When I started the third volume, I didn't have very high expectations of him. I remember the events of that period as boring, which is why I'm not surprised. Indeed, as a teenager, who was slowly entering his adult life at the age of 18, I had above-average knowledge of politics, history and society, but it was an extremely fragmented knowledge. Moreover, my low self-awareness and the ability to use knowledge in practice made it useless. Today I know more, I'm more mature and more aware, so I don't need that much action or constant striving forwards. I care more about the plot, the development of the world. Chapters, which are mainly based on dialogues, character development and relations between them, do not bother me as much as several years ago. Especially when such a gifted writer as Mr Tanaka wrote it.
I will write about the heroes later, I will start with the main course. I don't know about you, but as a young teenager I dreamed of seeing a battle between two space stations. "Star Wars" and "StarCraft" have had a huge impact (or rather Blizzard studio) on my interest in space and land wars. This, combined with blockbusters like SW, greatly influenced the imagination of young Tomasz, who was interested in military, sci-fi, and even something that I did not understand before, and today I call diplomacy. I created my own scenarios in game map editors or while playing with LEGO blocks that I have not seen in any movie, series, book or anime ... Oh, come back - I saw some of them in "Gundam the Origin" and in books and anime LotGH. One of such dreams was the fight between the Death Star and another base of similar dimensions. I do not know about you, but it is difficult for me to imagine such a base, to be precise, I am talking about its mass, interior, security, structure. I am not surprised, the construction of such a facility would absorb the budgets of all countries in the world + we have not even developed most of the technologies that would be necessary for its proper functioning. We are talking about an object weighing about 40 trillion tons, having the surface of a small or medium planet, protected by several layers of super-ceramics, steel made from cosmic metal ores, crystals and several other substances of extraterrestrial origin. Such a base must draw energy from a star or a super-advanced reactor to function, defend or attack (Geiersburg attacks with 740 million Megawatts, and Iserlohn has more firepower). People, in turn, must have schools, hospitals, shops, parks and other facilities so that they and their families do not die of boredom. And they still need to eat - after all, several million citizens are stationed in such a base. I will not describe the battle itself, so I will limit myself to 3 sentences. This is honey poured on the hearts of "StarCraft" fans and the fulfillment of our imaginations. We got firefighting between Death Stars, boarding infantry and fighter pilots, and engineers were also used, as in the games of the "Command and Conquer" series. In addition, Yang's right-hand man, Walter von Schokopf, was personally led by Rosen Ritter (a branch similar to the Polish GROM unit). Jesus, this episode is gonna blow my brain when I.G is finally done making S3!
How did this come about? Admiral von Schaft, who is primarily a scientist and joined the army for greater opportunities, figured out a way to conquer the fortress that the Alliance had taken over. The infiltration was unlikely to be successful, after all, the Alliance won it that way, so they would embarrass themselves to lose it. Battle in its classic form was out of the question, because a few Thor Hammer shots would turn an entire fleet into a heap of space junk. There was thus left a sneaky attack using another space station. After defeating the aristocracy, Reinhard took over their main fortress in fairly good condition. It was enough to repair it, replenish ammunition, supplies and prepare the engines and technology for the hyperspace jump. Especially the latter things were hard to do. The timing had to be absolutely perfect, or else the base and the troops stationed there would either crumble into atoms or be stuck for eternity with no way back. Besides, no one has done it before the Empire. Moving a fleet this way is one thing, a planet is another. Some Alliance soldiers said it was just a larger scale technique known for many years. Not really - it's something between the two. It is still the same technology, but taken to a new, previously unknown level.
On the other hand, their task was easier because Yang Wen-Li was summoned to Heinessen by Job Trunicht and his men. To quote our national bard - "those stupid cocks", they did it to intimidate the most famous hero of the Alliance today. His position rose too high after the battles he won and saving the capital's inhabitants. So they had to bring him down to the ground floor, that is to show that he is nobody to them. Stupid politicians who manage things they don't know. These cynical whores didn't take him to court, where he had different rights, such as attorney or fair trial. Instead, they called him to something like a court martial. Without contact with his people, without being able to go outside the military unit, without any rules and a minimum of decency, he generally couldn't complain about too little stress or the same amount of boredom. He was often interrogated, and in his spare time he was imprisoned alone. No books or other entertainment. This showed that democracy in some situations is not much different from a dictatorship. In fact, it can be even worse, because everything is simple in a dictatorship and you know who the enemy is. Here, however, the responsibility is blurred into several entities, and explaining oneself out of innocence is extremely frustrating and difficult.
As for the heroes, I fell in love with Hildegard von Mariendorf again. I have already mentioned this in a previous post, but Hilda reminded me of this feeling once again. She is not a girl who professes stupidly understood pacifism on the principle of "let's make love and everything will be fun!". He realizes that not all problems can be solved by diplomacy or peaceful solutions. It only tries to limit the unnecessary struggle, if it is unnecessary. At the same time, she knows where her place is in the hierarchy and does not speak up without being asked for her opinion. Instead, it simply observes the situation, sometimes being a voice of reason that takes into account the reasons of both parties. I also liked the scenes involving the citizens of Phezzan (be it on their planet or Heinessen, as they helped the Alliance rebuild the economy of their country), specifically that the author of the books eminently emphasizes their resemblance to the Jews, the English, or the few other nations they lead above all, cynicism and self-interest. The same attitude to money, exceptional selfishness, willingness to influence other countries, similar methods of action - sometimes cruel, often methodical and ruthless, sometimes within the law. Sure, I've been talking about it since the first volume, but in this they went even further - they directly influenced the Alliance's policy, were even its creators at some stage.
I liked the fragments in which we got to know Kempf - the commander of the attack on Iserlohn and Mittermeier, one of Reinhard's best admirals. The 1st one is such a stereotypical commander who is on the border of 1st and 2nd league - good enough to put him in the first squad, but at the same time too weak to make it into the top 5. Such a solid "player" but making too many mistakes. Even his relationship with his wife and children is a cliché from movies, books etc. on the subject of war. Mittermeier, on the other hand, is a half-child and half-adult, like Julian Mintz. They do not always behave maturely, so in the case of individual scenes you can get the wrong impression that they are not suitable for the army, but this is often due to the fact of their youth, so they can be forgiven. The more so because they show much more often that they have no reason to be complex towards their colleagues with a similar status. They both have charming, even fairy-tale romantic relationships with younger girls, which are an interesting contrast to their intelligence and unique (in relation to their peers) skills. Julian is a good soldier material as opposed to his adoptive parent, and the Imperial Admiral along with his friend Oscar von Reuenthal took over from Kircheis. On this occasion, it is worth mentioning Poplin, Captain of the Iserlohn Fighter Division. Admittedly, he didn't show much, but he showed himself during the battle and gave a nice motivational speech. Were it not for the polite language that Mr. Tanaka used to write this book, it could be summed up something like this - "Okay guys, you gotta clear your minds! Don't clutter your heads with such unimportant things as saving your homeland! It's not your style! No! you dare to fucking think about something else, like the pretty faces of sweet young ladies to whom you haven't told them about your feelings yet! your audacity! Do you copy? ". I left my favorite last, former leader Rosen Ritter. The best infantry in the Alliance for whom fighting in a fortress is a pleasant warm-up. We are, of course, talking about Walter von Schenkopp. So far, we haven't had too many opportunities to experience his skills directly. Usually these were either short memories of his soldiers or equally long fragments in which he showed his tactical sense or hand-to-hand combat skills. In this battle, we see both - his plans to block and slow down boarding, his resolute character and ruthlessness in the counterattack, and his superiority over other fighters on the battlefield. As Mr. Tanaka said, in certain aspects (such as speed, agility, strength, etc.), soldiers are superior to him, but when it comes to the balance of these aspects and the overall level, he is unmatched on the battlefield. He killed enemy soldiers with his tomahawk just like farmers kill a herd of pigs for meat. The only difference is that Walter sometimes had to avoid his opponent's attacks by a hair and pay them back by hammering a heavy weapon into their heads.
I was supposed to start this text with that, but I changed my mind just before it started. The third volume is a bit calmer, the action doesn't move much forward. There are relatively few events, everything unfolds, so to speak, in an inner direction, ie inward. We delve deeper into the Alliance and the Empire, we get to know the heroes who have not had much time so far (Mittermeier, Mecklinger, Hilda, Kempf, Julian, Poplin, Schonkopf, Konev, Rupert and a few others) or got an opportunity to show themselves from another pages. As I mentioned at the beginning, when I was a freshly baked "adult", I found it a poor solution. Each side dealt with their internal problems, so they could return to the war. Due to the fact that the author limited the battles to the initial border skirmishes (which gave us more data on the specifications and software of the fighters - Julian learned it with us) and the only, long battle in the "Fortress vs Fortress" chapter, we got some peace. As one of my old buddies who was an authority for me at a young age said, wars are all about preparation, strategy planning, diplomacy, training recruits and many other things - skirmishes between the parties to the conflict are only part of them. Essential, but not the most important. And that's it, when I finish the 4th volume, I will write another summary. Well, unless some fragment inspires me to write a side column or other loose text.