#it's a coastal megacity whose culture has hints of influence from vale

[rwby-redux]

Something that has always bothered me in canon. Travel in the real world is expensive. And I would assume that grimm attacks would make travel in Remnant MORE expensive. Yet Jaune’s family somehow has enough money to make regular camping trips to Shion Village a thing from wherever they lived (don’t get me started on how we have gone have way across the world and only run into one family member. Just where does his family live?) And yet he was still sheltered enough to not know what Aura is? It’s the type of thing that makes one ask questions about his home life despite how much he told us. And while I would love to believe they thought these details out, Occam’s Razor suggests that they just didn’t think about said details enough.

Anyways. I am wondering what your thoughts on this is and if you have any ideas on how to address it?

You’re completely right to think it’s weird! Because it is weird.

Aura isn’t some obscure resource exclusively used by Huntsmen—it’s a basic component of biology in this universe. That’s like not knowing what a kidney is. If Jaune grew up in a large city, then there’s an all-but-guaranteed chance he would have encountered at least one person with an unlocked Aura, just because of urban population density. If he grew up in some remote, isolated community, then there’s even less of an excuse for him not knowing what Aura is, because we’re explicitly told people who live far away from the major kingdoms need to know how to fight in order to not die. A character says as much in the second episode of Volume 2.

Blake: I was raised outside the kingdoms. If you can’t fight, you can’t survive.

No amount of hand-waving can justify him not knowing a fundamental concept of this setting. Especially one that’s non-negotiable for surviving.

Harris Brewis (Hbomberguy) talks about that issue here, and to summarize: Jaune is basically an audience surrogate character. He’s deliberately written to be ignorant, so that way, the show has an excuse to let Pyrrha explain the concept to him (and by extension, us).  

Not to go on a tangent here, but Jaune’s obliviousness really does underpin the issue with his character. If Jaune was so enamored with his family’s history of being legendary warriors, and aspired to uphold their legacy, then why does he not know the first thing about fighting? Look at Ruby and Yang—they both come from a family of skilled fighters, and wanted to undertake similar career paths. But unlike Jaune, they started preparing when they were young, and by the time they’re ready to enroll at a formal academy, they’ve been suitably trained and educated.

Jaune’s incompetence, in both combat and know-how, makes his decision to attend a Huntsman Academy seem like it was last-second. Like, why does he want to be a Huntsman? Why is living up to his family’s legacy so important? Why didn’t he try to enlist at one of the prep schools before applying to Beacon, so that way he was prepared? What are his motives?

Sorry. Jaune’s character is a sore spot for me, and it’s hard to resist taking potshots.

I know you were rhetorically asking about his family, but you might be interested to hear that I did come up with an explanation for it in the Redux. Along with an answer for why he forged his way into Beacon, and why he was so underprepared. And why Ozpin allowed it.

But to address your main question, regarding travel, infrastructure, and the feasibility of both:

The first thing I need to talk about is how I redesigned the majority of cities within the Redux. In the present day, Remnant has a global population of about 350,000,000 people, roughly distributed between 51 cities and towns. A little less than half of those cities are megacities, with populations that exceed 10 million.

While there’s a large degree of variety between them in terms of architecture and layout, functionally, most of the cities are similar to Ba Sing Se.

A thematic map of Ba Sing Se, an Earth Kingdom city in Avatar: The Last Airbender. | Source: Inkarnate.

The canon toyed with this idea back in V1, when we see Roman Torchwick studying a map of Vale’s capital. Vale is divided into various “districts”—commercial, residential, agricultural, and industrial—but the layout always felt kind of janky to me.

Like, why are the commercial and industrial districts so far away from where people live? How do people get to and from their jobs? Does the city have robust public transport—like trains and buses—in order to reduce traffic and commute times? As far as I can recall, the inner-city roads are predominantly used by cars (V2.E4). Actually, thinking back on it, I’m pretty sure that trains have only been used for intercity travel.

The SDC cargo train that passes through Forever Fall in the Black Trailer.

The subway that connects Vale’s capital and Mountain Glenn (V2.E11 - 12).

The passenger train that Oscar takes to Mistral’s capital (V4.E12).

The Argus Limited, which connects Mistral’s capital to Argus (V6.E1).

To date, the only city that has any sort of inner-city public transport is Argus. (And even then, we have no confirmation of whether or not it has to share the street with other vehicles.)

It’s just so bizarre, that in cities which are so densely populated out of necessity (due to a shortage of space not inhabited by Grimm), cars seem to be the default transport. Ba Sing Se’s layout addresses this problem by having a vast network of monorails that are free to the general public, thus freeing up the streets for people to use. (An issue which this post here does a great job discussing.)

The cities in the Redux are similar in that their layouts are optimized to make public transport efficient and accessible, while conserving space for day-to-day living. Most of the major cities have agricultural districts (just like in the canon), but they also have large parks and ecological zones that are safe for leisure and recreation. Jaune’s family wouldn’t need to travel all the way to Shion just to go camping.

Mind you, while all cities have public transport, not all public transport uses roads. Several cities in Mistral, for example, rely on airships and gondola lifts for getting around. There’s also a city in Eastern Vale called Petrichor, which is spread out across numerous islands within a lagoon. Public transport there consists primarily of waterbuses similar to the vaporetti used in Venice.

Now, as for the roads between cities, things are a little different. For starters, there aren’t a lot of them.

A (tentative) map of intercity roads across Remnant. Dark blue lines are the “main” roads; light blue lines are “minor” roads. Note: This map excludes rail lines, airship routes, and waterways.

With a handful of notable exceptions, virtually all inhabited settlements (both towns and cities) are located along these roads. The dark blue lines represent the major or “great” roads, which are directly connected to each country’s respective capital. Minor roads are depicted here in light blue, and are considered off-shoots that link out-of-the-way places to the great roads. These roads exist to primarily accommodate vehicles, although they can be traversed on foot. Why you’d want to, though, I have no idea, since these roads are technically outside of the safe zones of the settlements.

Roads are maintained by the governments of each country. Usually, the stretch of distance between settlements isn’t huge, so the roads (when broken up into individual segments) aren’t nearly as long as they look.

The main thing protecting these roads are the outposts, which are strategically placed along them. The Huntsmen stationed at outposts are trained to intercept and respond to distress signals, either from individual travelers, or (in the case of an emergency) from settlements at risk of being overwhelmed by Grimm. Without the CCTs (which made communication widespread and immediate), these outposts wouldn’t be nearly as effective.

The outposts were primarily created to give Huntsmen access to resources besides the academies. Plus, access to places where they could regroup and better coordinate themselves as needed. Part of that idea came from common sense, but the idea of them also existing to protect roads was somewhat inspired by the tambos and qullqas of the Inca road system.

On a parting note: Vale used to exclusively employ anyone with a speed Semblance as a courier. They were a lot like the chasquis of the Inca Empire.