<\/div>The people in Rabanastre don’t even know what the fuck when the mile-tall Bahamut<\/i> rolls up over the city, mainly because its power causes it to screw up the weather and it is constantly wreathed in a vortex of clouds almost too thick to see through. Classed as a Heavy Carrier, the ship is the flagship of both the 12th Fleet led by Lord ZargabaathBut for Gabranth, the only Judge Magister still alive, who commands from his Alexander<\/i><\/span> and the Western Armada led by Lord Vayne.<\/p>\n Within, Vayne himself stands at the CIC of his shiny new Death Star, flanked by… Larsa?! What the fuck, kid? He seems to be cool as a cucumber riding shotgun with big bro as he tears ass across Galtea, set on crushing the Rebel scum. Shit, Cid probably got the idea for the Bahamut<\/i> from a drawing Larsa made when he was ten.<\/p>\n As the sky fortress makes ready to fire its main weapon, Vayne muses on the bitter irony of Cid being slain by his own son(‘s platonic girlfriend’s pet demon), noting that there’s a lot of that going around lately. Shit, if we’d finished off Gabranth back at the Pharos, maybe we could have given the little Hiddleston incentive enough to shiv Vayne in the neck and call the plot good.<\/p>\n Larsa tries to talk his brother out of firing on the Resistance fleet, revealing that they had already surrendered before this scene kicked off. Unfortunately for our team, they don’t make fucks small enough for Vayne to spare and the Resistance chose the wrong damn day to stand in for Yavin 4. Vayne gives the order to fire, and the Sister Ray<\/a> jutting out of the top level of the fortress blasts the trireme-like Resistance airships with a direct hit, which explodes on impact with the kind of force that destroyed Ghis’ Leviathan<\/i> and the 8th Fleet over Jagd Yensa, devastating the entire surrendered fleet in a single blast.<\/p>\n Onboard, Larsa’s jaw drops as he takes another large step to becoming a man. Vayne explains he isn’t just doing this to be a jerk: once he demonstrates the Bahamut’s<\/i> force, he reasons that the Resistance will have no choice but to muster all their forces at it, where he will crush them in one go before the upturned eyes of all Rabanastre.<\/p>\n Of course, it might also teach the Resistance to scatter, conducting an asymmetric campaign leveraging mobility and infrastructure-focused hit-and-run tactics, taking advantage of the Empire’s geographic overextension and the over-concentration of their power in the ungainly Bahamut<\/i> and its carrier group. But Vayne’s never miscalculated before, so I’d place a big bet on everyone bum-rushing the Bahamut<\/i> and trying to clog up the nethicite cannon’s barrel.<\/p>\n Naturally, this is too out-in-the-open for Larsa, who believes that they could better end the conflict with cooperation and diplomacy. Larsa, for the first time, seems upset and angered by his brother’s ambition. Yes, this is what it took for Larsa to stop idolizing his elder brother unconditionally: not the murder of his two elder brothers; not the conquest of two nations and the utter annihilation of one of them; not murdering his father to usurp his position; not framing the Senate for the crime to remove any objection to his tyranny; not trafficking with fallen angels to build cursed weaponry of unspeakable power; but a discrepancy on the methods<\/i> of subjugating the known world for Archades. This is our inside man. This is the moderate alternative for the Archadian diadem.<\/p>\n Vayne again gives no fucks, and drops a stone cold shutdown on Larsa: he can’t stop him because he’s shorter than Vayne. Daaaaamn.<\/i> Having thoroughly pwned his lord brother, Vayne gives a short Gihren Zabi pep-talk to the eight or so lucky imperials who got stuck manning the bridge controls in full plate armor.<\/p>\n As we ponder whether or not they sky fortress is air conditioned, the main Resistance fleet, with the Marquis Ondore himself at the head in his flagship, the Garland, has taken the bait and attacked en masse.<\/i><\/p>\n What follows is a lovely and awesome cutscene of the Resistance armada and the 12th Fleet headed by the Bahamut<\/i> and Alexander<\/i> each releasing hundreds of small fighter airships and absolutely blowing the ever-loving shit out of each other. It actually seems like the Resistance might have the upper hand, with the fighters holding their own and dealing heavy damage as they strafe the Imperial capital ships. Ondore gives the command to fire, and the combined Resistance armada unleashes a volley trained on the Alexander,<\/i> which had positioned itself directly between them and the Bahamut<\/i> at the Imperial front and center. As the Alexander<\/i> takes heavy damage and starts listing to port, the Marquis orders another volley as soon as a trajectory on the enemy fortress is clear… Then he quickly Ackbars his pants as he realizes the Alexander<\/i> was only screening the Bahamut<\/i> while it readied another shot! The fortress fires its main weapon and… misses like a champ! The beam of deific annihilation clips the Garland’s<\/i> starboard hull, impacting a ship far to the rear of the Resistance lines. The ship’s telemetry and radio indicates that three capital ships are destroyed immediately, including the carrier Galuf-Bal.<\/i><\/p>\n Oh, God dammit Final Fantasy! Stop killing Galuf<\/a>!Halim Ondore’s first name is the same as Galuf’s middle name, Halm; both are localizations of “Harumu.”<\/span> Was once not enough for the Bearded Aeris?! Worry not for Ondore’s fleet, though; records show that the carrier was immediately replaced by the Krile-Bal,<\/i> a carrier with inexplicably identical capabilities, which, among others, repeatedly sortied against the Imperial heavy cruiser Gilgamesh<\/i> until it turned sides in battle to ram and destroy the dreadnought Necrophobe,<\/i> destroying them both.<\/p>\n It’s worth noting that the battle takes place directly over the city of Rabanastre, and the city is spared from the blast radius only by a shimmering blue barrier that seems to stop the carnage above from reaching it. This must be accomplished by a magical\u2014 sorry, magick<\/i>al\u2014 paling, the likes of which we saw at Nalbina waaaaaay back when Rasler bit the dust. Though that raises the question, if the paling is strong enough to hold back even an indirect blast from the supercannon, and is roughly no larger than a belltower and powered by a few old dudes chanting at it, is there a reason every airship in every fleet doesn’t have one of its own?<\/p>\n Oh well; I’ll easily accept that because, real talk, this scene is pretty freaking radical. But this game isn’t allowed to do anything interesting without our (and I’m airquoting here as hard as I fucking can) \u201cheroes\u201d sticking their collective dick in it, and Ondore spies the Strahl<\/i> as it shoots past them, headed straight for the Imperial lines. Ashe calls him up on the radio and tells Ondore that she’s headed to the Bahamut,<\/i> to take on Vayne directly.<\/p>\n Ondore, who is probably pretty pissed at Ashe by this time for doing nothing of value, ever, for the Resistance and gallivanting around the whole world accidentally helping the Empire win, tells her to pull her solipsistic ass back and, you know, not sacrifice herself in a suicide charge; someone’s<\/i> gotta sit their sandy fanny on the Dalmascan throne on the slim chance the Resistance actually wins this battle.<\/p>\n To her credit, Ashe knows that there’s not going to be any throne or treaty table to bother with if a miracle doesn’t do something about the Bahamut<\/i> right this second, but Ondore knows that this isn’t the same thing as having a sane plan. I feel you, Ondore; even I haven’t had a good grip on things since Bur-Omisace, and I’m clearly paying more attention than the party.<\/p>\n But the bridge of the Garland<\/i> is stunned to hear another voice come over the radio: it’s none other than… Lord Larsa? Wait, what? He shakily explains that he’s been taken aboard the Strahl,<\/i> so they should be able to pass enemy lines safely. Ondore can’t believe that they managed to take the lad hostage, but is even more surprised when he’s told that Larsa intends to help them talk Vayne down, of his own accord! Ondore is stunned, and silently wonders how Ashe manages to keep such huge balls from swinging around under that miniskirt. He collects himself, and gives the order to cover the Strahl<\/i> as it makes its way to the Bahamut.<\/i><\/p>\n I don’t really get why they needed Ondore’s permission, anyway; what was he going to do, shoot down the Strahl<\/i> so the Imperials didn’t get her first? Of course, we see on board that, no, Larsa can’t actually teleport, and he isn’t on board the Strahl;<\/i> it was just Vaan using the ship’s outlandish voice-changer from all the way back in Bhujerba! *clap<\/i>s<\/i> hands for genuine cleverness*<\/i> It seems that the crew was just channeling the little lord’s spirit to pointlessly troll their own allies. I’m sure somewhere on board the sky fortress, he’s glowing with pride but can’t put his finger on the reason.<\/p>\n Balthier, of course, can hardly fly the ship straight as he comes immediately and by the bucket, understandably delirious with vindication at finally putting to practical use a novelty widget he unwittingly paid 400,000 gil for while trashed for three days on shitty serpentwyne and sick half to death with nanna fever. Congratulations, Balthier; a win’s a win. Just one question: when did you ever get the chance to put Larsa’s voice on that thing? It’s wired to the Strahl,<\/i> and Larsa’s never been onboard. *shrug*<\/i><\/p>\n Unfortunately for us,I get to use that phrase a lot, don’t I?<\/span> we only bother trolling our own side, who meant us no harm, and not the enemy, who intend to kill us dead with their overwhelming military advantage. A TIE ends up on the Strahlennium Falcon’s<\/i> tail, which Balthier bravely does nothing at all to avoid, merely flying straight ahead while making smug comments to himself, just like everyone everywhere knew he would. The tailing fighter manages to miss the half dozen shots he bothers to fire off before running headfirst into another fighter. So, that’s it for the resistance we’ll get from the hundreds of Imperial fighters and capital ships. But once we get to the freakin’ sky fortress,<\/i> what do we really even plan to do?<\/p>\n Well, Balthier has an ingenious plan. See, though the Sky Fortress Bahamut<\/i> is heavily shielded and carries a firepower greater than half the Resistance fleet, it’s defenses are designed around a direct, large-scale assault. A small fighter should be able to penetrate the outer defense! What good are stunt fighters going to do against that? Well, the Empire doesn’t consider a small, 6-man fighter to be any threat, or they’d have a tighter defense. An analysis of the plans provided by Princess Aesh has demonstrated a weakness in the battle station. The approach will not be easy: they’re required to skim the surface to a docking area. The docking ramp is only two meters wide. It’s a small access ramp leading directly to the main command tower. A precise ingress should start a chain reaction which should hand Vayne’s ass right to him! Only a direct assault will cause this brutal ass-kicking. This plan is shielded from any actual intelligence, so may Ajora be with us!<\/a><\/p>\n But seriously, for a second: if it’s this insanely easy to just dock with the super air fortress, why isn’t every Resistance craft making an effort to board the damn thing and overtake it from within? Especially considering the Resistance knows they can’t win against it conventionally, and, as we will prove, the interior is so pathetically defended that I’m certain the Empire really did never expect anyone would try this, or take steps to prevent it. Shit, even getting close to the Bahamut<\/i> should have seen the ship lit up with all the anti-air fire that has ever existed or will exist, and once we dock, we just open up the door and walk right in? And no one’s guarding the entrance?<\/p>\n
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