Sorry for taking so long on this, but real life got in the way.
claymade wrote: Nothing? There was something in her way--the case you just admitted existed. Their one stupid move was giving her a generic AI-swiss-army-magic that turned out to be powerful enough to bypass that layer of security.
1) opening the case was a normal function of Luna-P. Chibi-Usa did not need to transform it. It is like the when Chibi-Usa just pressed the nose on Luna-P, and call all the inner senshi for help in season 3. The case was not an obstacle.
2) The king and queen knew what Luna-P could do. If they wanted to put a lock Luna-P could not open they could have.
Zwzn wrote:They made it so Chibi could easily get to the time gate.
claymade wrote: In which episodes do we learn these supposed measures that they took?
When the Dark Moon attacked Chibi-Usa just ran to the time gates in a flashback, and she hangs out with sailor Pluto before the DMF attacked, and we never see any doors in her way. Chibi-Usa can't teleport at the time of the Dark Moon's attack.
Look at the Ep.s in which Chibi-Usa was DarkLady. The should be the last 4 or 5 Eps. of season 2.
Zwzn wrote: They let Chibi know where the time gate was, and what it did.
claymade wrote: In which episodes do we learn these supposed measures that they took?
Chibi-Usa knew Sailot Pluto before either appear in season 2, and the two appear to be good friends. In the manga I recall Neo-Queen Serenity even asking Pluto if Chibi-Usa was being a pest.
In season 2 Chibi-usa had planned on going back in time to find the silver crystal, and or Sailor moon. Both she believed where no longer around in her present, and she knew enough to take a magic key.
Look at the Eps. Chibi-Usa Takes the inners to Crystal Tokyo, and Pluto nearly beans moon with the time key staff in season two.
Zwzn wrote: They kept Chibi in the palace, and only let her have contact with her mother, father, inner senshi, the Moon cats, and Pluto. They controled every aspect of her child hood.
claymade wrote: In which episodes do we learn these supposed measures that they took?
In the flashbacks at the end of season 2 there are only the inners at her birhtday party. IF Chibi had much if any contact with anyone else I would have expected them to have been there, and when Wiseman brainwashes her and when she breaks free of the brainwashing, but at no time is anyone, but Luna, Artemis, Diana, the inner senshi, Sailor Pluto, and Chibi-Usa's mother and father shown to interact with her in Crystal Tokyo. Chibi-Usa was even sent back in time to make learn to friends in season 3.
claymade wrote: As I said above, that kind of loop is only possible if time travel cannot change the future--in which case any such time loop is effectively an instance of capital-D Destiny that cannot be avoided either.
However, if time travel can result in a different future than the future of the traveler, then by its very nature it can't require loop closure--since that would be impossible. The future required to actually close the loop end to end would no longer exist. (Not to mention the question of "when" the universe supposedly decides to "snap back" if the future people take "too long" in sending someone back to try to fulfill the loop.)
Neo-King Endymion seemed to think the Crystal Tokyo Chibi-Usa brought the inners to was their destiny if he is to be believed. Then there is what seems to always be the same Chibi-Usa and Pluto. If Crystal Tokyo is in a state of flux like you imply then it does not change in noticeable ways from what we are shown.
From what we are shown Crystal Tokyo is the future because it takes an active hand in it's own creation rather then leave things up to chance.
claymade wrote: Anyway, since SM time travel pretty clearly does change the future, appeals to such eternal, immutable loops are not particularly believable. Even if NQS did have a plan of some kind in sending Chibi Usa back in S, it wasn't to preserve her past status quo.
It does appear the senshi took steps so it would be difficult for a time traveler to target them in the past. For example the senshi and friends seem to never go by their civilian names, and Chibi-Usa atleast gaps in her knowledge of important past events.
claymade wrote: Yes, they gained "some peculiar powers". At the risk of stating the obvious, that in no way, shape or form means that they had no powers to begin with. It means that they got new ones from Death Phantom (explaining how they could win in the rematch where they'd gotten beat down by the Senshi before).
Peculiar = Strange = Unusual = Rare or Uncommon
Before going to Nemesis the Dark Moon Family had no powers that where not commonly found among Earthlings. They had no super powers when compared to the average person of Earth at that time. When they come back from Nemesis after an unknown amount of time they have uncommon powers that are like a senshi's or dark generals.
claymade wrote: And, as I said above, he also says nothing whatsoever about how many of the evil beings "appeared" either.
It would only make sense that the ancestors of the Dark Moon Family would have equeal or greater numbers the senshi's forces, and ruffly equeal weapons and armor. If the ancestors of the Dark Moon Family did not have those things it would not have been really any reason to call in heavy hitters like the senshi.
It is too bad we know all but nothing about the ancestors of the Dark Moon Family. I never got the feeling the Dark Mooon Family, or their ancestors where really evil.
claymade wrote: And--as if that weren't enough--quite contrary to your point 3, he refers to "many warriors" being killed in the second Dark Moon attack. Thus relying on the "fact" that CT had no defense forces becomes even more hard to swallow.
We never see any sign of these "many warriors", and could mean almost anything. Many warriors makes it sound like a small number of disorganized people that have an unknown amount of combat training.
What we see shows us that there was effectively no one defending Crystal Tokyo from threats that should have been easily for seen. There was no army, navy, air force, or space forces. There was no one there to protect
claymade wrote: Uh, even if it actually was the Grail, doesn't that mean the exact opposite of what you're trying to advocate? It would mean that in NQS's past, the final Grail showdown didn't happen like it did in S.
Which, indeed, would fit quite well. But not with the conspiracy theories.
Chibi-Usa said her mother had a cup that looked just like the cup the three outer senshi summoned. That cup acording to Chibi-Usa was no longer around in Crystal Tokyo. At the end of season 3 Moon looses the cup, and the cup is destroyed. It looks to me as if What Chibi-Usa foreshadowed happened to the cup.
claymade wrote: Eh, I don't find those kind of Xantos Roulettes on Pluto's part particularly plausible, just because of how utterly arbitrary they end up being.
I think you have the wrong trope. I think you mean Omniscient Morality License.
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/M ... ityLicenseA Xantos Roulettes would imply that Pluto and Neo-Queen Serenity did not know how their actions in their own past past would work out.
claymade wrote: If I were going to ascribe some larger plan to Moon sending Chibi back in S, I'd say that it was, in fact, an end run around Pluto herself. In other words, Pluto did want to keep things the way they'd been in her past--so NQS used the one person that Pluto apparently can't say "no" to, and slipped her back as a sneaky ringer to swing things in a different direction.
Pluto does not just do what Chibi-Usa wants.
Personally I would rather have Pluto and Neo-Queen Serenity not putting the lives of everyone in the universe at risk for one person.
claymade wrote: Plus, Pluto and NQS butting heads is, in fact, canonical. Recall that at their first (for certain values of "first") meeting, Pluto flat-out attacks Moon, making only the excuse that "Sailor Moon has always been troublesome to her."
Pluto blamed the mist, and knew Chibi-Usa was bringing the inners. The trouble Moon causes her likely has to do with using time travel to fix problems that should have been planned for.
claymade wrote: So yes, I think it is in fact quite easily possible that they'd have strong differences of opinion as to whether time should in fact be changed to try and save Hotaru.
Or Pluto could have been doing what she did to save her Queen's life. Saturn is more powerful then Super Sailor Moon, and does not have near as hard a time returning from the dead.
)
