scrape_r_rational/data/cache2/5mo851.md

## [D] Thoughts on Gate: Jietai Kare no Chi nite, similar stories

* Author: u/luminarium *
* URL: https://www.reddit.com/r/rational/comments/5mo851/d_thoughts_on_gate_jietai_kare_no_chi_nite/
* Score: 18

* Created: 2017-01-08T01:32:11

### Post:

**I**: Plot

The anime's subtitle is "and thus the JSDF fought there". For some reason after watching the first episode and seeing that subtitle, I was expecting the plot to be "desperate alliance". Ie, I was hoping for: 1) they go to the fantasy world; 2) the gate shuts down, leaving them stranded there; 3) they have to deal with all manner of threats, from beasts to surprise attacks to mages, gradually causing attrition; 4) the battles deplete their resources (oil, shells) forcing them to go forth from their home base, form military alliances and play politics with the various factions, and learn magic from the mages; 5) every battle they lose is crippling as they can't reinforce and it means their enemies gain weapons to use against them; and 6) things get more and more desperate and they start having a psychological breakdown and turn against themselves.

Needless to say, that's not what the anime was. But do you know of any story that kind of explores the above? Or is similarly dark/gritty?

**II**: Gates

The fact that the attack happened the moment the gate appeared implies that the empire's mages created the gate. It was never mentioned otherwise, and it doesn't make sense for the gate to be an anomaly or periodic occurrence. But: 1) why didn't they open up more gates if they had that tech? You know, to flank the enemy or launch multiple attacks (like what happens in TES: Oblivion) or simply for economic uses? 2) Why is the gate not shut down after the attack fails? 3) If the gate can't be shut down, why didn't they surround the entrance with a whole army or else bury it (like in Stargate)? 4) If they have gate tech why don't they go to other worlds? 5) If they have gate tech shouldn't they have 'lesser' tech that are prerequisites, which would reasonably include 'baleful warping'/'baleful teleport' type spells?

**III**: Mages

There are supposedly mages. After all, if there's no mages then they couldn't have opened the gate; and Lelei is a mage. But it's as if she's the only one. There's no mages in the imperial army, where mages would be the most useful and would have made a huge impact in the battles. Why wasn't Lelei and her kind drafted? Why don't the invaders ever think to use and study magic?

**IV**: Tech

Given the fact that it's clear the invaders have the technological upper hand, why doesn't the empire (or bandits etc) ever try to capture those weapons? There's plenty of scouting parties going around which would be much easier to kill. Any group that manages to overcome such a scouting party would greatly magnify their power. In the real world we see this happening (like when ISIS took over Mosul).

**V**: Abuse

Given the kind of power disparity between the two factions, you'd think the invaders would start to rape, raze, murder and pillage, or at least treat the natives as outsiders or inferior, which is what happens in real life a LOT (like with Nanking and way too many other situations to count). There should have been genocide, commercial exploitation, slavery, caste. But instead the author went with having them being all nice and such to the locals. And I find that incredibly unrealistic.

Do you know of any Gate fanfic that remedies the above to make for a more realistic story?

### Comments:

> **u/None** [+25]  (an hour later)
> 
> [deleted]

>> **u/bbrazil** [+14]  *NERV* (13 hours later)
>> 
>> Have you tried [Grimgar](https://myanimelist.net/anime/31859/Hai_to_Gensou_no_Grimgar)? It takes a darker and more realistic take as to what'd happen when you were a nobody dropped in a fantasy world.

>>> **u/Trudar** [+3]  (16 hours later)
>>> 
>>> 1) Upvote  
>>> 2) Note down anime name  
>>> 3) Leave thank you reply  
>>> 
>>> > **Thank you!**
>>> 
>>> Done!

>>> **u/None** [+3]  (a day later)
>>> 
>>> I tried Grimgar, and I can confirm that the main characters are...not good.
>>> 
>>> I honestly couldn't stand to watch past the second episode, because they were so bad. Not "badly written" bad, just "See, now this is why you get naturally selected out of the gene pool, moron" bad.

> **u/CouteauBleu** [+19]  *We are the Empire.* (8 hours later)
> 
> The "why doesn't the emperor do X" parts is probably what annoys the most about this series, and what made me quit it. A story can get away with a stupid but overwhelming main villain, or a weak but resourceful villain, but Gate is about beating villains battle after battle without them ever changing their tactics.
> 
> Plus all the pro-Japanese propaganda, "there never was any ethnic cleansing in China", the American/Russian/Chinese are evil, the Empire is blatantly evil and never shows any redeeming quality, etc.
> 
> As for how to make a rational fic out of this... well, it's the same as making hard SF out of Star Wars, you mostly have to make your own thing from the ground up. One interesting change would be to have the Empire military (or at least some part of it) be extremely experienced and competent. So they have undeveloped technology, but they adapt fast, they know guerilla tactics, they have extremely competent spies and saboteurs and super-trained commandos (having invisibility and memory erasing spells is also a great advantage), and suddenly the Japanese military is in danger.
> 
> It could also lead into interesting arms races (invisibility spells -> heat-seeking drones -> cold blood spells -> magic detecting -> magic scrambling -> etc), where each side needs to keep sending spies to learn about the other's technologies to develop counter-measures.

>> **u/Trudar** [+9]  (17 hours later)
>> 
>> It's close to impossible to recommend it here becaus of language barrier, but few years ago Marcin Ciszewski published a short serie of novels (sadly in Polish only) - *www.1939.com.pl* and *www.1944.waw.pl* (these are not links!) that realistically dealt with modern batallion tossed into September '39 during German Blitzkrieg in Poland and Warsaw uprising in 1944. Short story - they lost. Long story: He explored political, cultural, military aspects of such transfer. That's closest to rational fiction I know about. There is nothing in 'modern world in fantasy setting' that I know about.
>> 
>> If you're into WW2 themes and you ever spot English translations of these novels I encourage to read them.

>> **u/luminarium** [+2]  (17 hours later)
>> 
>> Yeah that's a big bother to me too, while I get it's believable (took the Europeans 4 years to learn not to charge WWI trenches) it doesn't make for a good story. 
>> 
>> And I really like that arms race idea!

>>> **u/None** [+13]  (18 hours later)
>>> 
>>> [Contrary to popular belief, WWI commanders weren't complete morons](https://www.reddit.com/r/badhistory/comments/1qs5hz/in_rcombatfootage_we_learn_that_wwi_generals_were)
>>> 
>>> *The final piece of badhistory is the idea that the commanders didn't try anything else. They tried many things. They tried digging tunnels under the opposing lines and then blowing the lines up (this would prove somewhat successful in limited trials). They tried poison gas. They tried tanks and other armored vehicles. They perfected the art of a rolling artillery barrage. This consisted of the artillery firing just ahead of the advancing soldiers in the hopes that it would keep the opposing forces pinned deep inside their trenches. They tried massing a large force at one point in the line while leaving a skeleton crew to guard the rest. They tried having the soldiers infiltrate no-man's-land at night time and launch the attacks in the morning from their positions. They tried small scale raids.*
>>> 
>>> *They tried all sorts of different ideas, but all people seem to think about is going up over the trench.*
>>> 
>>> *This belies the main point though, which is this--what else were they supposed to do? In the early days of WWI the battle fields were fluid. By the time trench warfare developed you basically had two fortified positions staring at each other. What does this poster think could have been done to take the forts? You have to attack them directly and any attack on a fortified position is going to have serious losses.*
>>> 
>>> *They couldn't dig encircling trenches and move them closer to the objective (as was done at Petersburg in the American Civil War), because the trench system stretched across France. The only way to attack them was by direct assault.*

>>>> **u/CouteauBleu** [+15]  *We are the Empire.* (18 hours later)
>>>> 
>>>> Damn, you beat me to it.
>>>> 
>>>> Meta-moral of the story: if your understanding of a situation is that everyone involved is stupid, your understanding of the situation is probably lacking.
>>>> 
>>>> Also, some of these tactics (especially rolling artillery barrage) worked. The problem was that none of those tactics were fast enough to completely breach the front lines, which had redundant levels of fortifications, and were reinforced as soon as one side attacked.
>>>> 
>>>> So the French would breach a trench, capture a hill, then be stalled at the next trench, while the Germans would send troops to re-take the hill and prepare additional defenses behind the new front lines, the French would be driven back after intense fighting, then start another offensive, etc.
>>>> 
>>>> Although I never understood why they would use tunnels to plant bombs in enemy lines, as opposed as sending troops that way.

>>>>> **u/Izeinwinter** [+2]  (7 days later)
>>>>> 
>>>>> That's simple - A tunnel is a chokepoint. Can only move as many men through it at a time as will fit, and as soon as the people exiting are spotted - which will be soon indeed, they can't exfil back through it very quickly either. So attacking through a tunnel would be suicide.

>>>> **u/luminarium** [+4]  (a day later)
>>>> 
>>>> I'm completely aware of all these points, it's not like I hadn't studied a little bit of WWI. Both sides continuously thought that:
>>>> 
>>>> 1. The enemy nation *must* be close to breaking *now* after the enormous casualties they've suffered thus far, one more push'll do it
>>>> 2. We'll just make a quick attack, if it grinds to a halt we'll abandon the attack -> attack makes progress for 1 day, they keep going even though it goes nowhere on all subsequent days
>>>> 3. Let's attack this place, they'll never see it coming (they always see it coming, moving 500,000 men is kind of easy to spot)
>>>> 4. Do a rolling barrage, fire 10 million shells and they'll be too battered to stop our charge! Hint: a trench with 3/4 of its people turned into casualties is almost as effective as a trench with no casualties.
>>>> 5. Let's concentrate our manpower! Yes, machine guns tend to be more effective when used in crowded places.

> **u/Roxolan** [+14]  *Head of antimemetiWalmart senior assistant manager* (10 hours later)
> 
> Side-note: the [original manga](http://kissmanga.com/Manga/Gate-Jietai-Kare-no-Chi-nite-Kaku-Tatakeri) is a much better way of accessing this story. The animation quality of the adaptation is really poor IMO. But the manga doesn't fix the flaws you mentioned.
> 
> I agree with most of your criticisms and unfulfilled wishes. Just,
> 
> > **V**: Abuse
> 
> > Given the kind of power disparity between the two factions, you'd think the invaders would start to rape, raze, murder and pillage
> 
> That might have been the case in your hypothetical where they are cut off from Japan. As is though, they're a modern military, in direct contact with their leadership, and with the entire international community focused on them (many looking for an excuse to jump in). Plus they get all the comforts from home. I would not expect major war crimes or a breakdown of discipline in this situation. 
> 
> (One-sided resource and land deals, sure. But the story doesn't discuss the economical aspects at all - one more of its failings.)

>> **u/luminarium** [+3]  (17 hours later)
>> 
>> That's a very good point! Thanks.

> **u/PlaneOfInfiniteCats** [+12]  (13 hours later)
> 
> The thing that irked me the most was an eponymous Gate.
> 
> The Gate is literally the most important technology there is, yet nobody pays it any attention.
> There are a lot of life-or-death questions that nobody is interested in.
> 
> * How was the Gate open? 
> * Can it be closed forcibly? 
> * Will it close by itself, in time? 
> * Can closing of the Gate be predicted?
> * Can the Gate be sustained in open state? How?
> * Can another Gate be opened to another place?
> * Can the Gate be opened to the bottom of the ocean? How about the center of the Sun? Black hole? If it can, it's an ultimate weapon.
> * Minor nitpick: does the wind blow through the Gate? It would be an unusual coincidence if atmospheric pressure was exactly equal on both sides of the Gate, after all.
> 
> So yeah, really interesting premise, horribly butchered execution. At least the harem looks interesting, so it's not a total loss. But still, just thinking how great it could be makes me really sad.

>> **u/luminarium** [+4]  (17 hours later)
>> 
>> Yeah definitely agree on all these points. Stargate handles it REALLY well. If you haven't seen the series I strongly recommend it.

> **u/None** [+10]  (15 minutes later)
> 
> Because the JSDF are not barbarians unlike their imperial forebearers.
> 
> The Japanese people would be aghast and shocked to see their soldiers behave that way.
> 
> The politics suck and the harem shit has got to go though.

>> **u/Seukonnen** [+10]  (an hour later)
>> 
>> Harem shit sells, apparently. It's the CODcancer of anime.

>>> **u/narfanator** [+3]  (10 hours later)
>>> 
>>> CODcancer? I tried googling it, but just got Cape Cod cancer stuff.

>>>> **u/scruiser** [+7]  *CYOA* (12 hours later)
>>>> 
>>>> Call of Duty.  A first person shooter videogame that has many sequels and clones, thereby reducing the quality/variety of gaming options.

> **u/None** [+5]  (a day later)
> 
> Despite it's many flaws, I actually liked GATE more then I disliked it.
> 
> What always bothered me was that, similar to what /u/PlaneOfInfiniteCats mentioned regarding that gate itself, is that no one fucking cared about all the magic-y stuff.
> 
> Mages. Human (or, at the absolute least, Humanoid) individuals with the ability to wave a shiny stick around, say some words, and apparently violate conservation of energy. This isn't even limited to the world beyond the Gate, as we clearly see Lelei's magic and Rori's immortality and bullshit demigod powers working on the Earth side. That, right there, should have literally taken the scientific community and turned it upside down.
> 
> To say nothing of the fact that waving a stick and chanting shouldn't allow one to manipulate gravity or energy at all, but at least that's hypothetically something we could replicate with sufficiently advanced technology.
> 
> Magical creatures - Hello, Red Dragon. Have you ever heard of Square-Cube law? No? Okay, then. Aerodynamics? No? Okay, then. You go right on ahead flying around with tiny wings that cannot possibly generate enough lift, with a body dense enough to withstand your weight that nevertheless doesn't seem to require you to eat more then a couple of cows or something on a given day.
> 
> DemiHuman hybrids - Don't even get me started on Genetics Do Not Work That Way, except apparently, they do? MDs and PhDs alike should be going gaga over the demihuman hybrid races. They should be requesting tissue and fluid samples, or even extradition of volunteers for extensive study.
> 
> Metaphysical Identity and Continuity of Conciousness - Rori is a Demigod close to becoming an actual God. She supposedly channels "souls" to her patron when they die near her, which has a outward and measurable effect on her, so even if it's not a "soul" as Abrahamic tradition would have it, she's certainly being exposed to something. There is a treasure trove of philosophical and theological knowledge in her very existence, and we see at least one other Demigod and we hear references to at least three full Gods, one of which apparently keeps trying to get into Rori's pants.
> 
> I mean, Japan Stronk and Attack Helicopters crushing evil roman legions are cool and all, but come on.
> 
> So much wasted story potential.

>> **u/luminarium** [+3]  (a day later)
>> 
>> This!! So much this!! Yeah it's definitely really sad that Gate didn't explore these in any depth whatsoever.

>> **u/PlaneOfInfiniteCats** [+2]  (4 days later)
>> 
>> I agree with all your points and more. I actually had to hold back really hard while writing my post to not produce an hour-long rant.
>> 
>> Gate JSDF could be very good and interesting, and instead it's only mediocre. 
>> 
>> Oh well. At least debauched evil empire looks cool.

> **u/GaBeRockKing** [+10]  *Horizon Breach: http://archiveofourown.org/works/6785857* (45 minutes later)
> 
> See, I also didn't like Gate:JDSF, but mainly because the Japanese didn't let the Americans in on the fun.
> 
> We have very different priorities ;P
> 
> But seriously, I thought I was going to love it because I love these kinds of portal fantasies (See: [The Salvation War](http://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic.php?t=118771) and [Humanity Fuck Yeah](https://1d4chan.org/wiki/Humanity_Fuck_Yeah) in general), but it crossed the boundrary from "acceptable wish fulfillment" to "every Japanese character is a Mary Sue" pretty quickly.

>> **u/Pakars** [+3]  (5 hours later)
>> 
>> That link for The Salvation War requires a login to the forum. Is it available somewhere you don't need to create a login(or do you have a link on the forum that doesn't require login), or will I have to register?
>> 
>> (While I do enjoy HFY, is The Salvation War/other content on that forum worth the minor annoyance of registering?)

>>> **u/GaBeRockKing** [+2]  *Horizon Breach: http://archiveofourown.org/works/6785857* (13 hours later)
>>> 
>>> I could have sworn the salvation war didn't need a login... See if you can find some other source. Though at the same time, the Salvation War is something I'd actually say would be worth registering for.

>>>> **u/General_Urist** [+2]  (a day later)
>>>> 
>>>> I think I dredged a a working non-login ling, at least for the first part.
>>>> 
>>>> http://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=117679&sid=5d5e1d73098c03dcaaea4a161ebf29c8

>>> **u/General_Urist** [+2]  (a day later)
>>> 
>>> [The TVtropes page seems to have some useful links.](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Literature/TheSalvationWar)

> **u/vallar57** [+3]  *Unseen University: Faculty of High-Energy Magic* (12 hours later)
> 
> Gate is indeed not very rational and consistent, but it's not terrible. 
> 
> Mages are very rare, and not actually that powerful. 
> 
> They can't capture invader's tech because it needs ammo, which they don't have. 
> 
> The whole Earth's eyes are on invaders, so they need to appear as model as possible - and they can, since they don't actually feel any threat from their adversaries. 
> 
> The gate, iirc, wasn't created by empire mages, but priests, appealing to some god. This power is very unreliable, and can't be consistently used for warfare.

>> **u/luminarium** [+1]  (17 hours later)
>> 
>> Invaders carry some ammo with them though. If you capture a tank it'll still have some shells left, if you capture a submachine gun it will still have bullets left, if you win a battle you'll probably also get your hands on some undetonated grenades and unused bullet clips for whatever gun the soldiers were using, etc.

>>> **u/vallar57** [+1]  *Unseen University: Faculty of High-Energy Magic* (18 hours later)
>>> 
>>> Besides ammo, there is another thing captured weapons don't come with: manuals. An untrained soldier trying a gun for the first time without any guidance is more likely to hit his leg or break the gun than make any progress.
>>> 
>>> You also underestimate just how fast ammo is spent in modern weapons. It's literally seconds on full auto.

>>>> **u/luminarium** [+1]  (a day later)
>>>> 
>>>> After the first few mishaps their forces will start to learn. Really, it's not that hard to figure out how to shoot, if you have a company of men toying with a couple dozen captured guns that already have cartridges in them, for weeks on end, they're bound to figure it out. Capture a few prisoners and at least one can be made to teach the troops how to reload it. There are people who build do-it-yourself furniture without looking at the manual. They can figure it out. Training and aiming's a different story, of course, they won't have enough ammo for that, but even with bad training and bad aim a submachine gun is still way better than a crossbow.
>>>> 
>>>> Doesn't matter that the ammo that can be held in a weapon at one time gets used up in seconds - the people wielding those weapons carry enough additional ammo on themselves to last through a typical skirmish, no? All of which can be captured when the guy's killed.

> **u/NotACauldronAgent** [+4]  *Probably* (12 hours later)
> 
> A fanfic worth reading if you can handle that it's a quest is [There was no GATE; we did not fight there](https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/there-is-no-gate-we-did-not-fight-there-ck2-gate.357477/), it uses CKII stats for characters so is technically a crossover and takes place pre-gate, but really addresses some of your issues.
> 
> 1-Plot-I guess? It's a quest, but the DM puts a lot of effort into making really in-depth story and characterisation.
> 
> 2-Gates-Explained as an act of god, it's still 10 years out or so, and implied to be hard.
> 
> 3-Mages-So much yes. It reinvented the magic system, gave my headcanon of what the difference between magic and spirit magic is, and answered all your questions beyond invaders, obviously, in that there are Imperial Mages. They are rare but are often drafted as auxiliaries or battlefield support. 
> 
> 4-Tech-No gate yet, but the DM mentioned characters would reverse engineer technology. On a similar note, one of the gods has a space station visible from the surface.
> 
> 5-Abuse-The empire vs the Bunny Tribes and in reverse too, lots of raiding, and since it's SB there is brutal retaliation, but the bunnies are able to flee in the face of annihilation when their superweapon fails. 
> 
> The best gate fiction I have read by a long shot and is still updating.

>> **u/luminarium** [+2]  (17 hours later)
>> 
>> Thanks, I'll check it out!

> **u/narfanator** [+3]  (10 hours later)
> 
> Huh. It sounds like the anime is very different from the manga...? I don't remember most of the issues people have raised here (with a few notable exceptions) being present in the manga. Memory is a bit fuzzy, it's been awhile since I read the start, and it doesn't come out with new scanlationss that often.
> 
> If memory serves...
> Making gates is not an easy thing, so they don't do it often, but they've definitely done it before. All prior occasions, the Empire was more than a match for whatever they found - there's a persistent undercurrent of arrogance in the Empire, where they basically have too much trouble believing they're not at the top of the heap. This is very obviously aggravated by the portal being rather far from the Imperial capital, and messengers being guys on horseback.
> 
> I think, also, the resulting Gate occupation force (or whatever they call it) IS international, although headed by Japan, and they take a lot of careful steps. It's like they looked over the history books of the European world take over and said "Okay, how do we NOT do that?". There's bits where the diplomat is taking insults within flinching, bending over backwards to follow customs, etc, etc... while they're signaling to the sniper to NOT fire.
> 
> The harem trope is even pretty extensively subverted; I'm having trouble summarizing. I think the main point is that he's not shy, he's just not interested. So you still have the "one man, lots of women", but they don't form even the usual not-a-harem... despite very direct and/or playfully direct attempts by some of the women.
> 
> Remaining questions...
> I don't remember if they address why mages aren't in the army. It could just be a rarity thing, but there may have also been a cultural reason - like the military is for glory, and magic takes away from that?
> 
> The Empire is depicted as fairly competent, just so completely out of it's depth with the Earth forces they can't even process it. There's numerous occasions where nobles in the capital scoff at the reports from the field, because they're so used to the Empire out classing anyone they literally can't understand that the tables are turned. Maybe they could if the tables weren't turned so drastically, but...

>> **u/luminarium** [+2]  (17 hours later)
>> 
>> > Remaining questions... I don't remember if they address why mages aren't in the army. It could just be a rarity thing, but there may have also been a cultural reason - like the military is for glory, and magic takes away from that?
>> 
>> Problem I have with that is it's an empire, so it's been fighting a lot of wars. Against enemies who ought to have mages too, and who would put mages to use in battle. The empire wouldn't have won without using mages too.

>> **u/PlaneOfInfiniteCats** [+1]  (a day later)
>> 
>> The issues I had were all about treatment of the Gate by earthlings, not the empire, so manga is not much better  than anime here. I agree that manga is better than anime in that regard, it just isn't significantly better.
>> 
>> > The harem trope is even pretty extensively subverted; I'm having trouble summarizing. I think the main point is that he's not shy, he's just not interested. So you still have the "one man, lots of women", but they don't form even the usual not-a-harem... despite very direct and/or playfully direct attempts by some of the women.
>> 
>> This is exactly the way Japanese animation handles harems since the birth of genre in Love Hina. Not much trope subversion here, unfortunately.

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