>Clearly, my customer is getting their pizza for free. But I've reread
>this series several times in the last month, so when I saw we were in
>a bit of a lull now, I went back through posts, remembered what I
>said, and here we go.

Yeah, sorry about that. It's amazing what a disruption moving-without-moving can be.

>At any rate, explanation or no, there they were, so Mom and Njörd set
>up a fleet branch
> ...Wait. I could have sworn there was a story some time ago where
>it was mentioned Njord left for parts unknown after his wife left him
>or cheated on him or somesuch. Did I forget something important?

That's not Njörd you're thinking of, it's Oðr, Freyja's husband. He decamped after the incident with the dwarves and the golden necklace, and hasn't been seen since.

>old ladies of the Royal Navy
> This is a topic I meant to ask about some time ago. Some kanmusu
>appear young, some old, and it's clearly not related to actual years
>in service or date of creation, since some spacefaring species would
>make Earth kanmusu of any era positively newborn by comparison. Is it
>residual self-image?

It seems to be, although it's worth pointing out that the label "old ladies" (particularly with the semi-omniscient narrator looking over Naka's shoulder) doesn't necessarily mean they're literally old ladies. I mean, Warspite is called "the Old Lady", but in practice she certainly doesn't look the part.

It seems to be partially related to what sort of ship they are—capital ships (battleships and fleet aircraft carriers) usually look like grown women, while the majority of cruisers and light carriers are in that college/late-high-school vicinity, and most destroyers look to be in early high school or middle school. There are exceptions to all the tendencies, though, and there doesn't seem to be a strong pattern behind it. (Submarines are all over the map, athough again, Cold War missile submarines tend to seem more mature than, say, WWII-era diesel-electric fleet boats. Some theorize this is because SSBNs, as strategic weapons, were capital ships in their era.)

>Yes! I just finished baking the scones, dess!
> The food creation thing is already explained (and very
>believably!), but I just wanted to note here that they're scarfing
>down scones, not replenishing fuel bunkers, as the Fog ships put it.
>It's an interesting cultural difference.

Food is very important to Valhallan kanmusu culture—although that is probably as much to do with the Valhalla part as the kanmusu part. :)

>Midway and Growler, who had attempted Return
> Did these two ever get rescued?

Not so far.

>But the other woman accompanying the Æs was an unknown
> This was a good touch, subtly pointing out kanmusu would
>naturally assume women they see to be other kanmusu in this setting.
>Not even sure all the Diqiu ships would automatically recognize her.

The ones from within her lifetime do; the others, it depends on how much attention they've paid to developments back home.

>the main reason Earthforce was so bent on seizing the base was what
>that fleet was left behind to protect
> Did we ever get any indication from Kongo that she, or
>Earthforce, knew about the Union Cores specifically? Or is it possible
>they only knew about the base and its defending ships themselves?

I seem to recall alluding to it in the epilogue to Cantata, where she's surveying what's left of Midway Anchorage and very annoyed about what she hasn't found there.

>Oh my," Jintsū murmured, her eyes wide and cheeks pink at the
>destroyer’s thigh-high striped stockings and lack of a significant
>skirt.
> I always thought the kanmusu reaction to Shimakaze's outfit was a
>little overblown here. Is it really worse than some of the other
>kanmusu outfits out there?

Yeah... yeah, it really kind of is. I mean, there are others who wear similar tops, but none of them that I can think of is rocking a thong and a pleated belt. Even Maya and Chōkai have proper miniskirts. The only other Kancolle character I can think of offhand whose costume approaches Shimakaze's in that respect is Musashi's pre-Kai outfit (which was designed by the same artist), and even that got toned way back for her first remodel.

>two light cruisers of the Tenryū class, Tenryū and Tatsuta
> Not sure if this was asked elsewhere, but is it within Akashi's
>power to uprate Tenryu and Tatsuta's specs?

Probably, but would they want to let her try?

>Akashi had a Future Industries GearPhone V she'd acquired
> I was wondering about this. Akashi, especially, should be able to
>buy a piece of tech, reverse engineer it, and run it more efficiently
>on her own hardware. I wonder if she could do that with a game and not
>cheat at it?

Oh, sure she could, but playing around with gadgets in their native form is fun too.

>What was more, Kaga saw that they were all wearing equipment of some
>kind
> I have a feeling we'll hear more about this later, but why would
>the kanmusu choose to do things this way?

It's not something they decided on, it's just how they manifested. The prospect of running a full-size hull is one of the things about adapting to Fog hardware that a number of them are likely to find particularly intriguing.

>was unmistakably a cardboard packing box
> This entire scene was comedy gold as well. I was ROFL'ing for a
>while! Poor Murakumo.

"It's only temporary."

>Anyway! Really, REALLY late posts notwithstanding, I still love this
>series as much as I did when this was just released. I await the next
>installment on the edge of my seat.

I'm pleased to hear it. I hope I won't keep you (or myself, really!) waiting too hideously long.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.