Last Exile: Fam the Silver Wing 19 — War. War! What is it Good For?

As Robert Jackson, chief prosecutor for the US, said of Nazi Germany at the Nuremberg trials:

The central crime in this pattern of crimes, the kingpin which holds them all together, is the plot for aggressive wars.

I really can’t see Luscinia and Lilliana’s side of this at all, although it seems like the creators are trying to make this seem morally ambiguous. How can starting all these wars and wiping an entire nation off the face of the earth possibly be justified?

In the past, the earth was destroyed by war. Of course reviving ancient weapons that can make giant holes in the ocean’s floor is the only way to prevent this from happening again. So this is how Moses crossed the Red Sea!

Supposedly Millia has seen something from the Exile which explains her sister’s actions. They’re really going to need a good explanation for that. Luciana’s plan seems plain idiotic. As far as I can tell, it’s Schneizel’s plan from Code Geass: launch a space fortress with the power to shoot nuclear missiles at people who don’t get along.

You know what, I have an even better plan! Let’s start a preemptive preventive war! If we kill everyone before they can start a war, war will cease! There will be peace on earth forever, until the end of time!

Credit to Giselle for being the only one with a brain to see through Luscinia’s farce at a truce. And credit to Luscinia for realizing what an idiot Fam was.

Although Fam is in some ways smarter than Luscinia, as evidenced by this question. She did redeem herself a bit in this episode too, by apologizing for being such an idiot. She’s still Fam, but I can cut her a bit of slack now. She actually apologized! Fam!

Further Thoughts

She looks infinitely better without the hat.

Nooo!!! Stop triggering death flags! Although I’m shocked that he’s going along with what Lusciana says while he’s carrying around an unconscious Empress.

4 thoughts on “Last Exile: Fam the Silver Wing 19 — War. War! What is it Good For?

  1. I think I can somewhat understand Luscinia’s motives: He does not intend to extinct humanity. His attacks seem ruthless but clearly focused to achieve a few strategic goals. Luscinia aims at building an overwhelming power which ensures peace. It is maybe not by accident that such a period in history has been called “Pax Augusta”. We have enjoyed largely peaceful times b/c the US were dominating the world and before that there were two superpowers. Now we might have entered a multipolar world order which much more resembles the power constellation in the LE world.

    I’m not saying that a multipolar world cannot be peaceful. But peace in such a world becomes much more difficult if you add scarcity and social change. This seems to be the case in the LE world as exilants have returned and – as Luscinia holds – the planet cannot provide enough supplies for everyone.

    If the counterfactual scenario to Luscinia’s war is a happy coexistence of nations (as Fam et al. seem to see it) than of course he’s wrong. But if the counterfactual is a prolonged low-intensity conflict about scarce resources than I’d say that Luscinia at least has a point. He’d claim that he’s just following a utilitarian “greatest happiness principle”.

    As a viewer of LE II I feel inclined to root for the cause of Turan, Kartoffel etc. b/c our heroines stem from there and these places have been attacked by Luscinia at the start of the show. I understand, however, that from Ades point of view the returnees have been the aggressors. I wonder if this resentment really would just go away with a simple peace contract. The short-lived truce suggests otherwise imo.

    Sorry that this comment became so lengthy. I find the political struggle in LE II quite interesting as there is no clear “good” or “bad” side nor a course of action which I could clearly call the “right” one.

    1. I suppose from a utilitarian perspective his actions might make sense. If there’s enough food for ten humans, and you have one hundred of them, killing ninety of them may provide the greatest net happiness (at least for those that are left). I don’t think that makes it any less wrong. Killing people is always wrong.

      I do agree that a simple peace treaty isn’t going to solve their problems. It’s certainly a tough question, and it’s difficult to speculate on what they should do without even knowing what the problem is. But whatever it is, I don’t think massacring people is ever a good approach. So I’d agree that there is no clear “good” side, but there is most certainly at least one “bad” side. 🙂

      And I always love long comments, especially if they make me think more about things like this one did.

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