Newest Eyrie

[RomanFanboy]

I concur on the funny.  I prefer FMP's Drama to its comedy.  (I found parts of Fumofu
difficult to handle, and skipped some of it.)  I found that comedy and drama were well
integrated in this last story, to the point that laughter overcame my rage at the people
who were holding an obnoxiously loud conversation that had been hampering my ability to
read the story.  
My favorite bit is

Spoiler

an outstandingly accurate and reliable main gun, though the
power train can be temperamental if not meticulously maintained

and

Spoiler

"OH DAMN AND BLAST," Clarkson not-really-replied, and May rolled his eyes,
wondering how his colleague had managed to disable one of the galaxy's most reliable
autocannons.

where

Spoiler

Clarkson screws up a soldier resistant gun, while
May doesn't have problems at all with the delicate power train.

As far as mission five goes, four (Feb 2) seems pretty clear that there won't be any
breaks from classes until sanity week, which seems the best bet for class trips.  
Checking against the academic calender suggests that they won't skip covering
valentine's day, thus suggesting no class trips until after the next mission.  Of
course, now I realise that I don't know anything about highschool trips, to what degree
classes interfere, or how flexible people are. 

Spoiler

  That said, comparing the
Japanese Christmas with the American Valentine's suggests they may repurpose the
christmas cruise liner episode (in the storytelling not the TV sense) for the next
mission.

As for the issue of the threat, well the latest chapter made me think that the Red force
could 1) Send in something that will set off Sagara, due to looking like a threat. 2)
Wait for Sterling to show up to shout him down. 3)  Detonate the nuke concealed in the
threat.  The main problems with this are that a nuke might not be enough to take out
Sterling, and that the hypothetical Red force might have an intent more along the line
of canon's 'abduct, torture, mind-rape'.
We don't yet actually know that there is a Red force in DSM.  In canon, we knew from the
start that they existed because of the girl that they'd kidnapped and hurt badly that
the Blue force recovers.  We also knew something about Sosuke and the Blue force by this
point also.  In DSM panic, for all we know, some rich fellow hired Sosuke for some crazy
and ultimately harmless purpose.  I honestly think there aren't many choices they could
make in terms of opposition or lack thereof that could harm the story without grafting
the USSR onto UF:FI.
An alternative model based on a theory of mine that I hinted at before, that

Spoiler

while Mao and Weber have been inserted elsewhere in the EPU, Maia looks a
little like Mao, and Buck's description could match that of Weber, so it might make
sense for them to be undercover as associates of Sagara's.  (As in, Buck and Maia's
cover IDs have become associates with Sagara, not that they are using Mao and Weber.)  
If so, if both are undercover in the Corp Sector in the Rhodos group, and the job is
ending soon, there might be a reason to protect K.C. Sterling that would compromise the
mission to follow up on any other way.

  This of course raises the possibility
that

Spoiler

Sagara has been assigned to protect Sterling, because Buck and Maia want
him clear of whatever is going down.  So, K. C. Sterling may be actually meant to
protect and watch over Sagara, and not vice versa.

Additional notions which have spoilers for both DSM panic and FMP.

Spoiler

"... he was raised by wolves,"
I note that this cannot be the proper explanation.  After all, Romulus was also raised
by wolves, and he turned out fine.  (Of course, this forces me to add 'Sosuke is really
a son of Mars, and mothered by a wolf' to my list of plot bunnies.)

Canon's Sosuke's problem is the

Spoiler

Soviet child assassin program he went through,
followed by spending more time in a military camp run by his first target under the
guardianship of a Soviet national who may not have been trying to get him to socialize
normally, and then following the same soviet national into another black operation.  In
short, raised by Soviets.  The joke is that it isn't 'why is he so messed up' it is 'Why
isn't he as bad off as Hansel and Gretal?'  The other set of jokes is that the Helmadj
or whatever are probably Pathan cognates, so shouldn't Sosuke have acculturated to
Man-Love Thursdays and Pathan standards of gender relations?

Spoiler

Sosuke raised a hand and rubbed the top of his head. "That actually hurt," he
said in a tone of mild surprise.

I'm begining to think that not only is Sterling scarier than canon Kaname, but the same
process has been applied to Sagara.  I wouldn't have thought that he would need it, but
this line suggests pain insensitivity to me, which suggests that he has weird things
going on with him biologically.  Combine with the canon 'child assassin program' stuff
and all of the weird stuff the EPU has going on...

Spoiler

Lindsey snorted unsympathetically. "Come on, you're lovin' this," she chided
her friend. "Normal girls run the risk of getting abusive boyfriends. Not Kaname
Sterling! That crap is bush-league. You get crazy mercenaries."

Or maybe Sterling is the abusive girlfriend?

RomanFanboy, Wall of Text that walks like a fool.