The beginning relates to a deleted scene from the original 70s series that had a flashback to the sinking of the original Yamato during WWII. In that scene, US sailors and airmen are seen saluting the ship as she sank. Here, the enemy soldiers who were killed onboard the Yamato during the infiltration are given a full dress funeral alongside the crew of Yamato. There is also a similar scene when the whole bridge crew salutes the remains of a Gamilas ship that helped them escape the dimensional rift. This continues the new plot element of this series where parts of the Gamilas empire are only fighting because they are forced to, and the Yamato crew begin to realize this.