The Official Gundam Unicorn Anime Thread Mk VI

[Brave Fencer Kirby]

I've pretty much come to the same conclusion at this point. Everything in latenlazy's most recent post I've already been addressed at least once (occasionally in the bit of text he's quoting at the time), so rather than banging my head against the wall and clogging up the thread trying to clarify myself again, it's probably a better idea to just let the subject drop. Latenlazy, if you want to continue the discussion without bothering everyone else, feel free to PM me about it.

[latenlazy]

Nahh, I feel the same way with regards to your points. We've both boiled it down to fundamental differences of interpretation. We'll have to agree to disagree.

[Amion]

I didn't jump in because I'm still not sure what either of you are talking about, your posts were very taxingly long and for any input would cause me to include my own personal worldview.

So, exactly what was the premise of this debate?

[Brave Fencer Kirby]

The short version? I think that Unicorn depicts the Sleeves as beating the Federation in open conflict, which conflicts with what we're told about them needing Laplace's Box to survive against the Federation, while latenlazy thinks that the animation shows them winning the battles but losing the war, so they do need the Box despite their on-screen victories.

[Amion]

Well hmm. So this is not just a debate about the strategic advantage of losing or winning battles but still losing the war, and also a question as to whether or not the Sleeves have actually engaged in a full open battlefield in-animation. (I disregard the novels right now because I haven't read them)

To throw in my own notions of the first question up for debate, I'd say that really, winning lots of battles does not guarantee victory. There have been cases where generals have ceaselessly one battles and yet never won the war because one side wouldn't capitulate (like Zeon), and where the first who won the battles simply didn't have the means to strike a finishing blow.

The Second Punic War is an example of this. Hannibal was the architect of the pincer movement and Cannae, won battle after battle, for many, many years in enemy territory. Yet the Romans (NOT TO BE compared with the Zeon, because they had greater manpower than the latter) refused to capitulate. This was the best decision, because Hannibal, despite open engagement victories, simply could not take Rome without proper equipment (compare him with Zeon over its lifespan not just the Sleeves)

Hannibal lasted for a long time, winning battles endlessly, yet he could never hope to topple the unstoppable Roman juggernaut. The war at this point gives a prime example that a "war" does not necessarily have to be large, open-field engagements. The American Revolutionary war is similar, with the colonists mostly engaging in guerrilla warfare. As a matter of fact, the region I live in was known for this vicious form of fighting when loyalists and British troops passed through.

So to clarify, just because the Sleeves are winning the battles (which I don't believe, consider Papua, which was basically destroyed, right? It's been years since I saw it last) does not mean they are winning the war. Or even that all confrontations are open-field battles and not more terrain-based bouts of fighting, which would have to be Shoal Zone related considering space is well, you know, void. The Zeon could still be crushing Feddie ships all day, but can the Federation build ships all day? Yes, they can, so destroying five or six or even more Salamis or what-have-you will not defeat the Federation. Dropping Axis would have, because of the calamity, further giving Char credit for trying to end the Federation for good. Attacking Dekar was quite possibly an attempt to make a decisive blow, but it failed.

Thus, we can conclude that winning a battle doesn't win a war, and also further places a strain on resources, as it did with Hannibal. One must also question the desire to engage Zeon in open battles, as slowly whittling them down as Phabius Maximus did do Hannibal was the proper response to an enemy with efficient tactical skill. (And yes, Hannibal is my example for this argument right now ) So yes, in the end the Sleeves need the Box, because even if they are winning when they do battle, they lose without being able to properly replace, whereas the Federation isn't even scratched, and why they ultimately won the OYW to start with, because higher production capabilities have always won the day when two countries engage in conflict, see the Civil War as an example of this. Proper strategy can overcome it, as the Zeon have done, but ultimately its a race against time, like Full Frontal said. They can go on, but not forever, while the Federation will continue until they lose their resources and manpower, thus why the Zeon gassed and colony dropped to start with in an attempt to even the odds, and it almost worked, if not for Revil, but you guys know that.

Edit:And for the record, I don't believe we've been given enough evidence that the Sleeves have won any proper engagement at all. They ran from Industrial 7 (though their goal was not to capture it or destroy the Nehal Argama and other Federal forces), they were severely hurt at Papua, they lost at Dekar as well. If we count Torrington, then all their engagements were losses, although I believe that was the Shamblo's fault with its runaway psycommu. For a computer, those things sure do twist their pilots up. If Lony had supported her troops, I doubt there would have been quite such a decisive outcome, at least until reinforcements arrived, which restates that the Federation can keep sending in forces until the Sleeves die.

[Ferrus_Manus]

@Amion: I think you meant Palau, not Papua.

[Amion]

My apologies, Ferrus Manus, that just goes to show how long it's been since I saw earlier episodes of Unicorn. Life happens to people over three years.

[Brave Fencer Kirby]

And for the record, I don't believe we've been given enough evidence that the Sleeves have won any proper engagement at all.

I'm trying not to simply rehash the discussion I had with latenlazy with you, but I have to ask: what constitutes a "proper" engagement? The loss ratios that we see are overwhelmingly in the Sleeves' favor, and while the Federation certainly can out-produce the Sleeves and bury them under piles of mobile suit wreckage if they have to, I think it unlikely that they will do so given their history of anemic responses to post-OYW threats.

Maybe I should go through and count on-screen kills in Unicorn. At least that'd give us some hard numbers to go by.

[Admiral Larsen]

Let me put it this way, the Sleeves are supposed to be a guerilla group. From what I recall one of the big rules of a guerilla group is to not face your enemy out in the open (aka conventional combat) for more often than not a guerilla group will get slaughtered. I know that it is somewhat difficult to do that as both sides use heavy machinery which require an enormous amount of supplies. Yet in nearly all engagements (particularly the conventional ones) they managed to hold their ground and inflict dispapportionate damage to the Earth Fedartion foes that face them (even if the Earth Federation units that are sent are supposed to be elite). And the guerillas are getting enough supplies to keep their suits in seemingly near perfect condition (how the heck they managed to get the resources to construct the Shamblo).

[Amion]

And for the record, I don't believe we've been given enough evidence that the Sleeves have won any proper engagement at all.

I'm trying not to simply rehash the discussion I had with latenlazy with you, but I have to ask: what constitutes a "proper" engagement? The loss ratios that we see are overwhelmingly in the Sleeves' favor, and while the Federation certainly can out-produce the Sleeves and bury them under piles of mobile suit wreckage if they have to, I think it unlikely that they will do so given their history of anemic responses to post-OYW threats.

[quote/]

At this point, I'm no longer sure why you're arguing the Zeon do not actually need Laplace's Box. The Sleeves do not have sufficient numbers to strike against the Federation, even if they took Dekar, a government like that can probably reestablish itself (and be better off, if enough of those corrupted oafs get taken out) and the military can continue fighting with those limitless resources. You say the Federation won't do this, but they always have eventually. The Zanscare are the only examples where a force was allowed to run amok, and even in the end they were exhausted. A guerrilla war can continue almost indefinitely, but the Sleeves want to gain independence, and for that they either need fighting power, or a political weapon like the Box.

If they don't get it, let me ask so I know where you stand. What would you suggest the Sleeves to do achieve independence? Or the prosperity sphere, since that is the less violent option.

After reading Chris' review, I noticed he points out that the Federation might very well react with military force should Full Frontal go through with his plans. This sounds resonable to me, because those Federation bigwigs would probably see a long term economic plot like that, as well as the danger it represents.

[latenlazy]

Let me put it this way, the Sleeves are supposed to be a guerilla group. From what I recall one of the big rules of a guerilla group is to not face your enemy out in the open (aka conventional combat) for more often than not a guerilla group will get slaughtered. I know that it is somewhat difficult to do that as both sides use heavy machinery which require an enormous amount of supplies. Yet in nearly all engagements (particularly the conventional ones) they managed to hold their ground and inflict dispapportionate damage to the Earth Fedartion foes that face them (even if the Earth Federation units that are sent are supposed to be elite). And the guerillas are getting enough supplies to keep their suits in seemingly near perfect condition (how the heck they managed to get the resources to construct the Shamblo).

When have the Sleeves taken on more than a single Ship at a time? At least in Gundam UC, never. The Zeon Remnants on Earth are the only ones who decided to take on more than just single ships, and they were wiped out.

And for the record, I don't believe we've been given enough evidence that the Sleeves have won any proper engagement at all.

I'm trying not to simply rehash the discussion I had with latenlazy with you, but I have to ask: what constitutes a "proper" engagement? The loss ratios that we see are overwhelmingly in the Sleeves' favor, and while the Federation certainly can out-produce the Sleeves and bury them under piles of mobile suit wreckage if they have to, I think it unlikely that they will do so given their history of anemic responses to post-OYW threats.

Maybe I should go through and count on-screen kills in Unicorn. At least that'd give us some hard numbers to go by.

Or maybe they ARE in the process of doing just that. It's not like we can assess how effectively the Federation is or isn't burying Zeon with its vast resources just by what we see on screen. What ultimately matters is a gross account of assets and resources over time.

[Amion]

Ultimately, it's a pointless argument I guess because we know the Zeon disappear from history after this point. We know they

Spoiler

don't get the box

in the end, so that means they probably could never have won without it, and that isn't assuming they would have survived with it either.

[Kratos]

I think this argument is over.

Even a closer, meticulous viewing wouldn't change anything, and we've already addressed the issue of kill counts. Specific numbers are, at this point, just semantics. As I said in my last post, this is obviously a difference in interpretation, as opposed to one side missing something that they would see if only they paid more attention; for example, I've seen the episodes many, many times (probably upwards of seven or eight, for the earlier ones) and happen to agree with Latenlazy on this issue. There's evidence enough to support either side, so at this point, it's up to the individual viewer. We'd just be rehashing.

Let's all agree to disagree, and move on from this.

[Arbiter GUNDAM]

And as I said before, the Sleeves MUST present some kind of legitimate threat to the protagonists, even if it doesn't quite make sense. Ideally it should but hey, this is Gundam.

[Amion]

The Sleeves still have weapons to cause damage, they're as much a threat as any other insurgent group or organization. They need the box to be able to gain time, something the Federation has always possessed, this was stated in the first episode.

They are a legitimate threat and it makes sense, they just haven't been totally massacred yet because the Federation doesn't want to repeat the Titans' mistakes and create a second AEUG. They may not be able to restart the principality and wage a full-blown second war, but that doesn't change they have guns to fight to some degree. With the box, in theory, they could overcome this and start gaining momentum.

[Momaru]

So for a quick change of topic recently I managed to read up through Ep. 4 "In the Depths of the Gravity Well" of the novel through means. Anyway it turns out the story in the novels concerning that particular episode is so much better than the anime. So that got me asking why did they change the story so much in the anime? Was it a time constraint thing or just because? Continuity wise it would of been much better for the whole shabang to take place at Dakar instead of splitting it up like in the anime. Loni's dad is very much alive in the novels and theres a pretty important scene in Dakar with Loni that I just don't know how they'll manage to cover in the anime. I think Alberto exposits this point instead in the anime in ep. 6. Loni is also a much more tragic figure in the novels.

[Arbiter GUNDAM]

I think part of it was that the original version with Loni's dad was thought to be too controversial, especially since the episode would come out close to 9/11.

[Amadi Akintunde]

I think part of it was that the original version with Loni's dad was thought to be too controversial, especially since the episode would come out close to 9/11.

And there's the problem with that line of logic.

Wing and 00 have had us rooting for Gundam-wielding terrorists for years now, and 00's main character is a former Muslim extremist... turned Gundam-wielding terrorist. While the implications aren't as obvious as they would have been made had they stuck with the original story of the Garvey family, I don't really think there would have been much to worry about.

[Cybaster]

I think part of it was that the original version with Loni's dad was thought to be too controversial, especially since the episode would come out close to 9/11.

And there's the problem with that line of logic.

Wing and 00 have had us rooting for Gundam-wielding terrorists for years now, and 00's main character is a former Muslim extremist... turned Gundam-wielding terrorist. While the implications aren't as obvious as they would have been made had they stuck with the original story of the Garvey family, I don't really think there would have been much to worry about.

Hathaway's Flash, 00 and Wing aren't nearly as blatant about real-world terrorism as Madhi Garvey is, though, whose behaviour is deliberately made as a parallel to Islamic Terrorism (Madhi deliberately refers to the Federation as 'White Men' out to destroy the 'culture of Islam' through corruption and subterfuge) --- he even resembles Osama Bin Laden in the Bande Dessinee manga! Given the repeated controversy surrounding other works featuring Islamic characters as 'antagonists' (such as Zero Dark Thirty and Kingdom of Heaven), I can see why Sunrise felt they preferred to avoid the issue altogether and rewrite Loni; Better safe than sorry later, I suppose.

And though it's mostly my personal speculation, I can also see the move to write out Madhi as not wanting to offend the Chinese audience as well given the nadir in Sino-Japanese relations at the time, as the Japanese Prime Minister and some other officials, IIRC, were being accused by China of advocating Japanese Imperialism and anti-Chinese sentiments then (which Unicorn has also been accused of). That kind of misunderstanding has happened before, after all, resulting in P.T.O III never being released outside of Japan (and P.T.O IV being streamlined/dumbed down into a Gihren's Greed-style game format focusing solely on naval combat).

[Dark Duel]

Given the repeated controversy surrounding other works featuring Islamic characters as 'antagonists' (such as Zero Dark Thirty and Kingdom of Heaven), I can see why Sunrise felt they preferred to avoid the issue altogether and rewrite Loni; Better safe than sorry later, after all.

YMMV on how "antagonistic" Saladin and his forces were in Kingdom of Heaven; I would personally contend that Brendan Gleeson and that other French dirtbag were the true antagonists of the film, but this isn't really the right forum for that discussion.

That said, as for the crux of the discussion, which is Mahdi Garvey, from the little I know of the character (having not been fortunate enough to be able to read the novels), I would have to agree with what's been said about Sunrise wanting to play it safe, though I still feel they went a little too far, and probably could've gotten away with sanitizing the story as it appeared in the novel by removing those more controversial elements, without going to the extreme that they did. As it is, I find myself incapable of sympathizing with Loni given that she gets almost no screen time prior to her rampage.
On another note: IMO, he doesn't really look like Bin Laden. More like a younger Ruhollah Khomeini.