Headscratchers / Space Battleship Yamato 2199

• Why wasn't Izumo Plan kept as a backup? I understand the Yamato Plan became a more attractive alternative and all resources were diverted to complete it as soon as possible, but putting all your eggs in one basket is insane. They could have delayed the Izumo Plan, then continued with it as the Yamato sailed to an alien world, in case the Yamato failed. Everyone on Earth was just waiting for the Yamato to return... they could have spend the time doing the Izumo Plan if the Yamato never returned... or returned empty handed. If they still needed a sunken Japanese super-battleship for the Colony Ship hull, there's still the Musashi and Shinano. Hell... it's adventure could make a spinoff even... Space Colonyship Shinano 2200. This troper would watch it!
  • They only had one wave motion core (provided by Yurisha), and so only one interstellar capable ship. They literally only had one basket to put any eggs into.
    • Notable that in 2202, they did have an Izumo-style backup plan.
• Where are non-Japanese contributions to the war? I realize that the Yamato crew has to be Japanese because it was so in the original series, and they found a way to justify it in-universe with the near impossibility to move people and material from a part of the world to the other (thus the Yamato having to be built under the old warship's relic for camouflage with Japanese resources and crewed with Japanese men), but this series makes a big deal of the Cosmo Force depending from the United Nations, yet during Operation M all the ships mentioned (Kirishima, Yukikaze and Izumo) have obviously Japanese names (Kirishima being the name of a Japanese volcano with a city and a battleship sank at Guadalcanal in 1942 named after it, Yukikaze being a typical name for Japanese destroyers until the end of World War II, and Izumo being an ancient Japanese city with a cruiser sank in 1945 named after it), and the Yukikaze was stated to be an Isokaze-class destroyer (Isokaze was another widely used name for Japanese destroyers, with the Isokaze-class of four ships being in service from 1916 to 1936 and another ship of that name being sunk with the Yamato). Was it too difficult to mention a ship named Nelson for the British, a Monitor for the Americans, or a Prinz Eugen for the Germans, Austrians and Italians at the same time (the Prinz Eugen ships being named after an Italian general who fought for the Hapsburgs, Eugenio di Savoia), or to say that the Yukikaze was a La Combattante-class destroyer (named after French ships with the added bonus that the name means 'the fighting one')?
  • A bit of Wild Mass Guessing, it may be that the Japanese contributions to the Cosmo Forces are all that's left. Okita is mentioned as the Hero of the Second Battle of Mars and other engagements and that's more for getting the forces under his command out intact than any sort of actually success. For staging Operation M, they may have had the largest force left. As for the class names, they could be the name of the class used by Japanese forces and the same ships used by other branches of the Cosmo Force use different names (and that's assuming each branch isn't responsible for designing and building their own ships).
    • Perhaps true but another possible explanation is that if the UN Space Forces are organized anything like today's UN operations, then each nation's forces are organized independently. But if THAT were the reason, then why was the Japanese force assigned Operation M? In the WMG section, it is postulated that the various nations of earth each began building their own battleships designed to use the Wave Motion Core being sent by Iscandar. The first ship to be completed would get the core and the mission to Iscandar while the other ships would be completed with cores copied from the original. But in order to ensure that the warp core reached Earth unobserved, Operation M was drawn up. The operation would require a major commitment but there is the oft overlooked fact that even if the Yamato plan succeeded, there would still be a need to preserve a fleet in being to prevent the Gamilons to simply move in and finish off Earth while Yamato was away. Assume that the Japanese, American, Russian, Chinese, European Commonwealth, and the British Fleets represent the main strength of UN forces. The likelihood of winning at Pluto without horrendous casualties was virtually nil. The fleet dispatched to Pluto was going to be a write-off. Therefore the commitment of Japanese forces to Operation M was the price Japan paid for getting their Battleship up first and getting the honor of the mission to Iscandar. The other surviving fleets would have to defend Earth in the interim while Yamato was away and until the other new battleships: Arizona, Borodino, Bismarck, Andromeda, and Prince of Wales could be completed. Considering that most of the Gamilon fleet was cutoff on the wrong side of the warp gate when it was destroyed, this becomes even more important. Indeed there is almost a full year's worth of battles and stories going on closer to home while Yamato completes the Iscandar mission.
    • Foreign version of America Saves the Day.
  • Flashback to First Contact seen in Episode 11 implies Japanese contingent was only part of a bigger UN task force.
  • Yamato 2202 Sees a greater amount of ship name diversity, we see ships named Saratoga, Iroquois, Independence, Intrepid, Ticonderoga, Sugarloaf, and Defiant. The EDF Main Battleship from Yamato 2/Comet Empire is now the Dreadnought class.

• I'm asking Shultz's same question: why didn't Earth just surrender? 'Till Yurisha's arrival, Earth had no way to stop the Gamilas fleet, the planetary bombs and the Hostile Terraforming, and it had been that way for years...
  • There is a general called Kotetsu Serizawa responsible for this.
    • Serizawa is a general, and doesn't seem to have any political power (there is no apparent military government, and there is at least Heikuro Todo above him anyway). He managed to screw the first contact up because the UN sent military ships under his command (and this makes me wonder why he wasn't hanged for that), but surrender is a political decision, one for either the General Assembly (that we don't know if it's still around) or the Security Council of the United Nations (that we did see. France was apparently replaced by the European Union, but the Security Council still exists).
    • Unless he's fanning the "They will not let us surrender!" flames like crazy. There seems to be no active communication between Earth and Gamilas, and Serizawa may figure that bad things will happen to him if Earth surrenders (likely extraditing him?) and thus decides he (and by extension Earth) rather go down fighting or find another solution. Wouldn't be the first "And after me the flood!" Type of Authority figure in fiction after all.
    • The thing is, how can he do it? He doesn't have that power over either the Security Council or the military... Unless the Gamilans asked for surrender only once before starting bombing, he couldn't have done anything.
  • Considering the reveal that the Earth fleet actually fired at the Gamilons first, Gamilas probably would not have accepted any sort of human surrender anyways, considering how ruthlessly they put down planetary rebellions. The high ranking Earth officials who ordered the attack probably realized this as well and decided standing and fighting was their only chance at survival.
  • The very fact Shultz is wondering that suggests there are precedents. And we have a similar one in our own history: when the Romans conquered a country they suddenly became (relatively) soft as soon as they surrendered, but when they were to put down a rebellion or deal with a perceived betrayal from a former ally they would rape all women, sack the city, enslave all the survivors that could be sold well and burn the place, and then salting the Earth if they were in a foul mood (Julius Caesar became famous as lenient because, when he repressed a rebellion, he simply chopped the right hand off every single adult male in the town instead of applying the usual policy).
  • But didn't they again ask for surrender during Operation M, the answer at the time was "Nuts" obviously, but project Yamoto had an horrible chance of success and humanity was literally two years away from extinction. You would think we would have thought it over a bit more if that was the only time it was offered.
    • That was a request to the fleet they were facing, not the government.
    • It's a call back to World War 2. Anthony McAuliffe is famous for doing it. The admiral being a master strategist, would certainly know military history and considered his situation was the same. It was General Mc Auliffe's way of saying, "Go to Hell." For whatever reason, the general didn't like using profanity, unlike most seasoned combatants.
• Why is the Wave-Motion Gun rifled? I can understand with the main and secondary battery of shock cannons that work both as energy weapons and as standard artillery (even if smoothbores would have worked too for the kinetic weapons and been better for the energy ones), but the WMG is only energy.
  • Hawking Radiation perhaps? Since it generates and fires micro black holes, you want them to spin so they discharge that energy and dissipate
  • Pay closer attention: it isn't rifled. Grooves are there, but they are straight, not twisted, as they need to be in rifling. The reason? Can be anything.
    • All There in the Manual. The real world reason is Rule of Cool. The in-universe technobabble suggested by an artbook claims they were like "tire treads" for maintenance. Each time the Wave-Motion Gun fired it would sheer away a little bit more of the protrusions. After a certain amount was lost, it was time for a barrel overhaul.
• Once the Pluto base was destroyed and the planet bombs stopped, why did the surviving forces on Earth not try to buy humanity some time by attempting to set up colonies on Mars and the Moon? We know there were surviving ships, since at least one was there to see the Yamato off.
  • Most likely because the Gamilans could have just blown the colonies up again like they did with the ones they already had.
• Despite the fact that the ships are almost all armed with spinal shock cannons that most likely could penetrate the enemy's armour, why did they deploy to broadside with their lasers instead of going line abreast to maximize longevity and firepower. Gotta make the enemy look good I guess.
  • Most likely because the Yamato's Shock Cannons had a lot more power behind them^note A flashback battle in 2205 seems to confirm this; the Shock Cannons on the older Earth ships were pretty much their Wave Motion Guns. They were just powerful enough to kill a Gamilas ship, but took time to charge. Which really emphasizes just how much more powerful the Yamato was: She was using the fleet’s old trump cards for her primary batteries.While the Shock Cannon seems to be at base more powerful than the laser cannons, it may not have been enough to penetrate Garmilan shields alone. Notably in 2202, the EDF is using upgraded models of those ships that replace all the lasers with Shock Cannons. But funny you should mention looking good, as the fight was a distraction after all.
  • In naval battles going all the way back to the Age of Sail, the most advantageous tactical position that you would try to reach was "crossing the 'T'", where your ships would be moving at perpendicular course (as close to 90° as possible) to your enemy. This way, all of your gun batteries on the broadside could be brought to bear, while the enemy could only fire their forward guns. Though this will be obviously downplayed with ships having a bow-mounted WMG.
• Gamillans deem beings without blue skin as inferior (with a few exceptions like Wolf Frakken). Why, then, are they so enamoured with Isacndarians, who appear much more similar to Terrans and Zaltians?
  • Pretty likely, the Iscandarians uplifted the Gamillans, leaving them worshiped as something slightly below gods.