Random Curiosity

Summary:

At a police station in the Human Reform League, Saji is shown his sister’s body and begins grieving over her. Meanwhile, up on the moon, Libbons explains that he’ll need sometime with Veda, but Alejandro doesn’t mind because the Corner family has already waited over 200 years for this. As Libbons works through the various levels of Veda’s system, he offers Alejandro some information to pass the time. It tells Alejandro that Laguna’s finished the arrangements of the GN-Xs, and that in turn makes him think that Laguna’s role is complete. Over on Union’s high orbit space station, Daryl meets Patrick and recognizes him as the first person intervened against by a Gundam. Patrick wants to meet Union’s top gun, but Daryl reports that Graham isn’t participating in their current operation. He gets angry when Patrick refers to Graham as a coward, however Kathy then shows up to diffuse the situation. Elsewhere, on the Ptolemaios, Sumeragi brings some drinks for Christina and Felt as they work on separating Veda’s backup system from the Gundams. They know that someone has been using Veda’s systems, and Tieria wonders if they can go up against those new mobile suits without Veda.

Lockon, however, tells Tieria not to worry because even if they can’t rely on Veda’s backup, they still have the Gundams and Sumeragi’s tactical forecasting. Tieria thinks that Lockon doesn’t know about the crime that Sumeragi committed in the past, but it turns out that Lockon does know, and he feels that everyone makes mistakes. For her, it was a big one. He thinks that she chose to fight in order to cast aside her past and that she dilutes her broken heart with alcohol. When Lockon makes it a point to say that being able to do this is still human, Tieria realizes that Lockon knows about him. After Allelujah interrupts the two to give them standby instructions from Sumeragi, Lockon makes it clear to Tieria that the cooperation of all four Gundams is essential. Tieria, however, jokes that Lockon should be saying that to Setsuna. At that moment, Setsuna finds himself carrying a rifle back in the devastated landscape of the Kurdish Republic. Marina suddenly appears behind him and, referring to him as Soran, calls him over. She proceeds to show him a flower that’s blooming and uses it as an example of how things can get better. Marina thinks that he doesn’t have to fight, and this eventually leads to Setsuna dropping his gun, but right at that exact instant, he wakes up from the dream. Questioning why Marina was in his dream, he also wonders to himself about wanting to stop fighting.

Back on Earth, Sergei leads a force of GN-Xs to attack the Trinity siblings’ Africa base, but the Trinitys strike first by firing the Throne Eins’ cannon from long range. Johann thinks that Laguna has betrayed them, though in truth, Laguna is already dead. Meanwhile, Saji returns to Japan and speaks with Kinue’s boss who starts their conversation off by saying that there isn’t anyone in his business who doesn’t know the name of Saji’s journalist father. It seems that Saji’s father had been imprisoned after some false accusations, and the main thing Saji remembers is that his father often told his sister to seek the truth by connecting the facts. When Saji inquires about what his sister was investigating, her boss admits that it was Aeolia Schenberg and apologizes because he thinks he should have stopped her. Up in space, Sumeragi realizes that there are 19 enemy units headed their way, so she orders everyone to suit up and get ready. Once they engage the GN-Xs, the Gundam Meisters find that their opponents can take out GN Fields and have great mobility. Setsuna ends up fighting two at once while the others quickly get overwhelmed by enemy fire. Tieria tries to strike back at Patrick’s GN-X by firing his primary cannon, but right before he can pull the trigger, the Virtue powers down because the backup from Veda is gone.

In fact, all four Gundams have stopped moving, and Tieria wonders if Veda has abandoned him. Setsuna thinks that this is just like his past because even though he’s piloting the Exia, he can’t become Gundam. Over on the moon, Libbons asks Alejandro if this is okay, and Alejandro comments on how a United Nations military victory is necessary for world unification. He feels that as long as the GN Drives remain, Celestial Being can be always be revived, and since he’s a greedy man, he wants to obtain both the Earth and Celestial Being. Fortunately for the Gundams, Sumeragi had planned for this and orders the switch over to their systems. On the Exia, Setsuna gets visions of Marina again and tries to get it out of his head by declaring that he’s still alive and yelling for his Gundam to move. The Dynames, the Kyrios, and the Exia all power back up at that exact moment, however the Virtue does not because there is an error with its system change. As the fierce battle resumes, Patrick charges his GN-X at the motionless Virtue, but Lockon protects Tieria by using the Dynames as a shield. The Dynames thus takes the full force of the GN-X’s beam saber which pierces through the Dynames’ armor.

When Patrick tries to attack a second time, beam cannon fire suddenly blows off his GN-X’s arm. The source of this is the GN Arms piloted by the Ptolemaios’ gunner Lasse, and he manages to destroy a GN-X before a retreat flare is fired for the United Nations forces. Unfortunately, the Dynames has already suffered heavy damage, and Haro reports that Lockon is injured. On the moon, Alejandro admires Sumeragi’s foresight in having an alternate system ready for the Gundams. Libbons then reports that he’s cleared level 6 of Veda, and Alejandro notes that he’s almost there. Back on Earth, Union President Brian thinks that this result is acceptable for such a hastily assembled force. He’s on the phone with one of the AEU leaders who has set the analysis and mass production of the GN Drive as top priority, and after hanging up, the AEU leader thinks that this will allow his side to be on equal footing with the other superpowers. The Human Reform League president meanwhile thinks that the age of Gundam is over because the world is changing.

Preview:

Opening with Saji finding out that his sister is dead is a really heavy way to start the episode, but it’s effective. It really emphasizes the human tragedy aspect of all this. I’ve said before that this might drive Saji to join the military or something, but given how journalism runs in his family, maybe he’ll pick up where his sister left off instead. Kinue being dead wasn’t the biggest surprise of the episode though - that distinction is reserved for how they almost killed off Lockon. The fact that Lockon somewhat has the role of the older mentor character made it even more believable that he’s going to die eventually, but it still seems a bit too early for that. And for now, it looks like he’s still alive - just injured pretty badly.

As for Setsuna, it bothers me a little that Marina is the embodiment of his inner desire to stop fighting. I didn’t think that she was quite such an important figure in his life, at least not yet. Maybe this’ll spur him to pay her another visit, and perhaps they’ll develop a deeper relationship out of it. For the time being though, he’s probably got more fighting to do, especially since Ali Al Sarshes is in the preview for next week’s episode. I actually wonder if Ali Al Sarshes is going to be the one who finally takes out the Trinity siblings. Now that they’re up against superior opponents, I almost feel bad for those three…almost.