Catastrophe has struck. At the direction of Supreme Chancellor Palpatine, Captain Kraken has utilized the tampered hyperdrive aboard his Venator to hyperspace ram the Atlas of Steel. But there has, in this action, been made a grave error. Both the good Captain and the Dark Lord have mistaken the 12-kilometer-long behemoth as a capital ship of the enemy's armada.
Yet this assumption could not be further from the truth, as the Atlas of Steel served as a civilian and cargo transport, and the sight of its bleeding carcass spilling into space is the very first thing to greet the stranded Imperial forces as they arrive within the system shortly there after. Doomed to war, yet unwilling to commit, Jedi General Renphi attempts a peaceable solution...
Tropes in this episode include:
- Adaptation Expansion: The written FFN version of Episode 4 includes a scene at the end not in the original YouTube audio version. It is formatted as a Fictional Document describing a Skywatch operation to assassinate an Archmagos within the Xek-Tek refugee fleet.
- Call-Back: Captain Spikes is a veteran of the Battle of Jabiim from the Star Wars: Republic comic series, having fought against the Jabiimi Nationalist Army, something which he internally recounts in this episode, even remembering having been rescued by a then-Padawan Anakin Skywalker and the Padawan Pack during the events of that arc.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: The Imperial Fleet easily wipes out almost the entire KDY defense fleet sent to reinforce Renphi's task force while taking comparatively minuscule casualties.
- Hyperspeed Escape: At the end of the episode's big space battle, Captain Spikes and his Venator make their escape through hyperspace after destroying a dozen Imperial warships. Unfortunately, none of the other Venators in Spikes' naval squadron managed to escape with him before getting destroyed offscreen by the Imperial Fleet.
- Leeroy Jenkins: During the episode's Space Battle, when Renphi stop issuing orders to the rest of the Republic fleet (due to his flagship being boarded by Space Marines as shown in the following episode), about a quarter of the KDY ships (mostly ones being crewed by non-clones) break formation and attempt to Zerg Rush the Imperial Fleet, getting themselves all killed when the Imperial ships just ram through them.
- Mythology Gag: The YouTube audio version of this episode features an edited-in line taken from the launch trailer for Battlefleet Gothic: Armada during the scene where the bridge crew of the Honor Hound intercept and translate the final transmission sent out by the downed Atlas of Steel to the rest of the Imperial armada.Imperial Captain: We will destroy the ship and take the enemy with us. It is better to die for the Emperor than to live for yourself!
- Oh, Crap!: Dr. Shina's reaction to seeing the full size of the Imperial armada that exits the Warp shortly after the Atlas of Steel explodes. She gasps in horror with her eyes bulged wide and pleads with Renphi to withdraw their fleets, when the episode before had her advocating for the Republic and KDY fleets to surprise attack the "outsiders" during First Contact in order to get the drop on them.
- The Promise: At the end of the episode, Anakin makes a cold, hard promise to Spikes that they will avenge everyone who was killed during this episode's space battle.
- "Ray of Hope" Ending: The episode ends mostly on a downer as the Republic has suffered one of its worst naval defeats in galactic history with almost the entire Republic fleet making first contact at Pzob being massacred by the Imperials, while Spikes is left shell-shocked by the deaths of so many of his fellow clones. However, there is a glimmer of hope for Spikes in the form of Anakin Skywalker, who promises him that they will get revenge on the people responsible for this and asks Spikes for his help, to which Spikes readily agrees.
- Space Battle: The whole episode is centered around a massive space battle between Renphi's fleet (consisting of Renphi's Republic task force and the KDY defense fleet) and Orion's fleet (consisting of the combined might of the Skywatch and Tempered Hands Chapter Fleets, and Battlefleet Xek-Tek).
- "Shut Up!" Gunshot: When the Imperial freighter Atlas of Steel self-destructs, it creates a bright explosion that quickly spreads out towards the surrounding Republic fleet. Spikes, the clone captain of a Venator in this fleet, orders his ship to go into full reverse to escape the blast radius. But his bridge crew is too distracted gawking at the explosion, so he fires his blaster pistol into the floor to get their attention and repeats his orders, jolting them back into action.
