Kanata no Astra Episode 10 Discussion

TheDeedsOfMen said:
Unfortunately, there is an asteroid-sized plothole here.

They have a civilization with FTL capability and even wormhole technology, yet they apparently cannot divert a single asteroid. That seems implausible. Even if there are reasons why it can't be done, they never even touch the subject or explain why not.

If they have wormhole technology, the ability to produce a large number of wormholes in operation and FTL on top of it, I see no reason why they couldn't be used to change the asteroid's trajectory. Even if the asteroid is 300 kilometers across, all it needs is a relatively gentle push over the years to avoid Earth. The planet is actually a pretty small target in space and in constant movement relative to other bodies, so the trajectory of the asteroid would barely have to change. Far more realistic than moving much of the world's resources to another planet.

Suck up some of the asteroid's mass, ram it with large objects (at FTL speed?), or drop stockpiles of nukes and other explosives if you really can't do anything else. Might as well chip off rocks with wormholes and launch them right back at the asteroid itself from a suitable angle. They don't need to destroy the whole thing; it is enough to push it enough to divert its trajectory. Even if there are some technical reasons why wormholes and FTL can't trivially solve this, they make travel to the asteroid so much faster and more efficient that they can keep pushing or nuking the rock as soon as it's discovered and keep at it every day with huge resources. After all, they must have gigantic resources available if they were able to migrate to another planet.

Also, if an asteroid is 300 kilometers across, it is one of the largest asteroids in the entire solar system. There are only about ten of them. If one of them was headed for Earth, people would know about it much sooner because they are such obvious targets for tracking. Eight years is an outrageously low timespan. I'd be more worried about the 10,000 asteroids with a diameter of about 10 km. How has an FTL civilization not properly tracked the largest asteroids that are well-known even today?

(By the way, I knew about this beforehand because I have read the manga. That's why I thought this through.)


It feels really jarring. An FTL civilization cornered by a single asteroid? Really?

Lelouch0202 said:
Good episode with a lot of info.

+1 to @TheDeedsOfMen response about how an advanced civilizations with FTL and wormhole technology ended up worried about a single asteroid. Doesn't make sense, I suppose the only way to look over it is that it's just for the sake of the plot.

Something doesn't add up to me about the whole exodus, it's like Zack mentioned, it's only been 6 years since the supposed Exodus. These kids are supposed to be what? 14? 15? There's no way they wouldn't remember going through a wormhole or at least something about the Exodus or even Earth and it's history. If the Exodus had happened like a hundred years before then perhaps it's possible that the true history was hidden from them, in fact Astra's history is awfully elaborate with the whole WWIII. 6 years is too little time for this to be fabricated so well and to have Astra colonized immensely. Only explanations I can think of is that either Astra wasn't the planet that humanity immigrated too, somehow the entirely of humanity was brainwashed or there is a discrepancy in the time quoted by the characters. i.e. the years that Paulina and Zack quote are actually not part of the same calendar.

Interesting that Charce turned out to be the perpetrator and yeah awfully bold of Kanata to suspect him just from that single detail when they were first captured. Looking forward to hearing his story.

_MushiRock11_ said:


Yeah, I was on to that and hit another dead block lol.

Nim0174 said:
Imagine there's no countries,
it isn't hard to do,
nothing to kill or die for,
and no religion, too.


so John Lennon was from Astra in the future all along xD

this episode was adapted pretty good

TheDeedsOfMen said:
Unfortunately, there is an asteroid-sized plothole here.

They have a civilization with FTL capability and even wormhole technology, yet they apparently cannot divert a single asteroid. That seems implausible. Even if there are reasons why it can't be done, they never even touch the subject or explain why not.

If they have wormhole technology, the ability to produce a large number of wormholes in operation and FTL on top of it, I see no reason why they couldn't be used to change the asteroid's trajectory. Even if the asteroid is 300 kilometers across, all it needs is a relatively gentle push over the years to avoid Earth. The planet is actually a pretty small target in space and in constant movement relative to other bodies, so the trajectory of the asteroid would barely have to change. Far more realistic than moving much of the world's resources to another planet.

Suck up some of the asteroid's mass, ram it with large objects (at FTL speed?), or drop stockpiles of nukes and other explosives if you really can't do anything else. Might as well chip off rocks with wormholes and launch them right back at the asteroid itself from a suitable angle. They don't need to destroy the whole thing; it is enough to push it enough to divert its trajectory. Even if there are some technical reasons why wormholes and FTL can't trivially solve this, they make travel to the asteroid so much faster and more efficient that they can keep pushing or nuking the rock as soon as it's discovered and keep at it every day with huge resources. After all, they must have gigantic resources available if they were able to migrate to another planet.


Also, if an asteroid is 300 kilometers across, it is one of the largest asteroids in the entire solar system. There are only about ten of them. If one of them was headed for Earth, people would know about it much sooner because they are such obvious targets for tracking. Eight years is an outrageously low timespan. I'd be more worried about the 10,000 asteroids with a diameter of about 10 km. How has an FTL civilization not properly tracked the largest asteroids that are well-known even today?

(By the way, I knew about this beforehand because I have read the manga. That's why I thought this through.)


It feels really jarring. An FTL civilization cornered by a single asteroid? Really?

ricksed said:
Wait so Charce tried the wormhole on the first planet and the last planet, that I got. But did he also use it on the second? I mean maybe he wasn't fully invested in the team yet? Also assuming he didn't want to kill everyone off in a simpler manner like poison because that's not his style? Die with the stars and all that.

Anyway this messed up alternate history is confusing and hopefully gets clarified. I mean were there no images or anything to correlate Earth from Astra. Did every adult/teen just agree to vow of silence? Or is this Attack on Titan memory rewriting.

sammyk124 said:
@GenesisAria I know many around the world educated on wormholes believe it's totally not even feasible, which it likely isn't since most of the information on it is speculation or theory.

sammyk124 said:
Hell, you can even have portable wormholes on you and control it with a goddamn remote.

GenesisAria said:
It's more than that, the idea of a wormhole is based on a completely mistaken understanding of cosmology. You can't bend space-time, because that's like saying i'm bending metre-litres... Of what? Space is measurement of magnitudes in volume, time is a measurement of change in magnitudes. They're just measuring sticks. The black hole is an inevitable paradox (contradictive logical failure) of relativistic mathematics, and the wormhole is an extrapolation beyond that, making it a paradox built upon a paradox. It's complete nonsense.
ps: most of the highly credential'd and educated 'scientists' that actually work on stuff like that for a living are even unaware of it, even though it's shockingly easy to notice the issues...

A remote with one button at that :P

But yeah that's what i was saying, it's common for sci-fi authors to play with common understandings of hypothetical ideas and weave the into their stories.

Otorez said:
Ah shit, this episode made me quite sad : I knew the culprit/traitor would be revealed sooner or later but still, everyone on the ship was appreciable & I liked watching their development. About his name, well I honestly expected the culprit to be someone none would suspect, like the kindest (Aries), the leader (Kanata) or the thinking-head (Zack).

I admit Charce was out of my list, considering the revelation about his past, but man, to think he accepted such fate.

Ah and a bit unfortunately, Polina's backstory about Earth & Astra was really interesting but got eluded quickly after we learnt the culprit was about to be caught.

Espio74 said:
Not only is this show underrated but it also rated too low for others to give it a watch. It's second only to Vinland Saga this season and deserves an 8.3-8.5 rating. I wish a big YouTuber like Gigguk watches it and makes a video giving this show a much needed boost.

HaXXspetten said:
I don't even know if this is brilliant or stupid anymore. I feel like it alternates between the two quite frequently

Also I don't really get how just seeing Charce end up going through the orb last somehow automatically makes him the enemy here. I mean that's a pretty vague accusation if you ask me and actually acting upon it like that is pretty ballsy

The connection between Earth and Astra was... I guess sort of what I expected it to be after last episode? Or at least one of the few possibilities of it I could think of, though I hadn't taken the artificial wormhole part of it into account which certainly explains some of the early coincidences in the story at least

Spaceship said:


That crossed my mind as well when Polina was explaining it.

Not sure how to justify it, since you're right: A) a 300km-wide asteroid would be easy to detect ahead of time and B) it would only need a relatively gentle push to move it out of Earth's path, which should not be a problem.

I suppose one possible (tenuous) explanation could be the planet was so ravaged by nuclear war that they wanted to start over, but then I remember that's Astra, not the Earth... Ugh timelines.



As much of a Star Trek fan as I am, the whole "humanity has evolved beyond greed and poverty" has always bugged me in the same way. Human nature is what it is.

-Stray said:

Biggesst plot twist being saved for last.
"Whats an anime and manga?"
R.I.P

lihle808 said:
I still don't believe it's Charce, Aries is still suspicious in my view. The bitch emanates some smelly shit about her, or maybe it's me who doesn't like her I want to be cute without trying attitude.

Mayuka said:
Lol. Pretty obvious it was Charce when he told his backstory and him being a fake transfer student.

Don't worry, once it's done airing, the score will rise accordingly. People who dropped it early on will not be able to affect the final average score.

lihle808 said:
I still don't believe it's Charce, Aries is still suspicious in my view. The bitch emanates some smelly shit about her, or maybe it's me who doesn't like her I want to be cute without trying attitude.

Pikslap said:
I've got to disagree with both of you here. The intense last 1/3 doesn't make up enough for the weak first 1/3 and second 1/3. I think at best it will end up being a mid-to high 7.

Nim0174 said:
Imagine there's no countries,
it isn't hard to do,
nothing to kill or die for,
and no religion, too.


so John Lennon was from Astra in the future all along xD

this episode was adapted pretty good

Tatsuya said:
@GenesisAria The problem is the story is based at least partly on logical tropes, but then it throws in 3 extremely impossible scenarios into the mix, from the human habitation thing which is the obvious one, to the erasure of history and religion, 2 things that are impossible, you could change history to an extent but not something as major as erasing entire swaths of history.

Tatsuya said:
Erasing religion is literally impossible without driving humanity dangerously close to inability of reproduction and thus extinction, keep in mind that outside of japan and some countries in the west religion is pretty much a way of life, over 84% of humanity is religious, a third christian alone, your really going to try to claim that not only has humanity become completely atheist in 12 years but every man, woman and child just simply forgot something that not only was the cornerstone of human civilization for it's entire existence, but was behind many of the innovations that would have lead to the exodus from earth, it's something i can't get over, lest we forget that china and the soviet union persecuted christians for decades, russia is now one of the most religious nations on the planet, and china has a estimated 200 million christians alone, the argument that all of these people, who have undergone literal torture and death for their faith would just up and forget it is ludicrous, not to mention that even science now believes that humans are hardwired to believe in something, if a person loses faith in a higher power, they will place it in a governmental body or a person, hence how god-kings come about (this is also used as a argument for the extremist political movements that have popped up recently).

Sorry about the rant, but it's literally logic defying for me, and took me out of the story, so yes it has ruined the show for me.

Short_Circut said:
The most unrealistic part of this whole series, is humans actually abandoning discrimination and peacefully working together

Spaceship said:
As much of a Star Trek fan as I am, the whole "humanity has evolved beyond greed and poverty" has always bugged me in the same way. Human nature is what it is.

Pikslap said:
Yeah, when they said that, it really bugged me too. A united world with all countries eliminated is and will always be a pipe dream. It's just unrealistic for so many reasons, and even if it did happen, there would be balkanization or secession eventually, as one government, even with some level of sovereignty, can not make everyone happy.

TheDeedsOfMen said:
What next? Going back in time and killing Hitler?

Nim0174 said:
Imagine there's no countries,
it isn't hard to do,
nothing to kill or die for,
and no religion, too.


so John Lennon was from Astra in the future all along xD

this episode was adapted pretty good

Ten said:
For a moment there I thought that Aries might be the enemy, that twist could be really interesting. Didn't fall for Ulgar-the-enemy thing and saw through the plan to fish out the real one, except my first suspicion was about Zack. Well, anyhow the revelation seemed kinda bland. Of course, they'll all still stay friends and will go back home on sunshine and rainbows...

I liked the part with Earth-Astra more, I'm actually intrigued what happened and how exactly the population is deceived.

GenesisAria said:

It's not really that much of a pipe dream. Defining human nature confined to context of current and past struggle, as the true fundamental traits of humanity, is a frozen abstraction. To assume human nature is to fight because humans have fought so much, is a logical failure.

GenesisAria said:

It's not really that much of a pipe dream. Defining human nature confined to context of current and past struggle, as the true fundamental traits of humanity, is a frozen abstraction. To assume human nature is to fight because humans have fought so much, is a logical failure. It's like satanists believing that human nature is intrinsically bad because they do bad things when in a bind... That only happens because the bad situation forces them to do bad things. If the world, i dunno, realized it's ability to harness abundant energy and grow abundant crops, and people were able to come to understand some basic philosophical principles such as "you are not your body/mind/thoughts/feelings/beliefs" as these are phenomenal attributes associated with you but not the actual you, then with these 2 things you could essentially eliminate the cause of pretty much all strife. The only reason, for example,that religions fight eachother, is because they define themselves as their religion, thus a dissenting voice on their religion, a potential threat on their religion, is seen as a personal attack, or as an enemy due to the threat to the sense of self. No wise person who is part of any religion will ever be bothered by other beliefs, nor believe that they are on the only side of truth.

If the conditions are idealized, humanity will also become ideal. Humans will not steal if they have abundance, they will often give instead (monetary wealth is not real abundance, it is usually a mental sickness of illusory abundance)... just as humans will not usually give if they are void of abundance. Star Trek's world works in the context communism would work if there was a system of automation that could supply the needs of everyone within it. If nobody has to do any dirty jobs, if nobody has to work hard for food, if it's all there at the push of a button, then stuff like economy is mostly obsolete (aside from art trade i guess). It would be difficult to achieve and is thereby improbable, but not impossible.

ps: stories are generally told due to their improbability, it's interesting because it's a special case. typical normal likely common stories tend to be less interesting, unless they have a relaxation familiarity comfort appeal like say nichijou-kei ('slice of life") media.

pps: but yes Pikslap, a single philosophy society is likely to eventually collapse into factions eventually due to disagreements on that philosophy.


Red Alert already did that.

Mayuka said:
Gonna disagree with that. I found the entire series very strong. It's a short anime/manga so I'm not gonna expect the best fulfilling plot but for its length, it is very good. I enjoyed seeing their quests on each planet, learning about each character and seeing their backstories, seeing what each person is good at and having some exploring first before jumping into the plot twists like these. So I've thought each and every episode was pretty solid so far.

I think those who dropped it early on knew this wasn't their cup of tea. I think it will be around a 8.1x score at the end as they can actually adapt the entire manga. Pretty rare for a one cour anime.

GenesisAria said:

It's not really that much of a pipe dream. Defining human nature confined to context of current and past struggle, as the true fundamental traits of humanity, is a frozen abstraction. To assume human nature is to fight because humans have fought so much, is a logical failure. It's like satanists believing that human nature is intrinsically bad because they do bad things when in a bind... That only happens because the bad situation forces them to do bad things. If the world, i dunno, realized it's ability to harness abundant energy and grow abundant crops, and people were able to come to understand some basic philosophical principles such as "you are not your body/mind/thoughts/feelings/beliefs" as these are phenomenal attributes associated with you but not the actual you, then with these 2 things you could essentially eliminate the cause of pretty much all strife. The only reason, for example,that religions fight eachother, is because they define themselves as their religion, thus a dissenting voice on their religion, a potential threat on their religion, is seen as a personal attack, or as an enemy due to the threat to the sense of self. No wise person who is part of any religion will ever be bothered by other beliefs, nor believe that they are on the only side of truth.

If the conditions are idealized, humanity will also become ideal. Humans will not steal if they have abundance, they will often give instead (monetary wealth is not real abundance, it is usually a mental sickness of illusory abundance)... just as humans will not usually give if they are void of abundance. Star Trek's world works in the context communism would work if there was a system of automation that could supply the needs of everyone within it. If nobody has to do any dirty jobs, if nobody has to work hard for food, if it's all there at the push of a button, then stuff like economy is mostly obsolete (aside from art trade i guess). It would be difficult to achieve and is thereby improbable, but not impossible.

ps: stories are generally told due to their improbability, it's interesting because it's a special case. typical normal likely common stories tend to be less interesting, unless they have a relaxation familiarity comfort appeal like say nichijou-kei ('slice of life") media.

pps: but yes Pikslap, a single philosophy society is likely to eventually collapse into factions eventually due to disagreements on that philosophy.


Red Alert already did that.

Spaceship said:
Well, it's a larger debate really, but those aren't really the grounds on which people come to realize that human nature is fundamentally selfish and destructive. If you want to make the argument that humans would all get along if only we had all our needs met, my 2-year-old toddler would have some words for you, even though he's provided for and loved in abundance. If human nature were eminently perfectible, the "hands-off" parenting approach would be ideal...

But anyway.

Pikslap said:
I actually agree with about 80% of what you said. You come off as very well-versed. However, I do think you underestimate the natural greed and meanness some humans possess. I don't think natural greed and meanness will go away. If we can manage to make it "go away", we still have the problem with greed being prevalent in politicians. The problem is, society needs leaders to sustain itself (or at least a society as big as ours). If we manage to get rid of greed, it will pop back up in people who attain power. Not all people in power, but it will still be there. I don't really have any studies to back up what I am saying though. I doubt we will ever see a united peace in our timeline though, and I don't think our world would recover enough from a nuclear war to create a united peace, as the world in Kanata No Astra apparently did.

GenesisAria said:
A 2yo is ignorant and unaware of anything, and no it's not in abundance, it has noting until you give to it, cuz it has no ability to get it's own needs - you have to teach someone how to fish (or say use a replicator) before they can get fish without asking for it, and obviously they have to be cognizant enough to understand. The idea that humans are selfish and destructive is a bias and fallacy.i didn't say JUST needs met, i also said wisdom. Human nature is neutral. People are good under good conditions and are bad under bad conditions. Also a baby's abundance is more like a rich person's, it's not a real abundance, it's illusory due to ack of comprehension of it. For example if a rich guy deep down wants love, but doesn't realize it and only feels a hole in their life, if they are under the false impression that money brings happiness, they'll keep endlessly accumulating it thinking it'll eventually make them happy, when really all they ever needed was some decent non-material love.

The subject is a lot more sophisticated and nuanced than just "people tend to be elfish and destructive, therefore human nature is such" when in reality humanity has never had an ideal society, other than maybe some renditions of the Hindu perhaps, so there isn't much of an example to go on.