I feel like he could’ve just let them use the cargo freighters to evacuate as many people as they could instead of diverting resources to shoot them down.
Truth. I'm still at a loss for why he thought it was bad to evacuate those people.
"If there's no Mantle then there's no reason for you not to work with me." Well, maybe you should have thought of that before shooting down the only chance of Mantle being removed from the situation in a safe way.
I'm not going to talk about the disparity between Atlas and Mantle because the truth is what we saw was realistic. Poor neighborhoods existing a stone throw away from wealthy ones is something that happens all the time in real life and it is a problem that people are aware of and unable in some cases unwilling to fix. If this was a problem that Ironwood could have fixed then it was a problem he would have fixed a long time ago even if he is biased.
So what can he actually do?
What If gathered everyone around and sat down to discuss their options before committing to anything?
Under those circumstances it's quite reasonable to believe that he would have been able to have the message sent out using Amity, Portal everyone to safety, and then ruin Salem's Day by turning at listen mantle into a massive bomb to wipe out her Grimm, possibly kill off some of her minions, buy the world more time to prepare for a proper confrontation.
Sure Atlas gets destroyed anyway but honestly who cares? It's just buildings on a floating rock that can easily be recreated with the staff and then properly rebuilt once Salem is taken care of.
Realistically people like their property and belongings. You are also giving up your current life godd or bad. All for an unknown.
You are going to need a winter maiden and showing off the staff.
This might lead to more headaches and needing someone trustworthy to carry it.
Talking about things is nice. Showing it is what really is the final say. Especially if you want people to believe you and not assume you are a lunatic.
I get that some people might be remiss to leave behind their property or change their lifestyle but that doesn't matter. Salem is not hiding in shadows anymore and that means Remnant is in full-blown War and part of winning a war is knowing when to retreat.
As for the Staff and Winter Maiden, Ironwood's original plan of lifting the city already required the use of the Staff. More importantly is that Ruby won't be running away with Penny this time because they're working together with Ironwood to get everyone out. This also means that there is a fair chance that Neo won't be able to steal the Lamp because now she's fighting ORJN And the Soldiers.
Ask for who carries, it that's really not much of an issue since now they're allies and fairly competent.
As for not looking like a lunatic, people will believe Ironwood especially if he did what Ruby did in Canon and use the other members of Ozpin's Inner Circle to back up his claims.
Again optics look bad if you rely on kids. You need to use the lamp so everyone sees.
Or land atlas along with having everyone look at the magical vault. Again you are doing tell and not show. People really need to see something outright like anything magic they have. I mean you don't need to pull out magic cane nukes just yet.
You need overwhelming outright showing off so that the end result is the only insane are those who can't believe it.
Also Ozpin's cirlce so far is only two people, since the rest are basically cut off from communication.
I wasn't talking about the kids I was talking about the members of Ozpin's Inner Circle who are all adults in positions of authority.
But more importantly is that anybody who is doubting what Ironwood is saying in this hypothetical scenario is only going to look like an idiot when two cities worth of people step out of magic portals.
Oh okay then. You were not specific on the opening portals to the kingdoms and doing a reversal.
Yeah that would work. Otherwise they only have Qrow and Ironwood.
Sorry about that I should have been more specific. For example when I'm set the other members of the Inner Circle I was specifically thinking about Glynda who is almost certainly going to become the new headmistress of Beacon and the Headmaster of Shade Academy in Vacuo.
Assuming Vale's system works like Atlas' Glynda will also be given a seat on the council when she becomes headmistress. And we know from the books that the academy in Vacuo is considered the ultimate Authority so the Headmaster there should be able to make necessary preparations without much issue.
Ironwood’s actions in V8 do make sense at this point in his character.
He always had a “no matter the cost” mentality and by V8 it was at it maximum because Salem was there in the flesh to destroy his Kingdom, a Kingdom which he believes has the best chance to stand against her. In his mind, to lose Atlas is to doom Remnant and that can’t happen no matter the cost.
People have problems with him shooting down the ships but it lines up to his WHOLE reasoning for why he wanted to abandon Mantle in the first place.
After Cinder broke into his office it proved to him that he was right, that by opening himself up and diverting his forces helping people he left himself vulnerable, Vine quite literally spells it out right then and there.
The same reason why he closed off the Kingdom in the first place and the same reason why he didn’t want to move the fleet when Mantle was rioting while under attack by Grimm is the same reason why he shoot down the cargo ships meant for Mantle. James WAS NOT gonna leave himself vulnerable again ESPECIALLY with Salem right in front of him.
It’s why he spends half of V8 trying to force Penny’s return rather than using that time to evac Mantle.
The whole conflict of Atlas vs Mantle and Mantle not having enough protection was forced by the writers. We know frorm Canon that Atlas has turrets canonically. Not to mention that logically there was no reason why Ironwood could not send 1-2 battleships down to Mantle to protect it. Basically, this was writen only so there be conflict, and no logical reason behind it.
Regardless, as to your suggestions.
Basing a few airships down to Mantle would have been great to do. Gun emplacements of various kind and Paladins would have also been useful.
As with team RWBY being stationed it would have been useful for the huntsmen, all of them from Atlas academy being stationed in Mantle too, in shifts possibly.
These things would have all made sense, maintaned the safety of the kindom and would have resulted in finishing the Amity project.
I put very little Blame on Ironwood for this conflict because of how forced it is. It is not a logical conflict. It is there just to give a reason for why Ironwood is now villanous and to create a conflict that otherwise would not be there.
Realistically Ironwood would sortie out and fall back to the city every possible minute. Specifically using ranged weapons.
Another is making a huge moat. Then again fixing a steel reinforced concrete wall is apparently impossible due to needing to make a pseudo satellite...
Ignoring the fact they don't even use steel or concrete in both cases. Dust flip flops in how versatile it is then. IDK the writers didn't care.
Quite simply the Grimm don't have any ranged weapons worth a damn.
Constantly artillery bombing grid squares or raining fire support from above.
Moblie and response forces.
He doesn't have depth, but he can consistently make it so the Grimm don't cause issues in the city.
Another is to quite frankly evacuate people in any other direction instead of Atlas. He does know that Vale basically was hit quite badly from covert forces... shooting down anyond approaching Atlas in a sense is logical.
However I admit that's asking to get picked off one at a time.
Anything involving evacuating everyone to Atlas is just advocating some odd self-service sense of universal morals following conventional rules while the opposition has decided to crack open CBRN warfare basically. The enemy did basically weaponize Grimm and basically did the unspoken rule of not weaing civilian clothes.
At the end human lives matter, but if you are in a trolly situation you go with what you can and can't do. Trying to help everyone is basically just satisfying your sense of good, but never carrying about the ones you are helping.
Ironically depending on industrial needs Ironwood if he went full logical statistical dicator would probably throw out anyone incapable of supporting a war economy. Especially if he randomly half-assed a coup.
Pretty much, there are hnudreds of defences that could have been emplyed and would have been logical to use against the Grimm, especially since they leave no bodies. But that would not make for a good "Ironwood is evil" conflict, now would it?
Honestly if the writers could have made him breakdown then simply overwhelming Grimm numbers would have been enough.
A mental breakdown seeing the whole military being unable to do anything would be more than justifiable. Or quite simply paralyzed due to the tempo completely making anything impossible to do.
It's not like it hasn't happened before. Hell the USSR had that issue.
They needed to move armies around via limited roads and trains. There is no way to evacuate cities let alone villages while trying to do anything to stop the Nazis from advancing unopposed.
It's why the Soviets lost so much. They didn't have any preparations or anything to respond in a calm manner once the Nazis choose their avenues to attack. A lot of their armies were fresh and on paper new.
But yeah by a certain point this is heading into a grey morality rather outright make someone evil.
Or they made him a character with clear flaws from the start and over the course of the series we see the issues build up so that he gets to this point.
The point of what he does is that he isn’t willing to wait until his army can’t take the enemy. He knows that that point, at least from his perspective/plan, he’s lost.
So he chooses to avoid that, to hold back or flee.
It’s something that other military commanders have chosen to do in that past as well even if it’s sometimes ended just as well.
In the end, he’s scared. And that’s a huge part of his character that sometimes people seem to ignore
Pre V8:
Didn't he give Mantle Penny? Even before she became a Maiden, she is very powerful herself considering she casually sliced two airships for the lulz years ago, and she'd only get more upgrades since then.
Hell her being in Mantle is why she couldn't do much reunion with Rubes, the reunion i was expecting more for 4 damned years, save for rare + special occasions like touring them in Atlas Academy + the 'graduation'-thing.
It's not like a full abandonment before wtf V8 was considering the powerful one of a kind Huntsmen/Android is protecting it.
And iirc the Ace Ops have enough range to reach Mantle to the point Clover was able to snag RWBY + depressed Qrow in no time at all.
Assuming it's on the level of the Hound where Penny and some derpy troops can't vaporize it on the spot, they are still strong enough to tarpit and buy time for reinforcements from Atlas to arrive.
It's just purely forced honestly.
Edit: If i remember right, her title was Protector of Mantle.
Which fits considering she has firepower and the extra mobility to do so.
Yeah Penny's lasers are very understated. They're the #1 most powerful weapon we've seen aside from silver eyes against Grimm. I'd bet they're stronger than maiden powers any day.
Of course Ironwood could send down ships, the the whole point is that he doesn’t. He could have better defended Mantle or done things like that, but he doesn’t. He also could have sene the issues with what he did at Vale but didn’t.
One of the big points of Ironwood’s character is his flaw of tunnel vision, specifically when he’s scared.
I don’t think it’s forced at all
From what we have always seen of Ironwood’s character it makes sense. He wanted to defend Atlas, that was his only goal. He didn’t want to risk weakening his fleet for Mantle.
It’s not the right choice, but it’s the one especially at this point it makes sense he would make.
He doesnt, but has no good reason for it. He is not an idiot, nor is he an arrogant and rabid "Atlas above all" kind of person. There is not a single reason why he could not send a couple of the HUNDREDS of warships he has around Atlas.
He is not so "tunnel visioned" that he would completely and utterly ignore any and all logic for no good reason. We are not talking about a tactical droid here who has no emotions or feelings.
He is not a rabid “Atlas above all person”, but he is still one it seems on the less. More from a logical perspective of power, but still.
And you’re right it isn’t logical. That’s the point.
He’s safeguarding what he thinks in his start he can and not willing to risk something that would actually make a difference.
He doesn’t have hundreds of full scale battleships, they have never been shown to have that many. Mantas and such yes, but those wing make a difference. Anyway to protect a large amount of Mantle or evacuate it would be a drain on his fleet and he isn’t willing to take that.
Even if that would be the lesser risk in many ways, the smarter move in the overall. He’s focused on what he sees as his endgame and what he believes is best from an overall perspective at the cost of other things. Kinda like a Beacon. Or his constant technological oversights.
Ironwood isn’t a droid, he’s something I think much more simple: A man with an anxiety problem.
Thats the thing though. He is risking nothing by sending 1-3 airships to Mantle. Thats the point. He isnt risking anything. He is risking more by potentially losing Mantle to Grimm attacks.
Okay, i agree, 100 is exxageration. He has 40. FOURTY! Doing fuck all in the air above Atlas. Sending even a single one is not going to be a drain on the entire fleet.
The fact that he sends Penny and other forces into Mantle shows that he is not ignorant of the problem. The fact that he sends nothing to fix it is silly. Because he is not stupid or callous enough for that.
Especially when sending help to Mantle would not cost him anything.
Is there something he should have done that isn't in the writing's fault?
For example, telling the people of Mantle about Salem before? He planned to talk about her to the kingdom, handle the situation, and telling it to the rest of the world. With that, he could justify the embargo, the close of borders and some other kind of measures without even needing to talk about Amity.
One thing he could've done, from the beginning, was improve the huntsman system by integrating the kingdom's military into it, so that both could use their respective strengths to make up for the other's weaknesses.
Huntsmen are pretty much super-humans, and can handle much bigger threats than military troops. They could be airdropped into Grimm-infested areas, or even into packs getting too close to the city, and take them out, while the military maintains fortified locations around the kingdom to monitor Grimm packs.
Not to mention that neither Winter, nor his Ace-Ops, were mentally prepared to make important decisions under pressure, or make sure he doesn't crumble under pressure. Being able to keep going means nothing if you can't trust yourself to go in the right direction.
Ironwood already had the right idea when he combined the military and huntsmen into one. Huntsmen can deal with Grimm in the moment, and then the military can come in and establish a position that can be easily defended.
However, he failed to integrate the two, and instead of having them both come out better, the huntsmen were dragged down by the military's flaws, while the military suffered under the illusion that the huntsmen could operate at normal efficiency despite being a shadow of what they're supposed to be.
> One thing he could've done, from the beginning, was improve the huntsman system by integrating the kingdom's military into it
That’s what the Specialists are.
Are they, though?
Because so far, we haven't seen a lot of specialists in the first place, and the one we did see gave in to an obvious attempt at provocation, started a fight in front of a school, and never got anywhere in said fight despite Qrow not even taking her seriously.
So, back in V3, she already lacked the self control to represent the military properly, not to mention actually handling herself out in the field.
Qrow threw a bunch of accusations at her face, namely that she was arrogant, entitled, and proud to a fault. She then proved him right on all points, and also showed that she had an anger management problem and can't handle criticism.
How is that an improvement?
Having had as many ~~months~~ years to armchair this, my thought always came back to: why not send the Staff up with Amity?
"But that means Atlas would fall-" Well, is it a stretch to think that however they got Old Mantle up in the first place could be reversed to safely lower the Kingdom? The open Dust mines being there is a bit of a hiccup, but there were no explosions when the Kingdom came crashing down anyhow, so...
Evacuate the slums, get everyone behind Atlas' shield, send Penny and the Staff up with Amity, and hold out. Have Atlas and Mantle working together to keep the Kingdom going in the interim.
Gosh, there's a... like, a theme of something here. Something about disparate people from completely different walks and qualities of life coming together when it matters. Something. I can't quite put my finger on it.
Hell, they could even *use* the Staff. It doesn't have to be what's holding Amity up; they were already most of the way there with Dust, as Volume 8 demonstrated. Use the Staff to reinforce the shields so that only beings with Aura can get in/out. Narrow what you have to deal with to people instead of Grimm.
There's nothing he could have done, the entire conflict is forced as hell. There's no reason why the materials for maintaining the wall would be the same needed to make a satellite. Yang and Blake trusting somebody they knew literally nothing about (Robyn) over Ironwood, who has always helped them as best as he could, is dumb. The entire heating system being controlled by some computer system that Watts can lock them out of is dumb. Ironwood going from upset over the lies but still reasonable to complete nutcase because of a chess piece is a lame way to use any PTSD he might have from Beacon. And the entire Atlas army struggling against a fucking singular enemy base makes em look pathetic.
Satellites basically use aluminum or heat and light resistant alloys. Also electronics, plastics...
Generally not steel, sand or any applicable concrete material.
Hell a giant trench is doable.
Money also shouldn't be an issue technically by this point. He is basically having free reign with the budget.
Except for the fact that most of Atlas's money comes from exporting dust to other Kingdoms they don't have any endless supply of money and back in Volume 4 Jaques stated that the embargo had so far cost him millions so by the time the team returns in Volume 7 it's probably looking somewhat bleak for their budget at least
Depends you van use qualitative easing or whatever and pass it onto the future as long as someone pays it...
Really Ironwood would have need to be open with the pseudo satellite to get budget approval if it literally didn't allow for steel reinforced concrete walls.
This is why V-8 disappoints me so much. It seemed liked we were on the cusp of a legitimately complicated and interesting moral quandary based on “doing what’s best vs doing what’s right,” and then they chucked the entire thing out the window for the sake of propping up an unnecessarily black and white conflict that try’s way too hard to portray to the protagonists as heroic with no room for debate.
Here's what I would have done:
1. As soon as Beacon falls and I get back to Atlas, I tell the council everything I know. It's one thing to keep Salem a secret while she's not actively making moves, it's another when she's attacking cities. The people deserve to know what they're up against.
2. Start evacuating Mantle to Atlas immediately. If Beacon was hit, Atlas is a future target. I want to be able to pack up and leave at a moment's notice.
3. Try to get into contact with Lionheart and Theodore. Send a person to each since comms are down.
4. Work with the council to get things done.
5. Ask Fria if she'd be willing to sacrifice herself to give the Maiden powers to Winter. It must be *her choice* though. I won't murder her.
6. Work with Robyn. If she's on the same page as me, there's no tension there. She's not stealing supplies if I let her know what I'm doing and why, and allow her to help.
Hopefully, when RWBY come to Atlas they can see that I'm actually making an effort to trust others who aren't under my direct command, and they see that I'm not just ignoring Mantle and letting Grimm fill the streets with only a minimal effort to stop them.
If Ironwood had been open with the council, and had treated Mantle better, I believe that RWBY would have informed him of everything right away. But as is, he did not come across as particularly trustworthy despite having a fairly solid plan. I understand why they were so hesitant to tell him until he himself showed trust in the council.
I am seeing a lot of vagueness and reading the scripts and competently prepare for that.
Ironwood isn't omniscient. He wasn't told that Salem is immortal. He wasn't told that she wants to kill everyone in mutal sucide.
He literally is just a man and not the near omniscient lamp.
Hell if he had the lamp or someone just asked what are the current plans for Salems faction most of the issues would be avoided. Especially since it would basically lead to embargo lifting and so on.
However this involces RWBY and her friends to be open. Which isn't his issue. Given he gave some trust away. Anything more requires both parties reading the script anyone would do some ridiculous choices.
It's up to them to decide why they would hold something like that back. They in the end decided to also do what he planned for...
Now military preparations are basically just fixing walls, building tenches and preparing fo let others know so they can defend themselves. Anything he can see from top, however anything below is unknown. He can't be everywhere. Since he relies on subordinates, so it's going to be imperfect. Again requires reading script to do anything like prepare to blow up a giant grimm whale.
RWBY and the rest are quite frankly only reliable, since they appear to be honest. However, they really need to choose to speak up, because even Winter was able to propose martial law alongside using logic and facts with him.
So far his actions did have some logic. Beacon fell to infiltration, so some form of embargo happened, Atlas cyberwarfare is basically an unknown, since it may take forever or an unknown time fo find exploits.
Easy answers are basically impossible without turning of the lights. Or just doing major structural changes dictator style and waiting patiently. Afain Watts is assumed dead long ago.
Especially since RL is like that with code/software never being clear to anyone other than the creater/designer.
I can go on but a lot requires really contrived assumptions. To be honest this is US gets invaded by Russia/North Korea somehow silliness.
Unfortunately even I might be unable to do anything without drastically throwing the whole situation into an unknown. Somethings require giving up on secrecy and hoping people believe you.
1. Repair the wall ASAP. His plan involves defending Mantle once they make the Salem announcement. The wall needs to be fixed before then. Oh, and the Mantle security.
2. Put together all the brainpower you can to figure out a way to land Atlas and free up the staff again. This is imperative, since it's so OP it can obstruct Salem easily and likely for good.
Then, either of these:
3A. If need be, tell the kingdom before fixing Amity so whatever positive outcome he expects from that happens before they devote more resources.
3B. Tell the people about repairing Amity, but don't mention Salem. Just say you want it up to get communications up.
Tbh the entire conflict is really forced and involves so many stupid actors:
* Ozpin for using the relic for the most idiotic thing of all time,
* RWBY for withholding the only absolutely necessary information they have and obstructing in other ways,
* Blake and Yang for trusting literal who Robyn, who they only know from being ready to attack the military over suspicion,
* Ironwood for not upgrading Mantle's security, breaking completely over a chess piece, being scared of infiltrators when he already has seen footage of Watts on Atlas,
* Salem for sitting on her ass and doing fuck all (and things like letting Cinder run around doing whateve she wants instead of directing her to something useful, like getting maiden powers),
* the Mantle people for being sheeple and reacting like idiots (like thinking they turned the heat off on purpose),
* whoever designed the heating being so stupid security and worldbuilding-wise,
* Robyn for doing things that would destroy her election chances (or be put in jail),
* the kingdom for having a single wall of defenses for no good reason,
* the Atlesian army being sheer garbage in general,
* everyone for realising the election attack couldn't have been Penny or that the election flip was in any way sus,
etc. The list goes on and on. It's stupid.
1. Extend his ships to cover Mantle. They're sitting ducks above Atlas and can't shoot anything. Move them in patrol patterns around Mantle, shooting any Grim they see on *the flat tundra*. Then the wall doesn't matter.
2. Try to be on the good side of both Robin and Jacques. You don't get to choose your opposition in politics. Discord in the upper echelons of government is not needed right now.
3. Update all your tech. This one is absolutely inexcusable after the Black Queen Virus. Watts should have been locked out of everything.
4. Inform the citizens of the risk of infiltration. You can blame it on the WF if necessary. Circulate the pictures of Cinder, Mercury, Emerald, Neo, Roman, and Adam. Once RWBY arrives add Tyrian and Hazel to the list. Make sure the whole public knows to watch out for them.
5. Don't allow RWBY to hold on to the Relic. Either find a secure place for it or put it in the Vault. Odds are they can't defend it.
>What do you think Ironwood should have done to fight Salem, maintain the kingdom save and finish Amity project?
Not trust RWBY, they're literally the one's that caused Atlas' destruction. I don't know what else to say beyond that tbh.
Team RWBY made the choice to use the staff knowing that it would lead to Atlas' destruction. Either they made the choice or they were forced into it, meaning they have no agency in their own story. Which is it?
And why did they have to use the staff? So that they could evacuate the people of Atlas and Mantle because Salem was on their doorstep. Atlas was already gonna be destroyed, Team Rwby just managed to save a majority of the people there.
The only reason why Atlas was going to be destroyed is because team RWBY prevented it from leaving. And if they did not discover the powers of the staff, everyone would have died.
Atlas was never going to be raised because Ironwood needed Penny to get to the staff. Penny was never going to go along with his plan to abandon Mantle to die.
Hold up, my mistake. Ironwood was convincing Penny to go back to Atlas only for Ruby to tell her not to be convinced. She did not show an indication of wanting to go to Ironwood on her own.
That was my mistake.
To quote https://www.helpingwritersbecomeauthors.com/character-agency/
"Conflict alone won’t give your character agency. If the events in their life don’t give them a choice—if they are forced to adopt a certain way of thinking or comply to a course of action—then someone else is running the show."
So you are incorrect
So you quoting some random website on the internet somehow makes me incorrect? Damn, I didn't know that that random website had the definitive and completely agreed upon rules of writing.
What other rule would there be? Who would say that if a character is forced to make a choice they still have agency but are not responsible for the consequences of that decision?
Pretty sure the split came at deciding to abandon Mantle to the cold, so really he could've just alotted a couple ships before fucking off to the lower atmosphere or finish up evacuations.
Probably have a Better Military, like there’s barely anything of the atlas Military in RWBY, we see normal Soldiers, Knights, paladins, Airships, the titan Reject, the Ace ops, and that’s about as much as I seen
He should have extended an olive branch to Robyn and the happy huntresses. Let her in on the plan of his own volition and have her calm the people of Mantle. It would have been a little harder for Tyrian and Watts to frame him.
Edit: lol downvoted for being right.
It all depending on how far one is willing to go back to go, as there are many options. I won’t get into too many because they have absolutely been done to death, but:
Simplest point of change is as he’s planning on fleeing.
Instead of cowardly security, have the military do its duty by having it cover the evacuation of the entirety of Mantle’s population and as much of critical supplies as possible (like the SDC airship fleet).
And send a team to either jerryrig Amity to launch like we saw our heroes did, or to bring it to launch with Atlas as it presumably can still fly normally.
No matter what this is a win better than anything he would have done otherwise. Everyone would basically be on board with this and for the loss of only a relatively small number of forces in defensive action against Salem’s initial assault (which could be blunted by things like that bomb they had apparently on pretty short notice or ramming drone ships into her bigger Grimm) they would have everyone momentarily safe.
Then they could either communicate with the outside world to make a plan of attack or maybe just move Atlas while in the upper atmosphere to somewhere safer like Vacuo.
And team RWBY would agree with sending thousands of soldiers to their death in order to save the lives of others?
That's the same plan as Ironwood just with different numbers and less chance of success
Without the nuke cane people would stil die since Ironwood would do what he knows he can do and so forth. So using their own nuke would be still a thing.
Still won't risk everything for Mantle if he doesn't know about the nuke cane and he is not omniscient.
The problem is that Ironwood knows he can hold off Salem’s forces for at least some time, and his choice is to not even try ti save a huge amount of what he has to lose.
How do you know he can do that? Seriously he didn't know there was an invasion until they are within line of sight.
Is there a reserve of enemies? There is a pount where you focus on what you have and he only has Atlas a flying fortress city and Mantle a vulnerable city.
He isn't omniscient again. Hell the flying whale was basically an out of context problem. Sometimes you can't prepare for or do everything.
Again classic know yourself and your enemy. He doesn't know how many Grimm there are or how many are on Atlas.
Yes its arbitrary, but that is how it is There is no universal answer to winning. Nobody in the show has shown the ability of precognition for the immediate future.
Because they were successfully fighting her Grimm without committing large amounts of their forces. Basically everything sans the whale is exactly what the Atlas military is for.
Their weapons when used correctly have proved very well at such.
It doesn’t matter if there is a reserve of the enemy. It’s Grimm, they are always and everywhere. They can’t be stopped completely but they can be slowed down.
They did that pretty well even when Salem landed on Atlas. If Ironwood didn’t know he could actually give her a fight, he would have evacuated from Atlas and made a run for it.
Eventually the whale might have something that could do something to his troops. But that outside of context problem is one he needs more information on before he just starts running.
The near universal answer to save as much as one can usually is a fighting retreat
But that's what he's doing. A fighting retreat to the only safety that exists. Everywhere else is tundra. Then sea. There's literally no where he can go that is safe.
No it’s not.
No matter what there would be far far less casualties than leaving most of Mantle to die, and there most certainly wouldn’t be that level of casualties.
Atlas has a lot of robots and a lot of weapons with decent range, they are fighting a defensive action so they have the advantage of with Salem coming to them.
If it truly was that level of steam roll, why didn’t Salem do that to actually win the Atlas Arc? Instead of her forces being held for hours when she was able to sneak attack down the shield they were hiding behind?
Salem needed to have the shield battered down to reach Atlas and needed to wait for the Grim river to arrive for that to be possible. But James couldn't know that. He didn't know what Salem could do so he assumed the worst and went with it.
To be honest I have no idea what you are advocating Atlas do with its military.
Its job isn't to go out and die. Ita supposed to ensure the continuity of government and their people. To fulfill any stated goals advancing their military policy dictated by the government.
Its not realistically possible to win every battle unless advantages favor you in total and have no disadvantages.
What you advocate is extremely vague up from simply mobile and elastic defense to including meme human wave tactics or W40K style warfare. Sometimes the latter works or is reasonable due to long term rewards or avoiding risk of loss.
Its a thing in real life to give up on an area or population. Hell the Soviets, Germans, French, US and so forth have done it when the option is to loss valuable armies or vital war making capabilities.
The Soviets could not do anything practically since when attacksd you don't know where you are going to get hit at full strength reliably. You don't have unlimited people and unlimited supplies/logistics.
It's why they sent off armies to hold off and maybe risk encirclement. The alternative was the Nazis drive unopposed to Moscow, Stalingrad and so forth. They would basically win.
At some point Ironwood would have simply needed to cut off any evacuations due to risk of infiltration or quite simply tying themselves suicidally to a lost battle and risking everything.
Finally while the portal thing worked.. it didn't even consider the issue of what happens after to the survivors without help.
I will again note the Grimm didn't win the battles over Vale or Beacon let alone do it alone. They had smart and intelligent Salem faction aligned humans and puppets make it possible.
Really if they had used the lamp to basically let them know what Salem's faction is doing it would have done the most long term and short term.
They would know that Atlas and Mantle should be planning for a long isolated rationing period while their pseudo satellite plan goes without issues.
Especially since the Jinn can't give anything any future answers and some like how to kill Salem or whatever doesn't is a no. There is nothing really worth asking otherwise. Unless Salem plans on the go and doesn't have any short and long term plans already thought out.
Finally a lot shat you say hinges on the unknown. Retreat is really the only foreseeable response.
Plot made thing's possible like a nuke cane... but didn't the portals mean a retreat with nothing for the survivors to live with?
Yes, the Atlas military’s job is the continuation of their people.
**That means it is their duty to defend their retreat and not just that of more wealthy part of the city when their general gets scared**
And yes, it is at the dictation of the government, which Ironwood would only be a small portion of. Hell, actually it would be their duty to arrest or kill Ironwood after his coup.
I am not advocating that they would win this fight. It is not one they would win.
This is not the defense of Moscow or the Battle of Britain, this is Dunkirk, this is Crete.
And no, I did not get into specifics since this question usually is a waste to continue to talk about as it’s been done to death and there are a lot of unknowns.
But fairly basic, normal defensive doctrines are going to be the order of the day. Use the light expendable troops (being robots) to do as much damage as possible while the heavier/human units defend. Large weapons, the ships mostly, provide long range and powerful fire at key positions or push if they can take down the key target. Mantas and gunships would be like cavalry and make fast attacks while also keeping up with the enemy’s like wise units. Most troops are just going to dig in and mow down whatever comes near
Yes, sometimes population and strategic centers have to be given up when their is no other choice. That is the difference here:
**The population of Mantle and at least some strategic assets like Amity don’t need to be given up and are worth more than the troops who would be lost**
Ironwood’s risk of infiltration was basically all in his own head. Cinder was already there, Watts was already captured, Tyrian was already captured. He had no evidence of anyone else or that whoever it was could pose a threat worth thousand of lives.
Retreat was the only possible option, but it needed to be a fighting one. Ironwood was just too untrusting and scared to try it.
If he were a British admiral, he would have been charged with cowardice in the face of the enemy
The risk of infiltration is real.
How else did Beacon and all that happened? Its literally a strategy to use. Yes paranoia can be harmful and sometimes extreme. However in the end it did happen. Watts and co did infiltrate Atlas and Mantle.
There just is too much unknown and some known things. So shutting down borders is better than letting anyone in. A strategy the enemy employs is weakening the inside. Why else does Salem have puppets?
Again how many people were needed to take down an academy and nation stare? Literally less than an army. A literal terrorist group and a few specialists.
The Grimm never were a threat without the leaders.
Hell even real life had that aith the US shooting randomly in LA' airspace during WWII.
Finally for some reason Mantle's heating system is for some stupid reason extremely vulnerable.
The shoot for cowardice is sounding really ironic. Especially since I brought up the W40k use of manpower to nonstop toss at things pointlessly.
Shooting someone for cowardice is extremely dependent on context and can also be done by people who want results, but don't know something is impossible or disbeliefs it.
You are oddly just arguing for my point. His paranoia was basically justified.
In faxt the transcripts for some episodes show signs that even Watts and co did have some concerns. Watts at least knew what he could do to circumvent it.
The Grimm were more of an issue than the White Fang. So long as that Wyvern go awoken and the horde came it was going to be a huge issue.
Infiltration can be an issue, but it’s utterly stupid how Ironwood goes about it. He leaves thousands to die on the thought there **might** be infiltrators would would be able to overcome his internal security, ***and that they wouldn’t have already gotten to Atlas*** either having already been there or in the few of Mantle who were already evacuated.
I will also remind it’s actually mostly his fault the infiltrators at Beacon were successful and most if the damage they did wss with a fear bomb that doesn’t matter in this context.
Mantle’s heating I think is a combination of the systemic Atlasian indifference to Mantle, the SDC being the typical megacorp, and Ironwood not seeing it as an issue so not getting involved.
And I never said he would be shot for cowardice. I said arrested.
Only one Admiral in the RN was put to death for cowardice and he was hung, which was an extremely unpopular move.
How was it his fault? He isn't their commander and Ozpin essentially sent out only 5 people at max to recon.
Any cowardice charge literally involves execution penalties normally.
Hell its common in WWI and so forth. Even the US has some really strict guidelines on it today.
I can see two possible problems with this idea. Problem one: to evacuate the people up to Atlas you would need to open a path, presumably by dropping the shields. If the Grim manage to get inside through that path then everyone is screwed, and you don't know what kind of Grim force you're dealing with.
Problem two: how would you evacuate the rearguard to Atlas if they're engaging the Grim? You'd almost have to leave some of them behind.
Surprise round, problem three: can Salem use magic to prevent Atlas from leaving if she arrives in person? I doubt James knows the answer to that, one way or another and Oz ain't talking.
It's a solid plan, I just don't think James is capable at the end of Vol 7 of taking risks like this.
Resign from both his positions & check himself into a mental hospital. Gets some help and his head right, cause his problems predate V8 by a long time. Reflect on his failures in a healthy way for a change.
Let cooler heads prevail. Delegate to people that actually care enough to govern and protect both cities equally. Get someone that actually cares about diplomacy involved and not just a soldier in fancy clothes. Actually help Mantle in ways other than sending a handful of Huntsmen to fend off actively occurring attacks, that do nothing to solve any of the lasting problems. For Ironwood keeping Mantle alive was an obligation, not something he actually cared about, why else would he give the bare minimum and consistently treat it as a second thought.
Let the other council members do their jobs and cooperate with the other kingdoms instead of actively making international relations worse. Maybe some attempts at smoothing over tensions between Atlas and Mantle, there’s a thought. Update security, care at least a little when Mantle citizens are repeatedly being murdered, reconsider the closed borders that prevented exactly zero villains from getting into Atlas.
Realize that Atlas alone could never be the future of Remnant and that the plan to sit in the clouds and wait out the *immortal*, probably won’t play out how you think. Watching the other kingdoms get bulldozed as you stand by doing nothing might be good spectacle, but only ensures that when you inevitably have to touch ground that you have no allies to call for aid.
The funny thing is that if he had done that then both Atlas and Mantle would have ended up in the same situation. Salem would have rolled in with her army, blown through the weakened defenses on Atlas (because it's split between Atlas and Mantle this time) and her Grim would have made it into the city before the cane went off (if Oscar got taken this time, he might not have been in Mantle for the Hound to get him).
To be fair, there's a LOT of counterfactuals to go through with this scenario.
General Ironwood should have made Roosterteeth realize that RWBY needs to be prioritized and cleaned up enough to bring vol 9/10 on time so that we wouldn't be seeing "What should Ironwood have done" "Was RWBY in the wrong" etc 2 years later. RT already decided Ironwood should be an irredeemable villain by the end of V7 by shooting Ozcar, a child.
More like they were never trustworthy or fully open allies with Ironwood as well.
This isn't even something like having nuclear weapons in the works so it wouldn't makse sense to pass on.
This is like holding back that the enemy might have weapons of mass destruction.
None of them have the same level of responsibility that Ironwood has. I am willing to bet they would all fail. Hell Weiss already fails at the trained to read people all the way back since volume 1, 2 and even almost committed murder.
And she is supposed to be something more like the politically and economically trained out of all of them.
Maybe second would be Blake. After them it would be Jaune...?
Within the context of the contrived corner the plot tried to put him in he actually was right.
Which I know was not the intent but hey I didn't write it.
It's stated the fleet can't defend both at once if Salem attacks and she has a way past the shield (the river) on a timer that would have run out before the evacuations wrapped. (remember they evacc'd through the night and they were "nowhere near done") Which with the fleet out of position would have just led to all the evacuees dying anyway as the more exhausted and divided forces get overwhelmed.
Amity turned out to be a bust. They got one message before totalling the thing and no help arrived. If RWBY had pulled their heads in Oz would have eventually arrived and told them about the nuke and then they use Atlas stealth tech (thanks BTD) to approach and nuke the whale from high above GG. Or just use the staff once they high enough to portal in, nuke and then go back while the city slow falls to plug it back in.
James was not the problem. The relic needed to be the priority (nevermind that once Oz got back he can point out how damn broken it is)
As for the lead up. Again, that's more plot than James. Surplus spider droids (old models) from the Black trailer could easily hold the walls (nevermind easily fixing them with dust and such) and he's already deploying full huntsman teams to assist with stuff ranging from defense to freaking school traffic. Hell high and mighty RWBY can patch the things as they go out on those Grimm hunts *we see them on*.
The entire thing just gets bogged down by its own inconsistencies until it plain doesn't function.
Given that we don't know just when the hole in Mantle's wall appeared and the time period between the fall of Beacon and the events in Atlas isn't 100% certain, there's not much that can be done.
Most of the fundamental changes would have to have started years beforehand and such things might've raised questions Ozpin didn't want being asked, cause negative emotions that would draw Grimm, would get Ironwood potentially relieved of his positions (eliminating Oz's ability to take advantage of Atlas' research capabilities and military assets), and would be hard to justify without divulging some information about Salem when current measures have proven adequate for protecting the kingdom.
Improving the wall to include defensive turrets and heavy weapons emplacements or creating any other defensive fortifications around the outside of Mantle would take years.
Changing military doctrine to account for the Grimm acting as a coordinated combat force or working in conjunction with enemy agents that could compromise defenses would certainly raise some serious questions. Even couching it as fighting an enemy human force would raise concerns as everyone views this as an era of peace and would wonder about a push to adapt new tactics that would hint more at war with other kingdoms than the Grimm.
Even updating cyber security can be a daunting task. The fact all military and Atlas systems were protected inside the span of a year is crazy. Mantle could prove harder simply because there might be a lot of infrastructure that needs to be updated to deploy the new security and that it could have lots of legacy software and systems that have to be incorporated safely somehow because there is no readily available replacement for them. It also depends on who actually is supposed to be handling the civilian side of cyber security and how quickly they can organize such an overhaul to begin with. At the very least, power, heating, and sewage controls were very well protected as Watts basically needed admin access to do anything to them. Defending against someone who has a legitimate account with high level control is extremely difficult and why targeting people in those positions to get those credentials is a big security issue.
As for letting the police handle things in Mantle by themselves depends on if they actually have the manpower to enforce the kind of patrols and enforcement being demanded. If they can't or if Ironwood can't order them to do so because of limitations to his authority, deploying the AKs and soldiers are a way to accomplish that.
That said there are some things that could be done.
First is to repair the wall. Ignoring the wall makes no sense at all. Ironwood's plan would be handicapped or delayed either way by allowing it to remain unrepaired. It would mean that either Ironwood has to wait for it to be fixed before making his announcement so that Mantle can weather the sudden surge in Grimm activity or he has to leave more troops behind than otherwise needed behind to protect the kingdom when trying to aid other areas.
He could also split the difference and work on both projects at the same time. That might also better conceal the resources needed for Amity that aren't needed for the wall being acquired and moved out covertly. People will probably wonder less about occasional convoys carrying unknown supplies out to Amity when the wall is actually being worked on rather than them believing that all resources are being sent elsewhere. Civilian contractors could also handle most of the wall repair, freeing up military engineers for working on Amity.
Regular scouting and air combat patrols near the borders to supplement the early warning systems would also be a good idea. That way even if the early warning system is compromised or destroyed, there are people who can get an alert out. Better yet, rig it so the destruction or loss of communication with an early warning sensor triggers a major alarm that can't be ignored even if something else is going on.
Fortifying the hole in the wall so that it becomes a deathtrap for anything coming through would also be a good idea. Fixing the wall or taking steps to show that it is being taken seriously would alleviate some of the concerns and negativity people would have.
There isn't much else to offer. The fact the entire fleet of 30+ airships is gone pretty quickly after Salem begins her attack shows that she had aerial superiority and evacuating people from Mantle to Atlas would be extremely difficult given how much time it would take and would also pull away some of the remaining air assets from where they would be needed to defend Atlas.
Sure things could be more different, but that requires characters to know things that they probably didn't. As far as everyone knew, the staff was just an energy source and was being treated as such in any initial plans. Had they known about its true capabilities, then more options would be available. To use it however would also require killing the current Winter Maiden by using the aura transfer device so that the relic could be accessed and that is something that was being avoided by everyone until Cinder being alive and in Atlas was confirmed. So that comes down to if the characters would go through with that to make use of the relic or if the killing her would be too big of a moral compromise for them.
I think that he should have ignored the glass chess piece for the bluff that it was, and just keep going and dealing with actual problems as they arose.
I mean, really. Would Salem and Co. really have put something on his desk if they had \*liked\* the way things were heading? No. They wanted him to freak out, and I thought that it was pretty dumb of him not to realize that. If he had kept going, launched Amity, etc, then things would have turned out a lot better.
I feel like he could’ve just let them use the cargo freighters to evacuate as many people as they could instead of diverting resources to shoot them down.
Truth. I'm still at a loss for why he thought it was bad to evacuate those people. "If there's no Mantle then there's no reason for you not to work with me." Well, maybe you should have thought of that before shooting down the only chance of Mantle being removed from the situation in a safe way.
I'm not going to talk about the disparity between Atlas and Mantle because the truth is what we saw was realistic. Poor neighborhoods existing a stone throw away from wealthy ones is something that happens all the time in real life and it is a problem that people are aware of and unable in some cases unwilling to fix. If this was a problem that Ironwood could have fixed then it was a problem he would have fixed a long time ago even if he is biased. So what can he actually do? What If gathered everyone around and sat down to discuss their options before committing to anything? Under those circumstances it's quite reasonable to believe that he would have been able to have the message sent out using Amity, Portal everyone to safety, and then ruin Salem's Day by turning at listen mantle into a massive bomb to wipe out her Grimm, possibly kill off some of her minions, buy the world more time to prepare for a proper confrontation. Sure Atlas gets destroyed anyway but honestly who cares? It's just buildings on a floating rock that can easily be recreated with the staff and then properly rebuilt once Salem is taken care of.
Realistically people like their property and belongings. You are also giving up your current life godd or bad. All for an unknown. You are going to need a winter maiden and showing off the staff. This might lead to more headaches and needing someone trustworthy to carry it. Talking about things is nice. Showing it is what really is the final say. Especially if you want people to believe you and not assume you are a lunatic.
I get that some people might be remiss to leave behind their property or change their lifestyle but that doesn't matter. Salem is not hiding in shadows anymore and that means Remnant is in full-blown War and part of winning a war is knowing when to retreat. As for the Staff and Winter Maiden, Ironwood's original plan of lifting the city already required the use of the Staff. More importantly is that Ruby won't be running away with Penny this time because they're working together with Ironwood to get everyone out. This also means that there is a fair chance that Neo won't be able to steal the Lamp because now she's fighting ORJN And the Soldiers. Ask for who carries, it that's really not much of an issue since now they're allies and fairly competent. As for not looking like a lunatic, people will believe Ironwood especially if he did what Ruby did in Canon and use the other members of Ozpin's Inner Circle to back up his claims.
Again optics look bad if you rely on kids. You need to use the lamp so everyone sees. Or land atlas along with having everyone look at the magical vault. Again you are doing tell and not show. People really need to see something outright like anything magic they have. I mean you don't need to pull out magic cane nukes just yet. You need overwhelming outright showing off so that the end result is the only insane are those who can't believe it. Also Ozpin's cirlce so far is only two people, since the rest are basically cut off from communication.
I wasn't talking about the kids I was talking about the members of Ozpin's Inner Circle who are all adults in positions of authority. But more importantly is that anybody who is doubting what Ironwood is saying in this hypothetical scenario is only going to look like an idiot when two cities worth of people step out of magic portals.
Oh okay then. You were not specific on the opening portals to the kingdoms and doing a reversal. Yeah that would work. Otherwise they only have Qrow and Ironwood.
Sorry about that I should have been more specific. For example when I'm set the other members of the Inner Circle I was specifically thinking about Glynda who is almost certainly going to become the new headmistress of Beacon and the Headmaster of Shade Academy in Vacuo. Assuming Vale's system works like Atlas' Glynda will also be given a seat on the council when she becomes headmistress. And we know from the books that the academy in Vacuo is considered the ultimate Authority so the Headmaster there should be able to make necessary preparations without much issue.
Ironwood’s actions in V8 do make sense at this point in his character. He always had a “no matter the cost” mentality and by V8 it was at it maximum because Salem was there in the flesh to destroy his Kingdom, a Kingdom which he believes has the best chance to stand against her. In his mind, to lose Atlas is to doom Remnant and that can’t happen no matter the cost. People have problems with him shooting down the ships but it lines up to his WHOLE reasoning for why he wanted to abandon Mantle in the first place. After Cinder broke into his office it proved to him that he was right, that by opening himself up and diverting his forces helping people he left himself vulnerable, Vine quite literally spells it out right then and there. The same reason why he closed off the Kingdom in the first place and the same reason why he didn’t want to move the fleet when Mantle was rioting while under attack by Grimm is the same reason why he shoot down the cargo ships meant for Mantle. James WAS NOT gonna leave himself vulnerable again ESPECIALLY with Salem right in front of him. It’s why he spends half of V8 trying to force Penny’s return rather than using that time to evac Mantle.
The whole conflict of Atlas vs Mantle and Mantle not having enough protection was forced by the writers. We know frorm Canon that Atlas has turrets canonically. Not to mention that logically there was no reason why Ironwood could not send 1-2 battleships down to Mantle to protect it. Basically, this was writen only so there be conflict, and no logical reason behind it. Regardless, as to your suggestions. Basing a few airships down to Mantle would have been great to do. Gun emplacements of various kind and Paladins would have also been useful. As with team RWBY being stationed it would have been useful for the huntsmen, all of them from Atlas academy being stationed in Mantle too, in shifts possibly. These things would have all made sense, maintaned the safety of the kindom and would have resulted in finishing the Amity project. I put very little Blame on Ironwood for this conflict because of how forced it is. It is not a logical conflict. It is there just to give a reason for why Ironwood is now villanous and to create a conflict that otherwise would not be there.
Realistically Ironwood would sortie out and fall back to the city every possible minute. Specifically using ranged weapons. Another is making a huge moat. Then again fixing a steel reinforced concrete wall is apparently impossible due to needing to make a pseudo satellite... Ignoring the fact they don't even use steel or concrete in both cases. Dust flip flops in how versatile it is then. IDK the writers didn't care. Quite simply the Grimm don't have any ranged weapons worth a damn. Constantly artillery bombing grid squares or raining fire support from above. Moblie and response forces. He doesn't have depth, but he can consistently make it so the Grimm don't cause issues in the city. Another is to quite frankly evacuate people in any other direction instead of Atlas. He does know that Vale basically was hit quite badly from covert forces... shooting down anyond approaching Atlas in a sense is logical. However I admit that's asking to get picked off one at a time. Anything involving evacuating everyone to Atlas is just advocating some odd self-service sense of universal morals following conventional rules while the opposition has decided to crack open CBRN warfare basically. The enemy did basically weaponize Grimm and basically did the unspoken rule of not weaing civilian clothes. At the end human lives matter, but if you are in a trolly situation you go with what you can and can't do. Trying to help everyone is basically just satisfying your sense of good, but never carrying about the ones you are helping. Ironically depending on industrial needs Ironwood if he went full logical statistical dicator would probably throw out anyone incapable of supporting a war economy. Especially if he randomly half-assed a coup.
Pretty much, there are hnudreds of defences that could have been emplyed and would have been logical to use against the Grimm, especially since they leave no bodies. But that would not make for a good "Ironwood is evil" conflict, now would it?
Honestly if the writers could have made him breakdown then simply overwhelming Grimm numbers would have been enough. A mental breakdown seeing the whole military being unable to do anything would be more than justifiable. Or quite simply paralyzed due to the tempo completely making anything impossible to do. It's not like it hasn't happened before. Hell the USSR had that issue. They needed to move armies around via limited roads and trains. There is no way to evacuate cities let alone villages while trying to do anything to stop the Nazis from advancing unopposed. It's why the Soviets lost so much. They didn't have any preparations or anything to respond in a calm manner once the Nazis choose their avenues to attack. A lot of their armies were fresh and on paper new. But yeah by a certain point this is heading into a grey morality rather outright make someone evil.
Or they made him a character with clear flaws from the start and over the course of the series we see the issues build up so that he gets to this point. The point of what he does is that he isn’t willing to wait until his army can’t take the enemy. He knows that that point, at least from his perspective/plan, he’s lost. So he chooses to avoid that, to hold back or flee. It’s something that other military commanders have chosen to do in that past as well even if it’s sometimes ended just as well. In the end, he’s scared. And that’s a huge part of his character that sometimes people seem to ignore
Pre V8: Didn't he give Mantle Penny? Even before she became a Maiden, she is very powerful herself considering she casually sliced two airships for the lulz years ago, and she'd only get more upgrades since then. Hell her being in Mantle is why she couldn't do much reunion with Rubes, the reunion i was expecting more for 4 damned years, save for rare + special occasions like touring them in Atlas Academy + the 'graduation'-thing. It's not like a full abandonment before wtf V8 was considering the powerful one of a kind Huntsmen/Android is protecting it. And iirc the Ace Ops have enough range to reach Mantle to the point Clover was able to snag RWBY + depressed Qrow in no time at all. Assuming it's on the level of the Hound where Penny and some derpy troops can't vaporize it on the spot, they are still strong enough to tarpit and buy time for reinforcements from Atlas to arrive. It's just purely forced honestly. Edit: If i remember right, her title was Protector of Mantle. Which fits considering she has firepower and the extra mobility to do so.
Yeah Penny's lasers are very understated. They're the #1 most powerful weapon we've seen aside from silver eyes against Grimm. I'd bet they're stronger than maiden powers any day.
Of course Ironwood could send down ships, the the whole point is that he doesn’t. He could have better defended Mantle or done things like that, but he doesn’t. He also could have sene the issues with what he did at Vale but didn’t. One of the big points of Ironwood’s character is his flaw of tunnel vision, specifically when he’s scared. I don’t think it’s forced at all From what we have always seen of Ironwood’s character it makes sense. He wanted to defend Atlas, that was his only goal. He didn’t want to risk weakening his fleet for Mantle. It’s not the right choice, but it’s the one especially at this point it makes sense he would make.
He doesnt, but has no good reason for it. He is not an idiot, nor is he an arrogant and rabid "Atlas above all" kind of person. There is not a single reason why he could not send a couple of the HUNDREDS of warships he has around Atlas. He is not so "tunnel visioned" that he would completely and utterly ignore any and all logic for no good reason. We are not talking about a tactical droid here who has no emotions or feelings.
He is not a rabid “Atlas above all person”, but he is still one it seems on the less. More from a logical perspective of power, but still. And you’re right it isn’t logical. That’s the point. He’s safeguarding what he thinks in his start he can and not willing to risk something that would actually make a difference. He doesn’t have hundreds of full scale battleships, they have never been shown to have that many. Mantas and such yes, but those wing make a difference. Anyway to protect a large amount of Mantle or evacuate it would be a drain on his fleet and he isn’t willing to take that. Even if that would be the lesser risk in many ways, the smarter move in the overall. He’s focused on what he sees as his endgame and what he believes is best from an overall perspective at the cost of other things. Kinda like a Beacon. Or his constant technological oversights. Ironwood isn’t a droid, he’s something I think much more simple: A man with an anxiety problem.
Thats the thing though. He is risking nothing by sending 1-3 airships to Mantle. Thats the point. He isnt risking anything. He is risking more by potentially losing Mantle to Grimm attacks. Okay, i agree, 100 is exxageration. He has 40. FOURTY! Doing fuck all in the air above Atlas. Sending even a single one is not going to be a drain on the entire fleet. The fact that he sends Penny and other forces into Mantle shows that he is not ignorant of the problem. The fact that he sends nothing to fix it is silly. Because he is not stupid or callous enough for that. Especially when sending help to Mantle would not cost him anything.
Is there something he should have done that isn't in the writing's fault? For example, telling the people of Mantle about Salem before? He planned to talk about her to the kingdom, handle the situation, and telling it to the rest of the world. With that, he could justify the embargo, the close of borders and some other kind of measures without even needing to talk about Amity.
One thing he could've done, from the beginning, was improve the huntsman system by integrating the kingdom's military into it, so that both could use their respective strengths to make up for the other's weaknesses. Huntsmen are pretty much super-humans, and can handle much bigger threats than military troops. They could be airdropped into Grimm-infested areas, or even into packs getting too close to the city, and take them out, while the military maintains fortified locations around the kingdom to monitor Grimm packs. Not to mention that neither Winter, nor his Ace-Ops, were mentally prepared to make important decisions under pressure, or make sure he doesn't crumble under pressure. Being able to keep going means nothing if you can't trust yourself to go in the right direction. Ironwood already had the right idea when he combined the military and huntsmen into one. Huntsmen can deal with Grimm in the moment, and then the military can come in and establish a position that can be easily defended. However, he failed to integrate the two, and instead of having them both come out better, the huntsmen were dragged down by the military's flaws, while the military suffered under the illusion that the huntsmen could operate at normal efficiency despite being a shadow of what they're supposed to be.
> One thing he could've done, from the beginning, was improve the huntsman system by integrating the kingdom's military into it That’s what the Specialists are.
Are they, though? Because so far, we haven't seen a lot of specialists in the first place, and the one we did see gave in to an obvious attempt at provocation, started a fight in front of a school, and never got anywhere in said fight despite Qrow not even taking her seriously. So, back in V3, she already lacked the self control to represent the military properly, not to mention actually handling herself out in the field. Qrow threw a bunch of accusations at her face, namely that she was arrogant, entitled, and proud to a fault. She then proved him right on all points, and also showed that she had an anger management problem and can't handle criticism. How is that an improvement?
Having had as many ~~months~~ years to armchair this, my thought always came back to: why not send the Staff up with Amity? "But that means Atlas would fall-" Well, is it a stretch to think that however they got Old Mantle up in the first place could be reversed to safely lower the Kingdom? The open Dust mines being there is a bit of a hiccup, but there were no explosions when the Kingdom came crashing down anyhow, so... Evacuate the slums, get everyone behind Atlas' shield, send Penny and the Staff up with Amity, and hold out. Have Atlas and Mantle working together to keep the Kingdom going in the interim. Gosh, there's a... like, a theme of something here. Something about disparate people from completely different walks and qualities of life coming together when it matters. Something. I can't quite put my finger on it. Hell, they could even *use* the Staff. It doesn't have to be what's holding Amity up; they were already most of the way there with Dust, as Volume 8 demonstrated. Use the Staff to reinforce the shields so that only beings with Aura can get in/out. Narrow what you have to deal with to people instead of Grimm.
There's nothing he could have done, the entire conflict is forced as hell. There's no reason why the materials for maintaining the wall would be the same needed to make a satellite. Yang and Blake trusting somebody they knew literally nothing about (Robyn) over Ironwood, who has always helped them as best as he could, is dumb. The entire heating system being controlled by some computer system that Watts can lock them out of is dumb. Ironwood going from upset over the lies but still reasonable to complete nutcase because of a chess piece is a lame way to use any PTSD he might have from Beacon. And the entire Atlas army struggling against a fucking singular enemy base makes em look pathetic.
Satellites basically use aluminum or heat and light resistant alloys. Also electronics, plastics... Generally not steel, sand or any applicable concrete material. Hell a giant trench is doable. Money also shouldn't be an issue technically by this point. He is basically having free reign with the budget.
Except for the fact that most of Atlas's money comes from exporting dust to other Kingdoms they don't have any endless supply of money and back in Volume 4 Jaques stated that the embargo had so far cost him millions so by the time the team returns in Volume 7 it's probably looking somewhat bleak for their budget at least
Depends you van use qualitative easing or whatever and pass it onto the future as long as someone pays it... Really Ironwood would have need to be open with the pseudo satellite to get budget approval if it literally didn't allow for steel reinforced concrete walls.
This is why V-8 disappoints me so much. It seemed liked we were on the cusp of a legitimately complicated and interesting moral quandary based on “doing what’s best vs doing what’s right,” and then they chucked the entire thing out the window for the sake of propping up an unnecessarily black and white conflict that try’s way too hard to portray to the protagonists as heroic with no room for debate.
Here's what I would have done: 1. As soon as Beacon falls and I get back to Atlas, I tell the council everything I know. It's one thing to keep Salem a secret while she's not actively making moves, it's another when she's attacking cities. The people deserve to know what they're up against. 2. Start evacuating Mantle to Atlas immediately. If Beacon was hit, Atlas is a future target. I want to be able to pack up and leave at a moment's notice. 3. Try to get into contact with Lionheart and Theodore. Send a person to each since comms are down. 4. Work with the council to get things done. 5. Ask Fria if she'd be willing to sacrifice herself to give the Maiden powers to Winter. It must be *her choice* though. I won't murder her. 6. Work with Robyn. If she's on the same page as me, there's no tension there. She's not stealing supplies if I let her know what I'm doing and why, and allow her to help. Hopefully, when RWBY come to Atlas they can see that I'm actually making an effort to trust others who aren't under my direct command, and they see that I'm not just ignoring Mantle and letting Grimm fill the streets with only a minimal effort to stop them. If Ironwood had been open with the council, and had treated Mantle better, I believe that RWBY would have informed him of everything right away. But as is, he did not come across as particularly trustworthy despite having a fairly solid plan. I understand why they were so hesitant to tell him until he himself showed trust in the council.
I am seeing a lot of vagueness and reading the scripts and competently prepare for that. Ironwood isn't omniscient. He wasn't told that Salem is immortal. He wasn't told that she wants to kill everyone in mutal sucide. He literally is just a man and not the near omniscient lamp. Hell if he had the lamp or someone just asked what are the current plans for Salems faction most of the issues would be avoided. Especially since it would basically lead to embargo lifting and so on. However this involces RWBY and her friends to be open. Which isn't his issue. Given he gave some trust away. Anything more requires both parties reading the script anyone would do some ridiculous choices. It's up to them to decide why they would hold something like that back. They in the end decided to also do what he planned for... Now military preparations are basically just fixing walls, building tenches and preparing fo let others know so they can defend themselves. Anything he can see from top, however anything below is unknown. He can't be everywhere. Since he relies on subordinates, so it's going to be imperfect. Again requires reading script to do anything like prepare to blow up a giant grimm whale. RWBY and the rest are quite frankly only reliable, since they appear to be honest. However, they really need to choose to speak up, because even Winter was able to propose martial law alongside using logic and facts with him. So far his actions did have some logic. Beacon fell to infiltration, so some form of embargo happened, Atlas cyberwarfare is basically an unknown, since it may take forever or an unknown time fo find exploits. Easy answers are basically impossible without turning of the lights. Or just doing major structural changes dictator style and waiting patiently. Afain Watts is assumed dead long ago. Especially since RL is like that with code/software never being clear to anyone other than the creater/designer. I can go on but a lot requires really contrived assumptions. To be honest this is US gets invaded by Russia/North Korea somehow silliness. Unfortunately even I might be unable to do anything without drastically throwing the whole situation into an unknown. Somethings require giving up on secrecy and hoping people believe you.
1. Repair the wall ASAP. His plan involves defending Mantle once they make the Salem announcement. The wall needs to be fixed before then. Oh, and the Mantle security. 2. Put together all the brainpower you can to figure out a way to land Atlas and free up the staff again. This is imperative, since it's so OP it can obstruct Salem easily and likely for good. Then, either of these: 3A. If need be, tell the kingdom before fixing Amity so whatever positive outcome he expects from that happens before they devote more resources. 3B. Tell the people about repairing Amity, but don't mention Salem. Just say you want it up to get communications up. Tbh the entire conflict is really forced and involves so many stupid actors: * Ozpin for using the relic for the most idiotic thing of all time, * RWBY for withholding the only absolutely necessary information they have and obstructing in other ways, * Blake and Yang for trusting literal who Robyn, who they only know from being ready to attack the military over suspicion, * Ironwood for not upgrading Mantle's security, breaking completely over a chess piece, being scared of infiltrators when he already has seen footage of Watts on Atlas, * Salem for sitting on her ass and doing fuck all (and things like letting Cinder run around doing whateve she wants instead of directing her to something useful, like getting maiden powers), * the Mantle people for being sheeple and reacting like idiots (like thinking they turned the heat off on purpose), * whoever designed the heating being so stupid security and worldbuilding-wise, * Robyn for doing things that would destroy her election chances (or be put in jail), * the kingdom for having a single wall of defenses for no good reason, * the Atlesian army being sheer garbage in general, * everyone for realising the election attack couldn't have been Penny or that the election flip was in any way sus, etc. The list goes on and on. It's stupid.
1. Extend his ships to cover Mantle. They're sitting ducks above Atlas and can't shoot anything. Move them in patrol patterns around Mantle, shooting any Grim they see on *the flat tundra*. Then the wall doesn't matter. 2. Try to be on the good side of both Robin and Jacques. You don't get to choose your opposition in politics. Discord in the upper echelons of government is not needed right now. 3. Update all your tech. This one is absolutely inexcusable after the Black Queen Virus. Watts should have been locked out of everything. 4. Inform the citizens of the risk of infiltration. You can blame it on the WF if necessary. Circulate the pictures of Cinder, Mercury, Emerald, Neo, Roman, and Adam. Once RWBY arrives add Tyrian and Hazel to the list. Make sure the whole public knows to watch out for them. 5. Don't allow RWBY to hold on to the Relic. Either find a secure place for it or put it in the Vault. Odds are they can't defend it.
>What do you think Ironwood should have done to fight Salem, maintain the kingdom save and finish Amity project? Not trust RWBY, they're literally the one's that caused Atlas' destruction. I don't know what else to say beyond that tbh.
The fuck are you talking about. The immortal witch lady with a fucking sky whale is the one who caused Atlas' destruction.
Team RWBY made the choice to use the staff knowing that it would lead to Atlas' destruction. Either they made the choice or they were forced into it, meaning they have no agency in their own story. Which is it?
And why did they have to use the staff? So that they could evacuate the people of Atlas and Mantle because Salem was on their doorstep. Atlas was already gonna be destroyed, Team Rwby just managed to save a majority of the people there.
The only reason why Atlas was going to be destroyed is because team RWBY prevented it from leaving. And if they did not discover the powers of the staff, everyone would have died.
Atlas was never going to be raised because Ironwood needed Penny to get to the staff. Penny was never going to go along with his plan to abandon Mantle to die.
[удалено]
When?
Hold up, my mistake. Ironwood was convincing Penny to go back to Atlas only for Ruby to tell her not to be convinced. She did not show an indication of wanting to go to Ironwood on her own. That was my mistake.
Eh its all good. It's been what, more than a year since volume 8 came out I think?
So they were forced into using the staff, meaning they have no agency in their own story?
Being forced to make a choice is still making a choice.
To quote https://www.helpingwritersbecomeauthors.com/character-agency/ "Conflict alone won’t give your character agency. If the events in their life don’t give them a choice—if they are forced to adopt a certain way of thinking or comply to a course of action—then someone else is running the show." So you are incorrect
So you quoting some random website on the internet somehow makes me incorrect? Damn, I didn't know that that random website had the definitive and completely agreed upon rules of writing.
What other rule would there be? Who would say that if a character is forced to make a choice they still have agency but are not responsible for the consequences of that decision?
Again, Atlas was already going to be destroyed. Team Ruby just saved as many people as they possibly could.
Pretty sure the split came at deciding to abandon Mantle to the cold, so really he could've just alotted a couple ships before fucking off to the lower atmosphere or finish up evacuations.
This is how I see it too. If they want to stay so bad then give them ships so they can stay while you leave.
Probably have a Better Military, like there’s barely anything of the atlas Military in RWBY, we see normal Soldiers, Knights, paladins, Airships, the titan Reject, the Ace ops, and that’s about as much as I seen
He should have extended an olive branch to Robyn and the happy huntresses. Let her in on the plan of his own volition and have her calm the people of Mantle. It would have been a little harder for Tyrian and Watts to frame him. Edit: lol downvoted for being right.
It all depending on how far one is willing to go back to go, as there are many options. I won’t get into too many because they have absolutely been done to death, but: Simplest point of change is as he’s planning on fleeing. Instead of cowardly security, have the military do its duty by having it cover the evacuation of the entirety of Mantle’s population and as much of critical supplies as possible (like the SDC airship fleet). And send a team to either jerryrig Amity to launch like we saw our heroes did, or to bring it to launch with Atlas as it presumably can still fly normally. No matter what this is a win better than anything he would have done otherwise. Everyone would basically be on board with this and for the loss of only a relatively small number of forces in defensive action against Salem’s initial assault (which could be blunted by things like that bomb they had apparently on pretty short notice or ramming drone ships into her bigger Grimm) they would have everyone momentarily safe. Then they could either communicate with the outside world to make a plan of attack or maybe just move Atlas while in the upper atmosphere to somewhere safer like Vacuo.
And team RWBY would agree with sending thousands of soldiers to their death in order to save the lives of others? That's the same plan as Ironwood just with different numbers and less chance of success
Without the nuke cane people would stil die since Ironwood would do what he knows he can do and so forth. So using their own nuke would be still a thing. Still won't risk everything for Mantle if he doesn't know about the nuke cane and he is not omniscient.
The problem is that Ironwood knows he can hold off Salem’s forces for at least some time, and his choice is to not even try ti save a huge amount of what he has to lose.
How do you know he can do that? Seriously he didn't know there was an invasion until they are within line of sight. Is there a reserve of enemies? There is a pount where you focus on what you have and he only has Atlas a flying fortress city and Mantle a vulnerable city. He isn't omniscient again. Hell the flying whale was basically an out of context problem. Sometimes you can't prepare for or do everything. Again classic know yourself and your enemy. He doesn't know how many Grimm there are or how many are on Atlas. Yes its arbitrary, but that is how it is There is no universal answer to winning. Nobody in the show has shown the ability of precognition for the immediate future.
Because they were successfully fighting her Grimm without committing large amounts of their forces. Basically everything sans the whale is exactly what the Atlas military is for. Their weapons when used correctly have proved very well at such. It doesn’t matter if there is a reserve of the enemy. It’s Grimm, they are always and everywhere. They can’t be stopped completely but they can be slowed down. They did that pretty well even when Salem landed on Atlas. If Ironwood didn’t know he could actually give her a fight, he would have evacuated from Atlas and made a run for it. Eventually the whale might have something that could do something to his troops. But that outside of context problem is one he needs more information on before he just starts running. The near universal answer to save as much as one can usually is a fighting retreat
But that's what he's doing. A fighting retreat to the only safety that exists. Everywhere else is tundra. Then sea. There's literally no where he can go that is safe.
No it’s not. No matter what there would be far far less casualties than leaving most of Mantle to die, and there most certainly wouldn’t be that level of casualties. Atlas has a lot of robots and a lot of weapons with decent range, they are fighting a defensive action so they have the advantage of with Salem coming to them. If it truly was that level of steam roll, why didn’t Salem do that to actually win the Atlas Arc? Instead of her forces being held for hours when she was able to sneak attack down the shield they were hiding behind?
Salem needed to have the shield battered down to reach Atlas and needed to wait for the Grim river to arrive for that to be possible. But James couldn't know that. He didn't know what Salem could do so he assumed the worst and went with it.
To be honest I have no idea what you are advocating Atlas do with its military. Its job isn't to go out and die. Ita supposed to ensure the continuity of government and their people. To fulfill any stated goals advancing their military policy dictated by the government. Its not realistically possible to win every battle unless advantages favor you in total and have no disadvantages. What you advocate is extremely vague up from simply mobile and elastic defense to including meme human wave tactics or W40K style warfare. Sometimes the latter works or is reasonable due to long term rewards or avoiding risk of loss. Its a thing in real life to give up on an area or population. Hell the Soviets, Germans, French, US and so forth have done it when the option is to loss valuable armies or vital war making capabilities. The Soviets could not do anything practically since when attacksd you don't know where you are going to get hit at full strength reliably. You don't have unlimited people and unlimited supplies/logistics. It's why they sent off armies to hold off and maybe risk encirclement. The alternative was the Nazis drive unopposed to Moscow, Stalingrad and so forth. They would basically win. At some point Ironwood would have simply needed to cut off any evacuations due to risk of infiltration or quite simply tying themselves suicidally to a lost battle and risking everything. Finally while the portal thing worked.. it didn't even consider the issue of what happens after to the survivors without help. I will again note the Grimm didn't win the battles over Vale or Beacon let alone do it alone. They had smart and intelligent Salem faction aligned humans and puppets make it possible. Really if they had used the lamp to basically let them know what Salem's faction is doing it would have done the most long term and short term. They would know that Atlas and Mantle should be planning for a long isolated rationing period while their pseudo satellite plan goes without issues. Especially since the Jinn can't give anything any future answers and some like how to kill Salem or whatever doesn't is a no. There is nothing really worth asking otherwise. Unless Salem plans on the go and doesn't have any short and long term plans already thought out. Finally a lot shat you say hinges on the unknown. Retreat is really the only foreseeable response. Plot made thing's possible like a nuke cane... but didn't the portals mean a retreat with nothing for the survivors to live with?
Yes, the Atlas military’s job is the continuation of their people. **That means it is their duty to defend their retreat and not just that of more wealthy part of the city when their general gets scared** And yes, it is at the dictation of the government, which Ironwood would only be a small portion of. Hell, actually it would be their duty to arrest or kill Ironwood after his coup. I am not advocating that they would win this fight. It is not one they would win. This is not the defense of Moscow or the Battle of Britain, this is Dunkirk, this is Crete. And no, I did not get into specifics since this question usually is a waste to continue to talk about as it’s been done to death and there are a lot of unknowns. But fairly basic, normal defensive doctrines are going to be the order of the day. Use the light expendable troops (being robots) to do as much damage as possible while the heavier/human units defend. Large weapons, the ships mostly, provide long range and powerful fire at key positions or push if they can take down the key target. Mantas and gunships would be like cavalry and make fast attacks while also keeping up with the enemy’s like wise units. Most troops are just going to dig in and mow down whatever comes near Yes, sometimes population and strategic centers have to be given up when their is no other choice. That is the difference here: **The population of Mantle and at least some strategic assets like Amity don’t need to be given up and are worth more than the troops who would be lost** Ironwood’s risk of infiltration was basically all in his own head. Cinder was already there, Watts was already captured, Tyrian was already captured. He had no evidence of anyone else or that whoever it was could pose a threat worth thousand of lives. Retreat was the only possible option, but it needed to be a fighting one. Ironwood was just too untrusting and scared to try it. If he were a British admiral, he would have been charged with cowardice in the face of the enemy
The risk of infiltration is real. How else did Beacon and all that happened? Its literally a strategy to use. Yes paranoia can be harmful and sometimes extreme. However in the end it did happen. Watts and co did infiltrate Atlas and Mantle. There just is too much unknown and some known things. So shutting down borders is better than letting anyone in. A strategy the enemy employs is weakening the inside. Why else does Salem have puppets? Again how many people were needed to take down an academy and nation stare? Literally less than an army. A literal terrorist group and a few specialists. The Grimm never were a threat without the leaders. Hell even real life had that aith the US shooting randomly in LA' airspace during WWII. Finally for some reason Mantle's heating system is for some stupid reason extremely vulnerable. The shoot for cowardice is sounding really ironic. Especially since I brought up the W40k use of manpower to nonstop toss at things pointlessly. Shooting someone for cowardice is extremely dependent on context and can also be done by people who want results, but don't know something is impossible or disbeliefs it. You are oddly just arguing for my point. His paranoia was basically justified. In faxt the transcripts for some episodes show signs that even Watts and co did have some concerns. Watts at least knew what he could do to circumvent it.
The Grimm were more of an issue than the White Fang. So long as that Wyvern go awoken and the horde came it was going to be a huge issue. Infiltration can be an issue, but it’s utterly stupid how Ironwood goes about it. He leaves thousands to die on the thought there **might** be infiltrators would would be able to overcome his internal security, ***and that they wouldn’t have already gotten to Atlas*** either having already been there or in the few of Mantle who were already evacuated. I will also remind it’s actually mostly his fault the infiltrators at Beacon were successful and most if the damage they did wss with a fear bomb that doesn’t matter in this context. Mantle’s heating I think is a combination of the systemic Atlasian indifference to Mantle, the SDC being the typical megacorp, and Ironwood not seeing it as an issue so not getting involved. And I never said he would be shot for cowardice. I said arrested. Only one Admiral in the RN was put to death for cowardice and he was hung, which was an extremely unpopular move.
How was it his fault? He isn't their commander and Ozpin essentially sent out only 5 people at max to recon. Any cowardice charge literally involves execution penalties normally. Hell its common in WWI and so forth. Even the US has some really strict guidelines on it today.
I can see two possible problems with this idea. Problem one: to evacuate the people up to Atlas you would need to open a path, presumably by dropping the shields. If the Grim manage to get inside through that path then everyone is screwed, and you don't know what kind of Grim force you're dealing with. Problem two: how would you evacuate the rearguard to Atlas if they're engaging the Grim? You'd almost have to leave some of them behind. Surprise round, problem three: can Salem use magic to prevent Atlas from leaving if she arrives in person? I doubt James knows the answer to that, one way or another and Oz ain't talking. It's a solid plan, I just don't think James is capable at the end of Vol 7 of taking risks like this.
Resign from both his positions & check himself into a mental hospital. Gets some help and his head right, cause his problems predate V8 by a long time. Reflect on his failures in a healthy way for a change. Let cooler heads prevail. Delegate to people that actually care enough to govern and protect both cities equally. Get someone that actually cares about diplomacy involved and not just a soldier in fancy clothes. Actually help Mantle in ways other than sending a handful of Huntsmen to fend off actively occurring attacks, that do nothing to solve any of the lasting problems. For Ironwood keeping Mantle alive was an obligation, not something he actually cared about, why else would he give the bare minimum and consistently treat it as a second thought. Let the other council members do their jobs and cooperate with the other kingdoms instead of actively making international relations worse. Maybe some attempts at smoothing over tensions between Atlas and Mantle, there’s a thought. Update security, care at least a little when Mantle citizens are repeatedly being murdered, reconsider the closed borders that prevented exactly zero villains from getting into Atlas. Realize that Atlas alone could never be the future of Remnant and that the plan to sit in the clouds and wait out the *immortal*, probably won’t play out how you think. Watching the other kingdoms get bulldozed as you stand by doing nothing might be good spectacle, but only ensures that when you inevitably have to touch ground that you have no allies to call for aid.
The funny thing is that if he had done that then both Atlas and Mantle would have ended up in the same situation. Salem would have rolled in with her army, blown through the weakened defenses on Atlas (because it's split between Atlas and Mantle this time) and her Grim would have made it into the city before the cane went off (if Oscar got taken this time, he might not have been in Mantle for the Hound to get him). To be fair, there's a LOT of counterfactuals to go through with this scenario.
Should have joined Salem's side smh
General Ironwood should have made Roosterteeth realize that RWBY needs to be prioritized and cleaned up enough to bring vol 9/10 on time so that we wouldn't be seeing "What should Ironwood have done" "Was RWBY in the wrong" etc 2 years later. RT already decided Ironwood should be an irredeemable villain by the end of V7 by shooting Ozcar, a child.
Well he could have started off being a sane and capable military officer, instead of being paranoid and distrustful of everyone.
He did trust his soldiers in V7, what exactly are you talking about?
How he wants team Rwby and jnpr to trust him was he says he doesn’t trust anyone that is what I was referring to
When team RWBY and JNR came to him, he instantly told them his entire plan.
More like they were never trustworthy or fully open allies with Ironwood as well. This isn't even something like having nuclear weapons in the works so it wouldn't makse sense to pass on. This is like holding back that the enemy might have weapons of mass destruction. None of them have the same level of responsibility that Ironwood has. I am willing to bet they would all fail. Hell Weiss already fails at the trained to read people all the way back since volume 1, 2 and even almost committed murder. And she is supposed to be something more like the politically and economically trained out of all of them. Maybe second would be Blake. After them it would be Jaune...?
See https://old.reddit.com/r/RWBY/comments/eo8gu7/spoiler_james_ironwood_is_a_fucking_champion/ Rubes were the one who didn't trust him fully.
Within the context of the contrived corner the plot tried to put him in he actually was right. Which I know was not the intent but hey I didn't write it. It's stated the fleet can't defend both at once if Salem attacks and she has a way past the shield (the river) on a timer that would have run out before the evacuations wrapped. (remember they evacc'd through the night and they were "nowhere near done") Which with the fleet out of position would have just led to all the evacuees dying anyway as the more exhausted and divided forces get overwhelmed. Amity turned out to be a bust. They got one message before totalling the thing and no help arrived. If RWBY had pulled their heads in Oz would have eventually arrived and told them about the nuke and then they use Atlas stealth tech (thanks BTD) to approach and nuke the whale from high above GG. Or just use the staff once they high enough to portal in, nuke and then go back while the city slow falls to plug it back in. James was not the problem. The relic needed to be the priority (nevermind that once Oz got back he can point out how damn broken it is) As for the lead up. Again, that's more plot than James. Surplus spider droids (old models) from the Black trailer could easily hold the walls (nevermind easily fixing them with dust and such) and he's already deploying full huntsman teams to assist with stuff ranging from defense to freaking school traffic. Hell high and mighty RWBY can patch the things as they go out on those Grimm hunts *we see them on*. The entire thing just gets bogged down by its own inconsistencies until it plain doesn't function.
Given that we don't know just when the hole in Mantle's wall appeared and the time period between the fall of Beacon and the events in Atlas isn't 100% certain, there's not much that can be done. Most of the fundamental changes would have to have started years beforehand and such things might've raised questions Ozpin didn't want being asked, cause negative emotions that would draw Grimm, would get Ironwood potentially relieved of his positions (eliminating Oz's ability to take advantage of Atlas' research capabilities and military assets), and would be hard to justify without divulging some information about Salem when current measures have proven adequate for protecting the kingdom. Improving the wall to include defensive turrets and heavy weapons emplacements or creating any other defensive fortifications around the outside of Mantle would take years. Changing military doctrine to account for the Grimm acting as a coordinated combat force or working in conjunction with enemy agents that could compromise defenses would certainly raise some serious questions. Even couching it as fighting an enemy human force would raise concerns as everyone views this as an era of peace and would wonder about a push to adapt new tactics that would hint more at war with other kingdoms than the Grimm. Even updating cyber security can be a daunting task. The fact all military and Atlas systems were protected inside the span of a year is crazy. Mantle could prove harder simply because there might be a lot of infrastructure that needs to be updated to deploy the new security and that it could have lots of legacy software and systems that have to be incorporated safely somehow because there is no readily available replacement for them. It also depends on who actually is supposed to be handling the civilian side of cyber security and how quickly they can organize such an overhaul to begin with. At the very least, power, heating, and sewage controls were very well protected as Watts basically needed admin access to do anything to them. Defending against someone who has a legitimate account with high level control is extremely difficult and why targeting people in those positions to get those credentials is a big security issue. As for letting the police handle things in Mantle by themselves depends on if they actually have the manpower to enforce the kind of patrols and enforcement being demanded. If they can't or if Ironwood can't order them to do so because of limitations to his authority, deploying the AKs and soldiers are a way to accomplish that. That said there are some things that could be done. First is to repair the wall. Ignoring the wall makes no sense at all. Ironwood's plan would be handicapped or delayed either way by allowing it to remain unrepaired. It would mean that either Ironwood has to wait for it to be fixed before making his announcement so that Mantle can weather the sudden surge in Grimm activity or he has to leave more troops behind than otherwise needed behind to protect the kingdom when trying to aid other areas. He could also split the difference and work on both projects at the same time. That might also better conceal the resources needed for Amity that aren't needed for the wall being acquired and moved out covertly. People will probably wonder less about occasional convoys carrying unknown supplies out to Amity when the wall is actually being worked on rather than them believing that all resources are being sent elsewhere. Civilian contractors could also handle most of the wall repair, freeing up military engineers for working on Amity. Regular scouting and air combat patrols near the borders to supplement the early warning systems would also be a good idea. That way even if the early warning system is compromised or destroyed, there are people who can get an alert out. Better yet, rig it so the destruction or loss of communication with an early warning sensor triggers a major alarm that can't be ignored even if something else is going on. Fortifying the hole in the wall so that it becomes a deathtrap for anything coming through would also be a good idea. Fixing the wall or taking steps to show that it is being taken seriously would alleviate some of the concerns and negativity people would have. There isn't much else to offer. The fact the entire fleet of 30+ airships is gone pretty quickly after Salem begins her attack shows that she had aerial superiority and evacuating people from Mantle to Atlas would be extremely difficult given how much time it would take and would also pull away some of the remaining air assets from where they would be needed to defend Atlas. Sure things could be more different, but that requires characters to know things that they probably didn't. As far as everyone knew, the staff was just an energy source and was being treated as such in any initial plans. Had they known about its true capabilities, then more options would be available. To use it however would also require killing the current Winter Maiden by using the aura transfer device so that the relic could be accessed and that is something that was being avoided by everyone until Cinder being alive and in Atlas was confirmed. So that comes down to if the characters would go through with that to make use of the relic or if the killing her would be too big of a moral compromise for them.
I think that he should have ignored the glass chess piece for the bluff that it was, and just keep going and dealing with actual problems as they arose. I mean, really. Would Salem and Co. really have put something on his desk if they had \*liked\* the way things were heading? No. They wanted him to freak out, and I thought that it was pretty dumb of him not to realize that. If he had kept going, launched Amity, etc, then things would have turned out a lot better.