Kanata no Astra

[MFauli]

Kanatas shocked face while seeing nothing but A WOMAN!11 OMGZ!

Good episode overall. On one hand its veeery convenient that theres another ship (that theyll use for spare parts). On the other hand if there wasnt a second ship, well, the story would be over. Or transform from "how do we get home" to "lets play civilization". ;o

As for the "whos the traitor" speculation, Id say theres only 3 candidates left: pink girl is the most suspicious with her weird behavior. Maybe we"ll see a SteinsGate, thoigh, and its the young girl. Ofc, the "out of nowhere"-twist would be Kanata. Maybe Theres more to how his teacher died and hes taking revenge of sorts.

[David75]

Still watching, lagged though as I wait for x265 encodings... stuck with limited mobile data plan by the sea...

Since FTL theory also involves time differentials and wormholes also imply time leaps, they could play that time loop card Steinsgate like as Mfauli said.

Regarding the other ship that can be salvaged, well it's really convenient they landed on the right spot even if safe band is small, it still runs around a planet... It would have been a little better on a water planet with only one island and they find the ship while flying around. For some reason if feels in a very bad state for a ship made with space and planet flight resistance in mind.

Also, I don't think they need salvaged parts to get back to earth. Finding the radio that was taken ep 1 is another possible route, expanding on finding the culprit and motivate them to change their mind to survival/help mode...

Stating the obvious ? Seira=Aries, anagram, physical ressemblance and the devices on her head let me think this could be the only way to get her out of coma and move at all... From Charce story she could become a nice candidate for the culprit. Also I wonder if her photographic memory is linked to her head equipment.

Next, new member... or not. Having only one "survivor" from another ship opens questions about other crew members. Was she operating the ship alone ? I doubt it. Are all others dead ? probably since they didn't use life support functions at all. So how did blond beauty get into the only hibernation capsule ? decision from everyone in the crew, or is she dangerous ? Or is the planet even more dangerous than what we've seen so far ?
Btw, only one hibernation device for a ship with life support for 10 or more people is another moronic plot device if you ask me...

[Kraco]

Yeah, back when I was reading the manga, I also noted how unlikely it is that they just happened to land within a walking distance of the other ship. It's one of those minor flaws of this series. It would have been easy enough to make more believable in myriad ways, though, so who knows why the author didn't.

One hibernation device is better than none. Possibly the ships weren't mean to have such devices at all, but for some reason one was added. It could be a matter of budget, regulations, who knows. No matter how you look at it, that ship model isn't exactly excellent. It's full of compromises, which is kind of believable in a certain sense and could be explained by the circumstances of its origins. Just like if you took a 15,000 euros ordinary car, which could be just fine if nothing fancy, and then started to list all the things it's missing compared to some 50,000 euros BMW.

[MFauli]

I like to think of the hibernation capsule as a medical device. When someone is severely hurt and theres no doctor, put him in stasis until you get home. Its not meant as a device for regular use, thus one is suffice.

[David75]

I also thought about that medical stasis function.
Reading both of your comments an idea could be that stasis needs too much power/resources that are limited on those spaceships.
As Zack stated, they are limited range ships, so why not.
time travels again:
Zack also said this ship is/feels like a model of the past. At least I think he did.

Culprit (potential) not discussed yet:
-Funicia: split personalities ? her puppet show is very weird. She feels a bit young to be an assassin and able to just remove the radio from a ship. But loli murderers/assassin with top intellect, steel nerves and olympic strenght/moves are a bit too common in anime...
Used as a child bomb or some sort with brainwashing and specific training ? Nah, too bland.
-Quitterie: Not enough background. She probably feels the most stereotypical of all the characters with her rich girl syndrome. Might be a reason to suspect her after all
-Zack: Cold, logical, top intellect. Doesn't mean he doesn't have a loose screw somewhere...


Now let's get back to the first convenient plot device : the ship being at the right place when they got out of the wormhole.
It really feels like everything was scripted.
And in fact scripted from long before their trip as the characters themselves discussed.
But also, for some reason they are almost all from influential/rich or in power families.
And they all have traits/attributes that are useful for the adventure or lead a country...
Kanata is a leader
Zack is a good prime minister
Quitterie represents health/medicine
Background flower : arts/entertainment
Esposito: industry (I know... stretching a bit here)
Ulgar: army/defense
Charce: well biology, fauna and flora knowledge->food
Aries: airhead, mandatory in a sane society
Funicia: excess luggage


I feel like they are undergoing a hidden test that is performed once in a blue moon when very talented teens have potential for leading roles in society. Some kind of McPa coming of age in ultra hard/insane mode. Survival means they are good candidates for future leading roles in society.

But in that case-everything is scripted- the question regarding wormhole technology remains, why keep it secret and not use it globally ?

[Kraco]

-Funicia: split personalities ? her puppet show is very weird. She feels a bit young to be an assassin and able to just remove the radio from a ship. But loli murderers/assassin with top intellect, steel nerves and olympic strenght/moves are a bit too common in anime...

Funicia, haha. How could you ever suspect her? I like it how she's not actually a loli character in the stereotypic anime sense but instead a kid who behaves more or less believably as a kid. That underlines the question of what exactly is she doing there in the first place. She's not an older girl just looking younger (a rather typical loli archetype) or a child genius (not a super uncommon type either).

[David75]

She's dangerous because she can't be suspected
Child soldiers do exist and are dangerous against soldiers with values that might overcome or at least delay their basic survival reflexes.

[MFauli]

Episode 8:

I mean, it was always bs that they were supposed to be non-related when they looked the same so much. Sisters was the reasonable assumption. Ofc, since we need drama, them being clones makes more sense.

Im starting to think that the connection between these kids is that they've got shitty parents 💁

[Kraco]

If you make a whole bunch of identical deep space exploration ships, that modularity isn't actually a bad choice as long as it doesn't increase the cost by tens of percents and doesn't bring too many compromises with it.

I think it was already at this point of the manga that I started to guess a few things.

One other thing I started to think about is that since Kanata wants a spaceship, shouldn't he be able to keep this one? You know, finders, keepers.

[David75]

I wonder what event Polina was referring too. I also hope she's not related to Quitterie/Funicia.
Well Modularity, landing at the same place... that's a bit too much still.
Kanata able to fool a carnivorous plant that killed a crew of astronauts in their prime ?
Oh another anagram, Planet Icriss=Crisis. They seem to like anagrams.

It doesn't feel like Polina is dangerous, unless she used that plant to kill the crew.


PS: was able to turn on a distant pc, use it to encode the ep to 250mb or less to cope with my data cap. Happy I learned those tricks years ago. Will be able to reduce lag and watch shows with no x265 alternatives /mylife

[Kraco]

Kanata able to fool a carnivorous plant that killed a crew of astronauts in their prime ?

It seems like the plant flipped the car over, instantly wounding or at least slowing down the dudes.

[David75]

Why not, that thing seems fast. Thanks.
Only tags remained, I guess they were wearing other non edible equipment, but fine. Let's wait for what happens next planet.

[David75]

New ep out






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I failed to apply the DNA results to everyone on board. I still have doubts for Aries=!Seira

Regarding Astra and Polina, at first I thought it was some kind of time travel, but since Polina's experience and birthdates for the crew were in the right timeline... But I forgot alternate universes that are possible with white/wormholes, except it's Polina (and her crew ?) who leaped and came to Astra's universe. Probably during a test for the wormhole technology ?
Since timelines and spacehips are very close in both universes, it's fairly possible that earth and astra universes started experimenting wormhole technology at the same time and Polina's ship leapt from earth's to astra's universe.

And I wonder if the second wormhole we've seen ep 1 is the one going back to earth's side, so that they can send Polina back even with the risk associated (like being sent in space without ship and lifesupport...)

In my humble opinion, I would have prefered to have Polina and the rest both crossing universes. Astra's side remaining there, I feel like it restrains the story and Polina's usefulness for the Plot in the future. We're not in a StarTrek setting were it was fun to have a very mixed crew.
But I might be wrong.

About their will to become citizen and have their 'parents' charged with something... Well, teenage clones are still teenagers...
They are fighting against seasoned adults who were able to create them, hide them from society in plain sight for 16 years or so and find ways to send them to their deaths in plain sight too !
Do these teens think it will be easy to get what they want ?
Pretty sure their DNA sources, past surprise, will quickly react with countermeasures.
First: there's still a potential timebomb on board, someone who might kill everyone.
Second: it's pretty sure there's a fairly large space around planet Astra under space patrol surveillance. Their ship will be detected and checked very far from the planet, giving time to their 'parents' to prepare countermeasures

[Kraco]

Back when reading the manga, I guessed beforehand the cloning, memory transfer, and consequently the reason for the poor treatment. I consider the larger plot really good (despite some of the silly things that happened), so I was happy to predict it. However, the other mystery, Polina, is quite elusive, like you also noticed, David.

Zack's eternal poker face is working nicely here in the anime. It's pretty funny to imagine their marriage when Quitterie is the total opposite. If this trip or the body takeover hadn't happened, though, it's an open question if they had ended up together. Quitterie can't read him at all, so would she still have fallen for him? Now it's kind of understandable in the closed environment and her witnessing all the time how reliable and skillful he is. And cool.

[MFauli]

Lol, this episode felt like an exposition overload. So many twists in one go.

I agree that it comes off as majorly naive to think they can just return and their "parents" will be dealt with for them. It hasnt been touched upon, but my immediate fear was "fuck, theyre clones, theyll get treated bylaw enforcement as not-citizens aka killed".

Not sure I agree with the dimension jumping theory. Its a bit too cheap imo. My guess: The time data in Polinas ship was wrong and shes been in hibernation for many hundreds of thousands years, explaining the tectonic shift on "Astra" aka earth v1.2.

Btw someone help me: Where did their spaceship come from? So their parents want to get rid of them. Create controllable mini wormhole for that. Only to park a spaceship next to the exit point???

[David75]

I also thought about the hibernation pod going around its time counter... But that would require geological time and the ship isn't design to not crumble over 200 million years or so needed for a massive geological change. It still had energy to power basic systems and the pod itself, I can't think designers would put that much energy in a short range ship.
Also, it would be impossible to find nametags for her crew after such a long time.

I thought universes, but maybe Polina and earth are just from a far away place in the universe. That would not mesh well with ships/timelines being so compatible. The parallel universe feels better as a bandaid idea.

Last for Polina, I remember she was fearing some big event that was to come before she got into hibernation and should have happened when she was in stasis. I wonder what scale of an event that was. It felt like some catastrophe on a large scale, was she part of one of many crews seaching for a planet to relocate earth's population ?

Spaceship at the exit point might be a gift from one of the 'parents' that didn't want their child to die in such a way. They stripped the radio though. With a short distance ship and low food/water reserves, they thought they would not come back and understand their situation.
Regarding civil/human rights remember they have names/identities, they are citizens of one country/state in Astra. They are DNA clones, but they have their own administrative ids. I don't think that clone law supercedes human rights and nationality/citizenship, but who knows ?

[Kraco]

I agree that it comes off as majorly naive to think they can just return and their "parents" will be dealt with for them. It hasnt been touched upon, but my immediate fear was "fuck, theyre clones, theyll get treated bylaw enforcement as not-citizens aka killed".

They live in a democracy, by the looks of it. Their plan to live forever was ruined by the universal genome screen law even the top politician among them couldn't stop, and by trying to do so, he apparently tried to resort to desperate measures and got his reputation tarnished (which was what gained Ulgar's brother's interest in the first place). They don't have that much power. Their power is limited to their own sphere of influence, and doing strange things even there can be troublesome. For example, the school principal was complaining about the difficulty of having Funi join the training camp.

[David75]

They still were able to create the situation with cloning, citizenship and living for years, with the last killing scheme that is going unnoticed for now...
I guess the way it unfolds depends on how the qualities of the young versions fare against same qualities with seasoned adults and their relations...

[David75]

An another ep.



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So there's a gap between Polina's and everyone else's timelines. I wonder of it's there to hide the fact that only some happy few had access to the wormhole and they let everyone else die.
But it doesn't work. From what I remember from ep 1, Planet Astra was fully civilised. Hard to think they had enough time and resources to build everything in under 30/40 years.
Also Polina is supposed to have been in stasis for 12 years but the Asteroid did not crash yet, 2049 was the year it was to happen. And everyone else's timeline is 2063. That's 14 years. So there's a gap of at least 2 years, but probably 4/5 years since they were still searching for a planet candidate.

And yes, wormholes are easy to create, just get the right remote control . Finding the culprit was not thrilling/interresting at this point in the story.
The only point I find strange is creating a world wide community, abolishing countries, but keep a monarchy somewhere. When the goal is to prevent wars from ever happening, it feels strange to have two diverging social systems.

I almost forgot that Polina's timeline had no WWIII. So we still need to know how Polina leaped to another timeline (or Worldline ala steins;gate)

[Kraco]

Yeah, finding the murderer wasn't super exciting. Although to be fair I don't think there were too many exciting possibilities left. I kind of feel like in the manga it still worked a bit better, even if I don't anymore remember how exactly. Again, I might be remembering wrong.

I have to say I like the whole Earth/Astra thing. It's one thing I couldn't predict beforehand, even though I guessed the whole cloning thing precisely. These two together created a very solid setting for the story, much better than most other space adventures would have. As you can also see, the seemingly weird and unbelievable coincidence/convenience of a space ship just waiting for the kids in the space was very nicely explained. It's the place where the ships were built, so it wouldn't be so strange one was there once they became useless; they were only used to find a new habitable planet and the people themselves were moved via the wormhole tech.