After spilling the beans on the Aerial’s true nature to Belmeria, Prospera elaborates that she only transferred Eri’s mind into the Gundam when Eri physically died to complications from living in space. Oh good, it’s nice to know that one of our main antagonists is slightly less evil than I thought. Apparently, Prospera’s true goal with Quiet Zero is to free Eri from data storm. It’s definitely a more believable motive for Prospera to have than brining peace to the solar system. That said, I’m not sure how Eri can be set free when there isn’t a physical body for her to inhabit. Knowing Prospera though, she probably does have that covered.
Prospera then asks Belmeria to assist in finishing Quiet Zero. Belmeria refuses at first on the basis that Quiet Zero goes against Dr. Nabo’s intentions with GUND technology. Prospera however manages to guilt trip Belmeria into lending her assistance by bringing up Belmeria’s work on enhanced humans, something that Dr. Nabo was also against. There sure are a number of characters in this show who can’t seem to commit to their ideals without generating some kind of double standard.
Word breaks out about Benerit’s recent conflicts with Dawn of Fold, causing tensions between Spacians and Earthians to rise even further and prompting the Space Assembly League to dig deeper into the conglomerate. Benerit’s board agrees that to better handle the crisis, they need a leader to replace Delling and Sarius, so they decide to hold an election. Seeing as he wanted this situation to happen in the first place, Shaddiq of course intends on winning the election (though funnily enough, Grassley is currently in sixth place). Regardless of who wins the election, this would mean that Miorine will no longer have to deal with the whole duel system in Asticassia. I enjoyed the duels in Season 1 but it does feel like its run its course so I’d welcome this potential change.
Parallel to this, Guel makes it back home and assumes ownership of Jeturk from Lauda. Lauda is extremely loyal to Guel (arguably to an annoying degree but that’s besides the point) so I doubt he has any objections to his brother taking over the company. Honestly, I’m shocked Guel made it back safe and sound. With how much this show hates him, I figured he’d at least stub his toe on the way. I imagine Guel might throw his hat into the election but given Jeturk’s current standing in Benerit, he’d probably have an uphill battle ahead of him (granted, an uphill battle is just a regular Tuesday for him).
Back at Asticassia, we see Earth House deal with more discrimination than they’re usually deal with, due to the ongoing conflict between Benerit and Dawn of Fold. One neat detail that I like here is how some of detractors are friends of that one extra that Norea killed during the battle royale event. That way, you can better understand some of the hate towards Earth House even if it’s unjustified. Fortunately for Earth House, Miorine finally returns to the campus and she’s able to get these bullies to back off.
The gang then tries to do whatever they can for Gund-Arm, Inc. while it’s suspended from business and they try to find leads on Nika’s whereabouts. It’s really nice seeing another glimpse at this start-up. That hasn’t happen in a while. My favorite detail is Till helping Suletta volunteer to help Miorine with her garden again, thus giving those two some alone time. Between this and his contribution in the team duel against Grassley House, I like that Till is randomly a real one.
While Suletta and Miorine head to the latter’s garden, we see El5n (Natsuki Hanae) attempt to steal the Aerial, which has been stowed away due to Earth House’s suspension, per the order of his higher-ups at Peil. Kind of funny how Peil bothered to go through a duel to legitimately obtain the Aerial and now they’re like “screw it, just steal the damn thing”. Taking the Aerial away is easier said than done however as El5n encounters Eri (Kana Ichinose), who proceeds to violently kick him out of the Gundam. I really like the display of power from Eri here. Given how strong the Aerial is, Eri ought to be borderline omnipotent in the data storm and this scene illustrates that perfectly. After he fails to secure the Aerial, El5n encounters Belmeria, who argues that GUND should be used for good. I was a bit stunned when El5n backhands Belmeria in response but given that he is one of the people she experimented on, I get why he reacts so violently.
It’s been a couple episodes since we’ve last seen Suletta and Miorine share a scene. The garden scene at the end of this episode thankfully makes up for that. At first, it makes you think their relationship is starting to mend itself, with Miorine forgiving Suletta for killing someone and apologizing for thanking her, only for it to go south the second Suletta mentions her mother again. Honestly though, it was about time that Miorine finally confronts Suletta about this. It’s become increasingly unnerving how easily Suletta agrees with her mother and how she never questions any of her ideas. I really like how frustrating this scene gets. Like, Miorine throws every possible counterargument she can to get Suletta to open her eyes and none of it seems to work. Suletta just smiles and says that she owes everything to Prospera and will therefore do whatever she asks. I imagine Miorine will eventually succeed here but this scene sure does a good job making me think otherwise.
With no luck knocking sense into Suletta, Miorine confronts Prospera. Funny thing about this scene is that Miorine being protective of Suletta actually impresses Prospera. That said, Prospera does have an ace up her sleeve. At long last, she finally brings up the Vanadis massacre to Miorine and, more importantly, Delling’s involvement in it. By arguing that Miorine should right the wrongs her father committed, Prospera convinces her to work on Quiet Zero and win the election for Benerit’s president. It’s hard to tell how much of this Prospera planned in advance but however much foresight she had, getting revenge on Delling by manipulating his daughter is an amazingly sinister scheme.
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