#Atlesian military

[bestworstcase]

last few eps of V7 and all of V8 make it really. really obvious that not only has the atlas military never won a war, its entire command structure is oriented around individual power and technology to the extreme detriment of strategy and tactics; the salem wins primarily because she delivers a siege to a general who has not the slightest idea how to mount a proper defense and a city that would have been shockingly ill-equipped to withstand siege even if ironwood did know what he was doing. (dialogue early in V8 suggests that atlesian warships are sallying against the grimm flock and being shot down repeatedly—this strongly suggests that atlas does not have any kind of ground-based or even long-distance ranged weaponry with which to fire on the grimm from within the hard-light fortifications, which is in line with the arrogant presumption of untouchability that pervades the culture but utterly gobsmacking from a tactical standpoint, particularly in light of the fact that defenses of this general nature have been adopted to good effect by other states ie the turrets on the argus express which are in fact a great idea.) (further the nearly absolute reliance on the hard-light shields as a singular line of defense is breathtaking; the ace-ops mention proximity alarms that have been taken offline in V7 but there is noticeably no reference to defensive outposts or anything of that nature, suggesting that once watts disabled the sensors salem was able to fly her army east from the coast to atlas itself completely uncontested—granted it is unclear how much defensive depth would have mattered given that the nature of salem’s army made logistics virtually a non-issue and she is effectively able to respawn any forces lost to engagements while she advanced, but they could have at least slowed her down.)

[phishcaek]

After decades of hard work, Schnee Tech is happy to announce its latest breakthrough in robotics and safety! Collaborating with the Atlesian Military, we've developed PENN:1, a public safety security droid! Their values are to Protect Enforce Navigate and Neutralize!

Their AI is so advanced that they're almost lifelike and their weaponry is well adept to handle any danger that comes their way, making them the perfect public servants to secure your neighborhoods from dangerous criminals and gangs!

We are currently still in the testing phase with our first v1 model, but we hope to further this technology in the future to bring mankind into a new age where public safety is ensured and justice prevails!

[howi99]

Jaune: My father once said the height of Atlas is only equaled by its ego, it's pride and the number of military blunders they made during the war.

Weiss: ... Not inaccurate.

Jaune: He also said that Atlesian food tastes like its people: it looks nice, but it tastes bland.

Weiss: Hey! I'm not bland!

Jaune: But you agree with the taste?

Weiss: Oh absolutely, the strength of Atlas DOESN'T lie in its gastronomy.

[lwde-encrusted-sideblog]

Winter: Arc. Are you busy at this moment?

Jaune: No, What do you need?

Winter: Excellent. Please grab my chest.

Jaune: What?

Winter: Grab my chest, Arc.

Jaune: *Cautiously Places hands beneath each Armpit* Like this?

Winter: You misunderstand. *Grabbing Jaune's wrists, placing his hands on her boobs* Now squeeze.

Jaune: Excuse me?

Winter: Squeeze my Breasts Mr. Arc. I am becoming impatient.

Jaune: *Squeeze*

Winter: How do they feel?

Jaune: Um ... Firm? Not very heavy and they fit in my hands well?

Winter: Do they feel pleasant?

Jaune: Yes?

Winter: *releases Jaune* Excellent. You may go about your day. If you feel the desire for a greater understanding, please come to my Quarters fifteen minutes before Curfew begins. You will not need to bring any Condoms.

Jaune: What- Why would I need to bring condoms?

Winter: I just said you would not need any condoms. Higher Members of the Atlesian Military are required to have Reversable and/or temporary birth control procedures, such as a vasectomy or Nesplanon implant, to allow Morale Boosting Sexual activities without risk of Pregnancy.

Jaune: ... I didn't get a vasectomy?

Winter: You are technically not a member of the Atlesian Military. You are a huntsman contracted by us. I hope to see you this evening. Have a pleasant afternoon.

Jaune: ...

Jaune: I'm gonna get laid~

[notmaplemable]

Ironwood: This is the newest advancement in Atlesian military technology. The Tactical Augmented Reality Device.

Winter: ...General, we can't call it that.

Ironwood: Why not?

Winter: We just can't.

[spahhzy]

Weiss: Hey sweetie, can I help you with something?

The little girl pointed to Jaune, her boyfriend.

Lil-girl: Who's that next to you?

Weiss smiles warmly at Jaune.

Weiss: That's my boyfriend.

Lil-girl: He's really cute...

That warm smile on Weiss face turned into a cold frown, and Jaune just inwardly grimaced.

Jaune: Weiss, babe, she just gave me a compliment.

Weiss held up a finger to him silencing him.

Weiss: Kotzbrocken...

Jaune: Oh no, she is speaking in Atlesian..

Jaune: Babe, calm down she just a kid...

Weiss: I'm afraid, although I respect your bravery, I can not take this offense lightly and shall give you full capital punishment under the schnee domain!

Jaune: Weiss, hun, you're not gonna battle a child!

Weiss: THIS IS A MILITARY AGED AGENT!

Lil-girl: uhm, miss, I'm seven years old...

Weiss: Seven years to train, clearly a worthy opponent, miss assassin! Draw thy sword! I challenge you to a duel to the death!

Jaune: Put down the stuffed animal, babe! What are you, Darth Vader, killing younglings? You're not about to do this.

Weiss: as they say, "If they can crawl, they can brawl!"

Jaune: N-no one says that...

Weiss: Silence! I draw upon the laws of chilvary where I defend your honor! Your dignity...

Lil girl: I'm sorry ma'am, I didn't mean to make you mad...

Weiss: hmph I expect a two hundred thousand word apology too, and it shall be due no less than by the end of the week. Come Jaune, I demand Uppies on the Jackalope ride!

Weiss with a Jaune in tow left but not before Jaune gave her some tokens for the games and a stuffed bear before leaving.

[patriot2525]

Disciplined

At the Beacons Courtyard, people were gathering around the commotion that was the fight between the drunk dusty old Crow versus the ice cold specialist from Atlas.

All this commotion started when a drunk Qrow Branwen has appeared and destroyed two of the Atlesian Knight, before starting annoying specialist Winter Schnee with his witty remarks. Which caused the initial brawl, With specialist Schnee gave first attack.

As the two were fighting, James Ironwood, general of the Atlas military, was about to intervene and stop this fight. But before he could after a word there was a loud...

BOOM!!!

Commissar Arc: *holding a smoking Bolt Pistol, that he recently shot from it* Cease this nonsense immediately! *starts approaching the two fighters, while giving his famous commissar glare at the two them*

Winter: Excuse me! who do y-smack! *Got slapped in the face, by the commissar*

Commissar Arc: I didn't give you permission to speak, guardswoman. *intensify his glare at the specialist, which made her shut up and listen to his words* your behavior isn't unfitting of a Soldier! Not only you caused a scene by fighting this drunk. *points at the still drunk Qrow, who was confused at what the hell was going on* You acted as incompetent child That was easily played by this drunk, what do you have to say to your defence. guardswoman!?

Winter: *Still being stand from The sudden Slap.* I-

Commissar Arc: And what Is it with this outfit! *points at Winter’s uniform* is this supposed to be a uniform, guardswoman. You look more like a brothel whore than a protector of humanity!

Winter: *Shocked at his work, while slightly embarrassingly flushed at the remark* Wha-

Commissar Arc: You have five minutes to change to a proper uniform. before I assign you to the cleanup crew, where you will clean the entirety of the men’s bathrooms for a month! am I understood, guardswoman!

Winter: *her Soldier instincts kicking in, As she instinctually saluted the commissar, as if he was her old drill sergeant* YES SIR! RIGHT AWAY SIR! *runs off to fulfill the commissar's orders. with her worried little sister Weiss, running after her from behind while calling her name*

Commissar Arc: Now You! *Turns his head towards the drunk old Qrow, to which Qrow slightly uncomfortable due to the glare that he was receiving from the commissar, which put Goodwitch glare to shame* Not only your came here completely drunk, but also destroyed precious military equipment and started a fight in your drunken stupidity! *points his Bolt Pistol at the drunk Qrow* How do you plead?

Qrow: Uh-oh *starts running away towards headmasters tower. with his excited niece Ruby, Runs behind him while shouting for his name.*

Commissar Arc: Get back here You drunk dog! and face your punishment! *runs after the drunk Qrow, while swinging his chainsword that roared to life*

Meanwhile Ozpin alongside with Glynda and James, who saw all the events that happened here, Stood in total silence, At what they just saw.

With General Ironwood bring in shock and awe, at the Commissar's actions. from how easily managed to subdue his specialist and making her obey his orders. Deputy headmistress Glynda Goodwitch was simply tired of this, as she pitched the bridge of her nose in annoyance. As for the Headmaster Ozpin himself, He simply took another sip from his coffee mug.

Ozpin: Well, this was interesting to see. *takes another soup from his coffee*

(A/N: this is for one of the readers who wanted to see the interaction of Winter with one of the Jaune's so I hope he like it, as I hope the rest of you like it too. please tell me your thoughts and opinions about it, Any constructive criticism is welcome.)

[sir-adamus]

Ironwood's spiral from volume 4 (closing the borders, recalling the military, Dust embargo) to volume 7 (Mantle's become a police state, diverting supplies meant for the undercity to his secret projects, putting Penny alone as the sole realistic defense Mantle has and acting more and more without Council oversight) all happens in just over a month

Weiss leaves Atlas in volume 4, gets to Anima a few days later and is caught by the Branwens, who hold her for a short period of time before Yang shows up, at which point the two reunite with Ruby shortly after - this all takes place within the month leading up the Battle of Haven

volume 6 starts two weeks after the Battle, and the journey to Argus, then onto Atlas, takes about a week in terms of days passed

Weiss left and was back in Atlas in just over a month - but while we see Ironwood has clearly deteriorated in that time, we don't actually know how bad conditions in Mantle were before Weiss left, because we see in volume 8 that Atlesians are kept incredibly insulated from what's going on below (meaning Penny was probably restored and installed in Mantle for months and Weiss just never heard about it)

the Dust embargo was also likely Ironwood attempting to appropriate the SDC's Dust stores for the Amity project by preventing exports (though clearly without much success, considering the increasing tensions between him and Jacques - also that was another red flag, that they were 'friends' despite their arguing. like, it's telling that Ironwood was more willing to butt heads with Jacques than he was to even talk to Robyn)

[anthurak]

A thought: But what if Winter were to sacrifice her independence to bring Penny back?

Like, she joined the Atlesian Military to get away from her family, and so it's pretty clear that her ability to live without them is something she values quite a bit.

But now that she's started to reconnect with them, imagine if the cost for Penny to win again was Winter sacrificing enough of her Aura that she'd never be able to live independently again?

Yeah, I can kinda see that. Though I also have to question how 'sacrificing enough of her aura' directly equates to 'never being able to live independently again'. Like are you suggesting a situation similar to Pietro's where sacrificing that much of her aura leaves Winter physically disabled in some capacity?

Because if that's the case, I do feel like Winter isn't the most interesting character to explore that idea with, rather it would be WAY more interesting to see this explored with Jaune.

Not necessarily in that Jaune might become specifically disabled himself, but more that in order to bring Penny back, Jaune sacrifices the very strong aura reserves that allow him to be a strong, frontline fighter. Which would be kind of the perfect conclusion to his story of learning that the 'strong hero guy' archetype he thought he wanted to be at the start of the show ISN'T what he really wants/is meant to be. Essentially a 'sacrificing an important thing I've nonetheless realized I don't actually need' sort of moment.

Not to mention that, going back to Winter, I feel like it's pretty likely that 'big self sacrifices' are something that Winter might be dangerously drawn to in the coming Volumes and will have to be talked out of by her friends and family. Very much a 'learning to value yourself' arc.

[dragonking10]

Jaune The Black Knight

An AU where Jaune and Ruby decided to say Fuck the world, got married after going rogue (they left Beacon after being betrayed by their friends) and had a daughter together named Olivia.

Salem was watching everything through her Grimm and decided to personally invite them to join her faction in turn they will get their revenge. With nowhere else to go they accepted now Ruby leads a battalion of Grimm with Jaune as her Second in Command.

And yes Salem cares about these two adorkable couple and vowed to never let anyone hurt them ever again.

I have baffled long enough, let's get this show on the road.

This particular day Salem ordered for Ruby to get some needed rest after capturing a few villages in her name, Jaune got up from bed and got ready for another day of spreading fear around the world

He showered, brushed his teeth, puts on his black armor, his wife changed Crocea Mor's color scheme, instead of a white shield it's now black with a gold outline and their combined family symbol, instead of a blue hilt it's now blood red, instead of a silver blade it's now a black sword (like the one Sokka made from Avatar the Last Airbender)(As for Jaune's armor, it's the Rusted Knight armor but it's polished and the color is black and gold, helmet included)

Jaune walks into the kitchen where his wife made him some food to go, he grabbed the bag, kissed his wife and turned to leave when suddenly his wife stopped him

Ruby: Wait Jaune, do you know what day it is?

Jaune: Uh... Wednesday?

Ruby: No dummy it's take your daughter to work day!

Jaune: Uh I don't think it's a good idea to bring our daughter to our kind of work, at least not yet.

Ruby: I know, but she has been wanting to come with us for a while and since it's take your daughter to work day I figured now is the best time, plus she'd have my big strong dark knight as her protector~.

Jaune: Well yeah but-

Ruby caressed his face: Jaune you RoseArc-promised.

Jaune sighed: I did didn't I?

3 Hours Later

The scene shows a metal door to one of Atlesian's military bases exploded with Jaune rushes in while holding his daughter's hand but hit his head on the top of the door-way

Jaune holds his head for a second before activating his shield protecting his daughter amd himself from the bullets from the AK's

Jaune: Keep your head down Olvia!

Olivia holding a stuffed Ursa toy: Okay daddy-Whoa!

Jaune quickly dragged Olivia to cover but Olivia lost grip of her best friend.

Olivia: MR. CUZZYBOTTOM!!!

Olivia was about to run out to grab her friend but her father stopped her

Jaune looked down to his daughter and saw her pointing at her stuffed animal which is laying on the ground near the Atlesian Knights

Jaune sighs and looks at Olivia: I'll get him, you stay here where it's safe.

Jaune rushes out of cover, raised his shield and charged at the robot knights

Jaune quckly cut and sliced through the knights, grabbed the toy and rushed back to his daughter

Jaune out of breath and his daughter her toy: Here you go baby.

Salem: Who's the little girl?

Jaune nervous: Oh Lord Salem! Uh... it's bring your daughter to work day and uh I'm sorry for bringing, but my wife says we barely had time to spend together and let's be honest she's right, okay she's right!

Salem:...

Jaune even more nervous laughs a bit: Do you have kids? Cause heh I mean they change your world.

Salem:...

Jaune facepalms and mutters: Ugh I'm probably gonna get either fired or killed for this but... Fuck it.

Jaune grabs his daughter's hand: I love my daughter!

Salem brought her fist to her chest and smiles a bit: That really hits me where I'd live.

Salem noticed a survivor and used her powers to grab his neck

Salem: What have you done with those plans!? Jaune here never gets time to spend with his daughter because of PEOPLE LIKE YOU!!!

Salem snaps the survivor's neck and quickly realized there was a child present

Salem raised her other hand to her mouth: I'm so sorry you had to see that.

Salem drops the body

Salem kneels down to Olivia's eye level: Are you having fun being at work with your father?

Olivia gets nervous because she doesn't like talking to strangers and hides her face behind her father's leg

Salem chuckles: I know I'm pretty scary.

LATER IN MENAGERIE

Jaune was holding his daughter's hand as he and a White Fang goon was patroling a town looking for their targets when suddenly they come across an old man (Ozpin) wearing a hood with Weiss, Blake and Yang behind him also wearing hoods

Jaune stops them: Hold up you all seem familiar.

Ozpin uses his magic: These are not the students you're looking for.

Jaune: These are not the students we're looking for.

Olivia: Yes they are.

Ozpin: Move along

Jaune: Move along!

Ozpin and the three bitche- uh I mean students moved along going into the tavern for intel

Olivia: Daddy, You're not even trying!

Jaune: Honey, It's 110 DEGREES IN THIS CONTINENT!!! I CAN'T HEAR IN THIS THING!!! *points at his helmet* I WAS JUST REPEATING WHAT I THOUGHT THE GUY WAS SAYING! IT'S NOT LIKE IT'S MY OWN MOTHER FUCKING THOUGHT IN THE MATTER, OKAY!?

Olivia runs off crying and Jaune realized what he had done

Jaune feeling guilty and runs after his daughter: HONEY!!!

White Fang Goon: See? That's why I don't take my daugher to Jack Shit!

FEEL FREE TO ADD MORE IF YOU WANT

[dragon-razor-writings]

Atlesian Engineer: "Alright, general. What exactly do you want for the first military chassis?"

Atlesian General: "More armor than Joy and more bullets than Sorrow."

Atlesian Engineer: "...What-."

[bestworstcase]

listen. it is possible to acknowledge the clear influence of the 2016 US presidential election on the political storyline in rwby v7 AND engage substantively with the the actual text. i'm being snippy because this is a Huge Pet Peeve of mine which isn't something i would expect anyone to just intuit from the body of the post as written so i want to be clear that i am not like

irritated at you

or even in disagreement with the General Point because yeah. i've remarked before on the political utility of grimm to aspiring autocrats and authoritarian regimes and how fear of grimm is a vector for anti-faunus bigotry via scapegoating so like I DO GET WHAT YOU'RE SAYING

BUT

while v7 is pretty goddamn plainly a political fantasy informed by its time and place, and of course in the more general sense rwby is a story written by americans for whom american politics will naturally be the habitual point of reference and therefore there are, indeed, any number of ways these fictional polities can be read as commentary,

atlas is not the united states.

in general i find the fannish habit of treating fictional polities as 1:1 fictionalized representations of real polities to be Really Irritating (<- the aforementioned Huge Pet Peeve) for various reasons – i think it's reductive and often just a thought-stopping appeal to stereotype particularly when the real polity is not the USA, and insulting to the writer(s) in the same way that it would be insulting to regularly engage with fictional characters as fictionalized representations of real people. It's Fiction. It's Made Up.

with regard to "atlas is the US" in particular, the problem is that… no it isn't, and i think that the fandom reflex to read atlas as an allegorical united states is a contributing factor in a wide selection of fuckstupid takes about things that happen in v7-9.

because, like – for all its innumerable flaws and failings, the US is a democratic republic. we're governed by our elected representatives in the legislature and our elected president. the GOP has lately completed its collapse into a fascist clown cult (may they spend the next four years eating each other alive without achieving anything substantive amen) and things are very bad, but american democracy has not collapsed and the existential threat to american democracy is that the median american voter is fucking stupid. that was true in 2017-2020 and it's still true now.

before the great war – eighty years ago! this is, as i am always saying, recent history! – mantle was a fascist state. whether its prewar government had any trappings of democracy or not, the regime was certainly not democratic in any real sense. after that war, it's implied the state was obliged by the terms of the vytal accords to institute a democratic system of government, which – if we take the text at face value and do not Imagine that (for example) what is shown is only a small executive body with legislative power being vested in a larger representative assembly that is just never mentioned because it isn't important to the story* – seems to have been done by people with very little interest in this "checks and balances" nonsense.

(*which, to be clear, is an approach i embrace for Fanfic Purposes. but this post is about a textual reading.)

like. five seats. five. of which just three are elected representatives, and the two by appointment can be filled by one person who gets two votes. even if appointments must be confirmed by unanimous vote, it's not hard to get three people to agree on a candidate and it's also not a particularly heavy lift for a single political party to win all three seats.

you win all three seats and install your guy as headmaster-general and then you can lose two seats and still have the majority, and if it takes a unanimous 3-0 vote to oust an appointee then you're locked in until and unless you lose the third seat.

there are three possibilities; either:

this system was deliberately intended to be trivial to capture because it was designed by powers that be of the old regime.

this system was designed by people who were uninterested in or unable to envision what a fair, representative government would look like or how it would function.

there was a much more robust democratic system designed after the war, but it collapsed fairly quickly (a la vacuo) and the present council is a slapdash fig leaf raised by the military leaders who seized the moment.

all with the eventual outcome of mantle/atlas having basically at most dabbled in, flirted with democracy before snuggling back into the warm(?) safe(?) familiar embrace of stratocratic rule with a dash, a garnish if you will, of vestigial democratic-republicanism for civil affairs. in all likelihood this would have occurred through a gradual expansion and concentration of executive power and erosion of checks on that power and in that sense there are comparisons that can be made to democratic decline in the US, but a) these issues are endemic across all modern democracies because we're having a global trend toward right wing authoritarianism right now and b) the historical context and political situation in atlas as presented from v2 onward are really just not comparable to what is happening in the US within the past decade.

and the issue with this sort of square peg round hole allegorical reading of atlas is that it, i think, obfuscates the textual reality that is presented – that atlas is a military dictatorship with a very thin veneer of democracy and this has been the case for decades. ironwood is a deconstruction of the benevolent dictator trope, and of course for that to work at all, you have to pick up the cues in v2-3 that mark him as a dictator.

if that cueing is missed (e.g. because a viewer took Big Military and the Action Hero presentation to mean "atlas is Fantasy USA") then the glimpses of atlesian politics in v4 read very differently and mantle being… a fascist police state once we get there is, from what i've gathered, a lot more jarring than it is if you saw this

and went "ah. police state" about the hitherto open unanswered question of whether ironwood was a loose cannon or an autocrat. this is the autocrat move. (loose cannon would be getting dressed down by the atlesian president or PM or whatever.) lol

atlas was a dictatorship the whole time btw

[rainbow-zebra-art]

Full color drawings commissioned by CodyMacArthurFett for Scipio Smith's fanfic SAPR . As you see, in his story Blake is transferring to Atlas, and Penny is transferring to Beacon.

"I can believe that I can do more in the Atlesian military than I ever could as a huntress."

— Blake

She had found Freedom, in every single way.

— describing Penny's Semblance and her journey

Should I even mention that I absolutely loved drawing these two? The first three Volumes of RWBY have such a special place in my heart, so I enjoyed going back to the old designs. And if Penny in Beacon uniform is not a new idea (after all, she expressed her wish to stay at Beacon), Blake going to Altas is a pretty fresh and unexpected take, at least for me. If you're interested in how it comes to this, go on and check the story!

SAPR sources:

ArchiveOfOurOwn

Fimfiction

Spacebattles

SufficientVelocity

Fanfiction

Tvtropes

[rwby-encrusted-blog]

Jaune: Damn, there's a lot of dust under my be-

Ironwood: *Breaking his door down, surrounded by soldiers* Congrantulations! You're home is being liberated by the Atlesian Military!

Ironwood: This is for your own good. Get Out.

[abyranss]

I read a Hound Ruby fic recently called I can almost hear the Hounds that I really enjoyed and it got me thinking about these two again.

Something that's been on my mind since I last drew them was that I wanted to find ways to distinguish Penny's look more from her usual appearance; she has the red lights and the twisted ahoge and she was scraped up a bit but I wanted to go further.

So I'm leaning more into the cyberpunk nightmare that is Penny's existence. While with Salem she probably looks as I drew her previously but once they leave they lack the resources to keep her in top shape in the absence of Watts' or military funding.

So wear and tear take its toll and they end up needing to use less than optimal parts as replacements; maybe they can scavenge parts from the Atlesian Knights on occasion too. The result is: she ends up looking more obviously mechanical.

[princess-of-the-corner]

Lil' Miss Malachite was also the FIRST character to be introduced in a spin-off before debuting in the main series proper.

She was introduced as a boss in the game RWBY: Combat Ready (leading the "generic criminals" enemy faction), before she was brought in to forward Cinder's plotline in Volume 6, and then managed to be part of Roman Holiday's Big Bad Ensemble (which is chronologically set BEFORE Volume 6, but greatly expanded on Mistral's and Lil' Miss Malachite's worldbuilding).

Also, she's canonically robbed the Atlesian Military, which puts her on at least the same competence level as the Vale Chapter of the White Fang and Roman Torchwick. Unlike them, however, she did so WITHOUT any help or direction from Salem.

oh dope!