Let's Play Galaxy Angel, Chapter 2, Part 1: The Ship That Has Everything. EVERYTHING.
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The readers have spoken, and this chapter... the results were a tie. I extended it an extra day and, finally, just wanted to get on with it, so I enlisted the nearest person who would actually answer their AIM.
friendshipbeam: well, anyway: linefacing healer loli or gun-happy military lady whose boobs have their own centre of gravity
friendshipbeam: if you can't pick one, flip a coin
tenshinoakuma: healer
friendshipbeam: 'k o7
So the Forte/Vanilla tie is broken in favour of Vanilla. This segment, anyway. Forte and Ranpha fans (apparently, nobody reading this likes Mint), take heart: we've still got a long way to go.
This and the next four chapters of the game (meaning the next... what, twenty posts?) will mostly develop the Angels in order of numerical callsign, as well as advancing the plot. This chapter will mainly focus on Milfeulle, but this particular segment of the chapter also deals with introducing the Elsior and getting to know the other four Angels better. Everyone wins.
Repairing the Elsior's engine will take another three hours from here. Maintenance of Lost Technology is a very delicate undertaking, since no one really knows why it does what it does, and thus, 80% of the crew is composed of the Moon Priestesses, Lady Shatyarn's servants from the White Moon. Apparently, the White Moon is picky about who it likes: all the Moon Priestesses, the Angels, and the Holy Mother of the White Moon can only be female. Anyway, this is a lot less time than Tact expected the repairs to take, even if we're running on a crew of researchers-turned-bridge bunnies and priestesses-turned-engineers.
Luft comes in and takes Tact and Lester to meet the prince. Tact hates formal meetings, but gets dragged off anyway. Time to go see this kid...
Non-Evil Prince: Shiva Transbaal
The most tsundere kid ever.
[BGM: Prince Shiva. I'm sharing it because I like it.]
Meet the only non-psycho member of the royal family left alive. Unfortunately, Shiva doesn't really like us very much.
Tact: Haa... Tact Mayers, if you please. Sorry for waiting to visit you. I really...
Shiva: What, it's you? Surely it must be this other man.
Tact: Uh, ummm... That's my adjutant, Lester Coolduras.
Shiva: I see. Well, fine. Then, Mayers, I have an immediate order. Change the Elsior's course and return to our homeworld at once.
Tact and Luft both try to talk some sense into the kid, but Shiva's having none of it. The royal family's dead, the Empire's in trouble, Eonia's causing people to suffer, and Shiva wants to help. Luft says that waiting for reinforcements would be the sensible thing to do, and Shiva says we're all chicken (though in a much more formal tone). Revealing the Prince's location would rally the Imperial army, right? ...right?
Yeah, apparently nobody told this kid that the First and Second Fleets are all dead too.
>Tell the truth.
Somebody has to do it.
Shiva calls Tact a coward first, then a liar, and Luft yells at Tact about not breaking the news gently to a ten-year-old. Tact replies that, ten-year-old or not, this kid is going to be running the Empire and already knows that the rest of the royal family is dead. It's best to just tell the truth. Shiva finally accepts that the coup has gotten that bad, but still at least wants to go back to the White Moon to save Lady Shatyarn. Tact replies that the Holy Mother was trying to save Shiva, and that escaping and staying alive is the best way to honour her wishes. Shiva finally gives up and says, okay, yes, they can go to Rhome and then they can fight Eonia.
Strangely enough, as much as he hates it, Tact can actually pull off diplomacy and formality when he has to, even if what he's saying is the blunt truth. As soon as they're out of Shiva's quarters, though...
There's the Tact we know and love. Luft and Lester congratulate him on surviving. Tact says that he was just remembering his own childhood and how he wished that people would treat him like an adult. If a child is left alone and not informed of the truth, things only get worse. This reminds Luft of his own grandson, and he admits that he's worried about his family, too. Speaking of which, about the coup... Tact asks for more details on what happened, and Luft reveals that Eonia broadcast a speech on a public frequency. Tact and company gather the Angel Wing to the bridge to go watch it.
(Also, we'll be seeing a lot of this corridor, so I just wanted to point out the sign that reads "EMERGENCY ROCK". I'm assuming that that's supposed to say "EMERGENCY LOCK", if only because I have no idea what use a rock would be in space.)
100th screenshot of this LP and it goes to Prince Hairbow. His speech just involves him ranting about how everyone else was corrupt and, if Shatyarn gives him the White Moon and its Lost Technology, he will lead the glorious Empire out of the chaos. Blah, blah, blah, who actually wants to hear this?
>I can't say yet.
You know why? Because my eyes are glazing over.
Reserving judgment makes Ranpha mad at us, but Tact says that the situation's more complicated than it appears. Most people in Transbaal liked King Gerard, but political rivals might not have. Nobody even knows why Eonia was exiled or why he's come back to take over. This impresses Vanilla and Mint.
You may notice, as I mentioned earlier, that what makes Ranpha mad usually impresses Mint, and vice versa. These two are on complete opposite ends of the character spectrum most of the time.
Either way, we're still opposing Eonia, and we're still on our way to Rhome. It'll take about two weeks if we spend most of our time in Chrono Drive, traveling at lightspeed. Of course, we'll have to keep coming out of lightspeed if there's anything in our way. There's nothing more to talk about, so the Angels go back to their posts.
Luft explains that the HALO System that runs the Emblem Frames is affected by the mental condition of the Angels. If an Angel can't concentrate on the fight or starts to break down, her Emblem Frame won't work properly. In short, Tact has to stay on all the Angels' good sides and keep them happy and confident. Tact says it's normal for him to try to get along with pretty girls, so there's nothing to worry about. Well, there's still time before the engine's fixed, so Tact decides to go take a look around the Elsior now that he can.
First stop: somewhere to get a drink. I hope you all have "Convenience Store" stuck in your head now. The store's already got another patron.
Somebody actually uploaded these videos! And not all cut up into three parts thirty seconds long, either! (Of course, these ones just aren't very long.)
Milfeulle's in the convenience store and is playing the convenience store lottery. She's won the grand prize four times in a row: the Super Rare Premiere Highest Class 3-Star Lunch Basket Marigold VSOP... basically, she is now in possession of a bunch of very fancy picnic baskets. We get a choice to react:
>That's amazingly good luck.
We will be getting a lot of choice menus from now on compared to what we've gotten, since they're the main way of raising affection. I won't be taking pictures of them all. Milfie agrees that she has good luck and demonstrates by winning the fifth and final grand prize picnic basket. She's completely happy with this, because, coincidentally enough, she accidentally bought too many groceries and she wanted to have a picnic with everyone!
You will find that these types of coincidences happen a lot when Milfie's around.
We can now move around the Elsior during downtime. There are four blocks, A through D. Rooms marked in red are places we can visit.
The Angels' locations are marked with icons of their faces. Milfeulle wants to go to the park (yes, there's a park... inside the ship...), but let's go see Forte in the hangar. It's best to do this early so you at least look like you're pretending to work.
Head Engineer: Creta Biscuit
No, there is no route for her. Sorry.
Tact is surprised that the head engineer is a woman and admits that most of the Transbaal military is male-dominated. Creta reminds him that she's a Moon Priestess, so of course she's a woman. Anyway, there are more important things to think about. We'll be seeing a lot of her, since we'll be in the hangar a lot.
Forte's in here, too, as we already saw. Coming here first makes her happy, but she's still calling Tact "Mr. Commander" and flirting with him only to burst out laughing when he freezes up. She explains the Emblem Frames in more detail -- that they're pieces of Lost Technology that no one can completely explain, that linking up with the HALO System feels like being one with the ship and the pilot's condition is tied into the Frame's performance, and that they seem to "choose" their pilots. In fact, Mint and Vanilla didn't even go to military school; the only reason they have their ranks is because they can pilot Emblem Frames and they're an important part of the Angel Wing. We also get to learn about the stats and attributes of each ship, but you already know all that.
Let's go see Vanilla in the whale room now. ...Wait, whale room?
There is an ocean in this battleship.
There is an ocean in this battleship.
This might be less believable than the park. Actually, yeah, it is. It's not much of an ocean, though, just big enough to house some animals, alongside a greenhouse on land. Apparently, Vanilla was helping out the caretaker; Milfie says that Vanilla is often found helping other people with their work when she's finished her own. Anyway, the caretaker lives in here and can explain the whole ocean thing in a way that makes more sense.
Affection Point Guy: Chromier Quark
Shotabait
...as much sense as anything coming from a small child with a miniature flying psychic whale for a pet can make. He happily shows us why this room is called the whale room... there is also a full-sized flying psychic space whale in here.
What kind of warship is this.
What Chromier and his whale buddies are really here for is to read the Angels' affection points whenever you come here and ask. The trust bar hasn't built up to any visible level for anyone yet, but everyone seems to like Tact alright, although Ranpha and Forte take a longer time to impress. What we need to do is change the faces to smiles and fill up the empty trust bars. Otherwise, they hate us and we die.
Tact then takes a tour of the greenhouse, looks at all the animals, and then gets cut by an alien plant with grass blades that turn into buzzsaws. Nice going, Tact. Next time, try not touching everything you think looks interesting.
Milfie drags Tact to the infirmary, and Vanilla's already in there, filling in for the doctor. Does this girl ever stop working? Well, she has a good reason to help out in the infirmary, at least.
That.
Remember Harvester's nanomachine colony and how it repairs the other Emblem Frames? Vanilla is matched to Harvester because she controls the nanomachine colony. Her pet fluffy alien thing is actually a physical manifestation of it. She gives a technobabble explanation that flies over Tact's head, but basically, she's a healer in person as well as on the battlefield.
The Ship's Actual Doctor: Cera Hazel
Incurable Coffee Addict
The doctor comes back and we talk to her a bit. She tells us that Vanilla works all the time and is always serious, which I'm pretty sure we could infer before.
>I'm really impressed.
Telling her to relax comes later, when she might actually listen to us. She says that she has to keep her feelings under control so that her nanomachines can work their best, explaining why she's a drywall. Linefacing through life makes other people uncomfortable, but Tact insists that he's fine with it.
Other tour highlights:
-Milfie wants to play hide-and-go-seek in the storage bay. Tact declares himself the greatest player of hide-and-go-seek to ever live. Vanilla wonders if it's military training to hunt for spies.
-The Elsior and the Emblem Frames run on something called a Chrono String Engine. Nobody is quite sure what it actually does.
-Tact is disappointed that the showers aren't unisex.
-Mint really, really loves candy and sweets. The unhealthier, the better. Also, she's the heiress to an ultra-rich corporation that owns whole planets. And she reads minds, but she can only see the thoughts people have on the surface, not the deeper reasons behind them.
-Ranpha, on the other hand, loves deathly spicy things. She has her own section of the cafeteria menu, composed of things that no one else will eat, like the Ranpha Special -- curry with 1000 times the spice.
-There are holographic windows in the whale room and the park that turn off at night so you can see outside and turn on again in the day so you can see the sun and clouds. Whatever the ancients were thinking when they invented this, that is awesome.
-Ranpha enjoys training, beating up punching bags, and working out in her spare time. Milfie wants to try, but ends up knocking the punching bag down and causing a chain reaction that takes out most of the exercise machines and all of the weights.
-Forte has her own shooting range. She collects guns, specifically gunpowder ones, even though they're uber-expensive and lasers are the military standard. She writes her hobby off as a military expense.
And just because the results were so close, let's see more of Forte. She also still doesn't like us too much. It'll take a long time to impress her. Even if Tact -- or anyone else -- seems like a good person, that can change in a situation he doesn't know how to handle.
Forte: The battlefield makes things interesting. It reveals exactly what kind of person you are. Someone who runs away, a traitor. Someone with a good head, but a bad guy. Someone with good luck, but still bad... I'll be able to tell for certain. Whether you're someone we can trust to have our backs.
In case we pick someone else at the route split, these become arc words in her route. Just so you know.
Once the tour's over, Almo calls Tact to the bridge...
Hey, look. Milfie-themed menu.
The readers have spoken, and this chapter... the results were a tie. I extended it an extra day and, finally, just wanted to get on with it, so I enlisted the nearest person who would actually answer their AIM.
friendshipbeam: well, anyway: linefacing healer loli or gun-happy military lady whose boobs have their own centre of gravity
friendshipbeam: if you can't pick one, flip a coin
tenshinoakuma: healer
friendshipbeam: 'k o7
So the Forte/Vanilla tie is broken in favour of Vanilla. This segment, anyway. Forte and Ranpha fans (apparently, nobody reading this likes Mint), take heart: we've still got a long way to go.
This and the next four chapters of the game (meaning the next... what, twenty posts?) will mostly develop the Angels in order of numerical callsign, as well as advancing the plot. This chapter will mainly focus on Milfeulle, but this particular segment of the chapter also deals with introducing the Elsior and getting to know the other four Angels better. Everyone wins.
Repairing the Elsior's engine will take another three hours from here. Maintenance of Lost Technology is a very delicate undertaking, since no one really knows why it does what it does, and thus, 80% of the crew is composed of the Moon Priestesses, Lady Shatyarn's servants from the White Moon. Apparently, the White Moon is picky about who it likes: all the Moon Priestesses, the Angels, and the Holy Mother of the White Moon can only be female. Anyway, this is a lot less time than Tact expected the repairs to take, even if we're running on a crew of researchers-turned-bridge bunnies and priestesses-turned-engineers.
Luft comes in and takes Tact and Lester to meet the prince. Tact hates formal meetings, but gets dragged off anyway. Time to go see this kid...
Non-Evil Prince: Shiva Transbaal
The most tsundere kid ever.
[BGM: Prince Shiva. I'm sharing it because I like it.]
Meet the only non-psycho member of the royal family left alive. Unfortunately, Shiva doesn't really like us very much.
Tact: Haa... Tact Mayers, if you please. Sorry for waiting to visit you. I really...
Shiva: What, it's you? Surely it must be this other man.
Tact: Uh, ummm... That's my adjutant, Lester Coolduras.
Shiva: I see. Well, fine. Then, Mayers, I have an immediate order. Change the Elsior's course and return to our homeworld at once.
Tact and Luft both try to talk some sense into the kid, but Shiva's having none of it. The royal family's dead, the Empire's in trouble, Eonia's causing people to suffer, and Shiva wants to help. Luft says that waiting for reinforcements would be the sensible thing to do, and Shiva says we're all chicken (though in a much more formal tone). Revealing the Prince's location would rally the Imperial army, right? ...right?
Yeah, apparently nobody told this kid that the First and Second Fleets are all dead too.
>Tell the truth.
Somebody has to do it.
Shiva calls Tact a coward first, then a liar, and Luft yells at Tact about not breaking the news gently to a ten-year-old. Tact replies that, ten-year-old or not, this kid is going to be running the Empire and already knows that the rest of the royal family is dead. It's best to just tell the truth. Shiva finally accepts that the coup has gotten that bad, but still at least wants to go back to the White Moon to save Lady Shatyarn. Tact replies that the Holy Mother was trying to save Shiva, and that escaping and staying alive is the best way to honour her wishes. Shiva finally gives up and says, okay, yes, they can go to Rhome and then they can fight Eonia.
Strangely enough, as much as he hates it, Tact can actually pull off diplomacy and formality when he has to, even if what he's saying is the blunt truth. As soon as they're out of Shiva's quarters, though...
There's the Tact we know and love. Luft and Lester congratulate him on surviving. Tact says that he was just remembering his own childhood and how he wished that people would treat him like an adult. If a child is left alone and not informed of the truth, things only get worse. This reminds Luft of his own grandson, and he admits that he's worried about his family, too. Speaking of which, about the coup... Tact asks for more details on what happened, and Luft reveals that Eonia broadcast a speech on a public frequency. Tact and company gather the Angel Wing to the bridge to go watch it.
(Also, we'll be seeing a lot of this corridor, so I just wanted to point out the sign that reads "EMERGENCY ROCK". I'm assuming that that's supposed to say "EMERGENCY LOCK", if only because I have no idea what use a rock would be in space.)
100th screenshot of this LP and it goes to Prince Hairbow. His speech just involves him ranting about how everyone else was corrupt and, if Shatyarn gives him the White Moon and its Lost Technology, he will lead the glorious Empire out of the chaos. Blah, blah, blah, who actually wants to hear this?
>I can't say yet.
You know why? Because my eyes are glazing over.
Reserving judgment makes Ranpha mad at us, but Tact says that the situation's more complicated than it appears. Most people in Transbaal liked King Gerard, but political rivals might not have. Nobody even knows why Eonia was exiled or why he's come back to take over. This impresses Vanilla and Mint.
You may notice, as I mentioned earlier, that what makes Ranpha mad usually impresses Mint, and vice versa. These two are on complete opposite ends of the character spectrum most of the time.
Either way, we're still opposing Eonia, and we're still on our way to Rhome. It'll take about two weeks if we spend most of our time in Chrono Drive, traveling at lightspeed. Of course, we'll have to keep coming out of lightspeed if there's anything in our way. There's nothing more to talk about, so the Angels go back to their posts.
Luft explains that the HALO System that runs the Emblem Frames is affected by the mental condition of the Angels. If an Angel can't concentrate on the fight or starts to break down, her Emblem Frame won't work properly. In short, Tact has to stay on all the Angels' good sides and keep them happy and confident. Tact says it's normal for him to try to get along with pretty girls, so there's nothing to worry about. Well, there's still time before the engine's fixed, so Tact decides to go take a look around the Elsior now that he can.
First stop: somewhere to get a drink. I hope you all have "Convenience Store" stuck in your head now. The store's already got another patron.
Click to viewSomebody actually uploaded these videos! And not all cut up into three parts thirty seconds long, either! (Of course, these ones just aren't very long.)
Milfeulle's in the convenience store and is playing the convenience store lottery. She's won the grand prize four times in a row: the Super Rare Premiere Highest Class 3-Star Lunch Basket Marigold VSOP... basically, she is now in possession of a bunch of very fancy picnic baskets. We get a choice to react:
>That's amazingly good luck.
We will be getting a lot of choice menus from now on compared to what we've gotten, since they're the main way of raising affection. I won't be taking pictures of them all. Milfie agrees that she has good luck and demonstrates by winning the fifth and final grand prize picnic basket. She's completely happy with this, because, coincidentally enough, she accidentally bought too many groceries and she wanted to have a picnic with everyone!
You will find that these types of coincidences happen a lot when Milfie's around.
We can now move around the Elsior during downtime. There are four blocks, A through D. Rooms marked in red are places we can visit.
The Angels' locations are marked with icons of their faces. Milfeulle wants to go to the park (yes, there's a park... inside the ship...), but let's go see Forte in the hangar. It's best to do this early so you at least look like you're pretending to work.
Head Engineer: Creta Biscuit
No, there is no route for her. Sorry.
Tact is surprised that the head engineer is a woman and admits that most of the Transbaal military is male-dominated. Creta reminds him that she's a Moon Priestess, so of course she's a woman. Anyway, there are more important things to think about. We'll be seeing a lot of her, since we'll be in the hangar a lot.
Forte's in here, too, as we already saw. Coming here first makes her happy, but she's still calling Tact "Mr. Commander" and flirting with him only to burst out laughing when he freezes up. She explains the Emblem Frames in more detail -- that they're pieces of Lost Technology that no one can completely explain, that linking up with the HALO System feels like being one with the ship and the pilot's condition is tied into the Frame's performance, and that they seem to "choose" their pilots. In fact, Mint and Vanilla didn't even go to military school; the only reason they have their ranks is because they can pilot Emblem Frames and they're an important part of the Angel Wing. We also get to learn about the stats and attributes of each ship, but you already know all that.
Let's go see Vanilla in the whale room now. ...Wait, whale room?
There is an ocean in this battleship.
There is an ocean in this battleship.
This might be less believable than the park. Actually, yeah, it is. It's not much of an ocean, though, just big enough to house some animals, alongside a greenhouse on land. Apparently, Vanilla was helping out the caretaker; Milfie says that Vanilla is often found helping other people with their work when she's finished her own. Anyway, the caretaker lives in here and can explain the whole ocean thing in a way that makes more sense.
Affection Point Guy: Chromier Quark
Shotabait
...as much sense as anything coming from a small child with a miniature flying psychic whale for a pet can make. He happily shows us why this room is called the whale room... there is also a full-sized flying psychic space whale in here.
What kind of warship is this.
What Chromier and his whale buddies are really here for is to read the Angels' affection points whenever you come here and ask. The trust bar hasn't built up to any visible level for anyone yet, but everyone seems to like Tact alright, although Ranpha and Forte take a longer time to impress. What we need to do is change the faces to smiles and fill up the empty trust bars. Otherwise, they hate us and we die.
Tact then takes a tour of the greenhouse, looks at all the animals, and then gets cut by an alien plant with grass blades that turn into buzzsaws. Nice going, Tact. Next time, try not touching everything you think looks interesting.
Milfie drags Tact to the infirmary, and Vanilla's already in there, filling in for the doctor. Does this girl ever stop working? Well, she has a good reason to help out in the infirmary, at least.
That.
Remember Harvester's nanomachine colony and how it repairs the other Emblem Frames? Vanilla is matched to Harvester because she controls the nanomachine colony. Her pet fluffy alien thing is actually a physical manifestation of it. She gives a technobabble explanation that flies over Tact's head, but basically, she's a healer in person as well as on the battlefield.
The Ship's Actual Doctor: Cera Hazel
Incurable Coffee Addict
The doctor comes back and we talk to her a bit. She tells us that Vanilla works all the time and is always serious, which I'm pretty sure we could infer before.
>I'm really impressed.
Telling her to relax comes later, when she might actually listen to us. She says that she has to keep her feelings under control so that her nanomachines can work their best, explaining why she's a drywall. Linefacing through life makes other people uncomfortable, but Tact insists that he's fine with it.
Other tour highlights:
-Milfie wants to play hide-and-go-seek in the storage bay. Tact declares himself the greatest player of hide-and-go-seek to ever live. Vanilla wonders if it's military training to hunt for spies.
-The Elsior and the Emblem Frames run on something called a Chrono String Engine. Nobody is quite sure what it actually does.
-Tact is disappointed that the showers aren't unisex.
-Mint really, really loves candy and sweets. The unhealthier, the better. Also, she's the heiress to an ultra-rich corporation that owns whole planets. And she reads minds, but she can only see the thoughts people have on the surface, not the deeper reasons behind them.
-Ranpha, on the other hand, loves deathly spicy things. She has her own section of the cafeteria menu, composed of things that no one else will eat, like the Ranpha Special -- curry with 1000 times the spice.
-There are holographic windows in the whale room and the park that turn off at night so you can see outside and turn on again in the day so you can see the sun and clouds. Whatever the ancients were thinking when they invented this, that is awesome.
-Ranpha enjoys training, beating up punching bags, and working out in her spare time. Milfie wants to try, but ends up knocking the punching bag down and causing a chain reaction that takes out most of the exercise machines and all of the weights.
-Forte has her own shooting range. She collects guns, specifically gunpowder ones, even though they're uber-expensive and lasers are the military standard. She writes her hobby off as a military expense.
And just because the results were so close, let's see more of Forte. She also still doesn't like us too much. It'll take a long time to impress her. Even if Tact -- or anyone else -- seems like a good person, that can change in a situation he doesn't know how to handle.
Forte: The battlefield makes things interesting. It reveals exactly what kind of person you are. Someone who runs away, a traitor. Someone with a good head, but a bad guy. Someone with good luck, but still bad... I'll be able to tell for certain. Whether you're someone we can trust to have our backs.
In case we pick someone else at the route split, these become arc words in her route. Just so you know.
Once the tour's over, Almo calls Tact to the bridge...
Hey, look. Milfie-themed menu.