Crystal Tokyo

[Drawde]

By canon, what is CT really like? All I know about Sailor Moon is from what I've read here and in fanfics. Is it really as bad as many of the fics say it is?

[Daniel Jess Gibson]

From all I've read, if you're the queen, it's terrific. If you're not, you're too busy being happy to care about anything else.
Some people would call that paradise, not me.

[Sailor Sedai (Ellf)]

It really depends on your interpretation of canon. Crystal Tokyo is supposed to be the ultimate paradise, but we're never shown the commoner side of things.

[Screwball]

It all sounds very utopian. You will be happy, comrade. You have no choice! Relax, everything you need shall be provided, no more, no less. Glory to ze mozerland!

[WG_Writer]

My vision of CT was that the first Generation had the 'evil' purified and removed, but we are never told about other generations, since in some SM games (atleast one) there are people who are not entirely happy with CT that does show that there is the possibility that it was a one time thing.
For all we know it might not be everyone that got purified, just a prision that might have survived.
Perhaps even purification removes any 'evil' impulses, and does not affect perception.
For all we know Wiseman could have started infecting people back when CT was forming and purification removed his taint.
The simple fact is that we only know for certain that:
a) CT was a paraditic utopian society
b) purification was done when it was formed.
c) the Black moon family is the decendants of people who left to avoid purification, and were banished to Nemisis. (The actual Black Moon Family never lived in CT)

[GenocideHeart]

CT sounds like a beehive to me. Or if youn prefer, the Borg. Y'know, the whole 'standardize the people, remove individuality'. Lots of happy little drones living happy productive lives in service of the queen bee.
Removing evil, for starters, is impossible. The ability to do evil and choose *not* to is what makes humans, well, human. I'd go as far as to say that taking away that part of humanity and mercilessly exiling those who disagreed is an evil act in itself.
Killing the ability to choose is not a solution. I'd even argue, if you want to get religious, that it goes against God's plans for humans... but let's leave that talk for another day.
What matters is that, when all is said and done, CT is nothing but a totalitarian regimen where difference and open disagreements are not tolerated. It's hardly a 'paradise', unless your definition of 'paradise' is 'boring, preprogrammed, uneventful life of nothing but an empty mockery of happiness'.
Yes, I'm harsh, but it has to be said.
Peace out.

[EdenB]

CT sounds like a beehive to me. Or if youn prefer, the Borg. Y'know, the whole 'standardize the people, remove individuality'. Lots of happy little drones living happy productive lives in service of the queen bee.
Removing evil, for starters, is impossible. The ability to do evil and choose *not* to is what makes humans, well, human. I'd go as far as to say that taking away that part of humanity and mercilessly exiling those who disagreed is an evil act in itself.

I think that is moreso just a fannon but, Crystal Tokyo being the absolute paradise with everyone happy.
I'm not sure if it happens in the manga too, but in the anime they even avoid sealing chaos away at the very end in the end and say that it's back where it should be, peoples' hearts.
*Just woke up, but I think that makes sense*.

[Sailor Sedai (Ellf)]

A reference on Crystal Tokyo can be found here.
Notice how it says that she used the crystal to unfreeze the planet and its people. It also says that she tried to purify everyone on earth. The question is, what exactly was meant by "Purify"?
Besides, by coming back, the Black Moon Family quite likely ensured that their version of Crystal Tokyo would never come to be. Purification may not be a bad thing, perhaps it wasn't cleansing of evil, but rather cleansing to make it a better place to live. We know nothing of the Crystal Tokyo dynamic. All Crystal Tokyo is is ONE city; we don't know if there are any other cities on Earth, just that Neo-Queen Serenity rules CT with King Endymion by her side.

[Pale Wolf]

Removing evil, for starters, is impossible. The ability to do evil and choose *not* to is what makes humans, well, human. I'd go as far as to say that taking away that part of humanity and mercilessly exiling those who disagreed is an evil act in itself.

And while we're at it, what the hell is 'evil'?
After all, Haruka and Michiru are 'evil' by a fundamentalist Christian perspective.
To a pacifist, killing people is evil, and yet, the Senshi have racked up a higher death toll than any group of schoolgirls I can think of.
So whose definition of 'evil' are we going by here?

Purification may not be a bad thing, perhaps it wasn't cleansing of evil, but rather cleansing to make it a better place to live.

If she was cleaning up the sewers, they'd have called it sanitation, not purification.
'Purity' is, bluntly speaking, the lack of undesirable elements. 'Purification' is the removal of those undesirable elements.
Deciding for yourself without any input from others what elements are undesirable in the human race and then removing them, not from yourself or those who consent, but everyone who doesn't fight tooth and nail against it, is abuse of power.
No ifs ands or buts about it.
Unless you can think of a particular undesirable element that she would be able to remove without abusing power, and that would be appropriate to describe as 'purification', it's a rather safe bet that the ones we can think of are the ones she removed.
You'd also have to think of a kind of 'purification' that would have people literally up in arms against it, and still keep it an ethical decision. Have fun
Sorry, but I can't hear 'purification' without 'ethnic cleansing' ringing a gong in the back of my head. Although this would be 'moral cleansing'.

We know nothing of the Crystal Tokyo dynamic. All Crystal Tokyo is is ONE city; we don't know if there are any other cities on Earth, just that Neo-Queen Serenity rules CT with King Endymion by her side.

Well, the fact that they got exiled to another fricken planet indicates that there's nowhere left for them on Earth...

[DCG]

It's all so only 1% of the worlds population as well. Every one else died.
And then that 1% gets mostly whiped out while the queen runs off to hide herself in a crystal.

[GenocideHeart]

Regardless of how you look at it, something feels VERY off about Crystal Tokyo. It's supposed to eb a paradise, but if that's the case, there wouldn't have been a rebellion of the magnitude the Black Moon Family caused.
And besides, Nemesis is a hostile planet, last I checked. What kind of just ruler would exile oppositors in a hellish environment just because they disagree with her?
However you look at this, it smells of totalitarian tyranny to me. Serenity orders, and you either conform or ELSE.

[EdenB]

After all, Haruka and Michiru are 'evil' by a fundamentalist Christian perspective.

They <insert spoiler for what they do at the end of StarS> and all people care about is that they're lesbians. ^^;

If she was cleaning up the sewers, they'd have called it sanitation, not purification.
'Purity' is, bluntly speaking, the lack of undesirable elements. 'Purification' is the removal of those undesirable elements.

I'm curious what the original japanese manga actually said about the purification. It might give people a better idea of what they meant by it, since things are translated to interpretation.
It could be anything from purification of water, to purifying the people who have a lot of chaos and are likely to start yet another attack, to purifying all and any youma/phages/whatever the others were called left over, or even 'purification' as in killing all the murders, thiefs and other undesirable people who threaten them. Some more unlikely than others, but it's open to interpretation.

Well, the fact that they got exiled to another fricken planet indicates that there's nowhere left for them on Earth...

Not necessarily. It sounds likely, but then again they could've done something so bad, or be such a risk that they didn't even want them on the same planet anymore.

And besides, Nemesis is a hostile planet, last I checked. What kind of just ruler would exile oppositors in a hellish environment just because they disagree with her?

Hasn't this happened a lot in the past? On a smaller scale, we don't agree with people stealing, breaking agreements, killing or otherwise, we shove them all in a jail, which isn't as a hellish enviroment but it forces them to live without a lot of things they'd be entitled to and they're forced to live with other people they'd try avoid otherwise. People have been killed for just speaking out against their leaders in the past too, or political leaders assasinated to make way for others.

[GenocideHeart]

Not necessarily. It sounds likely, but then again they could've done something so bad, or be such a risk that they didn't even want them on the same planet anymore.

So it makes a lot of sense to exile them in a place that's basically a hellhole so bad it GUARANTEES they'll try to do something to escape it.
The best sort of prison is one that the prisoners don't WANT to escape from. Leaving them to rot on an unfamiliar, hostile world is not only fairly cruel and immoral, but is alsop a good way to get them even more cross against you than usual.
Plus the BMF didn't come across as entirely bad to me. Their one mistake was counting on Wiseman with his questionable methods. The others were no worse than the Senshi themselves, who after all, DO kill their enemies to achieve their goals.

[EdenB]

So it makes a lot of sense to exile them in a place that's basically a hellhole so bad it GUARANTEES they'll try to do something to escape it.

I always got the impression that they'd of never been able to make it back to Earth to take revenge without the luck of coming across the Black Crystal and Wiseman, but I may be wrong about that. If they didn't though, they'd proberly idle about there about they died and not be able to get back to Earth to take revenge.

Plus the BMF didn't come across as entirely bad to me. Their one mistake was counting on Wiseman with his questionable methods. The others were no worse than the Senshi themselves, who after all, DO kill their enemies to achieve their goals.

The senshi only tend to kill the enemies that attack innocents or themselves though. Moon has always returned people to human instead of outright killing their enemies when possible too.

[Pale Wolf]

Regardless of how you look at it, something feels VERY off about Crystal Tokyo. It's supposed to eb a paradise, but if that's the case, there wouldn't have been a rebellion of the magnitude the Black Moon Family caused.

Complete agreement. Probably why the Black Mooners catch my imagination so much...

And besides, Nemesis is a hostile planet, last I checked. What kind of just ruler would exile oppositors in a hellish environment just because they disagree with her?

It's far, far worse than that.
Every source I've found indicates that the Black Moon Clan were the descendants of the original exiles. In other words, she's exiling the children of people who disagree with her.
Bad blood? No wonder they went after Usa...

However you look at this, it smells of totalitarian tyranny to me. Serenity orders, and you either conform or ELSE.

Well of course! After all, she is the rightful queen of all existence, and has innate perfect morality!
(Gags)

They <insert spoiler for what they do at the end of StarS> and all people care about is that they're lesbians. ^^;

Well, the lesbian thing is one that nobody here actually considers morally wrong.
And what they did at Stars was, in my opinion, the right call. To me, letting billions die because I want to maintain my schoolgirl sense of morality is the wrong thing. And it would've worked if their information were correct. They made some mistakes in operational planning (I'd enumerate them, but it's kind of off topic), but none in ethics.
... Kind of strange, for a Hotaru fan to have so many instances where the threatening or ending of her life seemed the right decision... (I'm also firmly of the belief that preventing the Outers from killing her in the endgame of S was a horrifically bad call - Usagi's goddamn lucky the universe is slanted to her morality, or she'd have the blood of billions on her hands, instead of their brain matter)
And you don't really need a spoiler tag, considering how long SM's been out. Almost everyone knows at least a twisted fanon version of it.

Not necessarily. It sounds likely, but then again they could've done something so bad, or be such a risk that they didn't even want them on the same planet anymore.

And if they're not ruling the whole goddamn planet, what say would they have in the matter?
And considering they got caught up by Wiseguy and his Dark Crystal on Nemesis, I'd be hard-pressed to think of a worse threat that they could provide on Earth...
And finally: they fought against purification. That is what they did. You get exiled from the applicable country's territory if you rebel, not every country.

I always got the impression that they'd of never been able to make it back to Earth to take revenge without the luck of coming across the Black Crystal and Wiseman, but I may be wrong about that.

Well, all you need is a sufficient supply of elements (planet. 'nuff said), and scientific knowledge. You'll get there eventually.

If they didn't though, they'd proberly idle about there about they died and not be able to get back to Earth to take revenge.

They had children. It was the children who came to Earth.