The Backstory of the Anthropomorphics, the Extraplanetary Defense Force and the Independent Lepine Republic
The recap begins with brief backstory of the whole anthropomorphic civilization. It explains how the all the anthropomorphics came from the planet Arras Chanka, the HQ of the Extraplanetary Defense Force (EDF) and the Confederation of Planets (ConFed), and how the anthropomorphics cannot explain their own origins. This is further exarcerbated that they don't any traditions or culture beyond what they received at the time of the "Awakening" centuries ago, so they began with a kind of democracy, as The Net helps them with the most delicate problems, like law enforcement and psychological help. With the time, their society became a quasi-socialist government, when with the help of the state and the Net itself the people could pursue academic or artistic jobs, leaving the hardest parts to the computers. Later on, they begin the colonization of the known space, and thanks to the discovering of the jump technology, they begin to colonize other worlds, albeit without being able to find any clue about who were the people or civilization who created them. However, due of the cosmic distances between Arras Chanka with the new colonies and the difficulties with communication between them, many of them started to develop their own ideas and cultural differences and some of them even went into nasty civil wars along them.Two of these colonial planets, named Hiahhoch and Baliannian, whose population is mostly of Lepines (rabbits), established a somewhat democratic goverment, but with a capitalist background, in stark contrast of their communist neighbors. This change of the status quo was caused partly of the apathy and conformism of their citizens, but with time it became progressively authoritarian and xenophobic to the grade they started to expel from both planets any other non-Lepine and dissident at force. After that, both planets became the backbone of what it will become the Independent Lepine Republic (ILR) and, as a way to keeping the lifestyles of their citizens intact, the ILR began a bloody campaign of planetary invasions to their neighbors, beginning the First Lepine War. To counter them, the loyal colonies and Arras Chanka created the Confederation of Planets and later on, the EDF as a way to deal with the new threat. After many years of bloody battles, the EDF managed to defeat the ILR, but the Republic survived the war, even if they weren't able to expand anymore so far, while the EDF now controls most of the known space.
Erma Felna and her Family
Erma is the second generation of her family as a member of the EDF and her father Kanoc fought against the ILR during the First Lepine War. Unlike her father, who had to go to the war with barely a knowledge about how a war is fought, she attended a military academy created precisely for that. She was good student and an excellent pilot, whose abilities proved to be very useful during the Battle of Derzon.The rest of the recap resumes all the events so far until Ish-tako.
The Proper Story
The story begins in the innards of the Independent Lepine Republic, when a reunion of many of their high-ranked members is about to begin. The narration explains how the previous war, who was fought just to sustain the way of life of their citizens, while the government itself is trying to feed their citizens an ilussion of an unlimited economic growth. Even after the war, the ILR's economy is still working like a war-era economy, when the capital that is normally destined for vital investments now is directed to feed the military machinery of the Republic, and the consumerism of its citizens does not help things either. Although the ILR is a democratic capitalist republic in theory, in fact those who have the reins of government are the clans who controls many of the vital industries, while the military dictate the political and economic policies. And they will try to keep their influence and power at any cost.One of the members of the ILR military, a colonel named Tom Dannahasham, gives a Rousing Speech towards the ILR goverment council about the imminent doom of the ILR since a economic crisis seems to be coming. The rest of the members dismiss his concerns as expansionist stuff, but he warns about the stagnation of the ILR if they don't do something to remedy the whole thing. Other members of the council wants to hear him anyways, because they were scared of the unemployment rates they received in their reports. While continuing with his speech, the Colonel admits the whole First Lepine War they fought decades ago was a utter act of greed and imperalistic ambitions and it was doomed to fail anyways, but the situation has starting to become more dire for the Republic and he blames the ConFed for stealing assets he think they belong to the ILR, and a further sacrifice is necessary. The rest of the council points out the Republic cannot stand more sacrifices because the people is already overtaxed and their markets are in decline. Col. Dannahasham gives to the members of the council his plans, which include diverting the existent civilian resources towards the military, while those industries will receives juicious guarantees after the hypotethical war is over. The side-effect of those plans is all the civilian employees will become basically members of the army, but they will receive the same pay and benefits of a regular soldier. What the council didn't know is the whole thing is a elaborate plan from him to convince the ILR goverment to wage another war against the ConFed and the EDF, by invoking their patriotism and greed at the same time, without them figuring out.
Meanwhile in the planet Keptsuah, Itzak Arrat incidentaly manages to find some members of his former crew and he warns them beforehand of the whole deal of the EDF trying to discredit them, and he advice them to record everything they say among them, so that there is no evidence of suspicion among their ranks, and checking their personal logs on the Net and comparing them with the official data, just in case. Once that Arrat is alone, he and the Net discuss about the current events and how his father, Joseph Arrat, has been granted a seat in the goverment of Dornthant and how his mother is well. Also, he received a note of a girl named Roheeta Diamet and her friends, who will accompany him on his trip outside the planet. Arrat manages to figure out what the Net is trying to imply and he replies he has no time for lewd stuff. The Net answers he needs all the sex he can get, as he has no socialization since the day he became a captain, but Arrat replies he has other important things to do, something that the Net doesn't buy that by the fact Arrat is technically unemployed right now, so the Net not only brings the aforementioned Roheeta, but other three Equine girls, named Betti, Donna and Vicki, who wants to accompany Arrat in his long travel, much for his surprise.
Meanwhile in Ish-tako, Erma was preparing herself to take some deserved vacations in the planet's countryside with Alfon Voga, while Toki tries to ask Erma her plans, just to get a negative answer from her. Toki cannot avoid pulling a very dark joke regarding the incident with the guy with the pistol-grip camera days ago, something that Erma doesn't find funny at all for abvious reasons, albeit Toki quickly explains it wasn's intended to be in first place.
And while this was happening, the next scene changes to Dornthant, Erma's homeworld, when we see Tasak Felna, Erma's younger brother returning home from the local Home Guard base after his training session. The narration quickly explains, while he's a member of the Home Guard, he is not a member of the EDF because he was rejected, as it was explained previously by the Net. His mother Eda was preparing some tea to Kanoc, her husband, who was doing some gardening outside. After drinking the tea, Kanoc explains to Eda how the local plants growing, but the discussion ended in a abrupt way when Eda tells him that Tasak was in home, as Kanoc doesn't want to see his son in an uniform and then, he begins to furiously pluck the plants from the ground, while screaming like a lunatic, much for his wife's consternation. Tasak was also worried by his father's behavior, since he is afraid he could hurt his mother, but Eda quickly explains he never attempts to hurt anyone in his fits of lunacy, and the only thing she can do is crying for him.
Returning back to Ish-tako, we see Erma and Alfon near a beach, and Alfon comments it's very dangerous to swim because the local sea fauna is extremely hostile, but Erma brought out defensive measure for that case. Later, we see both of them naked after taking a bath, while Alfon is giving Erma a massage, and she decides to take a walk to the jungle near the beach. Alfon cannot avoid to make some comments that the real reason why Erma wants to go the jungle is just to do a "tactical terrain assessment" in Alfon's own words, something that Erma finds annoying, since Erma thinks that Alfon considers her as a paranoic military wacko, but Alfon answers Erma needs to take a break from all her military duties at least for a while and the real reason why she is taking a walk on the jungle is just to find any peeper around them, so she and Alfon can get intimate without problems, Alfon is surprised that Erma, under her façade of a very polite and stoic woman, lies a girl who is also hungry for some sex since many years ago, something that excites Alfon. Meanwhile they keep walking on the jungle, while Erma explains carefully about the fauna and its descriptions, as it helps a lot her father Kanoc is an avid collector of xenoflora in his free time (not to mention her family having a botanic garden in her home back in Dornthant) and she knows a lot about the topic from him, surprising Alfon along the way. Erma picks up a lobster-like anthropod, and she happily keeps explaining to her lover about the creature and its characteristics. Alfon cannot avoid to appreciate the beautiful scenary of the planet Ish-tako, but Erma also appreciates she is with Alfon, a person with she really loves. The last scene we see both Alfon and Erma very close to each other... What happens next is left to the imagination of the reader.
Cue the next scene, and we see Dr. Elaki Kalahahaii on her way to her home in Enchawah space and she stars to deeply analyze the current events regarding the human spaceship, from where that ship comes from, and the secrets their doomed crewmembers still had on them. There's also the fact EDF is using the technology they found within the ship to develop a secret weapon using the Matter Reactor, but she cannot do anything else other than hoping that the higher-ups of the EDF can take the correct decisions regarding that dangerous technology. Meanwhile, she stares carefully on a computer image of the female corpse and she wonder if she is really her Creator and how she died, in a very philosophical manner.
- Breather Episode: Just like the last issue, there's no action here this time and it's mostly deals with the lives of Erma, her family, Toki, Alfon, Arrat and Dr. Elaki Kalahahaii off-duty. The closest thing to this is the scene dealing with the ILR and its higher-ups behind it at the beginning op the issue.
- Madness Mantra: The last scene involving Kanoc is really heart-wrenching for Eda and Tasak:Don't want to see uniform... uniform... uniform... (cue Kanoc plucking out the weeds from the ground with his hands)
- My Sensors Indicate You Want to Tap That: The Net deduces Arrat needs some sex to relieve his stress after too many traumatic events befalling him since many months ago, so it bring some girls to follow him during his travel outside Keptsuah.
- Recap Episode: Only in the printed version though, as the first pages bring a short resume of the story so far and the backstory of the anthropomorphic civilization, the EDF, the ILR and the Felna family.
- Sexy Discretion Shot: The last scene between Erma and Alfon is just both of them closer to each other and it's heavily implied they had sex afterwards but we never see anything.
- Slice of Life: Deals with the life of many of the named characters and their families outside the intrigues of the story
