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Post by visyolnayarusalka on Dec 9, 2013 22:15:33 GMT -5
"Tell you what, there’s a Trigun forum here. It’s pretty much dead, but if you ever feel like rambling about plants, we can start a thread there, and that will give us plenty of room to talk back and forth. I’ve got a few theories of my own, despite being pants at biology. XD" -Plant Feathers
*strikes a pose* Challenge accepted.
I can tackle many subjects, but overall I can group all of my observations into biology, psychology, and culture. It would all be manga-based, of course, because the anime lacks the detailed art and observations needed to make an analysis (ha, I sounded like a scientist there).
I hope I don't need to say, but these will be about 80-90% headcanons, taking the information from the manga and extrapolating while remaining logical.
I want to reread the manga before making any large-scale theories, but for now we can talk basic headcanon stuff. Hm... I guess to start out, here's one of my headcanons:
Plants are semi-hive-minded creatures. While they don't necessarily need to be part of a grouping, it is better for their mental and neurological health if they are. (The reason why this is so is the matter of a later rambling.) Scientists, continuing on from referring to the Plants as 'angels', informally call these groups 'heavens'. Note- this is when Plants connect mentally in the hive mind. When they group together physically, it's called something else.
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Post by Plant Feathers on Dec 10, 2013 20:51:02 GMT -5
Wait, did you get the idea from me, or did we both get the idea on our own, because I seriously just posted about plants being hive-minded like last week! XD I like the idea of the term "heaven" though. I was leaning toward "host" myself, as in "a host of angels." As for a term for plants that are physically united, I first read the manga as scanlations online, and the translators used the word "co-integration." When I bought the English publication, I was surprised that they never gave a word for it at all in that translation. But I stick to co-integration, because that's what I first heard it called.
One of my own science-based headcanons is that plants really are capable of giving birth without a father being involved. I wondered if something like that was possible and did some googling. I was surprised to find that there are quite a number of animals that can reproduce on their own if no male is available. (Kimodo dragons and turkeys come to mind. And I think there's an entire species of lizard that's female. A whiptail lizard or something like that.) And not all of them produce clone copies of the mother. Some even produce males. So in light of that, I think it's entirely possible for a plant to produce twin boys all on her own.
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Post by visyolnayarusalka on Dec 10, 2013 23:14:29 GMT -5
It's called parthenogenesis, and it's quite rare but perfectly plausible. My problem with Plant reproduction isn't so much the lack of father, but figuring out the actual how and why. From what I can tell, Plants reproduce in two ways, resulting in either dependent or autonomous offspring. To understand fully, you need to understand that Nightow is either a genius or accidentally the luckiest man in the world who now looks like a genius.
'Viviparous' is a term that has two meanings depending on whether you are talking in the context of animals or plants. In animals, it means that the fertilized egg develops inside the mother and ends in a live birth. BUT it is also when a plant buds and reproduces without using a seed (no germination).
TRIGUN manga's Plants do both.
Let's start with budding. In the manga, many of the Plants have infant-like bodies forming from their back, but not all Plants display them, meaning this is not just an unusual phenotype of Plants used for aesthetic purposes. The bodies are only partially formed but identifiable nonetheless as infantile. We never get to see the end result of this, but my assumption would be is that this is how young, healthy dependent Plants reproduce, and the offspring resulting from this would be genetically identical to the mother. This would explain how humans are able to easily produce many new Plants. Creating one any other way would probably require resources that the engineers on NML don't have easy access to.
The second way Plants reproduce is internally. This reproductive strategy would be much rarer as it requires more energy and resources and results in the genetically diverse autonomous Plants- Tesla, Knives and Vash, Chronica, and Domina. With some willing suspension of disbelief, this is entirely plausible. I say suspend your disbelief because I can't think of a species that can reproduce using two entirely different strategies. However, Plants may have needed to develop this second strategy as a way to interact with humans.
The key detail about the live births is how the Plants can produce offspring of both genders. This tells me two things: One, Jeff Goldblum was right; two, every fanfic writer is wrong.
Plants cannot reproduce with humans.
*girds self for onslaught* Let me explain!
There is about a 110% chance that Plants were somehow created with a high influence from the human genome. However, the similarities between the two species stop at a fairly superficial level. Species can hybridize of course, but in this case, it would be impossible. Female Plants can bear sons without intervention from a male. That means that it is the mother's ovum (egg) that determines the offspring's gender. Humans use the XY determination for gender (meaning that the father determines the gender, if you remember from middle school sex ed), but Plants would use ZW determination, which is used by birds, insects (including butterflies!), and a few reptiles. There are no shared genes between these two sex chromosome pairs, making them completely incompatible.
This does not prevent Plants from being able to have sex with humans. As far as I can tell, all the other parts are where they are supposed to be. Also, even though this has less support and has less to do with the topic of reproduction, I'm fairly certain that autonomous Plants are naturally bisexual. Go wild, fangirls.
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Post by visyolnayarusalka on Dec 11, 2013 3:25:11 GMT -5
This will probably turn into a pet project of mine. I'll update a lot at first, then maybe do it like once or twice a week until I run out of things to say. I don't care if no one reads it, but it makes me happy that people are and are liking it. Biology is the study of life, and if you don't find life fascinating...
I use the term 'Plant' because that's the term I've been using since middle school and it's been ingrained. In the anime, it is implied that their power is infinite and there is a lot of symbolism connecting Vash and Knives to plant life (Vash and the geraniums, Knives and his trees). Or, at least, that's how I viewed it ten years ago. Now, I'm so overwhelmed by the Catholic symbolism (that I now understand) that I really can't get the same feel from the anime that I used to (dammit, maturity!).
Fortunately, the manga ages much better with me. Also, the movie was so awesome I watched it three times. Consecutively.
Whether power plant or photosynthetic plant, both work: they are power plants producing electricity and natural resources (mental note- humanoid cold fusion reactors?), but also they are similar to plants in that they can bud, produce their own energy (albeit a finite amount), and do all sorts of neat things that remind me of plant adaptations.
I thought of calling the buds 'cherubs', which if we're going with the angels/heaven/Christianity theme would... still not be entirely correct, because the cherubim were originally angels with a lion or bull's body with wings and a human face and... honestly, the buds don't have heads, so they aren't really fully-formed. And... honestly, I have stared at the drawings of the buds for a while now and I can't make heads (ugh did I just say that) or tails of it.
New headcanon: attached to the mother, the offspring are known as buds; once they are fully developed and detach, they are known as cherubs, and once they are fully mature they become angels. An autonomous offspring can be referred to as either an infant or a cherub, though cherub would be slightly more correct because it implies the child's lineage.
I think later today I'll write a post about why their hair turns black. If anyone wants me to address a specific subject, ask.
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Post by Plant Feathers on Dec 11, 2013 20:51:55 GMT -5
Re: Budding - Hey! I'm not the only one who thought of budding when they saw the little baby thingies! Except soon after thinking of it, I was like, "Naawww, that's TOO weird." Which is a really ridiculous thing to say, really, because this is a story about a guy who's the son of a science experiment, who can turn his arm into a super weapon, who's best friend is a priest who's secretly an assassin, all on a distant planet, in the future, where everyone acts like they're cowboys. Nothing weird there. Nope. Re: Plants reproducing with humans - I SHOULD have thought of that! D: I knew there were some species where the mother determined the gender, and knew plants must be one of them, but I never followed through on the thought enough to realize that it would make them incompatible with humans. Re: Plants are bi - I'm pretty sure there are people in the fandom who are already way ahead of you. XD (Except, actually, I think the fandom has pretty much made Wolfwood the bi-est of the bi. Vash and Milly are BOTH the loves of his life.) Re: Reproduction in general - Before we get off the topic, I'm just going to throw this out here. I'm wondering if you've read the one-shot, "The Lost Plant" from the manga "Trigun: Multiple Bullets." I feel like the mangaka gets an A+ just for attempting to explain plant reproduction, but I also feel like the story... doesn't really make sense... if you ponder it... I'd be curious to hear your take on the black hair. I hadn't tried to come up with a scientific explanation, but I figured it was something the scientists had purposely worked into them to use as something along the lines of a battery life indicator. Although now that I'm saying that, it doesn't really make sense, because a plant angel's hair goes black all at once. Hm.
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Post by visyolnayarusalka on Dec 11, 2013 22:09:08 GMT -5
Today's topic: Hair color
Let's address the first question: why would their hair change? Is it a natural side-effect of spending energy, or something else? Well, I'll argue that Plants were genetically programmed this way by the original Plant engineers. Given the Earth's state (rapidly decreasing resources, energy crisis, etc), the Plants were created for the sole purpose of being new power sources, cleaner than nuclear energy and more temperamental. As Conrad puts it in one of my favorite quotes in the entire series: 'At least a bomb wouldn't hold a grudge against the human race'. But I digress.
Since Plants are power sources and their energy is finite, it would have been necessary while designing their genetic code to include a way to measure their energy level. This gauge would have to be easily measurable and something that could be quickly eyed through the Plants' thick glass containers. Someone (a genius in my book) came up with using their hair color as this gauge.
Next question: how does their hair change?
Hair color is primarily determined by two molecules, eumelanin and pheomelanin. Both are types of melanin, the same pigment that gives you freckles. The amount of each molecule type in your hair determines the color and intensity. Pheomelanin causes red/yellow coloring and all hair follicles produce some amount of it. What we want to focus our attention on is eumelanin because this is the molecule that has the biggest influence on color and is going to be the switch the genetic engineers would choose to pull off this hair trick.
Eumelanin determines how light or dark your hair is, and the two subtypes are brown and black. Brown eumelanin creates blond and brown hair. "But Visy," I hear you say, "how can brown pigment create blond hair when pheomelanin creates the yellow color?" Because, my fellow TRIGUNite, a little brown pigment goes a long way at producing flowing golden lockes. Really, just check a color wheel. Yellow + light brown = blond. There's more to it, distribution of the pigment and the like that causes the various shades of blond we observe, but I don't see my barber for another week so I can't ask him the specifics on hair chemistry right now.
I hope I don't have to explain why black eumelanin produces black hair.
So, we now have our target molecule, eumelanin. In order to be able to use it as an energy gauge, the engineers would have to create a switch that activates black eumelanin production and link that switch to the amount of energy the Plant has available to it.
I have thought about what specific protein would be used as a signal to correlate with the Plants' energy. I have mulled over my notes from college. I have Googled it. I have no idea. But that's biology. We really are only scratching the surface of how the body functions. I will give you what I believe to be the least ass-pulled theory I can come up with.
There is a term in biology called the Hayflick limit. In short, living cells can only divide a finite number of times before they are no longer able to divide. There is a correlation between long-lived species and higher Hayflick limits. For example, the human limit is about 60 divisions and live for 110 years; Galapagos tortoises have a limit of 125 and live for up to about 175 years. Plants are, as long as their energy reserves aren't drained, VERY long-lived, meaning their Hayflick limit is very high, even potentially infinite unless something interrupts their cells' regenerating capabilities.
Random mutations in the DNA due to a high rate of cell proliferation (cell division) could easily mutate the Plant's gene that allows for this regeneration. Then, their cells would max out their limit and reach a stage called senescence- the point where cells can no longer divide but are still alive. Eventually, the senescent cells would become damaged but unable to repair themselves. The body responds to this by inducing apoptosis (programmed cell death- the damaged cell is broken down and recycled by the body), which would in turn force the remaining cells to divide even more, risking the chance of causing further mutations. It's a vicious, vicious cycle that explains why it takes so long for Plants to get their first black hair, but afterward gain them at a rapid pace.
(If anyone is a biology major out there, you may know/recognize this as the exact opposite of how cancer develops. Cancer is when cells multiply out of control and become immortal; black hair is when cells stop multiplying and become mortal.)
What does this all have to do with the signal that flips the switch to turn hair black? Well, apoptotic cells give off certain signaling proteins to tell the body 'degrade me'. One of these signals would also be used as a marker for how much energy the Plant has left- the more of this signal that is present in the body, the less energy the Plant has. Then, picking up on this signal, the hair follicles would respond by producing more eumelanin and making the Plant's hair darker. The amount of this signal would correlate with the number of hair follicles affected- more signal, more black hair.
An interesting side note- in real life, this effect would not be immediately apparent because the hair would have to grow out first. Hair cells are dead, which means they wouldn't be affected by a change in eumelanin production after the fact. Oh well. It's a manga. And that scene with Knives's first dark hair was pretty tense.
Another interesting side note- probably more accurately the hair is not black but very very very dark brown. Instead of changing the brown eumelanin molecules to black ones, the signal would increase brown eumelanin production, and a lot of that can make hair look black. This makes more sense since Plants' natural hair color is blond, which requires the brown eumelanin molecule already.
Eventually, when all of the Plant's hair turns black (dark brown?), it means that the majority of their cells have reached their Hayflick limit and the Plant's lifespan is now drastically decreased. Death seems to be almost immediate most of the time (which is what happens when you force a last run and force out the last bit of energy that was sustaining the Plant), but I don't see why they can't live up to a few years once this happens. Knives seemed to have lived for a few weeks/months after the final battle (dying when he used his energy to create an apple tree), and Vash seems to be fairly healthy by the end. Probably what will happen at this point, if Vash avoids using any more energy for anything besides sustaining himself, he'll begin to show other signs of aging.
Whoof--- that was harder than I thought it would be. But it's explained... sort of. How clear is it? I've never had to explain any of these concepts before to a general audience.
For the record, from an engineering standpoint it would be so much easier if the Plants were engineered to have black hair that turned light-colored. It's easier to turn something off in a cell than to turn it on. Black is associated with death, though, and is more visually striking.
Plant Feathers- read your reply just before posting this. Your 'battery life indicator' headcanon is spot on, as you read, but their hair does not go black all at once. Because we have so few examples (and extenuating circumstances occur in those examples), it's difficult to determine the normal speed at which the process happens. It could happen quickly, or very, very slowly (neither Vash nor Knives had visible black hairs after 150 years!).
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Post by visyolnayarusalka on Dec 11, 2013 22:13:17 GMT -5
Plant Feathers-
I have read "The Lost Plant", but it was a few years ago and I found it... odd, if I recall. Isn't it like, 'My baby will end this universe and all life as we know it?' *scratches head* If you have a link to where I can read it online, I'll check it out and post an opinion on it/amendment to my theory.
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Post by Plant Feathers on Dec 15, 2013 12:18:39 GMT -5
You're fine. I was able to follow you. : ) I can tell I'm going to learn a lot from this thread. It's funny how much more fun and interesting biology is to me when it's being applied to Trigun than when I tried to read it out of a text book. Re: Me saying plant hair goes black all at once - I was thinking of the scene in which Knives witnesses a plant go through her last run. It seemed like she was blonde and the last run turned her hair black all at once. I might be remembering wrong, though. Honestly, it was probably portrayed that way so that Knives's black hair right afterward would be a surprise to the reader. It wouldn't have the same effect if Knives walked in and said, "Hey, wait a second. Why is some of her hair black?" *queue awkward silence from Conrad* Re: Lost Plant - You can read it here: www.mangapark.com/manga/trigun-the-lost-plant/c0/1But I'll sum up! She says that when plants produce energy, they also produce something called negative energy (since energy isn't supposed to be created or destroyed, the negative energy balances out the fact that energy is being created.) Negative energy can still effect matter, though, and when it builds up, it can lead to a plant pregnancy. Obviously, this is all sci-fi pseudo-science, and after reading how in-depth you've gotten on here, it sounds EXTRA pseudo-y. So... I don't know. Now I feel a bit funny bringing it up. XD
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Post by visyolnayarusalka on Dec 15, 2013 20:37:02 GMT -5
Everything is more fun when you have something contextual to apply it to. I failed history for years, then found an anime called Hetalia, and now history is my bitch. Also, fuel for my yaoi addiction.
I checked the scene in volume six. The shading is horrible for analysis, and it's very hard to tell. Maybe the black hair displays a slightly different phenotype between the angels and autonomous Plants. Something else that has been bugging me: Domina's hair. Her hair is shaded, so it's definitely not blond (or at least it's a much darker shade than seen in any other Plant in the series, bar the angels, but once again- the shading in this manga!!!), but it's definitely not black.
MAYBE... no, this is just stupid. I really wish there was some colored panels or the anime followed the manga closer. *ahem* I have three explanations.
1) The shading, coloring, and general idea of the black hair effect is flawed and Nightow obviously does not have a biochemistry degree, so nyeh~!
2) The pattern of hairs that change seem to be random, similar to when we get grey hair. For example, my father's hair greyed salt and pepper from the top down, whereas my mother's hair went grey at her temples long before the rest of it got the message (she kind of looked like Rogue from X-Men for a while). The same thing with Plants. Vash's hair went solid black from back to front; Knives' hair changed solid from front to back. Domina's hair kind of salt and peppered it, so in the medium it looks like her hair is an in-between shade.
3) Autonomous Plants are very different from their counterparts, and this suggests that a massive number of mutations had to have occurred. One of these mutations could have affected the black hair. It is also possible that, being male, they naturally present a different phenotype.
But I have to bring this point up- 150 years and Vash and Knives don't know about the black hair effect? It's an interesting point, especially from Knives' perspective, and it adds about fifty more pounds of weight to the scene after he kills Conrad. Think about it- he's now beginning to realize how little he knows about his own species (and the man he'd used to help him lied to him), and not only that but how disconnected from the angels he is. If he'd spent any time with them at all, he would have known about the black hair effect.
Why didn't Rem mention it, anyway?
I've decided that my next topic will be less hard-science, more soft-science. Squishy, actually. Is political science actually a science? *shrugs* I'm just going to drop some of my thoughts on human-Plant relations before and after the battle. I'm going to try to keep it very simple. And I'm going to try REALLY REALLY hard not to side with Knives too much. Because... I kind of do.
#must remain unbiased observer #but Knives is so sexy #first anime loves are so hard to get over
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Post by visyolnayarusalka on Dec 18, 2013 13:02:25 GMT -5
I'm going to finish the last four volumes before posting any more. Volume 11 came in and bashed all my theories to tiny, dusty fragments, and I am strongly leaning towards breaking my promise of being an unbiased analyst because asdfghjkl dammit Knives is absolutely right in every way, shape, and form.
Coming up: why TRIGUN is actually a villain-protagonist story with a major downer ending.
I'm halfway through volume 12, and I don't think the last two are going to be as jarring or perspective-changing as 11. 11 just... wow. Volume 11.
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Post by Plant Feathers on Dec 18, 2013 21:16:56 GMT -5
"But I have to bring this point up- 150 years and Vash and Knives don't know about the black hair effect?" "Why didn't Rem mention it, anyway?"
I have a little bit of a theory on that.
I've wondered if plant deaths are a relatively recent thing. They may have been brought to the plant as brand-new "batteries" and it took a hundred years or more for those batteries to start running out of juice. Vash and Knives may have known that plants were dying off, but since it was a fairly recent thing, they, by chance, never actually saw it happen. And it's not always easy to get a good look at a plant in a bulb, so they may not have noticed the black hair. (Or noticed, but not known what it meant?) And Rem may not have known anything about it at all. Knowing about a battery life gauge is something only plant engineers really need to know about, and Rem may have only known space ship type stuff. (I say "only" like space ship stuff is lame. Space ship stuff is awesome. Rem is awesome.)
Re: Knives - Haha! Yes, Knives is definitely the sympathetic villain. In my mind, he was right, but chose the wrong course of action. There were other things he could have done, but he let his anger dictate his actions, and that's what makes him the villain.
P.S. Vol 11 has my favorite scene: the one with Vash, Livio, and Disco-Zazi! Hahahahaha! (I'm such a dork.)
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Post by visyolnayarusalka on Dec 19, 2013 0:06:28 GMT -5
Seeing as the humans have protocol and treat last runs as normal events, I have to disagree with you that Plant deaths are a recent development. It is almost 100% likely neither twin saw a death first-hand before. I make note of it because the TRIGUN timeline is very unusual to me. Long stretches of time seem to pass without anything significant happening, even though common sense would tell you something should have happened. This is one of the major points I will bring up in my discussion on volume 11. 150 years (at least 200 for the Earthicans) is too damn long not to notice some pretty important stuff. I'm not saying it's impossible (stranger things have happened in the real world), but the level of obliviousness that goes on suggests that humans have purposely been ignoring everything thrown in their faces.
But I'm getting ahead of myself.
There is no way Rem could not have known. She watched Tesla die. Rem had to have known and consciously refrained from explaining it to the twins. That part, though, I'll give her credit for. It probably would have been even harder on the kids to learn about the effect immediately after learning about Tesla.
Knives chose the only course of action available to him. Keeping it as simple as possible (seriously, the Plant-human relation analysis is going to be at least three posts, and I kind of want to reread the series again to catch what I missed the first 12 parts): no living thing wants to die, but humans originally made clear they did not consider Plants living things. Knives once considered Plants and humans the same, but the humans made decisions and continued to act in a way for at least 200 years that shows they have no regard for Plants or their well-being. Literally, the only option Knives had available to protect himself and his species until the last minute was to eradicate humans. And after he dies, the Plants are going to be in an even worse spot than before.
Vash, Livio, and that guy. My God, that scene.
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Post by Plant Feathers on Dec 19, 2013 20:49:36 GMT -5
Re: Rem - It's really interesting to me how parts of a story can be interpreted different ways by different people. And neither are wrong, they're minds just kind of go in different directions with the information they had. I had always imagined that Tessla died without her hair darkening. Her poor body was being abused (and then falling apart) faster than her healing abilities could keep up. So she died before reaching the point where her energy level depleted enough to darken her hair. But, *shrugs* You could be right, too. Perhaps her healing ability /was/ keeping up, she just finally reached her limit.
Re: Knives - I understand where you're coming from, but I think I disagree. Knives is a pretty clever guy, and I think that at least one alternative course of action would be to create batteries to replace the plants. Solar power and wind power could be used, or a whole new kind of battery. He could abduct some scientists and engineers to help (and then Conrad could have friends, lol), and once he had something, it wouldn't be too hard to pitch it to people, I think. "Look, plants are weird and no one really understands them, so you plant engineers are just doing the best you can, right? And sooner or later, they'll die, and then what? But THIS I understand, I know how to make it and how to run it. I could teach others. You'll actually know what you're doing, and when it breaks, just replace it. It'll keep the city going and it's the smarter choice in the long run. By the way, part of my payment is that I get to keep the plants after they're replaced." Another possible alternative? Take the plants like he did before, but then strike up negotiations. "You better swear on your soul that you'll start work on a new power source, or I'm going to take off with these plants and leave you to die." But he hated humans. He didn't want to make a new power source, he didn't want to negotiate, he wanted revenge. He wanted them to suffer for causing his sisters to suffer, so he choose the course of action involving genocide. He, himself, truly believed that it was his only option, but it wasn't really.
"And after he dies, the Plants are going to be in an even worse spot than before." I would looove to talk about this part, but I'll wait until you've finished the manga. I'm actually working on a fanfic right now set after the end of the manga, and it gets quite a bit into what happens to plants afterward.
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Post by visyolnayarusalka on Dec 19, 2013 23:55:09 GMT -5
Finished the manga this afternoon. Now I'm just taking time to absorb it.
One of the big problems is that TRIGUN is an allegory, and as such there is a lot of symbolism and naval-contemplation that gets in the way of perfect analysis. Largely, it reminds me of the movie Attack on Terra- you want to root for the humans because yay, humans, but at the same time the other side is even more justified, so no matter which side you pick you come out looking like an unfeeling monster, and while you're struggling with which side should win or think up a compromise they've both died. But maybe that's the point, because they bring up this point exactly, and-
GAH. What happened to my escapist deep space planet future gun action?
When I get to working on the posts (unfortunately, once the weekend hits I'm gong to be Christmas-tized for about a week), I'll bring up why negotiating with humans was an unlikely option. And yes, some of it is fear, but when discussing topics like this you have to remember you have the luxury of watching it as a third-party fully informed of both sides' intentions.
Everything you need to know is in volume 11. Pay very close attention to the conversations on the Earth ship. They don't say a lot but the implications along with the other revelations are blood-chilling.
Fuck. I forgot how cold Chronica is. She's a Plant Legato. Just the way she strikes me, even when she mourns Domina's loss, she's even colder and more self-loathing than Legato.
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Post by visyolnayarusalka on Jan 13, 2014 18:08:09 GMT -5
I'm back. Despite the long absence, I'm only about halfway through what I'm now referring to as 'that post'. I decided to bring up a headcanon that's a byproduct of my research to keep this topic alive.
As we all know, Vash's favorite flower is the geranium, and it was sort of a big deal in the story that red geraniums mean 'determination'. Unfortunately, they don't. After checking several sources, geraniums actually stand for several things, none of which are that: friendship, stupidity, folly, meeting, and having a positive outlook. It's a wonder Nightow had to make something up, because any one of those would have strongly correlated to a theme in the story.
So why does Rem claim they represent determination? Because meanings change, and at this point in the future, geraniums have come to be seen as symbolic for determination. My theory is that at some point in the future, the world has a minor nuclear war. Not M.A.D., but enough to seriously hinder land resources. Currently, scientists are discovering that flowers are a really good way to remove radiation from soil, and as it turns out, geraniums are especially good at this. There are over four hundred species growing in most of the world's major regions, and they are highly prolific in irradiated soil.
After the war, while humanity was trying to clean up the fallout, geraniums began growing (or were planted by recovery efforts) in the areas that were heavily bombarded with radiation, so eventually the flower was seen for its 'determination'- it would grow back in a place where other plants and creatures had died.
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