Knights of sidonia

[Renegade334]

To answer your questions, this is what Sidonia's cross-section looks like:

Spoiler for click on thumbnail to enlarge:

They literally let Sidonia gather a coat of ice and space dust to help insulate it from radiation and heat (in real life, dissipating heat caused by sunlight, in a vacuum, is a constant hassle for spaceships and stations). The big rock is indeed a mound of materials gathered from either asteroids or Earth's remnants and clamped upon the hull to help the colony build new stuff (Macross did something comparable, though, IIRC, the colony fleet's auxiliary ships were merely towing the asteroids along) without appropriating any of the precious internal volume.

As for which way is up or down, some sci-fi series answered that by either
- Using the command center (in some cases, the captain's seat) as point of reference. From there on, what is "up" or "down" as seen from the bridge/captain's position goes for the rest of the ship.
- Using the planetary orbits of nearby solar systems as reference (like in the Lost Fleet series). Then they use the direction in which a planet revolves (clockwise or counter-clockwise) around its sun to determine which way is up and which one is down.

[Pen3]

It has been a hundred years since they have seen a guana and assume they dont plan to turn their ship as hard. During those hundreds of years you would think the humans would want to change the residential areas to imitate the life style of earth. Or the high commands want to give the residence a sense or security to prevent protesters like we saw in episode 1. I don't know how the entire ship is and it may be just the residential areas that are built like that. I mean why would you still have wooden furnitures in space or ramen shops if they plan on battling aliens everyday and doing evasive maneuvers.

[Renegade334]

The problem is that rebuilding an entire colony is not only very difficult (there is also the whole debate of whether a ship constantly fighting for survival can afford to modify its internal layout without causing problems), dangerous and...quite resource-consuming.

It should also be remembered that a hundred years ago, Sidonia was almost wiped out, so they might have also had a manpower issue. And I imagine a lot of experienced minds were lost back (the manga does provide a specific tally on the human losses, though I don't know if the anime will reach that point...so I'll leave that out) then, leading to a greater state of unpreparedness (made even worse by the fact that the Gauna appear to be developing new abilities such as the Hyggs cannon).

[Hypernova]

Originally Posted by Anh_Minh

Judging by the diagram, the ship is the long metal thing. The rock's there for... mineral resources, I guess?

Depending on how far they were from the axis of the turn, I don't see why they wouldn't be slammed against walls.

I kinda wonder, though - where is down for them, normally? Do they use rotational gravity (so it would go from the central axis toward the hull), or do they constantly accelerate with their main thrusters?

It's mentioned that they got gravity compensator/generators but it's only got a limited output range which was clearly exceed this ep. Sidonia is a colony ship not a battleship.

[Tenzen12]

I don't realy see problem with Sidonia getting trashed with such maneuvers, bombarders aren't designed for old school dogfights, Aircraft carriers will hardly do slalom either.

To be able compensate for such movements might be as well impossible with their current level of technology.

[Pen3]

Originally Posted by Renegade334

The problem is that rebuilding an entire colony is not only very difficult (there is also the whole debate of whether a ship constantly fighting for survival can afford to modify its internal layout without causing problems), dangerous and...quite resource-consuming.

It should also be remembered that a hundred years ago, Sidonia was almost wiped out, so they might have also had a manpower issue. And I imagine a lot of experienced minds were lost back (the manga does provide a specific tally on the human losses, though I don't know if the anime will reach that point...so I'll leave that out) then, leading to a greater state of unpreparedness (made even worse by the fact that the Gauna appear to be developing new abilities such as the Hyggs cannon).

They are not constantly fighting for survival. Remember En and Izana complaining about their daily training because they will probably never see a Guana in their life time or so they assume.

[Renegade334]

They were at several points in history (there have been at least four sieges). The last time was a 100 years ago and it was a very close call.

Spoiler:

(specifics about this tragedy should be given...somewhere around ep.08/09, I believe, unless the staff drags it out)

And the last century was pretty much spent rebuilding the population rather than Sidonia itself.

[Kamui04]

Originally Posted by monir

I think it has more to do with the question, how often are they fighting the Gauna. The initial indication is, not that often. So their preparation or the lack of it reflects their inexperience at fighting the Gauna.


Again, I agree on the point of under-preparedness. Not only are they ill-efficient in terms of deploying their resource at a moment's notice, they were also poor at putting together the teams as was evident with the elite four. From a psychological standpoint the elite four was not prepared to handle the situation. How was a romantic relationship went unnoticed or allowed to foster in a group of individual who should have known and accepted the kind of fate awaited them when they were chosen as pilots? The elite four lacked a cold, dispassionate assessment of the situation which lead to saving the girlfriend, then girlfriend goes to retrieve boyfriend, and then the break-down as follows. This group was not mentally prepared to sacrifice anything including their loved ones to achieve the end goal which was to save the entire population of humanity from the impending doom of Gauna.

So I'm deducing that the portrayal of the Elite-four's engagement was to point out of the fact that these people don't get to engage Gauna all that often. So they are ill prepared from every respect whether it was in reaction time or in mental fortitude.

Originally Posted by Pen3

I mean why would you still have wooden furnitures in space or ramen shops if they plan on battling aliens everyday and doing evasive maneuvers.

On that topic. Remember that the Captain and classes have pointed out that they've been living at peace for 100 years. So the current generation haven't seen or engaged with a Gauna. And again as pointed out in class that last time 100 years ago was kinda disastrous since they lost their food processing capabilities which forced them to come up with photosynthesis.

On the other hand by the number they gave to the gauna: G487 it might mean Sidonia has at least fought or repelled another 486 gaunas in the past 1000 years since they escaped Earth, an average of one every two years not daily. Then again they had seen none in the last 100 years.

Originally Posted by blackcloud6

just read a post about ship design from MAL...

"If "down" is in the direction it's supposed to be if the ship wasn't built by a retard (i.e. down = aft of the vessel), the shift in G should be nothing like that; the angle between "down" and the direction of thrust is tiny.

Then again, "if the ship wasn't built by a retard", the specific standard by which all interior structures would be built would be "what if only one engine is fired at maximum and the g shifts correspondingly?", and so it's pretty clear that the humans in this universe are slightly less good at space travel and ship design than the Kerbals."

so basically the ship interior design sucks big time? anyone can give an insight...

If you look at the living space, it looks like the residences were build on top of each other without any kind of "standards" over many generations. The anime stated from the maneuver they'd be subjecting the ship to 5 Gs in the vertical and lateral axis. Compare this to the G forces seen in devastating earthquakes which seems to be pretty variable, but for example the the 9.0 2011 Tohoku one they experienced 2.8 Gs.

Also those further from the axis would the ones subjected to the biggest sudden lateral accelaration and forces.

Originally Posted by Renegade334

To answer your questions, this is what Sidonia's cross-section looks like:

Spoiler for click on thumbnail to enlarge:

As for which way is up or down, some sci-fi series answered that by either
- Using the command center (in some cases, the captain's seat) as point of reference. From there on, what is "up" or "down" as seen from the bridge/captain's position goes for the rest of the ship.

Taking the the schematics as reference you can see that they have gravity generators at the "bottom" or "rear" of the ship near the thrusters. Add the scenes where we see the scenery in the living space and that Tanikaze, Izana and the Elite four took a elevator up to the oceanic section and you can guess where is up & down inside the ship.

[Byakou]

I liked this episode, full of action. But I'm a bit puzzled with some of their decisions. You'd think that they'd have sent some of those 250 mechas to make sure the gauna got killed. Running away and destroying half the colony in the process, that's a terrible plan B. They ought to have some better plan Bs and plan Cs, putting all their eggs on plan A is a recipe to get annihilated.

The gauna is strange. When sidonia changed their trajectory you'd think it would just turn and follow them, seeing as it's a space monster, not a piece of rock. And the spears being the only thing that can kill them is just strange really, there's no reason they wouldn't die if poked full of holes with beam weapons. It's a bit too magical for my taste, you just poke them with a spear and *poof* they dissolve? Meh.

[Tenzen12]

Well they did both, runned away AND send 250 mechas to make sure the gauno got gilled. If they bett ONLY on direct attack and failed Gauna could already be inside Sidonia

[King Lycan]

Very good anime definitely my second favorite this season, a lot of death I like that.

[Solace]

Originally Posted by Byakou

The gauna is strange. When sidonia changed their trajectory you'd think it would just turn and follow them, seeing as it's a space monster, not a piece of rock. And the spears being the only thing that can kill them is just strange really, there's no reason they wouldn't die if poked full of holes with beam weapons. It's a bit too magical for my taste, you just poke them with a spear and *poof* they dissolve? Meh.

The gauna can't be killed unless the core (the placenta) is destroyed. To do this, you need to use the spears because they are tipped with a special material that damages the core so that it can't regenerate. Once that happens, the whole body will fall apart. The rarity of the material is why they sent the retrieval unit out in this episode. They can't mass produce it, so they can't afford to waste the material on something like a gun. Or to put it another way: the best advantage a sword has over a gun is that it doesn't run out of bullets.

Also, space isn't water. There is nothing to push against. Without the use of thrust, it's very difficult to make sharp turns. The captain was betting on the Sidionia using its engines to avoid the collision in hopes that it would buy time as the Guana without that extra propulsion would have to take a longer turn to return to the collision course. Which is exactly what happened.

Of course, this episode also foreshadowed why a plan like this only works once.

[Tenzen12]

If I get it right core and placenta are two different things. Placenta surround, protect and allow evolve Gauna and thus have to be destroyed to get on core.

[Pen3]

Originally Posted by Byakou

I liked this episode, full of action. But I'm a bit puzzled with some of their decisions. You'd think that they'd have sent some of those 250 mechas to make sure the gauna got killed. Running away and destroying half the colony in the process, that's a terrible plan B. They ought to have some better plan Bs and plan Cs, putting all their eggs on plan A is a recipe to get annihilated.

The gauna is strange. When sidonia changed their trajectory you'd think it would just turn and follow them, seeing as it's a space monster, not a piece of rock. And the spears being the only thing that can kill them is just strange really, there's no reason they wouldn't die if poked full of holes with beam weapons. It's a bit too magical for my taste, you just poke them with a spear and *poof* they dissolve? Meh.

They had to run away because there is not enough time to deploy that many mechas. The only way to kill the Guana is to expose the core and use specialized weapons on it, which is on limited supply.

[Kaoru Chujo]

Outstanding show, so far, involving an unusual and well-portrayed situation far from our normal lives.

I think rescue will be possible (after some nice one-on-one time between a boy and a girl?) if the Sidonia changes course to put it where ship and boy/girl can intersect -- or come close enough for the self-absorbed trainee to be sent out to rescue them. I predicted this episode to myself pretty well, so I'll go out on a limb for the next one, lol. The situation may be unusual, but the plot is inexorable.

I think we are meant to realize that the Sidonia's crew/inhabitants have grown complacent after a century of peace, and have built where they should not have, and not maintained where they should have. So -- if in fact a turn like the one in ep4 would produce forces like those shown -- the collapse of some century-old or ill-built structures is reasonable. Parts of the living areas looked like technologically advanced shanty towns.

Things do happen quickly in this show, without much preparation, but I find that easy to accept, since the story and the characters are so fascinating. We are not in Kansas any more, Dorothy. And anyway, I realize this is fiction, and do not need to be fooled into thinking it real by a more patient exposition.

Originally Posted by Guardian Enzo

...It so happens that the two greatest flaws of this series - terrible character animation and awkward character interaction - overlap....

I think those are both features, not bugs. Without the somewhat emotionless look (strongest in the brilliantly portrayed masked captain) and the quickly sketched human interactions, this would not be as interesting a show as it is. Seems like art, to me. To me, the humans on the Sidonia have always seemed a bit alien, as they would be, having lived in such an unusual situation for so long. And our hero is even further out of sync than the rest. I'm hoping it was all intentional, lol.

[lesterf1020]

Originally Posted by Tenzen12

If I get it right core and placenta are two different things. Placenta surround, protect and allow evolve Gauna and thus have to be destroyed to get on core.

The Gauna is composed of two parts.. a core and a placenta. As long as the core exists the placenta can be generated and regenerated infinitely and take any shape and perform any function the guana desires. The placenta can be destroyed with enough firepower but the core cannot be destroyed without a kabizashi. The kabizashi however, cannot penetrate the core if there is even a small amount of placenta on it. So destruction of a guana requires blasting off the placenta and piercing it with the kabizashi before it generates more.

[RoboMambo]

Gotta love these slow space tactics, where turning is an arduous task and beams actually take second to reach their targets.

I loved it when Nagate dodged the beam, the way it was animated, the movement of the garde.

On the interior design of the ship, it looks makeshift, made with no time and resources. So yeah, it didn't look like it'd stand much strain.

I've been wondering since the previous episode what to make of the commander. Sending only four pilots without actual experience to just charge the enemy, with no tactics, was such a blunt move I can't help thinking that maybe it wasn't supposed to work (maybe to rekindle the populations sense of risk and urgency). Unless she really is that bad at her job.

[frubam]

Simply AMAZED at ep4! I got kinda irritated when Kunato cheated Nagate out of the spear, expecting him to get his ass handed to him by attempting to be the 'hero' and attacking the Gauna, but fortunately, it went down FAR better than I imagined. The whole "game of chicken", as Flower eloquently put it, was extremely exciting, but this was different than a typical showdown like in a Gundam series or Valvrave or something; the morbid tone of the show gives it a far more ambient feeling of fear to attempt such a thing.

The whole thruster turning thing was quite amazing as well. I don't think I've ever seen this level of 'realism' in a sci-fi space series like this. At the same time, it made me realize that space can be a very scary beast to live in ....

[Kamui04]

Originally Posted by Solace

The gauna can't be killed unless the core (the placenta) is destroyed. To do this, you need to use the spears because they are tipped with a special material that damages the core so that it can't regenerate. Once that happens, the whole body will fall apart. The rarity of the material is why they sent the retrieval unit out in this episode. They can't mass produce it, so they can't afford to waste the material on something like a gun. Or to put it another way: the best advantage a sword has over a gun is that it doesn't run out of bullets.

Also, space isn't water. There is nothing to push against. Without the use of thrust, it's very difficult to make sharp turns. The captain was betting on the Sidionia using its engines to avoid the collision in hopes that it would buy time as the Guana without that extra propulsion would have to take a longer turn to return to the collision course. Which is exactly what happened.

Of course, this episode also foreshadowed why a plan like this only works once.

Adding to the comment about the rarity of the Kabizashis. Inside the briefing room one of the Honoka sisters tells Izana that even after retrieving one of the Kabizashis they'd only have 27 left in Sidonia.

[Anh_Minh]

Originally Posted by RoboMambo

Gotta love these slow space tactics, where turning is an arduous task and beams actually take second to reach their targets.

I loved it when Nagate dodged the beam, the way it was animated, the movement of the garde.

On the interior design of the ship, it looks makeshift, made with no time and resources. So yeah, it didn't look like it'd stand much strain.

I've been wondering since the previous episode what to make of the commander. Sending only four pilots without actual experience to just charge the enemy, with no tactics, was such a blunt move I can't help thinking that maybe it wasn't supposed to work (maybe to rekindle the populations sense of risk and urgency). Unless she really is that bad at her job.

They had tactics, of a sort. I mean, it was 4 to 1, and there's no cover. Not much room for anything complicated. The problem was that they performed horribly.

And that there wasn't much of a "Plan B".