You watch this expecting prequel filler. Instead it shows you the exact moment Yang Wen-li stopped being a promising officer and became the man who terrified an empire. The animation is cheap and the faces sometimes look wrong, but the writing doesn't care, it's too busy building history you didn't know you needed. Every arc is a self-contained story that proves the Free Planets Alliance and the Empire were always doomed by something deeper than ideology, and once you see it, you can't unsee it in the original series.
Yang Wen-li of the Free Planets Alliance becomes a celebrated hero after evacuating civilians from El Facil and earning a double promotion. He is then assigned to look into the death of the famed tactician Bruce Ashbey, following claims that Ashbey was murdered rather than killed in battle, and the inquiry turns up corruption. On the Empire's side, Reinhard and Kircheis pick up where the first side story collection left off. They serve aboard a damaged destroyer where Reinhard must take command, and Reinhard steps forward as champion in a noble duel over mining rights involving a friend of his sister Annerose. He also pursues a defector carrying a stolen prototype deep into enemy space, and he fights in the Third Battle of Tiamat. The OVA gathers independent short stories set before the main saga. Some are drawn from the novels and others are original, blending drama with science fiction.
