Board Thread:Speculation House/@comment-14138255-20140912002450/@comment-24891101-20140914181829

Andrew S-997 wrote: ...

It's fair to assume that the orange guys are Vale military or Beacon Guard. However, it's harder to tell with the red and blue guys, seeing as Penny's guard consists of one of each. My guess is that one is standard Altlas infantry and the other Ironwood's personal division / Penny's guard. I disagree. They're all kitted and uniformed the same way, so they're all Atlesian military. Ironwood's shown up to do a number of things: To see his students in the tournament, to protect the Festival, to unveil some new hardware, and to give a prototype its first field test (notwithstanding that it happened earlier than planned). He's also very worried about whatever it was that Qrow said, so he's brought a very large security complement. It's quite possible that his troops are there to protect the Festival in an official capacity, rather than merely as a bodyguard retinue, to supplement Vale's own preparation. The CCT is sufficiently globally important to justify securing it with foreign troops.

The Devil's Advocate WP wrote: I am not sure if I buy the Ironwood-Cinder alliance notion. My impression is that the problem with Ironwood being hinted at is that he is too determined and this means he will severely overdo it. Him showing up at the tower is not unusual given that Ruby's rocket locker would be right outside it and then there are the unconscious guards. I agree in all particulars. Him showing up alone has been adequately explained by others, and I merely wish to add that we've been ascribing high combat ability to people like Ozpin and Qrow, which we've not any on-screen evidence of, and also to Port and Glynda, of which we've seen a bit; surely we extend the same supposition to Ironwood? He probably did order a cordon, but Cinder escaped while it was still porous.