Legend of the Galactic Heroes - Die Neue These S1E10: "Interlude"

This review was comissioned by @LilyWitch


Been quite a while. Where we last left off on this series almost two years ago, my feelings on the show were kinda iffy, but I was still more or less feeling entertained. It could get better from here, or worse. In any case, I doubt the politics will be any less WTF or the space battles any less incoherent, but as long as the intrigue and character drama stays good then that can at least mostly make up for it.

The last things that actually happened, as I recall, where that Wen-Li managed to do a pull off a crazy Trojan Horse scheme and take over the Iserlohn, the Galactic Empire's deathstaresque space station that they were using to control the vital Ishtar Corridor. For the first time in decades, the balance of power has truly shifted against the Empire now, and Wen-Li is hoping that the Alliance might be able to get them back to the bargaining table. Meanwhile, Reinhard - newly promoted to Imperial Warmaster - has taken the shifty surviving Iserlohn officer Oberstein under his wing and brought him into the know of his plot to overthrow the Kaiser. Trusting Oberstein might have been a very bad idea or a very good one, it's not yet clear.

On a much dumber note: I accidentally skipped an episode, apparently. I thought this was episode 9 when I started watching it, and didn't realize my mistake until I was most of the way through. I guess the actual episode 9 must have been fairly uneventful, since this one seems like it picks up right where I left off last time, but still, I do need to go back and watch it. So, that'll be next in queue before I proceed to the final two episodes of the season in proper order. Sorry about that!

Anyway, let's get started.


We open on a luxurious home bar, where two elderly well-dressed men are discussing the sudden turnaround in the war. Their clothing doesn't match what we've seen of Imperial noblemen's fashion, and they're talking about the Alliance from a distinctly external perspective, so I suspect we're finally getting a look at that one independent star system that's managed to stay between them. Fezzan, I think it was called.

And yeah, when the camera angles change the man on the left becomes recognizable as Adrian Rubinsky, the Fezzanian...President? Prime Minister? I forget what his exact position is called, but he's their head of state. So yeah, we're on Fezzan, and Rubinsky and his friend are discussing the intel they've acquired that hints at the Alliance's next move. With their new control of the Ishtar Corridor, they've decided to strike while iron is hot and launch a major offensive before the Empire can harden their next defensive line too strongly; thirty million men are being mobilized into an invasion fleet.

The insane scale of this war between hemigalactic polities honestly makes it hard to tell what any big numbers mean to them. Like, how many men were there in the two clashing fleets we saw in the opening episodes? How large is the crew of a single ship, even? I don't recall any numbers being given at the time. I guess I'll develop a feel for this as the series continues.

It turns out that Rubinsky's houseguest isn't one of his own government's officials, but rather an Imperial one. Rubinsky is only just now sharing his alarming new intel with them, it seems. The officer hurries off back to the embassy to pass the information on, and Rubinsky stares placidly out the window behind him. A moment later, Rubinsky's much younger and more revealingly dressed female companion comes in and asks why he's gotten so talkative with the Imperials all of a sudden. Rubinsky implies that he hopes he'll be able to monitor the Empire's own response as such, since he'll know their precise moment of learning about the threat, which will give him even more intel that will in turn interest the Alliance.

Granted, he thinks he's still going to have to shift to a more pro-Imperial posture in general for at least the next little while. The whole Iserlohn incident has really thrown him for a loop. In retrospect, he regrets not having warned them when he learned the Alliance was about to make some kind of unconventional bid to take the station. He just never thought that Wen-Li would actually succeed there, so he didn't think it worth it to reveal to the Empire just how much access his agents have to the Alliance's covert ops planning over it.

Anyway, he needs to do what he can to make sure that the Empire repels this big attack now, but he can't let the victory be too overwhelming either. It would be very bad to let the Empire regain a large fleet advantage, even if they're still on the back foot after losing Iserlohn. Got to keep this going. Just keep the war going, for as much longer as possible.

Well, I guess the villainous framing that the show has been giving Rubinsky is starting to justify itself. I wonder what his angle is, though. Does he just think the war is necessary for retaining Fezzan's independence, and that said independence is worth an ongoing death toll higher than the system's entire population? Or is it even more cynical than that, with his own regime specifically rather than Fezzani self-governance as a whole relying on the war to keep itself in power somehow? Probably one or the other of those two. When (lovingly) accused of enjoying this game for its own sake by his mistress, Rubinsky admits that yeah, kind of. Just the sheer scale of the consequences his actions have, the number of lives completely extinguished or reprieved from otherwise certain death just by his choice of words, it does damp his panties a tad.

Not sure if this guy is worse than the Imperial bigwigs, but he's damned close. I wonder what kind of society Fezzan has, under him? Something tells me it's a "seriously we're a democracy bro, El Presidente just keeps winning the elections over and over" type thing, but I don't know.

Wonder how they maintain such a uniquely good spy network, also. Maybe it's just a matter of them being the only polity with diplomatic access to both sides at all.

Cut to the Imperial throne world of Odin, where the Fezzani intel has been relayed. The ministers aren't surprised to hear that there's an attack imminent, of course. There's no way there wouldn't be, after they just took the corridor. An army thirty million strong is more than they thought the Alliance could bring to bear so quickly, though, and if it gets through their end of the Ishtar String they might not be able to stop it before it gets deep into the Empire's core.

Granted, this could potentially be the regime's salvation, assuming it doesn't kill them. The people have been chafing under the crown's rule and the forever war, and - though information about it is being harshly suppressed - rumors about the truth of the Iserlohn situation are starting to get out. If that dam breaks, it could trigger a popular revolt on a potentially very large scale. The immediate threat of an Alliance invasion might scare them into circling the wagons again though. And, if the Empire manage to defeat the scary Alliance invasion, that will restore faith in the regime. Especially if we can make it a dramatic victory that the imperial house itself plays a role in, though that might not be doable.

On the OTHER other hand, there's the problem of that new warmaster. Reinhard is dangerously liberal, and it's very possible that a popular uprising might try to rally around him and that an upstart lowborn like himself might be tempted to exploit this. How to win this without making Reinhard look too good is one hell of a puzzler.

For now, the ministers decide that winning the battle takes priority, so no upsetting the chain of command again so soon. Once this attack is repelled and either the new border is secured or the Iserlohn is retaken, they can engineer Reinhard's fall from grace. Or his fall down some stairs, if that isn't doable.

Jump back across the galaxy to the Alliance homeworld of Heinessen, where the top generals are going over their invasion plan. The flag admiral for this massive exploratory campaign will of course be...whoever the hell this guy is:

Yeah, see, we're running a proper military around here. Glorious victories don't let you immediately rocket six ranks up if the king happens to be suitably impressed by them. Wen-Li is going to be one of eight vice-admirals leading subgroups within the invasion fleet.

Speaking of Wen-Li, his mental voice speaks up here to give us some of the sense of scale I was hoping for.

60% of half a galaxy's military. Even for a military that's suffered some heavy losses in the last year or two, that's big.

Granted, Ishtar can't be the only contact point between the two, or else they'd already have, like, 90% of their fleets clustered around there at all times. I believe Fezzan was sitting on another constellation-bridge. And I'm guessing there are probably others that are just way further away from population centers and logistical hubs. So, they must be drawing down from a lot of other places for this.

...

Also, I feel like it would make more sense for them to quantify fleet sizes with the number of ships, not the number of people, no?

...

Wen-Li is disheartened by what's going on. He'd hoped that with its newfound bargaining position, the Free Planets Alliance would throw the Empire a rope and try to negotiate an end to the war. Erm...well, on one hand, sure, that would be ideal. On the other hand though, if the Empire is in deep shit right now, wouldn't it fall to them to sue for peace? It's not like you need your enemy to give you permission or invitation or whatever for you to do that. In fact, wouldn't massing a big fleet to intimidate them right after they've had the rug pulled on them like that be a good way of trying to GET a polity like the Galactic Empire to sue for peace?

Granted, as the audience we know that the Empire might just self destruct on its own soon if it doesn't have an existential threat to distract everyone with. So, I guess Wen-Li is right, though I'm not sure if he himself knows enough about the situation to be credited for this.

Next scene has Wen-Li at home, in the house he shares with that kid they made him adopt or whatever. What was the kid's name again? I forgot, but I bet it's Herman or something. Wen-Li vents to Herman about how his hope of bringing the war closer to an end with as few more lives lost as possible has been crushed.

Then...he tells Herman that he thinks the Alliance has gotten high on victory after Iserlohn, and has forgotten how costly war usually is.

Are...are you fucking with me, show?

They've been at war for DECADES. The first battle we saw, which took place just a couple in-universe years ago at most, was a huge attritional loss for the Alliance. Costly victories are very recent. So too are costly defeats. No one in the Alliance is naive to the ugliness of war at this point. No one in the Alliance HAS been naive to it for longer than Wen-Li has been alive. What the fuck is he smoking?

Then...oh for the...okay. Herman asks Wen-Li if it's really just naivete that's got the Alliance being so gung-ho, and Wen-Li tells him that no, it's also because there's a presidential election coming up and the incumbent wants to be seen as making progress. Wen-Li then goes on a little rant about how awful you'd have to be to send thirty million men into battle just so you can stay in power for four more years.

Literally a four year election cycle.

...

I'm really, really trying to read this some other way besides "bitter Japanese boomer trying to prove that liberal democracy is just as bad as monarcho-fascism, and failing to make a convincing case even in his own fictional world where he can stack everything in his favor." Looking into the adaptation a little bit, it seems that author Yoshiki Tanaka had very, very little to do with either the OVA or DNT, so without having read the books I'm not sure if he's the one at fault for this. But like. Someone definitely is.

The Galactic Empire reads like what it's supposed to be. A regressive, militaristic empire that's settled into the paradigm of a forever war on its own terms, and which is only just now starting to flail due to the war suddenly no longer being on its own terms. The Empire's portrayal fits the story. They make sense.

The Free Planets Alliance is just contemporary America in space. It isn't written like a polity that's been under attack from an enemy that still sees them as rebels in need of resubjugation for decades. It's not written like it's full of people who are genuinely and rightly afraid of having their rights and freedoms stripped away again. It's full of spoiled dumb Americans who are too used to having it easy, voting for spoiled dumb American politicians who treat this alleged existential conflict like a for-profit third world proxy war, and the show expects you to judge them all accordingly.

And, like. No. I won't.

...

Back to the admirals' council, where they're planning the campaign. A lot of the more experienced admirals have serious reservations about this plan of just charging all-in and hoping to cut a swathe through the Empire. Like, how are they going to keep these insanely large fleet supplied when it's in the middle of enemy territory keeping up constant forward momentum? The (implicitly in the pocket of the incumbent president) pro-invasion officers are hoping that their intrusion will spur revolutionaries across the Empire into action, but that's sort of a naively optimistic assumption.

Then one of them proposes that they "trust the liberated planets and peoples to keep the fleet resupplied." IE, loot and pillage their way across the Empire. The logistics experts are a bit sceptical of this proposal, to say the least. But when anyone, including Wen-Li, expresses too many misgivings, they just get accused of being unpatriotic. Cue speeches about spreading freedom and democracy that...well, if they're directly quoted from the novel written in the 1980's then that's an unusual bit of prescience, but if they were rephrased in the post War on Terror anime adaptation then it's just more misplaced association. I strongly suspect the latter, because these tirades are just so George W. Bush.

I wonder why no one is proposing just biting off a chunk of the Empire near their end of the corridor and trying to consolidate their hold over that first? That seems like the obvious course of action here if they aren't confident they can launch the killing blow just yet. That way you have your big fleet close to your own logistical hubs, with the Iserlohn both guarding the supply line and acting as tough-as-balls fallback position in case things go badly. Bite off as many star systems near the Imperial side of the Ishtar corridor as you think you can hold, deny their resources to the Empire, and adapt their industry for your own use. Now you have a production advantage AND a positioning advantage. No?

After the fruitless planning session, we go back to Wen-Li and Herman. Herman is saying that Wen-Li should just refuse to serve in such a mission. Wen-Li tells him that no, the democratically elected government has ordered this campaign, and that means it is the will of the people. The military must be beholden to the civilian government, so Wen-Li has to go do this. Isn't freedom great? Totally worth dying for.

Yes, show, that is true, democracies can potentially have some of the same problems that dictatorships are outright built around. The implication that this makes the two just as bad as one another, though, I might have to take exception with.

The next morning, Wen-Li and that one older admiral that he's friends with hang out and sulk about how much of a disaster this is going to be. Really, bumping into hard resistance and having to turn back before they can get cut off in the middle of enemy territory is the best outcome they can realistically hope for.

So much for the capture of Iserlohn being a potential end to the war like they'd hoped.

Guys, remember. The Empire can sue for peace any time it wants to. Even if this all-out invasion plan is stupid, the fact that the Empire isn't making overtures on its own after the loss of Iserlohn suggests that the war wasn't going to end just from that no matter what the Alliance does next.

Anyway. We get to why Grand Admiral Whatsisname refused to accept Wen-Li's resignation after the success of the Iserlohn mission. Oh right, Wen-Li was planning to retire from the military after that operation, I forgot that detail. But anyway, officers like Wen-Li are needed to counterbalance the toxic influence of gloryhounds and careerists and lunatics, since the government just seems to encourage those types.

This is why it's extra important that Wen-Li be one of the commanders of this ill-advised exploratory fleet. Counteract the lunatics, and also - if at all possible - look for an opportunity to find a non-catastrophic defeat that will force them to come back home after minimal loss of life. That's a tall order, but okay.

Even taller order, though? This guy is hoping that Wen-Li will eventually climb high enough in the ranks to reform the military and get rid of the lunatics altogether. Including finagling what he needs to finagle in the government to allow this.

Erm. Okay.

Back across the galaxy, on the planet Odin, Reinhard is talking to his own underlings and generals. How do they propose they stop the giant Alliance doom fleet?

He gets a bunch of very obvious suggestions, along the lines of "attack them once they come through the corridor." Reinhard, trying to look less frustrated than he obviously is, tells them that that won't be enough. They need to RECOVER from the Iserlohn disaster, not just entrench a new status quo with the Alliance in control of the corridor. The Alliance is sending 60% of their entire military at the Empire now. If the Imperial fleet can destroy that, then the war will be pretty much over. And, at this point, that might be the only way it can end with an Imperial victory.

I wonder. Is Reinhard actually planning to go through with this method, or is he planning some sort of revolutionary defeatism? With his true goals being what they are, I'd say this is a pretty golden opportunity to bring down the House of Goldenbaum and everything it stands for with plausible deniability.

Hopefully he's planning to do that, and not just use a victory over the Alliance to fuel his own personal coup against the crown. That would be...disappointing, to say the least.

As Reinhard has Oberstein fill the other officers in on his actual plan now that he's sure none of them have any better ideas, we see the Alliance fleet - 200,000 ships strong, we're given a number now, so that's an average of 150 men per ship - gathering at the under-new-management Iserlohn.

End episode.


While I am warming up to Wen-Li a bit more as a character, the politics surrounding him and his faction are just too misguided and too fundamental to his entire side of the story for me to have much patience for it. Criticize representative democracy as a system of government all you want, but don't do it while they're fighting a defensive war against nazi-flavored absolute monarchists holy shit.

Not sure what to make of Fezzan and their dictator's apparent war-profiteering yet. It's an interesting third moving piece, but I'll need to see more of it in action to say anything more.