By five obvious sides, I meant the Ptolemais crew, the Trinities, and the three superpowers (who, while working together, are merely in an alliance of convenience for the moment). I'm not saying that one of them won't drop out all of a sudden. The Trinities are the most obvious candidate for that. But at the moment, we've got five obvious distinct "sides" to the conflict.
Wang does represent a potential asset to the Trinities. No, she can't send firepower to aid them if they get in trouble. But her network of agents could provide valuable information to the Trinities that would allow them to pick and choose targets, or possibly figure out what's really going on in the world if Ragna chooses to abandon them (which I suspect he will). It's entirely possible that they'll realize that Ragna has betrayed them, and then use data acquired from Wang to locate Ragna and kill him. And whether or not they've been played for fools, they carried out their missions because they believed in the cause. Even if Ragna chooses to abandon them, they still see themselves as having a goal to achieve. And while the superpowers are using their mobile suits against CB, we've yet to see anything that would prevent them from using the mobile suits against each other should they decide to do so. Admittedly, that would be a foolish decision. And the super powers had managed to avoid direct military confrontations even before CB forced cooperation. But there's nothing ruling it out as of yet. I'm sure Ragna will die soon as well. I don't know what will cause his death (I'd personally finger whichever faction Ribbon really works for when they cause all Hell to break loose). But I don't think he's fulfilled his entire plot purpose yet. He's currently the only link between Kinue's investigation and CB's problems. So I suspect he'll stay alive long enough for Setsuna to pick up on the link through Saji. RE - Corner in Azadistan What you're saying doesn't make much sense, though. CB doesn't really need to have its image wrecked. They've already done that themselves to a large extent. Having CB show up and shoot up both sides of the conflict wouldn't really have changed peoples' opinions of CB, imo, since CB had already done that in the past (in Ceylon, for instance). It was noted earlier that the construction of the solar array system caused huge economic problems in the Middle East, and the UN has embargoed the international oil trade which effectively destroyed the economies of the Middle Eastern nations. Personally I wouldn't be surprised if there really is a group in place that wants to keep the Middle East unstable for currently unrevealed reasons. Also, Shirin, who appears to be the single sharpest political analyst in the series, thought that "good PR for the UN" wasn't much of a reason for the UN to get involved in Azadistan. So I'm inclined to discount that as a reason. You say that Setsuna probably won't be back in Japan for a while. On the contrary, I think that there might be some very good reasons for Setsuna to return to "civilization". Wang appears to be about ready to break her contact with the Ptolemais. She's been the one providing the Earth-side agent network so far. Veda's not being used because of the fact that it's been compromised by Nene Trinity. That means that the Ptolemais crew has only very limited information about what's going on at ground level, and that means that they're going to need to send some people down to take a look around. And though as Core points out the Gundam Meisters don't generally make the best agents, they're really the only people that the Ptolemais can send. Billy can modify Graham's Overflag, but the basic problem remains. The Overflag uses a conventional propulsion system, and that causes the unhealthy levels of G-Force stress on the pilot that we saw when Graham went up against the Trinities. Further improvements to the Overflag will likely only make the situation worse (the Overflag Graham pilots appears to be good enough that if you stuck a mobile doll system in the cockpit, it might very well be able to beat a Gundam Meister in a duel). The only way around that seems to be the GN Drives, which appear to use some sort of anti-gravity system to move (which negates the G-Forces - maybe GN stands for 'Gravity Null'?). I believe Ian stated that the counterfeit GN Drives were missing the shielding that the normal GN Drives had. Unfortunately, if they're emitting some sort of harmful radiation, then Soma and Sergei are now being affected by whatever it is. As far as the saber is concerned, we know it can hold a charge for at least a short period of time (since Graham was able to use it after he disarmed his opponent). So it should in theory be possible to charge it up before a battle. This would allow a pilot armed with it to get at least several critical seconds worth of use out of it before the charge was used up. But before this can happen, Billy will need to spend some time examining it. junior Subject : RE: [gundam] Gundam 00 Episode 20 Date : Wed, 27 Feb 2008 07:21:56 +0000 >From : [EMAIL PROTECTED] To : [email protected] -------------- Original message ---------------------- From: "Joseph Riggs" > > > > So now we've got five obvious sides and possibly more unobvious ones. I can think of three obvious side, with rest are consider "free agents". > Trinities - I'm guessing that their mission at the end of the episode was an > attempt to set them up and get rid of them. Or in other words, they've > officially been abandoned by Ragna, except as target practice for the > superpowers' new mobile suits. Presumeably the fact that Wang is allying with > them means that they're going to be around for a while. Of course, if Ragna > cuts them loose, then they might end up working directly for Wang (who > apparently has her own rather extensive network of agents). They are more like pawns in the whole thing, as they have been just following ordered, but if the rumors/spoilers are correct, their "leader" might be heading toward some misfortunes, and they themselves might be in trouble, as they lack the support from basically everyone. Wang cannot really help them, since she is too far away for the most part, and as we all know, by the time you need the help, you are basically done already. > And the UN - whose military is composed of three different nations that are > cooperating against a combined threat (which merely means that one of them > may > choose to backstab the other two at an opportune moment...) They are just the "front" for the three power bloc military joint operations from the looks of it - each side get to pick 10 pilots to pilot the GN-X, but they can only be used for against CB. If this doesn't suggested that they are basically being used by someone, I don't know how much more obvious they need to make it... > Ragna Harvey appears to be working with the Thrones and appears to have > secretly > provided the superpowers with the new mobile suits (it's obvious he's > transporting them - the question is whether he's the one that secretly stuck > them in Antarctica and tipped off the superpowers). He's probably working > with > Corner, although that isn't completely certain. The big question mark is what > the two want and what the two get out of the current mess. And who exactly is > he that he can pretty much guarantee that Ali gets assigned one? Seems like this is supposedly the one that I think CB is trying to drive out, as it seems to have a lot of resources to do a lot of things, and they seems to be profiting from various war activities. It wouldn't surprised me one bit to expect Harvey be the one that finance the whole thing while Corner is the one that steal the stuff from CB. I think the rumor/spoiler from the net make sense that he will meet an "unfortunate" end pretty soon, as I think he pretty much serve his purpose and the ones using him need to "clean house." > I'm still trying to figure out what Corner got out of starting the solar > energy > project in Azadistan and then scuttling it. Is there a particular reason that > the Middle East needs to be destabilized? Everyone's favorite Azadistani > advisor was apparently right to be suspicious of his motives. But even she > couldn't figure out what he was up to. Think it's advertisement for UN - with this, the UN certainly are seen in a good light, and with the UN considered the front for the GN-X operation, I think the ad certainly works well... Besides, if Setsuna isn't one of the kids trained by Ali, they would've never been able to stop the civil war, and it will certain cause problem for CB, since that is one conflict I doubt the CB can do anything about other than wiping out both sides, which would just make them look worse than they already are. I don't see Setsuna meeting up with Saji in season one, as the situation is bad enough that Setsuna and company would more likely to be on the ship waiting on information and only go back when they are actually doing some sort of operation. If the creator is worth his salt, I would assume that is the reason why Saji and Setsuna are neighbors... > Graham's wingman is concerned that Graham won't be able to beat a Gundam in > just > the Overflag. News Flash! Graham has ALREADY beaten a Gundam in the Overflag! > It may only have been a small victory, but it's pretty obvious who came out > on > top in the matchup. Hint - the winner is generally the guy who's NOT running > away minus an arm... Though admittedly, Graham could have beaten him a lot > worse if he'd had a mobile suit equipped with a GN Drive, instead of one that > caused internal bleeding due to the extreme G-Forces involved. You have to say if you know how the things work like we do, you know it is actually not a bad move because the GN-X came from "mysterious" sources, so who knows what is really in that thing. With Billy helping out modifying the Overflag, I can see it being probably something that can actually rival the GN-X at least. Ian mentioned something funky about those GN Drive missing something - maybe it's the "safety" device that is missing... > Billy's busy studying the specs on the new GN Drives. The saber that Graham > captured has been recovered, but isn't being examined at the moment (since > Billy's busy studying the new mobile suits). Minor plot point, but it could > be > important down the road. Right now I think the energy problem is worse, as the beam saber cannot help them if there is nothing to drive them...
