Wow. You're telling me, that if you went back in time, walked onto Omaha beach in Normandy, and looked at all the dead American soldiers lying around, you'd say "Hmmmm, looks like these soldiers fell from out of a transport plane that blew up in the air. Yes, I see no evidence that they died in combat."
You guys are so clung on to your canon that you can't see past it. It's pretty amazing, actually.
YES, ACCORDING TO CANON MY THEORY IS SIMPLY NOT POSSIBLE. BUT SINCE THE WRITERS IGNORED CANON, YOU ALSO MUST TAKE YOUR CANON, THROW IT OUT THE WINDOW, AND PRETEND IT NEVER EXISTED!!!!
Okay, now let's watch the cutscene anew. Again, pretend you never even heard of the FS universe. Now, first we see what are apparently human fighters. We can say that because they look familiar to us. They have bubble canopies that we are familiar with today. Now we see they are involved in a war with some alien looking bad dudes, and the humans are getting their butts royally kicked. After watching one fighter get shot down and barrel towards the planet, we emerge on what is apparently the surface of that planet, but the subtitles say we are now 32 years later. We see a bunch of dead soldiers. We can tell they are soldiers because their equipment and helmets and all are reminiscent of soldier garb in our lifetime. They are all soldiers; no other dead people in other garb are around. Now, from the context of what we just saw, and REMEMBER WE ARE COMPLETELY IGNORING CANON, we must ask ourselves, what is the most likely explanation of their deaths?
1) Is it possible they fell from a starship that exploded in the atmosphere, or crash landed on the planet and they died later?
*ding* Yes.
2) Is it possible they died evacuating refugees or some other such occurrence?
*ding* Yes.
3) Is it possible they died from a battle completely unrelated to the one we just saw two seconds ago?
*ding* Yes.
4) Is it possible that they died in a battle against the same bad guys we just saw kicking everyone else’s but two seconds ago?
*ding* Yes.
In short, any explanation is possible, but our point is to try and determine which scenario is most
likely. According to canon, the last scenario is impossible, because as we all know, the Shivans never fought in ground warfare. BUT REMEMBER WE ARE COMPLETELY IGNORING CANON, BECAUSE THE WRITERS DID SO WHEN THEY CREATED IT.
So, let's look at possibility 1. Answer: *eh eh* not likely. Why? Because if that did happen, the bodies would not likely be intact. Furthermore, we would see all kinds of other people, enlisted personnel, navy officers, and anyone else you'd expect to see on a ship interspersed amongst the dead.
Possibility 2. Answer: *eh eh* not likely. Again, were all the civilians? Why don't we see them interspersed amongst the dead Marines?
Possibility 3. Answer: *ding* Possible. However, what does it have to do with the events that took place just two seconds ago in the cutscene? Answer: Nothing. So, if it has nothing to do with anything else going on in the cutscene, why would they include it? Answer: they wouldn't. So, possibility number 3 just got knocked down to *eh eh* not likely.
Possibility 4. Answer: *ding ding ding ding ding* Likely. Why? Because of all the different possibilities, it's the only one that explains why it is only Marines who are dead. Also, if you are completely ignorant of the FS universe, it's the first thing that'll come to mind. Unless you're the type who as I mentioned before would walk upon Omaha beach and say "Oh, they must have fallen out of a military transport plane, how clumsy." Remember we are forming our conclusions
solely on what we saw in the cutscene, not on any prior knowledge of the FS universe. In the context of the cutscene, we just saw a bunch of ugly bad dudes kicking human arse, and it would be most logical to conclude that all these soldiers must have died in a similar manner.
You see, it is symmetry. All the events that we see in the cutscenes are all inter-related. All of it revolves around a single concept, a theme. Remember back to your creative writing class. To throw some random thing in there that doesn't have anything to do with anything else in the scene doesn't make sense from an artistic point of view, because it's not in step with the theme. Of course, we see events happening all the time that don't have a thing to do with anything else going on everyday in real life. But we're not looking at real life, we're looking at art. And in art, every part of the piece is interconnected, and related to everything else in that scene. That's the very definition of following a theme.
So, possibility #4 is the most likely explanation. Of course, it contradicts canon, but remember WE ARE IGNORING CANON!
It's the most likely because it is the one explanation that fits the THEME, yes that word that all us nerds hated in creative writing. All the other explanations are possible, but since they don't fit the theme of the piece, it wouldn't make sense for the writers to include it in the piece.
@Blue Lion
My good sir,
You raised the question on why the dead weren't collected if it was a battlefield. So now I ask you, why weren't the dead collected if any of the other scenarios are correct? There's no reason why they couldn't have collected the dead for any of the possible explanations. Any possible explanation would have the problem of why the bodies weren't collected, and for all possible scenarios, the only logical explanation is that there was no one left to collect them, and/or it was too costly to do so.
Thank you and good night!! Of course, most likely no one going to read the entire thing so I probably just wasted my breath. Or fingers. Or whatever.
