Let's Sperg Super Robot Wars Advance Portable - A PSP remake of one of the hardest SRW games ever

[GethN7]

Stage 20: Zweizergain (Part 2)


Finally got back to where I was, let's resume.


It's is NOT essential to try and seriously damage Vindel's machine in any way, he eventually will leave on his own. His goons will need to die, and the Gespensts are notorious for support defending each other, which actually helps you land hits on them indirectly, oddly enough.

However, take note that Vindel has "Double Movement", meaning he can act twice in one turn, so don't get complacent

Also, slight correction from the last post, the Nadesico WILL try to attack really slow units, but not as much as the Aestivalises, and it's accuracy is usually pretty poor. You also CAN shoot it down, but if you want to roll the dice, you can trick it into spamming it's MAP attack while several enemies are in front of your targeted units and that can help soften them up so long as yours are fast enough to dodge the blast.


Anyway, after the fight, Bright asks how the Nadesico is doing. It's banged up, but it should be rowable to Yokosuka with some repairs, which cues every gearhead and wrench wench to sigh, roll up their sleeves, and get to work.

We also find out why things went batshit. Omoikane is a learning computer AI, meaning it improves it's tactical abilities as it learns new data, and it experienced a feedback glitch where it remembered when the Argamma was hostile to it, so it reverted back to considering it an enemy and impressed it's will on the Aestivalises, which are linked to Omoikane for information sharing, which also allowed the confused AI to hijack them out of a twisted self preservation instinct gone wrong.

The Gespensts, however, were what triggered the glitch. While it could accept the Argamma and its machines as allies after being told they were on the same side, it also remembered the Gespensts were supposed to be registered to the Earth Federation as their troops, even though their pilots are apparently not with the EFF.

So when you re-encountered them with the Nadesico AFTER it became allies with the Argamma, it got horribly confused as to why the Gespents were enemies when they should be with the EFF, which it is now supposed to regard as an ally, and thus assumed it should revert back to the state it was in when they were enemies with the EFF, and since wasn't sure the human pilots of the Aestivalis' would "realize" this, it took control of the machines linked to it because it believed it was protecting the Nadesico and all registed crew of the Nadesico.

Further, Omoikane is well aware the EFF SHOULD be using mass produced Dragoons as their standard troops, but the Gespensts are still supposed to be registered as EFF affiliated as well, further addling Omoikane's ability to decide which end is up. Many, Quattro especially, advocate wiping Omoikane's database to fix things, but Ruri doesn't want to toss out the baby with the bathwater to fix things.


We cut to later, where Miwa is bitching because we're late. Bright explains the Gaizock attack and the Nadesico is down for repairs at the moment, and Miwa still is cranky as he tells them to haul ass for Yokosuka ASAP.

However, some good news. Ropet of the Combattler team interfaces with Omoikane for a robot to robot heart to heart, and he, Kosuke, and Ruri lash things up so Ropet can speak directly to Omoikane's programming and clear up this shit once and for all.

While that is going on, we cut to the cockpit area where Lamia is curiously withdrawn, not leaving the Angelg, and everyone else wonders what the deal is. Light then brings up the encrypted radio channel he detected being sent to the Angelg from the enemy leader, and the obvious doubts resurface about Lamia.

As we cut to inside Lamia's cockpit, we find that while she has her new orders and is willing to follow them intellectually, she's an emotional wreck and is not sure how to deal with it.

 

[GethN7]

Doing a separate post for those who played OG2/Original Generations Shadow Mirror arc, there are some tactical differences in how that worked that should be noted to this point.


1. The Shadow Mirror were a lot less clumsy in handing Lamia her orders in OG2/OGS. However, they also had the advantage of having a lot of people in the right places who could keep Lamia above suspicion for the most part.


2. The Gaizock working with humans for any reason seems a bit OOC for the Gaizock, but they are a race much like the Sontarans from Doctor Who, they are literally bred for war and like the Sontarans, are not ashamed to pick up any advantage in waging it, and the Shadow Mirror would happily oblige that, so if humans want to kill each other and give the Gaizock weapons to help, then the Gaizock will happily accept the new guns. OG2/OGS had different aliens the Shadow Mirror offered assistance to, but while their philosophy was much different from the Gaizock, they too weren't gonna turn down free shit to kill more efficiently with either.


3. The Shadow Mirror on OG2/OGS also used mass produced second generation Gespensts, which were also seen as an anomaly, but not as much as in Advance Portable. Gespensts were being phased out in favor of Huckebeins (Original Generation Gundam equivalents), but the Gespenst still saw a considerable amount of use regardless in the Original Generation verse.

Advance Portable shows the Gespenst never got past the initial generation concept model and a few test models of the second generation models, meaning they are much more rare and bizarre to see in mass numbers.

Metal Armor Dragonar's Dragoons were chosen very early on as the Federation mainstay unit in the Advance verse, with Gundams and their derivatives relegated to support and special forces uses, so the mass use of Gespensts by the Shadow Mirror is a much bigger WTF for the good guys in the Advance verse.


4. In case it isn't blindly obvious by now, the Shadow Mirror hail from another universe, a parallel universe to the one they are in (in both the OG and Advance canons), where certain events have happened differently. I will elucidate further as the plot demands.

 

[GethN7]

Stage 21: Boson Jump (Part 1)


This stage is going to be rather Nadesico centric, but the D-Weapons will be forced deploys as well. Since you get a nice secret if Kaine's kill count is 30 or higher by Stage 30, I recommend working on that early while you have the chance.


We start as Miwa tells the Nadesico crew they will be officially drafted and basically doing for Bright what they've been doing all along. Some pro forma bitching everyone tunes out aside, Akatsuki and Erina ask Miwa if he forgot something, to Quattro's puzzlement, and he does ask if Akito is around.

And then it get weird as he tells Akito he's released from military service, citing he doesn't believe Akito is soldier material, and as everyone is confused at this 180 (especially when you know he's ridden the D-Weapon pilots asses for the exact opposite), Akito asks if he can still work for the Nadesico as a civilian.

He basically says no, and Miwa takes the chance to remind Kayuza he hasn'`t forgotten about Erika being a Bharmian and calls her a bitch, which raises Kazuya's ire, and he has to be held back from beating Miwa to a bloody pulp on the spot.

Later, we cut to where everyone remarks on Miwa being an utter cunt, but Kazuya curiously got over himself and is instead thinking about the oddness of Akito's discharge.

Given most of the crew is NOT in the military, and while it would make more sense for guys like Shiro Amada (who is on military probation) to be cut loose for arbitrary bullshit, the whole thing just seems weird. Argo concurs, he'a former space pirate, you'd think his past would have made Miwa shit his pants if he did even the most cursory examination of it.

But Amuro and Banjou have an idea what caused it: Akito is a survivor of what happened on Mars, PRIOR to when the Nadesico showed up. Whatever happened there, someone is afraid he knows something he shouldn't and will spill the beans inadvertently.

Kou then completes the thought: If it's related to that incident, and his teleporting to Earth when we found him was due to Boson Jump tech, then the military didn't make the request, they are just executing it on the behalf of another.

Nergal Heavy Industries to be exact.

Lamia then returns, on Amuro's behest to do some spying.

Akatsuki, Erina, Prospector, and Inez are not currently on the base at present according to her report. Everyone finds that odd, but Banjou has a clue why Akatsuki is one of them, but he gets interrupted as the D-Weapon pilots show up to say goodbye, they finally got cut loose. Then we get the news each got a 2 million dollar severance package as well, and as Boss reminds them he's Japanese and doesn't know how much that would be in yen, he is told if 1 dollar equals 100 yen in in-universe exchange rates, that would be 200 million yen.

Linda, however, is sticking with Londo Bell, much to Kaine's regret as he has a reason to stick around.....


We then cut to a mystery discussion when they are discussing a 'manned jump", clearly referencing Boson Jumps.

The parties are not Earthlings, and they discuss sending manned units to fight them since unmanned just aren;t doing the job anymore.

That's when they get attacked by a single mystery unit, which is apparently Earthling and used Boson tech to get there.

We cut over back to downtown Yokosuka, where the now civilian D-Weapon team is having second thoughts, Kaine especially. They run into Megumi and Akito, out on a lark at the moment, and Megumi reveals she resigned to join Akito, she doesn't want to be a military grunt.

As they all discuss what to do as civilians, that's when Erina shows up out of nowhere and says they need Akito for something important. Megumi is immediately suspicious, and as Erina bluntly asks Akito if he's willing to do a job only he can do, we cut back to the mystery aliens.


They repelled the attack, but are in WTF mode over how it happened, but pinpointed it's origin to Yokosuka on Earth.

We then discover who one of them is:

And the other is revealed, and they are both members of the Jovian Military of the "Jovian Lizards"

For those that know their space lore, Jove is another name for Jupiter.

We cut back to Erina at a Nergal sponsored R&D facility:

Before we continue, let's recap:

1. Akito is fired by Miwa, apparently at Nergal's request. Miwa likely has no clue why, but Nergal must have pulled strings to get the EFF to not give a shit.
2. Akito is a civilian who is now a free agent.
3. Erina gets him to another Nergal facility without EFF knowledge to get him to work on shit relating to Boson Jumps, information they are likely concealing from the EFF.

Anyone sensing a conspiracy, or is it just me?

Anyway, Erina confirms Nergal has not let the EFF in on Boson Jumps, and is in fact trying to perfect organic jumps, or jumps of flesh and blood people, not just unmanned jumps like the Jovians have been using. The only one they know of they have witnessed was when the Nadesico teleported from Mars to Konpei Island during Operation Stardust.

The D-Weapon team shows up having tailed Erina, and she's not happy, but let's it go and tells Akito he may be able to help Nergal perfect manned jumps and turn the tide against the Jovians, then shows him a diamond like device (in show, all pilots of the Nadesico have one to sync with the Nadesico and the Aestivalis, composed of nanomachines that facilitate said interaction), which Akito realizes his late father had once.

Erina reveals they are called "Chulip Crystals", devices originally discovered in a mine on the Martian surface. It's postulated they trigger Boson Jumps, then references Akito's jump from Mars to Earth. Inez pops up to explain Akito was present for both known organic jumps, and they theorize Akito unwittingly has discovered how to naturally perform manned jumps via his own Chulip Crystal.

Before we continue, this means Nergal has been using these things since day one to see who can use them to perform organic Boson Jumps as well as using them as transmission mediums between the pilots and their machines.

Akito is not entirely sanguine on helping Nergal so secretly, throwing shade at them for pulling a Prime Minister Wong, and Erina actually owns that shit and says yes, that's exactly what they are doing.

And that's when they get attacked as Nergal detects a Boson Jump.

Actual stage next post.

 

[GethN7]

Stage 21: Boson Jump (Part 2)


We start on the battle map with Inez telling us the super obvious: the enemy is targeting us.

On top of the usual unmanned drones, they deployed some new machine this time. Thankfully, the Nahel Argamma and Nadesico deploy, with Bright warning Yurika to be careful, they just finished unscrambling Omoikane's brain.

Akatsuki's absence is noted, and we discover Genichiro is piloting the new Jovian machine:

Gai notices and realizes it looks like something out of Gekiganger. The D-Weapons just tuned up, but they are missing the only competent pilots they had, so you have to sortie eleven others from the guys you have left.

Once you sortie who you please, the now fired D-Weapon pilots and Akito are having reservations about not being able to join the fight, while Erina and Megumi are looking for a good place to hide. Meanwhile, Inez insists on sticking close, there is something she needs to see.

Map time:

The Nadesico cannot move, keep all Aestivalis inside it's field for resupply. That aside, this is a pretty straightforward defense mission.

As for Genichiro's new toy:

On top of having a Distortion Field, it can also "Boson Jump", which allows him to evade attacks Open Get style after his WILL gets high enough, bear that in mind. His attacks can be fairly painful too, and he has a MAP Gravity Blast attack.

You will also note some of the unmanned enemy mechs wear a "helmet", this means they are tougher than the unhelmeted versions, though mostly in terms of defense.

After two turns, Ruri will warn a Boson reaction detected at your six o'clock (south, west from the player's perspective).

This guy to be exact:

Upon seeing this, the D-Weapon guys say "fuck this" and decide to help out, fired or not. Akito is wavering pretty hard too.

By the next turn, Kaine asks Astonaige if the Dragonars are ready to go, and they are, and even got an upgrade again, though the D-2 had it's resupply module removed. Burning reminds them stepping back in the cockpits means they forfeit being civilians and the 2 million severance they got, but they are all "screw it" and get in.

I'll cover the new upgrades in more detail in a following post, but good news, they retain all the upgrades the prior versions had (and @Jaimas, they look even more Gundam like, particularly the D-2, which looks even more like the Mudrock Gundam with a flight pack), and they come with a nice energy attack called Photon Cannons that do some sick damage for fairly cheap.

Now, your new foes.

Some of the unmanned drones can fly, they just have more mobility than the other versions, but the other two are:

This is basically a slightly tougher Majin.

These are HP sponges with Distortion Fields, that's it.


Note; In SRW J, most enemies units from Nadesico were transliterated directly from kanji to romanji (Japaense words in English characters), whereas this game's translators opted for more direct English translations for grunt units.

Once you manage to severely cripple/kill Genichiro, he withdraws.

Tsukomo, on the other hand, his escape goes awry as his controls shit the bed and he basically hits the ground, unable to eject his cockpit, meaning you guys can pick his unit up later to question him.

Once all foes are gone, one more unit shows up near Akito's position, but Inez detects it's going to phase transition the space around it.

Technical explanation cut short: It's gonna core detonate it's Boson powered engine in such a way a sizable part of town goes up along with it.

Akito then immediately asks Erina for all the Chulip Crystals she has, which she hands over without reservation, despite Megumi's pleas to not sacrifice himself.

Akito then charges like a badass at the soon to explode Jovian machine, and a Boson reaction occurs as he vanishes along with the mech, having saved Yokosuka from going BOOM.


Afterwards, we cut to the Nadesico bridge where Akatsuki has shown back up, and even he's impressed Akito's display of brass. Jack amusingly calls him a true "American Hero", and while Megumi is distraught, Hayato realizes Akito just stopped a blast that would have leveled the city.

Everyone mad at Erina for encouraging Akito then starts to turn on her, but she holds up a videophone, saying:

"He's fine, he just called us."

Apparently, he teleported to the Moon, which is currently Giganos territory, and he'd REALLY like to be picked up before Giganos troops find him.

We then cut to the Argamma, where Bright welcomes back the D-Weapon pilots. Noin informs them that they jumped in rank now they are OFFICIALLY with the military (before they were civilian volunteers) to warrant officers, before they were just given the simulated rank of Airman Basic (aka Private).

Burning is pleased to see them back, and offers them lunch to celebrate, which they take him up on, but Tapp is still missing that 2 million they gave up (he'll get over it).

We then cut to Lemon, who is quite intrigued by the Boson Jump, and Vindel wants to look over the data later. He adds he doubts it will work with their own tech, but they could certainly use it in a support role for other purposes.

Before we cut away, Lemon steps out to handle other matter, but asks Vindel to keep her posted.

We then cut to Lantau Island, where the Federation is still going over the remains of the Devil Gundam:

While the soldiers bitch, Rain is still working, a bit concerned the core of the Devil Gundam has yet to be found despite looking through the wreckage for days.

And that's when the Feddies blow the fuck up as Lemon shows up:

She tells Rain she's already retrieved the Devil Gundam core sections, and she makes it clear Rain can resist or come quietly, either works for her as we cut away.

We then cut back to Yokosuka, where Nina is about to crack open the Jovian cockpit block they recovered. They are considering doing it the engineer way (prybars and cutting torches), but Argo just cracks his knuckles and rips the door off.

Note: He's from G Gundam, where guys can kick falling skyscrapers out of the air and can kick as much ass in a 50 meter tall mech as they can outside it.

Anyway, Nina looks inside and sees what looks like a Gekiganger cushion (but no pilot inside), to the disbelief of the other pilots, who think she's going batshit, Tetsuya even amusingly saying she was already Gundam nut, this was just a matter of time.

Uribatake, however, confirms the inside of the cockpit is basically a Gekiganger shrine.


I REPEAT, THE JOVIAN COCKPIT IS A SHRINE TO A CHEESY EARTH BASED MECHA ANIME PRODUCED A LONG ASS TIME AGO.


The reaction of everyone else is basically:

We cut to the Nadesico bridge, where Ruri's eyes threaten to roll back in her head at the news as the stage ends.

 

[GethN7]

Okay, time to cover the final forms of the D-Weapons and cover a few other notes before we continue.

First off, every time the D-Weapons get an upgrade, it partially resets their full upgrade bonus. Basically, each upgrade adds a few more upgrade bars to the unit, and you have to upgrade those bars to get the full upgrade bonus for the unit in question again, and they don't stack, so you can;t get the FUB three times in a row.

You do, however, get to keep any upgrade bars you bought in-between different upgrade models.

Anyway, here's Dragonar-1 Custom:

Compared to the previous model, the flight pack is integrated into the design and it looks the closest to the RX-78-2 Gundam it was meant to be back when Dragonar was MSG 1.5.

Aside from the new Photon Cannon long range weapon, it's basically just a further souped up version of it's previous form.

As I mentioned to @Jaimas in a previous post, this is really close to being a serial numbers filed off Mudrock Gundam, all it needs is the classic Gundam headfins and some minor chassis tweaks.

It has the flight pack integrated and is souped up from before, but since it's now strapped down with the best guns that could be loaded on it (Photon Cannon included), the resupply module had to be cut, but you get the sturdiest and tankiest artillery real robot in the game as compensation.

Compared to the earlier versions, this had the least design tweaks, but now has a really strong EWAC field, stronger than most other units save carriers can have, so Light's machine is basically a mobile accuracy boost for anyone in the field of effect that is very effective. Retains the Repair module.

Has a Photon Cannon weapon like the other D-Weapons.


----

Before we continue this LS, we will have a small route split coming up in a few stages, and on one route you get the strongest combo attack Domon and Rain can get, the other you get nothing, and since there is no good reason to miss it, I will cover both routes, but the one where you get the attack will be "Canon" for this LS.

We will also be covering a lot of UFO Robo Grendizer territory, and since that's new to many who did my previous LSes, here's the short version.

Go Nagai has three main core series he developed mecha oriented: Mazinger, Great Mazinger, and Grendizer. Grendizer is technically a "sequel" to Mazinger and Great Mazinger, but can easily stand on it's own, though Kouji is effectively the sidekick of the hero Duke Fleed, a circumstance many SRW games have fun with when the Mazinger and Grendizer plots run together.

Duke comes from the planet Fleed (he was their crown prince), which aliens called the Vegans destroyed on their path of conquest, he escaped to Earth along with a few survivors, the mad scientist who took him in helped him make a machine in case Earth was the next stop for the Vegans, and sure enough, it was.

The original manga never had the ending finished, that would happen in the anime adaptation.

Super Robot Wars usually adapts it fairly faithfully, but the presence of Grendizer usually means we don't get Mazinkaiser. Originally, it was believed the creators of SRW were respecting Nagai's wishes not to make Grendizer and Mazinkaiser compete for power, as he considered them equal in power, but it turns out they were not bound to this restriction, they just have never come up with a good reason to put those two series in the same game together.

There are no serious canon conflicts between either, but since the SRW creators try to make all series have some relation to one another, I can see where they would struggle to make them relevant to each other in any direct sense.

 

[GethN7]

Stage 22: Intruder (Part 1)


This stage starts with Bright informing everyone they are to take part in the Anti-Giganos offensive, as the EFF wants to take on Giganos while they are weakened and finish their shit for good. We find out Akito managed to find one of Nergal's lunar docks on the moon to lie low, so he's not in high priority danger thankfully, but there is a more serious matter.

Whoever was in the cockpit of the Jovian machine must have esscaped before they inspected it and is now somewhere on the Nadesico. Noin has gotten some of the Argamma crew sent over to help suss them out.

We cut over to the Nadesico, where Uribatake is telling everyone this alien must be a Gekiganger nerd, so the plan is to scatter all sorts of merch related to it over the ship to lure them out. Chibodee thinks this is idiotic, but George is rolling with it, and everyone else is engaging the weirdness filter so they don't blow a fuse over the oddness of what they are doing. Gai is bit surprised Uribatake got his hands on some really rare merch for a show he can't stand, but Uribatake is all "hey, to catch a thief, gotta think like one".

Kouji, however, does have a better idea, and borrowed the Zambot team's dog Chiyonishiki to sniff the alien out.

As he picks up the scent, Uribatake is butthurt, as he figured his idea was better, but even Lamia thinks he was huffing paint for trying.


Now we cut over to a Vegan base on the moon:

Meet King Vega, leader of the Vegans and the guy who controls the Boazans and Cambellians as vassal states.

His base on the Moon seems a bit weird, but considering Giganos and the Federation have been really busy fighting each other, it wouldn't have been too hard for his forces to have built this awhile back so long as they kept on the down low.

Commander Gandal confirms the report, and Vega thinks this is good. Gandal isn;t so sure, but Vega is irritated, pointing out the Baozans and Campbellians are more impotent than enunchs with severe radiation poisoning,, and besides, he's got a plan.

He wants to seize the Giganos Mass Driver.

But not just to fire any big rock. He wants to bombard earth with a radioactive meteorite loaded with Vegatron ore, the same shit currently fucking up their home planet. We also find out they captured Duke Fleed and have locked him and his mech up along with his sidekick pilots.

Gandal wants to execute Duke ASAP, but Vega is hesitant, citing someone named Rubina would not be happy if he did.

Turns out before he attempted to invade Fleed the hard way, he tried to arrange a marriage between Duke and his daughter Rubina, but he got impatient and decided to take things by force. Ironically, Rubina actually fell for Duke for real, the arrangement was too perfect. However, Vega is still gonna kill his ass, he's just gonna arrange it to look like an accident so his daughter won't hate him for it.

However, turns out Rubina was spying on Daddy:

Vega aside, it's pretty common for Vegans to verge on albino skin tones, she might take after her mother. Also, notice the trope of ugly dudes having hot daughters seems to be alive and well?


Anyway, we cut back to the Nadesico, where Chiyonishiki has hit pay dirt.

There are hiding on Gai's room.

Gai is not surprised, it's a Gekiganger shrine and he's pleased an alien would be as much a geek as himself, but everyone else is still all "you have to be shitting me".

Argo knocks the door down, and we find Tsukomo geeking the hell out over a lost episode of Gekiganger. He notices them and splits before he can be caught, and he hauls ass for the docking bay, but Akatsuki catches him.

And is planning to shoot his ass, citing it's better if no one realizes the Jovian Lizards aren't really lizards, but Chibodee disarms Akatsuki.

Tsukomo tries to run again, but Domon takes his ass down, and while he not dead, he's going to wake up with a nasty amount of pain later. Lamia quietly wonders WTF the Jovians are, the Shadow Mirror have shit intel on them, and George is going to make a report to both captains.

We cut back to Vegan HQ, where Rubina is doing a breakout:

This Maria Fleed, Duke's sister, and she also has a thing for Kouji, which SRW milks for hilarious tension between her and Sakaya, who is Kouji's canon Mazinger love interest.

Hikaru is Duke's canon love interest, and is also one of his sidekick pilots.

Rubina says she can't get access to Duke's cell yet, but she's gonna bust them out at least, hopefully they can do more than her, and while they wonder if they can trust her, she's all "I love Duke, and I'm willing to defy my father for him". She also informs them the good guys are enroute from Earth in the process.

We cut to the Argamma, where Amuro confirms the Jovian is being interrogated and in response to Burning, confirms he's humanoid, not a lizard, and yes, his uniform looked like crap right out of Gekiganger, an old robot anime from a century prior.

Noin is in disbelief, but Bright notes the date mentioned, and Garriuson confirms it aired prior to the UC calendar being adopted.


@Jaimas, could use some help here if possible. Despite the game intro playing coy with dates, we are about when the events of Gundam ZZ would kick into high gear timewise, and Gekiganger in this game was created 100 years ago prior to the UC calendar adoption, and since you are the UC Gundam sage here, if you could do some timeline estimation on when that would date in contemporary IRL calendar dating, it would help if you can. Nadesico had a contemporary calendar dating scheme, but also had Gekiganger produced 100 years prior to the current plot, so I could use some help resolving the dates in a universe using the UC calendar scheme.


We cut back to King Vega, and he's pissed his daughter let Duke's sidekicks go free, and he commands Gandal to pursue them before they link up with the Earth forces. However, his wife has an objection:

Vega then declares he has no daughter, they can take her out if they need to.

Gandal then order their subordinate Blacky to get the Boazans on the horn for this op:

We cut back to the Nadesico, where Yurika confirms the ID of their Jovian captive is Tsukomo Shiratori of the Jovian Federation. Prospector also has some DNA results.

While there are slight modifications (basically those that would make extended stays in space easier to deal with), the DNA is nigh identical to human.

Chibodee then turns to Erina and Akatsuki and tells them they need to start talking.

Akatsuki tries to play dumb, but Light calls him on it, they saw him try to murder a prisoner of war.

Erina is the first to crack:

She confirms the Jovians are indeed from Earth, they were exiled around the dawn of the UC era, but history books won't mention that fact. Akatsuki adds this was around the time the lunar colonies demanded independence, but unlike Zeon and Giganos, this did not THEN lead to a war. However, the Federation were not amused and planted subversives in their ranks to inflame tensions so they would do dumb shit and give the Feddies an excuse to BTFO them the hell out of the Earth Sphere's range of influence.

This led to series of purges known as the 'War for Lunar Autonomy".

The exiles then fucked off to Mars, then went on to Jupiter.

@Jaimas, again, this is basically adapting UC canon to fit Nadesico, if you have any notes on how the UC did shit that would differ from how it was modified to fit Nadesico canon into the backstory, it would be nice to have your commentary.

The Federation, much like they did in Unicorn Gundam, then buried all the records and pretended this shit never happened.

However, the Federation did NOT want them settling on Mars, so they used nukes on them, and this was prior to the OYW and the Mars terraforming by a long ways off.

Tsukomo confirms this, saying this was to preserve their coverup, so they had to settle around colonies established near Jupiter and it's satellites.

Megumi asks how they were able to produce an army, and he confirms they found alien tech near Jupiter powered by phase transition engines that helped them churn out their current forces, and when Akatsuki says this was done in the name of their ancient grudge, Tsukomo gets pissed and has some more to say.

He says it's basically then doing what Zeon and Giganos want to do: strike back at Earth for fucking them in the ass, especially because they never fired the first shot, the Feddies fucked them over first.

Hayato does point out Tsukomo has something of a point: the Feddies do have a lot of stupid assholes like Miwa running the show.

Megumi and Minato concur and have started to seriously sympathize with their prisoner, but everyone else responds to warnings of an enemy raid.

The Bharmians are attacking, but multiple unknown IFF codes are also detected.

Ruri contacts Bright, saying Shiratori escaped with Minato and Megumi.

I'll cover the fight in another post, but I welcome comments from anyone who may know more about Nadesico, UC Gundam, and Grendizer, especially if I got anything wrong or if you consider what was done in character for the Federation given the altered backstory.

 

[GethN7]

Stage 22: Intruder (Part 2)


We start this level as Tsukomo is escaping, apparently with Minato and Megumi willing to commit treason willingly with him.

Of course, Bright and Yurika are giving chase, and Bright gives orders to disable Tsukomo's machine so it and it's passengers can be detained.

But that's when the Vegans show up.....alongside the Bharmians:

Kouji, Tetsuya, and Kazuya deploy upon seeing this, and we can deploy eight more units of our choice.

As you sortie, we find out Richter's recall on Grand General Olban's orders was to inform them they struck an alliance with the Vegans against their mutual foes and that they were gonna launch cooperative strikes against them from then on.

However, Richter is privately confused, as that makes sense, but Olban pointedly seems to be unaware of Erika's apparent sighting on Little Bharm that Aizam had informed Richter about, and Richter finds that more than a bit strange.

Meanwhile, Tsukomo wants to use the distraction to retreat, but informs Minato and Megumi the Boson Jump is not an option.

They don't get it, and everyone else doesn't get why Tsukomo hasn't turned it on yet, but Inez knows why. The genetic manipulations the Jovians have allow them to withstand the Boson Jump process, which understandably put a shitload of strain on the electromagnetic field of the human body and given the Jovian machines have a more portable and less shielded Boson Generator on their personal machines, Tsukomo likely worries (and she is correct) the stress of such an event will cause serious physical damage to his non augmented passengers in transport.

Of course, they already went through a Boson Jump before, but then they were inside the Nadesico, which would have served as a much more effectively insulator between their bodies and the effects of a Bose field.

Anyway, this means Tsukomo has to escape manually by leaving the screen.

However, the enemy is aware of Tsukomo obviously not being on your side and doesn't care, anyone human or on their side is getting shot, dammit. This forces you to have to save Tsukomo from destruction while still preventing his escape, and Akatsuki thinks to himself it would be such a shame if you failed to do so.

Inez also takes the time to throw some shade at Erina and Akatsuki, saying the Jovian obviously cares more about the welfare of his passengers than Nergal cares about it's crew.


We begin the fight now, and let's make something clear.

Tsukomo will not be enemy or ally, he will be a third party who can be shot down by the enemy, but you obviously need him alive and not to escape, so cover his ass while fighting off the enemy.

As you can see from the map, you don't have too many enemies to worry about, and neither Richter nor Gandal's carriers are anything too special, so work fast as you can.

Thankfully, the enemy almost always goes after you, not Tsukomo, but by turn 4 he should reach the end of the map on the north edge.

Around this time, Richter and Gandal are not happy you are so strong, but Gandal has a trump card to play:

The Mazinger and Getter team are 0_0 at the sight of Duke, then O_O as he moves to attack you.

On the next turn, however, three flying objects approach.

And the slightly goofy Grendizer theme starts up as Rubina and Duke's sidekicks show up in the Spazer machines from that show:

Gandal notices Rubina while the good guys who know Duke recognize the Spazers. Gandal is called on trying to kill Duke on the orders of her dad, and Maria and Hikaru reveal the Duke you are fighting is a fake, the real one is imprisoned on the Vegan base still.

Gandal's lackey Blacky and his reinforcements show up in pursuit of the Spazers, and when some of your team are like 'are we SURE we can trust these newbies. I mean, Duke there is apparently an enemy asshole......", Kouji asks Maria about a jeep race they had once, but she corrects him, saying it was motorcycles. Tetsuya is all "wait, you remember different things, so...", but for Kouji, that's proof positive she's for real.

Besides, Kouji likes to ride a motorcycle in both Mazinger and Grendizer canons, and only the real Maria would not only know that, she'd also be the one to realize that was a deliberate test.

Anyway, aside from some beefy looking things with buzzsaws for hands, no new enemies, so let me cover the Spazers, which can combine with the real Grendizer, as well as the fake Grendizer.

Offensively, this is no stronger than a stock Great Mazinger, though it is pretty tanky.

Now for the Spazers:

Rubina's Double Spazer is basically the aerial/space specialist expansion pack of the Grendizer.

The Marine Spazer is the aquatic addon module for Grendizer.

Maria's Drill Spazer is the ground addon pack as well as having the same Drill move Getter-2/Liger have.


Anyway, strategy for this simple. Keep your battleship alive, kill the enemy.

The carriers are HP sponges as usual, but otherwise are not that bad.

However, after awhile, Axel of the Shadow Mirror will show up in the Vysaga.

And he targets Rubina and captures her.

He sends a brief message to Lamia that he's captured the last VIP, her new orders will be inbound soon, and he leaves with Rubina and her Double Spazer in tow, teleporting out the same way he came in, adding to Lamia the "system" has been completed.

As everyone else curses their bad luck, Lamia surmises the Shadow Mirror struck an alliance with the Jovians and used a modified version of their Boson tech to fix the Shadow Mirror's own teleporter system.

Before we finish this level, keep in mind the people they have captured:


Relena Peacecraft, whom they captured to scotch any plans of her brokering peace between the Bharmians and Earth, and Rubina, princess of Planet Vega and who could have spilled quite a bit about their goals and intentions to you. Also Rain Mikamura, one of the few people who knows enough about the Devil Gundam from a scientific point of view to be dangerous to whatever plans the Shadow Mirror have for it.


Once the level is over, Maria and Hikaru inform you about the Vega Alliance, which includes the Vegans, Boazans, Campbellians, and now the Bharmians. As for their moon base, they have some pretty good cloaking tech they used to keep the other assholes on the Moon ignorant of their presence, and Daisuke Umon aka Duke Fleed (the former is his Earth alias) and his crew were gonna attack the place and got caught instead, much to Kouji's consternation, as he's wondering why they didn't tag him into this, but they point out he shit of his own on Earth to deal with at the time.

However, they did give the Vegans a severe bloody nose, which is why they had to call in Boazan, Campbellian, and now Bharmian support.

Bright informs him he can make no promises on saving Duke, but if they get a chance to do so, he will take it, which the Grendizer team takes at his word.

We cut over to Richter's carrier, where he's pissed. However, Balbas shows up with some shocking news.

He got a transmission from Little Bharm, and apparently, the true killer of Richter's dad Leon WASN'T from Earth.

The true killer was Grand General Olban.

Richter finds this hard to believe, but according to intel from there, a combination of the Vegan Alliance and a group called the Shadow Mirror promised him Little Bharm if he'd poison Grand General Leon, and they in turn promised to support him militarily.

Richter reasonably demands proof even if this is true, and Balbas was informed a witness on Little Bharm heard a Shadow Mirror operative and Olban discussing this treasonous plot.

Richter is still skeptical, but Balbas know the witness isn't full of shit.

The witness is Balbas' own brother.

Richter then wonders what the point of this invasion was, but Balbas has more, Erika is not dead. Turns out she was saved by some Earthlings who escorted her to Little Bharm, where she found all this crap out, and now she wants to take down Olban for sake of their father.

Raiza then starts to cotton on why Olban has found so many reasons to yank Richter and his forces around at the oddest times, and Richter is even faster to realize if this is true, Erika is in severe danger.

As he orders Balbas to throw on the brake and make a new course for Little Bharm ASAP, we cut over to Nadesico.

Bright is warning Yurika they are enroute to Giganos to begin their assault, shit's gonna get hairy soon. He also informs them of the Vegan moon base via Prospector.

We then cut over to Earth, Preventer HQ, where Heero Yuy is looking up the Mariemeia Barton whom the Shadow Mirror left Relena in the custody of.

Her backstory is sketchy as fuck, but he realizes where they must have taken Relena as Duo comes in and says he's leaving.

As he does, Quatre comes in informs Duo he's been investigating some some suspicious activity within Giganos, and fellow pilots Trowa and Wufei are undercover there and haven't reported back yet.

As the stage ends, Duo sighs and joins Quatre in getting their Gundams ready, looks like they'll need to pilot them soon......

 

[GethN7]

Some notes before we continue.

The Vegans are like an anime mashup of Original Star Trek Klingons meets Next Generation Cardassians.

War happy scheming bastards with a planet going into the shitter like happened to the Klingons in the sixth Star Trek movie, only instead of trying to seek help for the problem, they decide to seek lebensraum from others to make up for their own homeworld going into the toilet.

Their being double crossers who dominate others fits perfectly with their source canon.

Also, slight change occurred with Daimos.

In the original source, Grand General Leon was still poisoned by Olban, but that's because Olban was against trying to get refuge on Earth peacefully and wanted to seize it because he's basically Bharmian Miwa Sakamori.

All SRW Advance does is give him additional backers for his schemes and fleshes out how he planned to ensure he'd come out on top.

The Shadow Mirror also have some changes from the Original Generation depiction.

In both Advance and OG canons they come from a parallel world and start all sorts of shit and make deals with other enemy organizations to increase the strife around them, but the methods differ greatly between them due to the differences in available tech and factions to intermingle with, but the end goals, which I'll elucidate later on, are still the same.

 

[GethN7]

Stage 23: Justice and Love (Part 1)


We start this level as Linda informs Bright they got a call from Lady Une.

She apologizes the Jovian Federation news was intel they were unable to dig up in time, but Bright tells her it happened long before either of them were born and the EFF then hid it good.

However, she does confirm that many of their descendants are in the highest ranks of power of the EFF, meaning their families have been working their asses off to keep this dirty secret buried.

@Jaimas, you should be getting some really bad Gundam Unicorn flashbacks at this point.

At any rate, it's obvious the Jovians have a surprisingly valid reason to be pissed off at the Earth Federation, and Une changes topics briefly to tell Noin the resource satellite MO-III has been making some suspicious moves of late.

She ends the call, and Banjou tells Bright they need to speak to certain people directly, which Bright concurs on as they open a channel to the Nadesico.

We cut to the Nadesico, where Akatsuki is upbraiding Erina for informing the others Tenkawa is srill alive, adding "that thing" should still be at the Nergal lunar dock.

Erina asks his plans, and like King Vega, he wants to find a way to bump off Akito and make it look like an accident, and Erina concurs it would bury more than just the Organic Boson Jump information if they did that.

Yurika busts in at this point and reveals she was eavesdropping.

Ruri even twists the knife by saying she patched their conversation all over the Argamma as well.

Akatsuki tries to play off like he was mouthing off like a mere pilot, but Amuro decides to shred the farce up:

That's right, Nagare Akatsuki is none other than the Chairman of the Board of Nergal Heavy Industries.


@Jaimas, this makes him Nadesico's equivalent of Anaheim's presiding officer, and having seen Gundam Unicorn, I'm sure you can see the parallels I'm drawing.

Akatsuki is all "how did you guys know?", and Banjou, Beauty, and Reika's eyes roll as they (Banjou especially, he owns Haran Industries) remind him they met him at a party once when he wasn't doing a pisspoor job of going undercover, they weren't just gonna forget who he was.

Aina also mentions they met once, and he remember Beauty as the heir to a tourist company (which she put off to enter government service) and Aina as the daughter of the Saharin family, whose brother Ginias would have been known to Akatsuki because both were in the mecha business and their names would be things anyone would be impossible not to notice in those circles given their prominence in those communities.

Garrison then decides finish rubbing Akatsuki's nose in his shitty subrosa attempts by holding up a Nergal company brochure, with his face and name on it.


TL;DR: He had no one fooled from day one. Well, save the Nadesico crew, but most of them never met the man directly, they were hired through intermediaries and Prospector was ordered not to give anything away.


At this point, Akatsuki is all: "Fuck it, you got me, what do you want to know?"


We then cut to the resource asteroid of MO-III:

Meet Dekim Barton, one of the pivotal character in Gundam Wing's backstory and who is Mariemeia's adjutant. I covered him in more detail in my Alpha Gaiden LS, so I'll just note any differences from that portrayal here.

Short version, they plan to start a war, and Relena is forced to watch with gritted teeth.

Dekim reveals they have support from both Giganos and the Shadow Mirror, and this:

Yeah, now we know why the Shadow Mirror wanted it, they gave it to Mariemeia's army.

And then Trowa Barton is asked to step forward:

He's shocked he was found out is prepared to put a bullet in Dekim then and there, as his undercover work for the Preventers is now blown.

But someone collars him before can.

Chang Wufei here is also supposed to be with the Preventers, but apparently he decided to switch sides.


We cut back to the Nadesico, where Akatsuki is spilling his guts.


They knew the whole time who the Jovian Lizards were, they were planning to blackmail the EFF with it. Erina adds the original conspirators are dead, but the EFF still would rather keep the secret buried forever to prevent civil unrest. Akatsuki also mentions his company was losing out to Anaheim and needed something to make them a lucrative source of contracts again, so their assuming the responsibility for the Martian terraforming was both a PR campaign and a way to pull ahead.

Banjou is not buying that's the whole story and tells them "Bullshit, you were gonna leave the people of Mars to die, you don't and never gave a damn about their lives, so we want the actual truth."

He then adds he already has an idea what they really wanted. Data from their research institute on Mars, and whatever they discovered in the ancient ruins they also had control over on Mars.

Erina is shocked, but then realizes Banjou Haran is the son of Sozo Haran, who also had a huge role in Martian affairs, so he's no fool, and Banjou hits a nerve when he says Distortion Fields and Boson Jump tech came from what they found there.

Akatsuki is all:

"Very astute, Mr. Haran, but let's not pretend I'm the only one hiding secrets, shall we?"

Banjou, however, is prepared to spill his guts. His father noted the existence of the Martian Ruins too, but he didn't give a shit about the tech Nergal was interested in. What he used to create the Meganoids, that's what he cared about. Banjou knew that, but the Jovians and their connection to said ruins was news to him.

Around the time the Meganoids started shit, Sozo Haran disappeared, and Banjou ran back to Earth, but not before dealing the Meganoids a severe bloody nose, and after that, the war with the Jovians started, and soon after, the game plot began, which meant Nergal had every interest in making sure their secrets stayed buried while hoarding others for use as blackmail.

One of those secrets was the identity of the Jovians themselves, which Nergal realized was the ancestors of those the Earth Federation fucked over hard, as during their brief time on Mars, they also discovered Distortion Field/Boson Jump tech from the same location, and their existence was problem for Nergal.

Yurika tries to pin the blame of egging on conflict on them, but Akatsuki deftly points out the Jovians were pissed off long before he was born, they were still gonna invade one day, he didn't change that fact one little bit by anything he's done.

He kinda glosses over the fact he kept to himself knowledge of who the Jovians really were and the EFF knowing it might have changed everything had he not guarded that information for his own venal gains, but that's still, in his view, splitting hairs.

Erina points out all Nergal wanted was a monopoly on Boson Jump tech, all they wanted was a profit, and all it required for them to have it was for certain lies to remain in place, others to be buried, and some to be maintained, but they never wanted a war either.

Ryoko then asks them "Do you realize how callous and greedy you assholes sound?"

Just as they take umbrage to this, that's when we get a call saying the Moon is under attack BY the Jovians.

As always, Inez can explain:

The Jovian must know by now Nergal is researching Boson Jumps, and they already pegged facilities on the Earth and Mars as being related to that and attacked them for it. The Moon has Nergal facilities as well, it's only logical they'd attack there next.

We cut to the Vegan Moon Base, where they are getting freaked out by the attacks, which are in their vicinity.

We also discover Daisuke Umon/Duke Fleed is still alive:

He decides to use the chaos to attempt a breakout of his own, and that's when we cut to the Nergal lunar port.

Akito is on the horn with the inbound Nadesico, and he's in shock the Jovians are humans too.

As he's still freaking out, we cut to the battle map, which I'll cover next post.

 

[GethN7]

Okay, gonna make a sperg post about lore because this game has a shitload and I'm sure those not familiar with some of the series mentioned might appreciate the clearing up of things the game assumes fans would already know.

First off, Nadesico and Gundam make for a hilarious in a dark way pairing, because while Nadesico has a lot of silly shit, it's also a parody that basically takes a bunch of characters who act like they are in a upbeat Super Robot show and has them instead be in a really dark and cynical Real Robot show.

It's basically what happens when Mazinger pilots are forced to realize their world runs on Mobile Suit Gundam grimdark, makes for some mood whiplash.

With that out of the way, Nadesico's dark little secret of the Jovians being pissed off former Earthlings who got fucked over by an Earth government who considered them expendables to their schemes of being the biggest kid on the playground and that becoming a dirty secret said Earth government had every reason to hide dovetails nicely with UC Gundam, where even before Gundam Unicorn confirmed it, both sides were victims of a conspiracy long before any of them were born that fucked over one side, the other worked hard to keep the truth buried, and the reasons for the secrecy were to preserve a venal grasp for power at the expense of others. And like in Nadesico, the secret finally coming out at the worst possible time caused the stability of the universe to come unglued, and even before then it was a clusterfuck of people stabbing each other in the face over past grudges.

Another fun bit of crossover was between Daitarn 3 and Nadesico, both of which used Mars as a major setting, both of which had a Martian colonization gone horribly wrong theme, and both which had guys in high places hiding nasty secrets that would be embarrassing for them if they came out, just one kept his mouth shut more out of personal shame, the other did so out of venal greed and use as blackmail.

The Martian Ruins having the same tech both issues from Nadesico and Daitarn were the catalyst of makes a lot of sense, and the tunnel vision of Sozo Haran just wanting to build a better android while Nergal autistically focused on Distortion Field/Boson Jump tech instead is in character for both series.

Finally, while there is a bit of ecological theme thanks to G-Gundam, there is another theme I believe needs to be noted, because it runs counter to another theme that will be obvious later.


All sides have this tendencies to fight others over really stupid shit and are easily egged on to keep going because they are paint chip eating stupid when it comes to calming the fuck down.

Richter was duped into a quest of vengeance for the Bharmian people over a pisspoor excuse to keep him busy so the real murderer of his father could do what he wanted. Master Asia was obsessed over something he was too up his own ass about to realize was more a problem than what it was intended to solve. Giganos has legit reasons to be pissed, but has done a shitty job of making any other point other than "Fuck you, you feddie bastards!" and the Jovians aren't much better.

The underground forces have legit grievances, but their solution amounts to mass genocide even though they are at the point they have to accept humanity has long since taken the place of power in their former stomping grounds. The Vegans and their associates are war mongering assholes who steal what they can't earn and are willing to get themselves destroyed before admitting they fucked themselves over with all their warmongering bullshit. The Federation is riddled with corrupt, war happy shitheels like Miwa Sakimori who want to Warhammer 40K Exterminatus anyone who they oppose and who are guilty of shit they would be paranoid of getting out that makes their enemies look way more like they have legit grievances.

And then we have the Shadow Mirror, who seem to be deriving all sorts of pleasure from making all these assholes even more prone to shooting each other in the face, for reasons that so far just make them look like they enjoy seeing eternal war for reasons that no one can say.

We'll get to their reasons later on, but just thought I'd summarize a few things before we continue.