{"id":29136,"date":"2019-11-06T23:11:49","date_gmt":"2019-11-07T07:11:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ourstarblazers.com\/vault\/?p=29136"},"modified":"2022-12-07T18:36:55","modified_gmt":"2022-12-08T02:36:55","slug":"sbl61120","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ourstarblazers.com\/vault\/sbl61120\/","title":{"rendered":"Star Blazers Lambda<\/em> Chapter 6"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

Story and art by Ryuko Azuma
\nSee it in larger format on Comic NewType<\/em> here<\/a>
\nNarrative reads right to left<\/p>\n

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A voice in the dark: \u201cDischarge of the space-time crystals has been approved\u2026\u201d Yu Yamato is startled, then realizes that he\u2019s face to face with a gruesome figure who embraces him. He screams as his hand crystalizes and shatters.<\/p>\n

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Right side: Yu wakes up in his bed, his hand normal. Linne Aigis is curled up like a cat next to him. An alarm sounds and he knows what\u2019s about to happen. \u201cSeireness.\u201d<\/p>\n

Left side: The flight crew on Vimana<\/em> station prepares the NerfThis fleet for launch while Yu dwells on the mysterious dream.<\/p>\n

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Right side: distracted, Yu is told by Nina Nelson (Mark 1 pilot) to disengage his limiter. Hugo sneers in contempt while Linne looks as if she knows something the others don\u2019t. The fleet is ordered to launch.<\/p>\n

Left side: the fleet rushes forward, 90 seconds to enemy contact. Nina launches the Second Sight drones to collect intel, then orders Marina Fraser (Mark 4 pilot) to get ready for \u201ckickoff.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Three Seireness emerge from the wormhole, creepier than ever. Marina deploys her ship\u2019s Frost Aster to contain them, but Laine flies a little too close.<\/p>\n

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Laine speeds through in time avoid getting hit, firing a counterattack to keep the enemy at bay.<\/p>\n

Marina gets in close and prepares to fire again\u2026<\/p>\n

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\u2026this time hitting the Seireness with her freezer beam with devastating results.<\/p>\n

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Everyone congratulates Marina for her successful strike, and Linne Aigis (Mark 7 pilot) orders Yu to ready the Wave-Motion Gun. To his surprise, the remaining Seireness withdraws into the wormhole with a grin and vanishes.<\/p>\n

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Chapter title: Dimensional Dive<\/div>\n

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Right side: everyone is confused that they suddenly have no reading on the enemy. They wonder if Second Sight failed, but it wouldn\u2019t be possible for all the ships to fail simultaneously.<\/p>\n

Left side: no one quite knows what to do, but then the Seireness\u2019 giant head emerges behind Aisha Mejider (Mark 5 pilot) without warning.<\/p>\n

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Aisha\u2019s ship is struck and sent tumbling. On board her damaged ship, Aisha shouts to her Mifune droids to get the ship stabilized as soon as possible.<\/p>\n

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Right side: nobody can detect Aisha, because the Second Sight system has gone offline, effectively blinding them.<\/p>\n

Left side: Marina deploys Frost Aster again to block the Seireness\u2019 movement, and everyone is shocked when the enemy \u201cskips\u201d right past it, vanishing on one side and reappearing on the other.<\/p>\n

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With Second Sight now completely down, they are at the mercy of an enemy that can pop out of anywhere. When it appears close to Linne\u2019s ship, she quickly blocks it with a shield and it vanishes again. Hugo wants to know how it manages this, and Linne answers: \u201cdimensional dive\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

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Right side: Linne speculates that Seireness can dive into other dimensions like a submarine. But there should still be a faint gravity tug to give away its position, so she tunes all her sensors to look for gravity shifts.<\/p>\n

Left side: as the pilots look tense, Linne tells Hugo to ready his thunderstorm attack and Yu to charge the Wave-Motion Gun for when it reappears. Yu is defenseless while he\u2019s charging, but she tells him to keep charging.<\/p>\n

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Right side: Marina detects the Seireness singing and it emerges directly under Linne\u2019s ship and slams into her. Hugo fires\u2026<\/p>\n

Left side: \u2026but the enemy dives away again, dodging his attack. Linne\u2019s sensors are down. Abbey watches helplessly from mission control.<\/p>\n

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Right side: Aisha (mark 5 pilot) offers to start repairing Linne\u2019s ship, but Nina warns her off since that would make her vulnerable. Without Linne\u2019s sensors, there\u2019s no way to detect the Seireness now. The Mifune droids on Linne\u2019s ship are overwhelmed by the damage. If it comes again, someone will be killed. We focus in on Marina listening.<\/p>\n

Left side: as Marina waits with the others, she thinks back to younger days when she was with her mother in Northern Canada, helping her with an environmental group. Her mother has arrived with a big bag of food. \u201cMama,\u201d she asks, \u201cthere\u2019s so much. Didn\u2019t you have to pay for it?\u201d<\/p>\n

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Right side: Marina\u2019s mother explains the way of the Inuit, to share the \u201cprey\u201d not just with family and relatives, but with everyone. \u201cThat’s how our ancestors survived in the harsh natural environment. In the old days, we didn\u2019t sell caribou meat for a profit, we helped each other without even having to ask.\u201d Marina thinks Inuit culture is \u201ckinda old fashioned,\u201d but her mother loves it.<\/p>\n

Left side: words emerge from Marina\u2019s memory: \u201cThis land where you were born\u2026it\u2019ll definitely help you one day, Marina.\u201d Marina unleashes her ship\u2019s freezer beam over a wide area.<\/p>\n

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Right side: Hugo asks Marina what she\u2019s doing, and she tells them to bundle up. It\u2019s going to get cold, but they have to endure it. Nina sees that the outside temperature has dropped below absolute zero. Back on Vimana<\/em>, Alexei realizes what Marina is attempting.<\/p>\n

Left side: He explains that \u201cGravity flips when it exceeds absolute zero and acts as a repulsive force! Seireness probably can’t see us, either!! Marina is doing a seal hunt at Jupiter!\u201d Marina tells Linne to fire her \u201cgravity bullet\u201d to give the Seireness an \u201cair hole.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Linne complies, blasting a hole into the other dimension. Marina immediately deploys Frost Aster again.<\/p>\n

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Drawn to the hole, the Seielens takes the hit and freezes solid.<\/p>\n

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With the Seireness immobilized, Marina shouts for Yu. He rushes in with his Wave-Motion Gun ready to fire.<\/p>\n

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KABLOOEY!!<\/div>\n

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Right side: \u201cMission complete! All targets destroyed!!\u201d Everyone cheers for Marina while Carlos Jones looks dismissive.<\/p>\n

Left side: later, after a shower, Marina gets a message on her phone.<\/p>\n

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It\u2019s a photo of her dad and grandfather, who at odds the last time we saw them. \u201cI went hunting with grandpa.\u201d Marina smiles at the welcome show of harmony.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Return to 2202<\/em> report<\/a> <\/p>\n

Return to Chapter index<\/a><\/p>\n

Continue to next chapter<\/a><\/p>\n

Ryuko Azuma’s Production Memo<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

This is a Marina recovery chapter. It’s only a short start, but I think it’s probably the highest quality story I’ve ever written. Marina is a strong, cute, and very cool girl. I’m sure there are not many characters like her. Chapter 6 was a real challenge for me.<\/span><\/p>\n

Anyway, the Seireness in this one is very strong. I think it’s probably the worst class of Seireness to come. The concept is based on Overwatch<\/em>‘s Reaper. I often play a tank, and this guy is very annoying to play against. Tanks basically defend the front line with their bodies, but Reapers can easily break through the front line with teleport and shoot you from behind at point blank range. They are also known as tank killers. If you don’t have an attacker to protect you, you will die quickly. <\/span><\/p>\n

It hides in another dimension and suddenly appears, tearing apart the fleet and escaping. How do we defeat this thing?<\/span><\/p>\n

First of all, Seireness needs to be able to see where we are, so we try to generate gravity. Of the four forces, only gravity leaks out into other dimensions.<\/span><\/p>\n

At first I thought, “If they’re relying on gravity, why don’t we use gravity to counter them?” But then I thought that was weak. So first, I took out Second Sight. Then I destroyed Linne’s gravity sensor. But how would I reverse this pinch?<\/span><\/p>\n

The clue was the Buster Machine 90 from Gunbuster 2<\/em>. It was based on a fictional theory that time goes backward when the temperature exceeds absolute zero. I’ve read that gravity becomes a repulsive force when the temperature exceeds absolute zero, and that’s how I was able to defeat Seireness!<\/span><\/p>\n

But the staff told me that Seireness wouldn’t appear. I still couldn’t defeat it! What would I do? Then it became, “Let’s feed it.” Ah, I finally beat it. I’m so tired….<\/span><\/p>\n

I think it was a miraculous chapter where I accidentally found the way out and the story’s path became clear.<\/span><\/p>\n

Marina and her mom are cute. It’s hard! But Marina overcame her grief! Thank God! Way to go, Marina! That was the chapter.<\/span><\/p>\n

PS: Now that I think about it, Marina’s mother is the same character as Aisha. Maybe that’s why they’re so close.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29136","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ourstarblazers.com\/vault\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29136","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ourstarblazers.com\/vault\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ourstarblazers.com\/vault\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ourstarblazers.com\/vault\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ourstarblazers.com\/vault\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29136"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.ourstarblazers.com\/vault\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29136\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33399,"href":"https:\/\/www.ourstarblazers.com\/vault\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29136\/revisions\/33399"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ourstarblazers.com\/vault\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29136"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ourstarblazers.com\/vault\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29136"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ourstarblazers.com\/vault\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29136"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}