Macross Delta Episode 3 : The Merkin Maneuver

It's that time again.

If you should happen to recall where we left off Commander Arad of the supposedly elite Delta Squadron had just recruited lifetime aimless wanderer Hayate 'Shlub' Immelman apparently impressed by his lack of any formal training, disdain for authority of any sort and the curious ability to survive throwing himself off of a very tall mech. Manic Pixie Dreamgirl Freyja, meanwhile, has been selected by Musical Girl Squad to join their ranks after passing the super-special extra audition that only she was offered in which she spread her bio-fold receptors to cure a man pretending to suffer from Roidrage who politely waited for her to warm up instead of ripping off her unnerving head tentacle and bashing her skull in on the spot.

We rejoin the story with Mirage being cruelly stuck with 'training' Shlub by Commander Arad after she takes him on a flight with the intent of making him sick. Which works but backfires when Shlub vomits on her afterwards. We are spared the sticky details on that however and skip ahead to Freyja sitting at a table giggling about telling Shlub how she didn't fail despite his predictions to the contrary. She doesn't have to wait long as Shlub turns up to throw his uniform in her face.

At which point he casually mentions he as joined Delta Squad. He's heard of her good fortune as well, though.

Which is a rich thing to say for someone who got their position largely by virtue of showing up and attempting suicide.

One of the local Merpeople then shows up with another member of Musical Girl Squad and we learn that the female members of Musical Girl and Delta Squads stay in a female-only dorm before the group arrives at Rugyumyum, home of the Merguy and male dorm, which clearly has no such restrictions.

Unfortunately there is a brief moment of awkwardness as it turns out the aggressive salesmerchildren from the market live here as well.

Though Shlub and Freyja make an awkward effort to explain that it is actually the children's fault for putting a phone on Freyja- but they are saved this effort by the arrival of this episode's true star.

This reasonably pissed off creature is the terror of Rugyumyum. It's the god-king/queen of the local Mercats and channels it's existential terror at being a lazy hybrid that must constantly refrain from a cruel urge to eat itself into a deep and abiding hatred of everything non-Mercat. Such is why it is at this moment raiding Rugyumyum for fish despite living in the sea where fish are still more plentiful. It knows no mercy, is tireless and bears an instinctive hatred of Mr. Immelman in particular.

So, needless to say I am a fan,

SHLUB DOWN!

As an additional bonus, Shlub proves allergic to Mercats.

Anyhow people babble for a bit, one member of Magical Girl Squad implies another two are lesbians and that a third's sexual preference is uncertain.

I have heard it said that the reason for this is that Venus is actually a guy. It's fine, of course, but certainly explains the confusion.

Also there is a member of the Magical Girl Squad named Venus? Really? First name isn't Sailor though, eh? Seems a bit on-the-nose all the same.

Move on to the next day- wherein Shlub has seen fit to exempt himself from training, much to Mirage's irritation.

I don't imagine, sadly, that she should bother reporting this to Commander 'Fuck the people who actually train for this, aimless wandering is a sign of hidden talent!' Arad. But Shlub hasn't been simply upraising a middle finger to just about anyone who foolishly wishes to put any effort into keeping the obnoxious little bastard alive on a battlefield.

I hope Ernest at least learns never to try teaching Immelman something again.

Really, the nerve of these people. Don't they understand that Immelman is a special snowflake of nigh-magical talent?

So what has Shlub been doing all this time? Pretending to fly while standing on the edge of the carrier deck, taunting death with it's exclusion from the script. Here Mirage finally finds him at which point he requests to fly for real. Despite seething with fury she obliges because otherwise this episode would be another 20 minutes of Shlub peeling space-potatoes.

Up they go. It turns out that Immelman is actually a bit rubbish at flying- but not because he's a rank amateur- oh no. It's because his jetmech's ai keeps interfering with the way he wants to fly. So Mirage shuts it off, at which point Shlub completely loses control of the jetmech and would have plummeted to his death but sadly Mirage the Space Elf is obligated to be professional and turns the AI back on.

Mirage takes the opportunity to try and explain the importance of training while Shlub tries not to vomit into his flight helmet.

Afterwards Shlub attempts to gain vengeance on the Mercat Godling.

Seen here shortly afterwards slapping the taste (and rebreather) out of Shlub's mouth.

Naturally he was busy doing this when he was supposed to be in the classroom, stressing again that he has learned fuckall from his previous lesson. His location is given away to Mirage by a woman with a terrifying brain parasite, whom I will get to later.

Mirage is understandably pissed about having her time wasted. Shlub predictably doesn't have any fucks to give, stating that it should be enough to attend practice because...

Yep. Delta Squad's job is to protect Musical Girl Squad as they perform on the battlefield... Nonviolently, Shlub apparently believes. It's unclear what at this point Shlub believes Delta Squad does to protect Musical Girl Squad despite having seen them fight in their defense firsthand.

Perhaps he believes they pull faces at the enemy. Or maybe- and he would not be entirely mistaken to believe this- maybe he thinks it's all about dancing nonviolently with the attackers until they get bored and go away.

Purple Elf Woman points the inconvenient detail of this out to which his reply is to ask if she really enjoys flying that way.

She replies that she's a warrior, that she flies to protect. Shlub pretends to understand and walks away.

Mirage, for once, makes some effort to drum the idiot out by presenting Commander Arad with her plan for a final exam. A dogfight in which he must land a hit on her to pass. Grudgingly, and I suspect not without modifications to the plan, he agrees.

Word gets around however, most notably to brain parasite girl.

WHY IS NO ONE HELPING HER?!

Selectively ignoring the green creature slowly eating this unfortunate's brain to the utter indifference of her colleagues, Brain Parasite Girl feels that the Final Exam in fact indicates Shlub and Mirage are falling in love. Or, at least, that she's falling in love with him. Her colleagues are skeptical, but sadly I realize Brain Parasite Girl is surely reading the script.

Mirage the Space Elf, first to deck the eminently punchable Hayate Immelman seems tragically doomed it would seem to being part of the obligatory love triangle. Because naturally the narcissistic and suicidally stupid Immelman is naturally irresistible to women he belittles the aspirations of, vomits on and mostly serves as a source of stress for.

They're even arranged in a triangle in the intro.

At this point Shlub is ignorant of any affections and there is some hope he will remain oblivious. More in regards to Freyja the Manic Pixie Dream Girl who I might note is literally and objectively 14 years old. (It's not squiffy because she'll be dead around 30 you see.)

It has not been stated what age Mirage the Space Elf is, but hypothetically they would be allowed to purchase a space beer.

But DEAR GOD that's enough about Shlub for now, yes? Let's see what terrible trials are befalling the aforementioned Pixie.

Practice is going poorly. It turns out that her fold receptors are not activating. Perhaps her bio-fold receptors are stuck together, or have been overstimulated and have not recovered yet. Why is this important?

The bio fold waves then, when augmented by cocktail dresses and an excess of flashy lights- along with some singing- gently massage the biomark generators of the Var-Syndrome-Afflicted Roidragers until their brains stop being red.

So, very important that Freyja's 14-year-old biofold receptors are properly lubricated and trembly.

But let's not dwell on that any further for the time being. Freyja and Shlub meet up and Pixie lies about how well her singing is going while in a rare moment Shlub states :

'I've put zero effort into this and for some reason I am doing poorly.'

It reminds me of Ned Flanders' parents, actually.

Shlub's punchability is reaching dramatic new levels here. Naturally, of course, he resolves that he will pass the final exam and wipe the grin off of his instructor's face. Freyja laughs at this, prompting him to note that she has a creepy laugh, which to be fair checks out completely.

She insists she's laughing about how hard he'll fail, which he denies will happen all while her head tentacle glitters and flops around excitedly.

Now we cut to the Final Exam. The rules are thus. Shlub and Mirage will dogfight in jetmechs firing paint rounds. He must land a single hit on her to win, whereas she can shoot him indefinitely and not win.

So basically so long as he manages to not crash all he has to do is get in a lucky shot. I suspect this modification was made by Commander Arad. Another competent pilot by the name of Messer would serve as the judge- though with such a ruleset it is not clear what there is to judge.

In fact, with a bar set this low you would think it would be quite difficult to fuck it up- but screwing up is the one field for which Shlub qualifies as an idiot-savant.

Within the first two seconds of the dogfight Mirage lands more than enough hits to have utterly killed the idiot, but those shots don't count of course. Mirage notes that passing such a candidate would mean they would only die in their first battle- which Shlub and Pixie in fact would have had Mirage not regrettably saved them the first time.

Mirage happily unloads shots into Shlub's jetmech until the ship's AI, sick of being made to look stupid, evades some shots.

The poor Jetmech AI. Brain the size of a planet and they've put this idiot in command of it.

Unwilling to be shown up by a toaster... again... Shlub elects to shut off the ship's AI. This goes just as well as the last time the idiot did this and he immediately loses control of the jetmech. As an added bonus he calls Mirage 'Vomit Girl', Yes, that's right, he's mocking her because he vomited on her earlier.

Classy guy, our Shlub.

Commander Arad briefly considers the possibility that he has in fact recruited a complete moron and orders Mirage to eject him from the jetmech. This proves impossible as Shlub cut off remote control along with the ship's AI.

His sorely deserved death is averted as video of this dogfight is being relayed to Pixie by other members of Musical Girl Squad who have theorized that Pixie's Bio-Fold Receptors don't properly lubricate unless someone is in danger of dying.

Their theory is proven out as Pixie begins singing with a freshly glittery head-tentacle, bio-fold receptors quivering as she realizes Shlub might just bite it.

Tragically, this song magically makes Shlub a capable pilot, allowing him to remove his helmet (Pilots wear those just for looks, right?) pull out of his death-spin and furthermore manage a rarely seen backflip he learned from the Mercat Godling, which one of the Musical Girl Squad members had the nerve to suggest should be called the Immelman Dance.

I insist it is only fair to call it the Merkin Maneuver instead. Indeed, if you click that link I am sure you will find there can be no better name for it.

At this point actual Ace Pilot Messer steps in to shoot Shlub up a bit more and while Immelman whines about fairness (despite these new hits still not failing him). Messer then states what he believes to be is a simple truth.

Which is sadly mistaken.

Again, Hayate Immelman could charge death and death would flee from him. He could not die if he wanted to, and his actions IF he WISHED to die would be hard to separate from the actions he has taken anyway. Again thus far he has taken military equipment he was not trained to use into a battlefield, completely ignored any security measures on a military base, THROWN HIMSELF OFF OF AN AIRCRAFT CARRIER and in this episode alone gone out of his way to die in a crashing jetmech until the musical plot intervened.

So it's perhaps just as well that at the end of this Shlub has learned very little. On landing he finds Mirage still wondering how the idiot managed to suddenly master his jetmech and land a shot on her (poor elf, there is no fighting the plot) in her jetmech when said idiot knocks on the cockpit to say he's sorry and understands there is more needed than just flying... but that he still dislikes all this shooting business...

Mirage fails to apply the windshield wiper.

But hey, he'll show up to the training classes now. Maybe. Mirage is amazed of course. He then hops down to brag about how the Final Exam was in fact 'easy-peasy', with Pixie there to call him the Lucky One.

Commander Arad meanwhile basically admits he has no idea what he is doing really. When it comes to having no fucks to give, the commander of Delta Squad reigns supreme.

In the glittery-bright future of humanity there is only Derp. Derp, and J-pop.

In conclusion, don't drink on this one. The temptation to overdo it is far too great.