First Day on a New World/The Isolated Regiment

First day on a New World

On the new planet, Commander Hawkins is sending a message to Galaxy Garrison, apprising them of the situation.  Jeff and the air team cut in, and discuss the colonizing promise of the planet.  Neil Ross' vocal performance sounds awfully close to Keith here.

In the Drule headquarters, Hazar and Quark are discussing the same situation from the *E*V*I*L* perspective.  Quark suggests just leaving the barren planet to Galaxy Garrison, but Hazar says it's got a priceless ore deposit.  He wants Quark to let the Galaxy Alliance do all the heavy lifting, and then take it over, but Quark leaves immediately to prevent them from gaining a foothold.

Hawkins tells the Land Team to select a landing site for the en route construction cops.  Murdock is thinking that right where he's standing, a big, expensive hotel with stand.  Marvin tells Murdock, and Hutch that Cinda is rock-climbing to get a better view of the moons.  Yep.  Viewing moons.

In space, a distance light twinkles and resolves into Quark's fleet.  Quark rants about striking now--and Jack Angel's performance is awfully Zarkony.

Hawkins warns the Sea Team of an impending Hazarian attack, and they all voice their opinions on such a thing.

At Galaxy Garrison, Hawkins notifies them the Commodore Steele is on his way for a conference--really?  When they've probably got clerical staff right there, in the office?!  Steele arrives and gives them a dispatch from the Voltron Force, and warns them that Hazar is planning to attack while valuable construction ships are on the way.

On the planet, the Explorer and the support fleet are floating around.  Hawkins' and others' dialogue talks about construction  on the planet while the visuals are of a satellite being prepared.

Sparks and Newley are discussing smog and pollution when Commodore Steele calls.  newley has Sparks (the dark-haired one) read off locations of laser platforms.  Steele tells him to launch an early warning suicide.  The green ship from the support fleet enters orbit and deploys the satellite. 

In the Explorer lounge, everyone is, um, lounging.  Jeff and Rocky talk briefly about the satellite.

Quark's fleet sees the satellie ahead, and has a destroyer launch four rockets at the satellite.  The bridge crew of the green ship see the destruction.  A red alert sounds in the Explorer and the teams run to their ships.  The support fleet moves into orbit, and Quarks rambles on about how they won't know from which direction his attack will come.

The commander of the green ship launches the "air team," which is really a flight of white, red, blue and yellow fighters.  The commander explains very carefully to his crew how they form the defensive perimeter against Quark.  On the Explorer, Newley orders the Voltron force to standby.  They're bored.

The battle has already begun in orbit, with Drule and Garrison ships falling equally.  Quark has a "laser runway" prjected down to the planet, while the footage just shows a detachment of his fleet withdrawing under covering fire from the other ships.

Sparks sees Quark's ships coming, and the Voltron force is launched.  Quark is dismissive of their puny ships, and has the tanks deploy.  These tanks, with two-cannon turrets, are prett badass (although double-cannon turreted tanks have been in Gundam before).

The air team makes a pass at the tanks, destroying several before they hit the ground.  The land team sets down and awaits the tanks.  The see team strafes them from the air, while the air team assists.  A destroyer almost catches Jeff, and his voice goes all weird--but Ginger has to bail him out by totally pwnz0ring the destroyer.  They see the tanks about to reach the land team, and Jeff's voice is back to normal.

Cliff complains about being bored, and then Jeff tells him the "robot" tanks are right there.  Cliff sees them when they're already taking fire from them.  The land team takes out the last of the tanks.

Quark orders the robeast launched.  It emerges from a hatch below what will become the usual robeast launch hatch.  Hawkins and Newley explain to you, the viewer, how scary robeasts are.  The 'beast takes a few preliminary shots at Jeff, and then they form Voltron (without the individual teams being assigned to bodyparts).  Voltron lands and fires his eyebeams are the robeast.  It dodges and fires more weapons as it closes, and then knocks Voltron back.

In orbit, the Explorer has entered the battle against Quark's ships.  Voltron forms the blazing sword and plunges at the robeast.  The robeast fires a muscial laser, but Voltron just plows through it and cuts the robeast in half.

The smoldering, damaged surviving ships of Quarks fleet withdraw from the battle, and Quark is sure Hazar will have his head for his failure.  Voltron is standing victorious, and Jeff zones out for a moment before he mocks Quark, and Hawkins congratulates him on the victory.

The Isolated Regiment

On the newly-discovered planet, work is underway for a survey base.  Aki calls the Rugger Guard and requests a weather report.  The air team members are curious about the unknown new enemy, and unsure about continuing their survey under this new threat.

At the Galveston frontline base, the various fleets (Gramont, Laurent, and Lafitte are named) check in.  Teles is surprised to find that Captain Rackal has found an enemy fleet on the newly-discovered planet with a supremely powerful super-robot.  Teles is content to ignore them, but Rackal wants to drive them away.

The land team is surveying the crust contents of the mountain ragion.  Chukker is resting against his mecha, concerned that the construction fleet has yet to arrive.  Kirigas is rock-climbing and admires the ruins.

On his flagship, Rackal is agitated and his XO tries to calm him down, but Rackal is driven to address yesterday's defeat.

The sea team is analyzing the oceans, and they to are concerned about the construction team.

Back on earth, Galaxy Garrison headquarters is full of lounging, unconcerned officers.  We get a few additional shots of their lounging and lack of concern.  Supreme Commander Dewa demands to know why they haven't sent a contruction team--it's because they're not sure which committee will be in charge.  Dewa is not pleased.

On the flagship of the support fleet, a surveillance satellite is being readied for launch.  The Rugger teams return to the Rugger Guard, and the satellite is prepped for launch.  Dewa contacts Ise and Asimov, and they begin their report.  Asimov requests the status of the construction team, and Dewa just tells him he prays it will all go well.

The satellite is deployed and commences operation.  Ise and Asimon watch the progress from the planet's surface, and Aki speculates that they'll be free to continue exploring oncethe construction team arrives.

Rackal is angry that they have a surveillance unit in place.  He has it destroyed and then divides the fleet to attack them from two fronts.  That panning shot of the satellite wrackage is similar to footage that is in just about every mecha series from the 80s.  The Rugger team is deployed, and the support fleet moves to a position 10 minutes from contact with the enemy fleet.  They lauch fighters.  They're plan is to simply crash through the enemy lines and keep the ships away from the planet.

Rugger team is ready to go, but Asimov has them on standby.  The fighting vicious, and Rackall has his fleet withdraw, luring the support fleet away from the planet to the mechanized units can land.  His flagship leads five other ships.  The radar operator sees them coming, and the Rugger team is launched.  The Galveston landing forces descend in their gnarly tanks.

Aki has the Rugger teams separate and engage the tanks on multiple fronts.  Again, the Galveston technology is no equal to the Rugger teams.  Aki gets separated from his team and chased by a destroyer.  Patty has to save him.  And she says the awesome "there's no gender in battle, Chief."

Walter rags on Aki for letting some tanks come through.  For being an exploratory force, the Rugger ships are pretty heavily armed.

Rackal deploys the battle machine.  Ise orders them to form Dairugger, and Asimov orders the crew to prepare to engage the mechanized fleet.  They form the big guy and the battle machine goes right after them.  The eyebeams are called the "Rugger beam" here.  The Rugger Guard engages the mechanized fleet in high orbit, and Dairugger pretty convincingly ends the battle machine's chances.

Rackal is told that the battle machine is destroyed and the mechanized fleet is taking heavy losses.  He is angry, but they withdraw.

Dairugger stands among the smoke of battle and we get the sad, elegiacal music.  Aki is frustrated that they left Earth to explore space and all they get is fighting.  Ise warns him that this is what the real world is like, and the support fleet returns to the planet.