Gundam 00 Episode 05

[Ryllharu]

Conclave -Mendoi Gundam 00 Eps 05 [1280x720​ H.264​]

Conclave got them out first this time around.

[Yukimura]

1.2 Exajoules per day...that's pretty damned impressive. In 5 days they get as much energy as the current world uses in a year. And it's efficient as hell too, it comes out about 8% of all the solar energy striking the earth in a year being captured and converted.

And did H/Allelujah show such extreme signs of anime multiple personality disorder before? I noticed the staple single eye per personality but I hadn't picked up on that before.

EDIT @ Below: That sniper rifle was ridiculously awesome, though the whole cloud thing seemed a bit stretched, he can't see through clouds but he can ignore all the glare from the sun and hit that tiny ass thing 10,000 km away during the day.

[masamuneehs]

woah.

so they did it. They did the "Newtype flash" of increased consciousness... Granted, both Allelujah and the Soldier Girl likened it to having their mind invaded, and Allelujah was definitely split personality for awhile there (confirmed by the change in eye color, classic anime style). The question is, what the fuck caused it? Also, as to why they were the only two affected by it, I'm guessing it has something to do with the 'Designer Baby' thing making them more susceptible to psychic energies... No coincidence that we got so much history on the girl and then had that event happen.

Sergei is cool. Saji is not. His girlfriend is so going to get dumped for that Chinese girl, once Saji winds up supporting CB somehow, while Louise is all "No, I don't want to be involved in war!"

Allelujah won back some points in this episode. Freaky childhood soup and his psychotic episode tend to make me like characters more... even if i've seen it done many times before. Also, I like the Gundam pilots disobeying orders. I like it alot.

That sniper rifle was unbelievable. Sorta weak though that something as commonplace as clouds messes it up though. I mean, you're screwed if you have to snipe during a storm...

Also, Tieria (pink cardigan)... I understand where he's coming from, but was he really giving credence to the idea of letting one of the Gundams burn up in the atmosphere (i assumed it would have) just cuz the guy disobeyed orders? I do like that he's the "hardass" of the team, especially when people snidely remark that he's got his share of flaws too.

All in all, I thought it was a pretty interesting episode. I'm liking it more and more.

[hitokiriender]

And did H/Allelujah show such extreme signs of anime multiple personality disorder before? I noticed the staple single eye per personality but I hadn't picked up on that before.

His hair was different too. 1 personality has it parted to the left, the other has it parted to the right.

[Yukimura]

That's rolled into what I meant by single eye per personality (a common symptom of general AMPD), I see his hair as a means to the end of covering one eye or the other. But had it ever been parted to our right (his left) before episode 5? Hair parted to our right seems to indicate his stronger side is active.

[masamuneehs]

in the very first episode, when he first appears, Allelujah is about to launch from the ship.

He says: "It's a real battle. Hallelujah. Tired of waiting?" Then he sighs and says, "I'm depressed." and puts on his helmet.

Now it's possible he was talking to his Gundam. But it is certainly concievable that what was translated as "It's a real battle. Hallelujah" could also have been "It's a real battle, Hallelujah".

In fact, I'm much more inclined to think he used the word 'Hallelujah' to refer to himself than as an expression of joy/rejoicing, particularly because he immediately declares himself depressed (about the battle). He also voices concern about the Gundam's missions and their overwhelming force in almost every episode, so it's almost for sure that he uses the word to refer to himself in the third-person.

That and the fact that he asks himself a question... in his very first appearance in all of the show...

Plus, in episode 5, when he's on the rail train up to the space station, the attendant comes in and says, "Traveling by yourself?" And how does he reply? With: "I enjoy looking at the Earth from above."

At first glance I thought this was a shrewd way of him concealing potential traveling mates, potential information which could be used if he's ever ID'd as a Gundam pilot while others are not. But, considering what happens later, and the fact that he's clearly not with any of the others at that point, it is another strong indication that his split-personality is something that doesn't just surface out of nowhere from the Newtype experience.

So, yeah, i think that answers the question on whether or not he shows signs of AMPD before this event.

edit - also of note: After Allelujah switches over to his 'right side personality' he asks "Who the hell is this?" They cut to the HRL Soldier and she asks, "Who is this?" To which Hallelujah screams "Bastard, I'm going to kill you!" The girl, as if hearing this (and she certainly does at least sense this threatening intent) looks very afraid and starts firing at the station's port, where Allelujah has just gotten off of his flight.

Also, you can see the difference in his personalities largely in his reaction to seeing the broken-off gravity block floating in space:

"An accident?" He laughs evilly. "My sincerest condolences" (obviously doesn't mean it).

Also, you'll notice Mendoi / Conclave sometimes have it 'Allelujah' and other times "Hallelujah". From the fact that the boy in his flashback refers to him as 'Allelujah' and that the 'good voice' addresses the 'evil right side' as 'Hallelujah', I think we can go off of these two names for each personality.

[Buffalobiian]

First proper Gundam series for me (save for the random eps start and end of G.Wing and Endless Walts), I'll assume Newtype are some form of super soldiers. I think the psychic link would have been the nanobots somehow interferring with each other, causing physiological, then psychological instability. That theory's on rocky ground though, since that would mean other enhanced soldiers were either trained very far apart, or suffered from this all the time. (highly unlikely that they haven't developed some sort of shielding then).

There was a little debate back a week or two about whether fossil fuels had run out or not. I'm going to assume that natural reserves have run out, and countries have either moved on to solar power, or have chewing off whatever supplies they had left. I would imagine there would be those who invested in new technologies while some others pooled in their money to gather and reserve as much fossil fuels as they can.

Compressing GN particles into a storage unit that can release a shot into outer space is just freaking crazy. I like it. They'd never know, what hit them. Well, they would.

Gundam.

Sumeragi looks like the head of CB. Her only equal/superior seems to be the AI Veda. I'll be interesting to go into her backstory. I still want to know more about the dead guy.

The way they've integrated some of the ED into the story really sets up the mood. They did this last ep too.

I'm not really expecting the AEU to play a major part early on in this series. They don't even have a pilot in the OP. I'm sure that they'll join the fight some time though. According to Wiki, there's going to be a break (CodeGease 2nd?), followed by a second season of Gundam 00. That's a long time for one third of the world to sit and watch.

That sniper rifle was ridiculously awesome, though the whole cloud thing seemed a bit stretched, he can't see through clouds but he can ignore all the glare from the sun and hit that tiny ass thing 10,000 km away during the day.

I haven't done physics for a long time, but does glare matter if you're zooming in, say 40'000x? Clouds are opaque when there's enough of it, so it makes sense that he can't see through it; his manual targeting system seems to provide only normal visuals (maybe there's night vision later one), so clouds makes sense. I would expect him to be able to shoot IN a storm, but not THROUGH it. I want to see that and Virtue's cannon compared. He hasn't had much action lately.

edit: Just got bored and went to Gundam 00 for a look around. Found that the mobile suit model numbers for Exia, Dynames, Kyrios and Virtue are GN-001, GN-002, GN-003 and GN-005 repectively. Is it a typo, or did something happen to GN-004?

[Ryllharu]

The likelihood that H/Allelujah and Soma are both Super Soldiers seems pretty high. Sergei mentioned something about the program being canceled some time ago, and he was shocked that Soma was still so young. The scientist in this episode goes on to explain that they are enhanced via nanomachines, so my guess would be there is some form of communication or resonance between two different variants of the Super Soldier Nanomachines. Their bodies manifested it in the form of some sort of psychic backlash, and Soma lost it. She was trying her best to destroy H/Allelujah, and Hallelujah obviously wanted to do the same.

I like the different ways that the two nations are building forces to combat the Gundams. The more Americanized Union makes a tricked out super version of their best mobile suit with 'genius' inventors on it, going as far to develop anti-acceleration technology to counter the g-forces, and the HRL more simply utilizes genetic modification of their soldiers to be able to do far more dangerous maneuvers and have better reaction time.

It is interesting to see how the general philosophies of the two nations differ.

And Tieria is such a douchebag. I know from the tactical standpoint it is the correct thing. Howeverr, if your mission is to save people by stopping war, blindly ignoring the opportunity to not only rescue people, but also gain the good graces of the non-military populace is not the way to do it.

[Buffalobiian]

The HRL's suits are backward in tech, but are "very reliable and robust", according to Gundam 00's site. They have much higher defence than other suits and can also mount much heavier weaponry. Nanomachines are something that's not impossible for us in the future. Issues similar to this may occur, where humans utilize nanomachines for military purposes, or just raising quality of life in general by promoting health, only to be hijacked inside. We haven't been introduced to any more CB members yet. If this is all their members, I can't really imagine them ever accomplishing the creation of the Gundams, even if they had the financial backing or expertise. I wonder if there'll be a repair crew around if one of the gundams ever got damaged enough.

edit: I forgot what they said they did to Soma's suit, but though it looks inferior to Graham's Flag, I do remember it being something good.

[Ryllharu]

They increased the responsiveness and handling to keep up with her enhanced reflexes and reaction time. Sergei for instance would not be able to pilot it.

[masamuneehs]

well, i don't want to get too much into the 'Newtype' thing... but... from what we've seen so far, I highly doubt that having the nanomachines in their bodies would set up such a catostrophic mind link.

Like Buffalo said, that'd mean that every nanomachine-enhanced soldier the HRL produced would have to be trained far away from the others, and they'd never be able to operate together on a mission.

What I think caused it is something that is referred to by Soma (the HRL Super Soldier girl's name, right?) in passing- that she didn't "sign up" to be an enhanced soldier, but rather she was genetically engineered as a 'Designer baby', birthed in order to provide the program with ample human material. My guess is that H/Allelujah was a similair Designer Baby, and one of the effects was an increased psychic consciousness.

But if that was the sole reason for what I'm going to call "the mindfuck link" between Soma and H/Allelujah, then you'd assume that he is the only one out of all the Gundam pilots and staff to be a Designer Baby. He's interacted with all of the other three pilots so far and was onboard the Ptolemaios in the first episode, and nothing happened then...

And since I have a sneaking suspicion that maybe Lockon or Tieria are also Designer Babies, I'm thinking that something else happened up there that triggered their mindfuck link, and that it doesn't just happen naturally. If it did, then the only way Soma and Hallelujah can be involved in the same fight is if both are going buckshit insane...

edit: Just got bored and went to Gundam 00 for a look around. Found that the mobile suit model numbers for Exia, Dynames, Kyrios and Virtue are GN-001, GN-002, GN-003 and GN-005 repectively. Is it a typo, or did something happen to GN-004?

hmm... very interesting indeed... You know, I'll bet it isn't a typo. Rather, I'm willing to put money on the 'missing 004' having something to do with Tieria's antagonism towards Setsuna, specifically his dislike for "inexperienced pilots"... Tieria seems to be in an informal leader role, and I wouldn't be surprised if he's been around since before Setsuna and knew whoever the pilot of 004 was...

Also, Tieria constantly grumbles about people around him 'being weak or incapable'. This happened in the second episode and at the end of the fifth. After each time, once Tieria was out of earshot, the person he was complaining to made a remark along the lines of "You say that, but what about you...?" I'd thought this was a reference to his hiding his homosexuality, but the prospect of a missing 004 and Tieria's unit being 005... well, I'm more inclined to think now that Tieria was somehow involved with the death/loss of the 004... Either the 004 pilot sacrificed himself for Tieria (incapable of defending himself) or something Tieria did resulted in the loss of that unit, and possibly the pilot...

I'm thinking that the missing 004 is more than just a lost or scrapped Gundam, because nobody confronts Tieria with this. If he'd only lost a Gundam, Sumeragi could have simply countered his remarks about Allelujah with "Remember what happened with you and the 004?" But because nobody dares to say this to Tieria, I'm guessing the pilot of the 004 was also lost, and that he feels personally responsible for it.

Also, his Gundam's number being 005 draws even more parralels to Wing. At first I took his somewhat gay appearance and his apparent knack for tactical skills as equating him with the pilot of a certain Gundam Sandrock. But seeing his strong distaste for the weak, his openly harsh criticism of others and his somewhat isolated relationship... plus the new number...

Also, it caught my eye the first time, but in the OP Tieria and his Gundam are displayed after a transition. Not in the same sequence with the other three pilots and... well, now that there's strong reason to believe he may have lost someone important to him in an Episode before Episode 1 (that is, the Episode Zero)...

Well... those who saw Wing and Endless Waltz can finish the rest... (and if you don't remember who or what i'm referring to, feel free to PM me, but I'm not going into any more Wing parralels here because it'd be spoiler city).

[Buffalobiian]

I was only suspecting Allelujah to be a former Enhanced Soldier. Wait.....Masa only suspected Lockon and Tieria...Never mind. I was going to say something about Setsuna not really having extreme reactions, that's all (When Sergei almost ripped off his head) Allelujah definitely displays lightning reflexes. I'll pay attention to the other two. Tieria hasn't seen action for some while, and his Gundam seems to move much more slowly. It's debatable whether Lockon's god-like sniping skills are from enhanced reflexes or not.

hey increased the responsiveness and handling to keep up with her enhanced reflexes and reaction time. Sergei for instance would not be able to pilot it.

Really? I would have thought the suit was designed to keep up with Soma and bring out her max potential, so basically Sergei could use it, but it'll be no different compared to his normal suit. Was the rifle she used a training one or something. When it hit the orbital rings, it looked like a paintball hit the thing. Took many shots to break off a segment. (though the way that one hit, it looked like a real shot)

[masamuneehs]

i thought that they made a point that Soma's body was built to have better performance in outer space. since she's also been trained since childhood to be a soldier and to bring out the max potential from her genetically engineered, nanomachine enhanced body, I'd expect someone like Sergei, who appears to be a normal human being born on Earth (his remark about preferring gravity leads me to this idea), would not be able to pilot Soma's unit with the same results...

Sergei might be able to use it, but it might put too much strain on his body... Or he might only be able to use it clumsily (think of a noob playing a FPS with high sensitivity settings)

you're right, I never expected Allelujah to be an enhanced soldier until this episode (Lockon's sniping abilities seem abnormal, and Tieria just seems 'elite', while Setsuna has been seen as a grunt child soldier for a weak jihadist movement, suggesting he wasn't in any kind of real program like Soma).

[Ryllharu]

I probably should have clarified. Soma, as Masa pointed out, is designed to better endure space, and that primarily includes g-forces. By going through the course at maximum speed, she was undoubtedly enduring heavy strain. Sergei could probably use her mobile suit, but certainly not anywhere close to the speeds and maneuvers she was going through. He'd certainly red-out, and probably black out if not kill himself. He commented not only at how fast she was going, but also how accurate she was.

No, I don't think that all Enhanced Soldiers would have the same response to each other. But whatever nanomachines are in Soma certainly reacted violently to H/Allelujah's proximity. It was a nasty feedback loop, like when you put two phones together. They both ended up in each other's head. H/Allelujah was able to endure it by switching personalities, while Soma was overwhelmed.

We only know half the story behind what just happened. We know most of the facts of Soma, but still nothing about H/Allelujah. Why does he have two personalities, what causes it, what was with the flashback of him and someone else adrift? He may be an Enhanced Soldier, he may not. It could be something entirely different. But...for whatever reason, Soma and Hallelujah connected.