Forum - View topicEP. REVIEW: Heavy Object
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steelmirror
 Posts: 342 |
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And this is the place where I, personally, am willing to take the show on its word and just see what happens from there. In a real sense, yeah, I agree with you completely. Modern insurgencies already fight from a position of overwhelming numerical, technological, logistical, and training inferiority, and yet they make a good show of it. In some ways relying on Objects would actually be a huge step backwards for COIN (counterinsurgency) operations, because you are even further centralizing your capabilities and undermining your ability to conduct operations down in the dirt. I imagine it's quite difficult to clear a possibly hostile house with an Object, for example. At least, if you want the house and nearby city blocks to remain standing once you are done. But hey, maybe the Objects handle the big conflicts for territory and resources, and the guerrilla conflicts are left to fester or something. Or maybe the economic state of the planet is radically different in some way that makes such insurgent wars less common. Or maybe the major powers are all willing to use their Objects to brutally wipe insurgencies off the map (and their towns and people with them), and we just haven't seen it yet. That would actually lend some credence to Fido's position, though at the cost of making all of the powers in HO into brutally repressive military states. But hey, it's an explanation! 
I know it's silly for me to say that I'm okay with handwaving this big issue after complaining for half a dozen posts about a relatively minor point, but I never claimed to be consistent. 
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Alan45
 Village Elder Posts: 9835 Location: Virginia |
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@steelmirror
I don't mind the handwaving of the science. I can even see them putting their entire military budget into a handful of super tanks piloted by special teenagers. No dumber than the Maginot line. However, human nature doesn't change overnight. SilverTalon01 wrote:
That hasn't happened at anytime in prior history and I doubt it will happen in the future. Large parts of the world today have cultures unchanged in a couple hundred years. People actively resist forced change. Most modern terrorism is based on a rejection of modern civilization. For the purposes of watching an enjoyable story, I'm willing to accept that the governments of the world just threw up their hands and gave up when Objects were invented. However, the changes to society are making it difficult. |
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steelmirror
Posts: 342 |
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I wasn't really talking about the science, which of course doesn't really stand up at all, but this is speculative fiction so I won't even try to pick that apart unless the show ever becomes internally inconsistent. I was indeed talking about societies and geopolitics, and I'm willing to take the show on its word that people just didn't believe that Objects could be defeated without another Object, and that something about the ensuing transformation made insurgencies and terrorism much less a priority for the big players of the world. Or that, at the very least, the show won't be focusing on those smaller, "lower intensity" conflicts (though the episodes with the Oceanian Federation were clearly meant to reflect such conflicts on at least some level). But hey, we all have BS-o-meters which are calibrated differently. Hopefully, as the reigning ideas about Objects get demolished step by step by Havia and Qwenthur, we'll see a bit more of an exploration of politics and warfare in the time of Objects. |
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Alan45
Village Elder Posts: 9835 Location: Virginia |
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@steelmirror
I agree you more or less have to accept the society as stated. However it would be a lot easier to do if this were set in the far distant future or on a colonized planet distant from Earth. The mention at the beginning of the 21st century and the use of real locations complicates things. I got the giggles when the fall of the modern social order and national organizations was attributed to the fall of the United Nations. Except for a few conspiracy junkies, I doubt most of the world would even notice the absence of the UN. |
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SilverTalon01
Posts: 2401 |
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And at no point in prior history was the world ever divided like it is in HO. I'm pretty sure they showed the map... absolutely ridiculous. And that the 4 main powers could actually function as well as they do with their absolute obsession over one specific thing at the expense of pretty much everything else. I mean Objects come and as a result all of the world's religions band together to form a single united super power despite several of them pretty much never getting along? You can either accept the established premise and apply your logic accordingly in which case your point is null and mine stands. Or you can deny the entire premise in which case there is absolutely no point in you coming here to discuss the possibility of plot points happening because if you're rejecting that then nothing else is ever going to work for you. You're basically doing the equivalent of denying anything like the Force could ever exist and then arguing that it isn't possible to block shots with a sword like the Jedi do. What are you expecting to get in response? You're denying the sole point that explains how that is possible which makes all kinda of potential discussions completely pointless. Similarly, if you want to debate the validity of what Fide said, it only makes sense if you accept the information the series has provided that Fide based his statement on. If you just cut out the underlying argument like you want to do, of-[expletive]-course it doesn't make sense. Now if you want to discuss the underlying premise itself being ridiculous, that is fine. However, that is also an entirely separate discussion than this one which is about your comment on Fide's argument.
You make it sound like each power doesn't have dozens of objects. It isn't like they only have 10 or something each spread around the world, and they're almost as fast as a sub-sonic jet so their effective range is pretty huge. And the one thing that all of the powers agree on is the need to keep the rules about safe countries safe so none of them are going to be super huge on ignoring that kind of thing.
Fide had absolutely no problem sacrificing whole villages and was confident they could spin it in a way that he could get away with it. He got screwed because he involved the IA who at that point are going to want to save face. If it wasn't a safe country, I really don't think any of them would give a crap. Also in the most recent novel (small exposition spoiler),spoiler[ the CC faked the existence of guerrillas to create an excuse to send in an Object to try to take control of the panama canal and incidentally laid waste to an incredibly massive area inhabited by non combatants. If they would make up a story about guerrillas to justify that, I have no problems believing they would be willing to do the same to actual ones.] |
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Alan45
Village Elder Posts: 9835 Location: Virginia |
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@SilverTalon01
Sorry, I'm not attempting to attack the show. See my first sentence in the post immediately above yours. I'm mostly musing on how this differs from reality. In this version of Oz it is hard sometimes to ignore the man behind the curtain. As I tried to say above, the setup for this would be easier to deal with if it were more divorced from our current reality by time or distance or both. This is and I expect it will remain an interesting story. However that is due to the characters and the plotting, the world building and the science not so much. I should note again that all I have to work with is the information provided in the anime. |
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JacobC
ANN Contributor
 Posts: 3728 Location: SoCal |
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You can't attack the show, because that's a ludicrous statement that doesn't mean anything. Criticizing a piece of media is not a personal "attack." A piece of media does not have feelings and it does not need to be defended from harm. It's SilverTalon01's job to lighten up and not use inflammatory language over disagreements about writing in an anime. |
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steelmirror
Posts: 342 |
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A whole dozens of objects wouldn't be nearly enough to clear and hold territory in the kind of COIN warfare that militaries conduct today, and even if it were sufficient, that kind of misses the point. Most of what a military does in counterinsurgency isn't kinetic, kick-down-the-door, blow up a bunch of enemy vehicles and buildings type operations. Most of what needs to be done is manning checkpoints, checking vehicles and people as they go about their business, talking to people, patrolling known enemy routes or busy urban areas, going door to door and looking for suspicious activities, and all those other fun activities that involve days of boredom punctuated by moments of terror. Objects, even a thousand objects all in one place, would be terrible at that kind of thing. You couldn't even station an object in a city at all, much less have it conduct search and clear operations there! So just like in the real world, infantry would almost certainly remain king in asymmetric warfare. If Objects did have any effect on counterinsurgency strategy, I think it would almost certainly be the Death Star effect, i.e. using them as weapons of intimidation to discourage resistance, and occasionally as weapons of mass destruction to punish whole populations for harboring enemies. It's reprehensible, but it's something they could feasibly accomplish. Now, I don't think that's the same as attacking the foundation of the series. It's an observation of how some of the politics as presented by people in the show doesn't quite hold water. But! That could well be an actual issue and mystery even within the show itself. We've already seen with Fide that the highest levels of power have been lying to the world about certain aspects of these cozy clean Object wars, and that the balance of power is something that all the powers seem to be invested in maintaining. Maybe they also have secrets that help to explain some of the issues we've been poking fun at here! I don't have any information from the LN and I don't particularly want spoilers, but I would be shocked if Heavy Object doesn't have any more tricks up its sleeve regarding manipulative superiors.
Yeah, that's always pretty funny.  I'm pretty sure the world would be more worried about the collapse of FIFA than the collapse of the UN.
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SilverTalon01
Posts: 2401 |
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Did you just completely miss that this episode tied into the last one which you dismissed as filler and thus there hasn't been anything except longer story arcs? |
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FilthyCasual
Posts: 2185 |
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spoiler[Did someone say... Volume 8? ] |
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Desa
 Posts: 285 |
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For a second I thought Bright Hopper got taken out by an orbital laser cannon, but it turned out to be something way cooler; an artillery round impacting at mach 25! I know mach speeds vary depending on air pressure and temperature, but at mach 25 you're pushing over 8500 meters per second (over 28,000 ft/s)! That's an insane speed for any solid material to be traveling at and almost nothing could survive the shock from such an impact, not to mention the almost inescapable range of fire. The stakes are officially raised.
If I were the powers that ran the HO universe, I would totally opt for a mass driver over some space laser. Still sad we didn't get to see Bright Hopper in action though. Especially after how much they hyped it. Once again it's up to Baby Magnum to old-skool a path to victory... or maybe not? That'd be a curveball I didn't expect. |
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maximilianjenus
Posts: 2862 |
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and you are the type of person who should be watching this show, I might not be it, tho, I hate when the clunky action interrupts the physics lecture. |
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NoremaC-_-
 Posts: 60 |
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very solid episode; break carrier presents itself as a very threatening object, look forward to seeing how this is dealt with.
i'd imagine finding it would be the main task since it may need very heavy bracers to deal with the recoil as well as provide stable footing, assuming it is actually using a rail-gun+rocket drivers. although i'm not sure how true this is in HO universe; since rail-guns seem to be so common place, recoil issues may not be a problem. then again objects and the like seem to need constant maintenance so the rails may need to be replaced every so often. break carrier probably has very pathetic movement capabilities or requires great set up before hand if it wants to move/attack(that and they went to such great lengths to hide it's position); meaning simply finding the objects position and firing a orbital laser or one of the cannons from baby magnum would easily decommission the break carriers primary functions. |
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FilthyCasual
Posts: 2185 |
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I guess Paul's extra-busy over the holidays.
Or did the spoiler[save her by groping her thing] floor him badly enough that he's folding the review into next week's? |
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maximilianjenus
Posts: 2862 |
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well, that arc had so many dumb elements to it that it deserved to get ended in a dumb way; the females in my bloodline my bloodline can only give birth to males is pretty contribed while a more elegant political situation would be better and even easier, randomly gropping ehr in front of her fiacne suits it just right.
actually, the female-bloodline can only give birth to males is a nie logical problem that I can use to wake up my brain, trying to figure out how do females are even born. |
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