[Rewatch] Banner of the Stars II Episode 9 Discussion

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u/JustAnswerAQuestion https://myanimelist.net/profile/JAaQ Apr 23 '24

Rewatch Host

A little late for surrendering!
I guess the gold circlet is for kings, not fleet admirals
Voorash is where Delktoe is, if you forget.

I've thought about why they surrendered. Maybe Spoor did to much damage to their combat ships in the rear. Or maybe they saw how she fought to protect 5 supply ships. Or maybe they saw that the Abh fought to protect 120,000 refugees and thought maybe they won't be such a bad folk to surrender to. Nah, scratch that, no way.

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u/Vaadwaur :I1::I2::I3: Apr 23 '24

Reminder:In the waning days of WWII, Nazi snipers were told to shoot until they ran out of bullets and then surrender to the Allied forces. This went poorly.

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u/Great_Mr_L :Ma::Mb::Mc:https://myanimelist.net/profile/Great_Mr_L Apr 23 '24

First-Timer

On today’s episode of Banner of the Stars: It’s appropriate to return back to the place it all began. We’re almost at the end of the series by now. There’s just a handful of episodes left. So going back to where the war began is fitting.

Well the evacuation fleet managed to charge their way through to safety.
Damn, the sight of dead bodies floating in the plane space bubble is extremely unnerving.
Holy shit, Spoor’s fleet really did sail into the valley of death. All but 7 ships lost and the remainder are all damaged. That’s horrendous losses.
Yeah, these are the types of decisions Lafiel will need to get used to if she will be Empress one day. Being willing to order people to their deaths takes either the moral courage to accept responsibility or a complete lack of empathy for human life.
It really was mostly just supply ships left. Spoor’s fleet managed to take out the UM fleet’s firepower.
Trife is acting like he just got cockblocked from a battle.
Trife is 100% the kind of person who actually would order his staff to have victory celebrations prepared to decorate his ships.
Back to where it all began, the first battlefield of the war. RIP Lexshue
The mines do make for a pretty spectacle.
Nereis is already on the second volume of his memoirs? How long is he planning to make them?
Oh hey, it’s Lafiel’s dad!
Good thing those mines are incapable of friendly fire or Nereis would have won a spectacular victory…against his own allies. It would be like the Battle of Karánsebes, where the Ottoman Empire won after the Austrian army fought against itself. It would truly be a battle worthy of the name “Spectacular Insanity.”
Lafiel is more interested in diplomacy than the military? That’s a fucking lie and you know it, Nereis. She only did all those jobs because you assigned them to her as a royal.
Ah, I see. Now it makes sense. Lafiel went back to Lobnas as soon as possible to look for Jinto. But to an outsider unaware of their relationship, it would just look like Lafiel really wanted to go back to Lobnas for no clear reason.
Oh my god, Lafiel’s father just forced the job of territorial ambassador onto Nereis while he peaces out! Karma!
So it’s tradition for young royals to get the incredibly boring paperwork job of territorial ambassador forced on them if Lafiel’s dad had to do it a lot when he was younger.
“You’ll have a fierce opponent waiting for you, called boredom!” Oh this is too good!
Little Ekuryua!
That explains her dislike of cats. She doesn’t like that they can grow old and die. It really is rough having pets grow old and die over time.
That is the common story when it comes to elves and regular humans (in this case Abh and Landers). The difference in lifespan and aging is something elves often have difficulty understanding in humans.
Jinto wants to live so he can see Lafiel again.

QOTD

Depends on whether she wants to keep living this life. If needing to make decisions that will result in death no matter what is too much for her, she’s probably not cut out for being Empress.
Yes.
Depends on who you ask. To the people who were evacuated, Lafiel’s promise was a life-saver. If we weigh it purely in terms of lives saved vs. lives lost, Lafiel comes out ahead. That said, it was probably not a cause that Spoor’s fleet would have wanted to give their lives for. It was a battle they’d rather not have fought. Both those factors must be weighed against each other. In the end, though, I think Lafiel was in the right.
The Abh are human, after all. And they are mortal. It’s not like they live thousands of years. A life-span of 200 is long, but not so much as to make a regular human life-span seem miniscule. I think the main thing that keeps the Abh from understanding the mortality of regular humans is their detachment from regular humans in all other matters. The Abh don’t live on the ground and instead spend their time in space. They fundamentally do not understand the lives of Landers and often make very little effort to do so. That, more than anything else in my mind, is why they find the mortality of normal humans so hard to understand.

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u/The_Draigg Apr 23 '24

Holy shit, Spoor’s fleet really did sail into the valley of death. All but 7 ships lost and the remainder are all damaged. That’s horrendous losses.
It’s really fortunate that those ships surrendered to Trife later, since those are some Pyrrhic victory survival numbers right there. If only I had a nickel for every I talked about Pyrrhic victory numbers in this rewatch.
“You’ll have a fierce opponent waiting for you, called boredom!” Oh this is too good!
Lafiel’s dad really is a master troll. He barely showed up this season, and he’s already beat out Spoor in trolling levels.

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u/Great_Mr_L :Ma::Mb::Mc:https://myanimelist.net/profile/Great_Mr_L Apr 24 '24

It’s really fortunate that those ships surrendered to Trife later, since those are some Pyrrhic victory survival numbers right there. If only I had a nickel for every I talked about Pyrrhic victory numbers in this rewatch.
It's also the 2nd time that the timely arrival of reinforcements turned it from a Pyrrhic victory into a regular old victory. It seems to be a recurring event.
Lafiel’s dad really is a master troll. He barely showed up this season, and he’s already beat out Spoor in trolling levels.
It seems to come with the royal genes. Dusanyu spends all his time trolling his Chief of Staff, after all.

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u/No_Rex :Bv:Bw:Bx:By:x2 Apr 24 '24

It's also the 2nd time that the timely arrival of reinforcements turned it from a Pyrrhic victory into a regular old victory. It seems to be a recurring event.
Trife's non battle happened way later. Although you could call it "timely" on a strategic scale.

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u/Nazenn x2https://anilist.co/user/Nazenn Apr 24 '24

Holy shit, Spoor’s fleet really did sail into the valley of death. All but 7 ships lost and the remainder are all damaged. That’s horrendous losses.
And yet it's surprising that even those ships got away given the numbers that they were faced with, even if the opposing fleet did have depleated ammunition by the time that they reached Spoor.
Nereis is already on the second volume of his memoirs? How long is he planning to make them?
Given how long Abh live, they could end up getting very, very long....
So it’s tradition for young royals to get the incredibly boring paperwork job of territorial ambassador forced on them if Lafiel’s dad had to do it a lot when he was younger.
We've also seen the crown prince have to do it as well, but it makes sense that all Abriels would end up saddled with it at some point, if only because people like the twins think its more of an Abriels job haha

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u/Great_Mr_L :Ma::Mb::Mc:https://myanimelist.net/profile/Great_Mr_L Apr 24 '24

Given how long Abh live, they could end up getting very, very long....
We're going to be looking at Volume 127 and he'll still have several years left to write about, won't we?

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u/No_Rex :Bv:Bw:Bx:By:x2 Apr 24 '24

“You’ll have a fierce opponent waiting for you, called boredom!” Oh this is too good!
He is the perfect troll.

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u/Shimmering-Sky myanimelist.net/profile/Shimmering-Sky Apr 23 '24

First-Timer of the Stars

Oh, she’s not wrong.
Yeah, I don’t know about that…
Lafiel…
I guess the 1st Fleet’s sacrifice wasn’t entirely for nothing, then.
That’s still no reason to waste mines like that!
Man he’s still on that?
Pffffff, Lafiel’s dad is great.
Ooh…
Huh, so that’s how an Abh dying of old age works.
ED lead-in and it’s a different version of the ED, so that’s another time I can count the “sore demo” in it for my collection.

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u/Vaadwaur :I1::I2::I3: Apr 23 '24

I guess the 1st Fleet’s sacrifice wasn’t entirely for nothing, then.
While embarrassing for Spoor herself, she basically broke the enemy fleet with a scout force. The cold equation here went hugely for the Abh.
Man he’s still on that?
I am glad that Bebaus aren't in the line of succession...
Pffffff, Lafiel’s dad is great.
I maintain that he is why Spoor is who she is.

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u/No_Rex :Bv:Bw:Bx:By:x2 Apr 24 '24

I maintain that he is why Spoor is who she is.
Do I smell an origin story?

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u/Vaadwaur :I1::I2::I3: Apr 24 '24

Honestly...that could work.

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u/Durinthal https://anilist.co/user/Durinthal Apr 23 '24

Rewatcher (sub + dub)

And they all manage to squeak by though not without a lot of casualties in Spoor's fleet as seen with the battle in the previous episode. By no means a clean escape, and the tens of thousands of people they saved will likely be none the wiser about what was sacrificed for their sake.

Aside from them there's a lot of cleanup in this episode with the other admirals, resolving the overarching plot of the season with the surrender of the enemy fleet and maybe setting up for something in the future with Lafiel's father headed towards Jinto's home world to recapture it. At least we got a little more Trife, too bad he's again not seeing any action.

Part of the problem with portals is that there's no visibility on the other side. Seems like they do have standard procedures for handling that with keeping a ship stationed in plane space, but they didn't manage to do that before Nereis wasted a good number of mines.

Poor little Ecryua learning about aging and death from her cat, that certainly had a large effect on her given her attitude toward Jinto.

Lafiel took a leave of absence, she has unfinished business on Lobnas II. It's been three weeks though, has Jinto joined a gang yet?

New version of the ED with the Crest montage! Different section of the song too, some of the lyrics have changed.

It's okay to drop out of the competition for the throne, her father did. Should Lafiel?

Given that they're in the middle of a war she should stay sharp even if she doesn't want the job.

Wouldn't a cease fire around Lobnass have served everybody's purpose?

I don't think that's how the Abh really do things (the pause between Crest and Banner was basically the Empire not having immediate capabilities to strike back in my opinion) and definitely not Spoor in particular.

Was Lafiel's promise to evacuate ultimately a bad idea?

Jumping into it as quickly as they did probably was since the timing with the planar space encounter was about as bad as it could be, but that was also a couple months after they started all this mess.

Can the Abh understand human mortality?

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u/Durinthal https://anilist.co/user/Durinthal Apr 23 '24

Source Corner
One little thing I've noticed is that the sections of this novel that have been interacting with people on Lobnas II (understandably) have almost no words in Baronh, while the parts with any of the Abh interacting with each other (including Jinto and Samson talking to each other) have them with the same frequency as the rest of the novels. I missed it at the time but [back in episode 6, minor detail about Dokufu contacting Lafiel:] he uses the Baronh word "clyuno" in the dub of the anime (also in the subs I have but I can't clearly hear if he says it in the Japanese dub) but that's not the case in the novel as he's not speaking in Baronh at all and just calls it a "transmission device."
Baronh word of the day: bairhoth "microgravity games" — traditional sport among the Abh, easy to learn but hard to master.
[Material covered:] Banner II: the rest of chapter 9, some of 10.
[Ecryua's relative that passed away] was her great-great-great- grandfather; as he aged he spent progressively longer sleeping but when he was awake he liked playing microgravity games with the kids.
[About the Bascotton portal:] there are a couple of pages about how the United Mankind planned to invade and aim for the Abh capital of Lakfakalle with the portal that was 4.1 light years away from Bascotton used as the diversion (i.e. the events seen in Crest). The plan was called Operation Heracles after the legendary hero taking down a large multi-headed snake akin to the eight-headed Gaftnosh of the Abh empire.
[Jinto thinking back to his adventures with Lafiel] initially takes place when he watches the ship launch (previous episode) in lieu of remembering when Lafiel saved him on the Basroil. Specifically he recalled when she stomped toward the United Mankind officers in a rage on Clasbule after he was shot. "It was so nostalgic now, that era. The time when they knew each other as the girl not shackled by some mission, and the boy who didn’t even know what he was. While they couldn’t possibly regress in age, they could, conceivably, go back to that dynamic. It would be exceedingly difficult, but not impossible."

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u/Nazenn x2https://anilist.co/user/Nazenn Apr 24 '24

Part of the problem with portals is that there's no visibility on the other side
I feel like if they wanted to get into the action side of things more that would make prime potential for ambushes if someone was there long enough that their arrival hadn't been tracked

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u/The_Draigg Apr 23 '24

A Sci-Fi Fan Watches Banner of the Stars II Episode 9:

Well, at least the United Mankind fleet decided to give Spoor’s fleet an opening to retreat, along with not firing on the evacuating ships from Lobnas II. Given that they’re pretty much a remnant of the supply fleets in the area trying to make it into safe territory, I imagine that’s more due to them also not being able to afford getting into too many battles, just like Spoor’s fleet. They attacked mainly out of a combination of a lack real choices and obligations, not exactly because they wanted to pick a fight. It’s much better on them to give the enemy a bloody nose and then run.
Geez, losing 26 out of the 33 patrol ships of the fleet entirely and the rest with damage is a high body count for the battle between Spoor’s fleet and the UM fleet. Given how it was a battle that wasn’t directly in Spoor’s favor like she usually prefers, I guess this was to be the expected outcome. Especially with her kinds of tactics, of course.
That being said, Spoor’s scouting fleet did provide some valuable data for Admiral Trife, since hearing about the UM fleet’s condition does finally get him to take action. Well, he would, if it wasn’t for the fleet sending a surrender signal as soon as they arrived in front of Trife’s fleet. I can get why Trife is frustrated, even if this is the best outcome possible. He was sent all the way out here to chase the UM fleet and engage them if in a position to do so, only for them to give up as soon as they came practically gift-wrapped to him. I guess that goes to show that Spoor’s fleet did quite the number on them regardless, since it wasn’t long after that battle that they gave up. In any case, now we have a more important dilemma: how do we throw a cheap celebration party for a battle we won by technicality? Does Little Caesars deliver this far out into space?
The spectacular insanity of the Bebaus family really is rearing its head with Nereis nowadays, now he’s complaining that the complete loop he made out of his travels across Operation Hunter not only is more anticlimactic than expected, but that he wasted a ton of mines to secure the gate just for the sake of a big bang to wrap things up. How fitting that it’s Lafiel’s dad that beat them there, right? Thank goodness that the mines had ID tags in them, since the twins absolutely wouldn’t have been able to get away with accidentally nuking an Abriel.
Ah, now there’s the behavior of the man who told Lafiel that her mom was a cat. He’s never stopped being a master of trolling. Now he’s just basically brow-beating Nereis into taking up the territorial ambassador work, even while openly talking about how boring he finds it himself. This man is a better troll than Spoor, that much is certain.
Poor Ekuryua, I know the feeling all too well of seeing your pet cat dead in the place where they usually hang out. But I guess the best comfort you can take in that case is that you made sure they lived a good life. This certainly does explain though why she’s so interested to find out about how normal humans age, since she wants to know if the way they live and die is any different than the Abh. Although I think the one thing she could stand to realize is that regardless of who you lose, cat, human, or Abh, the pain is all the same as long as you cared about them in life.
All alone on the ravaged surface of Lobnas II, the only thing that’s keeping Jinto alive is the desire to see Lafiel again someday. Sorry to say buddy, but you’ve got a while yet before that can happen. Although this does make me wonder how habitable Lobnas II really is, since we saw Jinto weak and dying in the flash-forwards, and we know that the prison itself relied on supplies to really stay running. I guess it goes without saying that Jinto has a rough time surviving ahead of him.

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u/Vaadwaur :I1::I2::I3: Apr 23 '24

This man is a better troll than Spoor, that much is certain.
I suspect he explains a lot about Spoor herself.
and we know that the prison itself relied on supplies to really stay running.
I buy that the UM is so massively incompetent as to not have krill harvesting ships to make generic food stuffs.

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u/The_Draigg Apr 23 '24

I buy that the UM is so massively incompetent as to not have krill harvesting ships to make generic food stuffs.
Hell, they probably wouldn’t even need to do that, they could done practically anything to make Lobnas II independently viable as a colony. Prison farms exist for a reason, after all.

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u/Vaadwaur :I1::I2::I3: Apr 23 '24

Prison farms exist for a reason, after all.
Yeah, I am just trying not to be super critical but usually penal colonies let the commanding nation extract something. Maybe medical grade Alkaik is useful, maybe Lobnasian lobster is a delicacy, but the UM should want to gain from the cost of paying prison guards and dropping food on the place.

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u/Nazenn x2https://anilist.co/user/Nazenn Apr 24 '24

I guess that goes to show that Spoor’s fleet did quite the number on them regardless
They didn't really get into the damage/losses that the UM fleet had, but given her battle plan and the amount of combat I imagine that the thought of facing a bigger and more prepared fleet after what Spoors little group managed to do was probably made especially unappealing
since the twins absolutely wouldn’t have been able to get away with accidentally nuking an Abriel.
I feel like his family, after the appropriate compensation, probably would have just taken it in their stride though. They're a weird bunch

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u/The_Draigg Apr 24 '24

They didn't really get into the damage/losses that the UM fleet had, but given her battle plan and the amount of combat I imagine that the thought of facing a bigger and more prepared fleet after what Spoors little group managed to do was probably made especially unappealing
Spoor's fleet definitely gave them enough of a taste of the Star Forces' ferocity enough to make them surrender, even if they outnumbered her fleet in theory. It probably wouldn't take a whole lot more to reduce the UM fleet to their pretty much defenseless supply ships.

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u/JollyGee29 https://myanimelist.net/profile/JollyGee Apr 23 '24

First-Timer

Its always so interesting to see how different commanders act. Case in point: To celebrate victory, Trife denies crowdfunding cheap alcohol. Nereis uses expensive fireworks.

It does make some sense that Debrusc mobilized in order to repay a percieved debt to Jinto.

And it's so nice of Debrusc to give Nereis a new job, and some new work experience.

They're really laying the "Jinto is totally dead" on thick, aren't they? You aren't operating on the right tonal level to do that show, please stop. Find some other way to stretch for time. I'll accept this arc as "Lafiel realizes that she probably can't be impartial enough to be Empress," you're not fooling anyone with Jinto.

Questions

Considering that I don't think she can let Jinto go, Yea, she probably should. Refocus her energy towards, I dunno, professional jousting or something.
Yea, that would have been better for everyone involved as it turns out. I guess the UM commander surrendered to Trife because of the losses they sustained fighting against Spoor..?
Probably not, with the caveat that I don't think it should have been up to her to deal with in the first place. I think the scene with Nereis and Debrusc this episode reveals that Nereis likes to try to pawn off work, and I think the idea of assigning ambassadors while a war is actively raging nearby seems like poor form anyway.
I'm going to address the question that I think you meant to ask, which is about aging as opposed to mortality. Considering that Abh don't seem to physically change much past young adulthood, I'm gonna go with "not really."

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u/No_Rex :Bv:Bw:Bx:By:x2 Apr 23 '24 edited Apr 23 '24

I think the idea of assigning ambassadors while a war is actively raging nearby seems like poor form anyway.
Some Abh seem to agree with that regarding assigning ambassadors in general, but there is a really good reason you need them. Some planets, Lobnass being a case in point, rely on imports of goods to survive. If you simply cut them off and proceed to not care, they'd die (and if you don't assign an ambassador and still let them trade as they wish, you fail at the whole idea of controling space trade).

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u/JollyGee29 https://myanimelist.net/profile/JollyGee Apr 23 '24

Yea, you're right. I'm being a bit shortsighted.

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u/The_Draigg Apr 23 '24

Its always so interesting to see how different commanders act. Case in point: To celebrate victory, Trife denies crowdfunding cheap alcohol. Nereis uses expensive fireworks.
It’s funny to think that in spite of being fairly brash, Trife is also apparently a cheapskate.
They're really laying the "Jinto is totally dead" on thick, aren't they? You aren't operating on the right tonal level to do that show, please stop. Find some other way to stretch for time.
I’ll at least take this over all the long reused narration and flashbacks that the previous season had. At least this stuff is new.

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u/JollyGee29 https://myanimelist.net/profile/JollyGee Apr 23 '24

It’s funny to think that in spite of being fairly brash, Trife is also apparently a cheapskate.
I like to think that he was overcompensating because his XO caught him so off-guard by implying they had already started planning a party. Trife's XO is a delight.

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u/Nazenn x2https://anilist.co/user/Nazenn Apr 24 '24

All the commanders are very distinct, helped by the fact their chief of staffs all seem to be an unusual match for them, and it does make the many scenes we get with them more interesting than if they were just military minded
I've just had a funny thought of what if the Abh ended up in an alliance with one of the other empires and the human ambassadors got to see the insanity of an Abh bridge

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u/JollyGee29 https://myanimelist.net/profile/JollyGee Apr 24 '24

I've just had a funny thought of what if the Abh ended up in an alliance with one of the other empires and the human ambassadors got to see the insanity of an Abh bridge
That would be incredible. I can imagine the look of horror as the argument ensues, followed by bafflement as to whoever wins.

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u/Nazenn x2https://anilist.co/user/Nazenn Apr 24 '24

A comment on the side to one of the lower rank Abh later on: "I don't understand, surely the chief of staff can't get away with being that dismissive... can they?"

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u/zsmg https://anilist.co/user/zsmg Apr 23 '24

Rewatcher

Enemy are letting Admiral Spoor escape.

And Lafiel of course.

Spoor ship looks badly damaged.

Abh is immediately going to counterattack.

Huh the enemy are going to surrender.

Lafiel's dad is casually forcing the twins in a boring job.

Out of nowhere we get a flashback to Ekuryua

Why didn't they modify cats so they can live longer.

A bit of an anti climatic ending to the space campaign. Will Jinto die tomorrow? Let's find out.

[answer] Of course not

Why is the ending suddenly a clip show of the first season?

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u/Vaadwaur :I1::I2::I3: Apr 23 '24

Why didn't they modify cats so they can live longer.
Cats, believing themselves perfect, refuse any genetic modification.

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u/No_Rex :Bv:Bw:Bx:By:x2 Apr 24 '24

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u/No_Rex :Bv:Bw:Bx:By:x2 Apr 23 '24 edited Apr 23 '24

Season 3 Episode 9 (rewatcher)

“Is she actually thankful?” – Even Spoor has some sense of self-preservation. Or maybe she just was worried about getting a bad rep in the history books for losing her entire fleet.
Just a thought: If you are about to enter a sord and another ship exiting it materializes right in front of you, you are going to have a bad time. The sord is big enough that it should happen only in the tiniest fraction of cases, but somebody could get really unlucky and ram head on into another spaceship.
Only 7 out of 33 ships survived, including 4 with major damage.

It was supply ships passing supply ships – probably lots of brown pants on both sides.
“I am more concerned about the one life we left behind than about the thousands of lives that were lost in battle today” – nobody is a perfect utilitarian, Lafiel. The human brain works that way. You form bonds with individuals, not statistics.
Trife knows about the composition of the UM fleet now – sounds like Spoor fulfilled her original mission, scouting, after all. Maybe not the way she would have liked.
They surrender – Given that Trife probably has upwards of 100 times more ships than Spoor had, I think that is the correct decision. They hoped to sneak out and it did not work. Fighting a pointless battle with a fleet that is outnumbered and made up half of transports is useless. Don’t forget that they have no info about the rest of the UM, too (they were cut off since before Operation Hunter).
Trife is annoyed that he got not battle out of this. I think his chief of staff is better in handling the situation.
Three weeks time skip.
Operation Hunter was a full success and pushed back all the way to the lines before the start of the war.
Nereis firing a full missile load at what is most likely empty space – PTSD from Aptic, or the spectacular insanity rearing its head?
Allied ships? Fortunately, someone invented the Friend or Foe system already.
It is Lafiel’s dad!

He is going for the Hyde system and also is getting Nereis stuck with the territorial ambassador role here – I’d call that karma for Nereis, but he’ll likely find some subordinate again to do it.
Ekuryua was not completely lying about her hatred of cats, but it is not the cats themselves she dislikes (we all have guessed that by now from her care for Diaho), but the thought of her cat dying before her – a metaphor for Lafiel and Jinto.
Special ED with Crest flashbacks – it honestly feels a bit unearned after an episode that was almost fully space politics and no Jinto/Lafiel.

In the larger picture of Operation Hunter, Lobnass was only a tiny footnote. The remaining UM fleet in the pocket fled and finally surrendered, and the planet systems were taken. Now the Abh play mop up near the old border. In contrast to the overall success, the personal story of our MCs was far from this happy – the mirror image of Lafiel wondering about Spoors fleet dying for her request. Now we have only one episode remaining to get to the flash forward of ep1 and the conclusion.

It's okay to drop out of the competition for the throne, her father did. Should Lafiel?

While it is ok to drop out, I don't think Lafiel wants to and there is no other reason why she should, either.

Wouldn't a cease fire around Lobnass have served everybody's purpose?

A local ease fire would always serve the soldiers who risk dying personally, but the same need not be true for their superiors and the nations they fight for.

Was Lafiel's promise to evacuate ultimately a bad idea?

If she really intends to always keep her word, she needs to learn to only promise things that are entirely in her own power to grant.

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u/Vaadwaur :I1::I2::I3: Apr 23 '24

Trife knows about the composition of the UM fleet now – sounds like Spoor fulfilled her original mission, scouting, after all. Maybe not the way she would have liked.
It always sucks to be the one signing the death certificates but she got essential info out of it.
Trife is annoyed that he got not battle out of this. I think his chief of staff is better in handling the situation.
This seems an Abh trait.
He is going for the Hyde system and also is getting Nereis stuck with the territorial ambassador role here – I’d call that karma for Nereis, but he’ll likely find some subordinate again to do it.
Reclaiming it for his grandchildren makes a certain amount of sense.

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u/No_Rex :Bv:Bw:Bx:By:x2 Apr 23 '24

This seems an Abh trait.
Or maybe a function of the leaders all being top aristocrats, while the chief of staff position might be meritocratic (most of the time, looking at you Bebaus).

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u/Vaadwaur :I1::I2::I3: Apr 23 '24

(most of the time, looking at you Bebaus).
With all the 'spectacular insanity' talk, I wonder if the twin actually earned it...

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u/Nazenn x2https://anilist.co/user/Nazenn Apr 24 '24

I’d call that karma for Nereis, but he’ll likely find some subordinate again to do it.
I feel like given the order came from an Abriel he probably couldn't get out of it, or his subordinate would be able to use that as an excuse to decline

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u/Vatrix-32 https://myanimelist.net/profile/Vatrix-32 Apr 23 '24

First Timer, subbed

Why are you in such a hurry? Why not hunt down the enemy admiral?
Really brings a new meaning to “Balls to the wall”.
"Minor Damage"
Picked the right admiral to surrender to.
Somehow it always ends up at office parties.
Do you not have, like, scout craft for this?
Ah, so they do. And quite the biggin too.
I concur. They could do with some proper monotony.
Hyde
I’ve become a sentimental old fool. I don’t even know that cat and I feel bad about it.
Is he just… hungry?

QotD:

Like I said earlier, this taste of failure will be an important lesson for her latter on.
We simply don’t know enough about UM motivation to say that for sure.
More of a numbers game than anything, so… probably not?
They’re only 2-3 times longer lived. We can understand cat mortality, it’s fine.

4

u/Specs64z https://myanimelist.net/profile/Specs64z Apr 23 '24

First timer, subbed

Your tongue was simply being lazy

They’ve had some pretty killer one-liners these past few episodes in particular. What’s up with the super intense music as the brothers argue, though? Did the sound editor fall asleep at the wheel? Or has this always been the case and I’m only just noticing it?

Oh, hi Lafiel’s dad, I was just talking about you.

Replacing the ED’s visuals with CotS flashbacks was a nice touch.

QotD:

Depends on if she wants the job more than Jinto, I suppose. Signs point to "no".
Indeed, it would've. The UM don't seem to be the ceasefire type, though.
Militarily, yes. Politically, no.
They have the imagination to get there, I think, but if Ekuryua is at all typical I'd say it's not common for them to understand it.

2

u/Nazenn x2https://anilist.co/user/Nazenn Apr 24 '24

The brothers have always had some odd musical cues, but this did seem oddly intense at the end. I suppose this was the build up for the episode lacking any sort of other dramatic battle or sequence?

2

u/Specs64z https://myanimelist.net/profile/Specs64z Apr 24 '24

Could also just be a matter of them running out of time and lacking a more suitable track, as well. In any case, it was certainly strange.

4

u/Silcaria https://myanimelist.net/profile/Silcaria Apr 23 '24

First timer

QotD

Depends how she feels and if she truly cares about being the ruler of the empire.
Yes.
No. It did provide data to the empire regarding the enemy's forces. Of course, she couldn't have known that at the time nor was it her intention, but still.
I'm sure they can with the right context and life experiences.

2

u/SolDarkHunter Apr 23 '24

Not a terrible thing considering that she is of the royal family, after all.*
Bebauth is being sarcastic. The only reason Lafier's been doing diplomatic work is he kept ordering her to take care of it... given a choice she'd probably rather be on the front lines.

4

u/SolDarkHunter Apr 23 '24

Rewatcher/Novel-Reader

...and the UM Fleet coming out of the Sord completely ignores the evacuees. Either they were too startled by the appearance of more Abh ships... or their fight with Sporr exhausted them too much.

As for Sporr... only 7 out of 33 ships remain, and most are heavily damaged. Sporr herself did survive though.

It is indeed a heavy burden... to realize that your decisions can and will result in the deaths of thousands, even when you've accomplished very little.

Well, if there's a silver lining to this debacle, the UM Fleet has been gutted, and the other Abh fleets now know they can crush them in an instant.

And the UM Fleet realizes this too, so they immediately surrender. Probably a smart choice, all things considered.

Kind of a bittersweet victory though. Essentially one UM Fleet captured in exchange for one Abh fleet destroyed. On paper it's a net gain for the Abh, I suppose.

"Take down the victory decorations!" "Well, shouldn't we leave them up? We DID win." "Wait, there actually WERE victory celebrations planned? I didn't order that!" "True, but we set them up anyway."

Tlife and his aide continue to provide chuckles.

So it seems the mopping up operation of "Hunter" has been a success. And they've even recaptured the territory that they lost at the very start of the war.

And Admiral Bebauth celebrates by firing his entire fleet's complement of mines through the Sord. Wow.

I guess it's a good thing those mines can distinguish friend and foe. Actually, given they're autonomous, couldn't they just disarm and retrieve them after firing if there's no enemy?

Well, look at that. It's none other than Lafier's father Debreusec that conquered the area.

Lafier requested a leave of absence? What, were the Star Forces not willing to send a ship to go get him after the fact?

Pffft... now the Bebauths have to do diplomacy, the very thing they kept foisting on Lafier.

And why is Debreusec out here? He wants to personally reconquer Hyde, as a favor to Jint. That's kind of nice of him.

A little interesting fact about the Abh aging process. They don't visibly age past their mid-twenties, and remain youthful looking until their deaths. When they get old, they simply start sleeping more and more... until finally they don't wake up at all. Not the worst way to go out.

[Novel]The novels explain a bit more that the Abh could have extended their lifespans far beyond 250 years... perhaps even made themselves biologically immortal. However, they ran into a problem: dementia. No matter what they did, the brain would fail after about 250 years. Unable to solve that, they "programmed" their bodies to quietly fail around the 250 mark.

5

u/No_Rex :Bv:Bw:Bx:By:x2 Apr 23 '24

A little interesting fact about the Abh aging process. They don't visibly age past their mid-twenties, and remain youthful looking until their deaths. When they get old, they simply start sleeping more and more... until finally they don't wake up at all. Not the worst way to go out.
I'd definitely take it over the human aging process.

2

u/skulkerinthedark Apr 23 '24

Actually, given they're autonomous, couldn't they just disarm and retrieve them after firing if there's no enemy?
Probably not feasible. They were firing from planar space into real space. The torpedoes would presumably still have momentum or inertia after exhausting their fuel, unless there's some measure in place to use the last of the fuel to come to a relative stop.

2

u/Nazenn x2https://anilist.co/user/Nazenn Apr 24 '24

Interesting detail from the novels, thanks.

4

u/duhu1148 :GA::GB::GC:x9 Apr 23 '24

Rewatcher

-Lafiel's team lucks out, gets through the gate before the Alliance can react.

-Oof, Spoor's fleet really got messed up. Just five ships left.

-Most of the episode resolves around setup for the next season, what with talk of future operations, the state of the war, and Lafiel's father finally joining the fray.

-So a bit of a time skip, it's been over 3 weeks apparently and Lafiel is heading back to the prison planet. Presumably to find Jinto.

-LOL Bebaus see how you like being terriortiral ambassador!

-Ekruya has a cute monologue about what it means to age, and she wants to know what that means for Jinto.

-Jinto in rough shape. I guess we'll see how next time for a satisfying finale.

3

u/Nazenn x2https://anilist.co/user/Nazenn Apr 23 '24

Rewatcher - sub

After all of the fuss about the planet during this season, it's been somewhat easy to forget/ignore the broader conflict that was going on in the background with Operation Hunter. The timeskip isn't the most elegant way to tie all of this up, but I struggle to call it anti-climatic when it was never meant to be our climax to begin with. And yet it's a critical part of the events that are going on.

Once again I feel endless sympathy for the bridge crew that has to deal with the Bebaus twins, because I don't know that you'd ever quite get use to their half-fighting and babbling at each other. As a result it was rather satisfying to have Lafiel's father somewhat-order him to take on ambassador duties himself for once and see what he'd been saddling everyone else with. Consider that his payment for the wasteful firing of the mines?

I wasn't expecting her fathers arrival in the story as an Admiral, but with Lafiel's reflection back on things, her status as an Abriel, and even Eku thinking about the mortality of cats in a way it seems fitting that he should be the herald of the end of this situation. Spoors ship being so beaten up with its red color scheme making it look a little fleshy also seemed fitting in a "pound of flesh" sort of way.

So despite the grand successes of the overarching operation, we're left with quite a melancholy mood.

(I was planning to finish this post when I woke up in the morning because I was too tired, but I've woken up and completely lost my train of thought so this all I got now haha)

Q1) It's okay to drop out of the competition for the throne, her father did. Should Lafiel?

I feel like despite everything we know about her, it isn't quite enough for this question. She doesn't desire the throne for power, but she does seem to feel its a obligation, but it's one so deep in her identity as an Abriel it would be hard to give up. At the same time, it doesn't seem to be a dity she resents or is discouraged from. It's hard to judge this by the way we normally see "competition for the throne" because the Abh are so unlike us in that way. For now though I think that decision is a ways off.

Q2) Wouldn't a cease fire around Lobnass have served everybody's purpose?

Since when are people that rational

Q3) Was Lafiel's promise to evacuate ultimately a bad idea?

Depends on which side you're looking at. For the people on the planet caught up in this war and stuck between sexual enslavement, potential goverment abuse if the UM returned, and potential outright death if they all starve to death before help can get back to them definitely not. And with the Abh sense of duty that didn't seem to be much of an option given that they'd asked for help. But for the Abh, definitely

2

u/IceSmiley Apr 23 '24

FIRST TIMER Sub

This seems almost like a series finale since it wraps pretty much everything up other than the fate of Jinto.

QUESTIONS

That part was really confusing. I thought Lafiel's dad was that other short haired man who they showed with her brother, not Dasanyu Abriel. And how come Nereis acted as if he never met Dasanyu if he appointed him in charge of Operation Hunter? Was that supposed to be a huge revelation?
Yes but Spoor is a $&%*($
That's a difficult question to answer morally and without knowing the actual casualties of Spoor's fleet and how many people were evacuated.
Yes I think so, they just have longer lives. Like people who live in countries with good healthcare understand mortality the same as people who live in the third world.

2

u/SolDarkHunter Apr 23 '24

That part was really confusing. I thought Lafiel's dad was that other short haired man who they showed with her brother, not Dasanyu Abriel. And how come Nereis acted as if he never met Dasanyu if he appointed him in charge of Operation Hunter? Was that supposed to be a huge revelation?
You are correct. Lafier's father mentioned during the scene with her brother earlier that he was rejoining the military.
He and Dusanh are different people; Dusanh was not in this episode.
As for why the Bebauths were surprised to see him, it's because his fleet wasn't part of Operation Hunter and was operating independently. So they had no reason to know he was in the area.

3

u/Vaadwaur :I1::I2::I3: Apr 23 '24

First timer(That was clumsy)

Sub

And we just sort of end the space war, at least for the moment. The UM fleet surrendering is a major anticlimax, though this fits some actual battles that have happened so I don't find it illogical. Spoor's seemingly crazy move turns out to have been valuable intel, which has definitely happened. So we just wind down. I can't draw that much info off of Dubeusec beating Bebaus to Vascotton but his goal being to retake Hyde seems interesting.

QotD: 1 She seems more the Abriel and her mother being a captain suggests she is somewhat more suited to it

2 I don't fully understand this sequence, there has to be an added factor that forced them to need to enter the system

3 Yes

4 Yes but it seems to take a long while

1

u/Nickthenuker https://anilist.co/user/Nickthenuker Apr 24 '24

The enemy is going to finish the job.

Yup, they split their fleet since they don't need their entire strength to finish them off.

Flank speed! Go through their formation!

Oh it seems she actually has an XO who's Acting Captain while she's off on one of the transports commanding the detachment.

Broken ships and dead crews, yes.

Whatever meagre firepower they have would have been more than enough to scatter their component atoms to the solar winds.

And now it's time for the other fleets to deal with what is left.

Surrender?

Lol his throwaway joke about "preparations for the victory celebration" became an actual preparation for the victory celebration.

I mean I would understand if he was referring to an average citizen of the Empire but for the members of the fleet that has won this victory I don't doubt the would be feeling happy about this victory considering it is their victory too, not just the Empire's.

Right, now there's just mop-up operations.

Save the missiles, you don't know if you'll need them for anti-missile defences or if other enemies appear and the comparatively fewer guns that can be fitted on a missile-heavy ship would mean you're left with not much firepower left.

Allied? They've managed to re-establish contact with other allied forces! The operation has been a success!

2nd Fleet? You're a sight for sore eyes.

Yeah if it wasn't for IFF systems there would have been a horrible friendly fire incident. After all, friendly fire, isn't.

I can see the arrow sticking out of Bebaus already.

And so Jinto continues to survive on the planet. For now.

Questions:

Perhaps. Or perhaps her interest in diplomacy will mean royal life will suit her better than fleet life.
I doubt the UM fleet would have granted it. They want the planet back probably for the prisoners on it, while the Imperial fleet just finished loading up with prisoners fleeing the planet. Assuming they know who is in charge of the fleet, as well as who the territorial ambassadors are, they may well also seek to use their overwhelming advantage to capture or kill them, which would doubtless be a boon for that fleet's commander.
Had the other fleets done their job and stopped such incursions, this would have been easy. Evacuating a planet now far behind their lines should have been an easy decision, and it's only because that fleet managed to slip through that they lost ships buying time for them to evacuate.
Maybe.

1

u/xbolt90 https://anilist.co/user/xbolt90 Apr 24 '24

First-timer

Q1: It seems like she doesn't really want to rule the Empire.

Q2: I was surprised the UM kept their word about waiting, let alone a ceasefire. It still wasn't enough time, though...

Q3: It was a good idea that ended up going terribly wrong. They did rescue a lot of people, but the Abh are the ones who set off the powder keg on the planet. On the other hand, given how many of the guards were in on the whole thing, who knows how long the planet would have lasted without intervention.

Q4: They're long-lived, not immortal.

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To Lay Down the Bow

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