Board Thread:Speculation House/@comment-66.102.6.165-20151122194151/@comment-50.189.78.215-20151129010631

WARNING: WALL OF TEXT AHEAD

Someone upthread asked why no one, not even the bad guys, was talking about the breach anymore. Well, first: it seems to have been several weeks ago, long enough for propaganda to convince the populace not to worry about it. Second and more importantly, the bad guys don’t need to talk about it b/c it did its job and that phase of the plan is complete. Think about it: after the dust settled in V2E12, Cinder said she "thought that went perfectly", after which Merc voiced his concerns about the WF not wanting to work w/ them anymore, blah blah blah, Adam, not important atm. What is important, however, is the next scene, which shows the consequences of the breach: the Vale Council putting Ironwood in charge of festival security. This was the objective of the breach. Why? Think further back in V2, specifically the episode after DDI: after Ozpin more-or-less tricks Ruby into giving the grown-ups intel pointing to the Southeast, Ironwood comes up w/ a half-assed plan to deal w/ the enemy operation in the Southeast, and Glynda calls him out on the half-assed-ness of his plan by saying something to the tune of "Why must you always respond to everything with a display of military bravado? You treat every situation like a contest of measuring di-" "Glynda!" "…Well, he does." The fact that she used the word ‘always’ –while likely meant as hyperbole- tells us a lot about Ironwood: that his go-to strat for dealing w/ shit is ‘Crush it with overwhelming force’; good for dealing w/ Grimm, not so good for dealing w/ sneaky terrorists (insert joke about the US government here). Ozpin, on the other hand, is much more subtle, patient, and sly. This difference in methodologies means it’d be harder for Cinder and crew to operate under Ozpin’s radar than Ironwood’s b/c Ironwood’s reactions to any actions they take are more predictable (the aforementioned ‘Crush it with overwhelming force’ approach), and thus more easily avoidable. Having Ironwood in charge of security actually makes it easier for the bad guys to do their undercover thing.

Hell, this could –and probably does- go back to before the events of V1! Scenario: Ironwood was originally gonna come to Beacon with just his students, the robots he was to endorse, and a small security detail for said robots. Cinder –having done research on Ironwood- hires Roman to do the things he did in V1, leading to heightened police presence and inflated Dust prices across Vale, as Roman himself stated at the end of V2E1. That’s Phase 1 of the evil plan. Now, the internal goings-on of Vale are likely being watched much more closely by the other Kingdoms this year due to Vale hosting the festival. The Atlesian council sees the results of Phase 1 (heightened police presence, inflated Dust prices) and –either b/c they’re as paranoid as Ironwood or b/c they see an opportunity to validate their controversial academy practices- send Ironwood with the contingent he ended up bringing as well as orders to report to the Vale council on Ozpin. Begin Phase 2: infiltrate Beacon, steal a few Paladins, infiltrate the CCT, do the breach; y’know, the events of V2. Ironwood’s put in charge of security, and Phase 2 is complete as described in the above paragraph. Phase 3 is whatever they’re up to in the tournament; I’m not entirely sure what their objective is there, but I expect the evil plan to go to at least Phase 5, if not all the way to Phase 7.

-He who is AWESOME

PS: Someone else upthread asked about the perimeter defenses of the Kingdoms. V2, WoR: Kingdoms: a combination of natural barriers and manmade fortifications. Best example of manmade fortifications: the wall and pillbox RWBY’s Bullhead flew over on their way to Mountain Glen. Best example of natural barriers is Atlas: glaciers to the north and east, ocean to the south (we don’t even have evidence of aquatic Grimm, let alone amphibious Grimm), leaving only the west to worry about.