What Was Ironwood's Plan?

What Was Ironwood's plan?

For V7, Ironwood only had one plan. Turning Amity arena into a satellite, and telling Remnant about Salem's existence. The steps and contingencies for this Amity plan is outlined in episode 2, and V7's narrative generally deals with the Amity Plan's implementation, and its failure.

Ironwood's 'plan' toward the end of V7:

Is not so much a plan as it is a tactical decision. Ironwood finds himself in an un-ideal situation and makes a choice to act on the circumstances to get out of the un-ideal situation.

In Ironwood's case, a plan and a decision is not the same. Ironwood's diplomatic personality is a distinct vibe compared to his tactical mood.

Outside of a tactical situation, Ironwood is someone who can consider multiple perspectives and was able to work with other people to do what was best for Atlas. Trusting RWBY with the relic, and standing together with Robyn Hill, are both examples of Ironwood's flexibility outside of tactical situations.

Ironwood's 'Mettle' semblance emphasizes this distinction as it helps Ironwood hyper focus on a single difficult decision. However Ironwood's Amity plan was a fairly complex, multi-stage affair, that probably wouldn't be possible if Ironwood was hyper-focused.

This distinction is important as clarification. It indicates that Ironwood's plan from the start wasn't to abandon Mantle. Instead, Ironwood made a tactical decision to isolate Atlas in response to a threat Ironwood prioritized over the Grimm. It was not as if Ironwood had planned to abandon Mantle from the start.

However, if we are forced to only consider Ironwood's tactical decision at the end of V7, we need to understand the nature of the threat Ironwood is prioritizing responding to.

During the episode gravity, Ironwood's plan is:

"The timeline has changed. And so we must change accordingly. We are going to take our plan for Amity Tower and apply it to the city of Atlas. It was Oz's plan in a former life. But he didn't take it far enough. If we harness the power of the Staff and raise ourselves high into the atmosphere, the city's artificial climate will keep citizens and food supplies unharmed. Always out of reach of whatever Salem may try to send our way."

At this point, I will state that while I accept Ironwood's plan as stated in this line, I am going to read this line as divorced from the language the writers had Ironwood use for this line. In this part of the narrative, Ironwood is set up to be the antagonist to RWBY, and the dialogue reflects this. However sensible Ironwood's plan may be, the way it is presented is meant to make Ironwood an opponent, which is a bit of a bias that may influence the audience's perception of Ironwood's tactical decision.

At its most essential, Ironwood's plan is to isolate Atlas by lifting it to a height where the Grimm can't survive without the aid of Atlas's artificial climate technology.

The conflict here isn't that the plan won't work, its just that Ironwood won't give Mantle time to evacuate onto Atlas.

"Blake: But we're nowhere near finished evacuating everyone! You'd be leaving Mantle to die.

Ironwood: Yes… I would."

No one questioned the validity of Ironwood's plan, only the morality of Ironwood's execution of the plan, and that is something I may write about some other time.

But if we were forced by fndoomers (eh-heh) to question the validity of Ironwood's tactic, we have to approach the question on two fronts.

Firstly, what is the threat Ironwood is responding to? I believe that Ironwood wasn't focused on the Grimm, at this moment, but on the infiltrators who had breached his security. Just like what happened during the Fall of Beacon.

Infiltration was a threat that occupied Ironwood's mind over the course of V7. Now, I'm not going to say 'Ironwood was always worried about infiltrators and lifting Atlas into space was some endgame thing'. However, Ironwood was cautious about the possibility of infiltration, and the fact that his security was breached, as represented by the queen piece on his desk and Salem showing up in his office, pushed Ironwood to isolate Atlas.

Just as how quarantine is a measure against infection, the validity of Ironwood's tactic is made obvious when one considers that Ironwood is focused on trying to deal with the security breach, and not solely on the Grimm.

Secondly, RWBY's plan at the end of V7 was to hold ground and fight the Grimm. The episode doesn't exactly say how RWBY intended to fight the Grimm, but like Ironwood's response to his security breach, RWBY's 'plan' is a tactical decision in response to an un-ideal situation.

In fact, RWBY's tactic isn't unfeasible at this stage. No one right then really had a plan to beat Salem, but they needed to come up with a response to the circumstances unfolding around them. With support from Atlas, RWBY could feasibly hold Mantle for as long as it was needed for the plot to help RWBY beat Salem.

However, RWBY failed to grasp that Ironwood's focus was on the security breach. A security breach that RWBY may have contributed to, to an extent. The Grimm was not as big a threat as the infiltrators who may be operating in Atlas, and would likely exploit the chaos of combat to execute whatever plans they may have. (Namely, stealing the relics. Which was always Salem's priority, but that is a separate topic.)

Would isolating Atlas in space have dealt with the security breach? Very likely so. For example, Robyn Hill did not know what Ironwood's plan for Amity was until she was TOLD by Blake and Yang. Ironwood's security in Atlas was not fully breached as while Ironwood's office was infiltrated, the Staff was not taken until V8, and by playing his cards close to his chest Ironwood was able to trap Watts. Even RWBY was deceived when Ironwood lied that the Amity Tower was operational to bait Watts.

It seems likely, therefore, that isolating Atlas would be a more suitable response to the infiltrators. While fighting the Grimm would just spread everyone thin, and leave them vulnerable to a more damaging surprise attack from their blindspot. Like in Beacon, and a bit like in V8, to be fair.

In conclusion:

Ironwood's plan is always to raise Amity Tower and tell the world about Salem.

Ironwood's tactical decision is viable if you consider that; no one in the show questions the workability of launching Atlas into space, and that Ironwood's priority was dealing with the infiltrators, not the Grimm.

This is ultimately a primer of sorts for Ironwood fans so that they'd be aware of what Ironwood likely intended to do for V7. A little clarity, perhaps, amidst the heated misrepresentations and misunderstandings that surround Ironwood and his role in V7 and V8.

You know now that we're so far out from Monty's death, a lot of us need to start piping up with more force when it comes to Rooster Teeth acting like they never took advantage of that, never changed anything.

I see people roll their eyes in response to "whining" about Monty's "vision", but I mean--Volume Three hits, and suddenly Adam is a wifebeating incel, Emerald is just oh-so-stricken, and Ruby has eye beams?

Come on. This shit's written on the walls. If this were a fandom besides RWBY, for a product under a company besides Rooster Teeth, everyone would see it., it wouldn't even be in question. If they wanted people to be able to trust in them, maybe they shouldn't have taken a jackhammer to the show and started drilling holes in it the very second the show creator passed away?

I thought Ironwood and Adam would be hated even more if they were women instead - Do you think people would still see female Adam as a girl boss if she slapped male Blake around and abused him? What if they were both female? It makes me curious..

you'd think that but after seeing how everyone treats salem and cinder shows me all the proof i need to know that they'd either woobify fem!adam/fem!james or would celebrate them as feminist icons. look at the way majority of the fandom ignores the way blake slapped sun around, or how they justified or even said he deserved it because he was being creepy and stalking her. hell, people still don't see how toxic cinder is with emerald and they're both women. cinder has slapped and degraded emerald and enforced her power over her to keep her obedient. yet it's one of the biggest ships in the fandom

there's an insane double standard and it's so much more louder in this fandom because it's a show that's supposed to celebrate women.

*Looks at RWBY v8 ending*

Feck.

Quick,You now live your icon's life,HOW SCREWED ARE YOU?

i have more trauma than any person in the known universe

What REALLY happened the night Beacon fell ...

The red of Adam's blade mirrored the fire around him in what used to be a grand hall. The flame swooned as the great sword whistled through the air. The heat intensified as Adam cleaved single-handed through the defense of the lone Huntsman, like the applause of a watching crowd. The search for sustenance paused as blood flowed free, and the scent of the roast showed the fire's pleasure at their champion's offering of death.

It is as it should be, Adam thought as he flicked the blood off his sword and watched the Huntsman, a tall male in a white uniform, burn. But when the flames, never satisfied, inched closer to Adam. He swept the flame back with a furious slash of his sword across the floor.

As if I would let you so much as touch me! Adam thought, be content with the scum, and know your place!

But as the fire's feast reached his climax, Adam saw the image of a woman. With the hair of the abyss, dressed in the fire's iridescence, and ambition's emptiness in gold for her eyes. A reminder. To feed the fire, or be consumed by it.

Know your place, Adam Taurus.

A presence. Familiar. A shadow turned to steel. Followed by a slash from Adam's blind side to his left. As she was taught. A cut that would expose the throat of a lesser opponent when he flinches.

But Adam was a Faunus, and Faunus do not flinch.

Like a bull Adam turned his horns into the cut. The blade's tip whistled past his head and scraped a chip off the bull's horns peeking through his red hair. Adam's response came in wide and ended in a hug.

"Blake, thank the Gods you're here!"

The brief feeling of warmth. The sense of comfort from a good memory. It faded as all good memories do. In a cloud of black smoke, followed by reality crashing down on everything.

"What have you done?!"

Adam turned towards the voice. Towards Blake Belladonna, standing behind him with her blade pointed at the black breast of his suit. A little taller then Adam remembered. The raw edge of youth, rounded by a maturity which created the feeling of innocence tempered with a wisdom that Adam could not give.

"What we vowed to do, a long time ago." Adam said, "but none of that now, Blake. Please, I need your help."

The sound of debris being kicked across the flame-blackened floor mirrored the derision in Blake's voice.

"My help?!" Blake said, "You're a murderer, Taurus!"

Adam stepped forward. Blake retreated. The distance between the two was just a step, but to Adam, it felt like Blake was getting farther away.

"Humans are the murderers, Belladonna!" Adam said, " the blood of our brothers and sisters are on their hands!"

"Not on every human's hands!"

"And you're siding with those that watched, hands in their pockets, as our kin were slaughtered! If not by the sword, if not by the bullet, then by inaction and cowardice. Are they guiltless, then? Are their hands clean of our blood?!"

Blake advanced. But Adam's sword. Longer and steadier, knocked aside Blake's sword with a casual flick of his wrist. A warning. One did not see Adam's swordplay unless he let them.

"Our kin, our brothers and sisters, were murdered by humans," Adam said, "More will be murdered if you do not help me save them!"

Blake walked closer, and Adam lowered his blade so that he wouldn't mar the pale tapestry of Blake's skin with blood.

"You brought the Faunus here!" Blake said, "You put them in a fight they did not need to fight. Because of what you are doing," Blake placed her hand on Adam's sword, "Faunus are being shot, and stabbed, and hurt."

"It is not by choice that I'm here," Adam said while he pulled his hand away from Blake's, "But it is by choice that I'm speaking to you. The White Fang, your people, are under the control of someone evil. Someone I cannot name right now. I'm trapped, but you could reach out and get help. For the Faunus."

Blake's eyes were gold, just like the woman in the fire. But there was no emptiness there, just a brilliant belief that could never be shaken from what was right. But when Blake reached up to Adam's face, and Adam flinched away, that brilliance dimmed. As if a cloud had covered the sun, and denied Adam any hope from it.

"I won't fight you, Adam," Blake said, "but I won't help you. If you really think the Faunus need help, then surrender."

Blake turned away. But before she could leave, Adam's hand gripped Blake's arm.

"Belladonna! You can't turn your back on your own kind!"

Someone screamed. Incoherent. Furious. Adam pushed Blake aside as he turned towards the sound, leading with his blade. No one see's Adam's swordplay unless he lets them. Not even Adam himself, at times.

"Yang? YANG!"

Blake was running now. Running toward a tangled mess of gold hair and limbs, out of which a mangled bloody arm Blake grasped in her hands as she started to sob. Another human had fallen to Adam's blade, but what was the point?

With a growl, Adam stabbed his sword into the closest fire before he tore the huge black bow from Blake's hair. As black as the woman in the fire's, but it was the black the twilight instead of the depths of oblivion. Dragging his sword from the flames, Adam then kicked Blake away and shoved the gleaming blade onto the cuts on this 'Yang's' arm.

Once again there was the scent of searing flesh. Nauseating and oily. But as Adam tied Blake's bow around the cauterized wounds, Adam felt like he had taken a step somewhere. He was not sure where, but when Blake's terror gave way to relief when she saw the bandaged wounds, Adam was certain that Blake was the only one who could help him.

"Adam," Blake said as he turned to leave, "why?"

Adam didn't look back as he said.

"I brought this to you, Blake. My hands are not clean."

First, the narrative was being set up to make Ironwood the bad guy, so shit was going down the way it had to. Writer's prerogative and I'm not a writer on RWBY.

Second, your point relates to the morality of Ironwood's plan. Which is not related to this post, and also something most of RWDE would agree with you as being morally gray.

I like saying the plan is moral because its fun to do so.

So on both counts, your fears can be put to rest.

What Was Ironwood's plan?

For V7, Ironwood only had one plan. Turning Amity arena into a satellite, and telling Remnant about Salem's existence. The steps and contingencies for this Amity plan is outlined in episode 2, and V7's narrative generally deals with the Amity Plan's implementation, and its failure.

Ironwood's 'plan' toward the end of V7:

Is not so much a plan as it is a tactical decision. Ironwood finds himself in an un-ideal situation and makes a choice to act on the circumstances to get out of the un-ideal situation.

In Ironwood's case, a plan and a decision is not the same. Ironwood's diplomatic personality is a distinct vibe compared to his tactical mood.

Outside of a tactical situation, Ironwood is someone who can consider multiple perspectives and was able to work with other people to do what was best for Atlas. Trusting RWBY with the relic, and standing together with Robyn Hill, are both examples of Ironwood's flexibility outside of tactical situations.

Ironwood's 'Mettle' semblance emphasizes this distinction as it helps Ironwood hyper focus on a single difficult decision. However Ironwood's Amity plan was a fairly complex, multi-stage affair, that probably wouldn't be possible if Ironwood was hyper-focused.

This distinction is important as clarification. It indicates that Ironwood's plan from the start wasn't to abandon Mantle. Instead, Ironwood made a tactical decision to isolate Atlas in response to a threat Ironwood prioritized over the Grimm. It was not as if Ironwood had planned to abandon Mantle from the start.

However, if we are forced to only consider Ironwood's tactical decision at the end of V7, we need to understand the nature of the threat Ironwood is prioritizing responding to.

During the episode gravity, Ironwood's plan is:

"The timeline has changed. And so we must change accordingly. We are going to take our plan for Amity Tower and apply it to the city of Atlas. It was Oz's plan in a former life. But he didn't take it far enough. If we harness the power of the Staff and raise ourselves high into the atmosphere, the city's artificial climate will keep citizens and food supplies unharmed. Always out of reach of whatever Salem may try to send our way."

At this point, I will state that while I accept Ironwood's plan as stated in this line, I am going to read this line as divorced from the language the writers had Ironwood use for this line. In this part of the narrative, Ironwood is set up to be the antagonist to RWBY, and the dialogue reflects this. However sensible Ironwood's plan may be, the way it is presented is meant to make Ironwood an opponent, which is a bit of a bias that may influence the audience's perception of Ironwood's tactical decision.

At its most essential, Ironwood's plan is to isolate Atlas by lifting it to a height where the Grimm can't survive without the aid of Atlas's artificial climate technology.

The conflict here isn't that the plan won't work, its just that Ironwood won't give Mantle time to evacuate onto Atlas.

"Blake: But we're nowhere near finished evacuating everyone! You'd be leaving Mantle to die.

Ironwood: Yes… I would."

No one questioned the validity of Ironwood's plan, only the morality of Ironwood's execution of the plan, and that is something I may write about some other time.

But if we were forced by fndoomers (eh-heh) to question the validity of Ironwood's tactic, we have to approach the question on two fronts.

Firstly, what is the threat Ironwood is responding to? I believe that Ironwood wasn't focused on the Grimm, at this moment, but on the infiltrators who had breached his security. Just like what happened during the Fall of Beacon.

Infiltration was a threat that occupied Ironwood's mind over the course of V7. Now, I'm not going to say 'Ironwood was always worried about infiltrators and lifting Atlas into space was some endgame thing'. However, Ironwood was cautious about the possibility of infiltration, and the fact that his security was breached, as represented by the queen piece on his desk and Salem showing up in his office, pushed Ironwood to isolate Atlas.

Just as how quarantine is a measure against infection, the validity of Ironwood's tactic is made obvious when one considers that Ironwood is focused on trying to deal with the security breach, and not solely on the Grimm.

Secondly, RWBY's plan at the end of V7 was to hold ground and fight the Grimm. The episode doesn't exactly say how RWBY intended to fight the Grimm, but like Ironwood's response to his security breach, RWBY's 'plan' is a tactical decision in response to an un-ideal situation.

In fact, RWBY's tactic isn't unfeasible at this stage. No one right then really had a plan to beat Salem, but they needed to come up with a response to the circumstances unfolding around them. With support from Atlas, RWBY could feasibly hold Mantle for as long as it was needed for the plot to help RWBY beat Salem.

However, RWBY failed to grasp that Ironwood's focus was on the security breach. A security breach that RWBY may have contributed to, to an extent. The Grimm was not as big a threat as the infiltrators who may be operating in Atlas, and would likely exploit the chaos of combat to execute whatever plans they may have. (Namely, stealing the relics. Which was always Salem's priority, but that is a separate topic.)

Would isolating Atlas in space have dealt with the security breach? Very likely so. For example, Robyn Hill did not know what Ironwood's plan for Amity was until she was TOLD by Blake and Yang. Ironwood's security in Atlas was not fully breached as while Ironwood's office was infiltrated, the Staff was not taken until V8, and by playing his cards close to his chest Ironwood was able to trap Watts. Even RWBY was deceived when Ironwood lied that the Amity Tower was operational to bait Watts.

It seems likely, therefore, that isolating Atlas would be a more suitable response to the infiltrators. While fighting the Grimm would just spread everyone thin, and leave them vulnerable to a more damaging surprise attack from their blindspot. Like in Beacon, and a bit like in V8, to be fair.

In conclusion:

Ironwood's plan is always to raise Amity Tower and tell the world about Salem.

Ironwood's tactical decision is viable if you consider that; no one in the show questions the workability of launching Atlas into space, and that Ironwood's priority was dealing with the infiltrators, not the Grimm.

This is ultimately a primer of sorts for Ironwood fans so that they'd be aware of what Ironwood likely intended to do for V7. A little clarity, perhaps, amidst the heated misrepresentations and misunderstandings that surround Ironwood and his role in V7 and V8.