Their Finest Hour

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ACT 3, MISSION 8

Fighter squadron: 70th Blue Lions

Description: The title says it all.


Background

The 70th Blue Lions are, along with the GTVA Colossus and a small contingent of warships, to create a diversion while the Meson Bomb-laden Bastion collapses the Capella-Epsilon Pegasi jump node.

Walkthrough

This mission was planned big and executed small; the Colossus has a complicated set of waypoints that are never executed. Also, although all allied ships are beam freed, they are beam freed before they jump in... so they never fire their beams. You basically need to take an Ares with Trebs and a quad bank of Maxims and dedicate yourself to killing everything within Treb range, especially cruisers. Hang out near the GVCv Sobek for protection from interceptors, if you want to just be a lazy noob and lob missles at stuff.

Near the end, a Ravana jumps in to attack the Colossus. The Colossus destroys it, but has a moderate damage. Once the Ravana is been destroyed, a SJ Sathanas jumps in. The Colossus struggles to fight the juggernaut, but bearing with the luck they have. At the end, the captain of the Colossus defies Command's order to retreat, and has his ship "buy time" for the GTD Bastion. In the ensuing fight, the Colossus is destroyed.

Notes

Real-life Reference

"This was their finest hour" was a speech made by Winston Churchill in 1940 during World War II, referring to the Battle of France. The name of the mission Dunkerque (SM3-07), another mission in Act III, was also reference to World War II. Here is an excerpt from the speech:

Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that, if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, "This was their finest hour."

Allied Cruisers

Occasionally, the allied cruisers may open fire on enemy ships, although the method of triggering them to do so is unknown.

Plotholes

Many community members have noted that the Colossus' last stand, although bold, was rather illogical as she was destroyed in just a few seconds by the Sathanas 17, which never jumped to attack the Galatea anyway. The Colossus may not have been able to escape because she begins the mission heavily damaged and with engines disabled, but this is never mentioned in the briefing or messages even when Command orders the ship to jump out. As an earlier version of this article put it, "note that it this is their (Shivans) not our (Terrans) finest hour."

Notable ships present