Board Thread:Speculation House/@comment-14138255-20140801004849/@comment-24891101-20140801161119

Flashfire212 wrote:

Yang said it herself: "Beaten by the new player". ... The likelihood of Neptune playing is slim, since he showed no interest in it. ... That's why I say Jaune won, because he is the only logical conclusion to fill that final slot. It's more to show his leadership qualities just as much as his strategic mind.

...

Vale would more than likely be focused on Hunters, since it is home to both Beacon and Signal, and has little else in the way of defensive forces than the forces trained by those sorts of facilities. I too, initially thought as you do, but then I rewatched it. It's Ruby who says "the new guy" won, and having known Jaune for an entire semester, there's no reason to not call him by his name. It was Neptune playing.

Why would Vale's TO&E be dominated by Hunters? Beacon is a prestigious university, to be sure, but it is a single institution, with nothing like the throughput they'd need to man an army. And Signal is a high school. No army is designed around such. And we have no evidence of a lack of standing army.