Neo Britannia Knightmare Frames

[Seto Kaiba]

Sorry about that, the map of Orb I found didn't have all the islands, and I haden't seen the size comparison chart.

No worries. I have yet to find a map that shows more than just the main island and the few small islands supporting their mass driver.

The ~20 islands making up the Orb Union comes from descriptive text only.

[Seto Kaiba]

So, there are finally some answers about Roze of the Recapture's badly-written plot provided by producer Goro Taneguchi buried at the back of the Autumn 2024 issue of Great Mechanics DX.

Why Hokkaido?
According to producer Taneguchi, Neo Britannia chose to invade and occupy Hokkaido in part because Hokkaido has the second-largest deposit of sakuradite in the world, surpassed only by Honshu's Mt. Fuji. Hokkaido was already somewhat susceptible to Britannian influence thanks to Sherry me Britannia having married into the family of the lord governing Hokkaido.


When was the Situmpe Wall built?
Neo Britannia didn't build the Situmpe Wall. They just finished an existing project that the Hokkaido government had started working on before the first invasion of Japan in 2010 atb.


Who designed and built the Zi-Apollo and Zi-Artemis?
The Pearl Party, a research institute founded by Rakshata Chawla, which develops weapons and equipment for the UFN's Order of Black Knights.


What Generation are the Zi-Apollo and Zi-Artemis?
Both the Zi-Apollo and Zi-Artemis are 7th Generation Knightmare Frames, albeit ones designed with higher-than-normal performance and intended to be operated within the Situmpe Wall thanks to a new, high-output drive system to offset the performance losses caused by the Situmpe Barrier.

(So I guess I wasn't that far off... the Zi-Apollo really is just a Black Knights Lancelot knockoff.)

The Zi-Ortigia, which is formed by combining the Zi-Apollo and Zi-Artemis, has performance equivalent to a 9th Generation Knightmare Frame due to the linking of the Zi-Apollo and Zi-Artemis's core luminouses to create one Knightmare with double the normal output.


Who developed the Neo Britannian Knightmares?
"White Bishop" Stanley von Braun developed the Loki autonomous weapons at Noland's order, though he was unaware of the plan to use them for mass genocide.

Noland's Foulbout was based on a custom Knightmare Frame developed in a workshop under Noland's supervision before the collapse of the Holy Britannian Empire. The Foulbout meets the criteria to be considered a 9th Generation Knightmare Frame.

The mass-produced Camden and the various custom machines used by the Einbergs were developed by Neo Britannian nobles who owned various tech firms or laboratories.


Why does Sakuya have the same geass as Lelouch?
Turns out they really did just decide to make a replacement protagonist just like Lelouch, and all they could think of to make her distinct from him was being a woman instead of a man and having the geass trigger be sound instead of sight.

(What a lack of imagination!)

[Rubybro]

Dont forget the rocket re-entry vehicle that was used during the later half of Akito for inserting an entire squad of alexanders behind enemy lines. That would certainly be capable of delivering a squad of knightmares over the barrier. Since it seems to only work above the area its positioned in when focused to do so as Sakuya's KMF and most lower altitude aircraft seem to work fine until the giant pink death cloud comes their way because its manually targeted at them via Norland's neural net.

The whole plot of roze was basically done better under through Star wars' "Bacta war" story arc decades ago. Where instead of wanting total Rebel/Japanese death, they took over Thyferra and strictly controlled the primary source of bacta in the galaxy. Much like how the initial takeover of Area 11 prior to R1 was to primarily control the largest source of sakuradite in the world. Which was just as important as its used to power just about everything in that world. Hokkaido is nowhere near mt fuji, the largest known mine of Sakuradite. Hokkaido may have been retconned to be 2nd to Mt Fuji in terms of Sakuradite deposits, but there was never any mining infrastructure shown at all in Roze. Where are the mines and the personnel to operate them? They seem to be absent from the plot even in a passing scene cut. Also having a powerful deterrent on the level of a super star destroyer helped Yvanne Issard control Thyferra and nothing short of creative tactics from Rogue Squadron could lure them away and thin her fleet through splitting them up. Roze just has a suicidal Bonzai charge at a barely manned and armed Damocles and a few kamikaze attacks over the course of the third act.

I would certainly believe the remnants of the former holy britannian empire would establish similar holdouts against the UFN, but would eventually just settle on an uneasy peace if they weren't visited by the now Immortal, Lelouch. With his intentions to completely and utterly stamp out even the smoldering ashes of Britannia. At least to rebuild some military strength. Given the Hadron cannon shooting frenzy in China during R2 would have certainly thinned some numbers on all sides and the EU was already fairly bloodied and on the run even attempting to stand toe to toe with traditional Britannian knightmares like the sutherland. Can't really blame the Akito squad for going AWOL against those odds and wouldn't put it past them to be freelance mercs at this point to pay the bills. Since they did show up in the later half of Roze. But im sure this is just putting WAY more thought into the plot of an anime than the actual writers did. There's leaving some things intentionally vague like geass up to the imagination, and then there's basic incompetence of a main conflict that makes no sense when examined with a little critical thinking.

Roze should have been set at least a century after the Zero Requiem so you don't have to really care about pre-established characters and can introduce new ones without writing yourself into a corner. But what would I know. Pointing out something that worked extremely well for Knights of the Old Republic and other star wars spinoffs like Cade Skywalker's story that are looked back fondly on. The wider fanbase seems to only care about fujoshit around suzaku x lelouch and would have condemned or outright not watched Roze or any other spinoff/sequel anyway.

[Seto Kaiba]

Much like how the initial takeover of Area 11 prior to R1 was to primarily control the largest source of sakuradite in the world.

Even that was arguably just a plausible excuse to sell the Britannian government on invasion.

There was a Thought Elevator in Japanese territory on Kaminejima, which Charles no doubt wanted for the Ragnarok Connection.

Hokkaido is nowhere near mt fuji, the largest known mine of Sakuradite. Hokkaido may have been retconned to be 2nd to Mt Fuji in terms of Sakuradite deposits, but there was never any mining infrastructure shown at all in Roze. Where are the mines and the personnel to operate them? They seem to be absent from the plot even in a passing scene cut.

Come to that, I don't recall Hokkaido's sakuradite deposits ever even being mentioned in the series proper.

If I had to guess, I'd assume that the sakuradite mines are probably inside one of the volcanoes on Hokkaido like Mt. Asahi.

It's possible the mines are colocated with one of the Britannian strongholds, though I don't believe either the central government building nor the palace ever have a specific location named.

I would certainly believe the remnants of the former holy britannian empire would establish similar holdouts against the UFN, but would eventually just settle on an uneasy peace if they weren't visited by the now Immortal, Lelouch. With his intentions to completely and utterly stamp out even the smoldering ashes of Britannia.

Lelouch wasn't out to stamp out the remains of Britannia... most of the former Britannian Empire broke up and went back to self-governing under their original national identities, while the Britannian homeland in North America reorganized itself into a constitutional republic and joined the UFN.

Mind you, the series seems to want to imply the Neo Britannians are a mixture of bitter former nobility who want the return of the power and prestige they had before Emperor Lelouch deprived them of their lands and titles, regular Britannians who couldn't hack it in egalitarian society, and Britannian expats living and working in former Areas who faced discrimination and harassment from former Numbers.

All things considered, Noland's (public) plan to reestablish the Holy Britannian Empire by occupying and fortifying Hokkaido should have read as pure gun-eating insanity to basically any Britannian with an ounce of common sense. Their new "Emperor" was a child and obviously a puppet for Noland himself, they had a single order of Knights (the Einbergs) who were of signficantly lower quality than the Rounds, and a barely-operational Damocles they stole from In Vogue along with a handful of FLEIJA rounds smuggled out of Britannian arms stockpiles before the Zero Requiem. Anyone sane could've been forgiven for thinking it was an obvious trap meant to lure out the remaining Britannian hardliners so the Black Knights could finish the job. That it actually WORKED is even less believable, with Neo Britannian holding Hokkaido for four years without the Black Knights coming up with any countermeasures for the Wall.

But im sure this is just putting WAY more thought into the plot of an anime than the actual writers did. There's leaving some things intentionally vague like geass up to the imagination, and then there's basic incompetence of a main conflict that makes no sense when examined with a little critical thinking.

Considering what the producer had to say about it in Great Mechanics DX, I'm convinced we can all reasonably claim to have thought this out way more intensely than anyone who actually worked on it.

Roze should have been set at least a century after the Zero Requiem so you don't have to really care about pre-established characters and can introduce new ones without writing yourself into a corner. But what would I know.

They wouldn't have even needed to move it that far out... all they needed to do was set it somewhere else and not just blindly repeat the plot of R1 and R2. They set out to make a sequel and did it in the laziest possible manner.

It's enough to make you wonder how many times Japan is going to be invaded in Bandai Namco's ten year plan for Code Geass. Are they just going to keep subdividing Japan until we have to hear about how New Neo Axis Britannia's "Cufflinked" have invaded the second stall in the men's bathroom of the Lawson's near the train station in Gifu?

[Rubybro]

Yeah Charles did want the thought elevator. Though the Ragnarok Connection wasn't really presented as a world ending threat that it probably was when he was talking about tearing apart reality to allow the living and the dead to live together. Would have been nice to get some anti-geass user KMF units out of that whole arc where they purged the geass order and some unaware pilots were killed by them. Not knowing how dangerous they really are. At least they have those anti-geass helmets in Roze. I thought that was a nice addition that should have saw more use at least amongst elite pilots or some kind of geass dampening field with specialized mass produced units on a larger scale than Sakuya's Necklace. Since the technology is clearly already there attached to Sakuya at all times.

Hokkaido was not ever mentioned in the context of Sakuradite in the original series but I would have been open to the idea if they simply showed something about it being used to arm and supply new neo britannian KMFs. Just a short factory scene or something was all that was needed. Like what they did with the new Japanese resistance knightmares introduced half way through the story to replace the akatsukis.

As for "stamping out the remnants of britannia", I was more referencing the post-credits scene of R3 where lelouch is with CC standing over a mass grave of refugees in the woods talking about taking Geass from unworthy users. They are seeking out Geass ruins for something but I guess its not to ascend to the next plane of existence like the Geass Civilization before them might have done.

I think after the negative reception of R3 being set in the middle east in their equivalent of Saudi Arabia ruled by a Dynasty of Geass Warlords who had the galaxy brained decision to provoke a military response from Lelouch to get to CC even with multiple timeline loops where he would have let things go if they simply handed over Nunnally unharmed and CC would have begrudgingly answered their questions peacefully, they decided not to try that again.

That's a funny parody and probably what they would try to do and make it the plot of a gacha cashgrab like lost stories while they're at it.

[ShadowCell]

It's enough to make you wonder how many times Japan is going to be invaded in Bandai Namco's ten year plan for Code Geass. Are they just going to keep subdividing Japan until we have to hear about how New Neo Axis Britannia's "Cufflinked" have invaded the second stall in the men's bathroom of the Lawson's near the train station in Gifu?

clearly you underestimate the strategic location of the second stall. it commands the entire restroom and it is the gateway to the critical heartland of the sinks. if people are unable to wash their hands in the men's bathroom of the Lawson's near the train station in Gifu, then surely all Japan must fall.

[Rubybro]

Once the black knights discovered they neo britannian discord server they routed all their bots through, it was game over for the roomba droid army. When the server was banned, it turned them useless scrapheaps with no ai left to pilot them without firing a single shot.

Was a completely foolproof plan on neo britannia’s part. there’s no way they could comprehend being arbitrarily banned on DISCORD. They simply didn’t join those servers.

[Rubybro]

What exactly was the point of even having neo britannian KMFs when a submarine deployed giant roomba droid army was always the endgame for some reason?

[Seto Kaiba]

What exactly was the point of even having neo britannian KMFs when a submarine deployed giant roomba droid army was always the endgame for some reason?

For obvious reasons (PR suicide), Lord Noland couldn't make his plan to Kill All Humans with an army of unmanned Knightmares public knowledge. So even the designer of the Lokis had to be kept in the dark about their actual intended use, and they weren't actually ready for deployment until 4 years after they occupied Hokkaido.

Neo Britannia needed a conventional army with Knightmare Frames to launch their invasion of Hokkaido in the first place. Knightmare Frames had become the default weapon of war thanks to the Holy Britannian Empire's use of them in its final years, and so Neo Britannia knew they would have Knightmare Frame-armed defense forces to overcome in order to successfully occupy Hokkaido.

Then, of course, they had to hold that territory. That meant needing armed forces to suppress the local population and put down any resistance... a resistance that would almost certainly be equipped with leftover Knightmares from the defeated Japanese armed forces. They'd need Knightmares for that, both to intimidate and overpower the population and to repel a Knightmare assault by resistance forces. Getting the Situmpe Wall running would temporarily reduce the risk of the Black Knights launching a counter-invasion of Hokkaido, but they had no way of knowing if that would last forever as a deterrent either since the Black Knights had multiple "mad scientist" researchers responsible for huge innovations in weapons tech like Rakshata Chawla, Lloyd Asplund, and Nina Einstein.

Plus, of course, it's also a matter of national pride. Neo Britannia sees itself as a direct continuation of the Holy Britannian Empire. That's why they crowned Callis al Britannia as the 100th Emperor and Sakuya Sumeragi me Britannia as the 101st not as the 1st and 2nd. Knightmare Frames were invented in the Empire and were the cornerstone of its military power in the 2010s atb. It could be said that they are emblematic of Britannia's glory years of power and prestige that Neo Britannia is ostensibly trying to return to.

[Rubybro]

What exactly was the point of even having neo britannian KMFs when a submarine deployed giant roomba droid army was always the endgame for some reason?

For obvious reasons (PR suicide), Lord Noland couldn't make his plan to Kill All Humans with an army of unmanned Knightmares public knowledge. So even the designer of the Lokis had to be kept in the dark about their actual intended use, and they weren't actually ready for deployment until 4 years after they occupied Hokkaido.

Neo Britannia needed a conventional army with Knightmare Frames to launch their invasion of Hokkaido in the first place. Knightmare Frames had become the default weapon of war thanks to the Holy Britannian Empire's use of them in its final years, and so Neo Britannia knew they would have Knightmare Frame-armed defense forces to overcome in order to successfully occupy Hokkaido.

Then, of course, they had to hold that territory. That meant needing armed forces to suppress the local population and put down any resistance... a resistance that would almost certainly be equipped with leftover Knightmares from the defeated Japanese armed forces. They'd need Knightmares for that, both to intimidate and overpower the population and to repel a Knightmare assault by resistance forces. Getting the Situmpe Wall running would temporarily reduce the risk of the Black Knights launching a counter-invasion of Hokkaido, but they had no way of knowing if that would last forever as a deterrent either since the Black Knights had multiple "mad scientist" researchers responsible for huge innovations in weapons tech like Rakshata Chawla, Lloyd Asplund, and Nina Einstein.

Plus, of course, it's also a matter of national pride. Neo Britannia sees itself as a direct continuation of the Holy Britannian Empire. That's why they crowned Callis al Britannia as the 100th Emperor and Sakuya Sumeragi me Britannia as the 101st not as the 1st and 2nd. Knightmare Frames were invented in the Empire and were the cornerstone of its military power in the 2010s atb. It could be said that they are emblematic of Britannia's glory years of power and prestige that Neo Britannia is ostensibly trying to return to.

I can believe the occupation force. But after a point its kind of weird how they just had things like a Damocles lying around. Since in R2 there was only 1 as something Schniezel had made similar to the Gawain. Except we dont see more gawains flying around after its introduction besides maybe the mordred. Which I think one of the Einsburg nobles should have had a copy of.

I still find it sad that the only thing that kept the Japanese remotely competent from a military standpoint was some foreigner boy with geass powers in the form of Lelouch. Without him they fell back on their laurels and got bodied by the first remotely organized combatant or they started panicking with no real command structure beneath Zero besides maybe Ohgi or Tohdo in R2. That's when they weren't repeating WW2 kamikaze stereotypes.

[Seto Kaiba]

I can believe the occupation force. But after a point its kind of weird how they just had things like a Damocles lying around. Since in R2 there was only 1 as something Schniezel had made similar to the Gawain. Except we dont see more gawains flying around after its introduction besides maybe the mordred. Which I think one of the Einsburg nobles should have had a copy of.

The Damocles was a massive investment in resources and materiel... it's not surprising they only had one of them flight-capable by the time the Zero Requiem effectively shut the book on the Holy Britannian Empire.

If you think about it, Charles and Schneizel would've needed multiple Damocles units to suppress the entire world because ICBMs don't exist in the Code Geass timeline. The FLEIJA's a borderline line-of-sight weapon the way the Damocles launches it. It can GO anywhere, but it can't be everywhere at once.

We DO technically see more Gawains, though. Like the Lancelot and Vincent, the Gawain has a mass production type in the Gareth. Cornelia's Glaston Knights take to the field in Gareths late in R2.

https://www.mahq.net/rpi-v4l/

I still find it sad that the only thing that kept the Japanese remotely competent from a military standpoint was some foreigner boy with geass powers in the form of Lelouch. Without him they fell back on their laurels and got bodied by the first remotely organized combatant or they started panicking with no real command structure beneath Zero besides maybe Ohgi or Tohdo in R2. That's when they weren't repeating WW2 kamikaze stereotypes.

Well, that is Hokkaido rather than Honshu where the Black Rebellion was... and according to Roze of the Recapture's setting documents the UFN has the world in a period of gradual disarmament. Hokkaido supposedly suffered less under the original occupation too thanks to the influence of Sherry me Britannia and her half-Japanese daughter.

Ultimately, they had the same problem again where the military wasn't enough and they had to fall back on civilian volunteers who really weren't up to the level of Britannia's professional soldiers. This is what they were SUPPOSED to have the Black Knights for, as a UFN member state.

[Rubybro]

Im not sure why the fandom doesn't take the source material seriously. Neo Britannia or some other balkanized faction of the Former Holy Britannian Empire would make a legitimately interesting setting or premise just staying the hell away from Japan. Could even tap further into more geass mysteries and anomalies with specialized KMFs designed for traversing C's world. Which could be a sufficient explanation for flight units bring introduced as they were necessary in R2 during Lelouch's confrontation with Charles. This was also technically how they were introduced via the Gawain on Kamane Island in R1.

[Seto Kaiba]

Im not sure why the fandom doesn't take the source material seriously. Neo Britannia or some other balkanized faction of the Former Holy Britannian Empire would make a legitimately interesting setting or premise just staying the hell away from Japan.

Probably because the creators themselves aren't taking it THAT seriously... it is just a TV show, after all, and it has its fair share of goofy moments in intentional and unintentional ways.

The problem with the whole "Neo Britannia" premise is that Britannia itself was pretty thoroughly declawed by Lelouch prior to the Zero Requiem. He went out of his way to purge it of the old guard and reform its institutions even before Schneizel helped by vaporizing the old capital and many of the hidebound old nobility. Neo Britannia was always going to feel trite and cliched, because it's just Britannia doing Britannia things again despite them not having the power and resources that let them do those things in the first place.

Could even tap further into more geass mysteries and anomalies with specialized KMFs designed for traversing C's world. Which could be a sufficient explanation for flight units bring introduced as they were necessary in R2 during Lelouch's confrontation with Charles. This was also technically how they were introduced via the Gawain on Kamane Island in R1.

In fairness, the Gawain wasn't for exploring C's world... it was on Kaminejima because a Knightmare Frame was a convenient way to deliver a large, high-powered computer system to a research outpost and a float unit was convenient because it was an undeveloped island and most Knightmares are designed for urban warfare.

[Mafty]

At least Akito the EXiled tried to expand the worldbuilding, by focusing largely on a contient (Europe) and Government (Europia United) that haden't been previous explored as much.

[Seto Kaiba]

At least Akito the EXiled tried to expand the worldbuilding, by focusing largely on a contient (Europe) and Government (Europia United) that haden't been previous explored as much.

It does... though it would probably have been more effective in that regard if not for two things:

• Setting the story on the European front, which R2 had already established was a largely inconsequential theater in the Britannian Empire's wars of global conquest. The story ends up being a largely inconsequential sideshow to a conflict that was itself a largely inconsequential sideshow.
• Setting the story between R1 and R2, which made it too easy to give into temptation and have characters from the main series cross over, leaving the protagonist overshadowed in their own story by the far more impactful characters of Lelouch and Suzaku.

Of course, they were probably kind of screwed on that first point regardless of where they set it because everyone in the world was fighting a losing war against Britannia until the nations that hadn't been annexed by Britannia yet banded together as the UFN and put their militaries under the Black Knights. Anywhere and any-when within the scope of the original show's timeline was going to lead to anywhere Lelouch isn't being a meaningless conflict with no chance of victory.