Board Thread:Episode Discussion/@comment-4141313-20181215021300/@comment-25936766-20181229140903

Lord Jaric wrote: Think of it like this, it could be very hard if not next to impossible to for a Faunus to get a good position in the SDC except for the mines. Which is my argument...... Now, on one hand, it's not entirely unbelievable, I know that. But on the other hand, we haven't actually seen any of that. And even the conversation Archer brings up doesn't even imply it, but I'll explain why in the next part.

MetallicArcher wrote: I mean, the businessman arguing with Jaques specifically brought up a difference of oportunities. Except the actual conversation wasn't about Faunus specifically, but about Mantle and Atlas.

Jacques: ''That's precisely my point. We offer Faunus the exact same wages given to the rest of our mining staff. Their argument's completely invalid right out of the gate.''

Businessman: Well, I think the bigger issue here is our society as a whole.

Jacques:Why, you mean Atlas?

Businessman: ''Atlas, Mantle... You can't deny the economic disparity between the two.''

Businesswoman: I mean, what exactly are you suggesting?

Businessman: I'm just saying I don't think it's necessarily an issue of compensation as much as it is one of opportunity...

Let me explain to you what they were talking about: Mantle used to be the capital city in Solitas, until Alsius Academy became Atlas Academy and then Atlas Academy became The City of Atlas. The Kingdom expanded and grew around Atlas while Mantle was mostly forgotten, to the point the kingdom itself was renamed Atlas.

The result is that while Atlas prospers, Mantle doesn't. People from Mantle, faunus and humans, would try to flee to the city where there's an actual variety of job oportunities that would pay well. Which naturally only leaves Mantle more abandoned, creating a vicious cycle. In other words, when the Businessman brought up oportunity, he was talking about (internal) geo-economics, not racial discrimination.

Now you might want to argue that "most Atlesian faunus live in Mantle"...which hasn't really been proven and any implications of that are too weak to consider, and even if it was true it doesn't prove the point you made, since at the end of the day it's not a faunus issue, it's a Mantle issue.

We know Atlas has a reputation for indoctrinating its students into the military, and it wouldn't be that farfetched a possibility that the military paints itselt as an oportunity for faunus to move up socially or escape poverty to get faunus to enroll. Except if there was real widespread hate of faunus, Atlas would gather some amount of backlash from openly trying to "help them". And if it was a matter of money, they wouldn't paint themselves as exclusively a faunus oportunity, but one for all poor people.

Although considering their army is mostly robots, I doubt they really make much of an effort to recruit fleshy soldiers instead of just making more AKs and Paladins.

As for indoctrinating students into the military, that's the wrong word. It doesn't indoctrinate, it pressures. Indoctrination would be trying to make you another Caroline Cordovin. That said, Atlas's students would become Special Operatives, which IMO would be more outstanding than merely "just another soldier".