Board Thread:Speculation House/@comment-14138255-20140829002738/@comment-6863431-20140901015942

Okay, I just read all of this in one sitting, so my head hurts. But I'm gonna do my duty as an opinionated fan and try to point some things out. Maybe you'll even agree with some of my ideas. Who knows?

1. Different Hunter Academies likely differ in training style, resulting in different societal roles. The reason I say this is because of the different position each Headmaster is in. For instance, Ozpin is obviously a verteran hunter with plenty of political connections, and is in an area infested with Grimm, so he probably teaches aspiring Hunters that the "protection of the people" and "slay[ing] monsters" are of highest priority. To me these sound more like an advanced police force - such as the SWAT or maybe even Feds - or they could be more of a "civilian assistance" kind of group: taking contracts for removing Grimm from areas or partnering with law enforcement to deal with issues to large for the police, yet too small for military involvement. Ironwood, on the other hand, is both a headmaster and military general simultaneously. It is likely that he incorporates military standards and ideals into his training, possibly even to the point where graduated Hunters from his Academy are then placed into the military as a special forces unit. This would change their role from "civilian assistance" to, obviously, a branch of military.

'''2. Hunter Academies most likely do not offer other "degrees". '''Reasoning behind this is because they're called "Hunter Academies," student acceptance involves either previous attendance at a Combat School or demonstration of exceptional skill, along with a "rigorous examination," and the fact that initiation involves being launched into a forest filled with monsters with directions that explicitly say that there is a high-chance of death if one isn't ready. This means that if someone goes to Beacon or Haven, they are going there to be a Hunter, nothing else. While they might choose to train as a specific "class" of hunter (i.e. a Mage like Weiss or Velvet), this is the closest to our idea of the varying "degrees" that Beacon would provide. Otherwise, if you go into a Hunter Academy, then you come out a Hunter.

3. Ironwood can find a political route that would allow him to assert control over Beacon, though whether he would or not is doubtful. I'm being perfectly honest when I say this, too. He would need only to find out Blake's relationship to the White Fang, learn of her team's unauthorized covert mission into Vale, and dig a little deeper to find "evidence" of working with the White Fang. It could be stated as "Blake infiltrated Beacon under White Fang influence, recruited both her team and outsiders to her cause, and had them gain information relevant to bolstering the faction's power: attempting to abduct a highly classified military prototype (penny), accessing top-priority information from SDC records, contacting one of Roman Torchwick's suppliers (Junior), and attending a White Fang rally." So yes, it's possible that he could find a way to incriminate Beacon Academy as corrupt. But the real question is why? Although yes, he does have the numbers and political power to take over the school, he has no reason to. He's friends with Ozpin, that's obvious from the way they talked to each other in Welcome to Beacon. Also, he brought the forces out of concern for the "Queen" and her "Pawns" that Qrow mentioned (and maybe to show off his armies to the Kingdom of Vale. Gotta have pride in your work, right?). So although the whole "Ironwood taking over Beacon" thing was hypothetical, I still would like to see a motive for his attack in this scenario.

As a side note, anyone else think that Cinder isn't the real threat, here? I just have this weird feeling that there's someone - or something - else running behind the scenes. Probably the same people who will later on cause the Dust-famine that Miles oh-so-subtly hinted at in the Livestream.