Shorts Review: RWBY – Volume 3, World of Remnant 3

With that Cliffhanger from Fall marking it as the last RWBY episode of 2015, The people of Rooster Teeth did a livestream show updaing people on what was going to happen next for 2016 and the day after the holidays they felt the need to release a new “World of Remnant” before we can resume to Episode 7 of Season 3 later in January 2016.

And now Spoilers…

The focus on this tidbit of Info within RWBY’s universe is in regards to a minor call-back to Season 2 when Weiss briefly mentions to Ruby something called the “Cross Continental Transmit System” (CCTs) which was developed by the Atlas Kingdom to communicate with one another. Weiss then later says “It was their gift to the world after the Great War” which was only mentioned once in the Previous Season 2 Episodes “A Minor Hiccup and “Dance Dance Infiltration”.

From what we can gather in this brief but informative summary, It reveals 6 things in combination with some Gifs & Images to give you a general idea on how this could be essential to the plot:

1. Remnant has an advanced form of internet thanks to the technological advancements of the Atlas Kingdom.

2. Despite how advanced their technology is, Remnant shockingly hasn’t discovered Space Travel, and all known Dust-types lose their power when they leave Remnant’s atmosphere. As such, there are no man-made satellites in orbit over Remnant of any kind.

3. Messages were delivered physically prior to the CCTS which often put the messenger’s lives at risk in the process due to random Grimm Attacks.

4. The tower in the center of Beacon is a CCT tower and Ozpin’s office just happens to be at the top.

5. Wireless signals on devices like Scrolls (which are the smartphones of this universe) become less reliable, the further one is from a CCT tower.

And finally number 6. and this is a big one: All 4 CCTS relay towers are concurrently linked to one another within this wireless network and are generally located in well defended areas of their respective kingdoms but if one of the 4 towers go offline (either by sabotage or during routine maintenance) the entire network fails with it. Despite the system relying heavily on 4 towers to keep the power going, It has several support towers outside of the kingdoms which are setup to amplify their signals, that resemble satellite dishes but are also at greater risk of destruction by Grimm because of this particular design flaw that’s so easy to exploit and could cause a massive blackout.

Really? That’s a SLIGHT inconvenience? One tower goes down, they ALL go down? What if the problem is not something that can be solved in an hour or two? What if it’s something that takes MONTHS to fix? What if they have to construct an entirely new tower from scratch? The entire world could be back to the fucking dark ages without any kind of standard maintenance or upkeep!

Theoretically , if Cinder and her Teen Brigade can shut off all the CCTS, the world will be without internet, any form of long-range communication, scrolls and calling on scrolls, and essentially any form of communication but radio or courier. That’s effectively throwing the entire world into Confusion & Chaos with one move.

I’m also guessing it was a deliberate safeguard the tower builders implemented to make sure each kingdom would need each other to properly function. If all major four towers had to be intact to properly function, it would discourage the kingdoms from attacking one another since they’d be shooting themselves in the proverbial foot.

The Video ends with Imagery of the four kingdoms experiencing a Blackout followed by a diatribe from Ozpin which is quite philosophical about how he poetically views this clearly flawed form of communication:

“No one voice is louder then the others, and no voice may be silenced without the rest. If the people of Remnant are to speak, then they shall do so together…or not at all”

And Afterwards it cuts to black.

Overview:

While I commend the Episode for actually explaining this, It feels like Extreme foreshadowing when you devote an entire “World of Remnant” to talk about this because it’s simply telling you that at some point “Those towers are fucked”.

Also the lack of space travel and the limitations of Dust made me think to myself “Really?? Dust when implemented into a weapon can put a hole in a fucking Ursa the size of one’s head from 10K away, and apparently is so vital to the average way of life, but space and air travel, THAT’S its limit?”

I did find parts of this fascinating. At first I was kind of hoping they would go more into the background of the Maidens or even the origin of Ozpin and his “Inner-Circle”, but this was good too. It’s cool to learn about the heights and limitations of Remnant. It’s also cool when the writers are not abusing the excuse, “Because it’s magic!”, Most anime leaves you with the “its magic” excuse that lazy writers tend to pull out of their asses and you end up getting worked up about it. But for once there’s an actual science behind their world.

I hope to keep watching and reviewing the 2nd half of Season 3 for the rest of 2016 and possibly for years to come. As for Episode 7, mark this on your calendars. 😉

I hope everyone reading this all had a good X-Mas (or whatever holiday you celebrate) and have a safe & Happy New Year! 🙂