Space Battleship Yamato 2202: The Era Called Yamato - Choices of 2202 (「宇宙戦艦ヤマト」という時代　西暦2202年の選択)

We chose to go to the moon.

We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things

not because they are easy, but because they are hard.

AD 1969

And the moon and the planets are there, and new hopes for knowledge and peace are there.

Apollo 11 Launches Towards the Moon

Since the closing of the 20th century,

AD 2111

humanity has faced a number of threats.

Environmental threats. Deadly infectious diseases.

First Colony Fleet Sets Sail For Mars

Economic inequality caused by the concentration of wealth.

Intensifying conflicts between competing nations, ideologies, and religions.

But humanity succeeded in overcoming them all.

And the achievement they should be most proud of is that,

in the more than 200 years since the end of the 20th century,

they've avoided a world war.

We will not forget the days when man battled man.

AD 2141 Bou-no-misaki, Kyushu, Depth 345m

Memories were held all over the world, as a vow

that mankind would never war with itself again.

Relics of the ancient war were restored.

And the Far East chose to rebuild...

Battleship Yamato

AD 2145 200th Anniversary of the End of the 2nd World War

And then, a requiem...

The ship was to sleep forever, once more...

But at the end of the last century,

mankind was faced with a greater threat than it had ever faced before.

Our first encounter with an extraterrestrial race

pushed humanity to the brink of annihilation.

But this was also the chance for humanity to move into a new era.

The ship which sailed into the unknown in order to save humanity...

The Space Battleship Yamato.

What new page did it open in the book of our history?

The Era Called "Yamato"

The Choice of 2202

I think it's clear that mankind was aware of the existence of aliens from an early stage.

Former Space Battleship Yamato XO Shiro Sanada

I'm not referring to the ancient tales of UFOs.

We found far more incontrovertible proof almost immediately after going to space.

Mars -Pre-Terraforming-

Mars.

Mankind's first colony in space.

When and where this object crashed on mars,

is impossible to tell now that all evidence has been erased.

But...

The craft we found on Mars was far more advanced than our own technology.

AD 2164 Martian Autonomous Government Space Navy

The stories that the Martian government had secretly acquired alien technology

were treated quite seriously on Earth at the time, I'm sure.

The struggle for control over Mars developed into two interplanetary wars.

AD 2168 United Nations Cosmo Navy Founded

The wisdom and perseverance that had helped mankind avoid world wars

were of no help in this new world of space.

AD 2170 Murasame Class Space Cruiser Enters Service

AD 2171 Kongou Class Space Battleship Enters Service

The UN created a space navy.

And cities underground that could be used for evacuation were built all over Earth.

UN Far East District Underground Evacuation City

Looking back, the interplanetary war was a dress rehearsal.

AD 2180 Second Interplanetary War Battle of Mars

At least, that's what some say.

The ship that the Martian government found was clearly a weapon of war.

Somewhere in this universe were aliens with vastly superior technology,

who fought just like we did.

Perhaps the Earth was using the Martian rebellion to prepare for the nightmare to come.

Over a decade after the interplanetary war ended with the defeat of the Martians...

AD 4/1/2191 Alien Fleet Enters the Solar System

United Nations Cosmo Navy Japan Fleet

The nightmare became real.

A fleet belonging to the Gamilas, an alien race, entered the solar system.

And the United Nations Space Defense Committee decided they were intent on invasion.

Both fleets encountered each other near Pluto.

Attack, Okita-kun!

This is humanity's first encounter with an alien race.

It's too soon!

There's no point in discussing this further, it seems.

Okita-kun, in my role as director of military affairs,

I'm dismissing you from your post!

Eighty percent of the fleet was lost in the alien counterattack.

Forcing the enemy to strike the first blow,

and thus giving themselves a reason to invade,

was what the Gamilas did back then.

The Earth fleet walked right into their trap.

But that was only revealed much later.

Pluto

The aliens built a base on Pluto to begin their invasion.

6/5/2192 First Battle of Mars

Humanity declared Mars their absolute defense zone

and initiated a large-scale counteroffensive operation

with reorganized fleet forces, but...

At first, it was explained as a series of meteor strikes, unrelated to the aliens.

4/2/2193

When the first planet bomb fell on Japan,

the military already knew it was an attack by the aliens.

However, if they were to announce this, they would have

to acknowledge the overwhelming difference in the aliens scientific capabilities.

They decided against releasing any information that could trigger panic...

Emboldened by the planet bomb attacks, the aliens advanced towards Earth.

The United Nations Space Navy committed

all remaining fleet forces to engage in a decisive battle off Mars.

2/20/2198 Second Battle of Mars

The infamously fierce Second Battle of Mars.

Ironically, the operation was commanded by Admiral Okita,

who had been demoted for refusing the attack order during the first encounter.

The maneuver in front of the enemy was to buy time for charging the new equipment,

the Shock Cannon, which was impossible to fire rapidly with Earth-based engines.

Amatsukaze

At this time,

the person who pulled the trigger on the Kirishima as weapons officer was Kodai Mamoru,

who would later serve as the captain of the space destroyer Yukikaze.

Kodai and I were friends since our university days.

Are you joining the Cosmo Navy right after graduation?

Yeah. What about you?

I'm not suited for the military.

But even someone like me must be able to do something worthwhile.

You definitely can.

You can do things I couldn't do even if I stood on my head.

We're kind of the same, aren't we?

Though our paths differ, we want to protect this world.

We both feel that way.

Yeah.

The Second Battle of Mars was only a tactical victory;

strategically, Earth continued to lose.

Around that time,

the military finally acknowledged that the planet bombs were attacks by aliens.

They said that after their defeat in the Mars Battle,

the aliens switched their attacks on Earth to planet bombs.

With the fleet decimated, there was no way to counterattack.

The planet bombs began to penetrate even subterranean cities,

forcing humanity further underground.

Passing Through Polluted Area

The aliens were trying to change Earth's environment itself,

making human survival impossible.

At this rate, it would become impossible for humanity to continue living on Earth.

The time left was only about one year.

As humanity faced the crisis of extinction,

a helping hand was extended by inhabitants of a star different from Gamilas.

I am Stasha of Iscandar.

The Gamilas have pushed your planet to the brink of annihilation.

Our planet has a system which can remove pollution and regenerate your planet.

I believe you will overcome unknown hardships, and come to our planet, Iscandar.

I am Stasha of Iscandar.

Iscandar is located 168,000 light-years from Earth

in the Great Magellanic Cloud.

That's 336,000 light-year round trip.

We modified the ship we'd been building to escape from Earth,

which had been disguised as a sunken wreck,

into a vessel capable of making the journey to and from Iscandar.

The completed a ship was equipped with a dimensional Wave-motion engine.

It was...

Yes. The Yamato.

The Space Battleship Yamato!

Raise anchor! Launch the Yamato!

Raising anchor! Launching the Yamato!

2/11 2199 BBY-1 Space Battleship Yamato Launches into Space

Shock cannon has finished receiving energy charge from the engine.

Clear sight on enemy.

Begin automatic tracking.

Automatic tracking ready.

Lock on target.

Correct for errors, -1.3!

Target lock.

Open fire!

Fire!

The Yamato is undamaged!

It was Kodai Susumu who pulled the trigger on the Yamato's main guns,

as the Yamato's tactical commander.

Kodai Mamoru's younger brother.

Okita-san, I won't run away.

Kodai!

The Yukikaze will remain on the battlefield to support the Kirishima's retreat.

Kodai Mamoru was originally scheduled to be Yamato's tactical officer,

but he went missing just before Yamato's completion during Operation Me-Gou,

the mission to assault Gamilas' Pluto base.

Kodai...

Kodai Mamoru didn't know the operation's true purpose.

Is that it?

The true nature of Operation Me-Gou was a diversion.

It was to divert Gamilas' attention from the wave motion core

being transported from Iscandar, the key which was necessary for

the Yamato's wave motion engine to be activated.

Admiral, I have a question for you.

Wait!

Is it true that Operation Me-Gou was a diversion?

Did my brother and the others know about this?

Kodai Mamoru was a man. He was an admirable man.

But it was I who sent him to his death.

I'm sorry.

Like many others, he had lost his family in the war.

Kodai Mamoru was the only relative left to him.

At the cost of countless sacrifices,

humanity's hope, Yamato, set off for Iscandar.

2/12 People of Earth break the lightspeed barrier for the first time

To protect that hope, I...

I came up with the idea of using the energy generated

The Same Day: Test Firing the Yamato's Wave Motion Gun

by the wave motion engine as a weapon.

This is the Wave Motion Gun...