Not being a tactical genius, but knowing what he wanted to see, Ranma gave an order.
A number of troops cheered because they'd also wanted to see this.
The giant robots landed. Approaching Daleks were turned into tin foil scrap by Deathscythe Gundam. They were trampled underfoot by Macross Destroids. They blowed up real good when Aura Battler Dunbine turned its attention to them.
The xenomorphs discovered that they didn't fare all that well either. They were swatted like bugs when discovered, and then suppressing fire was laid around the robots indiscriminately because, well, nobody wanted to face the Mechanics Squads if they had to repair all that acid damage.
Ranma didn't know that he was supposed to go down with the Away Team and an underdefended group of investigators, that it was a tradition from the days of Star Trek and earlier works. So, instead he left the decision to General Grimm, just suggesting he'd like to see how the giant robots worked.
General Grimm made his decision as a military person confronted with this situation. Establish a landing zone through the use of missiles clearing a section of ice/ground. Kill anything that comes within sight unless it is clearly not hostile. Proceed to Ice Base Ixia and form a defensive perimeter.
General Grimm had interpreted "Away" to mean "Blast hostiles away" team.
Ranma munched popcorn and watched the giant robots of his youth shooting pepper grinders and tried to catch his breath.
Ami Mizuno read about Mongo while heading towards the new Emperor's room.
Mongo had known several Emperors.
Ming The Merciless had been the quintessal Evil Overlord. Though frankly it depended on your company. Next to Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini, Hussein, or a number of terrestrial emperors - he was actually a pretty nice guy. Next to Sauron or Palpatine, Ming would have been fairly "white bread". Your typical Yakuza oyabun or Mafia gang boss or Guatamalan Drug Lord would have considered Ming to be petty and not nearly ruthless enough.
In short, when it came to nasty, Ming had been outdated and out-evilled by humans.
Ming had had his good points too. It had been the first peace and the first cooperation between the moons of Mongo under his empire. There had actually been less killing under his rule than there had been previously.
Ming had been replaced by Wang. Wang was almost a polar opposite of Ming - a charismatic leader who wanted to bring the races of Mongo into a new era of peace and prosperity. He'd had the best of intentions until he'd been assassinated by the eaglemen. Wang had used persuasion, logic, and had been an Usagi sort of personality combined with an Ami sort of intellect. Wang had been interested in bringing the standard of living up for all races of Mongo, but many of his dreams had fallen with his death.
Wang had been replaced by Yan. A vaguely oriental empire had been replaced by a charismatic technocrat which had been replaced by a military dictatorship. Yan was a warmonger, violent, apparently impotent according to notes from his seraglio, and had had a shorter rule than either Wang or Ming.
The Nameless Emperor was apparently someone who embarassed the heck out of practically everyone, and everyone in Mongo society would apparently rather forget the incident had ever occurred. That Emperor's name had been stricken from the records, his rule had been shorter than Yan's, and nobody was interested in investigating who had blown him up because there were too many suspects and too much relief that he was finally gone.
Then came Ranma Saotome of Planet Earth.
Ranma was, according to the records she was reading, extremely skilled. A warrior who fought many of the arena beasts for sport with his bare hands.
Ranma was, according to accounts given by others, in possession of extraordinary stamina and a....
Ami fanned herself and put those accounts aside. She'd, uhm, study them in greater detail later. Yes. That was right.
According to the next set of reports, her Ranma, err, her Emperor - was extremely popular. The troops liked him. The common folk liked him. Certain groups pointed to all the satiated princesses and declared Ranma to be a man beyond Ming! The Generals generally liked him.
Ami frowned. Practically everyone liked Ranma except for two Generals. General D'arc and General Bludi both used terms to indicate that they thought that Emperor Ranma was a fop and an idiot without actually stating that this was their thinking.
Otherwise almost everyone felt that Ranma Saotome was a good Emperor. Not a great one but good enough and things were better under him than they were under the previous two.
Wang had been better at a lot of things, but apparently had lacked a certain survival instinct.
Ami checked the time and nodded. She had just enough time to finish getting ready, then she'd be introduced to the Emperor.
Meanwhile, Koichi had decided that to deal with the changing situation, he'd have to retrodigitize something that could deal with Daleks and Terminators and Smurfs. And where had these giant robots come from?
Selecting another tape and crossing his fingers, Koichi retrodigitized:
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(Posted Fri, 02 May 2003 13:45)
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