Discussion One Piece General SBS Discussion Thread

[Pirate Queen]

I think you are forgetting how evil the Marines can be in One Piece

Yeah but sword is supposed to be "different" isn't that the whole point of the division?

 

[baditz]

Yeah felt like sword was originally an underground thing and now just about everyone knows it was a division of marines all along. Like X Drake being a sword member doesn't make sense to me now

I m sure its not openly know, BB only hear it after Aokiji tell him, n ofcurse he know about it,,
The stupid part are Coby tell them he is a Sword.

 

[DeadlyBeast]

Faction of Sword called Dagger

I can already see this conversion:

Day 1
BB: "Hey Aokiji since you said Koby is in Sword, how do we know you're not a member?"
Aokiji: "Don't mind"
BB: "Hm okay..."

One Week Later (internal OP timeline)
BB: "Why did you betray us Aokiji? I thought you said you weren't a member of Sword?"
Aokiji: "I'm not a member of Sword, I'm a member of Dagger. We are a group who are officially ex marines but can re-enlist at any time once our secret mission is complete."
BB: "Oh that makes sense"

--- Double Post Merged, Oct 31, 2023, Original Post Date: Oct 31, 2023 ---

Naaah.

It's common sense for a military, let alone a global military to have a secret intelligence unit. Exists in any noteworthy real world military, too, an example would be the German MAD or American DIA with its various subdivisions.

The entire idea of Sword being an underground faction had zero support from the Manga and Kizaru letting go of X Drake on Sabaody already pointed at the opposite.
This was really a primary example of wishful thinking within the community growing into headcanon, the idea of an "underground faction" within the Marines and opposed to its leadership had existed long before Sword was even introduced.

Any and all Marines are only as good as they can be in their position in a global imperialist military.

My big issue is that Sword doesn't seem all that secret. In your example of real life agencies the people who are undercover have 0 public ties with the agencies they are a part of. In OP everyone knows that Koby is a marine so hard to argue he is a secret double agent.

A true double agent example we have seen is Vergo who was a pirate first but joined the Marines when he was a nobody. Had sword been filled with marines who were publicly never known as marines (except to top brass and us readers) it would have made much better sense. In essence I think Rosinante was closest thing to this that we've seen on the Marine's side.

 

[Fox666]

Yeah but sword is supposed to be "different" isn't that the whole point of the division?

No, SWORD aren't supposed to be morally better, but they don't necessarily obey the chain of command

In Drake's case, Marines are not supposed to mess with the Yonko

 

[kkck]

Sword is simply a convenient structure for the marines to have plausible deniability when an officer goes rogue... I don't think this necessarily conflicts with what we have seen in the story but it does create an scenario where within sword you have potentially multiple groups taking advantage of the plausible deniability for a variety of purposes. In the case of corazon or drake they were pirates, officially they resigned from the marines and were active as pirates. But secretly they were agents that infiltrated the marines. This should be different from other sword members whose resignation letters were not used like in koby's case. This does make the bit with koby exchanging himself to BB a bit weird as koby knew he had zero value as a hostage and by extension he would most likely not be rescued. I suppose it fits with koby's character but this was pretty much suicide and koby knew.

 

[Pirate Queen]

No, SWORD aren't supposed to be morally better, but they don't necessarily obey the chain of command

In Drake's case, Marines are not supposed to mess with the Yonko

Can you tell me where you're basing this on? I feel like I missed something

 

[Fox666]

Can you tell me where you're basing this on? I feel like I missed something

What part are you asking?

SWORD being morally better? That's not the definition of SWORD, there's no reason to assume they are necessarily better people, there's nothing preventing a shitty Marine from SWORDing himself

In the case of Marines not being supposed to mess with the Yonko, we heard that a few times already. I.e. Rob Lucci wasn't supposed to engage with Luffy without permission.

 

[McNuss]

My big issue is that Sword doesn't seem all that secret. In your example of real life agencies the people who are undercover have 0 public ties with the agencies they are a part of. In OP everyone knows that Koby is a marine so hard to argue he is a secret double agent.

A true double agent example we have seen is Vergo who was a pirate first but joined the Marines when he was a nobody. Had sword been filled with marines who were publicly never known as marines (except to top brass and us readers) it would have made much better sense. In essence I think Rosinante was closest thing to this that we've seen on the Marine's side.

Real life intelligence agencies aren't secret either. However neither are most Marines public figures, nor is the Sword affiliation of publicly known Marines public, so there is no issue. Pirates shouldn't trust anyone anyways.

 

[DeadlyBeast]

Real life intelligence agencies aren't secret either. However neither are most Marines public figures, nor is the Sword affiliation of publicly known Marines public, so there is no issue. Pirates shouldn't trust anyone anyways.

The agencies being secret isn't what I'm talking about. I'm saying a secret agent shouldn't have any public affiliations to the agency in question since that always introduces high suspicion. These affiliations should be secret as to not rouse suspicion.

Just because Drake was publicly known as former Marine raised suspicions on his motives without Beast Pirates having to know Sword itself exists. The extra suspicion on him had Queen and Who's Who keep a close eye on him almost getting him killed.

The best secret agents we've had are still Vergo and Rosinante since they both had no public affiliation for the organization they were working for making them less suspicious by proxy.

In real life any CIA agent that is undercover will have no public connection to the agency. Otherwise would be too easy to get uncovered, hence why they have secret identities with fake papers. Drake didn't even bother to change his name or pretend to be a non former Marine.

 

[electricmastro]

Oh, so Mihawk once trusted the Marines in the past only to feel betrayed by them to the point of resenting them?

 

[Lord Rayleigh]

Oh, so Mihawk once trusted the Marines in the past only to feel betrayed by them to the point of resenting them?

Thanks. Who knows, he may have been collecting bounties for some Marines but was betrayed (like Nami with Arlong) when he brought some billion bounty heads. So he decided to hunt down the Marines to make them pay. Then after a few years he joined the Shichibukai to be at peace with the Marine organization that was harassing him back.

 

[electricmastro]

Thanks. Who knows, he may have been collecting bounties for some Marines but was betrayed (like Nami with Arlong) when he brought some billion bounty heads. So he decided to hunt down the Marines to make them pay. Then after a few years he joined the Shichibukai to be at peace with the Marine organization that was harassing him back.

Which makes me wonder how strong his grudge is now given how he was willing enough to fight alongside the Marines at Marineford.

 

[RaisinRisin]

That's an awkward translation, though. Most importantly, the verb tenses are off in two parts of the first sentence. Probably best not to draw conclusions unless you can either see the official translation or read the original text. (I find for the manga, official tends to be the most accurate as one would expect, but for the anime the old fan subs we used to get were better.)

 

[Pirate Queen]

Mihawk the fraud. What else is new?

Hiding in Buggy's shadow?

"Yonko" they say

"Shanks' equal" they say

"One man army" they say

 

[kkck]

Hmmm, the marines betraying mihawk is an interesting bit of lore but otherwise the question doesn't add that much. It's not exactly news that mihawk simply wants to fuck off from the radar and stay fucked off. I'd guess he simply wants strong enemies and there's at best a handful of people alive worth fighting and even fewer that are swordsmen. His actual target market is so reduced (shanks) that he decided to give zoro a shot... and that would raise said target market to two...

 

[electricmastro]

Hmmm, the marines betraying mihawk is an interesting bit of lore but otherwise the question doesn't add that much. It's not exactly news that mihawk simply wants to fuck off from the radar and stay fucked off. I'd guess he simply wants strong enemies and there's at best a handful of people alive worth fighting and even fewer that are swordsmen. His actual target market is so reduced (shanks) that he decided to give zoro a shot... and that would raise said target market to two...

I guess it's possible Mihawk tried to be a Marine in the past like how Dragon did, but then fell out with them after feeling betrayed and not being on the same page with their views.

 

[kkck]

I guess it's possible Mihawk tried to be a Marine in the past like how Dragon did, but then fell out with them after feeling betrayed and not being on the same page with their views.

If I were to guess at such a backstory I'd guess his issue would be that he prioritized fighting strong people over being a marine.

 

[Pirate Queen]

I guess it's possible Mihawk tried to be a Marine in the past like how Dragon did, but then fell out with them after feeling betrayed and not being on the same page with their views.

The betrayal was probably that they didn't promote him because he was only good in swordamanship and to be promoted you need to be good in alot of areas.


Kinda like Anakin Skywalker

 

[kkck]

I have a hard time imagining mihawk being salty 20 years ago over not getting a promotion. As in, career minded mihawk? He doesn't even care that a charlatan like buggy technically outranks him in the eyes of the world. Ok, he cares a tiny bit but not so much that he doesn't see this as having more pros than cons.

 

[Pirate Queen]

I have a hard time imagining mihawk being salty 20 years ago over not getting a promotion. As in, career minded mihawk? He doesn't even care that a charlatan like buggy technically outranks him in the eyes of the world. Ok, he cares a tiny bit but not so much that he doesn't see this as having more pros than cons.

When your young and stubborn, you can feel the world owes you something.

With age comes wisedom.