kalvasflam

Uh oh, AA crew now has a case of mission creep....

moved from preventing Orb troops from engaging in combat and preserving Orb ideals to assaulting the Destroy (which as far as I can tell doesn't even have an Orb pilot)

how fun.

The duels were lots of fun too watch. Sidious was really entertaining, especially how he offed the three jedis that went along with Windu. Probably the worst of the duels was the first one, Dooku seem to go down really fast as previously suggested, this guy would've beat the crap out of Maul, and did beat up the other two, and the way he went, it was just no style. I was disapponted that he didn't even use many force powers.

It was also kind of entertaining to watch yoda and kenobi go through some of the clones. Sidious hit it on the head when he called Yoda the little green freak, because that's exactly what he was when he beat down all the clones. It wouldn't have been out of place if Yoda was laughing hysterically as he was chopping down the clones.

Just saw the movie... and the best I can say is oh well, at least it was just a matinee showing.

The good thing about the movie is the special effects, as if there is any surprise there. I could probably rewatch the movie a few times just to see the special effects. Not enough of the vehicles like Graham said. The opening sequence where the two fighters skimmed around the star destroyer was very nicely done. The level of details were great, and I wish they showed more of the battles. The fighting and the duels (since people didn't talk much during duels) was great.

Now, having praised the movie. They may as well have made it an animated feature. The acting was horrible. Ewan did a fair job as Obi Wan. But everyone else was horrid. I mean Jar Jar did a better acting job than the actors, and you guessed it, I liked him because he didn't talk. In all fairness, it wasn't their fault really, it was the poor dialogue all around.

Story wise, may be it was just me, but I almost cheered for Sidious when he was wiping the floor with the jedis, Mace was at best an arrogant bastard. At worst, he is the kind of good guy you secretly hope would just die. He flipped his mind really quick from you're going to be jailed to I have to kill you because there is no justice.

What else, the story just didn't feel like it had any emotional impact, I listened to the audio book, and the novelization was better done. But that's what I expected. When Anakin sliced up Mace, the emotional impact just didn't carry through in the acting at all, it was like oh, Anakin turned to the dark side... ok, that's nice.

It was the best of the three prequels, but doesn't hold much of a candle to the frst three episodes. Not even ROTJ which was horrid thanks to the Ewoks.

Behrooz? Who is that? is that one of Marwan's terror minons?

Oh, I know, he was the driver on the getaway car from last night.

If Mandy could cook, I'd marry her....

of course, after I take the precaution of putting a bomb permenantly on her that is directly tied to my own vital signs. i.e. if I expire, so does she.

This episode was actually quite nicely done. Still feel very rushed, but I can see how some time real world events can turn that way. I'm surprised Jack hasn't cracked yet, because it's a lot for one guy to handle in a 24 hour period no matter what support mechanism he has.

On the other hand, I'm of the opinion that Marwan need to survive, and that this day need to be extended into the next day (for next season). Something that I was really hoping for in season two.

Finally... if given a choice, would you take Marwan's rent a terrorist as back up or the CTU red shirts/field officers? At this point, I'm leaning toward the former given that the latter seem to be utterly ineffective.

The Arch Angel didn't help that much,, but it did fire a couple of blast next to the ORB ships to stop them from advancing closer to the Minvera. Even a single blast is consider help.

As for Rey's arm,, do you know why???, The ORB carrier was already sinking at the time,,order to abandon ship was given, everyone was abandoning ship, the Carrier was no longer attacking. But Rey and the Tristans was still shooting. They were disable because they were attacking a dead horse in a way. Shinn was jumping around disabling Ships at the time.

Come on what's with the hate,, if they were just protecting ORB why save the Minvera at all, wouldn't that end the battle super quick, along with lots more ORB soldier and ships surviving? Cagalli did try to talk to the ORB fleet once more to ask them to stop, but Shinn greeted her with a bunch of missiles before she can say much. And even after that she still blocked a raid from an team of Murasame that was about to attack the Minvera, her talks fail but the attack was delayed.

So with all this,, you really can't say the "The Minerva survived a fleet engagement by itself". Any bit of help is help, especially when you are in desperaty need of it.

Anyway,, I don't want this to go any longer since ep 30 will be releasing in 2 days,, so lets just leave the ep 28 debate to rest for now.

Kira's exact contributions to Minerva: disabled three Murasames, diabled Chaos.

Damage Kira did to Minerva: Wrecked Savior, blew up one Tristan, disabled Rey.

Now, that's actual damage done, what else? Tried to put down Shinn on numerous occasions, forcing Athrun to engage him so there is no repeat of Heine. Hence distracting Athrun from defence of Minerva. Tried to kill Shinn again when he was slicing apart Orb fleet, hence further endangering the Minerva.

In terms of help, Kira helped EA/Orb just a bit more than Minerva. AA did do more. But if they are truly intent on helping, they could have pull along side Minerva, and communicated their intentions. Which you'll note, none of the crew really did. Thankfully, Murrue was not that stupid.

As for Orb carrier sinking, it wasn't sinking fast enough. Ever hear of this physical phenomenon called momentum. It works like this, if you drive a car, and then let up on the gas, the car will slow, but it's momentum will still carry it far along unless someone hit the brakes. Same concept here. That carrier was still on a collision course, it was before Shinn sliced apart the bridge, so odds are the ship might have still been steerable. And Minerva didn't look like it could fly, if you were running Minerva would you take the chance? That would be awfully stupid.

The problem is Kira and company didn't have a clear objective, as in they didn't know what the hell they were doing. They wanted to protect Orb's ideals, and protect Orb troops. Those are conflicting objectives. To best protect Orb ideals, they need to get Orb to withdrawl. To best protect Orb troops, they should've sunk Minerva. So, what they opted to do was halfway, meaning, they tried to do both and did neither very well.

This doesn't take away from the fact Minerva got some help from AA, but they were also significantly hurt by AA.

As for ep 29, it wasn't clear where Dullindal stood, he was arguing against Klueze about fate. Klueze's idea is mankind is fated to wipe themselves out. On the other hand, his argument against fate also puts him against Kira/Lacus, after all, if you believe in fate, that's what brought those two together. You might say he could think Lacus is a part of the problem, and she is fated to keep causing trouble, and he is trying to change that fate. But again, very unclear what he is about, he's got a potential to go either way still. AA itself is a problem just because they do cause confusion on the battlefield, no one knows for sure what they do. Given what they've done so far, Dullindal wouldn't be unjustified in wanting to having AA removed in a pure military sense.

There is no doubt having a larger crew is more helpful. Especially true given the fact that Minerva seem to see far more damage that Archangel ever did. I mean episode 28 essentially had Minerva crippled. Probably 90% of its weapons inoperable, and so forth. Don't think AA ever saw that much damage, probably the closest it came was during the last epsiode in Seed.

heh heh, chibi minerva, how cute, do they have chibi AA too somewhere?

Besides that though, there is a question of logistics.  Minerva probably has better overall logistical support than AA.

That might be due to the fact that Minerva is not as automated as Archangel. Archangel never seems to have a crew larger than 50 people (heck there are probably only 20-some ppl on Archangel in Destiny). Minerva feels like there are at least 75-100 people on that ship.

By logistical support, I meant having a network of bases where you can draw resupplies, new MS, and so forth. Doesn't have anything to do with the amount of personnel on board.

Although it is a good point that AA probably have fewer people.

GL actually did carry quite a few MS. Let's see, at least 5, or 6 if you count the MA as an MS. But that ship is more or less like an AA class minus positron gun.

One wonders just what is the capacity for MS on both the Minerva and AA.

I think the largest number I ever saw Minerva carry was 5. AA had 4 at one point. Although if you look at Dominion, I think it had at least 6 to 8 judging from Seed. I get the feeling though that Minerva is never at its full complement, I wonder why... may be it's because they know that additional complement would be essentially like a bunch of red shirts.

Besides that though, there is a question of logistics. Minerva probably has better overall logistical support than AA.

why would stealing gundams be ridiculous... this is anime. After all, if you ratioed the number of stolen gundams vs unstolen gundams in the seed series, you come out with something like 1.3 to 1. It isn't so bad.... I read somewhere that someone considered stealing gundam to be a viable military strategy too. Right up there with flanking maneuvers, and blitzkreigs.

heck, if you start counting nonspecials like Murasames as gundams, then basically you'd start ending up with a ratio of 1 to 10000 (stolen vs unstolen). So, need less to say security is improving. heh heh

Everyone has weaknesses somewhere. May be Marwan just figured that the Chinese guy would be the most trustworthy of the bunch.

Ha ha, he doesn't know us Chinese people very well, we'd be more than happy to sell him out for room and board at the White House.

Like I said before though, this whole season was going a little too fast. I mean the best thing about season one is how it was on slow burn for a long time. This season, it seem like every episode had a body count attached. I hope they go a little slower for season five. I like the chess match that was in season one a little more than the fast pace action of season two. Now, if they only stay with Marwan as the main bad guy.... then all will be well.

By the way, anyone else looking forward to Heller's son getting tasered, needeled and generally being loved to death by Richards next week?

Heard about it, there was a link somewhere, but Fox will be crazy to let 24 go.

On the other hand, there is supposed to be a good chance that Tony/Michelle won't last very long due to external circumstances. So, they better grab a closet now before its too late.

The plots are flipping a little too quickly in this season. They need to have slowed things down, the consulate infiltration thing should've started about three hours earlier. The situation seem very rushed, now, I know it's supposed to simulate real life, but they're doing too good a job here.

The movie was not too bad for a hollywood piece of entertainment. After all, you don't really expect historical accuracy from a movie like this.

I wish they could've done the battle at the Horns of Hattin in much more dramatic fashion, although in reality, Saladin pretty much killed the idiot crusader forces by taking command of the sole source of water in the area. But the movie had to portray at least one Christian as a good guy. And Bloom's character was an idiot, all he had to do was say yes and he could've had it all, not to mention spare the war.

Historically, Saladin was a pretty fair guy, sure, he was a zealot in his own right, but the Muslims during that era was the most sophisticated around, the envy of the world if you will. Saladin was a good strategist, and was known just as much for his charity as his warrior spirit. I don't actually recall him making a deal with the Christian defenders, but generally said when Jerusalm was under Muslim rule but all faiths were welcome, something the movie didn't really mention.

What really took the Muslims down and gave Europe such a jumpstart into the age of enlightenment was the Mongols. They ripped through the middle east like a force of nature. They were an entirely different story. Nobody stopped the Mongols except themselves. For all practical purposes, the Mongols used tactics that were almost a millenia ahead of their time, mobile tactics, and if you really want to call it that, they used essentially blitzkreig tactics. It was all pretty interesting from a military prespective. Saladin, had he been alive probably couldn't have stopped the Mongols, heck, the WWII generals got a lot of their inspirations from what the Mongols did. The reason that the Mongols eventually got reduced to the dustbin of history was due to cultrual reasons rather than anything else. They were co-opted by all the cultures they conquered, and all their own internal wars. The only real fight they lost to the outsiders was Aun Jit, think I spelled that right, and that's because they were really really outnumbered by the Mamelukes.

I think the Muslims are probably still sore at the Mongols about the stuff that happened a thousand years ago.... it set them back by a lot.

Well, with episode 29, hopefully, the story will finally start to move somewhere. The coming episode all seem to be pointing toward more of a coherent storyline.

I don't know about the rest of you, but the GSD storyline hasn't been very stellar in the last ten or so episodes. You kind of get the Vietnam feeling from it, like it's dragging on and on and just waiting for someone to put a bullet in it.

With Shinn vs Kira, hopefully, we get some good story telling coming out. I just have the feeling that Freedom needs to be put in its place, like some of the others, I'm sick of seeing Kira showing up and try to tell everyone what to do in his own ubiquitous way. Shinn is a bit of a nutjob, but with the proper direction, he could be a great Darth Vader. heh heh.

Nice episode on this one, although I have to say the Chinese consular was an IDIOT.

Who would run into the line of fire like that, that was just plain stupid. Other than that, it was nice knowing you Paul... heh heh, Audrey, gosh, talk about an example of the evil of nepotism.

all of them?

The captain may be... but did all the rest of them lose their minds as well? If that's the case, then well, that's actually kinda cool. EA can use Orb as their kamikaze corp... that'll sure put a crimp in ZAFT, eh?

Well he did tell his men to abandon ship. He tryed to minimize his casualties. Remember he never wanted to fight. He believed in the three Ideals of ORB and didnt want to fight in the first place. It seems to me that he wanted to end the way that ORB's force was being used as a puppet by EAF. Yes most of the other ships in his force were takin out, but by him purposly trying to sink his own ship, maybe he believed that it would end ORB's obligation to fight, atleast for the time being, and thus hopefully giving Cagali a chance to go back to ORB and back them out of the treaty. he probably thought it was the only last honorable thing to do. He always believed in Cagali, so like I said, maybe hes trying to buy her time to take back control of ORB. But who knows, hes dead and he cant explain his actions right????

Ordering his people to abandon ship was entirely after the fact that he went and set his ship on a collision course and the ship was already doomed. Minimize casulaties my ass, what he did was to in fact magnify casulaties. There were other ways of "taking Orb out of the fight," but he chose the way that would get most of his men killed. Now, if the rationale is that by killing Orb military personnel is the most expedient way to remove Orb from the fight. Then his methods were spot on.

But the rest of it just shows him to be an incompetent officer at best. Honor is a great thing to have when you're dead. If that's a choice any clear minded individual would have to make, I tend to think honor would go out the window in favor of life.

It had to end. He told the crew to abandon ship and seek refuge on Archangel so he didn't endanger his crew. The Takemikazuchi was serverly damaged. Shinn would be along in a few moments to sink it. He was obeying his conscience.

As soldiers, they obeyed their orders to take out Minerva by any means. If that meant ramming it or slamming your fighter into it, then that's what had to be done.

That might be, but he could've done that much earlier. And just soloed the ship in. As a soldier, he had to obey his orders, but that didn't mean committing suicide on purpose. The worst thing a soldier can do is to sacrificing himself for no purpose, which is how I viewed that final ride on toward Minerva.

The point here is, he can either decide to follow his conscience or be a soldier, straddling the line is a great way to get lots of people killed. The captain managed to do exactly that. Militarily, it's absolutely senseless to take an aircraft carrier against a battle ship in direct combat, and you'll note that carrier still had MS tied up on deck as it was going down. So, the only logical conclusion was the captain didn't really want to kill Minerva and his only choice was to sacrifice his own people in a suicide run. Talk about bad choices.

The bridge crew was just as bad, there is a big difference between reasonable and insane orders.

entertaining episode, minor nitpick: after the kamikaze run, why was Dullindal and company on the bridge of Minerva, along with Athrun and Cagalli?

It might be contrarian, but did it strike anyone else as stupid for the captain to have taken an aircraft carrier against a battleship? Any competent officer would've relieved him of duty immediately. He was purposely endangering his crew and his entire command. The results were predictable. The only argument I could muster is that since the writers wanted Orb to emulate Japan, they decided to model the Orb navy after the imperial navy in WWII. The suicide run by the Murasame as well as the obstinate captain that had to go down with the ship because he just orders hundreds of men to their death, all smacked of WWII type mentality.

But nice bits of new animation sequence. I like how many ways they thought of to blow away the Murasames. Neat. I don't know how its possible, but that Orb carrier must've had over 40 Murasames aboard considering the numbers that went down in both encounters, if you just count on the fact that they couldn't be easily resupplied, that monster was really something. A blow like that would really hurt a minor country without a big military like Orb. It's probably the real reason Cagalli was crying in the end, that big carrier and that entire task force wiped out. OUCH, how much money will it cost to replace all that. That's just so wrong.

I wonder if it'll be too much to hope that Marwan will survive into next season, you know, do an actual extension of this day into the next day. Kinda like they should've done for season 2 and 3. That would've been interesting.

Well, Chloe with a rifle... that was worth it. My God, she handled it like it was second nature. Old man Bauer better watch out, cause his computer skills aren't nearly as good as Chloe's.... and she seem to be shooting better than he did when he had an AK-47.

All those shots went through the wind shield... I don't even think that guy had a face left. This was a great episode, much better than last weeks....

But next week, it looks like Bauer and company are invading the Chinese consulate in LA. Can anyone say world war III? Guess it'll alternate good episode/crappy episode. Oh well.

Last but not least, old swoop and squat is back.

I must be blind or something, I saw the side by side comparison, and that's the only thing that told me there was a difference between Knight Justice and the old Justice. At first glance, I was like some of the others. What's the difference again?

Is that thing suppose to be transformable?

Heh heh, the only obvious things looking at the photos were that the wing pack was oriented differently, and Knight justice doesn't seem to have boomerangs.

May be I'm just blind.

The VP turn Pres was to make Keeler look good. Boy, did he ever. At least Keeler wasn't spineless and was willing to off his own sec def. This one was: "oh, help me, help me, hide me in an impenetrable bunker." At some point, it seems leadership completely vanishes, and the old self serving politician takes over.

The best thing about SWG is it's economy. This was surely true a year ago. A little less true these days. I'm not too combat oriented, but the revamp will be a very good thing. Hopefully there will be dramatic improvement in my chosen profession: Smuggling, but who knows.

The main problem with SWG in my opinion is that the combat is fairly meaningless. I think they haven't done a good job with GCW either. The problem I think is the static nature of the game, you're between episode IV and episode V. So, don't expect to play against Darth Vader, last I checked, he was still sitting on his old lazy ass with Palpatine on Naboo.

In terms of a jedi, many people have the patience to run through the hamster wheel that is the force sensitive process. But expect to have large chunks of your life taken out if you grind through jedi.

In terms of connection, the game isn't bad at all, nothing like UO days with lag galore. If you do go into the game. Have fun.