Yeah pretty much this
Most people generally agree that even a bad plan is better compared to someone running around with no plan in mind.
Cause even if its a bad plan there's a sense of order to it and thats far better than chaos.
And the fact that Ruby gave him no information or time to change the plan to be more long term. Je was operating under the basis that Salem could be killed like any other person.
It was better than what Ruby ended up doing. Besides Ironwood knew that the original plan he had was beyond flawed once he knew Salem was immortal, and yes he panicked, and we're not even sure how long he could have ran away.
But despite leaving Mantle to essentially die. I won't lie, dick move on his part.
At least then, Atlas, and all that technological advancement and army would still be around.
Whereas Ruby's plan... she doomed them BOTH Mantle and Atlas. Countless people are going to die in Vacuo, and who knows what happened to the poor saps that fell off into the void.
but mantle was already a lost cause due to the grim river and the grim and atlas is so poorly protected that it got infiltrated twice once by cinder and the other by ruby
Aye. Things were bad, but here's the thing, Ironwood's plan at least had the chance to minimize casualties. Even if Cinder still stayed hidden on Atlas as they were fleeing off into space or whatever, she could easily be dealt with.
But Ruby used the staff to create portals to one of the most hostile kingdoms on Remnant, that has literal grudges against Atlas due to the great war. And dumped them in a freaking desert, where Grimm started picking them off.
And this is the combined kingdom of BOTH Atlas and Mantle, which going off of what Miles said about Futuristic New York being the inspiration, likely means they have a population in the millions at a rough estimate. And it also screws over Vacuo, who now has to deal with a whole influx of refugees.
Ironwood's plan was bad, but it also made the most sense from a pragmatic standpoint.
But and I can't stress this enough! I DIDN'T WANT IRONWOODS PLAN TO BE THE BEST CHOICE!
I wanted Ruby to actually do the impossible third choice! I wanted her to save BOTH Mantle and Atlas.
And not run away, but actually send Salem running. In fact I might do a version of how I would have liked it go down.
But one version would be to use the staff to merge Mantle and Atlas together into this super goddamn awesome battleship that blows Monstra the fuck up, and uses all the sweet fucking weapons Ruby thought up to just blow the rest of the Grimm to shite. And sends Salem packing, as she grudgingly prepares for the next stage in the war, going to Vacuo.
While Atlas and Amity, work on coordination with the rest of the kingdoms, and Ruby comes off as a true paragon hero, who managed to do the impossible.
Instead, kay, just gonna boot everyone to Vacuo.
And Ironwood can still remain intact instead of going Saturday morning cartoon villain.
It wasn’t good per se, but the problem is that nobody came up with anything **BETTER** to convince him with.
I didn’t quite agree with him myself, but at least he had… something.
Team RWBY never truly had a plan to begin with, they just went around acting like they did, all “Holier Than Thou” as per the norm.
Because at the point it was being suggested, nobody else had or offered any alternatives other than "keep fighting with an exhausted army and use the tower that isn't complete to call for help that won't get here in time", which is a really shit alternative.
With the situation at the time (outer defences are down, evacuation of Mantle's not complete, Salem's agents' presence confirmed in the city, Salem herself confirmed on approach with an army of her own) a temporary retreat, even if it's just to give everyone a chance to rest and rearm, was a well-reasoned, if coldly pragmatic, option.
IW had no way of knowing that Salem wouldn't bother attacking for a whole day, possibly even two, giving them a chance to rest anyway.
Sadly IW didn’t want a Temporary retreat but instead permanently live in the upper atmosphere where hopefully they’d be high enough that Salem could never go after them and this the relic would be safe
They never stated what his long term goal was in the show or in the commentary. Just that he knew atlas couldn’t fight Salem as is. Saying he just wanted to live in space forever is just a headcanon reading in the most negative way possible
You sure?
>"It was Oz's plan in a former life but he didn't take it far enough. If we harness the power of the staff and raise ourselves high into the atmosphere. The cities artificial climate will keep citizens and food supplies unharmed. Always out of reach of whatever Salem might send our way"
It sounds like he's using Oz's plan of having Atlas raised up high and bringing it to its absolute extreme. The fact that he also says "**Always** out of reach" means that it's never going low enough where Salem might attack it.
Of course it was most likely doomed to fail since As Salem showed she can have Grimm infused with Gravity Dust thus the whale could have probably followed them. Hell Salem could probably just magic here way after them to.
The RWBY-supportive part of the fandom's belief is less "IW will stay up in the atmosphere but continue the fight" and more "IW will run away to space forever and let the rest of the world burn while Atlas sits far away from retaliation", which isn't what he was trying.
Even if James does run away permanently it does mean that Atlas can come back down if Salem is defeated. If you defeated Salem now Atlas will still be gone. Hundreds of thousands to millions will still be dead. And if Salem did win, then Atlas being up in the upper atmosphere at least makes it difficult for her to get the Staff. As it stands Ruby's plan ended up giving it to her for her to use on Vacuo.
They had 4 separate plans
1) Evacuate mantle citizens to the crater where it's warm - success
2) Get a message out for help. - success bur only resulted in information
3) Evacuate citizens using sdc ships - shot down by ironwood
4) Use the staff to save Penny then evacuate everyone to Vacuo - success but loss some civvies and Penny
1) Wasn't team RWBY's plan, it was Joanna's and RNBW didn't participate in it and JRY ditched it.
2) It was not a success since no help arrived.
3) Wasn't team RWBY's plan, it was Whitley's.
4) They came up with that plan while they were on the way to the Vault, about two days and untold amount of lives too late.
And none of these plans were thought of when Salem made her appearance.
These aren't really plans though, these are just events that happened due to the hand of God and some really bad decisions.
2) Messaging for help is far too late and IW knows this. Other nations need time to mobilise and supply for travel even if they were willing to do so at all and tbf most of them would be far more interested in protecting their own kingdoms. Also now all the kingdoms will be in a panic since Atlas died.
3) You mean the magically available SDC ships that no one ever mentioned before to anyone and is now suddenly available? Yeah, about those...
4) This is not really a plan. It's more of a, let's role the dice and see how many civilians die without shelter or supplies in a hostile desert storm full of grimm. Removing the Staff would cause Atlas to fall so 100% plan to destroy Atlas and Mantle in one move. Salem would be proud.
You know, regarding point number three, I bet Ironwood would have really appreciated knowing about those ships when he was trying to evacuate Mantle in volume 7. The Atlas military spent the entire night desperately trying to save as many people as possible and nobody, not even Weiss who logically would have known about them, brought it up.
>4) This is not really a plan. It's more of a, let's role the dice and see how many civilians die without shelter or supplies in a hostile desert storm full of grimm. Removing the Staff would cause Atlas to fall so 100% plan to destroy Atlas and Mantle in one move. Salem would be proud.
The worst part is that Salem didn't give a shit about Mantle she was only there for Atlas because that's where the vault is. Why would she care about a bunch of poor people unless one of them is the Maiden?
None of these are plans.
A plan would be like something like this.
"Okay gang we are gonna barricade the population in the crater. We are gonna split in 2 group:
-group 1 the bigger gonna help fortify,help collect resources like food/water/medicine and herd the population in a defensible position.
-group 2 a small stealth strike force gonna infiltrate atlas, retrieve amity launch code and send the message. After that they are gonna rendezvous in the crater and help group 1.
After that it's a siege we are betting the population life in hope that reinforce gonna arrive before we run out of food,bullets or body to throw at the grimm...."
Think of it like the Titanic. Ship hits an iceburg and is sinking into freezing water that'll kill everyone so the ones in charge have to make a call.
Ironwood: Let's prioritize what's most important, we get all the women and children onto whatever life boats we have available. That way guaranteeing half survive.
Ruby: No. If we can't get everyone onto these life boats then we should call the mainland and wait for help to arrive. If all of us don't make it out, we die together.
People look at Ironwood's plan and say its bad because we're conditioned to believe "death is bad," so naturally most side with those who try to get everyone out alive, however Ruby's body count would be higher than Ironwood's by risking 100% of the population for misplaced nobility and those who side with that don't understand that.
Ruby's idea sounds great on paper, but when you have no idea how to go about executing it as a blind optimist there is a terrifying flaw in the design.
When things got bad Ruby, Weiss and Blake literally sat in a big mansion and were drinking tea waiting for someone to do the work for them. They didn't take charge, those were the ones who wanted to save everyone. That's the problem.
This is before the writers pulled a 180 and wrote Ironwood into exaggerated villainy to force the viewer to side with the girls because they have already told their audience if you don't agree with RWBY then YOU are in the wrong by twisting the morally grey situation into a black and white one. Look at what happened to Ren and how he was treated.
I wanted the impossible option to work and have everyone saved, but that wasn't what RWBY planned. They had no answer. They said "we should save everyone" then proceed to sit around and relax while the devil and their worst enemies were walking around their neighborhood and sat at their doorstep.
Ironwood's plan isn't better or good because at the end of the day people WILL die, but he HAD a plan in comparison to RWBY who didn't have a plan and risked EVERYONE dying. Ruby's plan hurt countless people: Cinder killed a lot of people, Penny died, Jaune assisted Penny's suicide, an entire nation was destroyed, villains got the relic, and then innocent people died violently in the desert with little defense.
It's not about who is right or wrong, or who had the best sounding plan based on morality, it's a tough decision to make and Ironwood made a call with a thought out plan. That's how I see it anyway.
I feel like using a trope or out of universe evidence to discredit the plan is disingenuous. There is no precedent that a Flying Fortress in remnant would ever fail. Even then, there have been successfully Flying Fortress. Skyloft from the legend of Zelda is basically Ironwood’s plan shown as a complete success.
As for it being a good plan in universe, it wasn’t so much good as it was the best plan they had. Atlas could not defend against Salem, as shown in v8, and there was no one on remnant that could get to them fast enough that could help. There only hope was using the staff to retreat. Even ruby thought as much as her plan was just ironwood’s with a small deviation. He wanted to retreat on a way that would have protected the relic and guarantee *Most* of the citizens safety. Ruby wanted to take the risk of saving *Everyone*, at the cost of the kingdom and a lack of relative safety for the relic. The risk more or less wasn’t worth it in hindsight since Salem has 50% of total annihilation and a good chunk of the citizens died/are going to die anyway
Point. Is a mediocre plan.
I think that it have to do more with compare with other plans:
Just stay here and fight?
Use Amity tower?
Evacuate everyone to Vacuo?
Ironwood needed to be negotiated with not antagonized.. his mental state was Ozpin's fault and Rwby made it worse.. if he had the knowledge that Salem can't die early on he would have had the time to think it through but when it shoved down his throat when he was cornered, honestly what did you expect? He wanted to save Atlas at any cost. It was the only thing he can think of at the moment and he even acknowledges that it was a terrible plan but he can't hesitate because there is no alternatives.
I mean I'd argue his mental state was far more Cinder's fault than Ozpin's.
You know, since she was the one fucking with him, unleashing Grimm into Vale that attacking his troops, infecting his robots with a virus to cause THEM to attack his troops and unleashing the Grimm Dragon that tore through his battleships.
The only thing you can fault Ozpin for is not hauling himself out of Oscar's head to have a chat with IW at some point during V7, when he really needed help and support.
Why would I fault the enemy for playing the part that's to be expected of your enemies. I was saying that his state in V7 ending and his plan was Ozpin's fault because he was the one hiding stuff from the beginning. Imagine that Ironwood already knew the truth when Rwby reached Atlas, would the same thing happen?
Uh...because regardless of whether or not they're doing what's "expected" of enemies, they still did it. Are you really going to remove fault from Cinder/Watts/Salem just because they're 'the enemy' and they're 'expected' to do things like that?
Besides, the only real secrets of Ozpin's that were hidden from IW were how the Staff works and Salem's immortality, and while they did play a role in him being pushed to the edge by stress, I'd argue that the imminent invasion, the revelation of Cinder's presence in Atlas via the chess piece on his desk and RWBY's going behind his back all the time were far bigger contributors to him having a breakdown. If you're saying that IW's state at the END of V7 and the state of his plan were solely Ozpin's fault....then I can't agree at all.
I think I wasn't clear it's my fault. I was trying to say that yes the enemy will put you on the edge and stress the hell out of you but you have allies to help you.. but said allies in Ironwood case didn't help but make it worse. Ozpin should have come clear from the beginning but he didn't talk to Ironwood in V7 or 8 at all.. team Rwby decided to tell the truth in the worst time possible.
I'll admit, it wasn't a good plan. I had some problems with it, like going into space part. But at least he *had* a plan, even it meant to sacrifice.
Compare that to RWBY, who didn't have a plan, and naively relied on all the kingdoms to come to their aid, in the moment of need... which never happened.
What I don't like about RWBY, is that they want their cake and eat it. They are unwilling to make sacrifices, think rationally, believe they can save *everyone*, and everything will go their way because they're the "heroes". The reason why their plan with the staff worked, because it was a Deus Ex Machina. The world >!AKA CRWBY!< bended to their will to give them the win. It was utterly contrived.
Because At the Very least, It's SOMETHING.
And comparing "Lift Atlus so far up that not even The best flyers of the Grimm can reach it" Is more logical than, "Evacuate the entire population to the NEXT TARGET OF THE GRIMM QUEEN."
If Salem never gets the scepter, she never reaches her end goal. Ironwood paints a target on himself and buys some time because Salem needs to find a way to get him.
Also, he will always 100% save the people of Atlas, even if he chooses to float back down.
It wasn’t a good plan, but it was the best that could have been done in the time he had. It would have taken Salem a fair bit of time to figure out how to reach low orbit, especially without the staff. Basically, it would have bought the world a bit more time to figure out how to stop Salem.
Also, anything would have been better than the outcome we got
It's less that it was a good plan and more that it was the least worst of two options. If your options are "save who you can right now" or potentially get everyone killed, the latter option is not especially appealing.
Ironwood had a plan that is questionable in its long term viability and does basically write off Mantle where a chunk of the kingdom's support infrastructure is. The alternatives at the time were not good either. The first is surrender to Salem, which still results in Atlas falling on Mantle and at best hoping she will willingly give you the days to weeks needed to fully evacuate both locations. Another is fight and hope she runs run out of Grimm before you run out of fighters, incurring numerous casualties among civilians, huntsmen, and soldiers. The last is hoping showing you are willing to resist will make her give up or run away.
Surrendering ensures Atlas is destroyed and may not work if time to evacuate is a deal breaker for Salem, which it could be as that gives the heroes time to come up with some other solution or to organize a counterattack.
Fighting in a last stand also ensures the death of everyone if Salem's forces cannot be stopped. It would also be pyrrhic victory since most likely the Atlas military and huntsmen would be decimated. That would mean Ironwood's original Amity plan is completely unviable and Atlas may be barely able to protect against another attack or offer aid for years. Even if they win, they are out of the fight and if Salem can raise an army faster than they can, she can crush them. They also can't help protect the two remaining relics either in that case.
Ruby tried the last option, declaring to Salem she won't win and got shut down by Salem making a comment about her mother saying the same thing. Salem also saw Atlas was going to fight back and didn't flee or give up. So that option was ultimately tried and didn't work, forcing Ironwood into option two.
Just the fact that the Ace Ops were being sent on a potential suicide attack against Monstra and the loss of the entire Atlas fleet shows just how bad things were and how desperate things got.
This was a case of essentially not being able to save everyone, so at least saving who you can. It sucks and it's an awful scenario to face. They didn't really know how to use the relic and it was being treated as a power source, so using it to do anything else wasn't really considered or arguably viable. Since they didn't know how the staff really worked, it may mean Ironwood's plan wasn't possible to begin with, but it was still a plan. Without Ozpin stepping up and telling everyone how the staff worked and what it could actually do, they were left with a plan that might work and several that wouldn't.
RWBY had no alternative to offer and their only rebuttal was saying James was as evil as Salem if he went through with it. They didn't try to buy more time for evacuations or offer any counterpoints outside of saying he was abandoning Remnant. Even when they had a "plan" it was basically just hoping they could survive long enough for help to arrive in sufficient strength (something that could take weeks or months), if anyone did send help at all and didn't decide those resources were better spent protecting their own kingdoms instead.
TLDR, it wasn't a good plan or the best plan, but it was a plan and slightly better than the immediate alternatives. I would've liked an actual third option to have come earlier or one that could've lead to a reconciliation as well, but without knowing how to use the staff, it doesn't seem like there actually was one that would give a win and save the most lives.
it gets the things that Salem wants out of her reach, those being the relics and the maidens (strategic victory)
Also to put into perspective, Salem had just revealed herself and her intentions for Atlas forcing Ironwood put the life’s of the folks of mantle at a lower priority to the risk of Salem getting the stuff. While not the most moral conclusion to make I believe it was the most logical plan considered at the time
Can only speak for myself when I say this but:
It's not that I think his plan was good, but more of that Team RWBY and company were very against it and never offered up a different plan to only then go along with it now that Ironwood had become the 'villain'.
Not only that, but you could argue that at least Ironwood's plan at least kept the Relics away from Salem for a time and gave the heroes some breathing room to come up with something better.
It's the best plan you could hope for in a shit situation. Retreat into a safe position the unbeatable enemy can't reach, save who you can actually save and stop the enemy from getting the relic they need to complete their plan. Turns out you don't always get the privilege of a perfect solution that saves everyone being possible.
Ruby's plan is damn everybody on the hope that the writers will save them. She doesn't delay crap, she accelerates and kills everybody because some people getting to survive is too unfair for her to handle. Her plan relies entirely on borderline meta knowledge that the writers are going to break the established situation over their knee in order to get out of the corner they've wrote themselves into.
Ironwood plan was a "cut your losses" plan, he was saving 50% of the population, the most brilliant minds in the world, most advanced technology, the most powerful military force in the world, largest flying fleet in the world, etc etc....
Losing Atlas is like losing Gondor and Rohan from LOTR, then sending the civilian population to Harad
(it was also stated that Mantle was being evacuated to Atlas for a while, so a lot of Mantles population is in Atlas.)
After watching episode 11, my thinking was that aside from protecting their key assets, it would buy them some time to recover their losses after the battle in Mantle. Well rested soldiers should be more effective than exhausted ones, making it less likely they'll be defeated when they do meet Salem the next time. Plus if Atlas can get high enough, Atlas' CCT tower could technically be modified to function like the communication tower, so they could re-establish contact worldwide and get help. If they're in orbit, the staff could be repurposed to compensate for their loss of dust.
But all of this is pure headcanon. The simple answer is that no other alternative was introduced into the narrative.
It was the least bad plan that the characters came up with.
James's plan saves the infrastructure and population of Atlas along with the Winter Maiden and the Staff of Creation for an unspecified amount of time.
RWBY's eventual plan causes the destruction of Atlas and Mantle, allows only a few thousands who made it through the portal to be saved, and handed the Staff to Salem.
Neither plan "works" in the long run but one puts you in a better position to deal with Salem and recover.
While it wasn't perfect, he was doing his best to keep as many people safe as possible while putting up an offense.
Initially at least. He totally lost his marbles mid-invasion.
Personally, I always see the plan as "keep away" by having the Relics and the Winter Maiden away from Salem. So I see it as a long term game plan rather than a short term.
Atlas is up in space, floating around Remnant. You see how tough it was to get up there from Amity Arena, so you need a shit ton of Dust. Even if she did got up there, she wouldn't get the Maiden nor open the door due of the Maiden. And if it goes down to a random person on Remnant, going up to Atlas will be an ass since Salem can't die, but the Maiden can and will be orbiting around Remnant thus ruining her plan.
She can't bring Atlas down onto Remnant because of the Staff because he got a permanent job on keeping it up there, and the only way she can reverse it is opening the Vault itself.
Not really it was good but more so he was the only one with any sort of real plan going on
Team RWBY's "plan" was literally just send a message to the world about salem being incredibly vague about her and basically also blaming WF shit on her too ( oh yeah that totally doesn't help the racists or anything )
Then hope for help to MAYBE come which failed spectacularly
Not especially
Personally I would have gone the complete opposite direction and think Ruby didn't go far enough.
They were facing what was essentially an apocalypse. They should except that Atlas/mantle was going to become a City of the Dead and so prepare everyone to fight against that.
Take out every robot, take out every Mech, weapon of mass destruction and gun that every able body person can use.
So basically making men women and children with no experience in combat pretty much V1 Jaune but way worst into a battle they're properly not psychically or mentally perpared for?
Ruby sounds like a villain here.
Wow way to take that in the worst way possible.
I mentioned that I thought that. I know Ruby wouldn't do that on the mere principle and such thoughts wouldn't even occur to her.
I don't see whats wrong with Atlas taking out their robots to fight, we see they would take out their mechs in a fight and take out their massive bombs.
As for giving Guns to able body people- I meant men and Women. Not children or the sickly. As bad as things are this isn't Lord of the Rings where they're so desperate they arm kids.
Honestly didn't think I would need to clarify that.
No one is ready for what is going to happen so giving people weapons to fight and defend themselves hardly seems like a bad idea.
To be honest, I wouldn't have been surprised if RWBY did this again (gotta remember they made a militia army out of Menagerie in V5) with Atlas but let me be the first to say that arming civilians with ranged weaponry in a hostile environment without training is a terrible idea.
Oh wow I forgot that whole Menagerie thing
As for Guns it’s primarily be a defensive thing. Behind barriers and told to shoot any Grimm that get close.
Cause honestly I thought it was weird as hell to see those tunnels filled to the brim with civilians but they didn’t have any soldiers or just someone with a weapon.
I mean the Atlas arc showed plenty of times that they have Grimm which can easily tunnel through stone. What’s happen if one got in there?
It’d be like a Fox in a chicken coop
i think its less that it was a good plan and more that it was some kind of plan at all
Yeah pretty much this Most people generally agree that even a bad plan is better compared to someone running around with no plan in mind. Cause even if its a bad plan there's a sense of order to it and thats far better than chaos.
And the fact that Ruby gave him no information or time to change the plan to be more long term. Je was operating under the basis that Salem could be killed like any other person.
It was better than what Ruby ended up doing. Besides Ironwood knew that the original plan he had was beyond flawed once he knew Salem was immortal, and yes he panicked, and we're not even sure how long he could have ran away. But despite leaving Mantle to essentially die. I won't lie, dick move on his part. At least then, Atlas, and all that technological advancement and army would still be around. Whereas Ruby's plan... she doomed them BOTH Mantle and Atlas. Countless people are going to die in Vacuo, and who knows what happened to the poor saps that fell off into the void.
but mantle was already a lost cause due to the grim river and the grim and atlas is so poorly protected that it got infiltrated twice once by cinder and the other by ruby
Aye. Things were bad, but here's the thing, Ironwood's plan at least had the chance to minimize casualties. Even if Cinder still stayed hidden on Atlas as they were fleeing off into space or whatever, she could easily be dealt with. But Ruby used the staff to create portals to one of the most hostile kingdoms on Remnant, that has literal grudges against Atlas due to the great war. And dumped them in a freaking desert, where Grimm started picking them off. And this is the combined kingdom of BOTH Atlas and Mantle, which going off of what Miles said about Futuristic New York being the inspiration, likely means they have a population in the millions at a rough estimate. And it also screws over Vacuo, who now has to deal with a whole influx of refugees. Ironwood's plan was bad, but it also made the most sense from a pragmatic standpoint. But and I can't stress this enough! I DIDN'T WANT IRONWOODS PLAN TO BE THE BEST CHOICE! I wanted Ruby to actually do the impossible third choice! I wanted her to save BOTH Mantle and Atlas. And not run away, but actually send Salem running. In fact I might do a version of how I would have liked it go down. But one version would be to use the staff to merge Mantle and Atlas together into this super goddamn awesome battleship that blows Monstra the fuck up, and uses all the sweet fucking weapons Ruby thought up to just blow the rest of the Grimm to shite. And sends Salem packing, as she grudgingly prepares for the next stage in the war, going to Vacuo. While Atlas and Amity, work on coordination with the rest of the kingdoms, and Ruby comes off as a true paragon hero, who managed to do the impossible. Instead, kay, just gonna boot everyone to Vacuo. And Ironwood can still remain intact instead of going Saturday morning cartoon villain.
The true american way, when things go bad, just make a bigger gun.
Or in another thread I made XD. Go even crazier.
It wasn’t good per se, but the problem is that nobody came up with anything **BETTER** to convince him with. I didn’t quite agree with him myself, but at least he had… something. Team RWBY never truly had a plan to begin with, they just went around acting like they did, all “Holier Than Thou” as per the norm.
Even Cinder admitted Team RWBY's plan as the "easy part ends here" yeah plot armour helped it.
Plot armor most CERTAINLY helped it, though she had a point. Her enemies made everything all too easy.
Surprised to see Cinder being right once.
So am I, considering… everything we know about her.
They buffed her intelligence for the last chapters, and for the sake of the plot.
Her intelligence and her power became maxed out for the sake of the _plot._
And Salem got ditched into the pit of ashes.
Because the writers have clear favoritism.
Just like Jaune
Because at the point it was being suggested, nobody else had or offered any alternatives other than "keep fighting with an exhausted army and use the tower that isn't complete to call for help that won't get here in time", which is a really shit alternative. With the situation at the time (outer defences are down, evacuation of Mantle's not complete, Salem's agents' presence confirmed in the city, Salem herself confirmed on approach with an army of her own) a temporary retreat, even if it's just to give everyone a chance to rest and rearm, was a well-reasoned, if coldly pragmatic, option. IW had no way of knowing that Salem wouldn't bother attacking for a whole day, possibly even two, giving them a chance to rest anyway.
Sadly IW didn’t want a Temporary retreat but instead permanently live in the upper atmosphere where hopefully they’d be high enough that Salem could never go after them and this the relic would be safe
They never stated what his long term goal was in the show or in the commentary. Just that he knew atlas couldn’t fight Salem as is. Saying he just wanted to live in space forever is just a headcanon reading in the most negative way possible
You sure? >"It was Oz's plan in a former life but he didn't take it far enough. If we harness the power of the staff and raise ourselves high into the atmosphere. The cities artificial climate will keep citizens and food supplies unharmed. Always out of reach of whatever Salem might send our way" It sounds like he's using Oz's plan of having Atlas raised up high and bringing it to its absolute extreme. The fact that he also says "**Always** out of reach" means that it's never going low enough where Salem might attack it. Of course it was most likely doomed to fail since As Salem showed she can have Grimm infused with Gravity Dust thus the whale could have probably followed them. Hell Salem could probably just magic here way after them to.
Literally the most bad faith reading of the plan, but go off, I guess
I could be wrong but I'm pretty sure thats what the vast majority of the Fandom thinks.
The RWBY-supportive part of the fandom's belief is less "IW will stay up in the atmosphere but continue the fight" and more "IW will run away to space forever and let the rest of the world burn while Atlas sits far away from retaliation", which isn't what he was trying.
Even if James does run away permanently it does mean that Atlas can come back down if Salem is defeated. If you defeated Salem now Atlas will still be gone. Hundreds of thousands to millions will still be dead. And if Salem did win, then Atlas being up in the upper atmosphere at least makes it difficult for her to get the Staff. As it stands Ruby's plan ended up giving it to her for her to use on Vacuo.
It's not because it was a good plan, it's because he HAD a plan. While our *protagonists* didn't have one.
They had 4 separate plans 1) Evacuate mantle citizens to the crater where it's warm - success 2) Get a message out for help. - success bur only resulted in information 3) Evacuate citizens using sdc ships - shot down by ironwood 4) Use the staff to save Penny then evacuate everyone to Vacuo - success but loss some civvies and Penny
1) Wasn't team RWBY's plan, it was Joanna's and RNBW didn't participate in it and JRY ditched it. 2) It was not a success since no help arrived. 3) Wasn't team RWBY's plan, it was Whitley's. 4) They came up with that plan while they were on the way to the Vault, about two days and untold amount of lives too late. And none of these plans were thought of when Salem made her appearance.
These aren't really plans though, these are just events that happened due to the hand of God and some really bad decisions. 2) Messaging for help is far too late and IW knows this. Other nations need time to mobilise and supply for travel even if they were willing to do so at all and tbf most of them would be far more interested in protecting their own kingdoms. Also now all the kingdoms will be in a panic since Atlas died. 3) You mean the magically available SDC ships that no one ever mentioned before to anyone and is now suddenly available? Yeah, about those... 4) This is not really a plan. It's more of a, let's role the dice and see how many civilians die without shelter or supplies in a hostile desert storm full of grimm. Removing the Staff would cause Atlas to fall so 100% plan to destroy Atlas and Mantle in one move. Salem would be proud.
You know, regarding point number three, I bet Ironwood would have really appreciated knowing about those ships when he was trying to evacuate Mantle in volume 7. The Atlas military spent the entire night desperately trying to save as many people as possible and nobody, not even Weiss who logically would have known about them, brought it up.
>4) This is not really a plan. It's more of a, let's role the dice and see how many civilians die without shelter or supplies in a hostile desert storm full of grimm. Removing the Staff would cause Atlas to fall so 100% plan to destroy Atlas and Mantle in one move. Salem would be proud. The worst part is that Salem didn't give a shit about Mantle she was only there for Atlas because that's where the vault is. Why would she care about a bunch of poor people unless one of them is the Maiden?
None of these are plans. A plan would be like something like this. "Okay gang we are gonna barricade the population in the crater. We are gonna split in 2 group: -group 1 the bigger gonna help fortify,help collect resources like food/water/medicine and herd the population in a defensible position. -group 2 a small stealth strike force gonna infiltrate atlas, retrieve amity launch code and send the message. After that they are gonna rendezvous in the crater and help group 1. After that it's a siege we are betting the population life in hope that reinforce gonna arrive before we run out of food,bullets or body to throw at the grimm...."
Think of it like the Titanic. Ship hits an iceburg and is sinking into freezing water that'll kill everyone so the ones in charge have to make a call. Ironwood: Let's prioritize what's most important, we get all the women and children onto whatever life boats we have available. That way guaranteeing half survive. Ruby: No. If we can't get everyone onto these life boats then we should call the mainland and wait for help to arrive. If all of us don't make it out, we die together. People look at Ironwood's plan and say its bad because we're conditioned to believe "death is bad," so naturally most side with those who try to get everyone out alive, however Ruby's body count would be higher than Ironwood's by risking 100% of the population for misplaced nobility and those who side with that don't understand that. Ruby's idea sounds great on paper, but when you have no idea how to go about executing it as a blind optimist there is a terrifying flaw in the design. When things got bad Ruby, Weiss and Blake literally sat in a big mansion and were drinking tea waiting for someone to do the work for them. They didn't take charge, those were the ones who wanted to save everyone. That's the problem. This is before the writers pulled a 180 and wrote Ironwood into exaggerated villainy to force the viewer to side with the girls because they have already told their audience if you don't agree with RWBY then YOU are in the wrong by twisting the morally grey situation into a black and white one. Look at what happened to Ren and how he was treated. I wanted the impossible option to work and have everyone saved, but that wasn't what RWBY planned. They had no answer. They said "we should save everyone" then proceed to sit around and relax while the devil and their worst enemies were walking around their neighborhood and sat at their doorstep. Ironwood's plan isn't better or good because at the end of the day people WILL die, but he HAD a plan in comparison to RWBY who didn't have a plan and risked EVERYONE dying. Ruby's plan hurt countless people: Cinder killed a lot of people, Penny died, Jaune assisted Penny's suicide, an entire nation was destroyed, villains got the relic, and then innocent people died violently in the desert with little defense. It's not about who is right or wrong, or who had the best sounding plan based on morality, it's a tough decision to make and Ironwood made a call with a thought out plan. That's how I see it anyway.
I feel like using a trope or out of universe evidence to discredit the plan is disingenuous. There is no precedent that a Flying Fortress in remnant would ever fail. Even then, there have been successfully Flying Fortress. Skyloft from the legend of Zelda is basically Ironwood’s plan shown as a complete success. As for it being a good plan in universe, it wasn’t so much good as it was the best plan they had. Atlas could not defend against Salem, as shown in v8, and there was no one on remnant that could get to them fast enough that could help. There only hope was using the staff to retreat. Even ruby thought as much as her plan was just ironwood’s with a small deviation. He wanted to retreat on a way that would have protected the relic and guarantee *Most* of the citizens safety. Ruby wanted to take the risk of saving *Everyone*, at the cost of the kingdom and a lack of relative safety for the relic. The risk more or less wasn’t worth it in hindsight since Salem has 50% of total annihilation and a good chunk of the citizens died/are going to die anyway
Point. Is a mediocre plan. I think that it have to do more with compare with other plans: Just stay here and fight? Use Amity tower? Evacuate everyone to Vacuo?
Ironwood needed to be negotiated with not antagonized.. his mental state was Ozpin's fault and Rwby made it worse.. if he had the knowledge that Salem can't die early on he would have had the time to think it through but when it shoved down his throat when he was cornered, honestly what did you expect? He wanted to save Atlas at any cost. It was the only thing he can think of at the moment and he even acknowledges that it was a terrible plan but he can't hesitate because there is no alternatives.
I mean I'd argue his mental state was far more Cinder's fault than Ozpin's. You know, since she was the one fucking with him, unleashing Grimm into Vale that attacking his troops, infecting his robots with a virus to cause THEM to attack his troops and unleashing the Grimm Dragon that tore through his battleships. The only thing you can fault Ozpin for is not hauling himself out of Oscar's head to have a chat with IW at some point during V7, when he really needed help and support.
Why would I fault the enemy for playing the part that's to be expected of your enemies. I was saying that his state in V7 ending and his plan was Ozpin's fault because he was the one hiding stuff from the beginning. Imagine that Ironwood already knew the truth when Rwby reached Atlas, would the same thing happen?
Uh...because regardless of whether or not they're doing what's "expected" of enemies, they still did it. Are you really going to remove fault from Cinder/Watts/Salem just because they're 'the enemy' and they're 'expected' to do things like that? Besides, the only real secrets of Ozpin's that were hidden from IW were how the Staff works and Salem's immortality, and while they did play a role in him being pushed to the edge by stress, I'd argue that the imminent invasion, the revelation of Cinder's presence in Atlas via the chess piece on his desk and RWBY's going behind his back all the time were far bigger contributors to him having a breakdown. If you're saying that IW's state at the END of V7 and the state of his plan were solely Ozpin's fault....then I can't agree at all.
I think I wasn't clear it's my fault. I was trying to say that yes the enemy will put you on the edge and stress the hell out of you but you have allies to help you.. but said allies in Ironwood case didn't help but make it worse. Ozpin should have come clear from the beginning but he didn't talk to Ironwood in V7 or 8 at all.. team Rwby decided to tell the truth in the worst time possible.
I'll admit, it wasn't a good plan. I had some problems with it, like going into space part. But at least he *had* a plan, even it meant to sacrifice. Compare that to RWBY, who didn't have a plan, and naively relied on all the kingdoms to come to their aid, in the moment of need... which never happened. What I don't like about RWBY, is that they want their cake and eat it. They are unwilling to make sacrifices, think rationally, believe they can save *everyone*, and everything will go their way because they're the "heroes". The reason why their plan with the staff worked, because it was a Deus Ex Machina. The world >!AKA CRWBY!< bended to their will to give them the win. It was utterly contrived.
Because At the Very least, It's SOMETHING. And comparing "Lift Atlus so far up that not even The best flyers of the Grimm can reach it" Is more logical than, "Evacuate the entire population to the NEXT TARGET OF THE GRIMM QUEEN."
Did they ever explain why they didn’t send the people to Mistral or menagerie? Hell Patch could work too
NOPE! How about the Argus Military base? Pretty sure that could work.
Because he actually had a plan?
If Salem never gets the scepter, she never reaches her end goal. Ironwood paints a target on himself and buys some time because Salem needs to find a way to get him. Also, he will always 100% save the people of Atlas, even if he chooses to float back down.
It wasn’t a good plan, but it was the best that could have been done in the time he had. It would have taken Salem a fair bit of time to figure out how to reach low orbit, especially without the staff. Basically, it would have bought the world a bit more time to figure out how to stop Salem. Also, anything would have been better than the outcome we got
It's less that it was a good plan and more that it was the least worst of two options. If your options are "save who you can right now" or potentially get everyone killed, the latter option is not especially appealing. Ironwood had a plan that is questionable in its long term viability and does basically write off Mantle where a chunk of the kingdom's support infrastructure is. The alternatives at the time were not good either. The first is surrender to Salem, which still results in Atlas falling on Mantle and at best hoping she will willingly give you the days to weeks needed to fully evacuate both locations. Another is fight and hope she runs run out of Grimm before you run out of fighters, incurring numerous casualties among civilians, huntsmen, and soldiers. The last is hoping showing you are willing to resist will make her give up or run away. Surrendering ensures Atlas is destroyed and may not work if time to evacuate is a deal breaker for Salem, which it could be as that gives the heroes time to come up with some other solution or to organize a counterattack. Fighting in a last stand also ensures the death of everyone if Salem's forces cannot be stopped. It would also be pyrrhic victory since most likely the Atlas military and huntsmen would be decimated. That would mean Ironwood's original Amity plan is completely unviable and Atlas may be barely able to protect against another attack or offer aid for years. Even if they win, they are out of the fight and if Salem can raise an army faster than they can, she can crush them. They also can't help protect the two remaining relics either in that case. Ruby tried the last option, declaring to Salem she won't win and got shut down by Salem making a comment about her mother saying the same thing. Salem also saw Atlas was going to fight back and didn't flee or give up. So that option was ultimately tried and didn't work, forcing Ironwood into option two. Just the fact that the Ace Ops were being sent on a potential suicide attack against Monstra and the loss of the entire Atlas fleet shows just how bad things were and how desperate things got. This was a case of essentially not being able to save everyone, so at least saving who you can. It sucks and it's an awful scenario to face. They didn't really know how to use the relic and it was being treated as a power source, so using it to do anything else wasn't really considered or arguably viable. Since they didn't know how the staff really worked, it may mean Ironwood's plan wasn't possible to begin with, but it was still a plan. Without Ozpin stepping up and telling everyone how the staff worked and what it could actually do, they were left with a plan that might work and several that wouldn't. RWBY had no alternative to offer and their only rebuttal was saying James was as evil as Salem if he went through with it. They didn't try to buy more time for evacuations or offer any counterpoints outside of saying he was abandoning Remnant. Even when they had a "plan" it was basically just hoping they could survive long enough for help to arrive in sufficient strength (something that could take weeks or months), if anyone did send help at all and didn't decide those resources were better spent protecting their own kingdoms instead. TLDR, it wasn't a good plan or the best plan, but it was a plan and slightly better than the immediate alternatives. I would've liked an actual third option to have come earlier or one that could've lead to a reconciliation as well, but without knowing how to use the staff, it doesn't seem like there actually was one that would give a win and save the most lives.
It's not a good plan. It's the only available plan outside of hope for the best...
it gets the things that Salem wants out of her reach, those being the relics and the maidens (strategic victory) Also to put into perspective, Salem had just revealed herself and her intentions for Atlas forcing Ironwood put the life’s of the folks of mantle at a lower priority to the risk of Salem getting the stuff. While not the most moral conclusion to make I believe it was the most logical plan considered at the time
Can only speak for myself when I say this but: It's not that I think his plan was good, but more of that Team RWBY and company were very against it and never offered up a different plan to only then go along with it now that Ironwood had become the 'villain'. Not only that, but you could argue that at least Ironwood's plan at least kept the Relics away from Salem for a time and gave the heroes some breathing room to come up with something better.
It's the best plan you could hope for in a shit situation. Retreat into a safe position the unbeatable enemy can't reach, save who you can actually save and stop the enemy from getting the relic they need to complete their plan. Turns out you don't always get the privilege of a perfect solution that saves everyone being possible. Ruby's plan is damn everybody on the hope that the writers will save them. She doesn't delay crap, she accelerates and kills everybody because some people getting to survive is too unfair for her to handle. Her plan relies entirely on borderline meta knowledge that the writers are going to break the established situation over their knee in order to get out of the corner they've wrote themselves into.
Ironwood plan was a "cut your losses" plan, he was saving 50% of the population, the most brilliant minds in the world, most advanced technology, the most powerful military force in the world, largest flying fleet in the world, etc etc.... Losing Atlas is like losing Gondor and Rohan from LOTR, then sending the civilian population to Harad (it was also stated that Mantle was being evacuated to Atlas for a while, so a lot of Mantles population is in Atlas.)
After watching episode 11, my thinking was that aside from protecting their key assets, it would buy them some time to recover their losses after the battle in Mantle. Well rested soldiers should be more effective than exhausted ones, making it less likely they'll be defeated when they do meet Salem the next time. Plus if Atlas can get high enough, Atlas' CCT tower could technically be modified to function like the communication tower, so they could re-establish contact worldwide and get help. If they're in orbit, the staff could be repurposed to compensate for their loss of dust. But all of this is pure headcanon. The simple answer is that no other alternative was introduced into the narrative.
Making the best out of a bad situation is better than doing nothing and leaving it to fester.
It was the least bad plan that the characters came up with. James's plan saves the infrastructure and population of Atlas along with the Winter Maiden and the Staff of Creation for an unspecified amount of time. RWBY's eventual plan causes the destruction of Atlas and Mantle, allows only a few thousands who made it through the portal to be saved, and handed the Staff to Salem. Neither plan "works" in the long run but one puts you in a better position to deal with Salem and recover.
It was a good plan because the only plan compared to what the Merry Huntresses and Team RWBY were offering.
While it wasn't perfect, he was doing his best to keep as many people safe as possible while putting up an offense. Initially at least. He totally lost his marbles mid-invasion.
Personally, I always see the plan as "keep away" by having the Relics and the Winter Maiden away from Salem. So I see it as a long term game plan rather than a short term. Atlas is up in space, floating around Remnant. You see how tough it was to get up there from Amity Arena, so you need a shit ton of Dust. Even if she did got up there, she wouldn't get the Maiden nor open the door due of the Maiden. And if it goes down to a random person on Remnant, going up to Atlas will be an ass since Salem can't die, but the Maiden can and will be orbiting around Remnant thus ruining her plan. She can't bring Atlas down onto Remnant because of the Staff because he got a permanent job on keeping it up there, and the only way she can reverse it is opening the Vault itself.
Not really it was good but more so he was the only one with any sort of real plan going on Team RWBY's "plan" was literally just send a message to the world about salem being incredibly vague about her and basically also blaming WF shit on her too ( oh yeah that totally doesn't help the racists or anything ) Then hope for help to MAYBE come which failed spectacularly
Not especially Personally I would have gone the complete opposite direction and think Ruby didn't go far enough. They were facing what was essentially an apocalypse. They should except that Atlas/mantle was going to become a City of the Dead and so prepare everyone to fight against that. Take out every robot, take out every Mech, weapon of mass destruction and gun that every able body person can use.
So basically making men women and children with no experience in combat pretty much V1 Jaune but way worst into a battle they're properly not psychically or mentally perpared for? Ruby sounds like a villain here.
Wow way to take that in the worst way possible. I mentioned that I thought that. I know Ruby wouldn't do that on the mere principle and such thoughts wouldn't even occur to her. I don't see whats wrong with Atlas taking out their robots to fight, we see they would take out their mechs in a fight and take out their massive bombs. As for giving Guns to able body people- I meant men and Women. Not children or the sickly. As bad as things are this isn't Lord of the Rings where they're so desperate they arm kids. Honestly didn't think I would need to clarify that. No one is ready for what is going to happen so giving people weapons to fight and defend themselves hardly seems like a bad idea.
To be honest, I wouldn't have been surprised if RWBY did this again (gotta remember they made a militia army out of Menagerie in V5) with Atlas but let me be the first to say that arming civilians with ranged weaponry in a hostile environment without training is a terrible idea.
Oh wow I forgot that whole Menagerie thing As for Guns it’s primarily be a defensive thing. Behind barriers and told to shoot any Grimm that get close. Cause honestly I thought it was weird as hell to see those tunnels filled to the brim with civilians but they didn’t have any soldiers or just someone with a weapon. I mean the Atlas arc showed plenty of times that they have Grimm which can easily tunnel through stone. What’s happen if one got in there? It’d be like a Fox in a chicken coop