Another DCSS spreadsheet update… and Longcat’s!!

Yet again, just a tiny little post, updating the spreadsheet once more.

After request for what other features that were wanted on the Crawl forums, spells seemed to be next choice. This took alot of work, as there 134 spells in Crawl that I had to chronicle (no kidding!), so here we are, 20 days later.

Check it out:
Spells are organised by Level, and then alphabetically. Notes are compiled mostly from personal experience and the Knowledge Bots. Each spell has all of its related skill groups, which books it is in, and the backgrounds that start with it (if applicable). A few tweaks were also made the base sheet to correct a couple of errors.

Get the New Version HERE!

Also today, I was dicking around making a new version of the eternal Longcat vs. Tacgnol wallpaper that I made way back in 2010. The old version can be found here. Here it is:
Tokyo is under attack once more! The main improvements are mostly to Tacgnol, who got some much better purple lightning and is being futilely attacked by a wing of F-22’s now. Different panorama, too, now the Tokyo Tower is up in flames!!!

I’ll admit that Longcat was mostly just cut and pasted across. He was pretty good before. Tacgnol now seems to be winning in this picture. And it seems that neither can aim correctly, still. 😀

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Visual Novel Diary: Galaxy Angel

Well, its been far too long since I last did a VN diary. To be fair, this is mainly due to having not too many to play, and also due to my work commitments, but even so.

Anyway, Aroduc is responsible for this Galaxy Angel translation; his next translation project after Battle Moon Wars was done and dusted (well, this and Daibanchou), so hats off to him as always. The patch is basically complete at its 0.98 version; which is just missing the fmv subtitles (I think) as far as I can tell.

So, some of you might be familiar with the Galaxy Angel anime and its spinoffs, right? Well, they have absolutely NOTHING to do with the games on which they are based, much to my surprise. Besides the characters and universe setting, that is. The game is an intergalactic war story; with you protecting the last heir of the Transbaal Empire, Prince Shiva, from certain death as you retreat from the villanous usurper of the throne, Eonia and his creepy loli pet Noa.

As a game; its what happens if you take Homeworld, slam it into a squad based strategy RPG, and add a well executed non-H visual novel as topping. It sounds like an eclectic mix, and it is, but its certainly one that works a charm:

You play as Tact Meyers, Colonel of a outlying fleet that is suddenly put in command of the Empire’s top of the range prototypes, the Emblem Frames, born of lost technology and piloted by a bevy of lovely young ladies who form the Angel Wing.

Each chapter has several VN sections that give way to a bunch of space battles. Space battles occur on a full 3d plane; as you might expect:

The Elsior is Tact’s flagship from the second chapter, seen here, unloading its main batteries into a frigate. Despite its looks and apparent status as top of the line battleship though, most missions involve protecting the Elsior, which rarely sees a good fight despite its excellent range, due to its low speed, surprisingly low durability, and the fact that the angels typically outclass the massive warship. (!)

These sections are very reminiscient of playing Homeworld, but there is no resource management. The only focus is on your movement and strategy and keeping the Angels alive long enough for them to whup the enemy into shape. The interface for this is pretty good, all in all, since there’s the ability to pause and give commands with hotkeys, which I liked (and is a lifesaver) at several harsher moments of battle.

Since Emblem Frames apparently grow in power in relation to their pilots mental state, Tact’s duty as the Angel Wing commander is to ensure all of the ladies are as happy as they can be! Talk about a cushy military assignment! As a result, in each of the downtime periods between fights, you get to wander the ship and chat to the ladies:

But of course, you typically only get six picks in each downtime; so theres alot of time management. On top of that, there’s often a multiple choice question in each of the scenes; and choosing the correct response is what causes the ladies to like you more. Naturally, showing courage and tenacity are nearly always positive; but each girl has certain needs you should tune into as well:

Each Angel also pilots a unique emblem frame, and its quite true that making them happy affects the ships. As affection goes up, the Angels start to get pretty serious buffs for combat, and the girl you eventually select as your valentine gets truly obscene bonuses and turns into a death machine.

If you’ve seen the anime, you should be familiar with the girls, but their units are of interest for me to discuss here, so I’ll do a bit of both, going top to bottom, left to right:

Ranpha is the tsundere that loves fitness and fortune telling as well as exuberant girly things (she has a streak of ojou-sama, and pulls out ~the laugh~ every so often to prove it). She doesn’t like to show weakness to others (especially Tact) and initially despises him, though she does a hilariously amusing turnabout if you pick up the right events.
Her Emblem Frame is the Kung-Fu-Fighter, which is intially a Fragile Speedster, but turns into a Glass Cannon if you get up her affection. She gets into trouble easily due to her vastly outstipping the others in speed; but can really clock up kills too. She has dual vulcan cannons and a single launcher, and her ultimate weapons shoots two rending claws; each of which literally destroy 1/2 of the targets max. health; making it a pretty much guaranteed kill, though only single target unlike some of the other specials.

Ranpha on her attack pass; she loves to play chicken with cruisers!

Mint is the telepathic refugee noble girl who joined the military to escape her father and his overbearing mercantile roots. She has a great fondness for tea and sweets; as well as honesty. She has a secret hobby of dressing up in weird cosplay outfits.
Her Emblem Frame is the Trick Master, which is the Carrier type. Its marginally faster than Happy Trigger; but offsets its mediocre speed and average armament of a couple of launchers by having a wing of ion cannon drones that independently attack the target, allowing her omnidirectional coverage and high accuracy. Her special is to launch all her drones at once which spam beams at everything in an area of effect. If you’re lucky, this can be the best offensive special as the enemies often fly in formations.

Milfie is the genki air-head girl with ‘ideal wife’ characteristics (loves to cook and clean). She also has extreme luck; which swings from obscenely good to terrifyingly bad (she wins the lottery 1st prize five times in a row and then nearly causes a forest fire the same day!).
Her Emblem Frame is the Lucky Star (LOL) which has high speed and is above average in most other things, sporting a good selection of mass drivers and missiles; and she has a giant pink laser as her ultimate weapon that literally destroys anything in a line in front of it, across the ENTIRE map. Sadly, only a few enemy fleets dutifully line up for her to take advantage of this.

Milfie’s Pink Laser of Death. What you don’t see is that health bar suddenly reduce to zero and the mobile battle platform exploding about 1.2 seconds after this screencap.

Forte is the ‘big sister’ character, stern and wise yet flirtateous and stunning at the same time. She’s the nominal squad leader of the angels, as the oldest and only one who’s a 1st Lieutenant. She also loves gunpowder guns in an age that has embraced energy weapons; and has a huge selection. She is perhaps the most grounded one of the Wing.
Her Emblem Frame is the Happy Trigger, which is the Tank. Its the slowest by far, but its a gunship that’s bristling with about eight launchers and at least 5 mass drivers, allowing her to seriously lay smackdown onto whatever wanders into her sights. She has no unique weapon; her special is to simply boost and discharge her entire arsenal in a single huge barrage. Since each weapon gets a big accuracy boost as part of this attack, its usually pretty decent damage.

Vanilla is a hardworking silent girl that is uncomfortable in social situations, but she becomes vastly more vocal as the game progresses, especially with the right events. She controls nano-machines and loves animals; and devotes most of her time to earnestly helping others in need to her own detriment.
Her Emblem Frame is the Harvester, which has the highest defence and is the only one with the ability to repair the others (but she can’t repair Tact’s Elsior). She also has a decent rack of swarmer missles and a cannon or two, and is average elsewhere. Her special is a total lifesaver, sending a huge wave of repairing nanomachines that give a full-heal to all of angel-wing, no matter where they are on the map.

Vanilla goes in to support Milfie’s dogfight. The missile barrage is about to begin.

Of course, as already noted, your favourite girl becomes a death machine regardless of her usual battle role, however:

This was shortly after I started heading up the Vanilla Route; and as you can see, she went on a bit of rampage. To give perspective; in Vanillas case here, with the love buff all her swarmers suddenly guarantee a hit and each does a bucket of damage, and she charges up her map-wide full heal continually, which makes everything a bit hilariously easy if you do the same as me. I’ve heard the others get similar huge leaps in power, like Ranpha dodges everything and decimates battleships in a single pass; Mint’s drones go mental and so on.

Well, I think that just about covers it all. Hope you enjoyed this little soujorn and tune in again soon!

EDIT: And just a quick edit; to showcase the Vanilla End:

Dawww! Vanilla melts me with her cuteness. An amusing reversal, ne?

I guess I’ll head back and do the Ranpha route next since I like my Tsundere’s almost as much as my hard-shelled girls.

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Retro Diary: Millenium 2.2

Here’s something old I decided to return to. Recently, I decided to re-indulge in some retro goodness, and of course, my first stop was grabbing the STeem engine to play Atari ST games, which I grew up with as a nipper.

Specifically, Millenium 2.2 holds absolutely fabulous memories for me: it’s the first game I ever completed (at 7 years old!), so I decided it would be a good test experiment for this, a ‘retro-diary’ type post that is similar to my old ‘visual-novel diary’ posts. The slight difference in this case is that; because there is distinct lack of info for this around (which I feel is a travesty), I’ll also put up a summary and strategy guide.

Introduction

So what’s this game? I guess its an early prototype of a 4x type space strategy sim. Basically, on the 30th of January 2200 the Earth suffers a huge environmental catastrophe, annihilating the billions living there. You are the commander of the Moon Base, whose 100 souls represent the entire remains of human race:

As you might imagine, your objective is to cure the environment of earth and make it re-habitable. Of course, its not simple:

Earth is pretty much fucked. What actually happened is anyone’s guess (they might have told you in manual, but I don’t remember, since I was 7 when I read it last…lol). And that’s not all. Just in case you actually try to move a finger:

In other words, the martians, whom have had their genetic stock mutated, nevertheless feel it is their right to have to have the Earth; and instantly go to war with you over it. Twats.

Build me a base

Of course, initially, the Moon Base is in a pretty shoddy state as well. Your first goal is upgrade your ability to produce power and resources. You have a measly super battery pack to start, the SolaGen MkI, so kick your scientists to start researching better options. In the meantime, you also want to start mining and think about building a probe to find out just what went down on Earth. The early game is about juggling your power resources as, usually, you can’t run the mineral refinery and the production centre at the same time. Your early production of photovoltaic cells is also shoddy, and your first set of solar panels is often liable to explode (!). Although [Spoiler: This is a scripted event that can be dodged if you’re intelligent…].  Anyway, with a little time, you should be able to research and hold a decent staple of Solagen MkV or so:

After that stability, you can look into better exploration of the system. For this, you’ll need to build an automated probe for each moon or planet you wish to survey and send it on its way:

You’ll also need to start researching other kinds of transportation; starting with Grazers and Waveriders, though this is discussed later.

The War on Mars

Also, the Martians are very serious in their threat to attack you. You absolutely mustn’t forget to spend some time looking into constructing some defensive weaponry. You can build Fighters immediately, and having a bunch of them is highly recommended. Though the early attacks will be merely one of two ships, you actually pilot the defense yourself (apparently your commander is multitalented!) in a rather primitive 3d dual against an enemy ship:

This can be a bit tough your first few times, as you pilot with the mouse, so you may lose a couple of your fighters. Eventually, you’ll get the hang of it though; its really mainly lining up the correct axis and holding down the shoot mouse button.

Unfortunately, it seems that no-one else ever bothers to pilot fighters…so you have to deal with the rather ridiculous thing of continually landing and taking off again. It can be taxing, dealing with waves of enemies like this, and you also have a time limit. I’ve personally never managed to best more than about 8 enemy fighters before they reach an attack vector (whereupon they’ll kill a chunk of your population, destroy mineral stores, and wreck your power generators). Whilst you’ll only see stragglers to begin with, it eventually becomes impossible to avoid damage, so upgrading your defence is a high priority.

Fortifications

So, that means one thing: orbital laser platforms. These sweet things can be researched immediately, but not built, because the Moon does not have a good source of radioactives (i.e. Uranium). Hence, things start to come together: your next priority is finding a place that can mine Uranium before the Martians become overwhelming. [SPOILER: The most efficient option is Jupiters Moon, Leda. It’s fairly close by and also provides Copper which you need for your space fleet. Even if you know this from me, you’ll still need to send a probe first, mind you..].

To do that, you’ll need a Colony (S.I.O.S.) and a means to ferry supplies around (Waveriders & Carracks). This is the start of your transport fleet. Of course, to build these, you need Copper for both and S.I.O.S. also needs a stack of Platinum. Neither of which are available on the moon. This is where the Grazer I mentioned earlier comes in:

Basically a huge grapple and tug with a cockpit, you can send these to the Asteroid belt, where they scan for good sized ‘roids and tug them back, complete with their wealth in resources. This is the only means to get Copper and Platinum until you establish colonies that can mine this.

Also, once you’re a bit more stable, with Fighters, you’ll perhaps want to look at expanding the Moon’s population capacity by building Nodules, which attach to this main module:

You can eventually have up to 600 people, which marginally increases production/mining performance, and perhaps more importantly gives you a larger pool of population to use on crewing ships (they can pilot normal ships well, it seems, just not fighters, sigh).

Fortunately for you as well, the population breeds ridiculously quickly. Seems like about 1 new person every couple of days (!). Perhaps clones are involved (?).

Anyway, it might take you a year or so of game time to get fortified and build your first colony:

Colonies cannot produce or research, so you’ll need to send SolaGen’s to them for power, as well as defences. Waveriders are great for quickly shuttling small bits of equipment to the outworlds, like lighter weight SolaGen’s and single Fighters or Laser Platforms. SolaGen MkIV’s are sufficient for Jupiter’s moons, fortunately, but the further out you go, the less energy solar generators make (obviously). You’ll need the vast storage space of Carracks to shuttle larger generators to Saturnian moons and further colonies.

Its worth it, though:

Take that, you fiends! It’s terribly fun to hear that laser charging sound and then see a silent radar as a result. BANG!

Orbital Lasers will easily take out 5-15 enemy ships per shot of their Valefor laser. Unfortunately, doing so always causes them to overload and explode, so they’re disposables. Since they can be precious early on until you have lots of Uranium, take out the vanguard of the attackers with their shot and mop up stragglers with your immense piloting skills in a fighter. LOL.

What Next?

Well, I don’t want to spoil anything further, but continue to develop your colonies and obtain all the missing resources. You’ll eventually need Silver and Chromium, which are pretty rare and hard to find. There’s also a few more scripted events for you to look into as well. Having a diverse transport fleet helps later on. You’ll also notice that certain places have strange effects on your colonists, causing them to mutate into new strains of human (like the martians have already done). Of course, these ones are under your control and benevolent [SPOILER: Well, until the sequel to this game, Deuteros, anyway. Methanoid bastards.].

Other Stuff

This game and its sequel, Deuteros, are the brainchilds of Ian Bird. He also went on to make Millenia: Altered Destinies, for DOS in the mid 90’s, but that marks the end of his original produce as far as I’m aware. (This is also an amazing game that involves dicking around with time, though hardly anyone has heard of it~ it doesn’t even have an entry on GameFAQ’s…though you can watch a rather silly video review on Youtube)

In the days of yore, my old geocities site actually had a downloadable copy of millenium (which is considerable abandonware); but of course, that’s long gone now. Instead I point you to here and here, where you can download Roms of the game’s two floppy disks. You’ll need an emulator, like STeem, and a relevant TOS, to play.

Anyway, I hope you’ve enjoyed this blast to the past.

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Longcat vs. Tacgnol: The Eternal Struggle

Yes, yes, I decided to craft a new, very pointless wallpaper.

As always, click the above to see full size.

Inspired by the ever famous dueling Longcat vs. Tacgnol image. I decided to do the scene five minutes into the duel. Mainly to play around with visual effects.

The scene? Tokyo, of course. Its like a rule that apocalyptic fights take place there. Specifically, this is was a panorama of Shinjuku. I decided that Longcat’s weapon of choice was the classic holy beam laser, and Tacgnol would probably favour dark purple vector lightning. Apparently, neither of them are very good shots, though, considering the devastation that they’ve created. LOL.

If you’re not aware, Longcat and his Nemesis are classic 4chan memes/gags. The White and Black cats of indeterminate length locked in an eternal struggle for supremacy. The above are real life cats with a penchant for stretching their bodies held up by their owners. This whole meme is the source of the longcat is long nonsense too. Heh, it’s amazing how much random crap the internet can generate, isn’t it? Still, due to my general love of kitties, I’ve always found it amusing.

I’ve been distracted doing alot of tasks recently, as well as games (including the newly released Etrian Odyssey III, which I’m crazy enough to try playing in Japanese like I did with 7th Dragon…LOL). An

Anyway, its just a short post as there’s not alot else for today.

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The Bitch is Back (Haruhi Returns…)

Haruhi is actually a Ninja, dont’cha know?

Because, in one of those seriously true to life “Sneak Attack!” moments, yesterday had the airing of a completely new episode of the Melancoly of Haruhi Suzumiya. 2-chan apparently went crazy (not that I was there to check). Props to Kadokawa for actually managing to keep the secret under wraps sufficiently long enough to pull off such a secretive strike as this, since if your anime knowledge is up to par, you’ll know very well that Haruhi is perhaps one of the most overhyped series in existance (and is also the subject of the infamous ‘dancing’ anime joke/mistake in Newtype; because of its OP and ED sequences).

Of course, when it started airing on TV again (the old series, that is) most people just suspected they were doing what they were supposed to do at the start, and actually airing it in the correct chronological order (which they were). But instead, they chose to insert new content in the process.

So yeah, this is not a new season per se. Its actually adding things I believe that were missed out from the conversion from the light novels. (though I haven’t read those)

Which of course plays merry hell in fitting the already convuluted first season into the proceedings, since this changes the entire ordering yet again (nightmarish for people like me that like to keep ordered anime archives…)

The old ordering of the episodes we once had (the Actual Ordering of 2006 Series) was:
2, 3, 5, 10, 13, 14, 4, 7, 6, 8, 1, 12, 11, 9.

Now, of course, in the panic, now the cats out of the bag, someone managed to find a leaked schedule of the new season, which is:

Chronological Ordering with New 2009 Series

New Season Air/ Actual Ep No./ Title (Previous Ep No. or NEW)

Apr 02/ ep01/ The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya 1 (Ep2)
Apr 09/ ep02/ The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya 2 (Ep3)
Apr 16/ ep03/ The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya 3 (Ep5)
Apr 23/ ep04/ The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya 4 (Ep10)
Apr 30/ ep05/ The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya 5 (Ep13)
May 07/ ep06/ The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya 6 (Ep14)
May 14/ ep07/ The Boredom of Haruhi Suzumiya (Ep4)
May 21/ ep08/ Bamboo Leaf Rhapsody (New)  <—Just aired
May 28/ ep09/ Mysterique Sign (Ep7)
Jun 04/ ep10/ Remote Island Syndrome Part1 (Ep6)
Jun 11/ ep11/ Remote Island Syndrome Part2 (Ep8)
Jun 18/ ep12/ Endless Eight (New)
Jun 25/ ep13/ The Sigh of Haruhi Suzumiya 1 (New)
Jul 02/ ep14/ The Sigh of Haruhi Suzumiya 2 (New)
Jul 09/ ep15/ The Sigh of Haruhi Suzumiya 3 (New)
Jul 16/ ep16/ The Sigh of Haruhi Suzumiya 4 (New)
Jul 23/ ep17/ The Adventures of Asahina Mikuru Episode Zero (Ep1)
Jul 30/ ep18/ Live A Live (Ep12)
Aug 07/ ep19/ The Day of Sagittarius (Ep11)
Aug 14/ ep20/ Someday in the rain (Ep9)
Aug 21/ ep21/ The Vanishment of Haruhi Suzumiya 1 (New)
Aug 28/ ep22/ The Vanishment of Haruhi Suzumiya 2 (New)
Sep 03/ ep23/ The Vanishment of Haruhi Suzumiya 3 (New)
Sep 10/ ep24/ The Vanishment of Haruhi Suzumiya 4 (New)
Sep 17/ ep25/ The Vanishment of Haruhi Suzumiya 5 (New)
Sep 24/ ep26/ Charmed at First Sight Lover (New)
Oct 01/ ep27/ Snow Mountain Syndrome Pt 1 (New)
Oct 08/ ep28/ Snow Mountain Syndrome Pt 2 (New)

As you can see from the above, there’s now not actually going to another ‘new’ episode until June 18th. Of course, given the mystery source, we have no idea if the above is actually accurate. But anyway.

Yessiree, your beatch is back. Place your tray tables into the upright position and prepare for a sh*tstorm.

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Tytania 7-8

(sigh)  Looks like this is going to be my main style of posting when I’m as busy as I always seem to be these days. So yah, another double whammy post. I actually kinda like doing them this way anyhow.

In any case, Tytania seems to like pretty much setting up two-parters. Episode 7-8, like 5-6, form a set, this time focusing back on Fan Hulick and the Red Flag army.

Episode 7 opens with Fan finding Alan in the ships bar angsting over all the money he lost now that Miranda has yoinked him into her service.

An alarm goes off in the midst of their conversation. Running to the bridge, they find a pirate ship is threatening them. Turns out its an escapee from Turanjia/Tyrandia, the kingdom that was destroyed in the previous arc. Fan says its best to run; and Miranda does so. His deduction is correct, as the ship threatening them is really just blowing hot air, and has no ammunition nor capicitors left, and cannot make chase.

Arriving at their next delivery spot, and a place to refuel, Miranda is shocked to find this planet, which was once known as an economic paradise, is now in ruins with homeless kids everywhere; and that they were attacked by an unnamed party.

The kids make off with Miranda’s wallet. Alan tries to stop them, but she calls him off. He curses and says she doesn’t appreciate the value of money (jeez he’s quite the capitalist!).

Going to her usual fuel supplier, she finds him charging a ludicrous sum. Apparently, this planets economy has really gone down the toilet. He does however recommend she contacts Doorman. Miranda tells Fan that this is leader of the local pirates. This planet once was, and still is, a base for their operations.

When they get the place, Doorman is making a rallying speech. Turns out he was once a famous businessman or something.

He is proclaiming they should take advantage of Tyrandias defeat and use the wake of the chaos to attack a local Tytantian fortress. They have numbers and everything. His speech is cut up by a guy called Dr. Lee Zhang-Chen, who says that this plan is foolishness, and leaves, refusing to be a part of it:

He’s a doctor of philosophy by the way (LOL) with an apparent attitude problem (but is a certified genius, isn’t it always the way, ne?)

Anyway, after the speech, Miranda meets with Doorman. It doesn’t take long for Fan to be recognised as the hero of Cerberus again.

And naturally, Doorman wastes no time in trying to recruit him. But Fan, being his usual self, decides sitting on the fence is the best idea. Or perhaps he knows more than he lets on…

Doorman also co-operates in refueling and restocking the Honest Old Man for Miranda. It obviously a less than subtle bribe to Miranda to try and take Fan, but he remains (deliberately, I’m sure) oblivious to it.

Nevertheless, the Pirate attack goes ahead on the fortress. Though Lord Zalish (the beardy guy) has posted one of his ‘best’ subordinates there, they stand no chance with 300 strong Tytania reserve garrison vs. 3,000 battle hardened pirates and the base falls promptly.

This is obviously not Sparta, or the 300 would have won, LOL.

Despite this victory, Fan is still dubious about joining this pirate army.

Moving onto Episode 8, Fan is again yoinked by Doorman in a recruiting attempt whilst Miranda is loading the supplies onto her ship. He introduces him to 3 other generals, and boasts about their victories and how this has swung even more forces their way:

However, again, Fan says he needs some time to think about the proposal.

Alan thinks Fan is crazy to pass up an offer to join a conquering fleet as its premium general. But, Fan recognises he is being used, and also realises the same thing that Lord Jouslain did just moments before, that flies are difficult to swat when they move around. But what if gather them all in one location?

Yup, talk about killing 5,000 birds with one stone. He tells Miranda that he’s sticking with her for now and that they should leave this sinking ship ASAP.

Doorman is discussing with his other generals how they’re gonna be fine even if the Tytanian’s attack. Then he gets a call telling him Fan has skipped town and looks distraught.

Are you sure this guy worked in business? That you should never place your faith in uncertain factors is surely common commerical sense… Idiot…

Nevertheless, the other generals come up with a plan. They call it a hedgehog formation, and its a strategy based upon using the Fortress as a shield against attackers, under the assumption that Tytania wants to keep their fortress intact. Obviously, they still haven’t realised what Fan and Dr. Chen did last episode; that pirates shouldn’t rely on brute force over guerilla tactics for their objectives. Idiots. (again…)

We skip back to Princess Lydia at this point:

She’s covering up her antennae this episode with a hat, LOL. Turns out her father is shielding the escapees from the destroyed Tytanian fortress. But it was a difficult decision for him, since he doesn’t know if the pirates would see it as a threat.

Meanwhile, Zalish has been dispatched to deal with the pirates, and Ajman thinks his brother is planning a coup’d etat against him. Or at least Idris is convinced of this. As a result, Jouslain is assigned as Zalish’s backup command and is in turn told to command Marquess Estrates son to be his assistant as, technically, a hostage of sorts in case things go pear shaped:

The pirates discuss attacking Lydia’s homeworld after learning that they shielded the Tytanian refugees. But Zalish’s incoming fleet is more important.

Zalish looks a bit of loon here, doesn’t he?

Naturally he doesn’t slow the fleet or the bombardment one little bit because of the fortress being in the way, so the fact that all the foes ships are in one place is practically asking for them to be killed.

On a side note, why does the so called evil empire use the blue ion cannons? Surely, its an established fact that the so called goodies have dibs on those, right? Hahahaha…

Question: What happens when a hedgehog meets a speeding artillery shell?

——————————————————-

If you answered “Squishy Parts and Gibs!”, you’re correct! Have a cookie!

So the Pirates are totally pwned by Zalish’s brutal battering ram strategy. Naturally, the fortress is blown to high heaven as well. So much for that moronic hedgehog strategy.

Evidently, the real reason Tytania is in charge in this galaxy is because everyone else doesn’t bother sending their general’s to actually STUDY tactics. Even Euria assigned Fan on the assumption he’d cock up at the battle of Cerberus, but they screwed up worse because they didn’t notice he was a natural genius. Idiots.

Miranda’s ship picks up Dr. Chen Lee again. He recognises Fan as a fellow genius, and correctly points out that there is no value in the man himself, just the seeds of hope for a different future.

Switch back to the Kingdom of Elbing (Lydia-Land), where we actually see her father the king for the first time. He is having quite a problem. Seems like Tytania expected him to defend the fortress before or something, but instead he merely sheltered the evacuees. In response, they’ve partially forgiven him, but in return want to take Elbing’s energy mine as a sign of their true loyal intentions.

This is a no-no, because it will bankrupt the kingdom entirely. Even Lydia knows this. So he’s stuck in a lose-lose situation (Bankruptcy and suffering people or Blown to Hell and suffering people, ow). However, Lydia, realising this is a test of loyalty, offers an alternative solution:

These last few episodes have served to demonstrate her impeccable moral character with her random scenes, but this really took the cake. What a honorable little girl she is!

Not to mention it looks like she’s actually going to involved in the main plot more properly now, which is cool.

Well, I’m still impressed with this shows pace. Its always moving forward but never spinning out of control or slagging through the dirt, which is far more than most manage. Must be a pretty solid script they’re working from. I look forward to more.

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