Prince Ali!
The adversary! Ali al-Sarshes!
Mike Trinity, wishes that he, was half as crazy
Well he saw the Zwei and thought “Why,–I think I’ll give it a try.”
Next thing you know, Johan’s hit the floor,
He’s got beams, GN drives
And fang-oos galore!
Takes an alias, heads up to space,
And shows Sexy Lockon what for!
Can’t flee from Prince Ali!
I would say to the Council, as I said to those who have joined this Federation: ‘I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears, and sweat.’ We have before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind. We have before us many, many long months of struggle and suffering. You ask, what is our policy? I can say: It is to wage war, by space, sea, land, and air, with all our might and with all the strength that God can give us: to wage war against a monstrous Kataron/Celestial Being tyranny, never surpassed in the dark, lamentable catalogue of human crime. That is our policy. You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word: It is victory, victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror CB and Kataron will bring forth, victory, however long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival. – Federation President 00bama
You might as well appeal against the thunder-storm as against these terrible hardships of war. They are inevitable, and the only way the people of Azadistan can hope once more to live in peace and quiet at home, is to stop the occupation of Kurdistan, which can only be done by admitting that it began in error and is perpetuated in pride. – Prince Ali al Sarshes at the Burning of Azadid
(Apologies in advance for not having been able to answer some of the comments lately midterms are still not over for me… T_T)
Looks like you got some competition there…
Feldt was better, yellow loli is moving up on my list of people I want Prince Ali to kill or other wise violate.
What’s wrong with Saji being Saji? It’s a crime in Federation after all…
While der Fuhrer of Kataron and CB plot to take over the world, it turns out that Kataron has been hiding behind women and children by placing their military base outside of a day care center, under the pretense that they are protecting them. This is a most vile lie as those children are being prepped as suicide bombers that worship Mariana Ismail. No one in their right mind would consider Princess Poverty to be anything less than a failure of the most pathetic sort who builds monuments to her own vanity while her people starve. Clearly as these children have been raised to love Mariana this proves that Kataron has been influencing these children to be pro-poverty and anti-progress. Despite their claim to be freedom fighters they hide behind children which they raise as fanatics for the demagogue Ismail, they are a terrorist organization that pretends to provide a pittance of social services for the sake of their public image while denying the poor any real help from the Federation with their belligerent attacks on Federation Territory and attempts to capture the Federation’s colonies. Moreover the only real crime was handing over those children to the sex offender Mariana Ismail, as her embrace of the children was quite disturbing, clearly that is why she tried to bed the under aged Jihad-kun four years ago.
Look we closed down the settlements and we stopped backing incompetent regimes, blood for oil is over…it’s not our fault you lost all your money to a Nigerian E-mail scam and invested in the US Sub Prime Mortgage Market.
Amazing someone who actually believes in the propaganda!
Ismail walks warily down the street,
With the brim pulled way down low
Ain’t no sound but the sound of her feet,
Big Box of Condoms ready to go
Are you ready, Are you ready for this
Are you hanging on the edge of your seat
Out of the doorway the kid’s clothes rip
To the sound of the beat
Another one bites the dust
Another one bites the dust
And another one gone, and another one gone
Another one bites the dust
Hey, I’m gonna get you too
Another one bites the dust
Despite the lies the Federation will have none of it as Kataron had been prosecuting attacks and setting up terror cells within Federation territory nearly unfettered. While accusations of a most false sort have been leveled at the Federation and their standing policy in regards to the lawless Middle East, the GN generators merely hinder communications in regions that contain no life as much of the vast desert was created from the ignorant farming practices of Azadistani farmers who helped create the great dust bowl of 2205 that expanded the desert. The Federation does not maintain such generators in populated areas such as the hell town that the Azadistani’s call their capital. While the liars of Kataron would have us believe that generators in the middle of a lifeless desert some how hinders economic development, anyone can see that the desert of their own creation has no economic potential as they had strip mined all available resources in the 2250s.
Kataron counts many fools within its ranks as none of them suspected Saji of being evil. Indeed it was only a Feddie grunt who gave Saji a well deserved punch for being an idiot. Sergei took pity on the bastard though since Wild Bear never did like to push around weaklings. While Kataron and CB later decired this as some war crime, it’s fucking Saji. The Federation did not violate any international laws by using a bad cop good cop routine on a suspect such as Saji, but clearly CB and Kataron supporters want to make some fuss over nothing as well as give Saji another blow job…
Oh Major you never stood a chance, just wait until you meet Patrick…then you will really get jealous.
I see why Graham missed out last time…
Are you Army Strong?
Where can i get one of those?
Once the Fuhrer bunker of Klaus was discovered the A-Laws with the support of Federation regulars swung into action to kill Osama bin Klaus in his lair. The use of automatons was cleared as there were not enough men available to fight. Soma and Katie had reservations about using unmanned weapons, but given the possibility of Gundams there were not enough forces on hand to take the bunker and fight off CB’s Gundams. Mister Bushido armed with his Army of One Permit decided that he did not want to fight today and decided to leave. Soma froze up once she saw the Tachikomas in action due to the very real threat to her livelihood as automatons can kill more terrorists for a fraction of the cost of kitting her out for battle. Lyle tries in vain to open a can of whup ass as his sniper shots miss and then he whips out dual pistols for some long range shooting. Despite the loss of two pilots the A-Laws were able to wipe out many times their number in terrorists. CB, Kataron, and Saji cry unmanly tears as they cry out at the inhumanity of the A-Laws, suffice to say they totally missed the point that they did not surrender, and plum forgot that they were armed fighters and not unarmed women and children. Despite the heinous insinuations that the A-Laws had killed children, they were after all in the heart of a terrorist base and were being trained as jihad-kuns for Mariana. Moreover given how there were no bodies of children shot up by automatons they are probably fine in any case after all in a Sunrise series, no body means no death as the possibility of resurrection is almost a given. Thus any accusation over the killing of children are false, and given how Klaus survived it is clear that Klaus was hiding behind a meat shield of children if indeed an automaton had found them, which with the lack of proof is idle speculation at best and treasonous rumor at worst.
:3
Yes finally closure!
Soma is now daughter of Wild Bear. Best of luck to any would be suitors for Papa Bear will tear you to shreds if you break her heart…
Upon Mariana’s return to Azadistan the place had turned to shit, as such Prince Ali had decided that the time was ripe for the liberation of Kurdistan. After Mariana’s arrest the Federation Police withdrew at the behest of the Azadistani Parliament, after which various factions within Azadistan began killing each other to in the streets. Prince Ali after seeing such a pathetic sight decided to kill them all for being idiots. Not only were they the Azadistani enemy that had destroyed and looted his nation of Kurdistan, but were approaching him as a monument of Mammon, kowtowing before him in a revolting display of jihad-kun ignorance and heresy. As a true believer of the Prophet, Prince Ali decided that this was an affront to the grace of God and proceeded to kill all the infidels regardless of factional loyalty. The traitor Jihad-kun arrived with his Azadistani whore who was terrified and trembling at the scene of Ali’s judgment upon the heathen Azadistani.
Saji is indeed a wimp…
Give this man a pipe.
Excellent good cop mein Oberst.
Because the bad cops are just as convincing.
Impression:
I like how Sunrise is trying and failing to paint the A-Laws as the new Titans, I still see a criminal lack of civilian casualties even if the dead bodies of children was too edgy for Sunday. As such I think those brats are fine since Sunrise lacks the balls to show me their mangled corpses as proof that the A-Laws are indeed evil. Coupled with the miraculous resurrections of series past until you see a body a Sunrise Character is never dead. While Soma and Katie have issues with using automatons, Hannibal Haptism spoke the most egregious lie of all, that having a human do the killing (or in his case a Gundam) is some how more humane and responsible than using AI controlled machines. Such a crock of bullshit made me gag, there were after all unrepentant killers in the SS who survived, and to be frank Imperial Japanese Veterans themselves are proof positive that having a human pull the trigger does not mean they will all regret it. Really what is the difference if I kill you with a sniper shot or with a time bomb? Will you know the difference? Hell will you even live long enough to care? I wonder what kind of bullshit hierarchy of killing they have at Sunrise, perhaps only Gundams can kill without it being crime. I guess killing a Feddie is fine and dandy but kill some one from Kataron then it’s some how evil and constitutes a war crime. Just because Kataron forgot about RPG-7s and did not use cover does not make automatons any more of a WMD than a Gundam. It’s not like having Gundams makes things a fair fight anyway.
Mein Gott! Lousie is now more man than Saji.
I cannot wait to see Louise in action again, she might even kill Saji!
Clean killing bullshit aside the use of day care in a terrorist cell or what ever polite term you prefer was rather stupid on the part of Kataron. They put those kids in greater risk by keeping them holed up along with all their heavy weapons, and as such Kataron was hiding behind them under some pretense of protection. I have yet to see the Federation or the A-Laws kidnapping kids, the HRL has been dead for 4 years and right now the only people hiding behind children is Kataron. It’s like putting a SAM site on top of an apartment building it does not make Kataron look heroic nor does it make the A-Laws that bad for blowing open the hangar which housed their mobile suits first instead of the day care center. Hell the Federation and the A-Laws did not know there were even kids there, all they knew was that it was a military installation that housed a terrorist organization with some heavy equipment and they attacked it as such. If there is blame to be spread then Kataron must shoulder most of it for keeping a day care center in the middle of a base. If Klaus lived and the kids all died then clearly protecting Klaus was of greater importance than protecting those kids. i am probably the only person that is going to cry foul at putting a daycare center next to a hanger full of heavy weapons, but honestly it’s really fucked up to put kids anywhere near a military target in the first place those kids had no business being there and if they really cared they would have sent those kids out of the warzone rather than keep them as refugee shields for their Enacts. Of all the people in this series having Haptism decry the killing of kids was rather silly seeing as how Haptism had killed many more kids than the A-Laws could have.
Also I see Shirin is still crying over how the Federation is behind all the evils in the world, never mind that the Azadistanis were at each other’s throats long before the Federation was created. I still do not see how GN spreaders in the middle of a barren desert some how stunts economic development, rather I had always thought that Azadistan was poor because of mismanagement and a hostile population that was bent on tearing itself apart and oppressing the Kurds. How the locals of Saudi Arabia, Oman, Yemen, and the UAE are suffering is not even shown. Honestly at this point such a hateful attitude barely covers up the fact that Azadistanis are just as responsible for their own plight and not the helpless sods Shirin makes them out to be. They are not victims but rather active players that have resorted to violence in the streets and chosen economic stagnation. Funny how Shirin will never mention the “conservatives” and “liberals” shooting each other in the streets and blames the Federation who set up some GN spreaders in a desert that sits on the opposite side of the Persian Gulf that was already there. Moreover exactly how GN spreaders in Arabian peninsula effects Azadistan is never elaborated upon. Funny how even today the Bedouin prefer to skirt the edges of the desert rather than plow through it, the only thing there is oil, which is worthless in the Gundam 00 economy anyway. Even with the GN Aids given how the A-Laws and the Feddies use it on a daily basis it obviously won’t kill you by breathing, just beware of severed limbs… Then there is the issue of the 328 member states that make up the Federation in contrast to the 192 of the UN, either there has been enough Balkanization of the world to make up for the +136 nations shortfall or that the good people of the Arabian Peninsula were not idiots and joined the Federation. Seeing as how they had allowed Sergei to do a patrol over their airspace with out much trouble, in contrast to the two elite cops who stormed that Azadistani palace, I reason that the locals being smart people probably made up a part of the 328 nations who believed in change. Right now Sunrise is declaring that Azadistan is the Middle East, this to me is rather lazy since the Arabian Peninsula is very different from the other side of the gulf. It would not be too much to ask to see some more suffering especially that of states that aren’t run by incompetent princesses.
Katie wanted them to be more like Tachikomas…childish AI would have been nice.
What ever happened to death with a smile?
My sentiments exactly its either him or you, the choice is clear. Sympathy is something you have after they raise a white flag and toss aside their weapons.
Really this feeble attempt to paint the A-Laws as the new Titans is getting tiresome, given how Sunrise lacks the balls to show me a real massacre instead of the glorious slaughter of a few hundred armed terrorists or what ever polite term you prefer. They declared war on the Federation and if they expected some sort of mercy or fair play in a modern war without waving a white flag with their hands in the air then Kataron is clearly insane as war has always been a dangerous venture. People die in wars, so if you don’t want to die do not pick up a gun, and run away from the sound of gunfire. Otherwise raise your hands and wave a white flag this how most people surrender. It’s not like we can install IFF on everyone since it might be a violation of your privacy… Still beating up Saji in an good cop, bad cop ploy was not all that bad or evil and I quite liked how they socked the shit out of Saji, though Wild Bear could smell the cowardice and ignorance of Saji from miles away. Saji is a dithering little punk he can’t even do the right thing by leaving Kataron and CB to their own fate, nor does he have the sense to look up Louise again for some mercy. Louise has grown much more likable given how Ginin’s thirst for battle has rubbed off on her, perhaps next time she can finally sortie. Ms. Wang is playing both sides while it seems that Ribbons and his innovators also have some hidden Gundams of their own. I cannot wait to see how fabulous they will be as the GN-XIII has been regulated to cannon fodder. In the end even if they now declare it to be horrible it was no worse that the destruction that CB visited upon the bases of the Big Three four years ago, only now they are actually on the receiving end, how poetic.
Papa Bear had to save the world, it’s not that he wanted to miss out on your graduation.
Well it’s not like CB and Kataron takes vacations…
Oh I could just hear that sweet onii-chan from her…
While I am elated that Prince Ali has finally joined the party I am really disappointed how all he did was smile menacingly at the beginning and the end, watching my Lord obliterate the Azadistani capital would have been good fun and might have been the kind of “massacre” that would have cemented the Federation as being bad. As it stands it was nothing more that the semi-righteous slaughter of a bigoted people who could not pull together and insisted upon the continued occupation of Kurdistan. I am sure we are meant to pity the fools of Azadistan, but honestly these are not nice people, they kill each other on a daily basis, and have run their own country to the ground by appointing the inept Princess Poverty to be their savior. Moreover I find it hard to believe that their continued occupation and racist attitudes to all Kurds other than that traitor Jihad-kun to be endearing or in anyway just. Having Prince Ali slaughter his ancient enemies is not as appalling as it could have been given how he has every reason to be pissed off at them. Even if it was for the lulz the Azadistani were not a likable bunch who were doing good and giving out charity. Given how Ali is the only Kurd left fighting the Azadistani it makes him an old embittered warrior who never admitted that his cause was lost. Of all the places to burn for the lulz choosing Azadistan was understandable though mildly monstrous given how all Azadistanis seem to hate Kurds and did the same thing to Kurdistan. It really is hard for me to ignore the continued occupation of Kurdistan and take the Azadistani as innocents as Sunrise wants. It’s tragic but the Azadistani are not the pure innocent victims here, if the occupation was over and done with then perhaps the Azadistani will finally be the ignorant innocents that they were meant to be. If they really wanted a kick the dog moment they surely could have pulled another Rolo.
Ali wants to set the world on fire
Ali also wants to start
A flame on your heart
In his heart he has but one desire
And that one is you
No other will do
Well if Bushido Bob doesn’t want to play Prince Ali is always ready.
Butcher Ali’s got a long sharp knife
He starts choppin’ and don’t know when to stop
All you fellows gotta watch your wifes
‘Cause Ali don’t care who’s meat he chops
[Chorus]
He’s hackin’ and wackin’ and smackin’
He’s hackin’ and wackin’ and smackin’
He’s hackin’ and wackin’ and smackin’
He just hacks, wacks, choppin’ that meat
Ever since Sarshes flew into town
He’s been havin’ a ball
Just cuttin’ and choppin’ for miles around
Single women, married women, old maids and all
Mr. Bushido is clearly an “Army of One,” soon he too will be “Army Strong.” I wonder when he will reach the level cap of 99 where he will be “the few, the proud the Bob.” Still it was rather sad to see that Bushido Bob will not fight every Gundam he meets…The old Graham did not care which Gundam it was but it seems that Bushido Bob is quite taken Gundam 00’s GN melonpan. Hopefully next time Prince Ali does much more than smile at us menacingly, and it looks like the possibility of Patrick showing up is in the cards. I hope so because I miss the un-killable AEU ace, and he surely must be missing his Katie. They ought to be together again, and I am sure the Major will have quite a lot to do with Patrick around…
Soma is now the daughter of Wild Bear though now I have to wonder what it will be like to hear her call Andrei onii-chan… i can see why Wild Bear grew apart from his son with Andrei being a grudge bearer and all, Soma is so forgiving. XD
Partick?
Sunrise I want to see dead children, not man-children.
Come on that isn’t even kiddie size, Code Geass had the slaughter of Geass kids…in the same time slot. So stop being sissies and given me a slaughter of children, and none of the Lulu can but A-Laws can’t bullshit.
Current Gundam 00 Leader Board standings with updated acivements.
Calawain’s Fanboyisms
Only YOU can prevent pedos. My fellow moralists, join me in opposing all space loli adoptions, they only lead to pain and suffering. This man has already proven himself a failure at being a parent, as evidenced by the dickhead son he produced. Down with pedobear, save our children!
When people call us revolutionary
They’re just tryin’ to see
All that we choose
When all we want is everybody free
The universe would be one brotherhood
It isn’t wrong to be prepared to fight
Together to unite if we believe
In giving everything our heart and soul
Until we reach the goal we should achieve
It shouldn’t matter if we’re brown or white
Yellow or black as night to anyone
We’re all born equal with the self same rights
Sharing the same daylight under the sun
If loving freedom makes me quality
Of opportunity is where revolutionary
Constantly, fervently, firmly
Revolutionary
Will the atrocities of the vile Federation ever cease?! The merciless devils sent their soulless machines into the pure sanctuary of children and slaughtered them all. This is a sin beyond heinous, beyond all forgiveness.
All traitors deserve such soul-crushing despair. Like your first time finishing Akiha’s route in Tsukihime, the despair is endless. Your traitorious actions caused the death of innocent children, who were slaughtered by the evil A-Laws. You deserve nothing less than to have Louise shack up with the Wild Bear’s spawn and then die by her hands.
World, tonight, if you feel the same energy that I do, if you feel the same urgency that I do, if you feel the same passion that I do, if you feel the same hopefulness that I do, if we do what we must do, then I have no doubt that all across the world, from Azadistan to Taribia, from Ceylon to Moralia, the people will rise up in November, and the A-Laws will be defeated. And the Federation will be overthrown. And the world will reclaim its promise. And out of this long political darkness a brighter day will come.
60 Comments
I was like ‘ FUCK YEAH’ when Ali appeared.
Yes….Partick? Indeed….
Crusader, quick, what are your thoughts on the Bayonet? Humane or inhumane?
Shouldn’t you be picking another song, like “Maybe”? It’d just seem so ironic, with Adzistan on fire and then cutting to a shot of someone like… y’know, Marina Ismail.
@Zentari
I was eagerly anticipating it but in the end I guess we must wait to see Prince Ali show how much he has improved…
@Kaioshin
If it is Patrick then we can finally get this party started.
Bayonet…I say desperate. Since when was the business of war humane, I cannot recall there ever being a humane war bereft of barbarity of some sort…
@Haesslich
Sorry I have been listening to the Fallout 3 soundtrack as my buddy plays in the study/dining room/computer room in this tiny overpriced apartment.
Lol? November uprising? Storm the Federation HQ! Down with the Federation and up with the Union! 1917 is here again…
@Crusader: But the Hunter-Killer drones are not barbaric or inhumane in that they are not programmed to recognize surrender nor to have the capacity for mercy? Even if Kataron would have chosen to fight to the last man, it’s not exactly like they had an option in the first place. Oh well, you’re not serious of course, but I just find the notion that Kataron is entirely responsible for it’s own destruction to be overstating their fault in the matter, even if it does seem like they provoked it themselves over time.
I do actually agree that we haven’t exactly seen the A-LAWS going beyond the scope of their duties so far though. Rounding up real resistance cells that are antagonistic towards the Federation and seen as a threat to peace is a power they’ve been granted and one that is arguably justifiable to an extent. So until we see them going well beyond what they did at Proud Colony with Saji, which was the closest they’ve come to overextending their power then I have to agree that Kataron is mostly to blame for it’s own demise. I really would have given them the chance to surrender peacefully first though. Even Celestial Being has given that option to so called belligerents in the past.
I think what’s actually going to happen from what I’ve read is that Ribbons, who apparently has access to the President, is going to use the Gundams as an excuse to expand the A-LAWS scope of operations and powers while granting them full autonomy from the Federation military in the process and that’s probably where we are finally going to start to see the brutality you are expecting from an organization meant to be portrayed as the villain faction. In other words Ribbons and the A-LAWS are possibly about to go “Maverick” on the Federation regulars in a very bad way.
P.S: Don’t forget to vote tomorrow.
I think on the left hands belongs to Klaus, because in his profile wikipedia has such a line of occupation: Former AEU soldier.
Ali stole the episode even if he was for few seconds in the episode.
@Zentari:-
More like ‘FUCK NO!!’ to me.
I mean’t i was suprised to see that ‘ALI AL-SACHEZ STRIKES BACK’ thing to me ever since i’ve made some bashing comments about this guy till i couldn’t get some sleep.
@Loba
Wait 00bama isn’t an archduke…
@Kaioshin
Failure is never an option, but it remains as always a very real and distinct possibility. Kataron chose to take the armed rebellion route rather than the slow and arduous peaceful path like running against President 00bama. In choosing war they accepted that death was a very real thing, after all it is not something one takes upon lightly,
Right now CB seems to be decrying the A-Laws for merely being darker edgier cops, without the death camps or the deliberate brutality towards civilians its hard to believe that these guys are the new Titans. At most they seem to be Big Toy Soldiers who inspire rancor from the regulars, but they have proven to be elite and professional it’s not like Ginin is sick in the head or going beyond the scope of his orders. Besides an automaton is more like a regular HE bomb, it doesn’t discriminate there is no malice just as there is no mercy.
I already voted, as it I could ever forget my civic duty.
@lilu
Prince Ali’s awesomeness cannot be stopped by limited air time.
I bet Klaus was a rear stallion and not a front liner like Patrick.
One thing which irks me about this series is how they aren’t even exploring how the GN’s drives work or any potential impact the fake GN drives might have on the environment, last season thy mentioned about its effects on the human body in passing during one episode and that was it.
Plus it’s increasingly hard for me to see kataron as even competent, seriously, having a daycare centre inside one of your bases? how daft can you get? how dare they consider themselves la resistance
and saji seriously needs a bright slap administered to his whingy face pronto, hopefully it will make him man up a bit.
Excellent. All is fine in the world now. Ali is back and hopefully Bushibob will actually do something.
I love how everyone totally ignores like the rest of the world enjoying freedoms and comfortable lives. Honestly, half of these so called freedom fighters come off as some type of elite who think going back to the days when they were top dogs is better for everyone.
Still, In Ali we trust.
I’ve been waiting in anticipation for this blog and Crursader’s thoughts. My view was exactly the same, I haven’t seen anything really that would indicate the A-Laws are evil. Sure they’re jerks and pompous but that’s not really evil. Also along those lines, the A-Laws are not the Innovators who are actually pulling the strings.
All the talk on the boards and on the show about the drones being immoral or somehow an inhumane is ridiculous. Isn’t it more immoral to send in soldiers to a well defended, possibly booby trapped, enemy fortification when there is an alternative that will get the same results but with no friendly casualties? Would the loved ones of the Federation/A-Law solider decry the use of the drone and says, “Those drones are inhuman to the enemy, send in our troops to die instead!” Just just… ARGGG!!! all the BS that sunrise is trying to pull over the peoples eyes is just completely ridiculous!
With Ginin planet side now I hope to see more Graham in that Army of One. Maybe having a friendly rival will make him stop being a Gundam snob. On that note, Ginin’s done great things in space, it’ll be interesting to see how his squad will do in this different theater.
So here’s a new betting pool, which Feddy pilot will get to use Billy’s new mobile suits first, Mr. B, Soma or Ginin? Honestly, my money’s on Ginin as he doesn’t have a custom suit yet.
@square
I completely agree. All Kataron has to do is say “uncle”. Just give up guys, how about changing the system from within (ugh I sound like Suzaku.) If you have the money to buy Flags and weapons and all that stuff, they how about building a hospital or starting a business? Build up your country before you build up your army!!
I disagree with Crusader on alot of things but I do agree with him that A-Laws has not really been that bad, yet. They destroyed an armed military base, yes not offering them the chance to surrender is kinda bad but oh well it’s war. Look at what the Russians did to the Germans at the end of WW2. Also the BS about not killing someone with your bare hands is so stupid. The guy who ran Aushwitz after killing hundreds of people would have a cup of tea and go to bed, that to me is worse than some bomb or automated drones killing people.
On the hands thing, someone on animesuki suggested that it could be Shirin and Klaus because that looks like her sleeves on the left and Klaus used to be in the AEU.
You know, I’m really regretting the fact that I didn’t finish this episode now, what with Saji getting the pulp beaten out of him, that dumb fuck.
I was watching it fine in the beginning, not-so-secretly hoping for the deaths of every dumbshit, air-pushing, idealist punk, IE almost everyone in the show, until I got to the part where the children ran out to greet the ‘heroic shits’ at CB. Ok, let me say a few things about that:
1) That was a fucking cheap shot Sunrise, seriously. ‘Oh, the kids are on the side of the horrible cowardly terrorists, look at them! CUTE KIDS.’
2) Why the fuck are there children in a military installation? This ain’t the US naval base in Okinawa, it’s a fucking Kataron hideout in the middle of who-gives-a-shit-istan. There isn’t a town around. This doesn’t make sense. Oh wait, I forgot, Kataron are a bunch of cowards who would rather hide amongst the civilian populace and bring death upon them rather than fight in uniform.
3) Shut the fuck up Lyle. ‘Oh, this GN particle dispersion shit is here because this place ‘didn’t conform to their ideals’, so now they’re being ‘repressed”. Suck my dick, asshole. Ho-ly crap. I can’t believe these people can say these lines with a straight face.
Sunrise seems DEAD SET on creating their own little dream world where real-life politics operate under some bizarre logic and people do things just to be mean. It also seems dead set creating a series that, like an experienced politician, gives the IMPRESSION of having some insight into modern geo-politics. And it’s GRATINGLY presumptuous. All the ‘nice people’ are gunrunning terrorists who get money from… not seedy sources like in real-life (opium, arms trade, fundamental extremist religious donations), and all the g-men are assholes. The g-men that AREN’T assholes are only g-men because they don’t know what the fuck is going on, and that the rest of the g-men are assholes.
This show is seriously insulting me, and I don’t know whether I’m going to keep watching it, for all the shits and giggles available.
I was listening to Yoko Kanno’s Beauty is Within Us when I read this.
Yeah, once again A-LAWs has committed another atrocity, this time with their automaton droids killing off the non-combatants.
Down with the A-LAWs. Now if I can get an AKM for me to raise up high.
Crusader: “Maybe” by the Inkspots is part of the soundtrack, and was supposed to be used in the first Fallout game except they couldn’t get the rights for it. Just look at the lyrics and think of the ironic ways it could be used with this show and its characters.
Maybe you’ll think of me when you are all alone
Maybe the one who is waiting for you
Will prove untrue, then what will you do?
Maybe you’ll sit and sigh, wishing that I were near
Then maybe you’ll ask me to come back again
And maybe I’ll say “Maybe”
I agree re the botched attempts at making A-Laws look monstrous. They can mention off-cam events and it would be fine with me, but drawn out reactions on what was portrayed given that there were worse things done (like Hallelujah’s massacre of the innocents) is indeed a shortcoming.
Right now I want Saji to disappear for good. That’s enough. Let him reappear in the final episode like Graham did. I don’t care who he fights, as long as he’s swatted dead before he can moralize and lecture anyone.
Yo Prince Ali welcome back…..
For Prince Ali war is a business, Kill just for hobbies
and beware for CB, Prince Ali ready kill and violate relentlessly
By the way
I just wanna see Prince Ali and Bushido Bob play a tag for rape GN-00 and Cherudim gundam. tehehe….
Right now, I just don’t know how to say myself right now on this article, I’m LOL at this, Good job, thats want to make me blod alot right now! Thanks Man!
@blind_dead_mcjones
Maybe GN AIDS only effects blondes…
Kataron seems more of a joke as time goes on, their only saving grace is that they still use some older suits. Otherwise they deserve to fail for making such epically daft decisions.
@Ratwedge
CB and Kataron seem to be more about share misery rather than progress, rather than invest their funds in making the Middle East better they spend it on weapons. So far the A-Laws have not been intervening in the Middle East where there is no Kataron to be found…
Prince Ali will wipe them out in due time…
@Square
Yeah humane methods of killing seems more like an oxymoron than anything else. Strange how one way of killing a person is somehow better than another. Sunrise is just being biased against tachikomas because they are another cool subset of mecha, hell it’s not like Mobile Dolls got the same bad rap. It’s not fair to an extent, but all is fair in love and war.
Ginin is going to lead Louise down the path of manliness. I hope he sorties more often given how Ali and Bob are one man armies, the A-Laws need some more team players like Ginin.
@Jarmel
Well Kataron had observation posts, but it seems that their response was criminally slow or they had them too close to the base to be of any use, either way they failed and got killed as such. In war there is little room for incompetence. There is no humane way to kill, and right now the A-Laws are at least known for taking prisoners and building jails, surrender was an option, it was just never taken, nor was Kataron moving with a sense of urgency then they spotted the A-Laws flying by.
@Jayers
Ewwww… I hope not. Patrick needs to return first.
@skoll
It was a blatant ploy to make Kataron look like guys fighting for justice, but if you look at it closely it was horrendously irresponsible to hole up a bunch of kids any where near a military installation in the first place. Now that Prince Ali is back I am sure there will be a great toll on the Kataron now that things are getting more intense. It makes little sense that Kataron would be in revolt over something so insignificant as the A-Laws acting like a heavily armed FBI there are no secret prisons or anything the public is aware of what Kataron is being arrest for and they are not thrown into dank cells without food or being lead into the woods to be shot en masse. We hear of the accusations that the A-Laws have been doing bad things, but if automatons against armed enemies is the new standard of WMD then honestly it seems the bar for being evil has been lowered to the point that any sort of well equipped Counter Terrorist force is evil.
They are trying to make the A-Laws and Feddies look bad, but the flimsy cause that Kataron fights for makes them rebels for the sake of rebellion rather than for a good cause. We aren’t even given a map of who is in the Federation let alone told what the Middle East Policy is, if all it is is merely spreading GN particles to disrupt comms in uninhabited tracts of desert and not injecting massive amounts of aid to a failed state then Kataron is essentially a network of would be thieves who wish to rob the Federation of funds on nonmembers. Those stations were undefended and if Saudi Arabia wanted to they could trash them without much fuss nor would they allow Sergei to tour around unmolested. The only place friendly to Kataron is Azadistan and no one else, in every other place they seem to have little support within the Federation. Right now the only Federation presence in confirmed non Feddie territory were the two cops who arrest Princess Poverty. Serving a warrant across a border is hardly heinous by any means nor was Mariana beaten and raped in her cell.
If nothing else since the top killer of the series is on the opposing team I am sure Ali will deliver plenty of death as th e blood price of Kataron’s arrogance.
@Haesslich
I agree it was a good song and that it was sad that it was cut, and perhaps during the next one man nuking of a city by Ali I will use it somehow. In the mean time though the songs that did make into Fallout 3 are pretty good. Given how Ali is supposed to be evil I am sure that he’s not done with Azadistan just yet.
@ghostlightning
Indeed the A-Laws have yet to do something heinously bad on their own, Ali is tearing Azadistan a new one, but that was expected, but five eps in the A-Laws are only cops with attitude who actually bother to take prisoners and house them in fairly decent prisons instead of death camps. Haptism actually deliberately killed children, while the A-Laws may or may not have inadvertently done so because automatons are dumb weapons that shoot every thing that moves. The rank and file of the A-Laws like Ginin don’t even seem nearly as bad as some of the CB types given how he did not leave Louise behind nor did he beat the crap out of her for freezing up. Captian KFC and Lindt are asshats, but neither is actively going out to kill for the sake of killing. Every one has been doing their job nothing more nothing less. They are all pros who don’t bother asking philosophical questions.
Saji is the anchor that is dragging down this series right now, even Louise is being more tolerable at the moment and as it stands even endearing for looking up to Ginin.
@Dark Messiah
Prince Ali has come to play and already he stole the show with scant few seconds of air time. I am sure my lord is keen on racking up kills.
@Highman
Thanks for reading.
Probably after this incident or a *possibly* worse tragedy to come, you’d think Soma may become this series’ Emma Sheen?
Crusader: “Maybe” is in the GNR playlist, so you can hear it playing as you kill Super Mutants around D.C. Or doing it to “Into Each Life Some Rain Must Fall” with the Ink Spots and Ella Fitzgerald is… quite fun. Although the images of the A-Laws slaughtering children while this song’s playing is… well, I’m not sure if I call it horrifying or somehow strangely appropriate. If they want to make the A-Laws ‘evil’, they have to do shit like that on camera.
@redlion
Acht, I hope not, Haptism is not to be trusted.
@Haesslich
I still prefer Butcher Pete when tearing my enemies to shred. I agree that they need to start showing this brutality of the A-Laws instead of keeping things PG otherwise the A-Laws will be one of the most polite evil doers in Gundam history, and it would make CB even bigger blowhards than they already are.
Crusader: I once did a critical hit on a Super Mutant near the Jackson Memorial with a laser pistol, to “I Don’t Want to Set the World On Fire” and watched him writhe and trail sparks as he was consumed by the flame before turning into a pile of ash. In slow motion, thanks to V.A.T.S. I need to try that with a Flamer sometime. But yeah, I’ve done the “Butcher Pete” song using ‘Jack’, the ripper I found in the Deathclaw Sanctuary, in the Arlington Library. With Bloody Mess active during a sneak attack. That, and some Raiders in Evergreen Mills with the Shishkebab.
I can understand them not wanting to show violence… but at the same time, if they want to make the A-Laws the bad guys, they have to… y’know, show them doing ‘bad things’. Otherwise there’s no emotional investment on the audience’s side with CB and their rhetoric about why they’re doing what they’re doing, or the Whats-it-stans.
Watching this show episode by episode with HBO’s Generation Kill creates a FASCINATING EXPERIENCE, I highly suggest that you all do it. Putting faux war crimes committed with general malice next to real war crimes, generally committed in incompetence or flawed communication is nothing less than fascinating.
One day, one day the Japanese will think to talk to a soldier before they go and shovel this shit down our throats.
@Crusader
I think a real-world analog to what A-Laws, and their real-world counterpart the media-portrayed jingoistic American military, are doing is the bombing of al-Zarqawi in Iraq, a man who had personally beheaded captured foreign journalists on television. The US military dropped two five hundred pound bombs on his safehouse, killing not only him, but several women and children, including his own wife and son.
The Iraq branch of al-Qaeda, however, was broken, and we owe much of the security in the region to that single bombing. Was it wrong? Or was it simply amoral– what had to be done?
I hate how Sunrise is making CB and Kataron appear good by making A-LAWS appear evil by comparison. It’s the same crap they pulled in Destiny. Oh Gilbert is evil in the last 15 episodes from the end, so Kira and Co. must be good. It’s the same thing here, the Gundam Meisters and CB failed to muster viewer sympathy during the first seasons, so let’s make A-LAWS which is outright stupendously evil!!! Even Graham, a valiant, patriotic and sympathetic figure in the first season, has somehow become a self-centered, renegade asshole as of the second season without much explanation.
Even if A-LAWS are wrong, doesn’t make CB right. I’m sorry, Sunrise shows have some of the worst, non-sensational rhetoric of all anime.
As it stands, Sergei, Kathy and Soma still the most sympathetic characters in the series. Everyone else comes off as a paper-thin, stereotypical asshole.
@lubczyk
Totally agree. Took the words out of my mouth. Graham was a hardcore badass in season one who kicked a Gundam’s ass with a mass-production mech, making him my favorite character of S1, then suddenly he’s a douchebag in a mask because there has to be at least one of those in the each Gundam series.
And you’re absolutely right; despite trying to prove that the world isn’t divided in two, Sunrise seems to be operating with that concept in mind by using the principle of moral contrast– also a logical fallacy.
And yeah, I like Sergei too, though his father status just quintupled his chance of death.
@Skoll: Yes, two entirely different types of shows with different goals set side by side does create an interesting experience, but it proves nothing about either program good or bad. Why you seem to think that Gundam 00 is trying to be a realistic war chronicle is beyond me. With Crusader we have realistic if rather loud criticism, but this is pretty much left field stuff you’ve put out rigth here. Not to mention that Gundam is Sci-Fi, which will never by it’s very nature be able to portray a totally realistic warfare. The closest we’ve ever come is Legend of The Galactic Heroes and even that has it’s questionable parts.
In my opinion a show can only be blamed for what it intends to be and not what it clearly isn’t so pretty much all of your faux outrage is looking kind of laughable at the moment. Even moreso then the overkill tone of outrage with which is presented. I mean come on man, if something like Gundam 00 gets you this worked up then why are you even watching it to begin with? It can’t be healthy. I’d also suggest a reality check that you are indeed watching a cable television program aimed at a teen demographic yet expecting it to be like a premium service program aimed at an adult audience, but I don’t think it will do any good.
I should mention again that despite the fact that we haven’t seen the act that will solidify A-Laws as the greater of evils in the Gundam 00 universe we are still only one fifth of the way through the series. A lot is supposed to happen in that time, but I guess it won’t matter because it’s not going to turn out like Generation Kill. lol….
@Kaioshin
Did I SAY that watching Gundam 00 next to Generation Kill was particularly supposed to damn 00? No. You’re reading far too much into what I wrote. I meant exactly what I said, at face value; it’s interesting. It’s interesting to see what people think about war and what war really is, and the dichotomy speaks volumes as to society.
You’re argument against me falls apart here on several fronts.
1)You assume that I am accusing Gundam 00 of being unrealistic. I have repeatedly stated this to be untrue, because again, it is versimilitude that I pursue. For example, TTGL ran off the rule of cool and presented a philosophy in direct contradiction to my own beliefs, and yet I immensely enjoyed that. That’s because it was SUPPOSED to run off the rule of cool and it was SUPPOSED to be over the top. At one point in my various vitriolic posts as to the idiocy of some long-haired Japanese twat’s writing, I did indeed join in on the speculation as to the capabilities of Gundam technology, in which I commented as to the relative inefficiency of beam weaponry as compared to ballistic weaponry, but I admitted the uselessness in discussing it. Which brings me to your second fallacy.
2)Gundam 00 is trying to be a funsy show. It’s not. Anime News Network remarked on the ‘distinctly post 9/11′ feel to the show, and it can be argued that every Gundam since the first Mobile Suit Gundam is serious business attempting to deliver a philosophical package. As that is the point of the show, I am entirely entitled to criticize its failings in this arena.
And fail it does. As I have again previously mentioned, pining for so over-inflated peacenik doctrine while reveling in violence and presenting an unbelievably presumptuous, unilateral, and binary universe is neither satisfying nor remotely intelligent.
Now, why am I outraged? It might be that it is currently 3:40 AM and I’m still writing an essay, or it might be that I just watched some hippy douchebag strawman my entire country and take some very pathetic stabs. It might be that incompetence in something I have invested time in makes me angry. It might be that I hate bad writing, how all the g-men are faceless douchebags, and all the characters faced douchebags. It might be that I simply hate presumption. That last one is the most likely one, hint hint.
A good storyteller would not have to make A-Laws absolute evil to make them antagonists. In fact, it is the mark of good writing, or at least, in my opinion, moral maturity, to humanize the antagonist. The fact that there attempts to do so are so transparent is insulting.
Shove it.
@Skoll: Who even says they are making the A-LAWS absolute evil. They’ve got people like Soma, Katie and Andrei among them and they seem to have some morality and human deceny in them. I though the argument the argument here was that they are “trying and failing to make them absolute evil”, but I don’t even see them trying to make them absolute evil at all. I think the intention was to show them as extremist and potenially dangerous to world peace themselves, the same as Celestial Being was. The dialogue last week also showed that Celesital Being recognizes that it’s there fault thing have turned out this way and they are trying to set things right. Is that a good thing? I don’t know. I think things have been portrayed as fairly shades of gray so far. On the one hand it’s fair to argue that Kataron is at fault for their own demise by engaging in antagonistic acts against the federation, and on the other hand it’s fair to argue that A-Laws and the Federation are at fault for failing in their governing of the world to such an extent that an organization such as Kataron sprung up. These are clearly unhappy people and if it’s come to this then something must have gone wrong on the Federations promise of a unified and peaceful world as well. I see both sides at fault and with justifications. I don’t know about you though, but then again I tend to be more moderate in my approach to these kinds of shows and prefer not to jump to conclusions so early in what is going to be a fairly long season.
And for the record I do not agree with ANN’s assessment of the shows tone. I prefer to make up my own mind without having to really on someone elses impression to dictate how I should perceive a show. I will however counter your assertion that Gundam is all serious all the time with just three words. Gundam Double Zeta.
@Kaioshin
I believe I covered ‘people like Sergei’ in my first post here.
“The g-men that AREN’T assholes are only g-men because they don’t know what the fuck is going on, and that the rest of the g-men are assholes.”
Which is exactly my point. Everyone who orders evil acts are themselves evil, those who are not evil but perpetrate evil acts are simply misinformed. It’s hardly a fair-minded judgment of the realities of conflict. Essentially, the philosophical loadout implies that CB are in fact unequivocally right, since the Federation side’s actual decision makers are all assholes.
Not to mention it’s SO see through. Refer here: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FoxNewsLiberal
I generally do agree with ANN here. The fact that the Middle East is so prominently displayed such as to have the main character be Arab (*eyeroll* “Arab”), and the fact that there exists energy brokering, religious conflict, and terrorism, perhaps the first time the word was used in a primary Gundam series, solidifies double O as distinctly modern… or should I say pseudo-modern since they have no idea what they’re talking about. And yes, I do make my own opinions, and it’s insulting of you to imply that I don’t. After all, that ANN article was praising 00, and I haven’t watched a more grating anime since… since… I don’t know. It’s not the worst, but I sure as hell can’t think of something worse off the top of my head. At least Yugioh was unintentionally hilarious and spawned an excellent abridged series.
But yes, Gundam is not serious all the time, I don’t even believe that myself. That’s why I said, ‘it can be argued’, not, ‘it is true that’. And you had to say Double Zeta? There are so many better examples, G-Gundam, SD….
Ah, this adequately sums up my opinion of 00′s portrayal of professional security personnel and military command:
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/StrawmanPolitical
@Haesslich
Sounds like you had a ball, hey did you find Lincoln’s Repeating Rifle? The thing grants lethal head shots for my friend.
Right now it seems as if they are lapsing back into the old problem of having antagonists who are not behaving like ultimate evil antagonists, we know Ribbons and Wang are up to no good but this lack of “war crimes” by the A-Laws keeps them in Knight Templar Territory given how they are protecting the peace of the Federation by any means neccessary. They have yet to show precisely how the Federation is bullying non-member states with anything, unless apathy is now the new standard of malevolence. The Federation is just a typical state, nothing righteous but at the same time not entirely evil, its an amoral entity and a fairly good government as government goes considering everything looks clean and green and there aren’t armies of starving beggars prowling the streets. If this Federation is indeed evil then the same can be said of any state we see today.
@skoll
If the man really cared about his family they would have been in a different safe house to begin with he was a target, IIRC he said it was an honor to be hunted. We found him and took him out with minimal damage, the man was not pulling punches and we did what we had to do. War is not about who was right or who was wrong, all that matter is who is left at the end, it’s brutal business. Storming the building probably would have been just as bad if not worse, and given the circumstances using two 500 lb bombs or risking the lives of two or more platoons which would have put the bystanders in a similar if not greater danger, the use of bombs was the more practical solution. It would have been nice to have a police action with a SWAT team and negotiations, but the man was not in the mood to negotiate, and this was after all a war, and war is never nice. War…war never changes.
@lubczyk
Indeed even if the Federation is wrong along with the A-Laws that hardly makes Kataron the allies of justice by default. Given how there have been no A-Laws attacks on civilians coupled with the the use of fairly decent prisons, it’s hard to see the Feddies as being all that bad. The lack of evil being shown on screen by any one other than Ali is rather scant. Kataron seems to be fighting for something incredibly stupid at the moment, and CB is not in clear for harassing the A-Laws who have behaved professionally by only attacking the armed anti-Federation group Kataron who had been establishing sleeper cells in Federation territory. Even after the why we fight episode we still have not seen this alleged dark side of the Federation, if harsher measures are instituted then it will be due to the Gundam and Kataron threat rather than anything the Federation did during the four years of relative peace. Right now the Federation is not more evil than the Big Three back in season 1 even with the vaunted goal of ending war it seems that unification on the terms of the 328 member states rather than on CB’s terms is the only real issue that CB is attacking the Federation for. Right now the only evil that the Feddies and A-Laws are guilty of is just doing their jobs in treating hostile like hostiles.
The weak Casus belli of both Kataron and CB this time around is what makes them to be a whole lot less sympathetic than Sunrise wants. The Federation has a right to protect it self from armed groups that fight to destroy all that the Federation has built. The children ploy that they used was undermined by the sheer stupidity and irresponsibility of Kataron for keeping kids around the heavy weapons. I agree that the attempts to make CB and Kataron look like heroes is getting desperate, but right now even that attempt has largely failed. Ali can burn down 1000 cities but if he is operating on the orders of Ribbons and not the Federation then it’s hard to pin Ali’s crimes on the Feddies simply because they both oppose CB and Kataron.
@Kaioshin
The use of children was rather botched when you think about, even for a desperate bid for some Kataron sympathy the sheer idiocy of putting children in the middle of an armed camp with the expectation that they will be safe was just too silly to be taken at face value. Given that it was Kataron’s main base and all it was a target and given the lack of settlements around the place collateral damage was the last thing on the Federation or the A-Laws’ minds. It’s not like we put day care in the Pentagon under the pretense that it is a safe place, on the contrary the court yard itself is dubbed ground zero for a very good reason.
The issue right now is that even with the why we fight episode given how there were no on screen instances of A-Laws depravity and their professional handling of all the assaults on Kataron enclaves with little collateral damage, Saji aside, that it’s hard to believe that guys like Ginin are evil. KFC and Lindt are assholes and Homer is a humorless sod, but other than that none of them are actively doing anything else than fighting Kataron. The only thing remotely evil any of them have done is treat Kataron like an armed group of terrorists with no quarter asked and no quarter given, and celebrate additional funding. This to me is hardly excellent evil and if this is what Kataron is bitching so hard about then their reasons for fighting are rather weak and unsympathetic. They claim to protect places like Azadistan but spend most of their money on armaments fight the Federation whose only “evil” act was to arrest Mariana without much bloodshed at a time when Kataron was already an established threat with heavy weapons and sleeper cells within Feddie territory. Being apathetic to the plight of the denizens of a failed state like Azadistan is deplorable but by no means malicious or evil, its no worse than how the world will not lift a finger to bring law and order back to Somalia. The Federation has a right to protect itself from Kataron whose stated goal is to destroy the Federation for alleged crimes that the audience is not yet privy to.
Right now Federation territory seems like a decent place to live in comparison to the hell town of the liberated Azadistani areas. Its by no means a perfect government, but there never has been a perfect government ever. Given how 00bama is President racism no longer seems to be an issue as it is in Azadistan, the Federation seems to be like a paradise. As much as Setsuna doesn’t like how peace can only be found in the Federation, he has no right to take away their peace to make them equally as miserable as the Azadistani. If CB and Kataron wanted to make Azadistan a better place certainly using all that money they use for guns and CB’s advanced tech to better the life of the average Azadistan would be a far more productive way of bringing peace to war ravaged Azadistan.
CB and Kataron are supposed to be the heroes, but their reasons for fighting are so inherently weak that it seems like they are only killing for the sake of easing their own conscience. Given how the Federation is not that bad and the A-Laws are still operating under reasonable rules of engagement in fighting a shadow war with Kataron it seems that the bar for evil has been lowered to such a point that punching Saji is put on the same level as a colony gassing. The Titans were prone to infighting and pushing the regulars around with liberal amounts of slaughtering civies for good measure. The A-Laws have yet to kill any one who they do not think is related to Kataron and such restraint is hardly the mark of an evil minded group of people, paranoid, yes but eve cops take people in for questioning based on reasonable suspicion. Saji had been a friend of an known Kataron member and thus was possibly a Kataron member himself, given his long association with CB and Kataron there is enough circumstantial evidence to suspect that Saji is also seeking to take down the Federation. KFC has yet to slap Sergei and even if KFC and Lindt have no respect for Katie neither is actively sabotaging her. Mr. Bushido being a prima donna is hardly evil, just as MacArthur was an egotistical jerk, but not a Class A war criminal.
Even if the Federation starts breaking the rules now part of it can still be pinned on desperation and the prevailing fear of the Gundams. After all in the past Gundams had killed many people including civilians. They have no idea that CB has opposing factions and treat them as a single malevolent entity based on the actions of the Trinities whose actions have been endorsed by Ms. Wang. If times get desperate it is understandable if the Federation resorts to desperate measures to hold to what it has built. Anything that happens after the second coming of the Gundams and the rise of Kataron can be blamed on fear rather than maliciousness. We have to see what dirty business the Federation was doing before Kataron was formed if we are to take the Federation to be the evil empire that Klaus and Shirin claim it to be, otherwise Federation apathy as the new ultimate evil is rather poor justification for the armed conflict the heroes are waging. If Ribbons had already shown his hand then things would be different, but the Federation right now has done nothing evil nor have the A-Laws been going beyond their mandate to destroy Kataron as a terrorist group that seeks the destruction of the Federation.
We need to see the Feddies bieng bad before Kataron was formed if we are to believe that Kataron is truly fighting a good fight. We need to see the A-Laws doing bad things to people outside of Kataron if we are to believe that CB is justified in attacking them and not Kataron. If the current lack of flashback massacre that takes place before CB showed up again and Kataron was a non-entity continues then the A-Laws will still look like cops and the Feddies will just be your typical flawed democracy.
If they were going for shades of gray then they did not have to use the kiddie ploy to help Kataron score some sympathy points. Since the Federation has what appears to be a working democracy and given how Kataron elected to stay out of the Federation and were discontent over the current administration their antagonistic stance seems more belligerent given how it is not permissible for a losing political party to take up arms to get an electoral result that they wanted. Azadistan could have joined, they chose not to, and the Federation is not invading to bring them into the fold nor are the A-Laws burning down settlements to create a refugee crisis. To me it seems that we are supposed to see the A-Laws as bad people given how Soma was crying over the use of automatons, it was out of character, she was no stranger to dead and mangled bodies, she’s fought a war and yet acted like it was her first time. The whole fuss over automatons was rather lame since they are weapons like any other, it seems out of character for Katie to all of a sudden have problems using an automaton when she had not problems using Aheads and GN-XIIIs. Katie cared about the grunts under her command and as such the automaton should have been a god send as a support unit used for spearheading assaults instead of risking the lives of infantrymen or pilots to storm a fortified position.
@Crusader: I think the “kiddie ploy” was shades of gray. Are we supposed to view it as Klaus helping out refugees and the A-LAWS targetting everyone on the base indiscriminately, or do we perhaps suspect a more sinister motive, the meat shield you mentioned….
Right now Klaus would make for a better villain than a hero. We have no evidence that the Federation is a corrupt democracy on the level of LOGH’s Alliance of Free Planets, and as such if there is a functioning democracy in the Federation and Klaus is bitter over 00bama’s victory, then his reasons for rebellion are weak. So long as the Feddies and A-Laws are behaving within reason Klaus looks like a political malcontent who did not want to wait for the next election or had enough oratory fire to change people’s minds to support his policies rather than 00bama’s. If Klaus is an innovator who turned on Ribbons then things would be much more interesting than if Klaus was a freedom fighter fighting against an imperfect democracy. Even if there is discontent, it is to be expected as you can;t make everyone happy all of the time. There will always be fringe groups who will never compromise, just take a look at far left or far right in your country these people will never be happy, but that doesn’t mean the current administration is bad for not meeting their needs. In short you cannot be pro-choice and pro-life enough to satisfy both sides at the same time. I don’t think that it is permissible to have a rebellion every time a party is voted out of power or if an election does not go your way. So long as democracy is functional there is really no excuse for any sort of violence or rebellion.
Given how Katie and Soma were acting uncharacteristically unprofessional about the automatons I suspect we are meant to see the A-Laws as the new Titans, the problem is CB was taking orders from an AI, the only difference here is that the A-Laws are masters of their own weapons, in contrast to CB being slaves to a machine in S1. Even at this stage the Titans had enough bad Karma for us to see that they were up to no good. Ribbons and Ali are doing their own thing independent of the A-Laws and it seems unlikely the Federation is even remotely aware of Ribbon’s machinations or Ali’s actions. Hopefully it will be be more twisted and gray as you say, but the attempts at making the automatons be more monstrous than they really are still makes me believe that we are supposed to see A-Laws AI as evil, but these days with battlefield drones being so common place it hardly seems out of the ordinary or ‘inhumane.’ If war is hell then why is Haptism preaching that there is a clean way to fight? Again we are made to believe that AI controlled machines are monstrous, but not too long ago CB was nothing more than AI controlled people piloting Gundams.
Still may Klaus prove to be some dastardly rogue innovator who turned on Ribbons.
When I saw Azadistan (<- I forgot how to write it -_-) and Ali there, I thought “the guys at THAT are gonna hold a party wooo” XDD
anyways, PLEASE LOUISE, KILL SAJI AND YOU’RE MY G00 HEROINE. PLEASE. I can’t stand seeing him alive anymore.
Hurray for Mr. Bushido being so spoiled and egoistic, and for Sergei for being so kick-ass.
@Crusader: How can you be so certain that everything you say is the case. I think we’re getting a little to much of that trademark Crusader bias here and that perhaps you should stop to consider other alternatives. That perhaps the Earth Federation isn’t a functioning and popular democracy and that many people are unsatisfied with it’s leadership. If that were the case then their wouldn’t even be a need for an A-LAWS to maintain it as it would have the support of the people, and if everybody were happy and satisfied with the current system/regime then their probably wouldn’t be a Kataron either.
Right now I agree that Klaus is made of less than a hero, that’s because I’ve never trusted him in the first place though, but it’s still way to early in the game to start attaching labels to the factions. You’re expecting that things are going to develop into a black-hats versus white-hats situation and that the A-LAWS are going to be the new Titans and I think that’s where the dilemma is here. The desire to compare and constrast between similar factions in the Gundam franchises past history has led you to assume that it is the inevitable goal of the creators to portray them the exact same way as their theoretical predecessors, but the fact is that the A-LAWS currently have more sympathetic faces then the Titans ever did in Soma, Katie, Andrei, Louise and possibly even Graham. Also the Earth Sphere also isn’t as developed and full of dissident factions as the U.C’s was either and so the A-LAWS are likely a much smaller organization that is capable of being provided with better oversight then the renagade Titans, and lastly, currently we haven’t as you say seen any action that would make someone stand up and say that the organization is corrupt beyond redemption inside and out. I personally don’t really see many similarities between the Titans and the A-LAWS at all beyond the superficial and the obvious.
What I do see though is that in the end, past evidence and even characters current actions tends to paint things more in the shades of grey (as I mentioned earlier) that permeated the Gundam of old and opposed to the Gundam known as Seed.
@Yamila
Hopefully Louise will be the one to end his miserable existence.
@Kiaoshin
For one the press conference implied that the reporters could ask any questions they wanted, but never got a straight answer that is not so much censorship as it is being slimy. Second the moral compass of the show Sergei is not dissatisfied, nor is there enough popular support within the Federation for Kataron to prevent the taking down of all their cells. Given how the we are probably within the first election cycle from last season it was not as if the old power holders remained in power. Right now the Middle East is the only place friendly to Kataron and even when Saji was hauled off on Proud not one seemed to care enough to stop the “injustice.” Klaus and Shirin have thrown around the term dictatorship often enough yet the Federation has yet to behave dictatorially, they are not invading anyone at the moment nor are they keeping secret jails as the public is aware of political prisoners. Given the lack of secret police action against the general populace or a cult of personality for 00bama, life seems to be decent enough for most of the population. Again there is no real reason to trust Klaus or CB verbatim given how the Feddies and A-Laws have been the most well behaved antagonists to date. Questions are still being asked, it’s just that 00bama’s PR can skirt the questions. Considering how the Federation is able to fund the construction of new colonies and provide handsomely for a military on the cutting edge there are enough tax payers who are satisfied enough to continue to pay taxes. You can call it bias if you must, but really if Klaus’s words are the only thing we have to go on to label the Feddies as bad then it’s rather inconsistent with the current behavior of the Federation and A-Laws. Why should we assume Klaus is right merely because there is an armed terrorist group that seeks to destroy them? By such reasoning Colombia is evil because FARC exists.
Sunrise can easily give us proof that the Federation is up to no good by given how this is is the second half we should have hit he ground running, and yet Klaus’s accusation is all the proof we have of the Federation being bad. Right now the Federation enjoys enough public support to the point that they can give the A-Laws more funding because not many within the Federation are happy that the Gundams are back. Given how the Gundams had slaughtered so many in the past Kataron seems to be in the minority for welcoming CB’s return, this makes me more suspicious of Kataron given how four years ago they were on opposing sides and saw their comrades killed. Yet here they are with wide open arms treating former enemies like friends, and former friends like enemies. In S1 there was not indication of popular discontent when the Federation was formed out side of non-members like Shirin. The fact that they are actively courting public support and mindful of it makes me inclined to believe that like any functioning democracy they are still at the mercy of the electorate. If it were corrupt then it’d be presidential decrees instead of parliamentary approval.
Just because a person is dissatisfied with the current situation enough to take up arms does not make the guy a hero. Imagine the kind of chaos that would occur if during every election the losing party took up arms after being beaten at the ballot box. There has been probably only a single election since the founding of the Federation, four to six year terms seem common enough so it is likely the same with the Federation. Given that Klaus did not wait for the next election and chose to reject the Federation almost as soon as it was formed. Given how strongly associated with the Middle East it seems strange that it is mostly those on the outside that hate the Federation. Shirin herself never even gave it a chance and declared it evil the minute 00bama made his inaugural speech.
Actions not merely libel and slander makes me believe that the Federation is not altogether bad given how Sergei the moral compass of the series is backing it. However if they are not that bad then Kataron ends up looking like a fringe group with an generally unpopular agenda like the Red Army Faction or FARC. An armed special interest group is hardly heroic by any means, and is more sinister than a government that is still mindful of public opinion.
The point that Sunrise has failed to clear up is whether the A-Laws were created in response to Kataron, or if Kataron was created in response to the A-Laws. Given the hostility to Kataron within the rank and file of the Feddie regulars it seems that Kataron has been fighting the regulars as well. This leads to the distinct possibility of Kataron fighting the Feddie Army first with he creation of the A-Laws a later occurrence given how all of them at one point wore the uniform of the regulars and they are still recruiting actively to bolster their numbers. Given how Kataron seems to have built up so much in secret I suspect that they are the older of the two if there was a logical progression of amassing such military power under a cloak of secrecy under the watchful of the Federation. Again we have to wait and see, but it is a point that sorely needs clarification. If not then it is hard to invest any sympathy with Kataron with their weak goals and lackluster performance and kiddie meat shield.
Again given how 00bama and the A-Laws are mindful of the need for popular support they are at the mercy of John Q. Public for money, which is the situation in most functioning democracies anyway. If it were not the case funding would never be an issue nor a matter worth celebrating over. 00bama does not seem to be ruling by presidential decree and is working with others and actively wooing the public to support increased spending to fight the Gundams.
@Crusader: I see your mighty wall of text and raise you the notion that just because we haven’t witnessed something first hand doesn’t mean it isn’t there. I know you think we should have hit the ground running as you put it during the second half, but the idea of a slow build up doesn’t seem so bad to me.
Though I would call the A-LAWS operations that we’ve seen a secret police action and cite again that the key target of Celestial Being and Kataron does not seem to be the Federation as a whole, but the A-LAWS themselves. The Federation isn’t altogether bad, you are right. There’s nothing wrong with world unity as long as the consent of the people is given, but some countries didn’t give that consent and now we have the A-LAWS who while they might not represent the Federation as a whole a certain attached to them and very much look like they are making life difficult for those non-consenters. At least according to Kataron and of course Klaus’ word is all we have. Troublesome….
For now I’m glad we’ve agreed to adopt the wait and see approach and that some key issues need clarification though, so I think we can leave it at that for this episode.
Incidentally without proof we cannot take Klaus at his word that Federation is evil, nor can we take CB’s beliefs that the A-Laws are evil at face value considering they rely on Ms. Wang as their eyes and ears. Given how there is no reliable narrator here Sunrise either has to give us proof or at least one reliable narrator to give us the progression of events. Kataron’s leaders Klaus and Shirin are hostile to the Federation and label it a dictatorship, their war is against the whole of the Federation not just he A-Laws. CB has a stated goal of eradicating war, but right now choosing to side with Kataron and not the A-Laws doesn’t make them the impartial ones. How is Kataron’s military power for the sake of destroying the Federation permissible when the military powers granted to the A-Laws to preserve the Federation then evil? There is some glaring hypocrisy at work here for CB, Kataron is armed and hostile to the Federation, just as the A-Laws are armed and hostile to those who seek to destroy the Federation. Here are two armed camps and yet they only attack one of them, the only justification so far being that the A-Laws are better at violent execution in a decidedly controlled manner than Kataron which seems to be incompetent at every level.
From what we have seen the Federation and A-Laws have not been acting monstrously as CB and Kataron have stated. When the Federation was founded 4 years ago membership to all was open once they joined it would not be much of a Federation if members could just leave after dipping into the Federation’s coffers. For now we have yet to see whole nations in rebellion only a few Middle East sympathizers and those who chose to remain outside of the Federation. Energy seems to be the primary beef that Shirin has with the Federation, but honestly what right does she have to dictate to the people of the Federation on how to make their energy policy when she contributed nothing and sacrificed nothing to the construction of and defense of the Solar Elevators? It’s not like Canada can dictate how much oil Saudi Arabia should produce, the very idea seems silly and yet that is what Shirin is doing. In regards to Foreign Aid is is something states can only ask for, they cannot start making demands on other nations and expect them to be met. As long as there is a Federation members have to try and work things out diplomatically, if they cannot get along within a border, then what hope do they have on getting along across one? The Federation was formed after the defeat of CB, the atmosphere was gone but the spirit of cooperation was strong enough that they were cable to formulate a consensus on the use of the Solar Elevators. Right now the accusation that there are groups who were forced in ring hollow when the Feddies are not pressuring Azadistan to join, nor are they making massive military incursions to force them in. All 328 member states gave their consent four years ago the option to back out was open as Azadistan was able to opt out. This was not a loose confederacy the title of Federation implies that membership is essentially life long, hence every member nation knew what they were getting into.
All we have seen is a minority who do not like the Federation that is drawn from fringe groups of member states. All of Ireland was not arrested when they discovered Lyle’s cell, so until this majority is brought forth Kataron will remain a minority with the option to move out of the Federation to the non-member states. Democracy is just that rule by the majority, the minority factions cannot dictate to the majority what is to be done through arms, you either compromise or wait until the next electoral cycle to agitate for your agenda. It would not be permissible for the Republican Party to start arming itself and make demands that McCain be President now that Obama has been elected in a free and fair election. They can try again in 4 years, but they do not have the right to make war to force the majority to accept a minority candidate. The right to secede in no way strengthens democracy, it undermines it and makes a mockery of majority rule and compromise.
If Kataron were a broad coalition as Klaus would have us believe then possession of even a handful of GN-XIIIs that defected would have cemented his claims. For now however since they have not moved outside of the Middle East Kataron looks like a special interest group rather than a popular movement.
We had all of S1 to build up this world we do not need to spend anymore time on Azadistan, if we are in for another slow build up then we might get another instance of Graham or someone else being woefully late once again.
Crusader: Yes, it does 150 damage per hit, and it uses the same .44 Magnum rounds my Scoped Magnum does. However, my Energy Weapons skill is maxed out, and I use a Plasma Rifle I ganked off of an Enclave soldier. The escape also netted me a set of Tesla Armor, and a set of Enclave Power Armor that I sold afterwards for quite a few caps. But for close-in work, I love Jack (the Ripper).
As for this season, I’ve yet to see any real ‘good guys’ – there’s “Characters we know” and “characters we don’t know” along with “Prince Ali”. So far, though, they seem to be trying to make the Katarons the good guys… even if they’re employing civilian meat shields around important areas, something like that encountered in Iraq.
@Haesslich
Neither me nor my buddy had much put into energy weapons since Paladin Cross was designated as the energy weapons girl, besides after having dumped so little in energy weapons Old Abe’s gun was GODLY. Clearly President Lincoln was an ass kicker of the highest order.
Have you seen Liberty Prime in action yet, comrade?
I agree that Kataron is getting much more of the sympathy treatment from Sunrise even if the kiddie meat shield was more controversial if not all together appalling and daft than they probably intended. It’s rare that the rebels are portrayed as the bad guys, I suspect that is the case here. I think Ginin has proven to be a noble bloke, his loyalty is to the guy on his right and the guy on his left, he fights for the memory of his dead comrades and endeavors to keep the comrades he still has alive. For some one in a supposedly seedy organization, saving Louise instead of leaving her behind or beating her made for quite a gentlemanly impression. Most of the Feddies seem like decent people who are only doing their jobs, it is about the good as it gets it seems. Their normal vibe is more understandable than the high minded violent idealism that CB and Kataron are prone to.
Crusader: I know what Liberty Prime does, but I’ve been too busy crashing-to-desktop to get to that point. At this stage, I’ve given up on playing for now (I’m looking for the GECK, or was until I ended up in the Republic of Dave and crashed as soon as I tried to move the mouse… every fricking time). This is what happens when you play on a PC these days, alas.
I still have to say the way they’re handling the storytelling this season’s a bit on the clumsy side – especially since the villains look less villainous, in comparison, to a group led by a former child soldier/terrorist and whose ‘main source of intelligence’ and overall boss employs a psycho who killed Louise’s family for fun. And they’re supposed to be the good guys.
@Haesslich: I’ve gotta be honest with you, I had absolutely no idea what you guys were talking about until this point. Now all I can add is, gee, good thing I have an XBox 360.
In any case, in the interests of not taking a negative/ultra critical stance on the show, because god knows there’s always going to be more than enough of that when it comes to Gundam, I have to continue to press that the major enemy in Gundam 00 is clearly conflict and distortion itself and not any specific faction. There’s good and bad people on each side, just how it is in real war, but everybody is absolutely sure they are doing the right thing. I don’t think anything has been handled clumsily at all so far other then perhaps some of the scenes involving multi-purpose loli operator Melina Vashti nor do I see the path to viewing Kataron as the “good guys” because I don’t believe it’s the intention.
Am I always playing Devil’s Advocate in these situations or do I truly believe what I speak? Maybe yes, maybe no, maybe sometimes one and other times the other, but in any case somebody has gotta take the defensive position in these discussions regardless of belief ala Ebert & Roeper otherwise what’s the point of even having them? Right? Anyway, I’ve got a mission to take care of now so I’ll leave you with this.
@Haesslich
Ouch sounds like a pain, I moved on to console gaming ever since is saw the system requirements for Cyrsis…it’s just becoming too expensive these days, and considering how buggy things can get moving to consoles saved me much of the aggravation. Well here’s hoping you get a patch or get a console. Here’s hoping Blizzard keeps the system requirements merciful and the bugs minimal.
Yeah Ms. Wang basically taints CB by association and the amount of unquestioning trust they place in her. At least some of the Feddies show the ability to question things. Nena hasn’t done much of anything yet and hopefully her showdown with Louise will be quite fun, unless of course Ali takes Nena down for lulz first. Still I worry that they will force Nena to become a goodie goodie girl in order to make Setsuna less naive and more righteous.
@Kaioshin
Go play Fallout 3 now, Liberty Prime is one of the most awesome mecha of 2008, it’s first sortie was incredibly well done. EMBRACE DEMOCRACY OR YOU WILL BE ERADICATED!
@Crusader: I wouldn’t even bother with the Crysis Engine as far as PC gaming goes. I don’t know what they used to build that engine but as far as I can tell even the top of the line retail level computers have issues running it. Source continues to be among the most good looking, efficient and scalable engines that I have seen. Hell Half-Life 2 which I was just playing still looks bloody amazing even compared to what passes for your top of the line graphics tech demo game nowadays.
And if you are worried about Starcraft 2, don’t be. Blizzard has already said they are taking system performance into account and are going to make sure it’s optomized for medium end systems before it ships to market. Not belonging to the EA family I actually trust them to take their time and make sure the game is done right and that everybody is going to have a chance to play it. I don’t know what Gas Powered games did to Supreme Commander to make it run so sluggish on PC’s, but I doubt it’s going to happen with Starcraft 2.
As for Gundam again, I don’t think that comparing Celestial Being’s situation with Wang to say….Katie or Soma’s situation with A-LAWS is quite fair. You’ve kind of headed into that old pitfall of forgetting to differentiate between what we as the audience know and what the in-universe characters are aware of.
For starters, Soma and Katie have been able to see and judge for themselves some of A-LAWS more unsavory actions and breaches of trust whereas for all intents and purposes Celestial Being has no reason to suspect yet that Wang is their mole. Up to this point she has provided them shelter, intelligence and funding and even helped them get out of a jam that might have been certain death early on in the season, despite the fact that she helped plan the ambush in the first place. So until they can clearly see a hint of her treachery there’s no reason why they would doubt her. Also you have to consider that they no longer have access to Veda anymore and thus are first to rely on one “trustworthy” source for intelligence at this point. Unfortunately that source is Wang herself. A predicament, but what do you do?
Perhaps, but given how treachery was what gave the Federation the GN-Tau drives, I am rather surprised they have not become more suspicious and not once poked around her lair to find Nena. Come to think of it it was their blind faith in Veda and in CB unity that got them in trouble in the first place, it seems strange of them not to be a bit more cautious this time around. Given how there was a massive intel failure last time with Corner and his Golden GM they slipped back into business as usual a bit too easily. Even if CB is not evil their faith in Wang leads us to question if CB is doing the right thing by fighting the A-Laws. After all it is strongly hinted that they rely on Wang for all their intel and advanced recon perhaps she has been inflating and exaggerating reports of their destructive potential. The A-Laws only recently got their hands on automatons and share equipment of the main Feddie army given how Sergei’s ship was not too different from Katie’s.
Even if Setsuna and his cell have no reason to suspect Wang’s intentions right now they are making a critical error in relying on her as their sole source of intel it’s the same risk as just going on the word of a guy named “Curveball.” I highly doubt any one from Setsuna’s little band has seen the all those massacres the speak of. More over given their secretive nature we only know they have been seedy, but they play by the rules or so it seems for now. Trusting Kataron’s reports is not a good idea either as they have every reason to paint the A-Laws in a bad light. The A-Laws suffer from the same problem as an Spec Ops group their missions are all classified and the public only gets third hand accounts that are not all verifiable. Perhaps the myth of A-Laws brutality has been inflated to the point that the legend is greater than the actual unit.
@Kaioshin
Source Engine games tend to look good because Valve can make great character models, not because its a *good* engine. Its basically a heavily modified iD Tech 2 engine and it shows its age with its lighting effects.
Games with good models last much longer than the next blob of brown and grey and that is the case with games produced by Valve. The next Command and Conquer might look utterly outdated and rubbish after the next 2 years but games such as Total Annihilation and Quake, while obviously lacking in colour, still look good to this day.
Not sure where you get the information that people have trouble running Crysis. As long as you’re competent enough to setup your computer efficently, the game runs fine even with an above average gaming rig. Obviously you can’t run everything on max with an above average gaming rig, but that’s the case with just about every game these days.
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[...] Gundam 00 , Kaio’s Corner , Written By Kaioshin Sama Oddly enough I find myself claiming that Crusader has raised a few reasonable points on the latest episode of Gundam 00 and against all better judgement and on the constant urging of [...]