Moonrise, the new Netflix anime series, is a masterclass on how to overcomplicate things just to spoil a plot that had so much potential and gravitas. I do not want to hurt the anime fans, but in my opinion, the narrative would have felt much more impactful if it hadn’t been stuffed with so many characters and subplots, a lot of which didn’t have any real purpose in the larger scheme of things. Before going ahead, I would like to state here that there were aspects of the story that I also couldn’t understand fully. So please bear with me if I falter or go wrong at any place. With that in mind, allow me to try and understand the storyline and find out what was really happening on the Earth and the Moon.
Spoiler Alert
What were SEED and Moon Chains?
Firstly, let’s try to understand the dynamics that existed between the regime on Earth and that on the Moon and what the bone of contention was between the two rival parties. So basically Earth was governed by the Joint Forces, which adhered to the commands given to them by an AI called Sapientia. There were a lot of times when Sapientia made certain dubious decisions, but its authority wasn’t questioned by anybody as it was believed that whatever it did was for the betterment of mankind.
There were around 15 billion people on Earth, and it was impossible to provide for everybody. Resources were limited, and so a decision was taken to kickstart a mining expedition on the surface of the Moon and find out if that was enough to sustain life on Earth. Also, it is important to mention here that though Sapientia’s authority was paramount to anybody else, it was created and handled by the Shadow Corporation, which represented the interests of a capitalistic society. Mona Shadow and her husband were the majority shareholders of the corporation who later also adopted our protagonist, Jacob, aka Jack. Now, coming to Sapientia, it created an artificial sapient species called the SEED, as humans couldn’t be sent to the Moon to conduct the experiments. Robert “Bob” Skylum was the head of the humanoids that were created, but with time, and though the former was a robot himself, his intelligence evolved, and he decided to rebel against the regime on Earth. AIs evolving seemed to be the major problem encountered by the Earth residents throughout Moonrise. Skylum came to be known as the Moon Devil, and he created an army of his own called the Moon Chains. Skylum treated all the humanoids as his own children. Jack and Phil, two young humanoids, who were SEED 1 and 2, respectively, were living on the Moon when Sapientia decided to eliminate all the humanoids as they were a threat to existing peace on Earth. Skylum was killed in the onslaught, and so were other humanoids, but somehow Jacob and Phil managed to survive, only to be reunited years later in a different battleground. While Phil sent Jack to Earth in order to protect him, he stayed back on the Moon. Jack was found by the Shadow family, and they decided to adopt him. As time passed, Jack forgot about his past, and he believed that he had always been on Earth. But then one day an incident occurred that threatened the peace on Earth once again. Jack had to go back to his former home, where all his memories came back, and he learned of his real purpose in life.
Why did Jack become a suspect in the orbital attack incident?
Mona Shadow had big dreams for her son, Jacob, but it seemed that the latter wasn’t so interested in spearheading the corporation. Rhys, Jacob’s longtime friend, also told him time and again to get a bit serious about his life, but it always felt like Jacob’s mind was somewhere else. On the day when Mona announced that Jacob would be a part of the board of directors and eventually the heir to the throne, something unprecedented happened. The orbital elevator that was used to travel and transport valuables between the Earth and the Moon, was attacked by certain unknown forces, and millions of people lost their lives because of it, including Jacob’s parents. That incident changed Jacob’s life forever, and he eventually became a part of the VC3 force, but before that could happen, for a good amount of time, Jacob had to try to prove his innocence, as he was considered a suspect in the orbital attack. That came as a shock for everybody, as nobody expected that Jacob was capable of such a thing. The reason behind that accusation was that, during the background check conducted by the Joint Forces, it was found that the gene screening results of Jacob were falsified, and it was his gene code that had enabled the attack somehow.
While all this chaos was happening on Earth, the Moon Devil, who was believed to have been destroyed years back, had declared that the Moon Chains would achieve unilateral lunar independence. Things were getting out of hand, and the Joint Forces knew that if they did not retaliate in time, the Moon Chains would take over Earth as well. Jacob was not given a clean chit, but there was also no evidence to prove his involvement in the Orbital Elevator attack. So a decision was made by General Pitter to make him join VC3 (A Lunar Military Operations squad that was basically a reconnaissance and assault task unit), which was headed by Rhys (now a Major) at that time. To sum it up, there was an attack on the orbital elevator, but for the longest time, it couldn’t be proved who was behind the attack. Some obvious conclusions that everybody made were that the Moon Chains were behind it, but the reality was miles away from it.
Why were the rebel forces after Mary?
One of the subplots that confused me a lot was the entire drama surrounding a girl named Mary and how she became the core of a self-evolving organism called the L-Zone. VC3, composed of Rhys, Jacob, Eric, Duan, Inanna, Zowan, and others, was sent to the Moon to fight the rebel army and take back control of the satellite. Eric, the one who was closest to Jacob, lost his life when a surprise attack was made by the rebel forces. Jacob was shaken after Eric’s death, and to complicate matters, a girl named Mary arrived out of nowhere and met the VC3 gang. Nobody had any clue about who she was and why she was so eager to accompany the assault task force in their mission. Things got even more absurd when the rebel forces also made it pretty clear that they were after Mary’s life for some reason, as they perceived her to be a threat. Mary was quite evidently attracted to Jacob, which made things a bit awkward between her and Rhys. Now, both the girls were fond of Jacob, and the latter was hell-bent on proving that Mary was deceiving them and trying to take advantage of them. She suspected Mary to be a spy of the Moon Chains.
Mary was somehow connected to the L-Zone, but she also didn’t seem to have any clue why it was so. Once the L-Zone started evolving, it became clear that the sole intention of the organism, if we could call it that, was to destroy the lunar cities. It came to be known, much later in the series, that Mary was the core of the L-Zone, i.e., the mother, because of which the L-Zone was rapidly growing and spreading its wings. Rhys believed that if she was able to kill Mary, then they would be able to destroy the L-Zone, but it was not so. When Jack realized that if Mary stayed with the VC3 she would eventually be killed, he decided to escape with her, though he was well aware that the Joint Forces would consider him a traitor if he did that. Another revelation that came as a surprise for everybody was that the only way the L-Zone could be stopped was by using the particles that were in a bot named Whiz-B. When Rhys let her conscience prevail and spared Mary, Sapientia took control of the E2 element and through Rhys it attacked Mary and then the L-Zone took Mary with it, and she was suspended in a state of coma at the source of the L-Zone. Amidst all the chaos and confusion, Jacob was able to free Mary from the state of suspension. It caused the L-Zone to stop and freeze, though the damage had already been done as it had destroyed the Moon’s artificial ecosystem, which obviously couldn’t be restored to its original form.
What did Phil reveal about the orbital attack?
It was only at the end of Moonrise that Jacob was able to find some answers through his long-lost friend Phil, which gave him and the audience some semblance of clarity. So when Sapientia had decided to kill the humanoids on the Moon, Phil had managed to survive. The baton was passed from his father to him, and he imbibed his spirit and his purpose and became Skylum, the Moon Devil. Phil told Jacob, in what was his last moments on the Moon, that his father wanted to shape the assembly into a democracy where the robots were also given certain rights and represented as equals. The vision was to unite forces and end Sapientia’s dominance, which was a herculean task in itself. The joint authorities had control over the Moon, and the rebel forces were finding it extremely difficult to fight their nemesis. What came as a respite for the rebel forces was that there were a few like General Pitter who saw Sapientia for what it was. General Pitter was a spy, which was revealed in such a haphazard manner that I almost failed to notice the turn of events that led to it. Commander Salamander, who worked with Skylum, joined forces with Jacob and other like-minded residents of Earth to wage a war against Sapientia’s wrath. Before being arrested by the Joint Forces, one important thing that Phil told Jacob was that the attack on the orbital elevator that set the war in motion was not the doing of the rebel forces. The rebel forces wanted to start a revolution, but they were not hardened criminals like the residents of Earth believed them to be. It was Sapientia that was behind the attack, as according to its calculations, it was the best-suited action in that situation. For Sapientia, humans were merely numbers, and whenever its equation got imbalanced, it took action to bring it back to a state of equilibrium. The problem was that the joint assembly believed in the AI so much that they lost their own sense of right and wrong. They didn’t realize that what they were doing was worse than any sin known to mankind.
Why Did Phil And Jack Destroy Sapientia?
The ending of Moonrise was as complicated as its beginning. We saw that after Phil was taken into custody, he was given a lecture by the joint assembly, stating the fact that Sapientia hated mankind and why they believed that the genocide, the mass annihilation was for their betterment. In the heated debate, Phil was told by one of the assembly members that if the revitalization was left in the hands of a particular SEED, then it would have reduced the resources even more than the Earth so desperately needed. The assembly members vouched for Sapientia and said that managing a population of 15 billion people was not that easy, and certain hard decisions had to be taken. Phil’s real intention behind getting himself arrested was that he wanted to destroy the AI. Sapientia attacked Phil in full force, and though it killed the latter (assuming that Phil died), it also got destroyed in the process by the butterflies like SEED system that Phil inherited from Bob. Jack took charge of things on the Moon, and it marked the beginning of a new era on Earth and the Moon.
Jack announced that he was giving the power back to the people and that no AI or monarch would be able to govern them or make decisions in their stead thereafter. Season 1 ended on a sort of cliffhanger as there were a lot of things that were still uncertain. Jack got a message on his gaming app from Phil, which made him realize that probably his friend was still alive, or maybe he had found a way to preserve his digital consciousness somehow. If we believe that Phil was alive (though I highly doubt it), then it could also be possible that in the near future the peace on Earth and the Moon could once again be threatened by an evolving AI that developed a mind of its own and went rogue. Or maybe Sapientia too survived the attack and was planning to make a comeback to annihilate its enemies. As for Rhys, her guilt of wanting to eliminate Mary was killing her from within. I believe she would walk on the road to redemption and make sure that peace prevails on both the Moon and Earth. If the makers decide to come up with another season, I just hope they do not overcomplicate things anymore, as one really loses the essence of the real issue at hand because of that.
