Shion excuses his bad gun manners, since he’s a soldier and therefore must be singularly concentrated on his weapon at all times. “I know someone with a habit like that,” she adds. “He’s always carrying a sword around with a weird grin plastered on his face. Don’t you think that’s dangerous?” What with the reference to a sword, the gay innuendo within that reference, and Shion’s condescending tone, I’m guessing she’s talking about Jin again. Jesus Christ, lady, cut the guy a break. Jerkinov agrees that handling a sword is dangerous, to shut her up, and takes his dinner from her.
“So this is the android that can take on the Gnosis,” he duhs, as he and Shion look down at KOS-MOS. “She sure doesn’t look like it.” Well, yeah, Shion made sure of that. Do you think she wants to be thinking about icky Gnosis when she’s using KOS-MOS’s…alternative programming? Jerkinov sits down to eat, leaving Shion to stroke KOS-MOS’s face gently. I’m not kidding. The pain, it just won’t stop. “But…regardless of what she looks like, she’s still a weapon.” And now she’s trying to act like KOS-MOS’s appearance happened by fucking accident? SHUT UP, SHION.
No, I think it was her big-ass guns that killed him.
As Jerkinov wolfs down his horrible food, he asks Shion about that one guy back on the Hoglinde. You know, the crazy guy who liked Realian brains? Jerkinov recalls that Lieutenant Virgil was killed by KOS-MOS, as if that’s something that slips one’s mind. Shion looks overcome with despair and angst as she fondles KOS-MOS some more. “I’m not trying to blame you,” Jerkinov clarifies. And why would he? If he wanted to blame someone, it should be someone who’s had something to do with her destructive power, rather than her skin texture. “Logic…reason…they can bring about death,” he bullshits. “Happens all the time.”
“I…never thought…she would do something like that,” Shion murmurs. Whoa. WHOA. Hold the phone, there. She never thought KOS-MOS would do something like that? The same KOS-MOS that went on a bloodthirsty rampage, right in front of Shion? The same KOS-MOS that everyone in the know seems to be scared shitless of? Jesus, is it so much to ask that the game designers keep their story straight for more than five freaking minutes? No, wait. That would be like asking Squall to have sex with a woman.
I need to stop dwelling on this stuff. It’s giving me a migraine.
Jerkinov thinks it would make Shion feel a whole lot better if they talk shop about the android some more. “You programmed her basic logic architecture, right?” he asks, and I laugh, for the obvious reason. Shion affirms this, as if she didn’t get some guy she was screwing at the time to do all that silly science stuff for her. I mean, if Shion programmed KOS-MOS’s logic, then wouldn’t KOS-MOS constantly malfunction and kill people? Oh. Wait.
“I always thought of her like a daughter…” Shion tells the Commander, “or more like a friend, maybe…” Both parties understand what she means by “friend,” so it is left unspoken. The “daughter” part is a bit disturbing, though. Jerkinov tells her that Virgil probably would have croaked anyway, so she shouldn’t feel bad about the way it happened. Shion thanks him for the sentiment, thrusting her boobs at him in gratitude, before abruptly changing the subject: “I noticed you eat very neatly…” she says. Oh, I get it. She’s fishing for compliments on her goddamn curry again. “Hmm?” Jerkinov says, completely weirded out. “Ah, that’s part of who I am. At least now…that is.” This line is accompanied by my old friend the Foreshadowing Mallet, but foreshadowing of what, exactly? Of his previous life as…a sloppy bachelor? Really, I’m drawing a blank on whatever deep meaning this could possibly have.
Shion takes a seat next to the Commander, beadily eyeing him as he chokes down the last of the curry, waiting to pounce and ask him if he thought it was the best food he’s ever eaten. In yet another complete non sequitur, she asks him why he was stationed on the Hoglinde. Since he was actually there as a spy for U-GEE, he obviously gets pissy and defensive about being asked. Shion thinks he was different from the other grab-assy weirdos on the ship, thus her curiosity. “The [Ho]glinde task force was assembled hastily,” he non-answers, as he dumps his empty plate on Shion’s lap. “Besides, I’m a soldier. I’ll go to where I’m assigned.” And he re-establishes his cookie-cutter character status for good measure! Good, I was just starting to think he was interesting. That’ll show me. Shion tries to wrap her single brain cell around this mysterious conversation as Jerkinov walks out.
Very good, Shion, that IS what he said.
Out in space, I’m informed that this next scene is at Area 66, in the Rupen Sector. The first person to email me and tell me the Piercing Religious Significance of “Rupen” gets a punch in the jaw a yummy cookie! Mmm, snickerdoodles! Anyway, it’s here in the Rupen Sector that we rejoin Ziggy and MOMO. I’d be all happy, but I know who they’re soon going to meet, and so my heart is filled with sadness and pity. MOMO tells Ziggy that they’ve shaken their pursuers, and Ziggy tells us it’s only because MOMO is such a great pilot. If Ziggurat Industries hadn’t already replaced his wang with a steel codpiece and a microphone, I’m sure Ziggy would be feeling very emasculated right now.
“Oh, I’ve just received a U.M.N. pulse,” MOMO chirps. “Preparing to long-distance jump to the Federation capital of Fifth Jerusalem.” Her eyes go all wonky as she prepares the coordinates. Now Ziggy has to break the bad news to her: her mommy hates her and her white panties, and is having a weekend getaway with an ex-con named Sally, and therefore they’re supposed to go to Second Miltia, and not Fifth Jerusalem. (Aside: there have only been five New Jerusalems founded since Earth bit the dust? You’d think there’d be sixty of them in the galaxy by now.) MOMO’s face falls, and in My Puppy Died Mode, she rephrases: “All right…Now setting course for Miltian Star System.” Their little escape ship gates out.
Speaking of MOMO’s lesbian mother, it’s time to check in on her and her compadres in the Jedi Council. One of them, in a refreshing change of pace, tells us something we already know: Ziggy and MOMO are on their way to Second Miltia. Jedi Clean seems relieved that she’s almost in safe hands, since apparently she’s been a Anakin-sized headache for the Council. Lady Jedi wonders why she wasn’t sent to them instead, but one of her male betters snottily informs her, “We can’t decode the protection in that Realian here. We have to send her to the U.M.N. Control Center, located at the former Vector transfer gate control facility.” Just in case any of you wondered or cared where the U.M.N. Control Center is. I know I sure did.
“That’s right,” Jedi I Don’t Think I Named This One Last Time announces to the room, so Lady Jedi can feel even more like a worthless piece of crap for her ignorance on the matter. “Besides, the entire area within a few dozen light years of Old Miltia has been sealed off ever since that incident 14 years ago.” No way this is the same incident as the other thing that happened fourteen years ago and has been alluded to dozens of times already. That was just a really busy year. Jedi Nameless adds, “So this certainly beats traveling through regular space.” No, I don’t know, either. Moving on.
Jedi Virginia Slim snarls, “Joachim Mizrahi… You really outdid yourself this time…” Arms crossed imperiously, Jedi Virginia is obviously happy to be the first one to invoke the name of Joachim Mizrahi in the discussion. The camera shows him from behind Yuri Mizrahi’s shoulder, so we know she’s there while Jedi Virginia rags on the lover from her previous, straight life. Before he, let alone anyone else, apologizes for offending her, she says, “Oh, don’t worry about it. You’re absolutely right.” Jedi Virginia could have said “Joachim Mizrahi was born in San Dimas in 1974” and her response probably would have been the same.
Great. Windows still exists in 60xx.
Dr. Yuri and Jedi Clean banter back and forth about MOMO: blah blah blah, MOMO is the Key to the Other World, yadda yadda isn’t she MYSTERIOUS?!?!?!, blah blee I fucking hate this game. Apparently MOMO is also somehow linked to the Golden Penis Plate, given some of the exposition being slung around. A giant penis, connected to a twelve-year-old girl? No, the game designers aren’t pervs AT ALL. And we’ll see their noble purity proven again and again in this game.
Finally, Dr. Yuri pulls an image off her computer, of her ex-husband and a young boy with periwinkle hair. Apparently he was Joachim’s ass-istant, if you follow me. “Judging from the time frame, we believe [Joachim’s boy candy] was somehow involved with the Y Data,” Dr. Yuri says. No one knows anything about the kid other than that he was at the University of Bormeo (like Borneo, but with an M!) and that he was 14 at the time. Jesus, 14 really is this game’s magic number. Apparently this is enough to tell us he was a mega-genius. Not smart enough to realize his internship was just a cover for a doctor to play Hide the Thermometer, was he?
“If he’s alive, he’d be 28 years old now…” Jedi Virginia Slim announces. It’s good to know that to be a Jedi Master and get one of those cool lightsabers, one must first master the skill of simple addition. The kid is also linked with the Hilbert Effect, leading the Jedi to wonder if the kid is currently working for Vector. As long as it’s not Shion pre-sex change, I don’t give a shit who it is. The Jedi establish their primary goal–to recover the Original Golden Penis Plate, currently sealed off in Old Miltia. Yeah. This entire game is centered on who gets to the huge, glittery gold phallic object first. I wish I could say I’m surprised about this.
Loading ...Back to the Harpy Queen. She speaks again to Commander Jerkinov, who tells her the curry was “very good.” “Commander, just say “thank-you-for-dinner,” she says. I wonder what the difference is between “thank you for dinner” and “thank-you-for-dinner.” I’m sure the difference has something to do with Shion being a fucking idiot. Once Shion leaves the room and goes back into the hangar, Captain Matthews’s voice booms over the P.A., asking her to move her bubble ass back to the bridge.
The good news: Shion’s Curry Crusade has finally come to an end. The bad news: she’s got a lot more random running around the ship to do. But if I don’t stop here I might just break the record for self-injuries in one recap. Next time, we get to witness an exciting space chase complete with Michael Bay-style explosions and quippy dialogue. And Ziggy and MOMO, God help them, will have their first meeting with Shion and Gang. Surprisingly, they prove themselves stronger than I would be in their place, and don’t fling themselves out of the airlock in desperation.
At the risk of my own mental well-being, I’ll see you back here for part seven!