Visiting the Visitors
The battle that Alethea reaches a close. I was mistaken – Aes is fighting for the dark side, revealed to be specifically the Usurper side. They take the core of the friendly (Pitch Black Noir to use his Immortal Nine name) without killing him, and kidnap Rouge’s brother in order to coerce her into giving up her own ID for the whole Code Eve cause. As they escape on a Usurper ship, Rouge is intercepted by Cyan, and the two of them fight an evenly-matched battle.
Naomi gives Rouge instruction on how to shut down Cyan, and in the aftermath, an unconscious Cyan is taken in by the cop while Naomi takes Rouge to a very special meeting. While I wasn’t correct and Naomi isn’t a visitor herself, she’s not human either: she’s a visitor-created Nean specifically intended to act as an interface with humans, since the Visitors themselves are heavily adapted to deep space living.
The Visitors offer Rouge shelter on their ship, regarding it as the safest possible course: without her, Code Eve can’t be triggered. Code Eve being triggered would be a bad thing because the Immortal Nine and the Usurpers are plotting together, and would doubtless start a second and incredibly bloody war with that signal.
Their objective? Venus. The true deal between the Visitors and humanity is revealed to be that the Visitors lost their home world ages ago, and want the terraformed Venus to act as a new homeworld for them; in exchange for that, they’ve given humans vast sums of ultratech to make the project possible, specifically including the Nean tech. The Usurpers, who it seems may be descended from the same origins, want Venus as well, and unlike the Visitors (who hold pretty strict policies about how they’re able to interact with other species, specifically disallowing themselves from restricting the others’ freedom), the Usurpers would be happy to burn the rest of the solar system to the ground to get it.
However, it also seems that the Usurpers aren’t inclined to wait, and begin a commando raid on Venus with the Immortal Nine and the secret Circus, while their main armada begins an incursion from Jupiter. This assault prompts Rouge and Naomi alike to support Rouge going to Venus to resolve this with her fists instead of playing safe, since the Usurpers might be able to push the matter in war even without Code Eve. The Visitors, being very hands off, allow it. They even accept Naomi going against their wishes for her tacitly when they accept her “logic” that she deserves a day off
Meanwhile, Cyan wakes up and Noir (still with a hole in his chest) meets up with her and the cop, suggesting their story is far from over.
So at this point I’m now expecting that we’re going for twelve episodes, since everything seems to be coming to a head in the battle for Venus: The Usurpers, the Immortal Nine, Rouge’s own arc, and the fate of the Neans are all entangled in this, so three episodes is probably enough to do it well.
Honestly, that means the series will have been pretty end-loaded, getting all these powerhouse reveals and big plot movements now after having spent a lot of time early messing with what seemed like a small-scale bounty-hunter job rather than the crux of interplanetary warfare.
All the same, it’s an enjoyable direction, and I’ll rate the series pretty highly provided that it finishes well.