Well its been two days since the Senate voted to kill the immigration bill. The entire lead up to the bill was something very interesting to watch in that we had a bill that most American didn't want, leading to a revolt of I believe 2/3s of the Republicans in the Senate to vote against it with some Democrats against the Democrats and Bush.
Out of this political egg on the face for those pro-bill side, came up another issues of the role of talk radio and complaints by at least one Senator that there was racism involved in regards to all the people calling up the Senators and complaining about the votes. All sorts of reasons are given why the American people got so upset about the bill, and none of them dealt with the fact that American people are getting tired of dealing with illegal immigrants and all the baggage that they rightly or wrongly believe that they carry with them as they enter the border.
But the true show on Thursday was Robert Byrd and his speech talking about how great he and all the old senators where. Or the battle in the House committee between the Chicago democrat whose name I can never spell off the top of my head and the Dick's Cheney's budget. The Republican response was something like "its dumb to do this, and we'll stick it to you down the line" given in a muttering paused filled low tone from the ranking member of that committee.
Forget the network reality shows, C-Span is where the fun stuff is :) though its prone to make you lose your faith in democracy from time to time, but thankfully we don't have any charismatic military leaders to cut the ever present knot of American politics.
Saturday, June 30, 2007
Sunday, June 17, 2007
Ships of the Line: Amlizter
Well this won't have all the screenshots I have, but I am going to start with some at a time taken from the Battle of Amlizter.
Now Amlizter in Legend of the Galactic Heroes is probably the moment that marked the death knell of the Free Planets Alliance. It was a battle that was basically the Alliance giving Reinhard a victory due to their sheer stupidity on their part.
Some background for those who are new to LOGH storyline. After dealing with like 150 years of non-stop Imperial invasion after invasion while bleeding themselves dry on Iserlohn Fortress, the FPA gets lucky and captures the fort and thus gains the strategic momentum. At this point there is a decision to be made, to try and sue for peace (which while the story makes the pro-peace party to be pretty much good people and the pro-war party but of a warmongering militarists concern for their only power, considering the fact that the Empire never officially recognized the FPA considered them rebels and such was about as friendly to the idea of a democratic republic as bugs are friendly to insecticide peace probably wasn't an option) or take the fight to the Empire itself.
They (the High Council) decided to take the fight on the idea that their massive fleet would be able to overwhelm the Empire and destroy it and thus securing their power in the next election cycle (which they were in danger of losing)
So they launch with like 200,000 ships in I believe 8 fleets and randomly take systems that the Imperials give up without fighting for. The problem which becomes quite apparent is that somehow the Imperials took all the food from the 200 systems that FPA "liberated" and the FPA was tied down in feeding the people, while at the same time their strategic planner was a dunce and their supply lines were open to attack.
After suffering from lack of supplies, the Empire launches an counter-offensive against all the weaken FPA fleets and they retreat. Now you think that the FPA which has a vested interest in not wanting to see its fleets get destroyed would have them go back to their GIANT INVINCIBLE DEATHSTAR of a fortress, but they instead meet up at Amlitzer Starzone. Where they proceeded to get crushed except for the fleets lead by Admiral Bucock (who is the awesome old admiral) and of course the 13th Fleet lead by Yang Wengli.
The sad thing was that all the Alliance Admirals could see the plan for what it was, and it was due to the orders from the High Council who were more concerned about winning the election then winning the war that screwed them over and devastated the FPA fleet. Only two fleets came back home leaving three fleets to guard the FPA in the meantime. A while later, that number is reduced by a fleet during the abortive military coup that is put down by Yang. And thus when the Imperials come a knocking the FPA just simply doesn't have the numbers to fight off like a hundred thousand ships coming all at them.
But enough about this. Lets get to the screen shots!
The Hyperion which is like the only non-standard color flagship of the FPA fleet that I can see or remember off. Its Yang Wengli's flagship that he receives when he takes command of the 13th fleet. However, due interesting situation it becomes the flagship of the exiled Imperial admiral Merkatz in the later part of the series. Its a pretty sweet looking ship with decent firepower for a battleship.
The Barbarossa, Siegfried's Kircheis's ship. Sieg is the childhood friend of Reinhard and a brilliant tactician and admiral in his own right. While Reinhard is called the blond hair brat by his own side, they call his ever present shadow of Sieg the red hair one for the obvious reason he has very red hair.
I'll talk more about Sieg and Reinhard later. But I think its appropriate that he gets a red color sleek battleship which sort of follows (thought you can't see it well in this picture) the same under engine thing that the Brunhilde has.
Konigs Tiger this is the flagship of the Black Lancers, which under the command of the aggressive Admiral Bittenfield serves as like calvary or shock troops. They excel at charging recklessly into the enemy line and sowing confusion. However, they don't do to well when confronted by Yang and his group, but in the scenes where they are not fighting Yang, they are fearsome enemies. Bittenfield's main fault and virtue is that he when he commits to something he does it all the way damn hell or high water, which made him not like him at first, but as time goes on he grew on me.
His flagship looks like like an overgrown cruiser in terms of shape then most of the Imperial flagships tend to look like. Which makes sense since he is leading a fast offensive unit.
These are the FPA space fighters launched for air defense and attack. They are probably some of the most "realistic" space fighters that Sci-fi has put out. For one they have turrets instead of fixed guns mounts and thus are capable of shooting at pretty much any angle and thus running up a ship's hull and firing means that they don't have to oriented at the ship, but parallel.
Now Amlizter in Legend of the Galactic Heroes is probably the moment that marked the death knell of the Free Planets Alliance. It was a battle that was basically the Alliance giving Reinhard a victory due to their sheer stupidity on their part.
Some background for those who are new to LOGH storyline. After dealing with like 150 years of non-stop Imperial invasion after invasion while bleeding themselves dry on Iserlohn Fortress, the FPA gets lucky and captures the fort and thus gains the strategic momentum. At this point there is a decision to be made, to try and sue for peace (which while the story makes the pro-peace party to be pretty much good people and the pro-war party but of a warmongering militarists concern for their only power, considering the fact that the Empire never officially recognized the FPA considered them rebels and such was about as friendly to the idea of a democratic republic as bugs are friendly to insecticide peace probably wasn't an option) or take the fight to the Empire itself.
They (the High Council) decided to take the fight on the idea that their massive fleet would be able to overwhelm the Empire and destroy it and thus securing their power in the next election cycle (which they were in danger of losing)
So they launch with like 200,000 ships in I believe 8 fleets and randomly take systems that the Imperials give up without fighting for. The problem which becomes quite apparent is that somehow the Imperials took all the food from the 200 systems that FPA "liberated" and the FPA was tied down in feeding the people, while at the same time their strategic planner was a dunce and their supply lines were open to attack.
After suffering from lack of supplies, the Empire launches an counter-offensive against all the weaken FPA fleets and they retreat. Now you think that the FPA which has a vested interest in not wanting to see its fleets get destroyed would have them go back to their GIANT INVINCIBLE DEATHSTAR of a fortress, but they instead meet up at Amlitzer Starzone. Where they proceeded to get crushed except for the fleets lead by Admiral Bucock (who is the awesome old admiral) and of course the 13th Fleet lead by Yang Wengli.
The sad thing was that all the Alliance Admirals could see the plan for what it was, and it was due to the orders from the High Council who were more concerned about winning the election then winning the war that screwed them over and devastated the FPA fleet. Only two fleets came back home leaving three fleets to guard the FPA in the meantime. A while later, that number is reduced by a fleet during the abortive military coup that is put down by Yang. And thus when the Imperials come a knocking the FPA just simply doesn't have the numbers to fight off like a hundred thousand ships coming all at them.
But enough about this. Lets get to the screen shots!
The Hyperion which is like the only non-standard color flagship of the FPA fleet that I can see or remember off. Its Yang Wengli's flagship that he receives when he takes command of the 13th fleet. However, due interesting situation it becomes the flagship of the exiled Imperial admiral Merkatz in the later part of the series. Its a pretty sweet looking ship with decent firepower for a battleship.
The Barbarossa, Siegfried's Kircheis's ship. Sieg is the childhood friend of Reinhard and a brilliant tactician and admiral in his own right. While Reinhard is called the blond hair brat by his own side, they call his ever present shadow of Sieg the red hair one for the obvious reason he has very red hair.
I'll talk more about Sieg and Reinhard later. But I think its appropriate that he gets a red color sleek battleship which sort of follows (thought you can't see it well in this picture) the same under engine thing that the Brunhilde has.
Konigs Tiger this is the flagship of the Black Lancers, which under the command of the aggressive Admiral Bittenfield serves as like calvary or shock troops. They excel at charging recklessly into the enemy line and sowing confusion. However, they don't do to well when confronted by Yang and his group, but in the scenes where they are not fighting Yang, they are fearsome enemies. Bittenfield's main fault and virtue is that he when he commits to something he does it all the way damn hell or high water, which made him not like him at first, but as time goes on he grew on me.
His flagship looks like like an overgrown cruiser in terms of shape then most of the Imperial flagships tend to look like. Which makes sense since he is leading a fast offensive unit.
These are the FPA space fighters launched for air defense and attack. They are probably some of the most "realistic" space fighters that Sci-fi has put out. For one they have turrets instead of fixed guns mounts and thus are capable of shooting at pretty much any angle and thus running up a ship's hull and firing means that they don't have to oriented at the ship, but parallel.
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
Fortress Iserlohn!
Fortress Iserlohn firing its main cannon at some hapless Alliance fleet.
Fortress Iserlohn!
For those of you who have never seen Legend of the Galactic Heroes, this is the death star fortress that serves as a critical plot mcguffin to series as well as the inspiration for the name of my blog.
Some fun facts about this fort.
1. Its 60 kilometer sphere
2. Its has a liquid armor surface that weapons platforms can float on, and ships need to sink through to get into the interior of it
3. It has a city in it as well as a full fleet dock for at least 15,000 ships
4. It has tons of guns
5. It has a big cannon call "Thor's Hammer" which can wipe out a 1000 ships at time if it hits a fleet.
6. The interior part of it is decorate in Imperial Gaudy. The art style that afflicts the Empire, and at times seems more like a giant art museum gone wrong then an invincible space fortress.
7. It gets captured by Yang Wengli twice :p
8. It has a pretty nice park and civilian areas
9. Its located on the Iserlohn Corridor and serves as the choke point on that route, thus whoever controls the fort for the most part of the war was the power that launched offensives.
10. It was built as a symbol of imperial rule, yet ironically it becomes one of the most hallowed sites of the forces of democracy and republicanism for that universe as the series progresses.
Sunday, May 6, 2007
Serious Anime/Hilarious Outtakes
In the show Texhnolyze which took me about a year and half to gather most of the dvds (which I am still missing 3+5 off) I watched a show that got progressively darker and darker. I mean the show ends on really downer. When I watched the last three episodes my friend Omegapaladin over and he decided to actually watch it, though its not his type of show.
After the credits had ended, I decided to check out the extras and look at the trailers. I am a big fan of trailers, and sometimes the ones on the anime dvds are not horribly bad (generally these are the ones that just show the opening to the show they are trying to sell but I digress). An option calls outtakes catches my mind, and I clicked it on.
The like 8 minutes of outtakes had me and my friend in laughing like manics. After watching this show, listening some of the wacky things that were being said was awesome.
So I been re watching Berserk which I suppose is dark and grows darker (though while the show ends on a downer, you do know that the main character is countining to go out and kill bad guys) and then I notice that dvds have outtakes. Which again I look at and found to be hilarious.
I seen outtakes on other shows, but I think the best outtakes are really on those that are serious most of the time, for it just makes the statements even more funny since its completely out of left field. Though that may be love for absurdest humor speaking.
After the credits had ended, I decided to check out the extras and look at the trailers. I am a big fan of trailers, and sometimes the ones on the anime dvds are not horribly bad (generally these are the ones that just show the opening to the show they are trying to sell but I digress). An option calls outtakes catches my mind, and I clicked it on.
The like 8 minutes of outtakes had me and my friend in laughing like manics. After watching this show, listening some of the wacky things that were being said was awesome.
So I been re watching Berserk which I suppose is dark and grows darker (though while the show ends on a downer, you do know that the main character is countining to go out and kill bad guys) and then I notice that dvds have outtakes. Which again I look at and found to be hilarious.
I seen outtakes on other shows, but I think the best outtakes are really on those that are serious most of the time, for it just makes the statements even more funny since its completely out of left field. Though that may be love for absurdest humor speaking.
Wednesday, May 2, 2007
Man things been busy with finals week. However in the meantime, between writing papers I been reading and watching some news shows and comics.
One of them GunXSword is a really spiffy show. Its show that was made in the spirit of Trigun as its a travel log story about a wandering warrior. However, this show is uniquely more dark and yet more insane and parodied filled then Trigun.
A classic example is the villains giving some speech about why they are doing everything for the benefit of mankind, and how they are going to end all suffering and what have you, and then the main character would retort, he doesn't understand he just wants to kill the man who killed his bride.
An intresting twist in that for the most part, the villians are motivated by "high" philosophical goals that in their twisted view will help mankind, and whereas the hero is motivated by one thing, revenge. I would go on but that would spoil the show and I don't have the time.
One of them GunXSword is a really spiffy show. Its show that was made in the spirit of Trigun as its a travel log story about a wandering warrior. However, this show is uniquely more dark and yet more insane and parodied filled then Trigun.
A classic example is the villains giving some speech about why they are doing everything for the benefit of mankind, and how they are going to end all suffering and what have you, and then the main character would retort, he doesn't understand he just wants to kill the man who killed his bride.
An intresting twist in that for the most part, the villians are motivated by "high" philosophical goals that in their twisted view will help mankind, and whereas the hero is motivated by one thing, revenge. I would go on but that would spoil the show and I don't have the time.
Friday, April 6, 2007
Ships of the Line!
One of the things I wanted to just for myself was to create a listing of the various flagships from the series of The Legend of the Galactic Heroes. I intend to do this by re watching the series and taking screen shots and talking about the ships if I have anything to say.
First what I have to say is a bit history. LOGH is sci-fi universe set I dunno at least a thousand or so years in the future, in time frame after like big Republic that unified everybody falls into a Empire that for the quirks of its leader takes on a very German feel to it. People don't like this and they revolt and flee to another portion of the galaxy and form the Free Planets Alliance and after a while the sides meet and get involved in a 150 long never ending war. The war lasts so long because there is only two passages to connect to each other, and thus the defender always has the advantage unless they completely screw up.
The series's two main characters (well technically three but there be spoilers if I talked about it now) are the Free Planet's Alliance Yang Wengli a guy who joined the military for an education is like the Robert E Lee of the FPA in terms of fighting at a disadvantage all the time against the Galactic Empire who has its Alexander the Great figure of Reinhard Lohengrim, who overthrows the corrupt nobility and becomes the Kaiser. There is also like a cast of at least 50 characters who their own back stories, plots and its all very War and Peaceish. And is a long series several novels that were the original basis, and a 110 episode series, plus movies, plus side stories OVAs, plus manga. All very big and complex.
The name of Fortress Iserlohn comes from this series, and its the big superfort on the border between the nations that is fought for several times.
A thing about this universe, the spacebattles are rather large. A normal fleet is more then ten thousand ships of varying sizes. Thus the battles are more of a combination that reminds me of Napelonic Warfare in 3d and the line of battle concept take to the ultimate extreme. Thus there is a certain amount of mass produced ships, generally the cruisers that you see exploded in all sorts of way as the battles goes on. Though to show some coolness of ship designs, generally admirals have their own unique battleship that their flagship and this what I am going to be taking pictures off.
The Brunhilde. She is probably the most famous of the ships, and its Reinhard's flagship through the series. Its a pretty sweet looking ship, yet its really hard to see where the guns are on the damn thing. But like pretty much all Imperial ships is atmospheric capable of landing. She's probably the ultimate example of Imperial Star Fleet design of sleek ships. As a note Imperial ships take for the most part Germanic names.
This is a standard Free Planet's Alliance battleship/flagship. The thing looks menacing no?
The FPA has for its philosophy of big boxy ships that have nothing but guns for its bow. Generally to me they seem to be more boxier and slower, but heavily armed and armored then Imperial ships. But really its hard to tell.
Also as seen by the giant Six on the side, this is the flagship of the ill fated Alliance Six Fleet that along with the 4th fleet gets destroyed by Reinhard's fleet during in the opening two episodes of the series that takes place in the Iserhlohn corridor.
Also this ship has the first of the dying admiral/hero scenes on a burning bridge. Generally in this show, when somebody who has screen time gets killed on his battleship, the show him critically wounded, commenting either about philosophy, on the nature of war, talking about old friendships or loves, or regretting the fact he failed or what have you.
Again a standard FPA battleship. This is the flagship that Yang Wengli takes command of the survivors of the FPA fleet after the battle is joined with Reinhard's force. He pretty much forces a draw This ship is also interesting in that its the first ship to take the "Glancing blow of damage" which blows up only a portion of the bridge, and injures somebody. Generally in LOGH, when you get hit, you tend to explode, but battleships do have shields that show, and they can negate off centered shots a bit.
Snow in space? Fuzzy screen? No. Those are all ships that are range in length of at least by guess 200 meters long to over a kilometer with some flagships. When LOGH nations go to war, they don't really fool around. And this battle was about average, and this is only a tiny portion of the fleet that is visible.
First what I have to say is a bit history. LOGH is sci-fi universe set I dunno at least a thousand or so years in the future, in time frame after like big Republic that unified everybody falls into a Empire that for the quirks of its leader takes on a very German feel to it. People don't like this and they revolt and flee to another portion of the galaxy and form the Free Planets Alliance and after a while the sides meet and get involved in a 150 long never ending war. The war lasts so long because there is only two passages to connect to each other, and thus the defender always has the advantage unless they completely screw up.
The series's two main characters (well technically three but there be spoilers if I talked about it now) are the Free Planet's Alliance Yang Wengli a guy who joined the military for an education is like the Robert E Lee of the FPA in terms of fighting at a disadvantage all the time against the Galactic Empire who has its Alexander the Great figure of Reinhard Lohengrim, who overthrows the corrupt nobility and becomes the Kaiser. There is also like a cast of at least 50 characters who their own back stories, plots and its all very War and Peaceish. And is a long series several novels that were the original basis, and a 110 episode series, plus movies, plus side stories OVAs, plus manga. All very big and complex.
The name of Fortress Iserlohn comes from this series, and its the big superfort on the border between the nations that is fought for several times.
A thing about this universe, the spacebattles are rather large. A normal fleet is more then ten thousand ships of varying sizes. Thus the battles are more of a combination that reminds me of Napelonic Warfare in 3d and the line of battle concept take to the ultimate extreme. Thus there is a certain amount of mass produced ships, generally the cruisers that you see exploded in all sorts of way as the battles goes on. Though to show some coolness of ship designs, generally admirals have their own unique battleship that their flagship and this what I am going to be taking pictures off.
The Brunhilde. She is probably the most famous of the ships, and its Reinhard's flagship through the series. Its a pretty sweet looking ship, yet its really hard to see where the guns are on the damn thing. But like pretty much all Imperial ships is atmospheric capable of landing. She's probably the ultimate example of Imperial Star Fleet design of sleek ships. As a note Imperial ships take for the most part Germanic names.
This is a standard Free Planet's Alliance battleship/flagship. The thing looks menacing no?
The FPA has for its philosophy of big boxy ships that have nothing but guns for its bow. Generally to me they seem to be more boxier and slower, but heavily armed and armored then Imperial ships. But really its hard to tell.
Also as seen by the giant Six on the side, this is the flagship of the ill fated Alliance Six Fleet that along with the 4th fleet gets destroyed by Reinhard's fleet during in the opening two episodes of the series that takes place in the Iserhlohn corridor.
Also this ship has the first of the dying admiral/hero scenes on a burning bridge. Generally in this show, when somebody who has screen time gets killed on his battleship, the show him critically wounded, commenting either about philosophy, on the nature of war, talking about old friendships or loves, or regretting the fact he failed or what have you.
Again a standard FPA battleship. This is the flagship that Yang Wengli takes command of the survivors of the FPA fleet after the battle is joined with Reinhard's force. He pretty much forces a draw This ship is also interesting in that its the first ship to take the "Glancing blow of damage" which blows up only a portion of the bridge, and injures somebody. Generally in LOGH, when you get hit, you tend to explode, but battleships do have shields that show, and they can negate off centered shots a bit.
Snow in space? Fuzzy screen? No. Those are all ships that are range in length of at least by guess 200 meters long to over a kilometer with some flagships. When LOGH nations go to war, they don't really fool around. And this battle was about average, and this is only a tiny portion of the fleet that is visible.
Saturday, March 31, 2007
Ouch!
Hmm, I seem to accidentally deleted my longish post about Romance of the Three Kingdoms to get a couple of grammar errors. Talk about destroying a village to save it.
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