This article is about the First Battle of Pluto from Space Battleship Yamato 2199. For the comparable battle in the original Space Battleship Yamato, see First Battle of Pluto (OS)
Code-named Operation M, the Battle of Pluto,[4] also called the First Battle of Pluto,[5] was a major engagement of the Great Garmillas War fought in close proximity to the dwarf planet Pluto. While the battle was a near-total tactical loss for the United Nations Cosmo Navy, it proved to be an effective distraction from the UNCN's primary goal of recovering advanced alien technology being delivered to humanity in secret. The strategic victory set into motion events that would eventually end the war and save life on the planet Earth.
Prelude[]
Still depleted from their costly victory at the Second Battle of Mars and having endured years of planet bombings, the United Nations approved a plan to send a small number of survivors into interstellar space to re-start human civilization. As the plan progressed, Earth was unexpectedly contacted by Queen Stasha Iscandar of the planet Iscandar with an offer of technology that would revert Earth to its lush, habitable state. Despite Stasha's close alliance with the Garmillan ruler, the continuing assault on Earth offended her deep commitment to the preservation of life throughout the universe, motivating her to act. If Earth built a new ship based on wave motion energy, the queen would send her sister Sasha a year later with a wave motion core to power it for the long journey to Iscandar to take possession of the life-saving technology. The original plan to evacuate and start over was halted in favor of the bolder Yamato Plan.[1][6][7][8]
In order to assure that the wave motion core was received safely, the UN Cosmo Navy devised an all-or-nothing gambit to distract the Teron Attack Force into a confrontation so that Sasha Iscandar's ship, code-named "Amaterasu,"[9] would not be intercepted. To do this, the Cosmo Navy gathered its remaining twenty-two ships into the First Fleet, led personally by the UNCN commander, Admiral Juzo Okita, aboard the flagship Kirishima. Three weeks before the battle and the arrival of the Iscandarian vessel, the fleet began its journey toward Pluto and the main Garmillas base in the solar system. However, an advance unit composed of the Isokaze-class Assault Destroyer Yukikaze had already departed months prior in July of 2198.[10]
A two-person team was dispatched to Mars, concealed inside the ruins of the Arcadia Port settlement on the surface, and remained on standby to retrieve the package when it arrived.[1]
The Battle[]
The first fleet emerges from behind Kirishima on a battle line.
Two hundred thousand kilometers from Pluto and ahead of the main UNCN force, the Yukikaze commanded by Lieutenant Commander Mamoru Kodai signaled its arrival in the expected area of combat, but detected no enemy response. Meanwhile, at a distance of three hundred eighty thousand kilometers, the First Fleet quickly encountered contacts on their radar approaching from behind, nearly one hundred twenty Garmillas ships of various classes. The Garmillas formed their own battle lines and sent a simple message to the humans demanding their surrender. Okita simply replied, "Nuts," resulting in an opening salvo from the aliens that immediately destroyed the heavy cruiser Yuugiri and drove another heavy cruiser, Kurama, out of formation. The remaining First Fleet returned fire, but the energy beams of their technologically inferior cannons bounced off the enemy hulls and missiles missed their targets. Earth ships were being damaged or sunk one after another, and the crippled Shimakaze careened into a fellow UNCN vessel, Abukuma. As the fleet sustained rapidly mounting losses and Kirishima itself took damage, Okita held firm.
The flagship bridge quickly takes damage.
His patience was rewarded when "Amaterasu" signaled as it passed Neptune at high speed. Okita sent an encoded message to the UN Far East District Headquarters confirming the ship's arrival in the system. Monitoring the operation from headquarters, Admiral Ryu Hijikata ordered the recovery team on Mars to stand ready, and ten minutes later, the team saw the vessel burning on approach and explode in mid-air, just as an escape pod ejected. The two officers walked from their landed reconnaissance plane to the pod's crash site, but found that the its occupant, Sasha Iscandar, had died with an undamaged wave motion core clutched to her chest. The team confirmed recovery of the core.
Yukikaze's fight ends.
Okita received confirmation of the retrieval and immediately ordered the last surviving First Fleet ships, Kirishima and Yukikaze, to retreat. As the weakened flagship began its withdrawal, a Garmillas destroyer dove toward it and opened fire. Just before Kirishima was hit, Yukikaze pursued and sank the destroyer with two torpedoes from behind. Rather than obeying the retreat order, Yukikaze passed the flagship and headed toward the area of battle. Despite Okita's orders and pleas, Kodai argued that Earth needed the admiral and that his destroyer would make certain Okita returned. Yukikaze flew straight toward the enemy, dodging volleys of cannon fire in the middle of their confused formations and causing at least one Garmillas ship to be destroyed by another, until it was struck by a direct hit that created a massive explosion. Safely away from the attention of the Garmillas, Kirishima continued on course toward the inner solar system.[1]
Aftermath[]
UN Cosmo Force leaders assess the retrieved wave motion core and discuss the next steps of the Program Yamato.
With only one ship surviving the battle, the already weakened UNCN fleet could no longer maintain the line it had held for years against Garmillas ship incursions within the orbit of the Moon.[11] Weeks after their victory, the Garmillans sent a carrier that wiped out a UN Cosmo Marine base on the Moon and continued to Earth orbit, launching a scout ship and fighters and directly attacking an underground military facility.[1][6][12]
Kirishima passed Mars three weeks later and picked up the extraction team, bringing the wave motion core to the UN Far East Headquarters. Upon arrival, the core would be used to initiate the Program Yamato and complete the space battleship Yamato.[1][6]
Yukikaze was assumed to have been destroyed with all hands lost. However, the crew of Yamato detected a weak automated distress call coming from the vicinity of Saturn and determined that the damaged Yukikaze had managed to crash land on one of the planet's moons, Enceladus. Months later, they learned that a small number of the destroyer's crew, including Kodai and first officer Eiji Ishizu, had been captured alive by enemy forces with the intention of using them as biological research specimens on the Garmillan homeworld.[13][14]
Although the UNCN's ploy successfully distracted attention from Sasha Iscandar's vessel, the subsequent success of Yamato as it soundly defeated Garmillas forces at Jupiter, Pluto, and beyond was clear evidence of Queen Stasha's involvement. Relations between Iscandar and the Garmillan leader, Abelt Desler, would be strained for months afterward.[15][16]
Notes[]
- The operation's name is translated as "Operation Me-Gou" in the official subtitles for Star Blazers Chronicle 2202.[17]
- While the subtitles state that Okita said "Nuts!", this being also present in the dub, his response to the Garmillas fleet in the Japanese dialogue was actually a similar response to his original series counterpart, being "tell them they're fools/idiots." rather than "Nuts"
Gallery[]
References[]
- ↑ 1.00 1.01 1.02 1.03 1.04 1.05 1.06 1.07 1.08 1.09 1.10 1.11 1.12 1.13 1.14 1.15 1.16 1.17 1.18 1.19 1.20 1.21 1.22 1.23 1.24 1.25 1.26 1.27 1.28 1.29 1.30 1.31 1.32 1.33 1.34 1.35 1.36 1.37 1.38 1.39 1.40 1.41 1.42 1.43 1.44 1.45 1.46 1.47 1.48 1.49 "Messenger of Iscandar"
- ↑ Schulz is established as the commander of the Teron Attack Force in"Escape from the Jupiter Sphere"
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 3.6 3.7 3.8 Bandai 1/1000 United Nations Cosmo Navy Combined Cosmo Fleet Set
- ↑ Space Battleship Yamato 2199 Model Sheet Design Collection EARTH p. 190
- ↑ Model Graphix #342, May 2013
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 "Toward a Sea of Stars"
- ↑ "Out of the Forest of Memory"
- ↑ "The Distant Promised Land"
- ↑ Official Space Battleship Yamato 2199 website ship data on Sheherazade
- ↑ Trajectory of YAMATO official 2024 calendar
- ↑ Official Space Battleship Yamato 2199 website character data on Ryu Hijikata
- ↑ "Space Battleship Yamato 2199: Odyssey of the Celestial Ark"
- ↑ "Gravestone on a Frozen Field"
- ↑ "The Distant Promised Land"
- ↑ "What Lies Beyond"
- ↑ "One Man's War"
- ↑ The Era of Space Battleship Yamato: Choice of 2202
Japanese language information[]
- 冥王星沖海戦 Meiōsei oki kaisen (Battle of Pluto)
- 第一次冥王星沖海戦 Dai ichiji meiōsei oki kaisen (First Battle of Pluto)
- メ号作戦 Me gōsakusen (Operation M)