Wednesday, September 25, 2013

I Love it When a Plan Comes Together

To any history professional or hardcore aficionado of antiquity this post is going to seem like me stating that water is wet and that the sky is blue. But bear with me. Not everyone can be awesome like you. This is for the rest of us.



Who knows? Maybe this post will get some discussion with you scholars from people you would not normally talk to.




To everyone else who watches it might be obvious that in during battles are less using the three-dimensional tactics that one would probably use in a space battle and are more acting out classic two-dimensional battles of history using spacecraft. In the end it makes combat simpler to write, easier to comprehend, and allows some clever historical allusions, to subtly but powerfully, be massaged into the story.



In the show is a historian who uses his knowledge of battles of the past to help win seemingly unwinnable battles. also is clearly a student of history and uses that to help inform his stories with real world strategies that we know work because they worked in real life (albeit in a very different form).



I knew that going into Legend of the Galactic Heroes. Big fans of the show usually bring that up as one of the selling points of the series. But to be perfectly honest unlike someone like people like I can't tell you which strategy in which episode corresponds to a particularly famous battle, with a brilliant strategy or classic blunder, by a particular officer. I know that an informed viewer can do that with almost any episode but that expert is not me.



But I was recently watched a video series on the on the Extra Credits video series and I quickly realized one thing. Yang Wen-li and both crib off of like it was going out of style. Both of them take ideas from strategists from throughout history but it was immediately clear after watching that video how much of both of their styles owes to that one general.



If your going to outright steal the ideas of anyone you might as well take from one of the greatest military minds of all time.



In the Hannibal was trapped in a valley with seemingly no way out as all the roads he could use to escape are either blocked by rivers or had Roman armies guarding them. But by using decoy oxen he was able to create a break in the forces that were pinning him in and escape under the cover of darkness. That is extremely similar to the when Yang Wen-li uses a small group of decoy ships in order to help the remains of the crippled Alliance fleet escape after a terrible defeat.



But even more telling is the similarities of and the . Both battles seem to be a guaranteed victory for the larger force but with good maneuvering and some well-played mind games there is a massive upset. Although truth be told several people in use similar methods of letting a hot-headed enemy wander into a trap. I just felt that the Battle of Vermilion is one of the most intense battles in the series so I might as well bring that particular instance up.



I might not have used the best examples from the show. It have been over a year since I last watched the . If nothing else I just hope this gets people looking back on the series and doing a little research on their own. Even if it is just to go and rub my nose in a better example than one I made. I consider that a victory as well.



- Alain
Full Post

No comments:

Post a Comment