I finally develop a little bit of a guess as to what CB is all about. In the first couple eps it seems as if CB intends to stomp out any violence or threat of violence, violently. But now that CB is clearly providing arms to all sides of the conflicts and have absolutely no scruple about employing such scams as Ali, and the conversation between Corners and Libbons/Ribbons/Livonze (plus so many other ways to spell it).
My guess/idea is that CB is not an organization in the common sense of the word. In the beginning there was Aeolia Schoenberg (AS), he invented something important for the Solar Array, made a ton of money for himself but probably not happy with the world/Big 3's not dancing to his Utopian tune. Also he invented the Solar Furnace (GN Drive?) but keeps it to himself. Veda is his computer that will carry out social engineering to realize his Utopia, long after his death. Veda stores his plan, run scenario simulations and interacts with individuals and try to convince them to support Aeolia's ideals. So some loose organization of "associates" is formed. But there's no membership card for being CB, and certainly no definable command structure. In a way, Veda is like the Oracle in the Matrix, Veda offers a dead guy's vision, and massive computing and data collecting power. Whoever judged to be worth enough will be offered a view of that vision and invitation to join CB. But not everyone, perhaps no one even, are shown the same things. So CB's member generally don't know each other's background and sometimes not even the existence of other branches. (how pissed Setsuna would be to find that CB/Veda did all these things (via Laguna) 1. selected, trained and armed the Trinities, 2. armed the Big 3 with GN-X, 3. armed Ali with the spidey MA). Everyone was told what s/he needed to know (as judged by the infinite wisdom of Veda). Observers - they were recruited by Veda to be "wet" thinkers. Veda is equipped to simulate and reacts to social and political scenarios. But AS wants to have to defend against blindspots in Veda's design, in capitalist economy, corporations have "Board of Directors" who review and advise the executives. The observers are employed to review CB decisions and activity and asked to give suggestion for Veda to consider. That's why they had a say in (possibly) dismissing Sumeragi and one or two of the GMs. And why they were asked to "acknowledge" the Thrones. In Daiguard, there was also a board of directors who performed the same function. Corners family - If Corners family had been trying to "upset Veda's plan for 200 years", then they might been rivals with AS himself when he was alive, when the Space Elevator and Solar Array were developing. Taking a wild guess now: I think Alejandro himself was contacted by Livonze on behalf of Veda, Livonze presents a truce between Corners and Veda and offers open access to both field opportunity (Azadistan) and inner access (Veda). Neither Corners nor Veda need to trust or commit to each other in a deep/long term way, but both have agreed to, how to say, short term confidence-building steps. What does Veda gain from Corners? That's harder to say. If someone's hypothesis that a Corners was the person who recovered the purple Haro 80 years ago, then perhaps the Corners clan developed the fake GN Drive that (unlike the real GN Drive) _can_ be mass-produced. That's a surprise twist in the scenario and Veda's best option was to let the Corners clan in on the game, and rewrite the plan incorporating mass-producible GN Drives. Ptlemaois gang - a semi-automous "cell", using current real world terminology. The crew believe in a (partial?) AS vision and developed some illusion that they are CB, but in fact, they are probably only a small component of the master plan. A component that's not only expendable, but in fact must be expended for the plan to progress. Wang Liu Mei and Red Dragon - like Ptlemaois crew, joined CB of their free will and may not know much more than them. Laguna & Trinities - more of the same. But they are the second phase "cell", so they have data on and access to Ptlemaois the first phase. But like Ptlemaois, they have illusion that they are the real deal and are now facing elimination as per phase III. My guess is that they share the same Utopian vision with Ptlemaois but were given a much more aggressive tactical ROE. Let me try to explain why I don't think of CB as an _organization_. Consider the scenario: if Phase III is the elimination of both Ptlemaois and Thrones and there isn't any other "cell" to succeed them, then the AS objective/vision may not require any more armed force or structured organization. Imagine the CB plan running on, with nothing more than a massive computer on the Moon, and a network of expendable agents (Corners in UN, Laguna in Linear Train/AEU) who manipulate the Big 3, Azadistan, Moralia etc to play out their parts. I am still thinking about the careful wordings used by Corners & Wang. They emphasize that they are not _direct_ actors, they may throw a bucket of chump in the water that trigger a bloodlust, but they don't feel responsible that the bloodlust is present in human nature. I still have no clue at all if AS's ultimate objective is as stated (elimination of wars), which is noble or sympathizable despite deep uncertainty how phase III is taking things in that direction and inevitable debate about its practicality and (standard) ends vs. means question; or something entirely disagreeable, i.e. world domination etc; or something way way out there like Human Instrumentality Project of NGE. Of course, the whole thing smells like the Foundation Trilogy of 1940s. No need to get deeper into parallels and differences for now. -- Dr. Core -------------------------------------------------- The Gundam Mailing List MK-II [email protected] Archives: http://www.gundam.com/gml Help: Email [EMAIL PROTECTED] with this in the BODY: help list
