Legend of the Galactic Heroes - The New Thesis (S1E2): “The Battle of Astarte”

It's been a long time, but we're doing the next episode of the second LotGH adaptation. And, right after this, watching the first two episodes of the older OVA. Probably adapting more or less the same material, so that should be interesting.

Anyway, where we left off the Galactic Empire's general Reinhard was securing a questionably-written victory over a larger Free Planets Alliance fleet, when suddenly a commodore Yang Wen-Li takes over Alliance forces after his commander's death. The framing, along with my limited meta knowledge of this story, suggests that the tide will turn now that Wen-Li is in charge.


The second episode starts with a recap much like my own in the paragraph above. Then, we flash to ten hours earlier, presumably to see the Alliance perspective of the recent events. Starting with Wen-Li getting out of bed aboard his ship.

From the brief look that we get of the ship's exterior, it doesn't appear to be a different class than all the other Alliance vessels around it. Either the Alliance doesn't bother having a larger "flagship" class like the Empire does, or else Wen-Li just isn't aboard it. The latter strikes me as more likely, considering that he's going to take command after their admiral's death in ten hours. Said death would presumably have involved the loss of the flagship, after all.

Wen-Li is woken up by his pager, and pries his face off of the book he fell asleep reading to answer it. Roll intro.

It's not the strongest teaser I've ever seen.

After the battleship mating dance is over, we open on a meeting between Wen-Li and his immediate superior, a Vice-Admiral Paetta. Wen-Li submitted a proposal for how to engage the approaching Imperial fleet the other day, and Paetta called him over to discuss it. He's assessed it as a very solid strategy that's pretty much assured to win this battle for the Alliance. However, it's also defensive to a fault, and seems likely to allow the Imperials to retreat with minimal losses of their own. In other words, it would give them a tactical victory, but little to no strategic progress. Given that their fleet outnumbers the Imperial one, Paetta thinks it preferable to take a higher risk and higher-reward approach so they can better use this advantage while they've got it.

Wen-Li counters that their current encircling maneuver will leave them vulnerable if the Imperials change course and make a lightning strike on one of the flanking groups before they can converge. IE, exactly what Reinhard ends up doing in a couple hours.

...

Okay, in the books this is adapted from is it established that the Empire's ships are a little bit more maneuverable or have better comms/jammer technology than the Alliance's? From both Reinhard's perspective in the last episode and Wen-Li's in this one, it seems like the Alliance SHOULD be able to react to this course adjustment as soon as Reinhard orders it unless his ships can do something theirs can't.

This would make the ostensible brilliance of Reinhard and Wen-Li much substantiated. Reinhard showing his chops by knowing exactly how to leverage his fleet's tech advantages, unlike the conservative naysayers in his fleet. Wen-Li showing his by seeing a potential threat to account for in that same tech disparity, which his superiors dismiss as overestimation.

...

Anyway, Paetta repeats his assessment that they should use this opportunity to blow up as many Imperial warships as possible, even if it's riskier. He also tells Wen-Li that this rejection of his plan has nothing to do with him as a person.

That's a really weird thing for a commander to say to a junior officer when rejecting their proposal on strategic grounds, unless there actually is a very good reason for them to think it's personal. Sort of a suspiciously specific denial.

As he leaves Paetta's office, Wen-Li is hailed by a young staff officer named Lao. Lots of Chinese names in the Alliance space force, it seems. Wen-Li has never heard of Lao before, but Lao has apparently heard of him due to Wen-Li's heroic victory in some previous battle. Wen-Li gets visibly embarrassed when he brings that up, and quietly asks him to please not call him a hero.

Hmm. When we heard Wen-Li over the comms at the end of the pilot, his personality seemed almost the opposite of this. Overly confident, egotistical, almost messiah-complex like. Maybe that was just a stage persona he decided to use, to rally and inspire the battered fleet? If so, he kind of overdid it.

Lao rides the elevator with him back to the lower decks, and tells him that he thinks Wen-Li's plan sounded better and that he wished the VA had passed it on to the flagship. That said, Lao also claims to be devilishly lucky, having survived slim odds on far too many occasions for him to die ignominiously now. So, either way, as long as the two of them are on the same ship Wen-Li ought to be safe.

There are, in fact, atheists in foxholes, but Lao is not one of them.

Wen-Li bids the groupie goodbye and the two part ways. Episode title drop, with dramatic musical cue. It's not *as* badly placed as the OP roll, since the conversation with Lao at least had a hint of the rising tension for the coming battle in it, but still not super grabbing, which makes the dramatic chord kinda silly.

Jump ahead a little while to the Alliance scoutships failing to report the Imperial fleet's arrival at the anticipated trajectory. IE, Reinhard has already made his sharp turn toward one of the flanking groups. And, when the scout tries to alert the main fleet, they find that the enemy is jamming them. Despite not being between them and the main fleet. Or within sensor range.

If jamming communications is this easy, why would they even bother with this type of scouting mission?

No one is acting like this is a shocking reveal of new Imperial jamming capabilities either.

You know, it's really hard to analyze a story focusing on the "tactical brilliance" of these officers when it doesn't provide you with the necessary information to assess their tactical decisions and how they're using the resources available to them. :/

Back on one of the flanking groups' command ships Wen-Li and Paetta discuss the alarming failure of their scouts to report in on schedule. Wen-Li concludes that the Imperials have made a quick 90 degree turn and are hammering their counterpart group before they can execute the pincer movement. As he speaks, we see the footage from last episode of Reinhard shredding said group.

Astarte and Dagon are both nearby locations. I guess we're fighting in the Levantine Sector.

Paetta says that they should charge across the intended battlefield and try to rescue the other group, catching the Imperial fleet from behind before they can overwhelm them. Wen-Li counsels that they should give that flotilla up for lost, and instead quickly regroup with the main fleet and try to intercept the Imperials in a head-to-head shootout while they still have a slight numerical advantage. Paetta doesn't like the idea of just writing off those ships entirely, but Wen-Li insists that there's no way they could make it there before the Imperials finish destroying them, and then they'll be in the same position themselves.

But, Paetta decides that no, he's not going to let his pal Vice Admiral Pastolle in command of that other flank die. Pastolle is an experienced veteran, he can surely hold out longer than Wen-Li is saying against a too-young fop who only got his command through nepotism like Reinhard.

I guess they know Reinhard is commanding the enemy fleet, then. And have made the same assumptions about him that his own underlings do, albeit with much more catastrophic results from the Alliance perspective. Also, Paetta is describing the idiot who refused to accept Reinhard's generous terms of surrender as some kind of crack tactician, lol.

...that said, the fact that Paetta is just assuming that anyone in a fleet defeated by the Imperial fleet will be killed, combined with Pastolle's refusal to surrender when it was offered and he clearly had no way to win...well, this might reflect worse on the Galactic Empire than it does on them. If the former has a history of butchering surrendering enemies with Reinhard's mercy being a rare exception, then the Alliance officers' assumptions relating to that might actually be justified.

Anyway, Paetta insists that Pastolle will still be alive and his fleet still fighting by the time they get there, and ignores Wen-Li's urging. Along with Wen-Li's pointing out that Reinhard has already proven himself to not be incompetent by doing what he's done, so continuing to assume that he is so going forward is a really bad idea. Cut to Pastolle's irradiated corpse floating through the airless ruin that was once his bridge.

The loss of his keen tactical mind is a tragedy for the cause of the Alliance.

Cue Wen-Li managing to get in touch with some friend of his who's captain of the main fleet. And wishes him well, and assures him that he'll get to see his female person Jessica again, don't worry. Goddamnit Wen-Li you just sentenced him to death, I thought you were supposed to be the smart one or something. Cue Reinhard hitting that group as well, and them also not surrendering. This one was all your fault though, Commodore "you're just one week from retirement and engaged" Wen-Li.

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So, the idiot VA didn't do what Wen-Li advised, and now Reinhard has destroyed a little more than 2/3rds of the fleet and is bearing down on the last group with relatively minimal losses of his own. Bad situation for the Alliance. When the Imperials do hit the third group, the command ship takes a nasty hit right off the bat.

Okay, looks like Wen-Li actually *was* on the same ship as his commander at the time of the latter's incapacitation. He just wasn't standing as close to the exploding console.

It's nice how just by changing the music and having faster cuts between shots of ships shooting each other, the (mostly) same space battle footage can have a triumphant tone in the pilot, when we saw it from the Imperial perspective, to a desperate and grim one here when we see it from the Alliance's.

With Paetta down, Wen-Li is the highest ranking officer present and able to take command. With the help of Lao, who is also unhurt thanks to that luck of his, he sends Paetta down to sickbay. Before being removed from the bridge, Paetta regains consciousness enough to cede command to Wen-Li on his own initiative and beg him to save their last subfleet if he can.

Lao comments that it looks like Paetta really does respect Wen-Li after all. Wen-Li is skeptical. There's some backstory thing that's hanging over Wen-Li that we don't know about yet. Something that at least many of his superiors hold against him, but can't openly acknowledge holding against him. Even if Paetta isn't one of them, he felt the need to go out of his way to *assure* Wen-Li that he wasn't.

So, Wen-Li broadcasts his message to the other ships. In context of the character we've now gotten to see, it comes across as less egomaniacal and more like an attempt to inspire hope and confidence, but still with a lot of the former. I don't know if I should be chalking this up to Wen-Li being a clumsy orator, or to translation oddities. As he speaks, we see his words being played through speakers on the bridges of the Alliance ships, as well as on the Imperial flagship's where Reinhard is sitting on his ridiculous space throne.

I get that the Empire's richly decorated warships are supposed to represent a regressive, war-loving, aristocrat-run culture as opposed to the drab, utilitarian look of the Alliance's suggesting civic duty and responsible budgeting. But goddamnit, the former are so nice to look at, and the latter are so boring and generic.

Speaking of ostentation and self-aggrandizing aesthetic choices, it looks like Wen-Li's speech sounding like a messiah complex in action isn't just a translation issue. Reinhard reacts to it the same way I did.

Regardless, Wen-Li hasn't appeared to do anything differently yet, so for now Reinhard continues with his existing plan. With the Alliance fleet heavily reduced, there's not much point in sticking around to mop it up. Reinhard has his own ships contract into a spindle formation, intending to literally blow a tunnel through the center of Wen-Li's fleet and fly through it and on toward their target, leaving whatever ships are left to save as many people as they can and limp home.

There's a confusing...thing...where Wen-Li wants to get a new order out, but Lao tells him that their communications are jammed. Even though he just got that bombastic message out, and was seemingly heard. Then Wen-Li says a bunch of technobabble, and Lao says "OMG that's brilliant!" and then they can send orders. Which they couldn't do before. Reinhard's jamming array is smart, and knows to block tactical orders without wasting its time intercepting egotistical ramblings.

Anyway, Wen-Li spends a genius point to get his orders through the smart jammer, and his ships all retreat in different directions ahead of the Imperial fleet's approaching spindle.

This seems like a fairly obvious countermeasure to me, but okay, maybe there's something more he has planned.

Over on his own flagship, Reinhard sees the Alliance ships part before him, leaving his ships caught in a dense formation optimized for forward firing while Wen-Li's are moving out to the side and much less dense, letting them pepper his fleet without getting in each other's way. He's got too much forward momentum for his ships to decelerate or change course. The only thing he can do is race through and hope this isn't as painful as he fears it might be.

Unfortunately for Reinhard, Wen-Li doesn't do what he thought and shoot from all flanks as he powers through. Rather, he has his own ships close in again behind the Imperial spindle formation and turn their forward batteries on Reinhard's back. Now Reinhard is past the defending fleet, but its chewing him up as it chases him deeper into Alliance space.

Reluctantly, he's forced to retreat. While he could stand and fight the vastly diminished Alliance fleet and almost certainly win, Wen-Li has inflicted sufficient losses that it's doubtful Reinhard will be able to capture the planets he was sent to seize. In a moment of adversarial communication and understanding, both commanders get the message that continuing to fight would just waste more lives and resources for no strategic gain. So, when Reinhard's fleet turns around, Wen-Li's moves aside and lets it head back home before doing the same itself.

As the fleets withdraw, Reinhard sends a message to the acting Alliance commander, congratulating him on his clever victory and honorable endgame conduct, and wishing him well.

Lao asks Wen-Li if he wants to send a message back. Wen-Li appears to consider it, before deciding that culturally speaking an Imperial officer wouldn't really expect a personal reply from an Alliance one, even if it was precipitated, so he shouldn't rock the boat. Instead, he just sends his remaining ships to rescue as many survivors as they can from the first two subfleets.

I think he could have settled for "gg, no re, l2p," but as we've established Wen-Li is a tactical genius and not a rhetorical one.

So, the Battle of Astarte ends in a technical Alliance victory, but an attritional loss, with Reinhard having inflicted nearly ten times the amount of ship casualties that he suffered (mostly due to him having destroyed the first two subfleets before Wen-Li took over).

After the credits, we see that Reinhard came out of this engagement looking pretty damned good, despite failing in his mission. The Alliance fleet that intercepted him was much larger than the Empire was counting on, and just preserving as much of his force as he did and getting it back home is seen as an admirable feat of damage reduction. He is summoned to the Imperial capital for an audience with the Kaiser.

The leader of all mankind, except for the half of it that seceded and the other smallish fraction that retained its independence to begin with. Well, it wouldn't be space Prussia without space pretention, would it now?

Kaizer Friedrich IV, a thoroughly unimpressive looking old man who appears far too small and frail for the throne he's sitting on, gives Reinhard a promotion. He's now an Imperial Fleet Officer, which sounds like either a cabinet position or just one step below that.

The narrator says this is just one step toward his final destination, though. Given what we know about his family connections, I think it's likely he's going to be sitting on that throne himself by the end of the series.

The stinger doesn't tell us anything about the kind of reception Wen-Li got when he returned home. I imagine a pretty positive one, since the only people who would want to throw him under the bus for the loss of most of the fleet are probably dead, and the mission records should show that the damage was done before he took over rather than after. Anyway, end episode.


So, that was an opening arc. Sort of. The leading duo were both likable, and they seem to have the potential for interesting arcs going forward, but we didn't see any of that begin to happen. So far, their roles in the story are just as commanders of their respective armies, with their potential as dynamic characters being just that.

Aside from Reinhard and Wen-Li both being likable, and the shooty spaceships being beautifully animated and musically scored, though, there wasn't a lot to grab me in these two episodes. Everyone except the leading two and their respective bishie sidekicks being monotonously incompetent and pigheaded got old really, really fast. The lack of clarity as to what tactics should or shouldn't already be obvious, as well as the seemingly arbitrary capabilities of their ships (that jamming thing just...), made the tactical focus of this two-parter feel like watching a chess game without knowing any of the rules of chess. You can tell when one player is gaining advantage over the other, but you can't really understand how or why enough to appreciate their skill.

If there was more going on with Reinhard and Wen-Li in terms of character development while this was happening, it wouldn't be such an issue. And I can tell that they're foreshadowing a lot of that. But until it actually starts, this is just kind of bland and unengaging.