On the Nine and their "ids":

It's interesting to me that they're called "ids". Because that's a psychological term, and could suggest they have some function in storing or generating the personality, rather than being "power cores" or "transformation devices" (or solely those things). I'm wondering if Aletheia could reconstitute the dead members of the Nine by placing these ids in new bodies.

I briefly considered the possibility that Rouge is that sort of creature, but- as far as we know- only three of the Nine have died so far and all three of those ids are accounted for.

On Neans and the reservation:

Something I've been trying to keep an eye on while watching is the nature of the Neans and their position in society. How "human" are they, whether they're mechanical or organic or something in between, how they're treated by the people around them and how those people think about them. Just trying to pin down the parameters of the scenario, so to speak.

It's been pretty clear right from the off that Neans are people, and a very human sort of people, but what this episode made very clear to me is that the humans in the show are also very clear that Neans are people. In a lot of other robots-are-people stories the personhood of the robots is an unrealised fact or a topic of open debate- the humans are granted a certain psychological distance from the fact that they're abusing and enslaving sapient beings. There doesn't appear to be much of any of that here- the reservation is a reservation (very directly- the Japanese term they're using- as far as I can make out- is "kyoryuuchi", the exact term used to indicate Native American reservations), it's not a "storage centre" or a "maintenance facility" or anything like that. The humans address the Neans as if they expect them to have emotions and be driven by those emotions- even when Naomi calls Rouge "equipment" she's doing so with the meaning of, "you're throwing a tantrum and it's interfering with the mission: do your job" (and I'll come back to that, because what the gently caress Naomi).

Other random Nean thoughts: so, Neans are definitely manufactured. Poor dying dead Nean talks about a factory. But the younger Nean who was being harassed outside the gates says he's only ever known the reservation. And he's not a war vet, he's younger than the war. So, can Neans... breed? Is there another way for them to be made, that's not in a factory? They do seem very organic, for all that a lot of the ones in this episode have metal bits on. I probably should have clocked this earlier but I think they are actually Blade Runner-style replicants- genetically rather than mechanically engineered.

On Rouge:

I think I said after the first episode that she seemed "offbeat" or "eccentric" or something to that effect. That was wrong. Rouge is a child. I think she is an actual child. It would explain a lot.

What really drove it home for me was the way she latched so quickly and so fervently onto what Jill said to her about freedom. The chocolate fixation, the unwillingness to share, the general loose understanding of what's going on, her need to go and replace the chocolate immediately- these are all childish, but it's this taking things adults say to you very seriously thing that seems specifically childlike to me.

On Rouge's brother:

It's interesting to me that she calls him "brother". He doesn't seem to be a Nean- it seems unlikely to me, based on what we know of the world and the org, that one would a Vice-Director of Aletheia. So I don't think she's the claiming a fraternal bond in the sense of, they came out of the same production line, they're the same model, anything like that. I don't think they could have been raised together, if she's as new as I think she is. Plausibly he has some sort of child-parent or mentee-mentor relationship with whoever she thinks of as her parental figure?

The surname is also interesting, because he shares it with another character- a "Roy Junghardt", mentioned in the first episode as one of Rouge's previous victims. One of Nius or Achillus? Rouge herself does not use the Junghardt name, she's going by "Redstar".

On what the gently caress Naomi:

So Naomi's little rant is weird, I think. On multiple levels. Because where the gently caress did all this anti-Nean racism come from, Naomi? Were you just hiding that under your hat up 'til now? And also... managing Rouge is Naomi's job, right? That seems to be her role on this mission, or at least a large part of it. She wants to emphasise the intel-gathering part, but what we've actually seen her do is direct Rouge and liaise with management. Even when she got Rouge to sandbag so she could analyse Viola... did that actually contribute anything to that fight?

But Naomi sucks at managing Rouge! She pushes all her buttons in this scene, pushes them hard, and is... surprised? When Rouge stalks off. That's a pretty major gently caress up, the first time she has even minor difficulty getting Rouge to do what she wants. Is she just incompetent? Has she not been properly briefed? I guess this sort of direct face-to-face interaction wasn't plan A- it's something she fell back on after her bird drone was destroyed. Even so, I feel like she should be better at this.

On the crab Naomi is eating:

Is that a real type of crab? It seems too big. And she calls it a "herm", which isn't showing up on google.

Are they... eating aliens?

On who the gently caress is this guy:



Seriously! Who is he?

Like, okay, there is an easy and straightforward answer to this: he is "Phantom Verde", Rouge's current target and one of the Nine. He's green. "Verde" means green. And I'll even say I expect the doctor to turn out to be him. On the basis of, he wears a green jacket, and if it's not the doctor then I don't think it's anyone we've met yet, which I think would be poor form, narratively. Aaand we don't really have a better explanation for him going along with Giallon's plan to frame Rouge.

But who is this guy??

Because hey, there are six of the Nine still living. The episode goes out of its way to state that explicitly, if you couldn't do the math yourself. And there are six of these hero-Neans shown in the OP (not counting Rouge). But none of them are this guy!!





So... one of the six in the OP isn't one of the Nine? It's gotta be that, right? If I had to guess, it's the blue one at the end- it comes last, it's not actually part of the lineup with the other five (there's a shot of Rouge killing a Cylinder Head that separates it), it's anomalous in that it seems to fight the exact same way as Rouge (throwing laser daggers, swinging laser swords), and it's blue- the colour opposite to Rouge's red. So, the most marked-out.

My crackpot extension to that theory is that that one is Naomi. Purely on the basis that she is also in colour-opposition to Rouge:



Black hair/fair skin/pink eyes/red jacket over black dress vs white hair/dark skin/grey-green eyes/navy jacket over cream dress.

KOGAHAZAN!! fucked around with this message at 22:36 on Jan 25, 2024

• Giallon killed him, disguised as Rouge. Seems unlikely, as Rouge would presumably not have been so surprised by Giallon impersonating her in ep 1.
  
• Rouge did kill him, under orders from Gene or for some other reason. Slightly more plausible, but then I think he'd have appeared in Rouge's hallucination.
  
• Some agent of Alter did kill him, not necessarily Giallon, and Rouge was there but failed to prevent it. Maybe Rouge and Aletheia are after the Nine now in retaliation for that killing? I think this is the most likely option. There is a question mark over, like, why is Ochrona after Rouge then, but there's clearly a lot of interdepartmental rivalry there and Aletheia very well may not have the authority to prosecute the case. Pure speculation, that.