Nadesico Episode 16

Episode: 16 Episode Title: The beginning of Nadesico's war

Episode 16

Date: January 2198

Akito and the pilot pursue the escaping Jovian into an area of the moon that still has a heavy Jovian presence and are forced to retreat, but not before seeing that the Jovians are not really aliens.

The escaped Jovian pilot brings the women to his flagship and introduces them to the history of the Jovian people, he tells them in his own way (e.g. propaganda) that the Jovians are really dispossessed Humans who fled from the moon during a conflict many years ago.

The Jovians launch a full scale attack on Nergal's hidden warship hanger, using a manned robot to jump inside the surrounding colonies shields, the fire a powerful cannon, demolishing the hanger and crushing the newly designed warship inside. Akito is reluctant to fight knowing that the Jovians are really a Human - Moon separatist movement, but on discovering that the mother of the family that he had been staying with, an innocent civilian with a young daughter, has been killed during the fighting, he leads the counter attack against the Jovians.

Akito defeats the pilot who it is though murdered Kumi's mother, but Megumi pleads with him not to kill the pilot, and Akito allows him to escape.

Yurika, and the Nadesico manage to escape from the collapsed underground hanger where the Nadesico had been docked during the battle and has attached a new weapons system designed for its sister vessel to the Nadesico, transforming it into a full scale battleship. She activates the Nadesico's distortion field and traps the pilot, knowing that he cannot break through the shield, or jump through it. It he tried to use his Boson Generator, it would immediately kill Megumi, who was sharing the cockpit with him.

Yurika agrees to allow the pilot to leave if he releases Megumi, which he does before finally escping.

The crew soon discover the truth about the Jovians, that they are not really aliens, but normal Human beings. The crew discover that the Jovians, far from being alien invaders, were violent separatists who were tricked into beginning an open rebellion on the moon during a period when the United Earth military was not supposed to have intervened in the affairs there. When they were defeated, the colonists fled to Mars to recover sufficiently so that they could resume their efforts to try and free the moon, but the UE attacked and destroyed their base, forcing them to retreat further from Earth, eventually they came to Jupiter where they discovered a vast alien factory. The Jovians turned the alien robot, ship and phase transition factory into a warship production center, and once it began to malfunction set out for Mars where they believed another factory, and an alien city, was located. On hearing this the crew loose their desire to fight, even though the Jovians have so far launched many murderous campaigns in areas with high civilian populations, and had exterminated the colonists sheltering beneath the now destroyed Utopia colony.