War! It must be war! How could it be anything else? With the Imperial Fleet having arrived in the system just in time to watch the Atlas of Steel self destruct, the reality of all of this is crystal clear to Shina. But not to Renphi, as the Jedi continues his attempts to prevent hostilities from breaking out, even as the first shots in this new crusade are exchanged.
But unlike other ship, the Honor Hound is not being targeted, not by macro shells, or Godsbane Lance beams, or even bombardment cannons. No, the Honor Hound, the flagship of this Republic fleet, is being targeted by something very different, but arguably just as lethal, if not more so. Astartes. Is survival for the doctor and the Jedi even possible, when faced with the Emperor's own Angels of Death?
Tropes in this episode:
- Abandon Ship: Renphi orders a retreat to the escape pods after his flagship Honor Hound is boarded by the Skywatch's Third Company during the Battle of System K749. Only Dr. Shina actually makes it inside an escape pod and gets out alive; the rest of the crew are all killed by Space Marines.
- Bait-and-Switch: Near the end of the episode, Dr. Shina is inside an Escape Pod floating through space as the Republic fleet is being decimated by the Imperial Fleet all around her. When Shina's pod is suddenly caught in a tractor beam and pulled into the hangar of an unseen starship, the audience is led to believe that she has been captured by the Imperials since Shina herself points out that there's no reason a Republic ship would take the time to rescue some random escape pod instead of trying to escape this one-sided slaughter of a battle. When Shina's pod is inside the hanger, she sees dark figures approaching through the pod's window and prying open her escape pod with armored hands, leading the audience to assume that Shina's about to be taken prisoner by Space Marines. Fortunately for Shina, it was actually the armored hands of clone troopers that opened her pod, revealing that she had been picked up by a Republic starship which had managed to survive the battle by Playing Possum.
- Boarding Pod: The Skywatch's Chapter Fleet deploy these to board the Honor Hound. While fleeing past the Honor Hound's hangar in this episode, Shina catches a glimpse of one of the boarding pods protruding from the far side of the hangar.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: The Skywatch's Third Company, led by Aurelian Teks, easily massacres all the clone troopers aboard the Honor Hound without taking a single casualty.
- Curb Stomp Cushion: While he puts up an impressive showing for a mere Padawan and makes great use of his smaller size and greater agility, Gaphin is ultimately no match for a Space Marine (even one that is missing a right arm), especially considering that said Marine was able to easily kill Gaphin's Jedi master offscreen. Even a noncombatant civilian like Shina can tell that Gaphin is losing the fight and that it's only a matter of time before the Marine gets him.
- David vs. Goliath: The duel between Gaphin and a one-armed Space Marine in the Honor Hound's escape pod room. Gaphin is a fourteen-year-old human Padawan who hasn't even hit his growth spurt yet and his opponent is a seven-foot-tall Super-Soldier wearing Power Armor. Despite Gaphin taking advantage of his smaller size and agility, even a noncombatant like Dr. Shina can tell that it isn't enough since his opponent is a Lightning Bruiser able to match his speed and it's only a matter of time before Gaphin's luck runs out.
- Downer Ending: Almost everyone aboard the Honor Hound (including Renphi and all of Shina's fellow scientists) are brutally killed by Space Marine boarders with Shina as the Sole Survivor who just barely escapes with her life while being left mentally scarred for life by the experience.
- Escape Pod: Doctor Shina uses an escape pod to escape the Honor Hound after the ship gets boarded by Space Marines who slaughter the crew including the Jedi commanding the ship.
- Explain, Explain... Oh, Crap!: Dr. Shina's science team when they come to their Wrong Assumption about the Imperium being the returned Pius Dea after analyzing an image of an Imperial warship.Dr. Orthan: So what? They resemble humans, worship skulls, and fly around in cathedral ships. What does that... Oh no.
- Half the Man He Used to Be: While fleeing to the Honor Hound's escape pods, Shina's party witnesses a battle in the ship's hangar where a Skywatch Marine slices a line of clone troopers in half with a single swipe from his chainsword.
- Know When to Fold 'Em: After the Honor Hound gets boarded by Space Marines (and presumably witnessing the Imperial Navy massacre the KDY defense fleet), it finally dawns on Renphi just how horribly outmatched his forces are against the "outsiders" and he attempts to evacuate Shina's science team from his flagship while ordering his crew to abandon ship. Sadly, this came much too late for him and only Dr. Shina escapes the Honor Hound alive.
- Mythology Gag: The first time Dr. Shina sees a Space Marine up close, she describes the Marine as resembling a depiction of a Knight of Zhell. In Star Wars Legends, the Zhell were the precursors to the Star Wars human species that originally lived on Coruscant.
- Oh, Crap!: The Honor Hound's captain says "Oh skrog" after Shina's party enters the Paint the Town Red scene of the hangar and one of the Space Marines there notices them.
- Out-of-Genre Experience: The second half of this episode plays out very much like a horror movie with the Space Marines as the slasher villains and Dr. Shina's science team as the Dwindling Party victims.
- Opening Scroll: Like Episode 2, this episode also begins with a Star Wars-style opening scroll with yellow text in a black background.Disaster! In direct defiance of his Jedi General's orders, Captain Kraken has rammed the Outsider "Dreadnought", killing most inside!
Disaster became catastrophe when the captain of the alien vessel detonated his Warp Engines, causing a massive explosion, wounding the Republic's forces, and killing all survivors of the Outsider ship.
It was into this grim scene that the rest of the Outsider armada arrived. Seeing no possibility for peace or understanding, Doctor Shina strongly "advocated" against Renphi's plan of action, and was removed from the bridge of the Honor Hound for her conduct.
Now she sits, confined to the laboratory with her colleagues, awaiting the consequences of the Jedi's actions... - Paint the Town Red: This is the scene that Shina's party comes upon when they enter the Honor Hound's hangar while making their way to the escape pods.It was the bodies. So many bodies. What the flickering light managed to illuminate was a scene straight out of a horror vid. Clones had been eviscerated, torn apart, physically crushed, and rent into halves. They lay in slick piles where they had fallen, some in firing formations, others in circles where they had attempted to surround something lethal. But Dr. Shina's wide eyes had barely witnessed a quarter of the carnage.
Troopers hung like grim banners from steel beams and rafters. They were in pieces, an arm here, a heavy, bloody helmet there, splayed out and left like gruesome parodies of the B1 battle droids the clones themselves left dismembered in their wake. If that hallway outside the escape pods had been the gates of hell, then the hangar was gahena proper. And then there was the smell. - Playing Possum: During the first contact battle near Pzob, one of the Republic ships (the one that recovers Dr. Shina's escape pod) is so badly damaged that the navicomputer (which is needed to navigate through hyperspace) has to be replaced. During this time, the crew of the Republic ship manage to stay alive by powering down almost everything and pretending to just be another dead ship floating in the debris field.
- Redshirt Army: The clone trooper contingent aboard the Honor Hound get absolutely massacred when their ship gets boarded by the Skywatch's Third Company.
- Stealthy Colossus: The Space Marine that corners Dr. Shina near the escape pod room at the end of the episode is able to sneak up on her undetected despite being seven feet tall and wearing bulky power armor inside a cramped starship corridor.
- Stop Motion Lighting: During the battle between the clone troopers and the Skywatch Marines in the Honor Hound's hangar, the lights over where the fighting is happening are shot out so the only thing that can be seen are "shadows cast by flames, and muzzle flashes [from blasters] illuminating figures for microseconds at a time."
- Thwarted Coup de Grâce: Right as the one-armed Skywatch Marine has Shina cornered near the escape pods and is about to execute her with a swing from the lightsaber is stole from Renphi's corpse, Gaphin jumps out from a nearby ventilation shaft and blocks the Marine's attack with his own lightsaber.
- Understatement: At the end of the episode, Obi-Wan tells Shina that the Republic is "facing a bit of an emergency." As later episodes would reveal, this is how he chooses to describe the loss of Axum and Anaxes, both major founding Core Worlds which fell to the Imperium at the end of the season.
- Wham Episode: Renphi, the Honor Hound crew, Shina's co-workers, and possibly Gaphin are all dead, while Dr. Shina herself barely escapes being killed by a Space Marine and is clearly left traumatized by the incident.
- Worf Had the Flu: Despite being a prepubescent Padawan, Gaphin seems to put up a much better fight against a Space Marine compared to his adult Jedi master Renphi, who got Killed Offscreen less than a few minutes after leaving Shina's sight. However, said Marine had just recently gotten his right arm sliced off and was presumable worn down a little from defeating Renphi. Also presumably unlike Renphi, Gaphin's fighting style centered around his agility and smaller size, which just so happen to be two of the few advantages that Jedi hold over Astartes.
