Corn Woman 🌽 @WomanCorn@schelling.pt
There's something going on if you compare the retrofuturism of early Space Exploration/Colonization science fiction with Cyberpunk science fiction.
Both predicted futures that didn't come to pass, but the older strain seems to hold up better than the newer.
Lelouch pinpoints the cult of geass' headquarters and attacks with the black knights.
They kill the researchers and the experiments, some of whom are children.
Lelouch corners V.V., but a magic door opens and Charles is there, and Lelouch is pulled into a vision.
Shirley runs in to help, and meets Rolo doing the same.
After a tense check that they are really on the same side, she tells Rolo that she wants to help make Lelouch happy. To help him reunite with Nunnaly.
That's why he finds her lying in a pool of blood. She dies in his arms.
Jeremiah corners Lelouch, but he has a device that will disrupt Jeremiah's cybernetics.
Jeremiah asks why Lelouch became Zero. It turns out that Jeremiah was in Lady Marianne (Lelouch's mother)'s honor guard. His first loyalty is to her, not V.V.
He joins Lelouch's side.
After he was injured in battle, he was rebuilt as a cyborg in an experiment on geass and attacked Zero again.
After that, V.V. modified him with the geass canceller, and now he's an assassin for the order coming to kill Lelouch.
I think we're caught up on that now.
Oh god, now I have to backfill about Jeremiah, who I've been ignoring.
Jeremiah was a Knightmare pilot. He was disgraced when Zero freed Suzaku. He and Villetta compared notes about lost time and that's what helped Villetta realize Lelouch was involved.
Shenanigans ensue when a dating game takes place at the school, with a special bounty placed on Lelouch.
Circumstances bring Lelouch and Shirley together and they officially become an item.
But the next day, V.V. deploys a geass canceller and all of Shirley's memories return.
But as far as Shirley is concerned, she's been kissed by Lelouch.
And she gets real mad when she finds out how many other girls he's been dating.
(There's a waiting list.)
Oh yeah, and the other Knights of the Round have enrolled in the school.
Lelouch returns to school to keep up his cover. He discovers that his body double has been managing things for him in his absence in an unexpected manner.
He's become a bit of a playboy.
How, the _actual_ kissing Lelouch count is: C.C. 2, everyone else 0.
The Knights break out of the trap and the Xing Ke dispatches the eunuchs.
Lelouch and C.C. have effectively conquered China for a reason: to track down the secret order that gives people geass. They move when the leader changes. C.C. was the leader before, and V.V. is now.
Zero has broadcast his communication with the high eunuchs around the Chinese federation, and their disdain has thrown the people into open revolt. The Britannians withdraw; an alliance with the eunuchs is worthless now.
But Kallen was turned over to Suzaku. She's his prisoner.
Zero appears to save them in a custom Knightmare built from the wreckage of the Gawain.
Xing Ke asks if he thinks one Knightmare will turn the tide of battle.
No. War is won through strategy, not tactics.
Meanwhile, rebellious uprisings break out in 14 different cities.
Xing Ke has captured Kallen and has Zero trapped. Unfortunately for him, the Eunuchs use their international relations to call in a favor from the Knights of the Round: destroy both the rebels and the Japanese!
Xing Ke is drawn into a hopeless position when the empress gets out.
Xing Ke is the official who granted the Knights amnesty in the Chinese embassy. He also promised to get the empress out of the forbidden city.
His coup d'etat failed when Zero showed up, but the eunuchs are willing to use him.
His tactical genius forces Zero onto his back foot.
The Japanese escape to an island off the coast of China.
However, they have already been outmaneuvered. The high eunuchs have arranged a marriage between the Empress and the first prince of Britannia.
Zero interferes and kidnaps the child empress.
Zero agrees.
But it's a trick! Fog is released and when it clears, there are a million Zeros!
Now Suzaku is left with this choice: let them depart into exile peacefully, or crack down and prove Zero's rebellion right again.
He lets them go.
Conveniently, a ship is waiting.
Zero arranges for a million people to come to the SAZ. In exchange, he will be exiled.
Appearing on the big screen at the ceremony, he asks Suzaku what it means to be Japanese. Is it blood? History? Land?
Suzaku says it's if you hold Japanese culture in your heart.
Lelouch has a crisis of confidence: with Nunnaly doing the SAZ, his campaign directly opposes her. But she's the reason he became Zero in the first place!
Strong words from Kallen and Rolo help him reorient.
He bails out the Knights, then orders them to cooperate with the SAZ.
She's going to reopen the special administrative zone and everything.
Suzaku rescues her and she isn't captured.
Rolo's geass buys him a few seconds to explain before he has to pretend not to know her.
Zero has the Knights attack to capture her as she approaches. But when he confronts her, she says she's not a pawn, but a volunteer. She wants to follow in Euphemia's footsteps.
