7th Garrison
Measure: outside scope, aggressive*
Results: Partial success
* I call this outside scope because there's no indication whether the 7th Garrison is currently engaged in battle, though the impression I get from Sergei's reaction is that he's not immediately able to think of a reason for the Gundam to return, let alone attack a military base. Also, sortie meant Segei was able to assess and evaluate the Exia and its pilot, much as Acre did in ep3's opening.
7. Union
Location: Taribia [Bolivia]
Primary: Exia, Dynames, Kyrios, Virtue
Backup: --
Mission: Reduce/destroy Taribian mobile suit army
Measure: within scope, pre-emptive
Results: Taribia rejoins Union to gain alliance's assistance for defense
8. HRL
Location: Tenshi / ELEO
Primary: Kyrios
Backup: --
Mission: Observe demo, possibly engage & destroy
Measure: within scope, pre-emptive
Revised: Halt/save loose satellite
Measure: outside scope, protective
Results: Demo suit intact, satellite saved; HRL development plan exposed
That's enough to demonstrate my questions/points (without getting into ep6 and spoilers, since I'm guessing many of you won't have seen it before I've posted). Let's see what kind of patterns there are...
-- against the AEU and the Union have been predominantly economic: Taribian crops, South African mining
-- against the HRL have been predominantly military: focusing on HRL/Tamil military alliance, a military base, and arms development
The most crippling blows have been against the AEU -- note that the AEU's demo suit was destroyed, while the Union's remains secret (Acre's Flag), and the HRL's suit wasn't attacked. (I must add that I find it curious that Haptism, having saved the loose satellite sections, was not then ordered to circle round and destroy the unconscious/non-reactive demo suit.) The Taribian crop fields (and it's important to remember that we're all assuming those crops were narcotics, based on one character's conclusion after hearing a Gundam is in Taribian airspace) were not a major economic loss to the Union, especially if that loss was of narcotics resources. The South African battleground (as described/explained in ep6) was a major mining area, and the loss of those minerals will be felt by all the superpowers, and their subsidiary-countries. The trickle-down effect of wiping out and/or rendering useless a major mining operation will be a significant economic impact, and not just in a militaristic sense; it also means loss of trade, loss of jobs, loss of cash for the country selling and loss of useable resources for the countries buying.
On top of that, the 'bad guy' for the mission in ep6 turns out to be an AEU-affiliated mercenary group. (I am watching the episode, and I am looking at you, Haliburton and Dyncorp, I am so looking at you.) Yet this AEU-affiliated, if independently owned/operated, 'private military' has not been targeted before. In fact, they're only targeted after CB has struck at the source of their economic power -- this is in stark contrast to the Union... unless, of course, the writers are saying the Union's power/might is based in huge part on how much cocaine it can buy from Bolivia, which... well, I hope that's not what they're saying.
But now it's 430am and I really must sleep...
In placeholder conclusion: maybe all this means what I think it means, and it's a sign these writers have paid attention to this shit, yo. Or maybe it's all just "this sounds good, throw that in!" and we'll end up with a mishmash of plotholes and another decade of major retconning by mechawanks on one side and the boi polloi on the other. I can only hope not, because nothing's more disappointing than thinking you're getting a seven-course meal of philosophical and political goodness, and discovering after five bites that it's nothing more than tofu and food coloring.
Slight tangents, little things of note, mostly from ep5:
1. When Louise trips on the edge of the satellite during a space walk, she falls down. Dear animators: there's no way she could fall down in ZERO GRAVITY, you twits -- she'd fall OUT. Unless, of course, she found a way to 'trip' (which should have bounced her up) and simultaneously twist herself around to kick up at something (like the nonexistent underside of the ledge?) and then she might fall down. But more likely out.
2. When the tour guide grabs the guide ropes to catch Saji and Louise from drifting farther, they swing down and thump against the colony. Again, animators, there is essentially ZERO G's when you're in freefall orbit. At the jerk on their leads, Saji and Louise should've gone hurtling up at a speed exactly equal to the amount of force the tour guide put into yanking on the leads.
3. This one's for you, writers: the tour guide tells Saji and Louise to be careful, because the earth's gravitational pull is still strong at 10,000km. Uhm, well, it's stronger than that of the moon, except by the time you get six thousand miles from the earth, there's probably something stronger around with its own gravity well. Furthermore, writers, you've been pretty good about the basic scientific elements (at least in a general, SFF-ey way), so I'd think you'd be aware that any OES would be within LEO-range (low earth orbit), especially since you've specified the orbital elevators are all equatorial, which'd make them ELEOs -- and those, from what I can tell, range around 160 - 2000 km (100 - 1240 miles). The International Space Station orbits at an elevation of between 300 - 350 km (186 - 217 miles). You might be able to get away with "a thousand miles up!" but ten thousand miles is really frickin' pushing it.
[I take it back if it turns out that's the fansubber saying, no way is it only 200 miles, it's got to be farther than that, I know, I'll just change it so it sounds more like a real space station, right-o! In which case, I revise: Hey, fansubber: STOP THAT, kthxbai.]
Scientific tangent: if a space station is sitting around 200m up from the surface of the earth, a particle beam weapon like a synchroton particle acclerator could feasibly hit something 200m straight up. In fact, there are lasers in development that could do the same (and curiously, the interference of clouds/fog would defray the laser's intensity; this has something to do with a drawback of lasers known as 'blooming' -- but at the same time, there's no known method by which we can 'split' a cloud to create clear skies, so, uhm, that would be the la-la-la-gundam clause.)
4. When you watch ep6, and it speaks of the population of a country as being 180,000 people... keep this in mind: the city of Providence, Rhode Island, has 250,000 residents. That's right. We're talking about a country that, regardless of the number of miles, has only about 2/3rds the population of the capital city of the tiniest state in the US. Hell, even Luxembourg -- at about 1000sq miles -- has 440,000 people!
Oi. Bed now.
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Date: 13 Nov 2007 08:11 am (UTC)Heh. Yeah, I do know how it works -- it's just that 180K is really a very tiny population for an entire 'country', when you really stop to think about it. ;-)