When Banagher launches from the Nahel Argama to head to the Laplace station, his monitor identifies the units ahead of him, which include R009, R010 and R011. Out of these R010 is a commander type. I think a fourth unit, probably Riddhe's unit is also at Palau, but by the time they reach Palau it is either heavily damaged or has probably been destroyed since it is not deployed to defend the Nahel Argama after it's attacked by Gilboa's team while the other 3 Rezels and most Ecoas MS are at the Laplace station.
By the way, I have been trying to figure out which are the other ships docked at Palau, besides the Endra, 3 Musakas and Musai Kai that are seen when the MS begin launching to defend Palau. There are 2 particular scenes I would like to mention:
The first one is right after Zinnerman and Marida come to pick Gilboa and before the bombs go off. The next scene shows Banagher running inside Palau. Then the next scene is an outside shot of Palau. After the camera moves along Palau for a bit, we can identify five docks, 3 on the left wall, which have yellow lights, and 2 on the asteroid below. One of them is empty and 3 of them have a Musai each. But the interesting one is the other one without light which has an odd ship docked inside. After comparing the ship to known transport ships, I think it's a Pazock class seen from below.
The second scene is right after Tikva is seen by himself inside Palau and before the Dreissen and Gaza D launch from the green Endra. In this scene we can see five ships docked on the walls: 2 on the right wall and 3 on the left wall which is moving. The ones on the right are a yellow Endra (probably the Mindra) and a Musai behind it. On the left wall, we can see a small unknown ship in the center dock and what seems to be Musakas on both sides next to it. The small ship could either be a Jotunheim class or another Pazocks class upside down and seen from a 3/4 angle. Personally I think the later case would make more sense since the Jotunheim is already an old ship by UC 0079 while the Pazock is the newest supply ship the Principality had at that time, 17 years before Unicorn.
These scenes with the ships docked at Palau show other interesting things:
-First we have located all 4 Musai Kai. We also confirm that both Endras were docked at Palau at the time, along with at least 5 Musakas and 2 Pazocks.
-The Musai Kai that was destroyed was not in the same area where the Endra and 3 Musakas deployed their MS. That said, If the Mindra and Pazock were last minute additions as cameo, where the Pazock replaced a Musaka and the Mindra replaced a regualr Endra, we could consider that their original intention was that all five ships which deployed their MS were at the same docking area and that the destruciton of the Musai might have been meant to indicate the loss of all 5 ships.
-Another thing to notice is that what destroys the Musai Kai in the episode is none other than one of the docks mechanical arms. But the odd thing here is that the ceiling itself is not moving in that scene, which makes me consider the possibility that someone at the dock's control room panicked and accidentally lowered the mechanical arm instead of raising it to release the ship.
-If the Sleeves fleet only has 8 Musakas, 5 of which were docked at Palau and 4 of which succesfully escaped along the Rewloola, that would confirm that not all docked ships were destroyed.
-The Mindra and Musai Kai seem to be of almost the same size, instead of the Endra beign 410 meters long. Maybe as Mark had pointed out, an Endra is only 270 meters long. That would also be more consistent with one shot of the third Zeta movie where an Endra is seen passing in front of the 415 meters long Gwanban, clearly showing a significant difference in size.
Just as a final note: in the first scenes of Palau, the 3 Gaza Cs seen in MA mode are stationed on the asteroid next to several missile launchers, which makes me suspect that these might be used as turrets, as Mark mentioned in the 9th page of the Unicorn Anime thread Mk III:
toysdream wrote:On the other hand, some of the mobile suits are stationed at Palau as a defense garrison - the Gaza C, we're told, is now treated more like a gun turret than a mobile suit.
