Today Is The Day We Acknowledge That I Heard The Moon Was Damaged In The Calamity War Is Just An Absolutely

Today is the day we acknowledge that “I heard the moon was damaged in the calamity war” is just an absolutely wild thing to say. In context and out of context.

First off, You Heard? As in, this is some rumour that you’re not actually sure about? I know they’re on Mars, and haven’t had much/any of an education, but I would think that the fate of Earth’s primary celestial body would be fairly well known. But this is just like “oh yeah, apparently the moon’s busted”.

Second, “Damaged in the Calamity War”. I don’t know why but damaged is the word I focus on here. Damage implies it’s still functioning. Damage implies that it took the hit but wasn’t destroyed. Damaged is such an odd way to talk about something like the moon.

Like, it really sells the Calamity War as this, well, Calamitous thing. You can really understand why it was such an upheaval that necessitated gjallarhorn’s formation, why the dating process is “post disaster”. And really, why a lot of the setting is how it is.

Why gjallarhorn’s mostly Earth based, why Mars is a backwater with poverty and pmc’s. Why Jupiter can essentially be run by Teiwaz (well, they at least have a lotta influence there). It’s just one example of what happened to this world.

I know we’re probably never gonna fully know what happened in the Calamity War, since that’d ruin the mystique, but…

Just imagine what it must’ve been like.

Gundams battling mobile armours for the fate of the moon.

And behind them, Earth.

Honestly, I always figured that the reason why the Clones are the way they are in Star Wars (IE, Why they exist, why they’re written as they are) is that, fundamentally, they were beholden to that line from way back in the original Star Wars (before it was A New Hope) back in 1977. “You fought in the Clone Wars?” So, Clones have to be involved somewhere, they’re stuck with that. They’d already established the Droid armies as being a thing in A Phantom Menace, and it sells the Trade Federation (and by extension, the rest of the separatists) as cowardly, since they’re relying on machines to do their fighting for them, and since they’re expensive, they’re rich as well.

It’s important to remember that around the time of the prequels coming out, there was the very real fear among people of mechanisation in the workplace, machines coming to take their jobs (I’m not saying that isn’t still a thing, just that it was less prevalent then than now), so with that as the backdrop it’s less likely that the viewing public’d get behind a robot army. So, we have to work clones in somewhere, and they can’t be the bad guys, and the Grand Army of the Republic has to come from somewhere…….

Eureka! Make the Grand Army of the Republic clones!

It solves the problem of the giving the republic an army for the conflict, without making them look like the aggressors, or implying that they would use a standing army to enforce rule on the galaxy. The Republic is still the good guys, remember, no matter how corrupt and inefficient certain parts of them are. It also enables them to sell this conflict as being a sith plan, since this army “just happens” to have been set aside for this very purpose.

It’s also worth noticing that, in the movies at least (near as I can tell, until The Clone Wars (The CG tv show) the clones have a far more varied depiction, from being varied characters with their own views on the war, to being essentially droids made of meat, with a lot of variation between those two binaries. The Clone Wars (as above) took the decision to follow the more humanist line. I’m focusing on the movies since, again, primary source) the clones don’t really have much personality. Mostly that’s because there’s only so much screen time, and it’s being taken up by Jedi, Senators and the like, but it really feels like the only reason they’re human is so we, the viewers can emphasise with them as the good guys and to provide foreshadowing as to where those suspiciously similar stormtrooper fellows come from.

“Are the Clones slaves?” Is, at least to me, a fairly thorny ethical question in its own right, both in and out of universe. I won’t go into the specifics of that now, but it is absolutely a fun and interesting question to ponder. But there’s a myriad of reasons as to why this decision was made, so making such a binary choice as throwing out everything else because the clones are apparently slaves is honestly just kinda doing the series an injustice.

People complain that the jedi don't act appropriately to being forced to use a slaver army, but they seem to forget that the jedi can't. Not just in universe (although yes, in universe there was nothing the jedi could do about this decision made by the senate) but narratively.

The jedi can't comment on the clone's slavery because the narrative won't let them! As a matter of fact, the narrative won't let anyone mention this! Literally no one calls the clones slaves seriously, even characters who by all accounts should feel that way because the narrative won't let them because they are fictional people created by a team of writers.

The clones aren't slaves in universe because the writers refuse to write them that way. Do I personally feel that this should have been a plot point? Yeah I think it would have been interesting! But they didn't!

Is it fun to explore this in fanfiction? Yeah it totally is! I know I would mention it in any fic I write in the future.

Does it make for good media criticism or analysis? No! This is just straight up not how you professionally analysis media. It is worth bring up in a discussion about the creators and exploring why they didn't bring these things up in the series. That would be good media analysis.

But as "proof" that some characters are bad this fails dramatically. Why? Because then you must apply this logic to every character, meaning not just the jedi are evil but actually every single character in the whole series, yes all of them, are evil. Once you do that you have successfully thrown away any meaning the original work had. It is all pointless now.

People confuse in-universe (watsonian) and out-of-universe (doylist) analysis. 'Why did no one do anything about the clone's situation?' is a shit watsonian analysis. But 'why the fuck did the writers write the clones like this?' is a GREAT doylist question.

Media analysis should add meaning, or explain meaning, or even describe why you feel the work lacks meaning, but it should never take all meaning away.

It is the same reason droids aren't called slaves. It would complicate the narrative and distract from whatever the writers were actually trying to say. The writers don't want to go there, so they don't.

I’m mildly annoyed it took me this long to realise that, in a series full of them, the Mobile Armour mode of the destroy Gundam is essentially a redesign of the Big Zam from the original mobile suit Gundam. The positron reflectors substitute for I-fields, the "Aufprall Dreizehn" High-energy Beam Cannon replacing the Large Mega Particle Gun. Even the anti-air claws on the big zam are represented with the Destroy’s flying arms. Finally, it’s name, the Destroy Gundam is apparently a reference to the second episode of the original series, which had that as its title.

I mean, I know it had a bunch of influence from the Psycho Gundam I and II, but I’d just never clocked the Big Zam as an influence before.

Space Hulk (1st Ed) Box Art by Gerry Grace

Moebius, 1971

Just realised that part of the appeal of units using the Rodi frame in Iron Blooded Orphans (besides them looking like little potatoes/dumplings/buns with guns) is that their design resembles the old prototype Zaku unit built by the Principality of Zeon

(I’m specifically referring to the Man Rodi, Landman Rodi, Monkey Rodi and my personal favourite, the Labrys)

With them appearing as exaggerated versions of the following:

The Zaku prototype units (in some sources called “crabman”)

Which were then replaced with the Mobile Worker and subsequently the Waff in Gundam: The Origin.

It’s just neat spotting common design themes with the Zaku-esque suits.