Vulgar, Lysis's jealous aide, organizes primative life forms of the planet Balan into an organized dinosaur-like, space-bourne creature, but it proves no match for the Wave-Motion Gun.
"When you're young, you never realise the consequences of acting foolishly. But, boy, did I learn." -- Sandor
An unmanned Gamilon space fortress emitting disruptive magnetron waves
tracks and follows the Argo. Its micro-waves start to rip apart the
ship by setting up vibrations in the metal. But, Sandor fashions a
seamless plane that damps the waves, and he and
Wildstar manage invade and destroy the fortress. We learn Sandor
is a cyborg, having bionic limbs -- a product of a childhood accident.
This is a more emotional episode that it might first appear.
Analysis:
Running beneath the basic plot of this story is that of Sandor's personal tragedy. He laments of the foolishness of youth. When he was a child, he insisted on being allowed to ride a "rocket car" on the moon. His parents eventually agreed, but his older sister accompanied him for protection. The machine malfunctioned and crashed, killing Sandor's sister (we are not told this in the American version), and causing a loss of limbs to Sandor, rendering him relatively helpless. When encountering the Gamilon machine that operates the Magnetron Fortress, he says,
"It's kind-of weird... sort-of a great joke. [pause] But it's not funny. Here we create these machines, and then they have the ability to destroy us. Science HAS to do better than that. We must keep control of the machines we create! If we don't, we're helpless."
Of course, Earthers did not create that machine. His words are perhaps just as much an allusion to the rocket car of his childhood. Sandor seems to blame his folly for his sister's death, but it is clear that he also blames ill-controlled machinery. His deep desire to control the machines we create may partially explain his career as an engineer. We also learn that Sandor was a colleague and friend of Wildstar's brother, Alex, who is presumed dead. Sandor says,
"I can't help but feel that if I had enough time to repair his ship properly, his ship could have gotten him and his crew home safely, and your brother would be alive today. If I had done a better job..."
Incidentally, the first gizmo Sandor ever builds and shows to Derek Wildstar is nothing less than a small rocket car. Coincidence?
In the end, Sandor exercises control over his own mechanical limbs, caught by the Gamilon machine, by detaching them and detonating them like small bombs. The explosion renders the fortress helpless.
Return to the Yamato/Star Blazers main page!