Her foes were better off hiding in the sun, considering their poor execution...
I think I am in love… there is technical and then there is full spectrum and this show is going full spectrum on us. I am just blown away by how this all played out, everything felt plausible, and the underlying technology, while superior to what we have now, only highlights the problems of space travel and is a nice microcosm of how we should expect battles to be played out. Beam weapons always make me suspicious but they just solved the problem by emphasizing distance and accuracy while hinting that shields are the usual defense against such weapons. Maybe there will be carriers showing up later on maybe there won’t be but hell I think we need to start praying for a Jutland or a Surigao Strait. We already got our electronic warfare and now we are learning just how much goes into a long range gunnery duel. Given how eye-balling your beam shots is a terribly inefficient method of scoring hits, I think we are in the clear from having an obnoxious fake Irish sniper muck things up. Instead BRING ON the firing solutions, be it from a fire control station or an artilleryman using firing tables.
Not only has Marika avoided the ditzy moron role, she seems to have a better appreciation for battle preparation that I would have first thought. Altering the flight plan was in and of itself quite a revelation of how space combat works in this show and demonstrated that Marika is capable of altering a situation to her tactical benefit. Given how limited sensors are and how there were only two logical hiding places Marika was able to deduce the only real hiding spot and by making her foe fight facing the sun she gained two tactical advantages, speed and disruption of the enemy’s radar. I am giddy that stars and other celestial phenomena are going to contribute to terrain effects in space combat as this a very hard sci-fi aspect and more so given the limits of space faring technology and how solar activity has frustrated our own forays into our solar system. Also I am a big fan of using gravity wells to maneuver starships to gain tactical advantages and rapidly adjust course.
The collective effort that the Yacht Club put into to their deception plans says a lot about how they all possess enough intelligence to keep their mouths shut prior to an operation. While I am not yet sure whether their eagerness and lack of panic when the shooting started was because they all had youthful notions of their own invincibility or that they possess iron discipline. I would like to think that it was the latter given the dangers of space travel though it could well be the former or a mixture of both. Still I was impressed by their execution and doubly impressed when they prioritized ship systems to disable. The poetry was definitely excessive but nice though it could be that in Space Pirates they are all fans of strong passwords and use poems as a method of memorization (i.e. using a certain sequence of letters from a poem to form a password that when typed out looks like gibberish but still forms a password that is not easily broken so long as you use special characters and numbers). The response of the Lightning 11 was crude but very effective and was good enough to humble the Yacht Club.
I would have assumed that electronic warfare would have been rather dull and they would try to make up for it with quirky animations to show how computers were number crunching. Instead I was pleasantly surprised that they made it an all hands affair with the entire crew manning their stations. The Yacht Club was not phased or nervous about what was going on and took everything in stride although I felt plenty of tension during that scene. Fake systems, fake camera inputs, and playing along with enemy actions while taking whatever tactical advantages were offered made me all the more happy that they went through such pains. I was truly impressed that they even threw in command cycle timing (the time it takes for a military formation, in this case a ship crew, to make decisions, issue orders, execute, and assess the results for the next tactical action) and milked the “caught unawares” so effectively that the Yacht Club was able to move things at such a rapid pace that the Lightning 11 crew could not cope on good terms. It was a brilliant display of tactical acumen on Marika’s part as any fast response on her part might alert Lightning 11 that all was not going according to their plans.
I am not a fan of going into battle without weapons and I am sorely disappointed that the youthful enthusiasm of the Yacht Club overrode their rational thought processes. Still as mistakes of youth go they were lucky that the opposing gunner was only good and not lucky. As glad as I am that eye-balling your shots over hundreds of thousands of kilometers is a time consuming and inefficient I liked how the Lightning 11 gunner was placing his shots. The gunner shot high then low and used those two shots to calibrate the next shots that crept closer and closer to the Odette II’s actual position. Crude as their pulling the plug maneuver was I have to hand it to the Yacht Club for taking out propulsion first, and to Lightning 11 for taking decisive action before their weapons system was knocked out. I was initially aghast that the Yacht Club knocked out engineering and not weapons first, but after I saw the Stellar Military ships, I decided that the Yacht Club made the right tactical choice. Unless the Sea of Morningstar is in love with knives just for aesthetic reasons, their design at least hints that ramming is still a valid method of ship combat. Given that sensors are so limited and that long range gunnery is limited by sensors along with the judgment of a human gunner, it does make sense that getting up close and crude is viable. Even if this series is more big gun navy perhaps ramming is simply a more efficient method of finishing off a foe, especially if said foe is a sitting duck after a successful hacking attempt. Also ambushes could well be close and brutal affairs.
My only gripe is that the Yacht Club did not maneuver their ship more rapidly to compensate for the adjustments that the enemy gunner was making. Perhaps they simply did not know where the shots were going, but if they did my advice to them would be to move to wherever the last shot was. Back in ye olde days when battleships roamed the seas and aircraft carriers were non-existent, when ships engaged in gunnery duels they would have to adjust their shots and eye-ball it as best they could. As a defensive measure ships that were fast enough would chase splashes that were thrown up by missed enemy shots. The reasoning was that the enemy would not shoot at the same place twice, and for the most part this was true hence why there was such great expenditure of munitions for only a few hits before radar became effective. Still it was good of Marika to not only foresee that activating their engines would light them up on the infrared spectrum, but she took a page from the nerd book. For those of you who thought that turning the solar sails into a death ray was contrived you need to eat crow.
Marika basically used a method that Archimedes allegedly used for his death rays, as a nerdy person myself I am fully aware of nerds, who have the time, building replicas of Archimedes death ray, aka a parabolic reflector. They even did it on Mythbusters and it does work, to an extent, yes it can blind an enemy, but in atmosphere it takes a long time for things to catch on fire. I am going to accept that their solar sails can have their reflective/absorption ratio adjusted since that would explain how solar sail ships can adjust speed in order to maneuver. Using an array of mirrors to converge at a calculated point, courtesy of Jenny’s insistence that they bring radar back online as soon as possible, to blind the enemy rangefinder was inspired and doubly so because she did it without giving the enemy another means of ranging the Odette II. Still Marika need not worry about setting Lightning 11 on fire, but needless to say heat will build up. While the Lightning 11 will not burn, its crew might cook and that is still a terrible fate.
Chiaki finally tells us her story and I could not me more excited at the prospect of her captaining a pirate ship of her own someday. While they aren’t playing the yuri card much in this series I am cranking up the yuri goggles and I can already see Chiaki and Marika being the first pirate queens of a yuri dynasty that rules vast pirate empire. In any case, it seems that Chiaki is going to be on friendly terms and is likely one of the sanctioned privateers operating for the Sea of Morningstar. The timely arrival of a Stellar Military flotilla gives me hope that the regular military will have a role to play, hopefully as part of a traditional battle line while their pirate forces take on the duty of commerce raiding, intelligence gathering, and taking on enemy targets of opportunity. This show just gets better every week and given the admirable performance of the Yacht Club in paramilitary operations I welcome any future involvement they will have.
Kane and Misa were tempered in their response and I am glad that they used the whole cruise as a means to measure Marika’s abilities. I am very glad that they aren’t playing babysitter and put enough trust in the Yacht Club to let the girls go about their business unhindered while they watched from the shadows. Misa was already a winner and Kane is doing quite well when it comes to monitoring a fairly dangerous situation. It’s good to see that the adults are not stupid and are capable of letting kids grow while being ever ready to swoop in and rectify situations that go awry. Now that they have identified the origin of Lightning 11 and their hostile intentions I wonder if West Kilia is going to war with Morningstar. Chiaki did suspect them and now I wonder if open war is about to be declared. That shields deflect beams, and armor still has its uses I wonder if we are going to get warships armed with arsenals consisting of beam weapons, missiles/torpedoes, kinetic weapons, and ramming blades. I finally decided to slow things down by a ton and the ED does offer a few good tidbits, other than the Yacht Club roster there are some other interesting things…
Hey Jenny you so fine, you so fine you blow my mind. Hey Jenny...
Well you could always marry Misa and make it true. I deem you worthy enough.
I am sensing a bit of bloodlust...
Seems like West Kilia is about to get a can whup ass opened all over them.
They should have targeted propulsion...
I guess West Kilia has been recruiting FOREVER ALONE dudes to crew their pirate ships...
Jenny frowns upon their perverted ways...
I agree let them rue the day they dared to cross you.
A terse reply is a good reply.
At least they will get the point.
I think your crew is smart enough to not need that.
I see the enemy has at least watch Battlestar Glactica before they get sent out into space.
Courage under fire.
First shot, high.
They don't like the sound of that...
Come on kids this had to have at least been one of the possibilities you all considered...
Well at least you guys knocked out their engines.
Second shot, low...
Let's just hope that Lightning 11 didn't get German optics by Zeiss.
I wonder what class a 30m wide ship would fall under...
With paper, pencil, and an old fashioned firing table.
Assuming your optics are that good and calibrated correctly...
Yep they are calibrating and making manual adjustments, they went high, low and now the middle...
Good to see that Marika has some knowledge of mathematics, which is more than can be said for many other school kids playing war...
Makes sense I guess they are planning to use solar sails in detail.
It's DEATH RAY TIME. I wonder if there is a Solar System II in this series...
I admit I was wondering why they bothered to animate the reflections of Odette II's solar sails...I guess they were telling us to pay attention.
Well Captain Needa, the enemy no longer appears on any of your scopes...
VICTORY!
I bet she's even more glad that said captain is a girl.
I dub thee Kurihara-hime, Pirate Princess and Marika's betrothed.
I hope we'll be seeing more of this ship soon.
I am sure Chiaki will create her own legend when she captains the Barbaroosa (at least that's how it is spelled in the ED).
According to the ED these are Corback-class Space Battleships...
I think this might be mistranslated, but I so want this to be true.
So yeah it seems Chiaki got her good looks from her mother.
I so want this to be a Dreadnought, a missile battery, three big guns, and maybe two hangars for fighter-bombers... NICE NAME by the way.
It's kind of an elegant design...I just hope it is packing FIREPOWER.
I see someone is a fan of Lewis Carroll and nonsensical poems.
I wonder which Talbot this class was named after.
It's party time for our new Captain.
We all know how you feel about Marika... no use hiding it.
Are we getting mecha or SPACE MARINES?
Hey you on the left! THAT IS NOT HOW YOU HANDLE A WEAPON!
A Message from your XO, EO
I too was thoroughly impressed by this episode. It was really cool and technical in how they went about describing the various methods of electronic warfare, from the opening Outlaw Star-style intro narration, up to when the shooting started. There’s a lot of neat things that can be done, or will soon be possible, with sensors and EW in the real world and this episode gave us the full range of them. Using the Odette II‘s radar to blind the enemy is a capability that big new AESA radars are going to have. Hijacking communication and other lines is another new capability in the real world, via a new jamming module made for the U.S. Navy’s EF-18G ‘Growler’, and a similar capability planned for the F-35 Lightning II. I also greatly enjoyed the targeting aspect of the episode. Marika showed a very impressive command of mathematics to calculate the enemy’s fire and how to realign the solar sales to make an Archemides-style mirror array. It’s nothing like the Solar System of the Gundam franchise, but it didn’t need to be. It blinded the enemy ship and left it unable to attack, and if help hadn’t arrived they could have kept it trained on the enemy until their own ship roasted them alive. Marika would definitely make a good artillery officer with those on-the-fly calculations, and I look forward to more highly thought out and technical combat in the future. I would never have guessed that electronics warfare in anime could be so interesting, much less that it would continue to be interesting for four whole episodes. The tension in the lead-up to the attack was great, and then things got real when the enemy disconnected their computer to prevent further compromise. I figured guns would be fired at some point, and it was really cool to see the Yacht Club go from confident and triumphant about their trap for the Lightning 11 to ‘oh shi-’ when combat stopped being digital.
Nice reference to the Battle of the Bulge. If I were the fansubbers, I’d be tempted to change the text to “Nuts!“
I was also surprised to see a second pirate ship show up, with Chiaki announcing herself the heir to it. I had kind of assumed that she was either from the Bentenmaru or that she was an agent of someone who was interested in it, not another hereditary pirate captain herself. That should be interesting, having two ships around, but I doubt the Barbaroosa is long for this world. While it would be cool to have a pair of ships, I don’t see it lasting since it would split up the characters between the two ships. So perhaps daddy Kurihara will be making a last stand to protect his daughter somewhere around the halfway point of the show. And a last note on ships: perhaps it’s because we’ve both played Battlefleet Gothic, but I thought the same thing as comrade Crusader when I saw those federation patrol ships. Unless it’s purely aesthetic, those things are definitely designed to ram.
And here is your Mandatory Misa for the week <3
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Supplemental File: Current Yacht Club Roster
42 Comments
I felt the same about this episode’s technobabble, as about Spice and Wolf’s economy lessons. I didn’t get it, and I’m not even sure how much sense it made, but I still felt smart just for listening to this, as opposed to watching boobs or something instead dof it.
Well at least it doesn’t make you feel that the writers think you are dumb.
1) Ahahahaha “Kobayashimaru”
2) I think I saw this in Mass Effect: there was a codex entry that talked about electronic warfare in space, and it talked about how ships would try to gain control of the other ships’ computers, and then once they gained control they’d just do stuff like blast open the airlock doors, shut off life support/oxygen filtering, or activate self-destruct.
Oh, Mass Effect….
The ways Collector’s virus and EDI take control Normandy showed how terrible the design of Mass Effect ships are…
What do u do when enemy overwhelm take over your network,unleash an illegal AI to fix it!!!
Many other SCIFI series can do better than that. Warships,even Merchantmen in Honorverse have they life support and fusions reactor manned 27/4. Every modification must be made at the station, the bridge don’t have any control over it.
For Self-destruct device, what don’t u just overload your reactor? Leaving around a button to destroy your ship is not a good decision. Self destruct device sound good in theory in practice people rarely use it because u can be sure 1005 it will blow at the right moment only or some freak mistake will trigger it…..
All valid arguments when it comes to Mass Effect, still it doesn’t need to be that Hard Sci-Fi to make me eagerly anticipate Mass Effect 3.
EDI was an easy out, but hey at least she can annoy Joker.
To be fair sensitive military equipment like radios and code machines do have kill switches. They serve a purpose just not for everything.
Honorverse has that too especially Manticore hardware since their only advantage is the superior technology.
Problem is the equipments can be consider acceptable loss but human lives can’t.
Captain Kirk never hacked any simulation…it’s just a rumor.
Mass Effect mentioned the same thing though they simplified it with illegal AI in EDI.
Nice episode! It really makes all the preparation episodes worth it, and we have full 20 episodes to burn out a ton of plot elements introduced. I really liked how the producers didn’t give a face to the crew of the Lightning 11, it really gives a more realistic feel, since in space you are fighting according to sensors and external cameras at most, while making us viewers imagine the best we can what kind of attackers they where (attacking a girls ship, sounding the alarms, shutting down their ship, manual aiming a beam cannon, etc).
As for Marika’s mother response, I do seem to hear: 長生き する だ よ/ nagai iki suru da yo ; which roughly translates as “You’ll live a long life, I’m sure of it”
The lack of a face for the opposing crew kind of does add to the atmosphere. It’s like we are as much in the dark as they are. If nothing else it adds to the tension.
I really should not have watched this episode today….I don’t know if if I will be able to safely wait 1 more week until the next episode…
Anyway, this episode was great, thanks for all the hard work that you put forth into analyzing the ending. I wouldn’t have caught anything in the ending, if you had not.
This show just keeps getting better, I so hope that it does not go downhill. Please don’t go downhill, please don’t go downhill.
I should have slowed things down sooner. Well let it never be said that Satelight doesn’t get clever where ever it can.
IIRC Para Bellum roughly translates to “prepare for war” in Latin. One can hope that it is built for WAR and not just for raiding.
A wonderfully executed episode in terms of how manuvering and tactics bought enough time for the Odette II to get help from the two pirate vessels (and the Navy, with their Bowie-knife styled vessels)
One might ask why didn’t the girls jink to avoid the near hits? Well, the distances involved and the type of weaponry suggests that it takes about a second or two for the beam to hit, and secondly since the relative velocity of the Lightning 11 to the Odette II was massive (Lightning 11 stopped, while the Odette II was coasting), getting accuracy was always going to be difficult with the Mk 1 Mod 0 eyeball (GASP! HOW CRUDE!!!), since the gunnery system was compromised by the hacking. Air to air gunnery suffers from similar problems, even with advanced gunsights and radars, and it’s usually best to pull lead and fire at where you think (or what your radar thinks) your target will be in a few seconds time.
Finally, since the Odette II was coasting, any attempt to steer would require verniers to fire (damn Newtonian physics), which means that there would be an IR signature for the Lightning 11 to pick up.
One nitpick, seeing how hard the science fiction is in the series so far, is that THERE IS NO STEALTH IN SPACE. If the Bentenmaru and the Barbarossa were shadowing both the Lightning 11 and Odette II, they would have been picked up long before the Lightning 11 got into engagement distance and would have caused the Lightning 11 to break off the pursuit.
Which makes me wonder, since engagement distances are so vast, why do Navy ships have ram prows when the pirate vessels don’t? Maybe it’s what Ririka says: Showmanship and intimidation. And I don’t mean to burst Crusader’s bubble, but fighters are probably more like crewed shuttlecraft or B5 White Stars than X-wings, seeing how this series is shaping up to be Female Schoolgirl Horatio Hornblower, IN SPACE!!!
Do u really think they will use MK I only to target Odette II. It was said that every good Gun-port has their own internal optical sight.
Now,When do u must use optical sight? Only in desperate situation when other sensors couldn’t work. in that situation there is no guarantee u will have main computer to give u firing solution so there is high probability that those optic come with its own internal computer with less computing power but can give u firing solution as long as u have power to fire the gun.
There could be an internal computer or simply a mechanical computer akin to WWI era Pollen/Dreyer fire control computers. Other wise it could be as simple as telescopic sights which the user needs to adjust for each shot.
Again they could be eye balling it and adjusting for each shot as they did get progressively closer after the first two shots went high and low.
Your right about thrusters showing up on infrared. I take that back the Oddette was stuck coasting because it was going to turn it’s solar sails inoperable for Marika’s Solar System imitation.
Maybe they will break out cloaking devices on us or at least explain how pirates mask energy signatures and other things that light up sensors. That or both Bentenmaru and Barbaroosa were relying on their agents on the inside to feed them data.
As for ramming, the goal for them is destruction of the enemy, for pirates it is more about capturing ships. Time will tell but I am all for RAMMING SPEED.
The physics of the spacewalk in episode 3, though, needs work. The physics of moving in space is NOT the same as the physics of moving underwater.
Underwater, you can push against water to reverse direction. In space, you can’t. Which means that once you start moving in one direction, you’ll continue to move in that direction unless some external force is applied to move you back.
All spacewalkers MUST either:
1. Have a line attached to the surface of the ship. In which case, the force of tension of the line is the force that brings you back.
2. A magnetic boot to stick you to the ship.
Travelling in space without one of these two is a recipe for disaster because the moment you start moving away from the ship, you’ll continue to move away from the ship.
It’s possible that the suits have integrated thrusters like those old MMU packs on the Space Shuttle, but yeah, this series isn’t exactly Planetes in terms of the sci-fi hardness.
I am with him on this one I think there is a real possibility that they are using integrated space suits with thrusters. Hopefully they aren’t there just to be skin tight.
I also wonder how much gravity the Odette II generates as there is a section that rotates on the exterior of the ship.
It can only exibit as much gravity as much mass it has. Not a Newton more. What you’re thinking about is something that mimics the effect of gravity, and for that you need to be on the inside the spinny thing.
I’ll take your word for it my knowledge of physics is fairly basic at best, only enough for Biology major to get in and get out.
This episode was damm brilliant. This prove that all that character development and plot in the past few episodes wasn’t a waste as this shows how Marika became Captain of the Bentenmaru by slowly learning to strategize, knowing the facts around her and having leadership skills.(Take that you naysayers who find this show broing!)
And course the revelation that Chiaki was a space pirate wasn’t a surprise since her dad’s name appeared in the ED. Sadly, this means Chiaki will not become Marika’s first mate since she is a rival space pirate. Well,at least there’s the other yuri couple i been hearing about.
I am also glad that Marika had a chance to get a feel for the position first before taking the Captain’s chair. With the way things are going she is only going to get better. This show isn’t going to wow people who wanted a fanservicey pirate show with mini-skirts flipping up in zero gravity, and quite frankly I am willing to live with out them for the duration of this run.
I am not going to write of ChiakixMarika off quite yet… we shall see what Chihaki was doing on the Bentenmaru. I don’t think they are rivals since they work for the same government, more over if they are anything like their age of sail counterparts cooperation is not out of the question.
Holy hell, this is getting awesome. And most importantly, next week we’ll finally get to find out who the hell the guy who looks like a Power Rangers villain is!
And yeah, the ‘Live long and prosper’ was just fansubbers having fun. In this case, I approve of their antics.
Antics or no, I want to see Star Trek references littered about in this show.
Well, tbh I first felt dumb for giving a show called “Miniskirt Pirates” in the original a chance, but with this Hard-Sci-Fi stuff it is actually getting quite interesting.
I hope the show developes either in a “Firefly”-like direction, with the Bentenmaru pissing off Stellar Alliance Merchantships around the quadrant, or into a “Honorverse”-like direction, with vast fleets of “Ships of the Wall” exchanging Broadsides over hundereds of thousands of kilometers with E-War systems trying to deceive the enemy.
Lets see if the show can keep up the high quality.
Not sure if there is a Stellar Alliance but it seems that there are plenty of independent systems to make it a crazy enough final frontier.
Hopefully Satelight can milk what resources they have put in and possibly add more later. Right now of their projects airing now Aquarion EVOL is getting most of their attention.
LOL, There is no chance for that to happened because this series was actually planned to release last year. All episodes was produced!!!
I know it got delayed but I had assumed that they either missed the deadline or simply made some massive edits. Where did you hear production was over?
Hmm, Manticore 8th Fleet fired a salvo with near perfect control salvo of Mark 23 MDM missiles from around 75 million kilometers LOL. (Not so sure about it, Don’t want to reread Battle for Manticorem it’s just too painful… ). Also, there is Mark 25 Four-stage MDM missile that can outrange those 3-Stage of Mark 23 which will be a unpleasant suprise for those Solarian bastards.
For those want to read more about weapons use sunlight, pick Troy Rising series of John Ringo. The weaponization of sunlight in that series is just AWESOME!!!!!
For its part, this series is walking on right way. This a the hardest anime series i watched beside Starship Operator.
Hopefully it will still trend upward.
Barbarossa was IIRC the man responsible for establishing Ottoman Naval Dominance until Lepanto. His name translated roughly to Red Beard and he held a fief in modern Algeria where the Barbary Pirates would later wreak havoc on merchant ships sailing in the Mediterranean. He started out as a poor pirate but later allied with the Sultan and became one of the most successful pirates of his day.
How about both?! Ah, if only.
Maybe we will get a Space Marines Dreadnought…
A Battle Barge or two will be a good edition too. I doubt that any ship in this Universe can survive a broadside or a boarding of SPESS MEHREENS.
LOL, IG need to reequip their cannon fodders with the Laser gun Marika’s mother used.
The red skirt/captain uniform in manga or novel cover looks much better…
I’ll take your word for it. That said mini-skirts aren’t the main draw of the show.
This was a really fun up and I’m glad I decided to watch after reading ya’lls post on it. Something tells me that the pirate battles will be much faster pace that what we just saw.
That being said I wonder how this will all play out. Obviously, if the legal pirates (seriously I wish they stop calling themselves pirates when they’re really privateers) are still in action there must be some “cold war” conflict happening other wise why keep them active.
I hope we get to see more of Jenny, she way too awesome of a character to completely leave out :3
I’ve only just gotten around to watching the episode, and I’m just glad that things are finally heating up. Give me the decision-making under fire, the unorthodox tactics, the organized chaos of a crew at battle stations.
Also, given that the distance between the ships was 400,000km, that Lightning II spotter has got to be impossibly good. Sure, the distance between the Earth and the Moon is also roughly 400,000km, but even if they have the Odette’s coordinates, actually using visual scanning to spot a space yacht among a backdrop of billions of stars is insane. Unless those sails were really that bright.
(hmm… I failed to close the quote block correctly and the edit feature doesn’t seem to work)
OTL
Looks like I shouldn’t ever consider a career in stargazing then.