The modular nature of the Aestivalis came up in episode 2 but in episode 4, even more new parts are added to the Aestivalis arsenal.  Three new Aestivalis units were introduced in this episode, all equipped with the Zero G Frame.  An Aestivalis is comprised of the Assualt Pit; the central pilot housing, the Frame; which is the body of the unit, and any additional weapons systems or special equipment modules that are added on depending on the situation.

サツキミドリ２号追憶
Satsuki Midori No.2 Remembered

    The Satsuki Midori 2 Colony met an untimely end after a sudden attack from the Jovian forces.  One wonders how the three Aestivalis pilots made it out but none of the other could not, but that does not concern us here.  Megumi mentions an "L2 point" which probably stands for Lagrangian Point Number 2.  Lagrangian points are places where the gravitation pull of the moon and the Earth balances out to create pockets of space ideal for permanent space installations.  There are a total of five Lagrangian points around the Earth and the Moon.

    When Hikaru first professes her devotion to Gekigangar to Akito, she mentioned that she published doujinshis at the Kosumike pertaining to Gekigangar.  Kosumike stands for Komumikku Komic Maketto, or in English, the Cosmic Comic Market.  Presumably the future shape of the contemporary Comic Market, the world's largest doujinshi (non-commercial, limited distribution publications) exhibition held (on average) biannually in Japan to allow doujinshi publishers a place to exchange their books among their peers and enthusiasts.  Many people confuse doujinshi as fanzines but this is not accurate.  Doujinshis are represent non-commercial publishing and there are large numbers of doujinshis that are not based on popular shows or comics.  A large portion of doujinshis are original material created by the authors themselves.  In other words, many doujinshis are not fanzines.  Some doujinshi are fanzines, as in the case of the book that Hikaru published, but that still does not mean all doujinshis are fanzines.  To mix these up, it would be the equivalent of labeling all Americans as Caucasians.  I'm sorry as I must be boring you with all this nit-picking, but this is one of my primary subjects of academic research.
    One shrudders to think exactly what was inside the Gekigangar doujinshi she published...
 

イズミイズム：血の洗礼
Izumisms: Baptism in Blood

    Episode 4 brings on to the stage the female pilots trio and their antics into Nadesico.  One of the most memorable character is the Izumi Maki.  She can't stop herself from doing horrible puns.  Not only are they murder on anyone who hears them, each of her puns are another torture devices that a translator must deal with somehow.  I mentioned briefly in the main page here, how I tried to respect the context of the references, in hopes that, while the translations may not reflect the Japanese puns exactly, they won't sound too out of place.
    Please remember that here I'm mentioning the translations I supplied to ADV and not what the final product was like.
    Izumi wastes little time with her puns.  Immediately after she makes her first appearance on the screen, she unleashes a pun as Ryoko attempts to push her back inside the tool box that where she was hiding.  "Don't pack me back in," she says, "I'm not mackerel that has to be canned..."  In the Japanese, this pun worked because "packing (closing) something in" and "preparing a type of mackerel dish" uses the same verb: shimeru.  Shimeru, in the context of cooking, specifically referrs to the act of soaking macherel in a salt and viniger solution.  The resulting mackerel is referred to as shime saba, and is commonly employed slapped on top of rice to be served as sushi.  I'd like to thank Mr. Ryo Furukawa of TAR for helping me be more specific about this point.
    And so this was I wrote in my script translation I sent into ADV:

"Izumi:  Oh no---!!  Don't!!  Please don't pack me in…  I'm not mackerel that has to be caned…
>LAUGH< {She's laughing at her own horrible jokes.  You'll see her do a lot of that in the rest of series.}"

    Next we have her spouting off two fast puns in a row as the trio approaches Satsuki Midori 2 to retrieve the remaining Aestivalis.  Ryoko pins down the location of the remaining Aestivalis.

Hikaru: Pegged down objective spot.
Izumi: Pork grinds over-spiked pot… (original line: futa no kakunin)

    This is actually pretty weak pun compared to the original Japanese pun.  Ryoko mentions kakunin, which means "confirm" or "acknowledge."  Izumi makes it sound as if they're doing cooking with the line, futa no kakunin, which means "checked and made sure the lid was on the pot."
    This line gets tied to next exchange as the girls prepare to plunge into the ruins of Satsuki Midori 2.

Ryoko: Confirming backup battery activation.
Hikaru: Start pearl diving!
Izumi: Pork grinds over-spiked… (original line: buta no kakuni)

    Izumi can't let go of that reference, and tries another pun.  This time she says, buta no kakuni, which is "cube cut boiled pork."  Since I realized it was going to be tough enough to try to keep the continuity going with the just one of the references, I dropped the original pun (the "lid" reference) and went straight for the "cube pork" reference.
       Needless to say, there was much hair pulling to manage to maintain even this minimal resemblance of a pun.  Over the course of the entire Nadesico translation, my hair got thinner and thinner with each new challenge Izumi was nice enough to present to me.  This was only the beginning.
 

デビルエステバリス！
Devil Aestivalis!

    When the three girls encounter an Aestivalis taken over the Jovian automatons, Hikaru blurts out this Otakuism.  The reference "Devil Aestivalis" is an allusion to G-Gundam, where the characteristics of a robot and it's pilots were determined much of the time by the name of the Gundam robot, i.e. Sailor Gundam, Chinese Gundam, and Devil Gundam.  Hikaru is characterizing the Aestivalis' condition as how a typical otaku-girl might do.