Headscratchers / Valkyrie Drive: Mermaid

Taking time to think about it, there's a great deal about the plot that just doesn't mesh well.

Is the A-Virus contagious?

• The girls get their powers from a disease, that's detectable and incurable. Okay. There are gender-specific illnesses, fibromyalgia and prostate cancer come to mind. Still, the pretext that shipping them off to an artificial island surrounded by a force-field, for the purposes of quarantine, doesn't mesh with the fact that although Mamori's "illness" was detected while she was very young, Mamori was not quarantined in an way and was still permitted to go to school, without special accommodations being made, except, apparently, the public being made well aware (as evidenced by the graffiti on her school desk telling her to drop dead), and the people who came to pick her up having no protective gear whatsoever going so far as to grab her with their bare hands.
  • Supplemental materials and other entries on the Franchise (i.e. Bhikkhuni) state that the virus is genetic and it lays dormant until its carrier reaches puberty. Episode 9 even confirms the virus doesn't affect XY chromosomes, rendering the men immune to it.

Where did the castle come from?

• While we haven't seen how the other islands are handled, the girls are all shipped to the island of Mermaid inside a missile traveling at high speed specifically so as to force open a temporary hole just big enough for the girl to fall through and land on the beach. It shouldn't have to be mentioned just how dangerous that method is. While it could be argued that the Powers That Be simply don't care if the girl lives or dies, this doesn't mesh well with what we see when we get to the castle/academy/prison at the center of the island. Everyone there is living far more comfortably than might be expected for their given situation.
  • Makes even more baffling upon revealing the castle was already on the island before Akira's arrival. How is it that no one tried to seize control of it before?
    • The castle has probably been inhabited as long as Mermaid has been in operation, with various groups fighting over it.

Where did they get their supplies?

• There are no farms, textile factories, sheep for wool or cotton plantations, so where do they get their food and clothing? Remember that shipments to the island are made by a missile hitting the force-field at high speed, and perishables are not likely to survive the trip.
  • Episode 3 finally explains that the Welter organization, and the Castle Feste, have an underground factory that produces all their wants and needs, but doesn't explain where the raw materials come from.
  • Episode 6 makes the issue more confusing by introducing goods that were really popular during Mamori's childhood. Were those goods on Welter's arks for years or does the government periodically send supplies to the island?

There are also no mines so where do they get the metal for their various tools?

• The castle factories, probably. As for how that's stocked, who knows?

They have money. Where do they get it? And how? And how do they spend it? And on what?

• They probably get it from the castle factory. The inmates were used to using currency, so they probably set up an economic system that mimics what they used on the outside. Aside from gambling, the castle girls probably use it to buy fresh food from the country girls, while the country girls use it to buy stuff from the castle factories.
  • Meifon's arm form literally runs on money so there's that.

They get news from the outside.

• After all, they knew about "The Soldier" which is rumored to be the Mirei's Red Baron, yet every time a new girl gets shipped there, it's always a surprise and nobody has any relevant information on her. So she's treated as an intruder and attacked. Great way to win her over to your side, Welfs.
  • Momoka's arrival seems to imply Akira and Lady Lady knew of the Soldiers before being sent to the island.
  • The new girls bring in whatever news they've heard, and are debriefed by the people on Mermaid. Sure, most girls don't know anything, but a few, like Akira, were more informed on the Arms Virus and related topics. Seems pretty straightforward.

Charlotte's presence

• Why has Charlotte not been ousted by Akira yet? From what we've seen she is below Akira in terms of both power and rank, and seems to more or less defer to Akira's orders, so why keep her in a position of power? Charlotte is a violent, greedy, manipulative, egotistical sociopath who favors violence as the first, last and only option and has people tortured/whipped/imprisoned for pretty much any reason. So why the hell does she still have so much power on the island. If she was in power before Akira came onto the scene, then how come he didn't throw her in some kind of prison when she took over? And if Charlotte wasn't in power first, then how in the hell did she get any sort of position of power under the pacifistic and apparently well-meaning Akira? Surely she would have realized that she does not have anything about her that merits such a high-ranking command position!
  • Answered in episode 10. Charlotte and her army of sycophants, Adell, existed as an independent entity at the time Akira created the Werter organization. Akira allowed them to join because she needed the manpower to deal with the roving gangs of thugs and rapists who were "hunting newbies." After the gangs were presumably dealt with, Akira still has to give Charlotte a certain amount of leeway because if Charlotte feels too slighted, she can and will ignite a bloody civil war among the Werter, and the girls at Feste would pay the price caught in the cross fire.
  • And speaking thusly, why has Charlotte not been ousted from her position by the masses? Surely, since EVERYONE on the island is infected, everyone can be effective to an extent in a fight. Knowing how much of a bitch she is, and how useless her combat skills are (she's been owned every time she's gone into battle against someone skilled), why haven't there been any uprising or riots to boot her and hers from the castle?

The Organization's plan for the girls

• Even if the island is a dumping ground for what the Organization terms "defective weapons," why would they bother to spread a false narrative about the girls being able to leave if they prove they can keep a peaceful society going? Given what Charlotte is told about being offered a way out, and given her penchant towards violence, death, and destruction, would it not be wiser or more efficient to simply invoke Social Darwinism and tell them the strongest will be given passage back to the outside world, even if that really means a one-way ticket to an indoctrination center?
  • Since no similar promise is mentioned neither in Bhikkhuni nor Siren, the island was clearly shown as running on Social Darwinism on Kasumi's flashback and Lady Lady calling Akira a liar, it can be safely assumed this was something that Akira came up with to get the support from the island's inhabitants.