Warning: nerdiness ahead

[loqi.livejournal.com]

Hello all! This is my first post to this community, even though I've been lurking for several weeks.

Unfortunately, I bear no gifts. Instead I have a transcription of what I thought is interesting in ep.7 on Suzaku's textbook.

The dots represent missing text and brackets represent my own words.

"... of Henry IX, son of the great [Elizabeth I?]... flourished as never before.
While other European countries stagnated assailed by waves of people's revolutions and parliamentarization, England held fast to absolute monarchy, and saw continued development through the reigns of King Henry X and Edward VI thanks to the wealth produced by the New World." 

This tells us that Britannia came from an England that never gave way to constitutional monarchy. From the sounds of it in ep.3 and here, Queen Elizabeth I did marry and had a son named Henry IX, who doesn't actually exist in our world. So there would've been no Act of Union between Scotland and England and the English Civil War would not have happened. The kings after him are pretty powerful rulers too and that could be why the American revolution didn't happen or was won by the British.

Sorry for the extreme nerdiness there, but I've always liked British royal family history, even fictional ones. ^^;; I hope it's not too spam-ish.

By the way am I the only one who is grateful that they have someone who knows English to write these things?

Comments

[verity-isle.livejournal.com]

Did you notice how the three-pronged Geasslike symbol shown (more clearly) in the semi-second OP looks like a simplified version of the Britannian fleur-de-lis thing? And there's how he was talking about Clovis.

Well, I was thinking about it more due to his "Strange dreams will only land you in trouble" comment to Rivalz in episode 1. There was pretty much no reason for him to lie then, he could have another fib that's more realistic ("Yeah, that's why the stuff they teach in school's not that important", "No, why would I want to do something so boring?") so at least it has to be somewhat indicative of his degree of powerlessness. It sounds fatalistic and somewhat resigned...and he seemed to think that his days of freedom are numbered to the point Ashfords decide to stop hiding him. It makes me wonder if Lelouch actually had confidence in his plans at all, if he did have anything practical in his head by then.

[loqi.livejournal.com]

Havn't seen the semi-new OP yet, since my Japanese is minimal I only download subs. That Clovis thing was weird. Did he mean he was talking to Clovis at that moment when he is already dead? Or he talked to Clovis before his death.

It sounds fatalistic and somewhat resigned...and he seemed to think that his days of freedom are numbered to the point Ashfords decide to stop hiding him.

Hmm... true. *sigh* Poor Lulu. Speaking of Ashfords, Milly's mother seems adament to build up their family status again. It probably won't do them any good if it is revealed that they have been hiding Lelouch and Nunnally for so long.

Btw, I notice you double-posted, do you want me to delete the first one?

[verity-isle.livejournal.com]

Damn, LJ sucks. Yes, please. D:

Judging from the Japanese script, he was talking to the post mortem Clovis. If so, it's highly likely that he knows what Lelouch is doing and possibly about the Geass.

I'm still wondering why they're hiding them, specifically. Sure they may have some sort of relation, but providing them with first class education and everything...this is probably the romanticist in me, but I keep expecting Old Man Ashford to have something not entirely altruistic in mind when he took them in. Of course, Lelouch doesn't talk like he's a pawn moving from board to board, but it'd explain a bit of his 'dead life'-ness, if he still lives eating from someone else's hand and waiting to see which way he'd be used.

[loqi.livejournal.com]

Comment deleted. :D

Hmm... post-mortum Clovis... Maybe the Emperor can speak to ghosts? XD Do inherent supernatural abilities exist in their world I wonder. Ah yes, this way he would know his son is still alive and wreaking the kind of havoc he approves.

Re Ashford: Hmm, I wonder if he really would be able to use Lelouch though. He has obviously fallen from grace, and if he really wants the Ashford family to rise up again Lelouch is not going to be much help. I do agree with you that Lulu is probably feeling helpless and used.

Also, why is the Ashford family in Japan in the first place? Is it really coincidence that Lelouch and Nunnally is sent to a country where their supporting family has already taken root? Did the Ashfords follow Lelouch to exile?

[verity-isle.livejournal.com]

Re Ashford : That's the one argument that shoots down the theory, yes. If anything, he'd gain more by giving both of them back to Britannia the first chance he gets. Unless there's something we're not seeing, in which case it's as good as altruism as a guess.

Re That Last Question : I'm still not even sure why Lelouch was sent to Japan in the first place. Even if he's fallen from grace, he's still got his uses. So unlike the Emperor not to make every card in hand count...he did say that Lelouch makes a good bargaining chip. Bargaining for what? And why did they attack Japan right then? It doesn't make much sense to do something so elaborate just to get rid of him and/or Marianne's line, and I doubt Marianne's killers had the authority to launch THAT offensive. You'd think Lelouch would have more faith in humanity, though,if the Ashfords were loyal enough to follow him into exile and give away their chances of rising in Europe. Maybe it's like the English companies in India? But they're supposedly there before shit happens...

[loqi.livejournal.com]

Actually the Emperor sending the two of them to Japan reminds me of Ancient China where one country sends a prince to another country to be held as, really, a hostage. This prevents the country from attacking because they can kill that prince anytime they want. So maybe this is what the Emperor was trying to do, send a messege to Japan that he has no intention of attacking (for now anyway). When in actuality, he didn't really care if Lelouch and Nunnully died or not.

As for what they are "bargaining" for, I really don't know. The Emperor did send the kids away a year before he attacked Japan.

You don't suppose the Ashfords were sent to spy on Japan or as some kind of ambassador?

[verity-isle.livejournal.com]

I thought of that, too, but isn't it a little odd for 2010? The Emperor has a lot of princes to spare, sure, but they don't really need the gesture if they were already gobbling up land right and left. If anything, an outwards gesture of friendship/trust plus putting themselves on bases everywhere surrounding Japan is a little suspect. You'd think Japan would see right through it. And they didn't need to do so if Knightmare Frames were so crushing.

Hey, that's possible. They could be spying by opening up a school, perhaps act as an equipment provider during the war. (This is assuming they DID opened the school in pre-imperial Japan) Ambassadors would require they replace the current ones stationed in Japan, and that seems a little excessive as a message. Unless they're there to facilitate whatever deal the Emperor wanted to make. But then again, what deal is cheap enough for two useless children?

[loqi.livejournal.com]

Re hostages: right... it was the weaker country that sends the hostage. Kinda figured it was a weak theory to begin with because, like you said, it happened in modern times. Though 2010 atb is probably not the same as 2010 AD, if the Emperor is really the 98th emperor of Britannia then (depending on when they start counting) they could be hundreds of years ahead of us.

As for the military bases though, I thought they were already there, even before they thought of invading Japan.

I think another weird thing is that they lived with the Prime Minister, which indicates some kind of constitutional monarchy. Why not live with the royal family of Japan? It's like they're guests to the Prime Minister instead of some kind of international and political deal.

Re Ashfords: Yes, maybe they were there for the deal... or maybe hmm... Old man Ashford (I think his name is Reuben) was playing chaperone for the kids? His family could come to Japan after the war was over. I still like the spy idea best though. XD

[verity-isle.livejournal.com]

Oh heck, I didn't think of that. But it doesn't seem so far removed from our own age, considering that tanks and airplane designs didn't seem too innovative (although I haven't seen anything like that hulking transport/air-to-ground assault plane in the Ep-1's opening either). What do you think atb stands for, though? It's the Holy Calendar, but I know not any Latin and thus it stumps me. Anno something Britannicus?

Well, yes, but they still need to deploy troops there. And if the surrounding countries were yet neutral, it'd be an obvious gesture.

Yeah...it's weird. If it's a state visit, they should've been given royal accomdations. Unless it's a private visit, and I have no idea what Britannia can hope to gain from that. Maybe the Prime Minister's office is not dissimiliar from the shogunate?

I also liked the spy idea best. XD Someone should write a fic on it, actually. Ashford 007, it'd be awesome.

[loqi.livejournal.com]

I thought of anno something Britannicus too. I think Wiki says "after the battle", which is kind of odd. It could mean some kind of historical battle that was decisive for Britannia as an empire of something but I don't really trust Wiki on this one.

I was trying to figure out how long Britannia existed in order to have 98 kings (the things I do when I should be studying finals >_>). Currently Britain is having its 39th monarch (about 39 anyway). But then there's also the English Civil War so I had to count Cromwall and his son. I even added Lady Jane Grey to the number because I'm sure 9 day monarchs can happen to Britannia to. So the number I had was 42, and divided it with 940, and that gave me 23.38 years on average per king. Times that by 98 is 2193 years.

My first reaction was: "that can't be right, the technology is not THAT advanced that they can be 1000 years ahead of us" (even with the Knightmare Frames). So it depended very much on when they started counting: did they count the Anglo-Saxon kings? Did Britannian history change before Elizabeth I as well? And how long did each king lived? There could be a lot of in-fighting between the siblings on who should be king and one of them replaced the other quickly.

Maybe the Prime Minister's office is not dissimiliar from the shogunate?

Hmmm... interesting. Toudou and his camp seems to think that PM Kururugi gave up to Britannia too quickly. So it's possible they controled the army.

I kind of imagined him as an eccentric old man who actually sees a lot (it's where Milly gets it from). But that's just me and uhh... too much Harry Potter.

[verity-isle.livejournal.com]

If it's 'after the battle', it'd have to be a very old battle, one that would predate the current version of English by centuries at least. Unless they named it afterwards, possibly related to Ragnarok? Of course, 'after the battle' as a name synonymous to 'Holy Calendar' the way the Japanese sites cited it is majorly weird, and I join you in not trusting Wikipedia.

You have a point there. I guess they might have counted the Anglo-Saxon kings if they wanted/needed to show how their bloodlines pwn everybody else (the Japanese Imperial Family does this), and maybe, like you said, it's the infighting. The Jin dynasty went through 14 Emperors in scarcely a century, and their family lines seemed less hilariously convoluted than what the Britannia family is right now, at least judging from how cutthroat the Emperor is. Replace the War of the Roses with the War of the Eight Princes, anyone? Could actually have something to do with why they use this current Royal Family system, too, with everyone standing up neatly in line so people can't stand up and claim the throne so easily when someone's been murdered. I'm pretty sure that they didn't grant Prince/Princess titles so haphazardly in the Elizabethan era.

The Kururugi clan seemed to be old, too, which fits the bar nicely. And Suzaku told...Yuffie, IIRC?...that his father had to die in that war, and though I got the impression that he did ritual suicide at first, it sounded more like he had to die in the war. So there's circumstantial evidence, at least.

I actually like your idea. :D Say, is it possible that whatever 'deal' the Emperor was proposing by throwing Lelouch in the Kururugi residence was just a front for Ashford/James Bond 007/Generic Spyman to plant a basis for the conquest? Similiar to the hostage idea. It might explain how Lelouch is not all too appreciative of the Ashfords shielding him. (Watch canon obliterate this theory in two or three weeks)

[loqi.livejournal.com]

Unless they named it afterwards, possibly related to Ragnarok?

Oooh... I like this idea. The keyword here is probably the "again" when the Emperor mentioned Ragnarok. Maybe some catastrophic (even apocolytic) event happened before. I am curious though, how do the Japanese sites equate 'Holy Calendar' with 'after the battle'?

Re in-fighting: They definitely emphasize quite a bit on who is before or after whom to the throne. The numbers are practically part of their title. Heck, I think it is part of their title, like the 'Prince of Wales' is to the crown prince of Britain, Lelouch is the '17th heir to the throne'.

I am a little confused at how they put the 1st, 2nd and 3rd in front of the title Prince/Princess. I know Lelouch is the 11th Prince according to the manga, but Euphemia is the 3rd Princess but a year younger than Lelouch. If they are lining the kids up to the throne by age, I don't see how he is just the 17th successor. Something else for me to work out I guess.

Re Kururugi: Yeah, I've been wondering about why Suzaku stated it that way (yeah, it was to Yuffie).

Re Ashford: Hmm... that could be it. Though if he is truely working for the Emperor, what's in it for him to protect Lelouch and Nunnally? Unless the Emperor actually has uses for Lelouch later and ordered Ashford to protect him secretly...?

By the way, did you notice in ep. 9 that Cornelia mentioned battle has broken out with the EU at El Alamein? I thought it very very interesting. El Alamein was an important battle ground between the Axis and the Allies in WWII because it had access to the Suez Canal.

I am a little unsure of what she meant by the transportation route to China Federation though. Was she still talking about the drug?

[verity-isle.livejournal.com]

CC's aliens invaded Earth? *dodges flying bullets* Okay, I'm serious now. XD

Er, my mistake with English. The Japanese don't equate "Holy Calendar" with "after the battle", but they do with "a.t.b.". I was trying to say that since Holy Calendar = atb, it'd be really weird if atb = after the battle. It could sort of work if the battle was some sort of a holy battle (and if it's Ragnarok, it better be) but that's relying on the creator's English skills, at best.

Yeah, they seem to refer to each other by their claims, though it seems the better claimants used their xth Prince/Princess listing instead. Possibly by the date of marriage/wife ranking for their mothers? Marianne was Empress, sure, but we have no idea what they call--say--Schneizel's mother. It could be by rights of succession according to parentage first, age later.

I only watched Ep. 9 once because work piled (it sucks, believe me) but that's really interesting. So the EU wasn't just sitting around powerless, after all. They really seemed to be in a stage of Unhappy with their neighbours. The question is, is this a semi-regular/foreseen skirmish, or an all-out frontal attack? And there's the importance of the Suez Canal...if Britannia's shipping lines need to go around there...I'll have to look at the map first, though.

I thought Britannian transportation to China would be easy. After all, they have Japan, and Japan is quite close to China. If Britannia still rules the waves, getting the drug from America (what name would that area use, I wonder) shouldn't be difficult.

[loqi.livejournal.com]

CC's aliens invaded Earth?

That sounds entirely plausible to me. :D

Re a.t.b.: *nod* their English skills (or lack thereof) is something to take into consideration. I am hoping that they consulted someone who is skilled in English about this though. Judging from the passage I transcribed, they do have someone who knows it well, unless they hired a professional translator?

Re succession: Yeah, I figured out it was ranking by mother after my earlier post. Maybe all of the Emperor's wives are dubbed Empresses?

semi-regular/foreseen skirmish, or an all-out frontal attack

I say skirmish. The areas west of Egypt had all been European territory while Britain took over Egypt at some point. Assuming those territories never gained their independence, EU can be squabbling with Britannia in a semi-regular fashion for Suez Canal.

Re transportation to China: So she is still talking about the drug and plans to send it over to China. American could be Area 1, or just North America. Canada was called British North America. I can't see either of them being just an Area though.

Re Ashford: Yeah, I can see the Emperor disposing him after his mission was completed. As for cultivating the two royals...maybe? If he can see potential in Lelouch... but they are both dead on paper, so it's rather optimistic of Ashford to think that way.

[verity-isle.livejournal.com]

OT, I was thinking about the prospect of Lelouch being a Tudor and it amuses me to no end.

The onscreen English does seem uncommonly nice up to this point, though there are small WTFs here and there. I think someone caught "Honored Britannian" a while back? Maybe it'll be listed in the credit, but I think whoever knew English was on the crew.

The African Theater had never been my forte, but that seems just about right. I'm pretty sure the ownership of territories are different from our world, but the canal would be important all the same. Could the middleeast battle be related to this particular conflict? (And it's amusing and awesome to think of Democratic Paragon EEU having colonial territories)

Hmmm...I think Wiki said that Britain was going to call the tentative English territory something else before it became Columbia. Some explorer's name...North America alienates less, though. And yeah, I can't see them being called Areas, either. They seem more like an integrated part of the empire.

It's a huge stretch, I know. I'm throwing out wild theories on the go. Or he took them in because he had no choice, to leave them for dead or to show them would end in some unhappy fate or the other---which would also explain why Lelouch is so faithless in mankind?

[loqi.livejournal.com]

Heehee, personally I think it explains all the wives the emperor has.

Yeah, think it was "Honorable Britannian" instead of "Honored Britannian".

Could the middleeast battle be related to this particular conflict?

Possibly? I think Cornelia was either claiming a new territory or squashing down some resistance in Area 18. Maybe EEU felt threatened that Britannia claimed (another?) territory in the middle east. Or they see this as an opportunity to attack since Cornelia is not around.

I think he had no choice either, and no matter how much he wants to build up his family again, leaving 2 young children to fend for themselves during a war may not be an option for him.

[verity-isle.livejournal.com]

Gah, I kept skipping points. Re Ashford : It's true that Lelouch and Nanaly has no use as a bargaining chip at this moment, but if the Emperor used Ashford as an once-over pawn and summarily 'demoted' him after what's done is done, he doesn't necessarily have to follow the Emperor's orders. Alas, the only thing I can come up with is how he's possibly cultivating a debt of sorts with the two royals in the case of when/if they return home/become something.

[verity-isle.livejournal.com]

Besides, dang, I forgot TEH reason why that particular act would be weird.

A 'hostage' situation back then worked when there's a power balance, or when the sending country is weaker than the one sent to, IIRC. Especially in the 21st century, wouldn't it seem weird that this huge empire would send a prince down to small Japan for no reasons other than goodwill? Japan should've gotten its invadar up by then.