Everything Wrong with RWBY Part 4 (Settlement Edition)

Whenever you see a settlement outside the Kingdoms, they all appear to be designed for resort habitation first, defense a far-off 7th.
The village that Ruby slllllooooooowwwwllllllyyyy walks to in the Vol 4 short? Placed at the bottom of a hill, so any attackers can charge downhill, and any civilians attempting to flee have to run uphill. Said village also has no walls, not even a shitty palisade or earthworks, and has nice, wide streets that run directly to the center of the settlement.
Of the, what, 4 settlements we saw outside the Kingdoms, only one had any form of actual defensive fortification. None of them had any form of militia at all, to the point where they had to ask a bunch of 17 year olds to handle their shit for them.
The Grimm are a threat when the plot needs them to be, never more. If they played the part they are said to have, settlements in Remnant would make a WW1 trenchline look like amateur hour.
This is really something that should be brought up in discussions more. Just like how cities in the real world are build with protection against natural disasters in mind, Remnant should build their cities with protection against the Grimm in mind!
I want both, but especially better Grimm - right now they're laughable, and making the non-aura'd humans look like idiots because Remnant somehow forgot about things like "force multipliers", "watchtowers", and "fixed position heavy weapon emplacements"; humans should be, as we currently see them, well able to defend a town from Grimm, especially somewhere like Kuroyuri where they had stone walls. So either something to show that normal humans are unable to deal damage to Grimm as aura users can, some explanation as to why everybody doesn't have aura, or some atlesian military city with a fourth wall breaking population pointing out everybody not copying their town design is an idiot.
And yes, better villains. So far we've got "I'm evil and hate ozpin", cinder the dead, "I'm an evil scientist mwhahaha", "I'm psychotic", "I'm angry", and "I'm like dumbledore, so you're all chess pieces in my game. Information? You don't need information. Oops, I just broke those ones".
We need smarter humans. There is no reason Kuroyuri should have fallen if anybody competent designed the place. No watchtowers, no ballistae, no evacuation shelters or tunnels, no warning bells, no militia, nothing. Also, I still want to know why everybody and their mum doesn't have aura unlocked because right now, I'm not seeing any downside.
Don't even need aura for fighting - construction industry would be a good example; aura would make things a lot safer.
In kuro? No, not at all. Arrows from longbows penetrated it's hide. Ballistae would send bolts straight through. A sufficiently sized moat or other prepared killing ground, especially one with a trench of fuel (wood, pitch, charcoal, etc) surrounding the walls would give them ample time, especially if the walls were constructed for point defence (front facing ballistae covered and beneath the parapet to protect from aerial attack, AA inside the walls). A sufficiently long evac tunnel, cavern, etc, allows for large scale evacuation, an open trench later covered can go for miles easily. Watchtowers mean the militia would be on the walls cutting the Grimm down before they got inside.
Then you give people the training they need to use Aura effectively, and perhaps more importantly, responsibly.
The Grimm should be 'better', yes, but that also means the humans should be better. More competent, more intelligent, more...... effective.
Settlements outside the Kingdoms should be intelligently designed, to actually have effective defenses and defenders.
Yet another aspect of RWBY's "tell, don't show." Maybe by Vol 8 we will see Remnant as the Death World it supposedly is, because right now the only reason the Grimm are a threat is because humanity is too cock-eyed stupid to protect themselves.
So, why aren't all the kids being sent through beacon for a couple of years? Or rather the pre academy training schools? There can't be an argument for a requirement for rigorous training and dedication, not when Jaune comes in with faked papers, not when Ruby skips two years - so presumably it's mostly down to "you are strong and hard to hurt, everybody else is to, please be careful until we build stuff aura user proof. I mean, logically you'd need to run a combat academy dedicated to taking out aura unlocked individuals, hard, although that coincides with humanity being idiots because how, when there are resources spent on an aura using assassin android, has nobody developed a one-shot-kill weapon designed to kill aura-users? Biological, chemical, radiological, physical, sonic, light based, strangulation, the list goes on - at the core of it, the mechanics of the series are inherently fucked because they treat base humans as drones.
Sorry, meant like, aura user proof buildings -beacon seems to be only standing due to goodwitch's "fix stuff" telekinesis, lessening her workload would be a good start. As to invalidating the good hunters, do you mean stuff like the one-shot? Because that's kinda the idea; it keeps hunters, hunting, because base humans have a way to fight back and win, which they currently don't have in the setting beyond "drown them in bodies and hope they have a shit semblance".
Regarding the buildings, trust me, I'm an engineer. Give us a budget big enough to cover the R&D and we'll build you a house on the surface of saturn.
Who defines good and bad? We're getting into dumbledore territory here, a headmaster who thinks he knows better than the government. Huntsmen are needed to fight Grimm, that's all. They're not supposed to function as a vigilante group, yet the authorities have no way to deal with them. How do you take down a drunken huntsman starting a fight? You either need to get another huntsman, or do as the human race has done since the day they first picked up a rock - use that brain of yours to force multiply the problem away.
Besides, weapons don't pick the users. If the bad guys have them, so do the good guys, and as a rule, the good guys are the ones with the numbers advantage.
So huntsmen don't go bad? Raven is an argument against that, she runs a gang of kidnappers and extortionists, and probably a few more unsavoury things besides, should the government not intervene?I'm not saying give everyone a one-shot, I'm saying give the remnant equivalent of, say, the FBI’s Hostage Rescue Team (HRT), one shots, so they can stop the bad guy with aura. This department could be called the Non-Aura’d Defense Agency (NADA).
Settlements make walls that have energy Dust producing a barrier that protects them from arian Grimm.
The motivation for humanity to expand their territory and for people to go outside of the kingdoms is due to how important resources are, such as mining and agriculture.
There is a video that states that it is possible to train reindeer to ride like horses. I think that's a cool idea and I could write a society in RWBY that uses reindeer like how we use horses. McNeil I have a writing related question. I’m trying to write down organization for a somewhat military like force in my setting and I’m contemplating using the Roman legion organization for the top down legion organization but what’s stopping is if that’s bad or not to lift directly from history as that might be mocked as “unoriginal” or “lazy” or being a “R.I.P. off” so is it ok to use direct historical inspiration or no? It's A-okay. Often while you write and research more original ideas will come to you in tandem with them, which allow creative uses of those original concepts.

Architecture

The four kingdoms and all of the settlements that they own are protected by walls that create energy domes to keep Grimm out. They are all connected by train stations, as flying machines do not shown in this story. Common forms of transportation are by train, cars and horse carriages. Beyond the four kingdoms lay the dangerous lands where most of the Grimm are.
Mistral exist on top of an archipelago of floating islands, kept in the air by Gravity Dust. Settlers made Mistral on these floating islands in order to heavily decrease Grimm attacks.
It’s weird how the writers try to say that Atlas is very unpopular with their methods even though we see Valites have no issue with their military occupying their borders and even cheer when Ironwood promotes his robots in a public square. There isn’t any prejudice shown against Weiss for being Atlesian except Blake.
Vacuo is still a tropical oasis like it was in the WoR video talking about Vacuo.
Possible idea for how Atlesians survived the cold tundra is that theydug holes and tunnels at the base of an inactive volcano in order to get heat from it.
It’s weird how the writers try to say that Atlas is very unpopular with their methods even though we see Valites have no issue with their military occupying their borders and even cheer when Ironwood promotes his robots in a public square. There isn’t any prejudice shown against Weiss for being Atlesian except Blake.
Finally another problem I have with World Building is that in Mistral we were told of their culture and their black market yet none of that had any effect on the plot. With Atlas we have been told of their superior technology and we have actually see it on the show. One thing I would like to know is what would be the role of the city of Mantle. Will it be a location? Or relevant to a character backstory? That is why I also thought that it could be part of a character backstory. Mantle was just abandoned for efficiency and those left behind suffered “the coldest winter ever”. Not to mention the decision was made by the military (Ironwood) and maybe even the companies (Jacques). This could lead to a vengeance backstory. It could also be used as a hideout by the antagonists similar to Mountain Glenn. Or if things go to hell in Atlas it could be used by the protagonists instead.
Mistral exist on top of an archipelago of floating islands, kept in the air by Gravity Dust. Settlers made Mistral on these floating islands in order to heavily decrease Grimm attacks.