LoGH Galactic Empire vs ??

Madurai · Post by **Madurai** » 2005-06-15 05:05pm

Ginga Eiyuu Densetsu, more commonly rendered as "Legend of the Galactic Heroes" on this side of the Pacific is unfortunately still not well known, even amongst the anime faithful. Which is a pity, because this mid-Eighties series is still one of the best around. It'll likely never reach a US commercial release: it's 110 episodes long (not counting all the side stories and movies) and consists of more scenes of people talking about politics than I think any translating company will try to market. I've seen it referred to as "the Babylon 5 of anime," which I think shortchanges LoGH a great deal.

Why might this Prussian-themed organization be anywhere near a matchup for the Star Wars GE?

1. The scales seem similar. Both organizations seem to occupy a fair proportion of the galactic disc, with the implied number of systems that entails. LoGH fleets are typically 10-20 thousand capital ships strong, and there are several battles depicted that show multiple fleets on each side.

2. The technology seems comparable. The primary workhorse battleship (the more conventional naval designations are used, both in Japanese and in translation, so this would be a "destroyer" in SW-speak) is a little over 600m long. Fleet admirals get custom flagships that can range to a little over 1km in length. These are the largest mobile combat vessels shown, though there are larger transport vessels (the largest figure I recall quoting is 5km for a freighter). There are a series of planetoid-sized fortresses (complete with X-ray band superlasers), but these are fixed fortifications, and not FTL-capable.* FTL travel is never described in detail, but seems to correspond generally to SW conventions: there is a finite travel time, though nowhere in the Empire seemed more than a few weeks' travel from anywhere else, and large spatial phenomena were a hazard to direct FTL travel. The ships are armed with a variety of particle cannon and nuclear missiles. Ranges were not exactly specified, but the two sides are rarely visible on the screen at the same time--usually fleets fire at targets invisibly distant to the naked eye. Shield technology exists, but seems only effective versus attacks from the frontal arc, and from distant shots. Close-range fire and flank/rear shots will catastrophically kill a ship of any size in one or two hits. (Presumably) for this reason, doctrine emphasizes rigid formations and massed long-range fire. Fighters exist, in a variety of sizes and shapes, and can threaten much larger ships, either by massed beam fire or if they get close enough to deliver a warhead.

Sadly, most of the technical information remains untranslated, but a good overview is available at The Legend of the Galactic Heroes Information Center.

Thoughts? Is there a better matchup than the SW Empire?

Vendetta · Post by **Vendetta** » 2005-06-15 05:24pm

Any info that would let people come up with real numbers for firepower? Anyone get funky on some asteroids? We like asteroids being blowed up, they're easy math.

Madurai · Post by **Madurai** » 2005-06-15 05:32pm

Unfortunately, the only asteroid interaction is showing a crippled ship impacting on one, which isn't helpful. I can't recall an instance of orbital bombardment with beam weapons, only missiles.

There was a battle (in the pilot movie) in the outer layers of a gas giant, where the combined thermal effects of fire through the H-He atmosphere prompted bigger-than-hurricane-sized updrafts.

consequences · Post by **consequences** » 2005-06-15 05:36pm

Madurai wrote:Unfortunately, the only asteroid interaction is showing a crippled ship impacting on one, which isn't helpful. I can't recall an instance of orbital bombardment with beam weapons, only missiles.

Actually, if you can post a link to screencaps or preferably a video clip, we have people here who make calculations on ship durability for fun with information like that.

How much headway did the ship make into the asteroid, or did it instantly crumple into a metal ball?

Madurai · Post by **Madurai** » 2005-06-15 05:43pm

consequences wrote: Actually, if you can post a link to screencaps or preferably a video clip, we have people here who make calculations on ship durability for fun with information like that.

How much headway did the ship make into the asteroid, or did it instantly crumple into a metal ball?

I'll work on getting some capture--everything I have is on VHS.

The shot isn't great to determine much in the way of dimensions, since the motion is along the viewing axis, but the ship is shown fireballing before much gross damage is visible (to this, I attribute low budgets more than any technical reason). That said, survivability on all sides is low. In this respect, it's kind of the anti-Trek: damaged ships that stay merely damaged are few and far between.