#39th central asian war
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#i've been thinking of this since last thursday#naoki urasawa's pluto#pluto manga#pluto anime#39th central asian conflict#39th central asian war#tetsuwan atom
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Science Fiction as a Reflection on Society - PLUTO & The Cycle of Hate
MAJOR SPOILER WARNING -You can read this before reading PLUTO but it will spoil many major plot points!
In 2015, I picked up a manga volume in a London bookshop called PLUTO. I had a burgeoning interest in AI, and computer science, at the time and had read Naoki Urasawa's manga Monster many years prior. It seemed a perfect read. Little did I know, it would become my favourite manga.
As I read the first volume I realised this wasn't just a simple Astro Boy adaptation. Like many of Urasawa's stories, PLUTO was a layered story which took its source material and asked fundamental questions about its premise.
The more innocent veneer of the Astro Boy world was stripped away, and echoes of the Middle East, of Afganistan, Iraq and Palestine, were transposed into the background of what was on the surface a simple detective story plot. The long memories, and relentless logic, of robots became a means by which conflict could be examined, but also a way to reveal the weaknesses in the non-empathetic nature of robotics and AI.
Instead of a traditional manga and anime trope of beating the strongest villain against the odds, it became a tragic, yet hopeful, story about the long-tail effects of trauma and how our memories of the past, remembered or misremembered, shape our present.
Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it
From the 1980s Soviet invasion to the modern day US involvement in the Middle East, the trauma of the conflict had lasting impacts on both the invaded countries, and those who invaded. Talented people, who at peace could have done and produced great things, were reduced to administering corrupt governments, fighting occupying forces and wasting their lives on a fractious peace based on subterfuge and realpolitik.
Robot Mont. Blanc, killed in the opening part of PLUTO acts as the introduction of this theme. A deeply environmentalist robot, who was beloved by mountaineers and children alike, was sent to fight in a war whose values conflicted with his own.
Despite his experiences, he went on to live in his old life - tending to and caring for the Swiss Alps and those who lived within them, but was ultimately killed by a mysterious perpetrator.
This theme is carried through with all the "greatest robots on Earth", who are targeted by PLUTO, and who all are trying to make something of their lives after the end of the conflict, most of whom have managed to shake off the negative experiences of their past - while still being haunted by it.
During the gradual decolonization of the colonial powers of Europe in the Middle East, there existed periods in the Middle East of relative calm and stability. People were able to life affluent, and prosperous lives without the threat of violence and revolution - with collaboration between US, European and USSR workers and those who lived there allowing for the construction of infrastructure and advanced manufacturing facilities.
But what about those who can't deal with their past. What about those who are deeply damaged?
PLUTO - The Greatest Trauma on Earth
MAJOR PLOT SPOILER WARNING
So what is PLUTO? Who is PLUTO? He is nothing more than a robot who loves flowers, created by the Persian scientist Dr Abullah. His love for the plant makes him want to plant flowers across the country, to fill it with beauty and richness. He is someone with hopes, and dreams, to make a beautiful world which can be enjoyed by the people who live there.
At least, that's what he used to be.
As the 39th Central Asian Conflict drags on, Dr Abdullah become bitter and resentful at what has happened to his country. A once proud nation reduced to rubble and ruin. Instead of encouraging his robotic son to plant flowers, he fills his son with a vast hatred against those who have committed violence against his people.
The son who wanted nothing more than to make the world a better place is indoctrinated by his father into a being of pure rage, while fully knowing his previous self. The two sides of his personality ripping and tearing at each other in a self-contradictory nightmare.
Just as PLUTO is turned into a loathing monstrosity by his family, upbringing and situation - so too are those who live, fight and die in conflicts. Both the 2023 murder of innocent Israelis by Hamas, and the subsequent murders of innocent Palestinians by Israel have no doubt radicalised a new generation of martyrs, while their leaders - those meant to be inspiring and running the country in their name - directly encourage mass murder on both sides.
In Afghanistan, the hopes of a democratic society were undermined by a corrupt Western imposed system which broke down into Taliban rule in 2022. Collaborators killed or tortured. Women, once again, forced into roles they had broken out of.
But this cuts both ways.
In Afghanistan, both the Soviet invasion of the 1980s and the US/Coalition invasions of the 2000s led to a surge in Western soliders who came home from war angry, disillusioned and in mental and physical pain. Sometime from IED amputations, sometimes from PTSD and severe mental health issues.
Some survived the war, only to transfer their trauma to others at home or to end their own lives at their own hands. A generation of young military lives lost.
The Politics of Hate
Newton's third law states: Each action has an equal, but opposite, reaction. This often occurs socially.
This is ever present in PLUTO with the Anti-robot league. That robots have any rights at all is anathema to these people, who organise a conspiracy to destroy the social fabric of robots in society through targeted assassinations and hatred.
Through their actions, they aim to convert others to their cause and roll back decades of progress in the world of PLUTO.
This occurs in reality just as readily.
The 9/11, 2001 Twin Towers bombings brought together the American people in sorrow, but they also led to the enabling of war.
It didn't matter that Saudi Arabia had allowed Osama Bin Laden to live, and plan, in their country prior to the attacks. It was Afghanistan and Iraq that were targeted on the most spurious of grounds. This was enabled, in part, by swathes of the public who wanted a form of revenge but was mainly supported by neo-cons in government.
The two sides of the coin in Gaza are Hamas, with their backers, and the hard right Israeli government.
Hope
Despite the past, hope and recovery are still possible. This is what the story of North #2 and retired composer Paul Duncan reveals to us. An early inclusion in the manga, it also reveals some of the lighter themes of the work.
Paul Duncan's memories of his childhood, and his perceived Mother's abandonment of him to boarding school and almost terminal illness have coloured his entire life. When we meet him, he is a bitter old man who has a writer's block, and has taken on the ex-military robot North #2 as his butler.
But as the story reveals, Duncan's memories are coloured by his misconceptions of events. As North #2 learns to play the piano, against Duncan's wishes, he reveals the notes of the song that Duncan has been humming from his sleep - a song Duncan's mother used to sing to him as a child. It turns out that Ducan's mother didn't abandon him for a rich husband, but used that husband's wealth to pay for his expensive life-saving treatment and schooling.
It is only by dealing with the past, working through his trauma, that Duncan is able to heal in the present and move on with his life.
Conflict in Northern Ireland existed until the recent past of the late 1990s. This was against a backdrop of centuries of conflict between British settlers and the Irish natives. The Republic of Ireland was created in 1916 - but several Northern Counties remained in British control.
The period between 1916 and the Good Friday Agreement were filled with terrorist action by the IRA against the British Army and the repression of Catholic Irish people in the form of police/army brutality, gerrymandering, discriminatory hiring practices and in other forms.
This was only resolved through dialogue at the highest level between the British Government and Sinn Fein - the political wing of the IRA. It resulted in a peace process which has lasted decades, and has resulted in a generation who can now live, love and work with each other. This required hard decisions, to put past differences and strong emotional ties behind both sides. The results are extraordinary - and offer hope for any conflict.
Conclusions
The best stories I have read take the author's present experience, and insight, and use fiction as a vehicle to explore their themes and ideas. PLUTO takes the historical context of modern world events, and wraps it in an Astro Boy story which tells a story of how trauma, and hate, perpetuate themselves in cycles which come back to haunt and destroy others.
We can learn a lot from such stories. We should learn from them.
It is easy to continue to hate others, and react against clear provocations. It takes courage, bravery and sacrifice to break the cycle and begin anew - to create a new world. A world that Atom represents. A world with a brighter future.
#pluto#pluto manga#pluto anime#pluto spoilers#pluto netflix#naoki urasawa#science fiction#scifi#sci fi#politics#literary Analysis#long reads#long read
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hey carmen! i hope youre doing well! :D P, G, R, W for the ask game?
I'm doing dandy thanks and thank you for the ask! :)
P. Invent a random AU for any fandom (we always need more ideas).
Oh fun! Since I'm in Pluto brainland right now and already have a bunch of AUs rattling around about it I'll share one of those. I have in mind this AU where, during the 39th Central Asian War, Gesicht is critically damaged and has to be sent back for repairs by his creator (the damage is too intricate and complex for most field techs to fix him). Hoffman, faced with the visceral consequences of Gesicht being sent to war, takes matters into his own hands and runs off with Gesicht. I just think about how it's probably something Hoffman never wanted to put his creation through but wasn't able to stand up to higher ups at the time. I think faced with the violence and terror of the war coupled with Gesicht returning to him badly damaged would be the catalyst for him to recognize the system for what it is and work to support robots in a more earnest way that maybe requires him to be in hiding.
G. Have you ever had an OTP? If so, do you remember your first one? Who was in it?
So I don't think I define OTP the same way that most people do. "OTP" to me is just "the ship that is my favourite to think about" I guess, but I will still actively ship those characters individually with other characters, too. That said, my first OTP was McSpirk. 12 year old me took angsty pictures of Spock, Kirk and McCoy (and variations of them together) and made Windows Movie Maker slideshows with them to angsty billy talent and three days grace songs
R. Which friendship/platonic relationship is your favorite in fandom?
Favourite platonic relationships in fandom! That's hard, because tbf I like a lot of them. It's generally my favourite type of relationship between characters. Generally speaking though, any adult-child dynamics that are particularly wholesome (especially when one or both are severely broken people) will destroy me.
On a recent rewatch of Eureka Seven, I found I really appreciated the crew of the Gekko a lot. They're just a bunch of weirdo roommates and the vibe of that whole dynamic was really good to me. As far as platonic relationships in series go they feel very close to how actual people interact with each other so I guess I'll say whatever the crew of the Gekko has going on.
W. A trope which you are virtually certain to hate in any fandom.
Normally I'm pretty forgiving with tropes honestly! If it's an annoying trope that happens a lot of times I'll probably skip out, but it's hard for me to say any "specific" trope will make me "hate" it when generally I will give them a 3-strike grace or a "that was funny actually" level of acceptability. I guess I do have one that consistently pisses me off though.
"Shitty sex scenes used in place of character growth" is my biggest fiction pet peeve. It's not sex scenes as a general rule, but in so many shows I've seen the writers will give me absolutely no reason to believe character A and B would fuck (in fact, they usually seem to hate each other and Not in a oh they wanna fuck kinda way), then suddenly they fuck (and it's framed to be as bland as possible) and then after that they're super close meanwhile I have had absolutely nothing shown between them that would lead any of this to feel like it would feasibly have happened. It's bad writing and completely takes me out of the narrative and makes me think about how I would have written character development to get from point A to point B.
Ask game
#ask game#nightshadetq#I have multiple 'Hoffman forsakes the system' AUs its just the natural character progression he takes to me#I want that man to get radicalized
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Q&A: Naoki Urasawa’s Pluto
Ask on the subject of Brau-1589’s and Roosevelt (cont'd No. 1):
Just finished the anime. Atom asked Brau not because he didn't want to get his hands dirty, but because he thought he was going to die stopping the eruption.
I do like the idea of that! My only problem with it is Atom (at least in other interactions of the character, esp. the 2003 version) is very much against killing. That’s one reason why he didn’t fight in The 39th Central Asian war. If he wanted to kill Teddy, he could’ve done that before going after Pluto and not spend time saying his goodbyes.
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Monday, July 5, 2021
Jimmy, Rosalynn Carter mark 75 years of ‘full partnership’ (AP) The young midshipman needed a date one evening while he was home from the U.S. Naval Academy, so his younger sister paired him with a family friend who already had a crush. Nearly eight decades later, Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter are still together in the same tiny town where they were born, grew up and had that first outing. In between, they’ve traveled the world as Naval officer and military spouse, American president and first lady, and finally as human rights and public health ambassadors. “It’s a full partnership,” the 39th president told The Associated Press during a joint interview ahead of the couple’s 75th wedding anniversary on July 7. It will be another milestone for the longest-married presidential couple in American history. At 96, Carter also is the longest-lived of the 45 men who’ve served as chief executive. Yet even having reached that pinnacle, Carter has said often since leaving the Oval Office in 1981 that the most important decision he ever made wasn’t as head of state, commander in chief or even executive officer of a nuclear submarine in the early years of the Cold War. Rather, it was falling for Eleanor Rosalynn Smith in 1945 and marrying her the following summer. “My biggest secret is to marry the right person if you want to have a long-lasting marriage,” Carter said.
Tropical Storm Elsa nears Cuba amid fears of flooding (AP) Tropical Storm Elsa swept along Cuba’s southern coast early Monday, and forecasters said it could make landfall on the island’s central shore by midafternoon. By Sunday, Cuban officials had evacuated 180,000 people as a precaution against the possibility of heavy flooding from a storm that already battered several Caribbean islands, killing at least three people. Most of those evacuated stayed at relatives’ homes, others went to government shelters, and hundreds living in mountainous areas took refuge in caves prepared for emergencies. Elsa was forecast to cross over Cuba by Monday night and then head for Florida, where Gov. Ron DeSantis declared a state of emergency in 15 counties, including in Miami-Dade County, where a high-rise condominium building collapsed last week.
Brazil Vaccine Scandal Imperils Bolsonaro as Protests Spread (NYT) The plot twists of a coronavirus vaccine kickback scandal that has rattled Brazil’s capital have been worthy of a reality TV show. The main stage has been a congressional hearing room, where scores of witnesses have been shedding light on the government’s chaotic response to the pandemic, which has killed more than 520,000 in the country. There has been plenty of yelling as the audacity and scope of a scheme by health ministry officials to solicit bribes from vaccine dealers have come into focus. The outrage drew tens of thousands of Brazilians to protest across several cities on Saturday, the third large wave of demonstrations in recent weeks. Much about the scandal, which federal prosecutors are investigating, remains unclear and in dispute. But the widening inquiry is likely to pose a major threat to President Jair Bolsonaro’s re-election bid next year—and perhaps even to his ability to serve out the remainder of his term.
Cyber attack against U.S. IT provider forces Swedish chain to close 800 stores (Reuters) The Swedish Coop grocery store chain closed all its 800 stores on Saturday after a ransomware attack on an American IT provider left it unable to operate its cash registers. Hundreds of American businesses were hit on Friday by an unusually sophisticated attack that hijacked widely used technology management software from a Miami-based supplier called Kaseya. According to Coop, one of Sweden’s biggest grocery chains, a tool used to remotely update its checkout tills was affected by the attack, meaning payments could not be taken. State railways services and a pharmacy chain also suffered disruption.
EU deploys assistance for Cyprus as huge forest fire rages (Reuters) The European Union on Saturday deployed aerial assistance to help Cyprus contain a huge forest fire raging north of the cities of Limassol and Larnaca, a blaze one official called the worst on record. The blaze, fanned by strong winds, affected at least six communities in the foothills of the Troodos mountain range, an area of pine forest and densely vegetated shrubland. “It is the worst forest fire in the history of Cyprus,” Forestries Department Director Charalambos Alexandrou told Cyprus’s Omega TV.
Japan’s leader pushes rescue after deadly mudslide hits town (AP) More than 1,000 soldiers, firefighters and police on Sunday waded through a giant mudslide that ripped through a resort town southwest of Tokyo, killing at least two people and leaving about 20 missing as it swept away houses and cars. Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga told reporters 19 people had been rescued, and 130 homes and other buildings were damaged in Atami. Two people were dead, but more were feared missing, he said speaking after an emergency Cabinet meeting. Earlier, disaster officials said 20 were unaccounted for, but warned the number may rise. Troops, firefighters and other rescue workers, backed by three coast guard ships, were working to clear the mud from the streets of Atami and reach those believed to be trapped or carried away. They were barely visible in the rainfall and thick fog except for the their hard hats. Six military drones were being flown to help in the search.
Some Chinese shun grueling careers for ‘low-desire life’ (AP) Fed up with work stress, Guo Jianlong quit a newspaper job in Beijing and moved to China’s mountain southwest to “lie flat.” Guo joined a small but visible handful of Chinese urban professionals who are rattling the ruling Communist Party by rejecting grueling careers for a “low-desire life.” That is clashing with the party’s message of success and consumerism as its celebrates the 100th anniversary of its founding. “Lying flat” is a “resistance movement” to a “cycle of horror” from high-pressure Chinese schools to jobs with seemingly endless work hours, novelist Liao Zenghu wrote in Caixin, the country’s most prominent business magazine. “In today’s society, our every move is monitored and every action criticized,” Liao wrote. “Is there any more rebellious act than to simply ‘lie flat?’” It isn’t clear how many people have gone so far as to quit their jobs or move out of major cities. Judging by packed rush hour subways in Beijing and Shanghai, most young Chinese slog away at the best jobs they can get. Still, the ruling party is trying to discourage the trend.
Myanmar forces kill 25 in raid on town, resident and media say (Reuters) Myanmar security forces killed at least 25 people on Friday in a confrontation with opponents of the military junta at a town in the centre of the Southeast Asian nation, a resident and Myanmar-language media said on Sunday. Myanmar has been plunged into chaos by the Feb. 1 coup against elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi, with violence flaring in many parts of the country of more than 53 million people.
Philippine military plane crashes, 45 dead, 49 rescued (AP) A Philippine air force C-130 aircraft carrying combat troops crashed in a southern province while landing Sunday, killing at least 42 army soldiers on board and three civilians on the ground, while 49 were rescued from the burning wreckage, officials said. Some soldiers were seen jumping off the aircraft before it crashed and exploded around noon in the periphery of the Jolo airport in Sulu province, military officials said. Three of six villagers who were hit on the ground have died.
Former South African president Jacob Zuma delays prison deadline with last-ditch legal maneuver (CNN) Jacob Zuma and his lawyers successfully delayed the former South African president’s prison sentence for contempt of court on Saturday when the country’s top court agreed to hear his application for a review of their decision to sentence him to 15 months in prison. In the application, 79-year-old Zuma and his lawyers claimed that the sentence threatened his life and that the Constitutional Court’s decision was unfair to their client. This comes after Zuma was ordered to hand himself in to a police station in his hometown Nkandla or Johannesburg by the end of this Sunday. Failing that, the police were given three days to bring him in. The Constitutional Court hearing will take place on July 12. Some legal analysts say the application is highly unlikely to succeed, but it buys Zuma more time.
Pope doing well after intestinal surgery, Vatican says (Reuters) Pope Francis is doing well following intestinal surgery, the Vatican said on Sunday after the 84-year-old pontiff was hospitalised for the first time since his election in 2013. Spokesman Matteo Bruni said in a statement that the pontiff "responded well" to the surgery, which was done under general aesthesia and which the Vatican had said earlier had been scheduled and not prompted by an emergency. Francis underwent surgery for symptomatic diverticular stenosis of the colon, a condition where sac-like pouches protrude from the muscular layer of the colon, leading it to become narrow. The operation was carried out by a 10-person medical team.
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I just had a goofy “aha” “duh” moment with “Pluto.” All along I kept thinking gee this 39th Central Asian War sure has a ton of parallels to the Afghanistan War/Iraq War. But then I remembered “Astro Boy” is supposed to be set around the beginning of the 21st century. So I guess this means the war in “Pluto” isn’t merely a parallel to the Afghanistan/Iraq War it IS the same damn war. *facepalms*
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