Having the personal, ground-level side plot influence and divert the big stake skirmish lends even more heft and believability to Mobile Suit Gundam's central idea: that the unpredictability caused by the White Base crew's inexperience and desperation is just as much a reason for their improbable survival as the miraculous luck of Amuro, Sayla, Mirai and Bright just happening to have the exact set of war-fighting talents they do. It's an amazingly savvy way of bolstering suspension of disbelief, and this episode is probably the most potent expression of that so far.