Macross Δ (Delta) - Mission 13 - READ 1st POST

[kalvasflam]

They have balls enough to give pretty boy Keith a nice scar as a memento?

His helmet will probably have ballistic shielding....

scarred Keith will be just a little weird, I have to wonder about the rest of the Aerial knights though, they seem to become less relevant in each episode. I honestly think at this point, it won't even matter if Herman bites the dust, or the twins, or even Bogue. Feel like the characters are well on their way to becoming redshirts.

[charles88]

I'm not saying he's necessarily a good guy... just that he's literally the only halfway competent soldier we've seen on the protagonist side so far. Unless, of course, you want to take the view that "good is not necessarily nice".

Even if Valan's bomb made it worse, if they'd detonated on time like the military wanted to do they would've had the better part of a day to go back and blow the crap out of the extra part of the ruins that were hiding in super dimension space in an environment free of civilian casualties or friendly fire accidents. He showed a much more level head than Captain Johnson in that he didn't throw the lives of his troops away, kept his forces protecting the emigrant ship, and collected as much data on the enemy as he could before being forced to flee. He may not be the nicest man in the galaxy, but he is an effective and pragmatic soldier, which is far, FAR more than can be said for anyone at Kaos.

Any way you shake it, our heroes in Delta Platoon are "lawful stupid" and their bungling seems to actually end up helping Windermere

I CANT Believe you still painted Valan as good and competent AFTER what he had done. The Valan decision to detonate the ruins ticked me off for many reasons, first off the ruins absorbed the energy and disappeared and the next thing we know some Heritage of Protoculture emerges from sub-space. As it turns out, the Valan were aware of it since their scientists already had information on it. So at the end of the day, it wasn’t so much about preventing Windermere from gaining using/control of the ruins, but rather to obtain data regarding the Heritage of Protoculture- at the price of many lives.

[RedWolf]

King of the Protoculture, Throne of the galaxy. It seems Gramia was mad Macross Galaxy tried to do it with a hivemind on all of them so he is out to do it himself. The NUN never claimed as such which is why it was decided it would decentralize. There are bigger fish out there and they recognize that. Zentrad fleets, Protodevlin, Vajra. Windermere also believes the Protoculture are dead. There is one Protoculture at Ouroboros who survived through cold sleep. Who is to say there aren't others out there as Earth was visited 10,000 years ago.

Gramia intended to unite the Children of the Protoculture through violence and enslavement under Windermere. It boils down to jealousy that Terrans started to unite the Children of the Protoculture through peace and love of culture.

Windermere messing around with something that transforms to a Vajra Queen form made by the Protoculture may be their undoing. The Bird Human when fully awakened took stock of the situation and decided Earth Humans were a danger to the universe. This was with a depressed Sara Nome. Heinz is in a dark place with his emotions that may doom his people if he isn't saved.

[kalvasflam]

This does remind me, when can we get some love for the VF-17I?

That plane is being picked on by literally everyone... Draken shoots it down, Siggies shoots it down, and in the latest episode

Even the grunts of Elysion were shooting them down

It's like the VF-17I is just built to be picked on. I mean talk about unfair, at this point in Frontier, the VF-17I finally got some love, who can forget the flying fist of Machida, or the reaction missile toting VF-17s that destroyed Vajra capital ships. Yet in Delta, it doesn't matter if you're an ace or a squadron commander, as long as you're in a VF-17I, you're destined to be shot down mercilessly by everyone. Need some action scene filler with dead Valks: hey, let's use the VF-17I; need some random nobody blown away: look, VF-17I, it's got to be the biggest Valk joke in the series at this point, need generic launch sequence with Valks being shot down: You guessed it, VF-17I.

Bandai should have a DX of a VF-17 that literally fall to pieces to simulate it being shot down over and over again.

[Zinjo]

This does remind me, when can we get some love for the VF-17I?

That plane is being picked on by literally everyone... Draken shoots it down, Siggies shoots it down, and in the latest episode

Even the grunts of Elysion were shooting them down

It's like the VF-17I is just built to be picked on. I mean talk about unfair, at this point in Frontier, the VF-17I finally got some love, who can forget the flying fist of Machida, or the reaction missile toting VF-17s that destroyed Vajra capital ships. Yet in Delta, it doesn't matter if you're an ace or a squadron commander, as long as you're in a VF-17I, you're destined to be shot down mercilessly by everyone. Need some action scene filler with dead Valks: hey, let's use the VF-17I; need some random nobody blown away: look, VF-17I, it's got to be the biggest Valk joke in the series at this point, need generic launch sequence with Valks being shot down: You guessed it, VF-17I.

Bandai should have a DX of a VF-17 that literally fall to pieces to simulate it being shot down over and over again.

Um, I like the VF-171 over the VF-17, but it IS a Cannon Fodder Valk. What else were you expecting??

[Seto Kaiba]

I CANT Believe you still painted Valan as good and competent AFTER what he had done. The Valan decision to detonate the ruins ticked me off for many reasons, first off the ruins absorbed the energy and disappeared and the next thing we know some Heritage of Protoculture emerges from sub-space. As it turns out, the Valan were aware of it since their scientists already had information on it. So at the end of the day, it wasn’t so much about preventing Windermere from gaining using/control of the ruins, but rather to obtain data regarding the Heritage of Protoculture- at the price of many lives.

You're drawing an awful lot of conclusions based on information that isn't actually in the episode.

Based on this episode and the previous one, Major Valan and the New UN Spacy have been put in an extraordinarily difficult position thanks to the meddling of Kaos's incompetent and incredibly naive management. They proposed a method for preventing King Gramia from completing his plan to enslave the entire Brisingr cluster with minimal collateral damage, which even Kaos reluctantly admitted was the best option. Lady M poked her oar in and somehow forced the NUNS to agree to only detonate the warhead if the counterattack on Al Shahal failed, no doubt delaying the evacuation of the citizens as a result. As a result, Ragna's most powerful warship and sole countermeasure for the song of the wind ended up being drawn out of position, clearing the way for Windermere's invasion of Ragna. It was only a stroke of incredible luck that they managed to lightly damage the song shrine so that the battle wasn't long over by the time they reached Ragna again, by which point the NUNS had been forced to detonate the warhead to prevent Windermere's forces from seizing the ruins. Valan and the NUNS acted in good faith and followed precisely the plan they agreed to. It looks like they even managed to take out a good-sized chunk of the Windermerean fleet with the warhead. He doesn't indicate that they knew of that structure's existence previously, or that it was their plan to uncover it all along. He just expresses the scientists had apparently mentioned the possibility that something like that might happen, collects intelligence, and orders a retreat to get the civilians out of harm's way.

Kaos, on the other hand, endangered civilians by delaying the evacuation, damn near handed the planet to Gramia on a silver platter by naively running to confront him at Al Shahal, and then spent almost the entire battle for Ragna sitting around with their thumbs up their asses letting Heinz Var everyone, then ordered a retreat.

If you're looking for which group clearly showed more concern for the wellbeing of Ragna... it ain't Kaos.

This does remind me, when can we get some love for the VF-17I?

VF-171, not VF-17I... and we got some love for it in Macross Frontier via the VF-171EX.

(It's also a pretty damn good craft in Macross 30.)

[kalvasflam]

I meant in this series... honestly though that's the super robot aspect of this series that I don't much like. The VF-17s contributed in Frontier, here, not so much, the only purpose they have is to be shot down, which begs the question, why would NUNS even need them other than as an employment program and a method of population control.

[RDX17]

Had there not been a bomb, is there any indication that the giant Protoculture structure would have appeared once the Sigur Valens approached? Or once Heinz started singing?

Has this Protoculture structure made an appearance in other Macross series? (I'm only familiar with SDFM & DYRL, and it doesn't look familar).

Any idea who/what "Rudanjal Rom Mayan" is?

The Sigur Valens begins to transform then dock with the Protoculture structure as Heinz starts singing. Did Heinz's song initiate the transformation? Did the King & Co. know the Sigur Valens had another mode? I know there was speculation in the Gertalk Podcast and in the MW Forums that it could transform, but it just seems convenient that this specific structure on Ragna is ready to receive the Sigur Valens.

I realize the connection between each Macross series is very loose, but it was my understanding that the SDF-1's transformation was needed to make an adjustment due to the missing fold drives at the time. I also recall the Zentradi being surprised and perplexed when it transformed, which suggests large transforming battle stations were not something they were familiar with. I know later Macross series make use of transforming ships (Megaroads, etc.), but is the Sigur Valens the first transforming Protoculture ship in Macross canon?

Thanks in advance for any responses!

edit: spolier tags removed

Edited June 28, 2016 by RDX17

[azrael]

You're drawing an awful lot of conclusions based on information that isn't actually in the episode.

Based on this episode and the previous one, Major Valan and the New UN Spacy have been put in an extraordinarily difficult position thanks to the meddling of Kaos's incompetent and incredibly naive management. They proposed a method for preventing King Gramia from completing his plan to enslave the entire Brisingr cluster with minimal collateral damage, which even Kaos reluctantly admitted was the best option. Lady M poked her oar in and somehow forced the NUNS to agree to only detonate the warhead if the counterattack on Al Shahal failed, no doubt delaying the evacuation of the citizens as a result. As a result, Ragna's most powerful warship and sole countermeasure for the song of the wind ended up being drawn out of position, clearing the way for Windermere's invasion of Ragna. It was only a stroke of incredible luck that they managed to lightly damage the song shrine so that the battle wasn't long over by the time they reached Ragna again, by which point the NUNS had been forced to detonate the warhead to prevent Windermere's forces from seizing the ruins. Valan and the NUNS acted in good faith and followed precisely the plan they agreed to. It looks like they even managed to take out a good-sized chunk of the Windermerean fleet with the warhead. He doesn't indicate that they knew of that structure's existence previously, or that it was their plan to uncover it all along. He just expresses the scientists had apparently mentioned the possibility that something like that might happen, collects intelligence, and orders a retreat to get the civilians out of harm's way.

Kaos, on the other hand, endangered civilians by delaying the evacuation, damn near handed the planet to Gramia on a silver platter by naively running to confront him at Al Shahal, and then spent almost the entire battle for Ragna sitting around with their thumbs up their asses letting Heinz Var everyone, then ordered a retreat.

If you're looking for which group clearly showed more concern for the wellbeing of Ragna... it ain't Kaos.

I'm in agreement with Seito on this. The King felt that Johnson was moving so he stepped up his time table. NUNS already said, "We're gonna nuke the site. We need to move the civilians out now." Then steps in Lady M and delays the nuke till Elysion counterattacks? Had Gramia not felt Johnson coming, it might have worked and delayed Windermere. But nope. The only upside to all of this is the nuke took out a chunk of the Windermeran fleet.

[notquitefodder]

The interesting thing about Delta is that, thus far, the stakes have been actually quite minor.

The Kingdom of the Wing has been objectively the weakest "villain" antagonist yet seen. Zentradi, Protodevlin, Vajra, all were orders of magnitude more dangerous to human life and liberty than the Windemerians. Their standing military is shown to be a single Protoculture battleship and several wings of highly skilled and technologically advanced fighters. A single pilot might down 20 VFs, but for each loss they'd take it would be unsustainable.

They have no invasion troops, no reserves, and their backup forces are limited to whatever they can subvert via the Song of the Wind. Even WITH the Protoculture ruins so far, their influence is limited to the far frontier of NUNS territory. Because of their insistence they are "better" than their enemies, they've thus far caused no extreme damage to conquered planets. That's not to say they aren't responsible for many civilian deaths, they are, but they thus far haven't resorted to orbital bombardment or concentration camps or the like.

Interestingly, their whole strategy has hinged on "culture shock" and should that fail, they have absolutely no recourse. Their society seems fairly unadvanced prior to being uplifted, and should their corporate backing fail, they'd be in even worse shape. One battle with a Macross class ship nearly crippled their whole scheme. Against a more formidable force? They wouldn't have had a prayer.

This doesn't make the battles any less exciting or the stakes worse for our main characters, but it's interesting that this is one of the lowest intensity conflicts we've seen yet. All of their Var infected support base could (and most certainly will when Walkure recovers) disintegrate before their eyes.

Simply put, the Windemerians are children lashing out at the big boys, and what seems to be clear from their wounded pride is that they know it. They're also terrible strategists driven in part by their impatience, and all of their short term gains can just as swiftly be rolled back. They also haven't demonstrated any of the inspiration or improvisation the SDF-1 did when it was fighting similar lopsided odds, and have no reaction weaponry. It's either SONG OF THE WIND, or nothing. Simply put, I think they're going to run out of steam fairly quickly.

Edited June 28, 2016 by notquitefodder

[Saruta]

Just realized...

Why did the NUNS not have a second nuke on hand? Especially if they had a suspicion that this stuff might happen. They could just fire it at the new structure and the SV, with a chance to take them out (likely not in a total kill, but they could still have a chance of disrupting the fold song).

Adds to my difficulty suspending disbelief. No strategists around? On any side? (Except Bogue, who keeps trying to take out Walkure and that actually makes sense - and is not a spoiler because he has been doing it since episode 1 or something).

[notquitefodder]

It's seems like both sides are simply reacting and pushing through their plans as fast as possible. Windermere has no chance outside of Protoculture relics, so they've doubled down on that hard.

Likewise NUNS doesn't even really seem to particularly care about this conflict outside of those same relics. This is referring to a few episodes ago.

[squaresphere]

Because of their insistence they are "better" than their enemies, they've thus far caused no extreme damage to conquered planets. That's not to say they aren't responsible for many civilian deaths, they are, but they thus far haven't resorted to orbital bombardment or concentration camps or the like.

Uh, I dunno. Using the VARS to not only create domestic outbreaks of violence, but to rob people of their independent will seems pretty damning. Throw on top they're doing this to several worlds across a whole sector we're talking about millions if not billions of lives.

Based on what we know of VARS it's effect can become permanent, so we're talking forced enslavement on a massive scale.

[guyxxed]

From this last episode, it's clear that several of the players know more than they're letting on. I think what we're going to see is that both Chaos and the Windermerians have been played for a bigger prize. The main characters and plot we've been following so far are just being manipulated by others. Who exactly is pulling the strings and for what end purpose, we shall hopefully see soon.

My biggest question from this is the same as RDX17S, how much of what happened were the Windermerians prepared for? Did they know the docking structure was there? Did they know the SV would so what it did? If so, were they expecting the NUNS bomb? I hope we get answers to those things, otherwise the plot starts to seem a bit arbitrary.

Edited June 28, 2016 by guyxxed

[Mommar]

I would have to agree with everyone complaining about the lack of battroid/Gerwalk combat. Aces use battroid/gerwalk mode in atmosphere. It has been done. nuff said. I'll bet my bottom dollar that any of those Aces from the other series would mop the floor with these rookies and be back home by lunchtime.

Max or Milia would have shot Keith out of the sky within two minutes in their old Vf-1's, Isamu and Basara would have as well.

[derex3592]

Just watched...DAMN! I need a drink to calm myself down! That was INTENSE!

[charles88]

ou're drawing an awful lot of conclusions based on information that isn't actually in the episode.

Based on this episode and the previous one, Major Valan and the New UN Spacy have been put in an extraordinarily difficult position thanks to the meddling of Kaos's incompetent and incredibly naive management. They proposed a method for preventing King Gramia from completing his plan to enslave the entire Brisingr cluster with minimal collateral damage, which even Kaos reluctantly admitted was the best option. Lady M poked her oar in and somehow forced the NUNS to agree to only detonate the warhead if the counterattack on Al Shahal failed, no doubt delaying the evacuation of the citizens as a result. As a result, Ragna's most powerful warship and sole countermeasure for the song of the wind ended up being drawn out of position, clearing the way for Windermere's invasion of Ragna. It was only a stroke of incredible luck that they managed to lightly damage the song shrine so that the battle wasn't long over by the time they reached Ragna again, by which point the NUNS had been forced to detonate the warhead to prevent Windermere's forces from seizing the ruins. Valan and the NUNS acted in good faith and followed precisely the plan they agreed to. It looks like they even managed to take out a good-sized chunk of the Windermerean fleet with the warhead. He doesn't indicate that they knew of that structure's existence previously, or that it was their plan to uncover it all along. He just expresses the scientists had apparently mentioned the possibility that something like that might happen, collects intelligence, and orders a retreat to get the civilians out of harm's way.

Kaos, on the other hand, endangered civilians by delaying the evacuation, damn near handed the planet to Gramia on a silver platter by naively running to confront him at Al Shahal, and then spent almost the entire battle for Ragna sitting around with their thumbs up their asses letting Heinz Var everyone, then ordered a retreat.

If you're looking for which group clearly showed more concern for the wellbeing of Ragna... it ain't Kaos.

Did you even watch same episode.He wasn't aiming to kill Gramia or destroy Sigur Valens. He was aiming to see the ruins awaken, so he could get the data he wanted. He said that things were happening as his scientists had predicted, so he probably knew the explosion wasn't gonna destroy Sigur Valens anyway. Note how he ran away the moment he got his precious data. He also doesn't give a single frakk that he killed a lot of his own NUNS soldiers with that explotion. Arad even tell Valan evacuation is not finished yet and Vlalan essentially says thats your business and says F""" off and does not even show he cared on civilian in Ragna. A;so if he cared civilian, He should Not Detonate bomb until evacuation finished and waned his soldier about bomb denotation and does not show any remorse after killing civilian and his own allies. What makes you think that Valan care about civilian as he just wanted his precious data, and the moment he got it, he ran away without looking back. That's unquestionable evil right there. He mentioned that scientist predicted that as if He knew this would happen.Also Ernest show very competent as he immediately shot laser on windemere ship to damage ruin render them unable to use Wind song for a while and his ambush tactic on Gramia that killed Gramia and damage Protoculture ship which caused delay of Windermere plan I look forward to see you eat your own word and crow feather if Valan turn out to be evil and villain

Edited June 28, 2016 by charles88

[kajnrig]

i truly don't get how you could be a Macross fan and don't like this series. i mean ok, there are lots likle that, and thats cool, but i can't understand it. This is everything that makes Macross great. This goes down as one of my top 10 favorite single episodes in the franchise, not just this series.

I don't know who you're targeting there, but as one who voted negative on this episode, I can't help but think I might be in those cross-hairs. In which case, I'm hardly disliking the series. I've been and was just and will continue to be critical of it, but that doesn't mean I dislike it.

...though that being said, I am caring less and less about it, which isn't the same as dislike but it's in the same ballpark, I suppose.

I was really, REALLY hoping for Mirage to be more impressive than she's been so far... it's been so long since we've had a woman in the cockpit who put the boys to shame, like Milia, Komilia (M2 timeline ver.), Sylvie, or Therese.

My remaining hope is that hanging around with Hayate will let some of his more fluid, intuitive piloting rub off on her and let her achieve true greatness.

She doesn't need to be ace levels of good. I actually quite liked that she's struggling to live up to her family name. But she isn't even KEEPING UP with the boys at this point, despite all early evidence pointing to that being the case. The contradictory information the show has been feeding us on her is one of my biggest complaints.

I'm fairly certain they'll go the route you predict, but I personally hope they don't. Aside from being the most predictable and boring thing to do, it would also be more of that super casual sexism at play. But actually I'd have liked the show to linger more on her feelings of jealousy and resentment towards Hayate. Through small actions here and there, or a more biting tone at points. A bit like Asuka from Neon Genesis Evangelion, when she starts getting outpaced in battle prowess by the boy she likes. That would have certainly made the show more interesting, and her more of a living breathing character rather than an obligatory corner of the triangle.

Gah. I'm too stuck on this. Time to brush off my fanfic-ing skills and write up my own alternate retelling of this story? Maybe.

[hachi]

I don't know who you're targeting there, but as one who voted negative on this episode, I can't help but think I might be in those cross-hairs. In which case, I'm hardly disliking the series. I've been and was just and will continue to be critical of it, but that doesn't mean I dislike it.

...though that being said, I am caring less and less about it, which isn't the same as dislike but it's in the same ballpark, I suppose.

She doesn't need to be ace levels of good. I actually quite liked that she's struggling to live up to her family name. But she isn't even KEEPING UP with the boys at this point, despite all early evidence pointing to that being the case. The contradictory information the show has been feeding us on her is one of my biggest complaints.

I'm fairly certain they'll go the route you predict, but I personally hope they don't. Aside from being the most predictable and boring thing to do, it would also be more of that super casual sexism at play. But actually I'd have liked the show to linger more on her feelings of jealousy and resentment towards Hayate. Through small actions here and there, or a more biting tone at points. A bit like Asuka from Neon Genesis Evangelion, when she starts getting outpaced in battle prowess by the boy she likes. That would have certainly made the show more interesting, and her more of a living breathing character rather than an obligatory corner of the triangle.

Gah. I'm too stuck on this. Time to brush off my fanfic-ing skills and write up my own alternate retelling of this story? Maybe.

I'm not too disappointed I'm hoping she gets better, I mean, it could have been worse (looks at female Gundam pilots)

Any I get the same vibe when SDF Macross left Earth to when Chaos et al had to flee Ragna. I hope a new pilot appears for Delta to spice things up.

[Seto Kaiba]

I'm in agreement with Seito on this. The King felt that Johnson was moving so he stepped up his time table. NUNS already said, "We're gonna nuke the site. We need to move the civilians out now." Then steps in Lady M and delays the nuke till Elysion counterattacks? Had Gramia not felt Johnson coming, it might have worked and delayed Windermere. But nope. The only upside to all of this is the nuke took out a chunk of the Windermeran fleet.

At this point, King Gramia and Keith's instances of prescient tactics seems to confirm one of my early theories about the series. Windermereans are a mildly psychic race in the WH40K sense of the term, connected to a higher dimensional realm of emotion and energy (fold space) and able to sense disruptions in that realm caused by things like starships traveling by space fold, strong emotion, and other individuals with similar talents. Gramia sensed the disruption which was caused by the Macross Elysion's fold jump and knew to move out as a result, and on Ragna they both sensed either Valan's ill will toward them or the fold resonance of the thermonuclear reaction warhead's trigger mechanism and were able to take appropriate actions to counter it as a result.

The interesting thing about Delta is that, thus far, the stakes have been actually quite minor.

The Kingdom of the Wing has been objectively the weakest "villain" antagonist yet seen. Zentradi, Protodevlin, Vajra, all were orders of magnitude more dangerous to human life and liberty than the Windemerians. Their standing military is shown to be a single Protoculture battleship and several wings of highly skilled and technologically advanced fighters. A single pilot might down 20 VFs, but for each loss they'd take it would be unsustainable.

They have no invasion troops, no reserves, and their backup forces are limited to whatever they can subvert via the Song of the Wind. [...]

I think what we're looking at is an enemy that didn't start out being an apocalyptic threat but is quickly approaching that territory. They've subverted the New UN Forces assets for a dozen or so worlds, giving them a relatively big fleet of technically-disposable mind controlled slave soldiers that have access to nasty weapons like thermonuclear reaction warheads and dimension eaters. The Windermereans could conceivably do a LOT of damage if they were so inclined, an amount out of all proportion to their numbers thanks to the weapons they have.

Plus, of course, they have an ancient Protoculture weapons system. That's never been good, historically. Every time some jerkass activates some weapon that the ancient Protoculture left behind, it's literally the end of the world. When the Birdman was woken up, it would've destroyed humanity if its operator hadn't had enough willpower to subvert its program and protect Mayan island. When colonist expeditionaries in the Varauta system found the lab where the Protodeviln were sealed, the end result nearly destroyed all sentient life in the galaxy. Then, naturally, when Col. Todo found the fold evil on Uroboros he nearly wiped out everybody currently alive in the universe by altering history. Whatever Gramia and Roid and co. are waking up, it will turn out to be some galaxy-ending and potentially genocidal stuff.

(Never mind Keith's repeatedly stated desire to commit genocide... he wants to kill every last one of the millions of humans in the Brisingr cluster.)

Did you even watch same episode.He wasn't aiming to kill Gramia or destroy Sigur Valens. He was aiming to see the ruins awaken, so he could get the data he wanted. He said that things were happening as his scientists had predicted, so he probably knew the explosion wasn't gonna destroy Sigur Valens anyway. Note how he ran away the moment he got his precious data. He also doesn't give a single frakk that he killed a lot of his own NUNS soldiers with that explotion. Arad even tell Valan evacuation is not finished yet and Vlalan essentially says thats your business and says F""" off and does not even show he cared on civilian in Ragna. A;so if he cared civilian, He should Not Detonate bomb until evacuation finished and waned his soldier about bomb denotation and does not show any remorse after killing civilian and his own allies. What makes you think that Valan care about civilian as he just wanted his precious data, and the moment he got it, he ran away without looking back. That's unquestionable evil right there. He mentioned that scientist predicted that as if He knew this would happen.Also Ernest show very competent as he immediately shot laser on windemere ship to damage ruin render them unable to use Wind song for a while and his ambush tactic on Gramia that killed Gramia and damage Protoculture ship which caused delay of Windermere plan I look forward to see you eat your own word and crow feather if Valan turn out to be evil and villain

Remember what I said about reading things that aren't there into the scene? You're doing it again.

Valan never once establishes that his goal was to awaken the ruins, just that he'd been told that there was a possibility that something might happen when the ruins were destroyed.

He ordered the retreat once he saw the plan had gone to smash because, hey, he'd already made it damn clear the previous episode that Ragna's NUNS and Kaos had ZERO chance of winning against Windermere if they were able to leverage the Song of the Wind.

Valan did tell Arad that it wasn't his business when they detonate the bomb, but hey... it's Lady M's fault that the evacuation wasn't completed and the ruins destroyed before Windermere could get there. He followed through with the plan that Lady M and Kaos had rammed down his throat, waiting until Windermere attacked to destroy the ruins. All those deaths are on Lady M's head, for her interference with the operation that forced them to detonate the weapon with the evacuation incomplete and ANYONE in the blast radius.

Ernest is not competent. In fact, it's been officially established in previous episodes that he's actually pretty crappy as a fleet commander, and he totally got schooled by his own student who he'd said was even worse than him. He got MASSIVELY lucky with that shot at the Sigur Valens, but he still took Ragna's best warship out of position and left it unavailable to defend Ragna for almost the entire battle. He got back just in time to take one potshot at Gramia and run the hell away.

You keep trying to misrepresent my position as Valan being a good guy. All I keep saying is he's the only competent soldier in this show. The only one who shows ANY tactical acumen whatsoever. He brought a plan to prevent Gramia from taking over the entire cluster that even Kaos couldn't find serious fault with, acted to minimize collateral damage and civilian casualties, and obeyed the compromise with Lady M in good faith. He also wiped out a good chunk of Windermere's fleet and would have destroyed the Sigur Valens if not for Gramia's prescience and ended the war at a stroke. He still managed to minimize the casualties of the battle, organize a fighting retreat to get the civilians and what remained of the NUNS fleet to safety, AND collected actionable intel about Windermere's new weapon. He may be a smug snake, and even if he turns out to be a bad guy later he's still demonstrated much more competence in command than anyone among the so-called heroes.

[Einherjar]

I think this week's Gertalk was right about a conspiracy building up on the Windermerian side. A couple of parts involving King Gramia from episodes 12 and 13 have been puzzling me a while. First were the scenes where Ernest talked about his relationship with Gramia and vice versa. While Johnson brought up a lot of personal information regarding the King, it was odd to see Gramia instead asking the Epsilon Foundation contact what he knew about his record. Since they previously had a teacher/student relationship and fought each other in the revolution, shouldn't he already know that kind of information? Since it wasn't Roid and we really know very little about this guy, he could have said anything to motivate the king. Second was his commentary right after the NUNS detonated the Ragna Protoculture ruins. It sounded as if it was his first time ever seeing such destruction, even though it has been established that a dimensional weapon was used in Windermere with bigger consequences seven years prior. This was immediately followed by a shot of Roid intensely looking at him from behind for some reason. Both seem like things that someone who both started and won their revolution should never forget.

Considering his Windermerian age and life expectancy, maybe one of the reasons he was not involved in ruling the kingdom was because he was suffering from a form of late stage dementia? It could explain why he was bedridden all the time and much of his dialogue in order situations sound like incoherent rambling. And since Heinz is still too young to rule, that would have left Roid, Keith, and the rest of the nobility free to do pretty much what they want as long as they kept the king happy. Taking it a step further, maybe the only thing he remembered of the revolution by the time he died was his intense xenophobia. The entire Milky Way galaxy, however, would never forget everything else.

[kalvasflam]

One thing for sure about good ol' Johnson, he really didn't think through his options when he launched his attack on Al Shahal; The choice he had was simple really...

Stay in place at Ragna, or go to Al Shahal. It would've been logical in either case to have taken the whole fleet. Attacking Al Shahal was a logical move, since their intel suggested Windermere was not ready to attack again immediately. That's a mistake I can understand. That he didn't seem to know about this mild psychic connection can also be explained I guess. Staying at Ragna would've been a decent move also, because the enemy had to come to them at some point, if they were confident in the Walkure counteracting Ketchup boy, then it would've been an even fight. The only thing I can fault Ernie for really is splitting his forces, not a good move.

The one thing we don't know is how far along Var has spread in the galaxy, was it limited to the cluster, or was it all over the place? Keeping in mind that it took a combo of Windermere apples and water from the ruins. It wasn't obvious that the ruins after all over the galaxy.

If it truly spread that far, then Windermere is a big threat, if Var was limited to the cluster, then NUNS could've just contained the problem.

[Zinjo]

I finally saw the subs and can comment a bit.

The NUNS Major impressed me as rather amoral rather than some villain. He detonated the bomb without regard to the civilians and the island city for that matter (it was pretty damn close to the edge of the blast). When it became clear the docking station was meant for the SV and appeared to compensate for the damaged systems he realized the defense of the world was untenable and ordered the evacuation. An order a military commander would give in a region he didn't have any additional support for. Johnson saw the evacuation as a way to protect those under his charge, the civilian population from Ragna in the Island.

The Chaos forces certainly appeared to lack the discipline and tactical sense a trained NUNS force would have. The two 31A's watching the Knights attack the Aether instead of pursuing was a clear example of that. I get the sense these may be talented pilots but not the cream of the crop ex-military the SMS attracted.

That being said, Chaos is so out of their depth in this conflict and perhaps that is the point. The reason why Windermere with their two dimensional tactics have won so many battles is because they face a singularly purposed civilian task force of limited capability fighting an all out war with an enemy they hadn't expected, using what they thought was a naturally occurring virus as, in fact, a deliberate weapon. The same weapon that is turning allies into adversaries with increasing numbers.

This is a backwater region apparently not worthy of the NUN's efforts outside of a token task force of SpecOps personnel to put a band aid on a situation and then only to make it worse due to flawed intelligence. It calls into question if there is a new cynical nature to what the NUN has become in 50 years since the Great Space War. Remember it was the SMS that came to the aid of Frontier, NOT the NUNS federal forces.

The complaint about the lack of mecha combat in the atmosphere is amusing. No one has yet proposed the possibility that the WIndermere may be uncomforable with GERWALK or Battroid combat, either in the air or on the ground as we have yet to see them exploit that ability of their variable fighters. They are "flyers" like the birds they venerate, not mecha soldiers. They appear to be damn good flyers too. SK has clearly studied jet combat maneuvers and understands that things like scissor patterns and the like are necessary in atmospheric combat to maintain tactical advantage and preserve the aircraft's speed. It doesn't matter that a nuclear engine won't run out of fuel, it does matter if you slow down too much to give your adversary the tactical advantage over you. The Knights are formidable flyers and you can't give them that advantage and hope to survive long Messer seemed very attuned to this fact.

Hayate is no match for Keith in the cockpit without his New Type connection to the Walkure (Keith was insensed that Hayate would dare fly his rival's fighter). Messer was Keith's equal and had he not been fighting the var at the time of his death, they would still be locked in a stalemate no doubt. It would be like Iceman dueling Iceman in Top Gun.

I did like the respectful tone Hayate had when he launched in Messer's VF. It was clearly a nod to SDFM when Hikaru was assigned Roy's VF-1S. Though at this point we don't know if it will become his permanent ride, but I suspect it will, as replacement fighters will be hard to come by right now.

Mirage is taking her leadership responsibilities to heart though I have to agree that their squad commander was pretty impotent during the battle. However, that could be explained if he was taking command of the Alpha, Beta and Gamma squads and leaving Mirage to lead Delta. The implication I am getting is that she is so stiff and pre-occupied with her legacy that she won't loosen up enough to let her natural abilities come out despite Hayate's constant encouragement.

The water animation was either epic or partly poached from live action footage and spliced nearly seemlessly into the cg. Either way, WELL DONE!

Edited June 28, 2016 by Zinjo

[RedWolf]

This is a backwater region apparently not worthy of the NUN's efforts outside of a token task force of SpecOps personnel to put a band aid on a situation and then only to make it worse due to flawed intelligence. It calls into question if there is a new cynical nature to what the NUN has become in 50 years since the Great Space War. Remember it was the SMS that came to the aid of Frontier, NOT the NUNS federal forces.

In the TV series Ozma acknowledge that reinforcements may be too late due to fold faults delaying the report to Earth and the NUN parliament deliberating on a response.

Wings of Goodbye on the other hand is different. A Combine SMS-NUNS reinforcement fleet came on time. Going by the Light Novel adaptation this was made up of nearby fleets as Battle 7 with Max and Milia on VFs participated in battle.

Going by the Black Wing manga Aerial Knight prequel the Brisingr Cluster planets like Windermere have Mutual Defense Treaty with each other. NUNS called Aerial Knight assistance to deal with a Zentradi fleet. Since the manga is set in 2058 there may be a problem with Lost Zentradi in NUN territories. Sephira was attacked by Lost Zentradi in 2058 or 2059 going by Macross 30. Earth was almost invaded by Anti-Earth and Lost Zentradi with a recovered mobile fortress in 2047.

Given the distance, Lost Zentradi situation, and NUN parliament politics Federal NUNS hands are likely tied.

Edited June 28, 2016 by RedWolf

[d3v]

The water animation was either epic or partly poached from live action footage and spliced nearly seemlessly into the cg. Either way, WELL DONE!

Yeah, either their artists have a very good volumetric particle system for water, or they're compositing in actual footage of water.

[squaresphere]

The complaint about the lack of mecha combat in the atmosphere is amusing. No one has yet proposed the possibility that the WIndermere may be uncomforable with GERWALK or Battroid combat, either in the air or on the ground as we have yet to see them exploit that ability of their variable fighters. ... The Knights are formidable flyers and you can't give them that advantage and hope to survive long Messer seemed very attuned to this fact.

That is a VERY good point. We've seen them use gerwalk mostly for mid air breaking and occasional hovering. Both of which fall in line with their flight superiority doctrine.

If we examine why other pilots have used battroid mode, it's been mostly to kill off their momentum letting other pass them (mid air breaking) or to be used as a "stable" position to shoot down (bringing in head cannons in combination with the gunpod) or launch missiles (armored pack full missile launch). From a maneuverability stand point the only benefit battroid mode has is that it probably falls faster than gerwalk due to the lack of surface area for gliding/air resistance. I honestly don't think the Windemere's would use this as it puts them in a free fall without a lot of maneuverability. Also, if they were to go into a deep dive it's more likely they would use their lil' drakens in rear facing mode to cover their rear like Keith has shown.

All that being said, I'm sure we'll seen the same move Hayate used on Mirage in their training battle used again. ie steep angle shots from a falling position.

[TMBounty_Hunter]

He just expresses the scientists had apparently mentioned the possibility that something like that might happen, collects intelligence, and orders a retreat to get the civilians out of harm's way..

I'm pretty sure you have that last part wrong. Slimey NUNS guys get his data, then orders his own ship to retreat.

It's not until the Song of the Wind starts that the Island sends an SOS because of the Var, it's only then that Chaos is the one to order the evacuation of the civilians.

The episode is very specific in Valan saying RETREAT and disappearing completely from the rest of the episode, while Chaos has to find a way to clean up his mess and actually EVACUATE the civilians.

I really don't understand why some of you are sucking up to the NUNS guy. What you call his "competence" is clearly portrayed by the show as the same evil, selfish high rank military crap as the previous shows.

[TehPW]

I'm pretty sure you have that last part wrong. Slimey NUNS guys get his data, then orders his own ship to retreat.

It's not until the Song of the Wind starts that the Island sends an SOS because of the Var, it's only then that Chaos is the one to order the evacuation of the civilians.

The episode is very specific in Valan saying RETREAT and disappearing completely from the rest of the episode, while Chaos has to find a way to clean up his mess and actually EVACUATE the civilians.

I really don't understand why some of you are sucking up to the NUNS guy. What you call his "competence" is clearly portrayed by the show as the same evil, selfish high rank military crap as the previous shows.

Valen might be thinking bigger things than a few million civilians. Since every other Protoculture device depicted in any Macross series (or game) has been bad for large amounts of space (as someone here on the forums already spculated), he's probably going the route of the needs of the many over the needs of the few...... either that, or he's MD's version of Grace (which still imnplies that he had bigger fish to fry?

[TMBounty_Hunter]

When has the high command ever been portrayed as having the greater good in mind? The common theme has always been snooty officers acting in self-preservation (which is very, very different than "the greater good") while the plucky if occasionally incompetent heroes have to go over their heads to actually save the day.

It would be amusing if Delta actually swayed from that 40+ years of mecha anime history, but really, really unlikely.

Edited June 28, 2016 by TMBounty_Hunter

[SebastianP]

At this point, King Gramia and Keith's instances of prescient tactics seems to confirm one of my early theories about the series. Windermereans are a mildly psychic race in the WH40K sense of the term, connected to a higher dimensional realm of emotion and energy (fold space) and able to sense disruptions in that realm caused by things like starships traveling by space fold, strong emotion, and other individuals with similar talents. Gramia sensed the disruption which was caused by the Macross Elysion's fold jump and knew to move out as a result, and on Ragna they both sensed either Valan's ill will toward them or the fold resonance of the thermonuclear reaction warhead's trigger mechanism and were able to take appropriate actions to counter it as a result.

I think what we're looking at is an enemy that didn't start out being an apocalyptic threat but is quickly approaching that territory. They've subverted the New UN Forces assets for a dozen or so worlds, giving them a relatively big fleet of technically-disposable mind controlled slave soldiers that have access to nasty weapons like thermonuclear reaction warheads and dimension eaters. The Windermereans could conceivably do a LOT of damage if they were so inclined, an amount out of all proportion to their numbers thanks to the weapons they have.

Plus, of course, they have an ancient Protoculture weapons system. That's never been good, historically. Every time some jerkass activates some weapon that the ancient Protoculture left behind, it's literally the end of the world. When the Birdman was woken up, it would've destroyed humanity if its operator hadn't had enough willpower to subvert its program and protect Mayan island. When colonist expeditionaries in the Varauta system found the lab where the Protodeviln were sealed, the end result nearly destroyed all sentient life in the galaxy. Then, naturally, when Col. Todo found the fold evil on Uroboros he nearly wiped out everybody currently alive in the universe by altering history. Whatever Gramia and Roid and co. are waking up, it will turn out to be some galaxy-ending and potentially genocidal stuff.

(Never mind Keith's repeatedly stated desire to commit genocide... he wants to kill every last one of the millions of humans in the Brisingr cluster.)

Remember what I said about reading things that aren't there into the scene? You're doing it again.

Valan never once establishes that his goal was to awaken the ruins, just that he'd been told that there was a possibility that something might happen when the ruins were destroyed.

He ordered the retreat once he saw the plan had gone to smash because, hey, he'd already made it damn clear the previous episode that Ragna's NUNS and Kaos had ZERO chance of winning against Windermere if they were able to leverage the Song of the Wind.

Valan did tell Arad that it wasn't his business when they detonate the bomb, but hey... it's Lady M's fault that the evacuation wasn't completed and the ruins destroyed before Windermere could get there. He followed through with the plan that Lady M and Kaos had rammed down his throat, waiting until Windermere attacked to destroy the ruins. All those deaths are on Lady M's head, for her interference with the operation that forced them to detonate the weapon with the evacuation incomplete and ANYONE in the blast radius.

Ernest is not competent. In fact, it's been officially established in previous episodes that he's actually pretty crappy as a fleet commander, and he totally got schooled by his own student who he'd said was even worse than him. He got MASSIVELY lucky with that shot at the Sigur Valens, but he still took Ragna's best warship out of position and left it unavailable to defend Ragna for almost the entire battle. He got back just in time to take one potshot at Gramia and run the hell away.

You keep trying to misrepresent my position as Valan being a good guy. All I keep saying is he's the only competent soldier in this show. The only one who shows ANY tactical acumen whatsoever. He brought a plan to prevent Gramia from taking over the entire cluster that even Kaos couldn't find serious fault with, acted to minimize collateral damage and civilian casualties, and obeyed the compromise with Lady M in good faith. He also wiped out a good chunk of Windermere's fleet and would have destroyed the Sigur Valens if not for Gramia's prescience and ended the war at a stroke. He still managed to minimize the casualties of the battle, organize a fighting retreat to get the civilians and what remained of the NUNS fleet to safety, AND collected actionable intel about Windermere's new weapon. He may be a smug snake, and even if he turns out to be a bad guy later he's still demonstrated much more competence in command than anyone among the so-called heroes.

Dropping the spoiler protection since the subs have been out for nearly two days.

First of all, Lady M did *not* delay the evacuation. People are still seen evacuating as quickly as possible after we're told Lady M got the go ahead to try their plan first, and the Ragnyanyan kids are still packing up as the Elysion takes off, because everyone knows this is a last-ditch attempt and not a guaranteed success by any means, so blaming her does not work.

Blaming Ernest for setting off the attack early doesn't work either, because how in the blue hells was anyone supposed to know that the Sigur Valens was ready immediately? Every piece of intelligence they had said they'd be forced to stay put for a while to recharge.

No, Valan sits there with his fleet of ships parked over the colony while the battle rages in orbit, and isn't lifting a finger to help, and outright tells Arad that he doesn't care if the evacuation is complete, it's not his problem, nor is the bomb Arad's business. Then he moves his own ships away from the dome as the Sigur Valens approaches, because they're not in the shot where the battle rages above the dome itself. And then he stands there with a very satisfied smirk as he detonates the device, causing massive casualties to his own side, and then he's still smirking when the ruins are *not* destroyed, and goes, "oh, it's exactly like predicted! Save that scan data, and let's get out of here.)

Finally, there's the whole matter of precedent. Previous protoculture ruins seen on the show include the Altira in DYRL, which was mostly inactive; the ruins on Rax in Macross 7; the ruins on Varauta that contained the Protodeviln; the Bird Man in Macross Zero, and the Ouroboros ruins in Macross 30. Three of the five were actively dangerous when awakened and two didn't care one whit about reaction weapons, possibly the third as well if you count the big blast missiles in the game as canon or as just game mechanics. You do not nuke something you don't know the function of, because awakening Space Cthulhu or Space Gojira is a an actual, known-to-be-possible result.

There is no evidence other than his own word that his motivations were anything like what he says they were, and plenty of indication otherwise. He certainly didn't care one at all about the safety of the citizens of the cluster, or he'd have at least ordered his ships to help out in the defense with flak guns or something. Instead, as I said they never fire a shot, and actively move out of the battle zone when it gets closer.

Also, what, in your mind, was Kaos supposed to do at any given point during the show that they didn't do? Tell me that, and I can almost guarantee you I can come up with a completely logical explanation for why Ernest didn't do that. He's a damned good commander, but his force is tiny, it's spread really thin, and only once during the entire show so far has he had a target at which to aim his big guns at.

Get it through your head - Ernest's plans would have worked if it wasn't for the Windermereans having five bullshit tier advantages:

1. Enhanced physical skills and reflexes

2. A home planet that's almost inaccessible to fold travel, and probably requires a local guide

3. The ability to use Var syndrome to mind control people

4. A mobile Protoculture space fortress

5. Goddamned precognition.

And three of these five weren't known of before the show started, which was mere weeks ago IIRC.

[Seto Kaiba]

I'm pretty sure you have that last part wrong. Slimey NUNS guys get his data, then orders his own ship to retreat.

Slight problem with that line of reasoning... or rather, two slight problems.

The first is that it's not actually established which ship he's on... and the NUNS ships floating above the cityship are mysteriously absent before he orders his retreat.

The second is that, within a few minutes of him ordering the retreat the cityship is lifting off and later seen being escorted out of the system by NUNS warships... so he doesn't seem to have retreated alone.

(A technical third is that his forces were apparently still in the fight during the ship's ascent... being that "all defense platoons" participated in the extraction of the ship, and Kaos didn't have nearly that many aircraft aboard the Elysion.)

It's not until the Song of the Wind starts that the Island sends an SOS because of the Var, it's only then that Chaos is the one to order the evacuation of the civilians.

The episode is very specific in Valan saying RETREAT and disappearing completely from the rest of the episode, while Chaos has to find a way to clean up his mess and actually EVACUATE the civilians.

I really don't understand why some of you are sucking up to the NUNS guy. What you call his "competence" is clearly portrayed by the show as the same evil, selfish high rank military crap as the previous shows.

Funnily enough, we keep coming back to the point from the previous episode where the New UN Forces followed the orders they were given to blow the ruins up. Macross Frontier pretty firmly established that the New UN Forces can only employ thermonuclear reaction weaponry with the express consent and authorization of the New UN Government. That means that the government approved and signed off on that whole operation to destroy the ruins before Windermere could attack. Lady M and Kaos stepped in and stopped him from doing his job, arm-twisting the New UN Forces into agreeing to delay the operation to destroy the threat to the lives and liberty of EIGHT BILLION PEOPLE without tabling a single alternative proposal... all in the name of some vain desire to play the hero by launching a solo counterattack on the enemy's fleet in orbit of Al Shahal. Johnson deprived Ragna of the best portion of its defenses, taking Walkure and the Elysion out alone to chase an enemy fleet that outclassed them on practically every level, leaving Ragna with no defense against the tactics that had led to Al Shahal falling in barely fifteen minutes. An entire fleet's fire could barely annoy the Sigur Valens' crew with its dimensional fault barrier up, and Delta Platoon wasn't and isn't anything like a match for most of the Aerial Knights. Johnson and Lady M's counterattack had zero chance of succeeding, and the only thing that prevented it from becoming a complete debacle was that the one lucky shot they got prevented Heinz from singing the Song of the Wind for half an hour or so, giving the New UN Forces the opportunity to try to finish the evacuation and get the hell out.

Major Valan was the one cleaning up a mess... the mess made by the monstrously irresponsible and tactically unsound decisions by Lady M and Captain Ernest Johnson. They blundered headfirst into a trap and left the citizens of Ragna they were contractually bound to defend to flap in the breeze. That got no small number of Ragnans killed, and left the entire Brisingr cluster under the thumb of a genocidal madman and his even more genocidal bastard son.

Yes, we're clearly supposed to interpret Major Valan's opposition to Kaos as the military being nasty, obstructive bureaucrats who care only about themselves. The problem is that this falls completely flat like so many of Delta's other attempts to jerk our heartstrings (most of which involve Messer). When Major Valan told them the plan, they all but admitted it was in fact the best plan under the circumstances and weren't able to raise any alternative proposals. Then, when Lady M poked her oar in and demanded they delay the operation he complied in good faith and not only held off detonating the warhead as long he he could... but also managed to use the detonation to take down a good chunk of Windermere's forces after Kaos screwed up and left Ragna all but defenseless because Johnson had a bad case of Leeroy Jenkins. That all rather significantly undermined the "he's a big meanie" position we were supposed to internalize. Instead of being an a-hole, he came across as being a "good is not nice" officer who apparently gave more of a toss about preventing an attack on Ragna than Kaos did.

[Rbstr]

Ernest's plans would have worked

It was the smart choice in terms of trying to hit the Windies, for sure. Everyone seems to think the Windermere forces were not steamrolling the entire cluster with mindcontrol at a rate far beyond what Xaos was capable of dealing with. The whole point is that this was a last-hope desperation kind of plan where the other options were "Run away and nuke our planet into the total unknown" or "Wait for them to be even more powerful and fight them here"

Lets divide pros/cons into what we know before the episode and after so we're not so clouded by hindsight.

Before:

Can't sing more than once in about 24hours - They just used it, this is the best time possible according to the previous encounters. Waiting at Ragna means a sure-lose situation against the fully buffed Windies.

Can't hit the home planet - Windies brought all their guns to the fight at an accessible location presenting an opportunity they've never seen.

Bombing the ruins is a complete unknown - Yes, they seem to be the primary Windie target. There's no reason to believe destroying them wins the war (The windies are already winning even without these ruins) it goes all the way down the the core and has unknown ramifications. Protoculture ruins are russian roulette of space-evil. It's clearly a final option once you've exhausted the others, not a preventative measure.

Given these things it makes a ton of sense to postpone bombing the ruins. You have no idea what'll happen if you do and you have a chance at winning the war if you strike. The bomb just prevents them from reaching one catastrophic goal - Windermere has been winning the war hanidly, with or without Ragna's ruins. Plus, if the battle at Al Shahal goes bad you can still blow the bomb up.

After the episode:

The 24hour safe time was wrong - Intelligence was wrong. Ranga was toast whatever Xaos did. Hindsight says they should have packed up and fled and blown up the bomb (but the bomb would have been in vain, see subsequent point).

Windie precognition - not much you can do about that, it's a pretty big Windie advantage.

Walkure wasn't enough to keep NUNS forces from turning throughout most of the fight.

Windie forces were winning, even without the song amp being inoperable for some time. (something that would not have been the case w/o The Elysion's attack - no attack the Windies get to go in with full song amp, full dimension barrier and monster brainwashing power)

Bombing the ruins did not do what was said on the tin - It didn't ruin the Windies' day, might have even helped them. It also turns out that NUNS had an ulterior motive. Critically he notes the bombing went as was predicted. The implication is, very clearly, that he wasn't really trying to help and acting under other motivations.

All that basically means, regardless of what Ernest did, they would have lost. Elysion staying at Ranga would have done nothing except allow the SV time to come in when it was ready to rock and steamroll the planet. Plus blowing up the ruins looks like it might have actually hurt the good guys

Edited June 28, 2016 by Rbstr

[TMBounty_Hunter]

You keep saying Valan was cleaning up which is completely and utterly untrue.

Blowing up the ruins HELPED Windemere, not hindered them. He didn't seem in any way phased by that. And after that he frakks off.

Do we see him taking command of the defense? No.

Do we see him concerned with anything but high short-sighted plan of blowing up the ruins? No.

Do we see him taking responsibility afterwards? No.

Do we see him actively leading the evacuation? No.

It's just "got my data and bye lol"

Stereotypical slimy higher up stereotypically makes the situation worse and stereotypically run away from the consequences.

Unless we start next episode with Valan actually leading the escaped fleet and island, you're very much wrong about his competence.

The likelier option is that we start next episode with the heroes mainly left to fend for themselves while maybe an episode later stereotypical slimy higher up is in a stereotypical dark room looking at a monitor with the report of the incident and getting an evil grin about how they can stereotypically make the situation even worse later by messing with the ruins again.

I get that you're unhappy with the main cast not performing or developing in a better way, but there's zero reason to polish the Valan turd.

Edited June 28, 2016 by TMBounty_Hunter

[Zinjo]

That's a very "stereotypical" thing to say TMBounty...

It was the smart choice in terms of trying to hit the Windies, for sure. Everyone seems to think the Windermere forces were not steamrolling the entire cluster with mindcontrol at a rate far beyond what Xaos was capable of dealing with. The whole point is that this was a last-hope desperation kind of plan where the other options were "Run away and nuke our planet into the total unknown" or "Wait for them to be even more powerful and fight them here"
Lets divide pros/cons into what we know before the episode and after so we're not so clouded by hindsight.
Before:
Can't sing more than once in about 24hours - They just used it, this is the best time possible according to the previous encounters. Waiting at Ragna means a sure-lose situation against the fully buffed Windies.
Can't hit the home planet - Windies brought all their guns to the fight at an accessible location presenting an opportunity they've never seen.
Bombing the ruins is a complete unknown - Yes, they seem to be the primary Windie target. There's no reason to believe destroying them wins the war (The windies are already winning even without these ruins) it goes all the way down the the core and has unknown ramifications. Protoculture ruins are russian roulette of space-evil. It's clearly a final option once you've exhausted the others, not a preventative measure.

Given these things it makes a ton of sense to postpone bombing the ruins. You have no idea what'll happen if you do and you have a chance at winning the war if you strike. The bomb just prevents them from reaching one catastrophic goal - Windermere has been winning the war hanidly, with or without Ragna's ruins. Plus, if the battle at Al Shahal goes bad you can still blow the bomb up.


After the episode:
The 24hour safe time was wrong - Intelligence was wrong. Ranga was toast whatever Xaos did. Hindsight says they should have packed up and fled and blown up the bomb (but the bomb would have been in vain, see subsequent point).
Windie precognition - not much you can do about that, it's a pretty big Windie advantage.
Walkure wasn't enough to keep NUNS forces from turning throughout most of the fight.
Windie forces were winning, even without the song amp being inoperable for some time. (something that would not have been the case w/o The Elysion's attack - no attack the Windies get to go in with full song amp, full dimension barrier and monster brainwashing power)
Bombing the ruins did not do what was said on the tin - It didn't ruin the Windies' day, might have even helped them. It also turns out that NUNS had an ulterior motive. Critically he notes the bombing went as was predicted. The implication is, very clearly, that he wasn't really trying to help and acting under other motivations.

All that basically means, regardless of what Ernest did, they would have lost. Elysion staying at Ranga would have done nothing except allow the SV time to come in when it was ready to rock and steamroll the planet. Plus blowing up the ruins looks like it might have actually hurt the good guys

As strong an argument Seto makes, I have to agree with Rbstr here, though the Major's motivations are not very clear at this point.

Based on the intelligence available at the time, any tactical decision would have been a no win situation for Chaos and perhaps worse for a NUNS task force based on what we've learned about the strategically placed Windermeran foods.

On that last point, the PC ruins water tables must be interacting with other foods all over the Galaxy to produce var outbreaks outside the cluster.

Edited June 28, 2016 by Zinjo

[Product9]

So, I've been thinking about the pieces we have been presented with so far and have some thoughts to share.

After this episode, I'm pretty sure the NUNS is in league with Windermere. The whole plan to blow up the ruins on Ragna seems to have been orchestrated specifically to help Windermere, not stop them.

When the bomb is about to blow, Gramia acts like everything is going according to plan. It doesn't look like precognition... he isn't surprised like he would be if his spidey sense was suddenly tingling. It was more like "it's time for the bomb to go off, so focus our defenses in that direction."

Now, you may then ask, why would he allow his fleet to be destroyed? Because it's a conspiracy. He sacrificed his fleet to keep up the charade that NUNS is evil and will stop at nothing to be evil, just like he has been doing with the 'scar' on Windermere.

Which leads me to the next point: the scar on Windermere. It was clearly caused by a nuke or a dimension weapon, allegedly because the NUNS are bad guys who like to blow up mountains for no reason. This has been the biggest propaganda tool for getting Windermere into the war, but why did it actually happen? Well, when the nuke on Ragna went off it exposed something unexpected - a protoculture thingy that is probably important or something. Could it be the same thing happened on Windermere? Did they blow up something to get something else to appear? Like that ship maybe? Then they blamed NUNS for it to get the invasion plot going. Maybe moving the ship caused some additional problems. Admittedly, it would be pretty hard to hide that from the people on Windermere... and maybe Freja saw something she wasn't supposed to.

So, with what happened on Windermere, and what happened on Ragna, added to Gramia's levelheadedness and weasel face NUNS guy being a weasel face, it seems pretty clear there's a conspiracy going on that involves those parties. Everything was orchestrated to work out this way for Windermere. I don't know what NUNS stands to gain (or, more likely, some higher-ups in NUNS a la the Galaxy fleet leadership), but that's probably going to be revealed later. Also, it probably took some inside people in the NUNS to distribute the apples and drug water that made the Var possible to begin with.

It's pretty similar to Frontier actually, where you had people in both the Galaxy and Frontier government exploiting something (Vajra then, Protoculture remnants now) for their gain, with a third party PMC standing in between. Only, Xaos isn't SMS, so it's more a little more dire.

Only, now Gramia is toast. Though, did we see him getting toasted? Or did Roid take the opportunity to toast the guy himself?

Then again, this whole thing could have just been Gramia really wanting to get his hands on that limited edition display stand for his 144/1 scale Protoculture warship.

Edit: BY THE WAY

I am re-watching episode 12 right now, and Ernest started evacuating the civilians before weasel man even showed up.

Edit 2: And furthermore:

When Keith asks Gramia when they should strike Ragna (I think he said something to the effect of "we can strike them at any time"), he's like "not yet, something something wind" with no concrete reason as to why they are waiting. Then the NUNS agrees to wait for the attack operation to happen before they detonate the nuke. So, they could have easily informed Gramia when the attack would happen, giving him the opportunity to not only avoid Elysion, but also arrive just in time for the fireworks.

If this is indeed the case, then Johnson is actually one hell of a commander, because he thwarts Gramia not once, but twice with nothing but pure timing and skill. Three times if you count him getting Walkure back to Ragna so quickly.

Heh, Walkure.. Var-cure. Silly.

Edited June 28, 2016 by Product9