Suisei no Gargantia

[Kraco]

I would not be surprised Ledo's action backfire on him.

Yeah. The boss of these pirates will be wondering how the whole fleet, men and ships, suddenly disappeared entirely. Gargantia probably won't be too happy if they get extra attention from a pirate clan, since it's not like Ledo was any solid part of their defense plans. He was never a friend for anybody but Amy, sort of. For the rest, he was an unknown danger or material opportunity. But now it could very well be that Ledo's their only hope against a threat the very same Ledo brought upon them.

[David75]

I'm pretty sure with the way they master lasers, there's a stun mode or at least a no kill one. And it would have been enough in the context.

Regarding the clean kills, i'm still a little bothered... as when Ledo did holes in that white thing, smoke appeared. Not with the kills.

Well, we'll see.

[shinta|hikari]

The laser maybe some sort of matter altering attack, changing the organic mass into its base components, like carbon, and other gases.

[Inazuma]

The third episode is out.

Guys, this is Production IG going full steam and teaching how to do Mechanime even with major plot complications such as a really overpowered element and not making it boring.

I won't spoil, but you'll get some more action, some more quirky language translation bits and no one is going to get edgy over the fact that he is a killing machine, on the contrary !
Get to it
Enjoy.

[David75]

I was a little afraid quality would drop after ep 2. Why? because EP1 and 2 were on a free BR disc given at some convention, as promotional material. So I was in fear they'd just spend a lot on those to ep to get attention from the fan community and then lower their standards for the other eps. It could still happen, but not from ep3 it seems.

So now, problems are solved for earthlings side, remains Ledo with his main problem: going back to his fleet, hoping the plant monsters won't find him and earth before that. Unless those monsters are weak to sea water...

[Ryllharu]

The only thing that really bothered me was where both the Fleet and the Pirates were getting all their heavy ordinance from.

I can buy that they can salvage entire ships, I can buy that they can build their own small arms and ammo (though I wonder where they get the gunpowder), but both fleets were firing an awful lot of heavy armament. You can't exactly manufacture that kind of stuff safely onboard vessels in any kind of large scale production.

Especially the pirate fleet, which isn't remotely on the same scale of Gargantia nor did it have any kind of infrastructure and production ships like Gargantia has.

[Inazuma]

If they can manage running subs, underwater friendly mechas and ships with the kind of water displacement I have been seeing so far, them firing anything from 20mm to 125mm, that they have been manufacturing or recovering isn't that far fetched. Ryl.

There was some mecha lobster on a rocket powered jet ski thing. I don't think supply chain and manufacturing are that sci-fi when it comes to that.

[Kraco]

There was bound to be some pacifism in this show, but fortunately it makes perfect sense. Especially since manufacturing and resources are scarce. It's a good question where the pirates get their extra stuff in addition to those they steal. Ammunition isn't actually such a problem since that would be valuable loot, but those special lobster mecha didn't look like they were stolen from one of the more peaceful floating cities. Perhaps the pirates have some cooperation among themselves and have a giant floating base of their own, where they have decent manufacturing capabilities.

Amy has been quite a cookie-cutter character so far, but I don't mind. The eps have been around Ledo and Chamber anyway, and Amy has served the part of a happy civilian quite admirably, to give some perspective and contrast. Since those two must be the couple of this show, I'm looking forward to seeing how their world view's will continue to clash.

I wonder why Ledo and Chamber decided not to use the beam weapon. It's not like they couldn't have disabled cannons with it. Maybe the plan was to downplay their role so that Gargantia wouldn't seem to be totally dependent on them and to avoid making Ledo the sole target of any assassination attempts.

[Ryllharu]

@Inazuma
Yeah, but they explained away all the underwater mechas last episode. They're usually seen on umbilicals (presumably comms and air), but are definitely electrically powered. The entire fleet gets all the energy they need from the Electric Algae Flows/Ocean Currents.

Manufacturing ordinance is dangerous shit, requiring large quantities of highly explosive chemicals.

[Archangel]

The only thing that really bothered me was where both the Fleet and the Pirates were getting all their heavy ordinance from.

I can buy that they can salvage entire ships, I can buy that they can build their own small arms and ammo (though I wonder where they get the gunpowder), but both fleets were firing an awful lot of heavy armament. You can't exactly manufacture that kind of stuff safely onboard vessels in any kind of large scale production.

Especially the pirate fleet, which isn't remotely on the same scale of Gargantia nor did it have any kind of infrastructure and production ships like Gargantia has.

Well lets assume they are being produced somehow, and the pirates got them by theft ( as often pirates do ).

If anything bothered me it was Gargantia's hypocrisy. You can't actually kill them, but wreck their means of transport set everything on fire and leave them stranded in the middle of the ocean and we're good. It'd be more merciful to just turn them into space dust in the first place.

[Kraco]

Well lets assume they are being produced somehow, and the pirates got them by theft ( as often pirates do ).

If anything bothered me it was Gargantia's hypocrisy. You can't actually kill them, but wreck their means of transport set everything on fire and leave them stranded in the middle of the ocean and we're good. It'd be more merciful to just turn them into space dust in the first place.

Hardly. They would have enough ships left to salvage working parts and somehow make it away from there. Especially considering Gargantia's gunners seemed poor in comparison to the pirates. In any case this was a special situation since the pirates were out for blood after Ledo's earlier stunt. I guess Gargantia could have now wiped out this entire clan of pirates, but if we assume pirates work together (in order to manufacture stuff), then there's no knowing if the rest of the pirate clans would try to retaliate. It was explained quite explicitly in this episode that the balance of a sort that exists needs to have the pirates to stand higher on the dangerousness scale. If Gargantia's crew was made of cutthroats, they wouldn't care and would have, now that they have Ledo, started a campaign to kill everybody they don't like, pirates and competitors included, but fortunately they aren't such killers. They are civilians wanting a peaceful life for themselves and their children.

Not that they could even count on having Ledo and Chamber for any specific amount of time. They could have slaughtered all the lobster pirates now, but what if Ledo had disappeared a week later? They would have needed to face the rest of the pirates with few means of defending themselves. Other civilian ships and fleets might have also started to avoid them, in fear of being linked to Gargantia in pirates' minds.

[Buffalobiian]

UTW-Vivid - Episode 03


Chamber rules. Spinning the pirates mercilessly in the air while chanting "Give up. Give up. Give up. Just Give up." made my day.

I can see Ledo's logic where he questions why it's okay to kill animals while it's not okay to kill humans. Gargantians are also dipshits for blaming Chamber. You asked for help, you got it. If anyone was to blame, it's Amy. She asked for help she didn't actually want.

Bellows reminds me of Yoko, so we need more of her.

Overall, great 3 episodes. The retro feel is like steampunk but not. I have to wonder at how they source all their metals. There must be one hell of a recycling plant on board since manufacturing from fresh ore seems highly improbable. The turnover must be pretty high given their maritime use.

Also, about the premises. If all the ice in the poles melted we'd still have some land left, right?

[Death13a]

Also, about the premises. If all the ice in the poles melted we'd still have some land left, right?

Assuming no other apocalyptic events happened like nuclear war for remaining of land, meteor bombardment, ice age, etc, or all of above. Those that escaped into space assumed that Earth was beyond recovery to point that they didn't bother to actually map their way out of their solar system so that someday they might attempt to recover it. What surprises me is that they managed to travel between stars almost instantaneous and they aren't able to terraform a planet, not to mention to find a livable one.

[Kraco]

What surprises me is that they managed to travel between stars almost instantaneous and they aren't able to terraform a planet, not to mention to find a livable one.

Did they actually say that, or could it be that they have lost all the promising planets they found to the aliens? Otherwise, in light of what we know now in RL and how sophisticated technology Ledo's people seem to possess, finding and terraforming suitable planets should be relatively easy. Although that would also depend on if they took anything with them from Earth. If they have got no Earth bacteria, algae, plants, and animals essential in terraforming, it could be much harder.

There should be plenty of land, especially mountains, still above the sealevel on Earth, but I guess they decided not to have any for the sake of the story. Maybe some huge water ice comet hit Earth and doubled the amount of water...

[Buffalobiian]

Assuming no other apocalyptic events happened like nuclear war for remaining of land, meteor bombardment, ice age, etc, or all of above. Those that escaped into space assumed that Earth was beyond recovery to point that they didn't bother to actually map their way out of their solar system so that someday they might attempt to recover it. What surprises me is that they managed to travel between stars almost instantaneous and they aren't able to terraform a planet, not to mention to find a livable one.

Places like Mt Everest and most "high" places probably aren't strategic enough to bomb the shit out of, so I wouldn't expect them to be blown to smithereens. It's all of your coastal cities these days.

As for the way back to the planet, it seems that they lost the records over the 1000s of years that mankind has left earth. If it was a desperate enough attempt to leave, space-mapping may not have been good enough back then.

Did they actually say that, or could it be that they have lost all the promising planets they found to the aliens? Otherwise, in light of what we know now in RL and how sophisticated technology Ledo's people seem to possess, finding and terraforming suitable planets should be relatively easy. Although that would also depend on if they took anything with them from Earth. If they have got no Earth bacteria, algae, plants, and animals essential in terraforming, it could be much harder.

From Ledo's reaction, it seemed that a planet with water and breathable air wasn't even considered a possibility. The lack of success from their pioneering efforts must have made them think that such a planet was an impossibility.

[David75]

My take on this is that those plant enemies were created by humans...
How/why I don't know, but it is possible it also was the reason they left earth. I would even stretch it by tinking they did create the permanent winter to try and eradicate that enemy.
But those plants evolved and kicked back and tracked them to the confines of space and at some point humans lost records in some ships to those monsters that did not exploit data (or it was not possible to recover it)

The other possibility is that humans had to leave for another reason that is not valid anymore obviously, but then in space they still created their enemy. Maybe it was a failed atempt at teraforming precisely... They created some biomachines to speedup the atmosphere creation and those bio-machines evolved.
Why the idea? Because Chambers is a purely artificial and technical product. There's absolutely nothing biological about except the pilot... So even if humans had the idea to explore the biotechnologies, they had to limit themselves to agriculture in artificial environments.

Pure speculations, I know.

[Kraco]

I believe mecha sporting bioengineered components are a minority in anime. So, it'd be quite brazen to draw a conclusion humans would be afraid of biotechnology because their mecha are purely mechanical. There's not enough information yet to think the situation is analogous to Galactica being afraid of computers.

[Inazuma]

I believe mecha sporting bioengineered components are a minority in anime. So, it'd be quite brazen to draw a conclusion humans would be afraid of biotechnology because their mecha are purely mechanical. There's not enough information yet to think the situation is analogous to Galactica being afraid of computers.

Or similar to an enemy described in Eva Renewal 13 : Angel Invades.

[Buffalobiian]

UTW-Vivid - Episode 04

[animus]

This and Shingeki no Kyojin are my favorite series this season.