Just another msc stuff post, as usual this is largely either stuff I’ve been talking about on /m/ and that sort of thing. If any of this is rambley and incoherent, I’m sleepy so I blame it on that. 

This time on 00 Potpourri:
Topic #1: Why Regene is probably not the final boss.
Topic #2: Tau drives getting Trans-am is nothing to freak out about.
Topic #3: Why don’t the Innovator suits have Trans-am if Billy could come up with it in a few months?

Possibly more to come later, but I’m taking a nap now. 

Topic #1: Why Regene is probably not the final boss. 

So, a lot of people seem to like the idea that Regene’s gonna Fucking Ribbons Fucking Ribbons and/or has some kind of elaborate keikaku that’s gonna go doori any minute now. 

As much as I like Regene, I really honestly can’t see him doing anything of the sort. The main reason being that it just doesn’t seem to fit in his character (or at least what we’ve seen of it). At his heart, Regene’s primary characteristics are probably selfishness/self-preservation and curiousity. The only time we’ve ever seen Regene take any sort of explicit action he seems to be motivated by either: the desire to troll the shit out of Ribbons, pure curiousity or both:

 ->”lol, Twin Drive~“ : Regene seems to use this as a sort of insult almost, the main motive being to piss off Ribbons (and if there’s a reason beyond that, it’s to get him riled up/throw him off kilter)

 -> Questioning Ribbons: Here’s the curiousity thing coming up. Regene, up until the party, seemed to be continually hitting on trying to determine Ribbons’ intentions (oft using his little “insult” as an attempt to knock free some information–interestingly he seems to cease this entire line of thought after the “insult” loses its effect). But he hasn’t taken any action oustside Ribbons’ orders (aside from his “unnecessary ”action re: Tieria, I’ll discuss that next)–of course you could argue that we just haven’t seen any external actions (and no, the Wang meeting doesn’t count, he was almost certainly there under Ribbons’ orders). Anyhow, my point is that Regene doesn’t seem to have any reason for his questioning aside from satisfying his own curiousity and determining his situation. Even his monologue after the party didn’t really tell us much of anything, which is why I’m inclined to say Regene wants to find out what Ribbons is up to just for the sake of knowing what he’s up to (well that and making sure he’s not going to become cannon fodder–naturally this is more of a leap in judgment that’s really just my impression/feeling about him since I can’t really give a concrete reason for why I think this is the case exactly–oh yeah, and I might totally end up coming up with a reason while I’m writing this so if I do, there a reason!).
tl;dr of this point: Regene wants to know what’s Ribbons, what’s Veda and what’s Aeolia. His reasons are not terribly clear, I assert that it’s out of curiousity and self-preservation.

-> Regene’s “unnecessary” action: We still don’t know what action of his was “unnecessary.” It’s entirely possible that his entire meeting with Tieria was outside the scope of Ribbons’ instruction. Regardless, Regene’s interest in meeting and antagonizing Tieria is probably curiousity again and trolling (Regene just loves fucking with people, does he really need more of a reason?). It’s possible that Regene intentionally wanted to piss off Tieria and turn him against the Innovators–Regene’s recent comment about Tieria being against them being “wonderful” is pretty interesting in this regard. Initially, my thinking was that Regene just trolled Tieria to dick with Ribbons (see their “fight” in ep 9) and see what kind of person Tieria was. But the idea that Regene is happy that Tieria’s against them is interesting to say the least.

Anyhow, my point is, Regene is only motivated out of his own desires for the most part. He isn’t concerned with other people as far as we’ve seen (he didn’t give a shit about the Memento Mori killing people, he doesn’t seem to have an Innovator superiority complex or anything else resembling a grand philosophy or anything). Regene is primairly concerned with himself. I believe most of his curiousity about the plan stems for concern for his person–like I said before, he doesn’t want to be turned into cannon fodder. In saying that, Regene is clearly not a blind follower of Ribbons/Veda/Aeolia like the other Innovators seem to be. Even Tieria was like that at some point (well, minus Ribbons of course), so I think it’s reasonable to assume that Regene was probably similar initially as well and from there, since he’s decidedly lacking in faith for, well, anything it seems, something had to have happened to change that (again, assuming Regene wasn’t just “born” cynical). 

Regene is decidedly obedient to Ribbons (again, the only overt action he’s taken outside of Ribbons’ instructions was the thing with Tieria and his occasional snarks at Ribbons if that even counts), but obedience is not the same thing as trust/belief/following/the-word-I’m-trying-to-think-of-is-on-the-tip-of-my-brain. And it’s this obedience that makes me think tha Regene’s quite concerned for his own well being. He isn’t opposed to poking at Ribbons and messing with him, but he knows his boundraies (he never directly attacks him or disobeys orders) and I think it’s largely out of the desire NOT TO DIE and nothing else. I’m starting to think that his motives for his “unnecessary” action were partly to get himself grounded again so he wouldn’t be chucked out into battle where he’d likely be killed (except we know he wouldn’t because he has Tieria plotshield). Ribbons seems to trust Regene with certain sensitive tasks that he doesn’t seem to give to the other Innovators: picking up Louise in the S1 epilouge, going to Tieria (which he admittedly fucked up albeit probably intentionally), and now keeping an eye on Wang. I think Ribbons is generally aware of Regene’s attitude (that he’ll pretty much follow orders unless he sees an opportunity to have some fun), and knowing that trusts him differently than the other Innovators–Regene’s more “innovative” since he’s more independently minded than the others and at the same time Regene’s concerned with his own well being more than the plan or anything which is someething Ribbons can take advantage of to keep Regene in check. 

Earlier I proposed a theory (relating the second-to-last paragraph mostly) that Regene was initially a faithful follower of Veda/Ribbons/the plan and then SOMETHING happened which caused a crisis of faith in him. I think this is increasingly plausible explaination for Regene being the way he is: Not having any other options like his brother, rather than having a massive identity crisis and going against the Innovators, Regene just becomes cynical and more self-centered. Since he has no one else to care about, in discovering that there’s something fishy/not magical/etc about the plan and/or his comrades he has no reason to hold them in particular regard, especially since the attitude of the plan and Ribbons’ and whatever seems to be that the Innovators are superior to humans, but expendable–notice how no one really gives a shit that Bring’s dead–on the other end of the spectrum is Tieria who had something to grab onto during his crisis of faith, when he lost Veda to depend on and believe in he still had his comrades, Regene only has himself. Anyhow, here we have Regene, self-centered and lacking in any guiding philosophy or motive beyond: 1) entertain myself and 2) don’t die. And from there I cannot imagine that Regene has any sort of plan for controling the world like Ribbons who has a fucking God complex. However, I can totally see Regene shanking Ribbons if he was forced into a situation where he had to act–basically, if Ribbons corners him Regene’s gonna fuck his shit up without really giving it a second thought, but it’s not because Regene’s concerned about humanity or the plan or world domination. Nope, it’s just because to Regene, Regene is more important than Ribbons or any goddamn plan. As long as he doesn’t feel like his person is being threatened by Ribbons and his machinations, Regene will remain loyal (to a degree, again he’s not about to take a bullet for Ribbons but he’ll hold a gun to Wang’s head for him).

And so, that’s why I don’t think Regene is the final boss. It really boils down to a sheer lack of motive or desire. Regne doesn’t give a shit about the world or humanity or anything. Regene just wants to sit around and watch TV and mooch off Ribbons and maybe find out what evil keikaku Ribbons has going on because that’s fun. He might do something eventually. He might be concerned about Tieria (honestly, Tieria’s the only person I can see him taking any sort of interest in aside from himself since Tieria is in a sense an extension of himself–I can kind of see Regene’s self-centered feelings of self preservation extending to Tieria because they’re twins, which reminds me, in my old theory that still seems to make sense even though there still isn’t much hard evidence to base it on, I suggested that maybe the SOMETHING that disillusioned Regene was discovering information about Tieria and how he was considered expendable, thus triggering disillusion with the plan since if Tieria, his twin, is expendable surely he is expendable too).

tl;dr REGENE IS NOT THE FINAL BOSS BECAUSE HES A LAZY NEET.

Topic #2: Tau drives getting Trans-am is nothing to freak out about.

For some reason, some people are freaking out about the idea of the Tau drives suddenly becoming hax with Trans-am (which, first of all, I think is really silly since everyone’s always bitching that the Gundams are overpowered because they have Trans-am hax but now the grunts getting that evened out is unacceptable? WILL NOTHING SATISFY YOU /m/?!)

First off, only Masurao, a highly experimental machine, has Trans-am capabilities. And next, we get into some highly speculative stuff on how Tau drive Trans-am probably functions:
 1. Tau drives run off batteries and convert that electricity into GN Particles
 2. Trans-am in the real drives functions by increasing particle output for a period somehow (presumably dumping everything in the condensers and/or releasing all particles rather than just filtered ones–we’ve never gotten a proper answer on this yet as far as I know) after which the unit’s particle output decreases severely as condensers are recharged and however the rest of the filter theory worked goes
 3. The Tau drives’ particle output is limited by their charge; that is to say, unlike the real drives which are (nearly) perpetual energy devices which require no external energy input, the Tau drives can only produce particles as long as they have electricity 

So the main conclusion from all this prior to the Masurao’s appearence is that for a Tau unit to “Trans-am” it’d use up all it’s particles (and thus energy in the battery) and then plummet to the ground / be dead in space because it has no way to replenish the particles after the energy’s used up. 

Presumably this isn’t the case for the Masurao either because:
 a. Giant/super efficient battery, more engergy = more particles = longer operation time = can dump a lot of particles for a while and still be okay at least enough for basic function/recharging
 b. Some kind of energy generator, a nuclear reactor or something (even though nuclear technology is supposed to not exist in 00’s world because of Veda’s dicking with history)
 c. Some external, continual or re-charge-on-the-fly energy supply 

Personally, I think it’s c, especially given that the Masurao’s bunny-eared antenna look a lot like the Enact’s head which, as I recall, had a microwave  reciever in it so it could get energy directly from the orbital ring. So here we have the Trans-am energy drain solved. 

But why isn’t this something to worry about as far as HAX for the grunts go? Aside from Masurao being one of a kind for the moment: ELEVATOR DROP. It’d easily cripple the key component in making Tau drive Trans-am feasible (assuming c is correct), the energy supply. SO NO PROBLEMS THERE.

Topic #3: Why don’t the Innovator suits have Trans-am if Billy could come up with it in a few months?

Ribbons knows about Trans-am and we can assume he knows the basics of what it does, so why doesn’t he implement it in the Innovator suits? I think there are several reasonable explainations:

1. Ribbons has a fucking god complex. He doesn’t think he need any fucking Trans-am to beat the stupid humans.
2. Ribbons haet Aeolia. He especially doesn’t need any of that old man’s shit to defeat stupid humans.
3. Ribbons, being not a total idiot, probably thought the same as us, that Trans-am is impractal for Tau drives and there are perhaps better ways of utilizing the Taus’ energy output than dumping everything into a one-time-per-battle power up.
4. The details of Trans-am and whatnot are probably not in Veda since they were a surprise in the GN Drive’s black box that Aeolia left for PLAN B, so Ribbons doesn’t really know very much about the mechanics of it. Despite how smart he may think he is (and also 1&2 would explain why he might dismiss the idea outright before putting much thought into it) perhaps the problem required more thought than he was willing or able to put into it and Billy had the help of his genius professor’s notes and being batshit insane and out for revenge by any means necessary that Ribbons decidedly did not have. 

Basically, I don’t think it’s terribly unreasonable to think that Ribbons didn’t investigate Trans-am capibilites for Tau drives. (I mean just look at how smug he was about the Gadessa’s abilities in ep 9). Also, I suspect that Revive and Hilling’s new suits that popped up in the new summaries will be Trans-am enabled assuming that the elevator drop doesn’t happen before that and/or I was wrong about the Tau energy supply.