Does it look any different compared to the Imperial designs we see in PDS?
No such thing has ever been seen in a PD game I believe?
I can’t really tell a difference. That’s a good thing.
As far as I remember, we never actually get to see Meccania soldiers in the games. In fact, the only Meccanian things encountered are those gun batteries and defenses in Zwei Episode 2.
There could be some Meccanian designs amongst the old concept art, though, but I can’t remember anything off the top of my head…
Remember those guys in Ep2 in Zwei that were running on their coolias?
Were those suposed to be Meccanian?
[quote=“GehnTheBerserker”]Remember those guys in Ep2 in Zwei that were running on their coolias?
Were those suposed to be Meccanian?[/quote]
I think they were just meant to be Hunters, like Kyle or the Caravan dwellers from PDS. If they were Meccanians, they probably would’ve been living in the big fortress at the end of the Episode rather than in those weird tents.
I believe you can see the Meccanian symbol when you exit the military base in Episode 2 (you can only see it by looking behind).
Dammit, I need my Saturn NOW.
On a side note, I seem to remember a Imperial style battleship docked at the base in Ep 2. It seems odd that the two sides would have identical ships, but I suppose it’s not that weird. Anyone else remember that? I obviously can’t check.
There certainly is an Imperial Battlecruiser docked in the fortress area, but I’m guessing that’s becuase the Empire were invading it, and they’d docked one of their ships in order to start a ground assault. The Meccania, as far as I know, never developed flying ships (which is presumably why they lost the battle…)
In other areas of the fortress you can see many identical ships being shot at by the Meccania’s gun batteries, so I’m pretty sure that it’s not one of theirs.
There are apparently two different symbols on the heavily armed “gateway” at the end of the Episode, and I’d say the one in the middle of the structure is probably the Meccania’s emblem (if they have one). It’s actually on the front of the structure and the back, but it’s easier to see if you look behind once you’ve gone past it, as Geoff said.
hm, I’m pretty sure more parties than just the empire had flying ships. remember the opening sequence of PD ?
“is it one of our’s” says one of the hunters when the big ship flies obove them.
[quote=“lordcraymen”]hm, I’m pretty sure more parties than just the empire had flying ships. remember the opening sequence of PD ?
“is it one of our’s” says one of the hunters when the big ship flies obove them.[/quote]
Good point, I’d forgotten about that.
It’s worth keeping in mind, though, that a lot of the script / dialogue in PD1 is contradicted in the later games. I honestly couldn’t say how much of it was down to translation error, and how much of it was due to Team Andromeda changing their minds about certain details. Either way, the “facts” of PD1 seem to be best approached with caution…
For example, the hunter says “Is it one of ours?” - but why would they have flying ships? They were just a group of nomadic hunters who didn’t seem to belong to any fixed nation or society. The validity of that script / translation seems to be questionable…
Anyway, that ship docked in the Meccanian fortress in Zwei Episode 2 can’t be Meccanian, because the Meccanian guns are firing on it…
http://www.geocities.com/lance_way/pd2_01.txt
Either way, I’m pretty sure that all of the ships we see in the games are Imperial. I’d guess that, if the Meccania did build airships, thay would have looked a little different. Well, I’d expect the metal part to be different, not the Float Engine.
If I remember well in the timeline it is said that Meccania hijacked an imperial ship giving the Empire a pretext to start a war of conquest. Maybe Meccania just copied the specs of the ship to build their own. But the Imperial fleet should be much bigger and better.
The funny thing is that if we choose the route 1 we destroy the meccanian fortress helping the empire but if we choose route 2 we help meccania blowing away many ships from the Empire.
hmmm… If that guys in the coolias are hunters, why are we shooting and killing them?
The timeline - if we’re talking about the same (oddly translated) one on the main site - actually said that the Empire pretended their ship had been hijacked, as an excuse to go to war with (and thus invade) Meccania:
69 A.F.
The Empire announces that the Space Battleship was hijacked in the Oasis Federation city of Meccania. Many years later, evidence is discovered that the Empire is using the hijacking ruse as a front to invade.
Still, the Meccania could have possibly stolen the Empire’s research on ships at some other time, and made theirs in exactly the same way.
I still think the fact that we never see any non-Imperial ships in the games heavily implies that the Empire were the only nation with ships, though. If the Meccania did have them, then wouldn’t they have been defending themselves with them in Zwei Episode 2? The only flying ships there were clearly all Imperial, as they never shot at one another, but they did shoot at / get shot by the Meccania gun batteries.
I’ve no idea. They’re definitely not hostile - they never attack you, they just escape from their tents (which the Empire are bombing) and ride alongside you. Why they count as an “enemy” for the purposes of the game is a mystery.
Actually you needn’t to shoot them.
@Lance.: I remember now that in the 3rd episode (the one at the forest) the subtitles says “pursued by meccania” while showing the fleet of ships that gets destroyed by shelcoof’s guardians. Maybe that was a translation error but the first times I played the game I though that fleet was meccanian. The subtitles make you think that way.
@Gehn.: But if you didn’t shoot them you can’t get 100% clear points at the end of the stage.
Well if you wanna be death incarnated - Winged Death - you have to kill good and bad alike 
Unfortunately, that really was just a translation error. Not only do those ships bear the Imperial symbol, but if you listen to the voice-over Lundi actually says “Inpenia” - the word for “Empire” - when the subtitle “Meccania” is incorrectly shown. I’m sure that they were never meant to be Meccanian.
Hmm… well, Lundi didn’t seem like a character with much knowledge of the world. I got the impression that he had never really left his village, and that he probably wouldn’t be familiar with all the different peoples in the lands beyond. Perhaps he just assumed that anything moving was hostile, the Hunters included, and so he shot at them in panic. Perhaps he was frightened, and saw it as self-defence.
That might explain why they counted as enemies, anyway: because the character saw them as such, even though they clearly weren’t to us.
I wouldn’t see that as a plotpoint.It’s up to you really.You can still get the Blue Dragon morph (right ending) without killing those two guys.
[quote=“GehnTheBerserker”]
I wouldn’t see that as a plotpoint.It’s up to you really.You can still get the Blue Dragon morph (right ending) without killing those two guys.[/quote]
I’m still trying to get the best ending (I have Zwei for two months now) so I still have to see a part of the Zwei story.
For sure, the guys that keep saying that PDZ is easy never tried to be winged death…
This could be an explanation for the dialogue at the beginning of PD1 about the ship “being one of ours.” If the Empire is bombing those tents in ep 2, they must consider the tent-dwellers to be Meccanian, even if they’re not living in the city. Perhaps the same situation exists in PD1, with the hunters identifying with a particular city-state which could have owned the ship that flew over them.
PS: Thanks for the pic, Lance. That would have bugged me to no end.