== Why the fleet battles in *Last Exile - Fam* have no drama for me

One of the things that *Last Exile - Fam, The Silver Wing* features
relatively prominently is fleet battles with those flying battleships.
Unfortunately I find them essentially completely free of drama, which
robs the whole thing of a lot of the point.

The direct reason that I find them mostly free of drama is that in an
earlier clash with the Silvius, it's been solidly established that
the fleet gunners of the Ades Federation have all of the accuracy of
Imperial Stormtroopers; despite outnumbering the Silvius many to one and
having it dead to rights, they failed to score any really meaningful
hits. When you know that one side can't shoot straight, it's hard to take
battles involving them very seriously.

The deeper reason is what this demonstrates about the fleet battles
themselves: ~~the outcomes of the fleet battles are arbitrary~~. What
happens in a battle and what the outcome is is based purely on what the
scriptwriters need, not on any internal logic of the setting and forces
involved. If Ades needs to be strong and beat people up, it will; if it
needs to be weak or lose, it will. One day Ades can shoot straight and
is terribly dangerous, the next day not so much. An outnumbered ship may
or may not escape or may or may not be harmed, and there's nothing about
the scenario that will let me predict that. Clever twists are guaranteed
to materialize when necessary, generally out of nothing. Improbable
events will happen as required. This arbitrary nature of outcomes and
lack of logic has robbed the fleet battles of most any drama or tension
for me; what happens will happen and that's just it, so there's no point
in doing anything more than maybe enjoying the scenery.

(It's not quite deus ex machina outcomes, but it's close. A few times
it's literally been that when Guild members show up.)