Marianne the Flash and the Rich Lineage of Knightmare Frames

[ianiceboy.livejournal.com]

"In the deciding battle for the mainland, the Britannian forces introduced the humanoid autonomous battle armoured knight known as the Knightmare Frame into actual combat." — DVD subtitles

"In the deciding battle for the mainland, Britannian forces introduced into combat the humanoid autonomous armoured knight, known as the Knightmare Frame." — English dub

Surprise! We just unveiled giant robots that can shoot you.

Marianne Lamperouge's history and the development of Knightmare Frames are difficult for me to reconcile, despite having watched this thing eight times, read and watched much of the C-canon (picture dramas, most of the novels, DVD booklets), and even a lot of the S-canon (manga that in a few places didn't directly contradict the show). The Code Geass Wiki has also been helpful, reminding me of things I've forgotten and telling me things that I never knew.

Basically, this is my problem: If Knightmare Frames were introduced into actual combat in 2010, how could Marianne vi Britannia have been a hotshot knightmare pilot in 2009 and earlier?

I guess that Britannia used more conventional means to conquer Areas 1 through 10, and I realise that the Knightmare Frame did not become a weapon in its earliest generations, but the Knights of the Round seem to have been around first, and Marianne definitely duelled Waldstein before her untimely death. If, indeed, she was in the Knights of the Round when she met Charles, for how many of the eleven or more years before the Second Pacific War did she test-pilot the third-generation Ganymede? And if these machines used by the most honoured knights of this world-conquering nation were used in an assault for the first time in Japan, I wonder if the first ten hard-fought wars could have been made a lot easier.

That said, I don't recall seeing any weapons on the Ganymede that weren't put there by some Einstein, so could all of Marianne's Knight of Sixiness and duelling been without Knightmare Frames? After all, I did see her with a horse in the flashback in R2e21.

Please correct anything I've misstated. If you can shed any more light on this, I'd be appreciative!

Edit: Here is what I have learnt in the comments to this post.
unedited: "Marianne was awarded knighthood because of her skill piloting the third-generation prototype Ganymede."
otakukeith: "It seems to be established that she was a badass hand-to-hand fighter - in the novels, she dual-wields swords, kills the former Knight of One in single combat during a rebellion against Charles, and can beat Cornelia, Nonette and Beatrice (a character who I think was a failed KoR candidate and became their liason officer thingy) by herself."

Comments

[shanejayell.livejournal.com]

She could have been a hotshot pilot of experimental and/or in development models. Just because they were combat introduced in 2010 doesn't mean they weren't around, after all. It just meant they weren't combat ready.

(My own opinion, of course. Does canon say anything to contradict that?)

[snowdevil-crow.livejournal.com]

There's that, too. I was just rewatching ep 21 and they were discussing the fact that Ganymede was of a completely different make from most other Knightmares.

[megalomaniageek.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that always kind of bugged me too, although I have never given it much thought. Maybe it's like Evangelion, where all of the battles of interest to the story take place before the robots are set to be mass-produced? After all, Lancelot and the Gawain are both prototypes, and I'm pretty sure the Ganymede is either very rare or one-of-a-kind. It also doesn't really make sense to have the fifth generation Knightmares be the first in combat (Ganymede was third, and iirc the fourth was some kind of weird amphibious mech). The Ganymede doesn't really have weapons on it, but it may have just been disarmed after Marianne's death.
It's also possible that the show was misleading, implying that Marianne's famed prowess was with Knightmares rather than with conventional weaponry when in fact she gained her nickname before Knightmare combat, but...that kind of doesn't make much sense either from a storytelling perspective.

[ianiceboy.livejournal.com]

Slight correction:

Glasgow was fourth generation and used in the 2010 invasion. Kallen had a red one.
Sutherland was fifth generation, and it was current in 2017. Mostly purple.
The sixth generation is the missing one.

[megalomaniageek.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I went and checked Wikipedia (where I originally got the information a few months~a year ago when I was looking up Knightmare heights for a fic) after I saw some comments here with different information, but I don't have an edit comment function.
It's more likely that I'm just remembering it wrong than it being changed, but I could've sworn Glasgows were fifth and Sutherlands were sixth; ATM Glasgows share fourth generation with the weird amphibious mechs I mentioned. Frankly I think it makes more sense the way it is now than the way I remembered it, considering Ganymede was third generation and the Glasgows were used only a year after Lelouch was kicked out of Britannia.

[megalomaniageek.livejournal.com]

Also, I still posit that the Knightmare Generation system makes no sense because why is the sixth missing, why are they making a prototype eighth generation (Gawain) when the prototype seventh generation Knightmare (Lancelot) is brand new and not even in mass production yet...not to mention that as soon as seventh generation is mass-produced, ninth generation Knightmares come along (the Guren S.E.I.T.E.N. and Lancelot Albion). Either the writers are missing the meaning of "generation" or I am. (And considering that most Knights of the Round reportedly have eighth generation Knightmares, it's kind of amazing that Suzaku still seems to kick just so much ass with his seventh generation one.)
Also, they go from "widely using fifth generation" to "rolling out ninth generation" in ONE. YEAR. Yes, I know technology advances rapidly during wartime, but it's still ridiculous. I think it would've made more sense to start with sixth generation Knightmares+seventh generation prototypes in season one, then go to seventh generation Knightmares+eighth generation prototypes in season two.
It doesn't really bother me when I'm watching the show because hey, it's a giant robot show; a constant stream of new and better technology is needed for the sake of entertainment. It's just that upon examination it's hard to make sense of it.

[syaoranmew.livejournal.com]

Nightmare Frames were "introduced in combat" in 2010. That means they were already tested, which leads to one obvious conclusion: they existed back on 2009 - or even a little time before that, for that matter.

She could've been one of the testers, I wonder? Kinda interesting to think that Marianne had a foot on war technology.

[drakyndra.livejournal.com]

I agree with this, pretty much. If they were advanced enough in 2010 that significant numbers of the army were using them - and so, that there was mainstream production going on - they had to have been in the process of developing them for several years, at the very least.

Someone had to test pilot the early models, and Marianne's the most likely prospect. "First Knightmare Pilot ever" looks good on the resume, especially if the pilot's competent enough to have a bit of flare.

[sincere]

I always thought she was pretty explicitly a test pilot. That's her connection to the Ashford family: they were financing the project and she was testing it. According to this history of KMFs, Marianne was awarded knighthood because of her skill piloting the third-generation prototype Ganymede. They're not introduced in real combat until 2010 with the fourth-generation, but there's clearly several generations of KMF before that.

[kiraya.livejournal.com]

This was the impression I had as well.

[ianiceboy.livejournal.com]

"Marianne was awarded knighthood because of her skill piloting the third-generation prototype Ganymede"

This makes a lot of sense.

[fox-holland.livejournal.com]

I always imagined that Knight of Rounds performed testing for the Ganymede models through duels because with just Marianne around, it was the new "rule of cool", even if they were still limited to cables. Perhaps it was even ordered by the Emperor to sanctify and as a way to introduce Knightmare training, so as to realize the mechanisms of a new age of war, for his combat elite.

[snowdevil-crow.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty sure she was a test pilot for them

Which means she was also a badass fighter hand-to-hand, since that's how she got the placement of Knight anyway.

Damn, Marianne's cool.

[otakukeith.livejournal.com]

It seems to be established that she was a badass hand-to-hand fighter - in the novels, she dual-wields swords, kills the former Knight of One in single combat during a rebellion against Charles, and can beat Cornelia, Nonette and Beatrice (a character who I think was a failed KoR candidate and became their liason officer thingy) by herself.

[ianiceboy.livejournal.com]

This is awesome information! Do you happen to recall which novel this is from?