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.

"What's the point of armed resistance?"

This:

You can be a dumbass and condemn "terrorism" all you want, but I never will. It's the only method that's actually forcing the vile settlers to abandon their colonial project. And if you still can't see that then you're a stupid donkey.

Would prefer a taller, buffer, female reptile villain, but the Chameleon is kinda cute ...

Trailer fanarts lol

Reblog this if you like seeing me on your dash

👻👻 ooooo scary gay people

Oooo we’re disobeying god oooooo

Anyway any condemnation of gay people in the Bible is a mistranslation or written based on scientific misunderstandings of the time.

NOT going to tell you to kill yourself. Stay alive and well, please. Just look into supporting queer people as a Christian.

Look into how the road to hell is paved with good intentions, and how you should not love someone to perdition.

Bro how the ruck do you some how hate very real life social justice cause yet somehow try to claim Adam was rights for wanting to take more radical action towards fighting systemic in oppression lmao, frankly I shouldn’t be giving you the attention you so obviously crave

First of all, we all crave attention. The only difference is that I don't post behind the 'anonymous' tag.

Second of all, I 'hate' certain social justice causes because those causes are flawed. For example, Natives hate colonialism but happily take advantage of its benefits. Natives claim that colonists eradicated local culture but it does not occur to them that, maybe, hot water and agriculture are better than scalping and getting cholera from one bad bathe in the river.

However, I am cynical enough to recognize that whatever the cause one supports, radical action is the only true method of revolution.

Ultimately: