Board Thread:Episode Discussion/@comment-26512661-20200118161649/@comment-4010415-20200120044634

I lean a lot toward Ironwood's side, but only as a temporary measure. However, I feel he's thinking long-term, since the City of Atlas has farms, according to the concept art, and he seems to think that living above the clouds where Salem can't reach him with the Relics and Winter Maiden there means a permanent win.

With that... I lean back toward Team RWBY's side because that's no way to win. It means abandoning everyone else on the planet to continue to be terrorized by her and the Grimm. This would be especially bad if she becomes infuriated by Ironwood's plan and takes it out on the rest of the population.

And then there's the uncertainty of the future to think about. If Ironwood really is choosing to stay up there long-term, even forever, we don't know if the City of Atlas will actually stay there. The Relic of Creation won't run out, and the farms will continue to feed everyone, but people are unpredictable. If Ironwood goes through with restoring global communications after raising Atlas up, there could come a time where the people on the ground convince people in the City of Atlas to return. If he doesn't restore global communications or if he shuts them off, they could still have situations where a future generation has people who want to go back down to the ground. And he could shut off global communications after telling the rest of the world about Salem simply so that Salem cannot use those comms to convert citizens in the City of Atlas to her side. Total isolation.

Fleeing into the atmosphere could work as a short-term solution to recuperate and prepare, at the cost of sacrificing the remaining civilians in Mantle. Though, what reason would anyone have to trust Ironwood after he does that? But at the same time, how can they expect to survive standing their ground with how exhausted they are?

There may be another solution that none of them are thinking of because their conflict is preventing any problem solving conversation.