SRW OG Master Overview, Part 2

SRW OG MASTER OVERVIEW, PART 2
Part 1: https://pastebin.com/5Kv0wqGv
Part 1.5: https://pastebin.com/72bHvSBn
Part 2.5: https://pastebin.com/xhk6rQDA

This is gonna be big, and it's gonna cover a lot of names and factions. I hope you at least skimmed through the character/faction overview in part 1.5 to have a feel for who's who at the start of OG2. If not, uh, good luck I guess. The events of OG2 are collectively referred to as the Inspector Incident, an overly broad appellation that doesn't do justice to the sheer amount of stuff going on. I'm going to do my best to highlight key events without going into a stage-by-stage synopsis. Buckle up, and away we go!

Super Robot Wars Original Generation 2: The Inspector

NCE 187
PROJECT AEGIS
	After the L5 Campaign, Brian Midcrid reveals the existence of aliens in dramatic fashion to the full Federation Assembly and general populace in the publicly broadcasted Tokyo Proclamation. This speech leads into the announcement of Project Aegis, a massive restructuring and expansion of the Earth Federation Military. With no more EOT Council to stymie them, the military expands rapidly and pours resources into manufacturing the mass-production Hückebein Mk. II, the new workhorse to replace the Gespenst Mk. II. Project ATX and Project SRX were both suspended at the end of OG1, but with Project Aegis in high gear and some string-pulling from Nibhal Mubhal, they both get reinstated.

THE DC REMNANTS
	The EFM suffered major losses during Operation SRW, the final battle of the L5 Campaign. The time they spend recovering from these losses and restructuring under Project Aegis provides the DC remnants with a perfect window to consolidate and muster their forces—forces which are oddly well-furnished and never seem to run out of supplies or robots despite their parent organizations having collapsed months ago. Reorganized, the DC remnants begin launching a fresh wave of attacks on Federation facilities, particularly facilities housing state-of-the-art prototypes and new mass-production models. These attacks tend to follow a pattern: DC remnants show up out of nowhere, launch a smash-and-grab attack with suspiciously surgical precision, then ditch and vanish off the radar before reinforcements can arrive. There's definitely a mole feeding them intel, but who?

	It's in the midst of this conflict that Lamia Loveless crash lands in the woods near Langley in her Angelg.

	*record scratch* Wait, who?

	That's about the same reaction that the ATX Team has after they rescue her from attack by the DC remnants.

	Lamia is a central character to the series who is certainly worth talking about, but to explain her deal, we have to talk about Shadow Mirror, the first of the factions new to OG2, one with ties that go as far as Moon Dwellers.

	Shadow Mirror is a Federation special forces unit from a parallel Earth that is currently providing material support to the DC remnants on the sly. Their commander, Vindel Mauser, saw that the world was becoming increasingly corrupted, and he (erroneously) blamed peacetime for it and embarked on a quest to create a world of perpetual wartime, in order to keep the world clean and honest, so to speak. Basically he wants Outer Heaven. One of his two top officers is a scientist named Lemon Browning, who develops the W-Series, synthetic humans with artificial minds designed to be ideal soldiers capable of both independent thought and unconditional adherence to orders. Lamia is W17, the 17th in the W-Series line of bioroids, and she is an agent of Shadow Mirror on an assignment to infiltrate this world's Earth Federation and locate some key persons named Beowulf and Helios Olympus.

	*record scratch* Wait, who?

	Don't worry about it.

	Back on topic, Lamia misses the mark on her landing, and something about the jump from the other side and her subsequent crash landing causes her linguistic systems to become a teensy bit scrambled, giving her a quirky speech tic that raises a few eyebrows but doesn't otherwise impede her ability to communicate. The speech tic only manifests when she's speaking in polite form, and she does perfectly fine when using blunt, plain language.

	When the Federation runs an ID check on her, they turn up an entry for her as a test pilot with good ol' trusty Isurugi Industries. An official at Isurugi asks Captain Lee Linjun to take her aboard the Shirogane with the rest of the ATX Team to serve as an active-duty test pilot, and Lee straight-up refuses because the whole thing stinks to high heaven. Not even five minutes later, Lee's upper command intercedes for some reason and mandates that Lamia join the team, the first of many bitter pills Lee has to swallow.

	Langley Base is currently under the command of Major General Kenneth Garret, who takes an immediate dislike to the ATX Team and runs them ragged with long hours and few breaks. Eventually, he dumps them on Lee when he dispatches Lee to root out the DC remnants' suspected base of operations at the Mexican Plateau, an expedition that ends in failure when the DC remnants flee across the Pacific ahead of their arrival. The Shirogane continues aggressively pursuing the DC remnants across the Pacific, and they make it just in time to catch the tail end of an attack on Hickam Base.

THE SCHOOL, THE EARTH CRADLE, AND SHADOW MIRROR
	At Hickam Base in Hawaii, Kai Kitamura has assembled the beginnings of a new team of Aggressors that will serve as test pilots and crafters of motion data. The team is a work in progress, and his only recruits so far are Rai and Latune. They've just been delivered a shiny new prototype to test, when DC remnants launch yet another perfectly timed pinpoint smash-and-grab. In this attack, Latune's prototype Wildfalken is hijacked by a pilot who turns out to be her old Schoolmate, Seolla Schweizer. Latune is deeply disturbed to see Seolla active and working for the DC, and Seolla is similarly disturbed to discover Latune alive and working for the EFM.

	As it turns out, all three surviving Schoolchildren are currently aligned with the DC remnants. Ouka is back at the Earth Cradle with Águila, while Arado and Seolla are on active duty working under Major Archibald Grims. Seolla has had loyalty to the DC retrofitted into her head, and she regularly spouts lines about fulfilling Bian's dying wish and restoring the DC to its rightful glory, which Arado just finds weird. The two of them have more clashes with the EFM forces, culminating in an attack on a base where Arado takes one for the team and knocks Seolla clear of an attack, only to eat the attack and crash. Arado is left for dead by the DC remnants and gets taken prisoner by the EFM. Meanwhile, Seolla gets brought back to the Earth Cradle for some reprogramming in the wake of Arado's supposed death.

	Wait, didn't the Earth Cradle submerge last game?

	Turns out Dr. Egret Fehu is a master of takesies-backsies. After the Earth Cradle submerges, he subdues his boss, Dr. Sophia Nate, and hooks her up to the Earth Cradle's master computer, Magus, to serve as the living central computer core. With Sophia thus safely out of the way, Egret is left as the sole person in charge, and he's quick to welcome in some new guests: Shadow Mirror, Águila and the Boosted Children, and Colonel Van Vat Tran's DC remnants. Águila provides Egret with data that is invaluable to his own pet project, the Machinery Children, and Vindel lets Egret in on Shadow Mirror's plans from the start so that they can more easily share high-end technology and roll out Shadow Mirror's mobile weapons on the Earth Cradle's production lines.

	Speaking of production lines, when Ouka shows up to attack EFM forces while Seolla's out of commission, Ouka pilots a mass production R-Blade that shouldn't exist. As in, this model that Mao calls the R-Schneide only exists on paper, and the frame for it hasn't even been fully assembled yet. There's no reason for this machine to have been produced, yet here it is, up and running and perfectly functional. This machine's very existence has Irm totally baffled, as someone familiar with Mao insider info. No leak could have possibly produced this, which makes Ryoto seriously wonder if they're fighting time-travelers. That's the magic of Shadow Mirror—They field machines that were in production back on their parallel Earth, many of which don't have analogues in this version of Earth due to differences in background history.

	The DC remnants get more than just Ouka for ace pilot backup. Shadow Mirror's W15, Wodan Ymir, takes the field in his distinctive Sladegelmir with a giant liquid metal sword that makes him eerily reminiscent of another German weeb swordsman whose initials are Sänger Sombold, and even the Shirogane and the ATX Team are forced to retreat from his path initially.

THE NEO DC
	All of this is leading up to the moment when Van Vat Tran, firmly secure in his position in the Earth Cradle, issues a proclamation to the world announcing the formation of the Neo DC. His pitch to the world is that what they need is not an Aegis shield but a harpe sickle, and that the do-nothing Federation Government has kicked the can down the road for too long with regards to the impending alien invasion, a claim that rings all too true after Brian Midcrid's Tokyo Proclamation. Thus begins the long nightmare of the Neo DC and its own remnants that never really go away in the rest of the OG franchise.

	But then something else happens in the winter to cap off NCE 187—an emergency so great that it immediately diverts the spotlight away from the newly-christened Neo DC in their moment of triumph.

NCE 187-188
THE INSPECTOR INCIDENT
	Finally, we're getting to the subtitle of the game. It only took 21 stages to get there!

	The Hiryu has been busy up in space while the Hagane and Shirogane are fighting the DC remnants planetside. It's currently with the fleet of Federation ships stationed at the White Star, where it's been investigating some mysterious disappearances in space among the Federation's forces. However, it only has a handful of mobile weapons and pilots presently on board due to everyone else being dispatched elsewhere or otherwise indisposed.

	The White Star suddenly comes under all-out attack by aliens. Aliens that aren't Aerogators. The three-man team of Gilliam, Viletta, and Lüne fend off the unmanned weapons for a little while with support from the Hiryu, but then four boss units show up together. The so-called "Inspectors" start out with funny banter, but the laughter is quickly cut short when Mekibos wipes out the entire White Star garrison fleet with a single well-placed Thunder Crash MAP weapon from his Greytarkin. After that, it's a desperate struggle for the Hiryu to get the hell out of there before getting completely overwhelmed. (Either that, or the Hiryu and its strike team park on the White Star and exploit its regeneration and defense bonuses to kill the bosses for some nice secrets and THEN get the hell out of there once they've given the bosses a black eye. I'll let you decide which version of events you like better.)

	Regardless, the White Star (which the Inspectors refer to as the Nevi'im, like the Aerogators did) is swiftly occupied by the Inspectors, who turn it into their beachhead for a full invasion of Earth and the moon. Their leader, Mekibos's younger brother Wendolo, is nonplussed but unsurprised when he finds out that the Nevi'im's production facilities have been rendered permanently inoperable. "I guess even the Earthlings aren't THAT stupid." Not to worry, though—They've secured a fallback production facility called the Skullhead. What's the Skullhead? Don't worry about it.

	Let's talk about the Inspectors and their MO. They are a small group of aliens coming from the Zuvork collective, and they report to a higher administrative body called the Privy Council. Their job is to inspect foreign civilizations and judge whether they will become seriously problematic in the long run. It's heavily implied that this is to avoid another group like the Balmar surfacing (the Ze Balmary Empire is the parent organization of the Aerogators). They are led by Wendolo, the chief foreign civilization inspector, who has passed judgment on the Earthlings and deemed them too collectively immature as a species to handle the dangerous technologies they've been developing. He characterizes the people of Earth as toddlers with handguns. They're also not the first Zuvork group to interact with the Earth—Wendolo's predecessors, the Guests, were the ones present for the breakdown in negotiations that was the Antarctic Incident.

	What do you do with a civilization that's heavily armed and dangerous and needs to be curtailed before its expansion into space spirals out of control? You invade and occupy, of course. But you wouldn't want to inadvertently arm them with even more advanced technology by bringing stuff from home that they can analyze. No, the Inspectors make a point out of using purely local technology, which is what most of their command units and unmanned drones are built from (This is why EFM units were disappearing in the months leading up to the invasion, for capture and analysis). Ergo, they need local production plants to facilitate their occupation. There's also the matter of unit transportation. They have a teleporter that they've installed in the Nevi'im, one capable of sending mobile weapons to other locations, but it's the only such device they have, and it's not small enough or energy-efficient enough to be able to install on individual machines. Meaning they can only send things one way, so they also need local bases of operation on the ground.

THE INSPECTORS OCCUPY NORTH AMERICA
	The first targets of Inspector occupation are Mao Industries on the moon and the Tesla Lab on Earth. The Inspectors hit them hard and fast, leaving retreat as the only viable option.

	On the moon, Ryoto Hikawa covers the top Mao executives' last-minute evacuation in dramatic fashion by activating the Hückebein Mk. III. Arado, who by this point has been dropped off at Mao for some medical examinations, also comes through with some help. However, the aliens successfully occupy both Mao Industries and the Moon Cradle, the moon's equivalent of the Earth Cradle, meaning that they get both production facilities AND a really nice defensive outpost.

	On the Earth, Team TD manages to escape the Tesla Lab before it gets occupied, but the scientists and Rishu all remain behind in the aliens' clutches. In the process of escaping, Sleygh Presti discovers to her dismay that the Alpha prototype, the lead unit in Team TD's arsenal, is painted silver. She's supposed to be the top dog pilot for Team TD, yet the lead unit is painted in Ibis's colors? This, combined with being forced to abandon her brother at the Tesla Lab, infuriates her so badly that she leaves the team. She eventually goes to hang out with the Neo DC and their remnants in hopes of rescuing her brother and retaking the Tesla Lab after the EFM gives up on liberating North America any time soon. See you in two games, Sleygh.

	What follows for North America's EFM forces is a running retreat, as the Inspectors sweep eastward from the Tesla Lab in Colorado all the way to the east coast. It's a catastrophic loss in military terms, but the Inspectors focus on military strongholds and production facilities to the exclusion of all else, leaving population centers generally unharassed.

MID-GAME FACTION RECAP
Let's recap the factions in play real quick.
	The Neo DC - Newly formed from DC remnants. Led by Colonel Van Vat Tran, who wants to depose the corrupt Earth Federation Government and take over running the world with a military regime.
	Shadow Mirror - A special forces unit from a parallel Earth with their own mass production units, super robots, and synth supersoldiers. Led by Vindel Mauser, who wants a soldier's paradise. At this point they're still just a mystery group operating in the shadows.
	The School - A facility to create the perfect child soldier. Led by Águila Setme, who just loves producing child soldiers I guess.
	The Earth Cradle - A self-sufficient fortress with its own assembly lines. Run by Dr. Egret Fehu, who's advancing research on machine cells and his Machinery Children project. He's eventually angling for the Machinery Children to displace humanity entirely. For now, they're chipping in with Shadow Mirror.
	The Inspectors - Aliens who think the Earth needs to be subdued and occupied before their warring consumes the rest of the galaxy. Led by Wendolo, a young man whose self-righteousness is only matched by his ruthlessness.
	The Earth Federation Government - An entity on the brink of an internal coup. Led by President Brian Midcrid, but not for long.
	Isurugi Industries - A war merchant with ties to the Neo DC, Shadow Mirror, and the Earth Federation Government. Run by Mitsuko Isurugi, who is currently angling to get the Inspectors as a new client.
	The Einst -

	*record scratch* Wait, who?

	You thought this was gonna be all civil wars and alien invasions? Wrong! While all the rest of this war history stuff is going on, there's another low-key element in play. Strange beings of bone, plant matter, and metal that show up in odd places. Before we proceed too far ahead, let's go back for a moment to when the Shirogane and the Hagane were pursuing DC remnants across the Pacific, before the DC made it to the Earth Cradle in Kenya.

THE EINST
	Major Archibald Grims of the DC remnants gets a hot tip that there's some excavation work going on in China at a place called Chiyou Mound. This is of particular interest to him, because according to his own family archives, it's supposed to be the resting place of some ancient Chinese superweapons called Chokijin. That's a whole other thing worth a few paragraphs of its own, but we're not talking about them now. Archibald orders his forces to open fire on the civilians doing excavation work even though it's a complete waste of ammo, because as it turns out, he just LOVES gunning down defenseless civilians.

	Archibald's fun is interrupted, however, by both the timely arrival of the Hagane, and the warping in of a bunch of giant skeleton-things. He calls it a wash and bails, leaving the Hagane to deal with the spooky skeletons. The psychics on the Hagane's strike team are getting very cold and disturbing vibes from these things and can't explain why. They're also not giving off any of the typical heat readings associated with the drives that power mobile weapons.

	It gets weirder.

	Soon enough, the Shirogane's crew and the ATX Team start running into these things attacking various military bases. And while nobody else can make heads or tails of the things, Kyosuke and Excellen both hear voices from them. Why? They're as puzzled as anyone else. Are they secretly psychic? Definitely not, because the EFM ran are-you-psychic tests on every crew member in between OG1 and OG2, and theirs came back negative. What's more, while most of them are barely communicative inhuman monsters, one appears to be a mobile weapon of some sort piloted by a weird girl who chats with them in an amicable, if cryptic, manner.

	They're called Einst (German for "once", as in "I was once a man"), and the girl calls herself Einst Alchemie. With the civil war and alien invasion as their backdrop, the Einst are attacking key locations with no rhyme or reason and more or less doing their own thing on Earth.

THE SECOND LIBERATION OF RIKSENT
	Riksent is still a very tiny, very resource-rich Mediterranean country located around the area of Greece, making it an ideal beachhead in every way for an army from Africa looking to invade Europe and reach Paris, which happens to be a perfect description of the Neo DC right now. It was only a matter of time before Riksent came under attack again, and this time its ruler Princess Shine has come prepared.

	You see, in the interim between OG1 and OG2, Shine put in a special commission with Mao Industries that's been getting produced at their Orleans plant. Mao enlisted the aid of the Tesla Lab's most brilliant minds to design it and develop proper motion patterns for it so that they could roll it out fast. Jonathan Kazahara and Filio Presti put in some serious overtime, especially on the motion patterns, and what they finally produced was a set of twin mechs called the Fairlions. They use the W³NK System, a special tandem coordination system that allows one unit to be controlled remotely by the other. This is why Shine and Latune have a pair of twin units that do coordinated dancing moves together. Latune does all of the real controlling while Shine rides it out with her precognition to aid her. Shine goes on to be a mainstay pilot in the rest of the series, but only in that specific machine.

	Archibald happens to be the one occupying Riksent on behalf of the Neo DC, and Rai and Leona quickly jump at the chance to get back at him. A concerted group effort from the Steel Dragons drives the Neo DC out of Riksent and liberates it once more. This is the last time Riksent will ever be relevant.

THE DRAGON AND TIGER AWAKEN
	While Riksent is being liberated, another group from the Steel Dragons is en route to Izu Base, the center of command for the EFM's Far East Brigade. As they cross the Asian continent to reach Japan, another incident arises at Chiyou Mound that requires their attention. The Einst are attacking it again, being led by Alchemie this time. She wants to unearth what's there and claim it for the Einst.

	What lies beneath Chiyou Mound are two ancient Chinese sentient robots (Chokijin) called RyuOhKi and KoOhKi, a dragon and a tiger respectively. They combine into beings called RyuKoOh and KoRyuOh, and they require two "Sthenopsyches" (強念者, strong psychics) to make their wu xing vessel rotate. Translation: They run on psychic power, and as bearers of that, Kusuha and Bullet fit the bill perfectly. The two humans bond with the two ancient Chinese robots, and RyuKoOh integrates their Grungust Type 3's parts to restore its own broken bits.

	The group that was excavating RyuKoOh previously is led by Dr. Eri Anzai of the LTR (Lost Technology Research) Institute, a leading researcher in the field of OOPArts, or out-of-place artifacts, things excavated from ancient civilizations that look too advanced to be from that civilization's level of technology. She helps to translate some of RyuKoOh's cryptic explanatory remarks about the "Hundred Evils" and other related keywords: "Hundred Evils" is a catch-all term for the demons and yokai that existed in the ancient Chinese time period the robots are from. The basic summary is that ominous signs are on the horizon and RyuKoOh and KoRyuOh are ready to fight the forces of evil (especially the Einst) with Kusuha and Bullet's help. They're completely on board for that.

	We're not going to go into the Chokijin's history or family tree for a while. Maybe in a couple of games when it's more front and center.

SHADOW MIRROR STEPS OUT OF THE SHADOWS
	While the Neo DC is marching across Africa and the Mediterranean, Shadow Mirror's off doing its own thing. At one point while the Steel Dragons are fighting a losing war against the Neo DC in Africa, the Shirogane spots suspicious activity and goes to pursue it. Captain Lee Linjun essentially outsmarts himself by assuming that no trap would be that obvious, so he walks right into the trap and gets the bridge occupied by W16, Echidna Issaki.

	For Lee's part, while in captivity, he's impressed by Shadow Mirror's bioroid forces, and he's enamoured of the idea of extremely competent, extremely loyal soldiers who just do the job and don't backsass or ask questions. He likes Vindel's style and would love to subscribe to his newsletter. So Shadow Mirror gets both a shiny new flagship AND a captain to command it. Score!

	There's another major development that happens once Shadow Mirror grows more active—Axel Almer, the third key member of Shadow Mirror, joins back up.

	Much like Lamia had a rough jump with a crash landing, Axel had one of his own. Only Axel's arrival was around six months ago, back around the time of the L5 Campaign. His jump had some special circumstances involved—he had one last showdown with Beowulf for the road, then made the jump with the jump device rigged to blow once he was through it. The machine he jumped in, the Soulgain, wound up around the L5 sector, and it got caught up in the fighting during Operation SRW, meaning that the mysterious Moustacheman was Shadow Mirror all along. It fought against the Aerogators' unmanned drones and ended up making reentry to Earth on its own. The reentry and subsequent crash landing were so damaging that the Soulgain's internal recovery systems took months to restore it to even basic functionality.

	If Vindel Mauser is the leader and Lemon Browning is the brains, Axel Almer is the brawn, the point man and ace pilot who gets sent out to fix problems and get results. With his arrival, Shadow Mirror's forces are finally fully assembled, and they can now kick into high gear and proceed with the next phase of their plan: Capturing the Steel Dragons.

	Their sleeper agent on the ATX Team, Lamia Loveless, finally gets the signal that it's go time. She takes the Angelg and holds the Hagane's bridge hostage. Shadow Mirror shows up seemingly out of nowhere (they're still using ASRS to great effect) in full force, and Vindel comes out personally to demand the Steel Dragons' surrender. However, Lamia has a change of heart and decides that based on what she's seen of this world, there's no place for Shadow Mirror in it. She launches herself in the Angelg at Vindel and Lemon's command units and triggers the bioroid self destruct, Code ATA (Ash to Ash). The resulting explosion does severe damage to the Zweizergain, forcing Vindel and Lemon to retreat while other Shadow Mirror forces cover them from the Steel Dragons' assault. Lemon picks up a little souvenir on the way out, the Angelg's miraculously intact cockpit.

	Major General Kenneth Garret, that thorn in the ATX Team's side, now orders the Steel Dragons to pursue the Shirogane when it flees. They're confused about why Kenneth is suddenly giving orders and not Commander Laker. Turns out there's been a coup taking place at the same time that all of this has been happening, and Laker's now effectively a hostage being kept in confinement on base.

	Lamia wakes up at a Shadow Mirror base, where Lemon has fixed her up. The speech tic is still there, because according to Lemon, fixing that would require removing chunks of her memory and nerve system, and that would compromise who Lamia is at this point, which is the last thing Lemon wants. Lemon is pleased as punch to find that one of her bioroid creations has finally discovered the holy grail of self-determination, and she tells Lamia to just do what she wants. So Lamia busts out. Axel is there to stop her, but she gets some unexpected help in the form of Sänger, Gilliam, and their good friend Rätsel Feinschmecker, a thinly disguised Elzam. They're using the Kurogane, a Space Noah-class warship that I like to term "the fugitive boat" since it's where all the ex-DC people hang out. Laker made sure it made its way into Elzam's hands just before the coup took place, and all of its ex-DC crew were allowed to stay with the ship.

	Gilliam has his own connection to Shadow Mirror, as it happens. Helios Olympus, the person they're after, is the alias that he went by in the parallel world that Shadow Mirror's from (calling it the SM-verse for ease of reference), and they want him in order to perfect their dimension jumping device, System XN. He and Lamia rejoin the Steel Dragons and give them a full plot dump. Well... almost full. There are two aspects of the SM-verse that Gilliam and Lamia were never made privy to, things that come to light over the course of the game.

	First, Beowulf. Lamia knows that Beowulf is the callsign of Kyosuke Nambu, and that Beowulf's squadron, the Beowulves, has power on par with that of this world's Steel Dragons. That group is singlehandedly responsible for torpedoing Shadow Mirror's prospects in the SM-verse, and they're the reason why Shadow Mirror made the jump. However, there's a set of dots that Shadow Mirror never fully connects. The peacetime corrupting the world? That was the Einst. Beowulf's suspicious tendency to show up to every encounter more powerful than in the last? His unexplained regenerative capabilities? All Einst. But Shadow Mirror never knew the Einst existed. All they know is that Beowulf is a dangerous, inhuman monster. That's why Beowulf is a priority target in their database to monitor, and it's why Axel is so fixated on Kyosuke, because Beowulf and his Gespenst Mk. III made his life a living hell in the world he's from.

	Second, the Timeflow Engine.

THE TIMEFLOW ENGINE
	In the SM-verse, a pair of scientists developed an engine that runs on an invisible form of energy called chronoparticles, basically a representation of the flow of time. Since their passing, their children have taken up the mantle of their research. Those children are Raul Gloeden, his sister Fiona Gloeden, their partner Raj Montoya, and their support specialist Mizuho Saiki. Two prominent scientists in their world express an interest in their research: Lemon Browning and Helios Olympus.

	Before his own jump from the SM-verse, Axel tries to force them to hand over their machines, the Excellences, but something goes wrong when a mysterious otherworldly being shows up and causes their Timeflow Engines to go haywire. They all disappear, and Raul, Raj, and Mizuho end up jumping to our setting around this timeframe. They don't do anything of note in this game other than yell at Axel, though. We'll revisit them in OG Gaiden.

OPERATION PLANTAGENET
	So to recap, we've got A) a civil war in Africa and Europe, B) an alien invasion in North America, C) a group of jumpers from a parallel world actively sowing chaos, and D) a coup that just happened and the heroes can't do anything but dance to the new administration's tune, and to top it off, we've got E) otherworldly horrors randomly popping up in places and putting voices in Kyosuke and Excellen's heads. Something's gotta give. Since there's been a recent coup in the EFM, and the orchestrators of the coup were in cahoots with the Neo DC, they quickly call a truce and strike up an agreement to launch a coordinated sweep attack called Operation Plantagenet to drive the aliens back off the planet.

	The plan goes like this: The Steel Dragons hit the west coast at California and start sweeping their way east with the full amassed might of their special forces, liberating the Tesla Lab and other key facilities along the way. They converge with the Neo DC's forces coming in from the east across the Atlantic, and they launch a pincer attack to retake Langley Base, the headquarters of the EFM's North American Brigade, located in Virginia on the east coast. It's a very lopsided operation that involves the Steel Dragons doing the lion's share of the work crossing the country, while the Neo DC sweeps in just in time for the big final showdown.

THE DYNAMIC GENERAL GUARDIANS
	Back at the Tesla Lab, Jonathan and Filio have been stalling the Inspectors for weeks now. They continue making excuses to drag their feet exporting data in a usable format. But the Inspectors' patience is wearing dangerously thin, and they've holding a lot of lab personnel hostage.

	Team Double Umlaut, Sänger and Rätsel, come to the rescue, with a bit of surprise help from Wodan Ymir. When it's clear that their Grungust Type 3 and Hückebein Mk. III Trombe won't cut it, the Tesla Lab scientists launch a daring bid to unlock a super secret hangar they'd been keeping hidden from the aliens, one containing what they call Bian's legacy, the Double Gs. As it turns out, Bian spearheaded the development of four Dynamic General Guardian units back in the DC days. Two of them were intended for Sänger and Elzam (and since Elzam's not around, they'll have to make do with Rätsel), and it's these two that Shu drops off at the Tesla Lab offscreen sometime after the DC War. Don't worry about the other two.

	Sänger renames the Dynamic General Guardian to the Dygenguar in a play on his own name that only works in Japanese. Rätsel calls his the Aussenseiter. The Dygenguar's original weapons systems aren't finished or operational, and Filio has to rewrite the woefully incomplete OS on the fly, but once Wodan throws the Dygenguar the Type 3's Zankanto, Sänger has matters well in hand and manages to drive out the Inspectors. Later, Sänger opts to just keep using the Zankanto instead of taking the Dygenguar offline for weeks to get its proper weapons up and running.

KYOSUKE NAMBU'S NO GOOD, VERY BAD DAY
	Operation Plantagenet has a lot of momentum behind it now. The Steel Dragons have made it to the east coast and the Manhattan meteor crater. All that's left is the final push on Langley, and they'll have liberated all of North America from the hands of the Inspectors.

	Colonel Van Vat Tran is leading the Neo DC's charge on Langley personally, with Trusty Archibald Grims sitting back in reserve. The Steel Dragons show up and join in the fight alongside the Neo DC to destroy the alien weapons. Everything's great and it's looking like they're on track clear out all the alien weapons in the base—that is, until Archibald's completely unforeseen betrayal from within. Without warning, Archibald's Rhinoceros landship suddenly opens fire on Van's own landship, critically damaging it. Then Shadow Mirror warps in.

	There's a pretty big web of interconnections at play here for a huge set of sudden face/heel turns, so let's take a second to unravel it before proceeding any further.

	1) The Earth Federation Military was against the Neo DC previously. Now the EFM has had a coup, and they're presently aligned with the Neo DC.
	2) Shadow Mirror was aligned with the Neo DC previously. Now Shadow Mirror has turned against them and taken Archibald along for the ride. (Since the Neo DC has face-turned and struck a truce with the EFM, they are no longer a continual source of chaos in the Earth Sphere. This means they have outlived their usefulness to Shadow Mirror.)
	3) The Inspectors were opposed to the EFM and the Neo DC+Shadow Mirror combined group. Now that Shadow Mirror has split off, they have aligned with the Inspectors. (They each have something the other wants.)

	You got all that? Long story short, Shadow Mirror and the Inspectors have waited for just the right moment to crush the Steel Dragons, and this is it.

	Remember how we offhandedly mentioned Wodan showed up for the retaking of the Tesla Lab for no adequately explained reason? Yeah, he's here together with all of Shadow Mirror's heaviest hitters, and Axel's Soulgain is also here and back in prime condition. For Archibald's part, he's forced to retreat when Mekibos steps out from hiding with another Thunder Crash to wipe out the remainder of the Neo DC's forces. He happens to hit a few "friendlies" in the process. Nothing personal, just a pointed message that is well taken by the Inspectors' new allies.

	The Steel Dragons are exhausted and battered from nonstop fighting just getting here, and now Shadow Mirror is pummeling them with a fresh wave of high-end weapons. It's not a good day for them. Lee and the Shirogane open fire on the Hagane and score a direct hit to the upper bridge. Most of the crew survives, but Captain Daitetsu Minase doesn't make it through the day alive. Tetsuya is forced to take emergency command of a damaged ship while the whole bridge crew is in bad shape. It's time to sound the call to retreat.

	As the Steel Dragons start to fall back, Axel decides it's time to eliminate Beowulf once and for all. With his Soulgain, he delivers an overwhelming full FMV beatdown of Kyosuke's much tinier and squishier Alteisen. He systematically rips off each one of the Alt's limbs to ensure that the Alt is well and truly crippled, then rears back to deliver the finishing blow to the Alt's cockpit just to be on the safe side. But something else stops him before he can finish the job.

	Suddenly, out of nowhere, hordes upon hordes of Einst start warping into Langley Base. Just endless waves of the things. They overrun the base in short order, forcing all sides out—The EFM, Shadow Mirror, and the Inspectors. Soon after that, the Einst draw out Excellen with remote mind control and abduct her while Kyosuke's getting emergency medical treatment and nobody else is in any shape to stop her.

	And so Operation Plantagenet ends in a complete trainwreck for everybody involved.

NCE 188
ENDGAME OF THE INSPECTOR INCIDENT
	The Neo DC is now dead and gone. All that's left of it now are Archibald's soldiers and a couple of lieutenants named Yuuki and Carla who stuck with the Steel Dragons following the Langley catastrophe.

	Due to the loss of Langley, Shadow Mirror's forces are forced to split off and retreat. Half of them led by Archibald return to the safety of the Earth Cradle. The other half, led by Vindel on board the Shirogane, launch into space and head up to the White Star to convene with the Inspectors and set up shop. The Einst are hounding both split sides the whole way to their destinations, and they seem to take a particular interest in the Earth Cradle.

	The Inspectors are forced to retreat to the White Star. They've lost North America and the moon, leaving them holed up in the White Star surrounded by more hordes of Einst appearing in space to harass them at every turn. They just will not leave the White Star alone for some reason.

	Adding to all of this, the Einst now have two human ace units, Alchemie and a mind-controlled Excellen. Excellen's Weissritter has gotten souped up into a beefy boss unit called the Rein Weissritter. Langley was only the start, too. The Einst have been pushing aggressively against EFM bases like never before.

THE EARTH CRADLE'S COLLAPSE
	The Hagane and Hiryu split up their teams to hit the Earth Cradle and the Moon Cradle respectively. Only now, since the Hagane's out of commission, they're going to be using the Kurogane for a while instead. It's a good choice, since the Kurogane's giant rotating ram bow (a bigass drill at the front of the boat) is perfectly suited for burrowing underground and getting close undetected. We're going to omit the moon split because none of it's terribly relevant to the larger plot, but a lot of things happen in the Earth Cradle that are worth mentioning.

	Sänger has his final showdown with Wodan Ymir, in which Wodan's mask finally breaks, revealing that he is in fact a bioroid designed to be a copy of the version of Sänger from the SM-verse. While they're having their duel, the others advance into the Earth Cradle through its elevator. Inside, they come up against Archibald, Águila and her Boosted Children (by this point, just down to Ouka since Arado eventually won Seolla over), and Dr. Egret Fehu's Machinery Children.

	Rai and Rätsel finally get some satisfactory closure to the Elpis Incident by blowing Archibald to smithereens. Ouka by this point has had her mind written and rewritten so many times that she's starting to mentally short-circuit. It's so bad she literally starts spouting error lines. Cuervo Cerro, Águila's assistant, finally decides to do something right and releases Ouka's programming, allowing Ouka to go after Águila, her real enemy.

	I'm going to touch briefly on the Machinery Children here. The Machinery Children are synthetic beings created to be the basis for a superior new human race to supplant the old warmongering human race. They're built on Adler and Águila's Boosted Children research, and their bodies are largely based on Águila's Bronzo 28 specimen, Arado Balanga, who has remarkable durability and natural regeneration. There are 15 in total—The ones named are Uruz (1), Ansuz (2), Thurisaz (3), and Algiz (15). Uruz is the originator, and the others are given different personalities for different purposes. Egret has plans to mass produce them, and he also speaks of plans for the "Ing series". They use machine cell enhanced mobile weapons called Bergelmirs that are effectively souped-up Hückebein Mk. IIs.

	As Egret realizes that Ansuz and Thurisaz are fighting a losing battle, he calls in Uruz and the other Machinery Children, then he calls on Magus to perform a mass conversion of everything within the Earth Cradle using machine cells. Dr. Sophia Nate's primary field of research is machine cells, nanomachines designed to repair and propagate in order to facilitate restoration of the Earth's environment. They're knockoff DG cells, basically.

	The Steel Dragons notice the scenery in the Earth Cradle's core block starting to physically warp. The walls are bending. Some of the broken machinery is becoming reanimated, including Águila's machine. She cackles about machine cells making her immortal. Ouka, knowing that she's not going to live much longer as it is due to her incredibly messed up mind and body, launches a self-destruct attack on Águila to ensure that she's completely and fully blown to smithereens. As the others struggle to cope with machine cells immobilizing them, Sänger and Wodan come crashing in through the ceiling. A dying Wodan cleaves through all of the remaining Machinery Children with his ultimate technique, the Star Reaver Sword, and Sänger rushes to get Sophia separated from Magus. This buys the Steel Dragons enough of a reprieve to overboost out of there and drill their way out before the whole place collapses on them.

	There goes the Earth Cradle and Dr. Egret Fehu, never to be seen again.

	The Kurogane leaves in a hurry to reconvene for a push on the White Star. They don't have time to deal with the aftermath or the Einst cleanup.

	Guess who DOES have time for the aftermath and Einst cleanup?

THE CRYWOLVES
	There's a much less well-known Earth Federation Military task force called the Crywolves that's currently operating in the Steel Dragons' shadow, doing post-operation cleanup work at the Earth Cradle at the behest of a Federation lab group called the Tsentr Project. The Crywolves' leader is Albero Est, and his two main wingmen are Hugo Medio and Albero's son Foglia Est. They get dispatched to the wreckage of the Earth Cradle to go on an Einst hunt. The Einst are still milling about for some reason (later explained that they're interested in machine cells), and the Crywolves have a specific objective in mind: A Head.

	The Einst are given codenames for easy reference in the Federation's databanks. The skeletons (Knochen) are called Bones, the vine ones (Glied) are called Grasses, the animated armor suits (Gemüt) are called Armors, and the big boss ones (Regisseur) are called Heads. The Heads are enormous creatures with innate regeneration and a lot of destructive power, so capturing one alive is a tall order. However, the Crywolves came prepared. Extremely trustworthy scientist Dr. Mitar Zapad of the Tsentr Project provided Albero with a freezing warhead for this op that, when fired, freezes over the entire Head. It's not a permanent solution, but it lasts long enough for a Federation transport to roll in and carry it off to the Tsentr Project's base of operations, Pillbox 1.

	Sophia is alive and well and trying to sort the mess at the Earth Cradle out, so she's understandably not happy to see the Tsentr Project roll in, take over her clean-up work, and kick her out of her home. She goes to crash on her best friend Eri's couch at the Tesla Reich Institute, where Eri's set up shop doing support work for the Chokijin.

RESCUING EXCELLEN
	The Kurogane and Hiryu reconvene in space and embark on a decisive push toward the White Star. On their way there, the Einst launch a decisive attack of their own. Excellen locks down the ships with their hangar bay doors still closed, and no one can breach the field to get out of them, leaving Kyosuke as the only capable non-ship fighter (he scrambled early without leave when he sensed the Einst). Excellen musters enough will to tell Kyosuke to get the job done, and Kyosuke manages to close in and pierce the red crystal acting as a conduit for whatever being is controlling her. He makes brief contact with the being and gets a few answers about why Excellen is being controlled and he isn't.

	Kyosuke and Excellen were both in a shuttle crash years ago, back in their academy days. Kyosuke came out of it badly wounded and hospitalized for months. Excellen, however, came out of it perfectly pristine. The reason for that was that Excellen actually died in the shuttle crash. The Einst attacked the shuttle and crashed it, and they integrated into Excellen's body to revive her as one of them. They tried to do the same with Kyosuke, but it didn't work, because through some incredible miracle, Kyosuke was still clinging to life without their help. That explains why Kyosuke can commune with them like Excellen can, but only Excellen responds to their control.

	What about Alchemie? Well, she's the Einst's attempt at creating a new life of their own based on Excellen. That explains why she takes after a lot of Excellen's mannerisms. She's been fixated on Kyosuke because of that, but she's not even sure if those feelings are her own.

	The Einst's goal is a tranquil universe. Humans are disruptive to tranquillity, so they need to be removed. The Einst want to open a "door", erase the "other root", and plant a "new seed". They talk in very deliberately cryptic ways using keywords like this all the time, and it's equally infuriating to readers and characters in-setting.

	In summary, Kyosuke breaks the orb controlling Excellen, which has the effect of lowering the field around the ships so that more units can scramble to get rid of the rest of the Einst. When Excellen goes in for a medical exam afterward, she gets assured that she's not subject to any more control. The Rein Weissritter is still operational, and it's more of a rebirth than an upgrade as the technicians describe it. Well, it's an ex-boss unit with cool attacks, and Excellen's attached to her Weissy, so she'll take it.

THE PUSH INTO THE WHITE STAR
	Once they're past the Einst, the only thing standing between the Steel Dragons and the White Star is a boatload of Shadow Mirror bioroid soldiers and Inspector drones. Captain Lee Linjun makes his final stand here in the Shirogane, having a showdown with Tetsuya. Lee has the Shirogane make a charge at Tetsuya's Kurogane. Tetsuya's response: "Have you forgotten what our ship has on its bow?!" Lee is quickly on the receiving end of a massive drill. He somehow survives and runs like hell, never to be seen again.

	Once in the White Star, the Steel Dragons have their final showdowns with Axel Almer and the Inspectors. Axel has some poignant final moments with Lamia—All the time he spent belittling Lemon's "puppets" was envy on his part, envy that he couldn't turn off his own useless emotions and just live purely for war. He accepts his defeat as his due and goes out with a warrior's grace.

	Wendolo isn't going to accept defeat lying down, though. He's ready to warp out and go back home for a while to regroup—except he finds that he can't. His warp device has been sabotaged, and his brother Mekibos is quick to show up and take the credit for it. He's had a change of heart and is starting to think that his boss and little brother Wendolo isn't giving these Earthlings enough credit for their spirit and ingenuity. He's starting to question if the Inspectors have any business being here at all. Wendolo is unimpressed, however, and just as quickly turns on his brother and blasts him into nothing. Wendolo falls to the Steel Dragons and perishes in turn, and Mekibos is gone, never to be seen again.

	They've won now, right? Not quite.

	The scenery warps, and the neat panel lines of the White Star are replaced with a strange pinkish fleshy environment. The Einst have warped in, and they're here in full force being led by Alchemie. The last of the Shadow Mirror forces also warp in here, since this is the best shot they're going to get at nabbing Gilliam. The Steel Dragons are finally able to confront Vindel and Lemon. When Lemon dies, she shares a story with Excellen.

	Back in the SM-verse, Excellen died in the shuttle crash and didn't get brought back to life. Her parents were involved with a certain military project to create mobile weapons and synths to control them. When Excellen died, they took her remains and integrated project material into the corpse in an effort to bring her back to life. It sort of worked, except that they didn't get Excellen's full personality and memories back. Instead they got Lemon Browning, so named because she was a failed project, a defect.

	Lemon bids Excellen and Lamia both a gentle farewell when her robot explodes. Vindel is undeterred, and when it becomes apparent that he's losing, he decides it's time to leave and start fresh somewhere else. He says screw it and moves to open the dimensional door, with or without Gilliam's help. Gilliam rushes in, not to stop him, but to hijack System XN and use it himself, claiming that he'll take Vindel beyond the causality horizon. Lamia joins them, suggesting despite Gilliam's protests that such a jump would be more reliable with more energy to fuel it.

	The debate quickly becomes moot, however, when Alchemie hijacks the dimensional door for the Einst.

THE INSPECTOR
	The Steel Dragons are warped to a pocket dimension with the Einst and their true leader, the Neuer Sternregisseur. The Sternregisseur has merged with the White Star itself, becoming a 40 kilometer titan. Buckle up, because ol' Stern's got some exposition for us.

	The Neuer Sternregisseur calls itself the Einst and the Zukunft (what once was, and what will be), and explains that it is an inspector who inspects the seeds of life born from the "land of beginnings" (Earth) and spread throughout the universe. It watches and corrects distortions and errors. When asked if the stuff about seeds from the land of beginnings means the Earthlings and Inspectors and Balmarians all share the same root, it clarifies only by saying the following:

	"There is more than one root. There is a being which bestows intelligence, power, and trials upon you. One that stimulates your evolution. There are some of its blood who seek to open the gate and contact the ancient records."

	To the Sternregisseur, Man is a lifeform that ate the fruit of knowledge and multiplied, unrepentant. Man disrupts the universe's tranquility and voluntarily shortens the lifespan of the universe itself. Since the seeds of life spread too far, too chaotically, their advancement has gone beyond the Regisseur's power to control. So the Sternregisseur's goal is to "correct the distortion from the land of beginnings". Or as Kyosuke puts it: "So basically, now that we're too much for you to handle, you want to hit the reset button."

	Naturally, the Steel Dragons aren't impressed with any of this claptrap, and they point out the flaw in this logic: That if this so-called "Inspector" really could have passed judgment on them at any point, why are they here having a final battle with it at all?

	Alchemie sort of has a change of heart during this, too. When she realizes that the Sternregisseur's goal is to blot out ALL life, including her own, she asserts that no, she wants to live and see what happens next. She sides with Kyosuke and Excellen against her creator.

	In the end, the Steel Dragons overcome the Neuer Sternregisseur, and Gilliam harnesses the power of System XN one last time to get them out of the collapsing pocket dimension.

	Back on Earth, with the fall of the Sternregisseur, all Einst in the Earth Sphere immediately fall apart and collapse into dust, bringing an abrupt end to the nonstop Einst assaults on Federation bases. Alchemie's Persönlichkeit suffers the same fate, and it turns out that the reason they've never seen her outside of it is because it's the only life support system sustaining her. She thanks Kyosuke and Excellen for accepting her, then quietly passes away with her mech.

THE CRYWOLVES COME BACK FOR MORE
	While the Steel Dragons are having their confrontation with Shadow Mirror, the Crywolves have been dispatched into the White Star to pick up after them. This time the dispatcher is Dr. Eric Wang of the Tsentr Project, a friendly and quirky old man who would very much like it if they could retrieve the Zweizergain's wreckage for him. While they're venturing in and fighting their way past Inspector drones, they get a bunch of dangerous warp readings. Albero immediately aborts the op, and they hightail it the hell out of there just as the White Star warps out of existence. The shockwave sends them flying out. By the time they recover, they get news that the Steel Dragons are back and the Inspectors and Shadow Mirror are gone.

	Also sent flying out by the White Star's warp shockwave is the wreckage of the Soulgain. Axel isn't quite as dead as he wanted or expected to be, but he's definitely mortally wounded and dying quietly in his cockpit. He grimaces and grouses about not even getting granted a warrior's death, but hey, maybe the quiet's not so bad. He passes out, and a spirit drifts to his cockpit.

	The Crywolves didn't accomplish their objective of retrieving the Zweizergain, but when they stumble across the Soulgain's wreckage, they haul it in to examine it. What they discover inside is Axel Almer, unconscious, fully pristine, and naked as the day he was born, with his clothes folded in a neat stack in front of him. Eric takes custody of the Soulgain and takes charge of Axel's medical treatment and monitoring at Pillbox 1. This is all kept super hush-hush by the Tsentr Project, of course.

NCE 188
EPILOGUE
	The Neo DC is gone, except for all the remnants that will persist forever.
	The Inspectors are gone to a man. Their old production base the Skullhead is still floating around in space, now occupied by the Federation.
	Shadow Mirror is fully gone, except for Lamia. Lamia thinks it's for the best that ALL of Shadow Mirror and the W Series is gone for good, so she quietly takes the Angelg out one day, not planning to come back. However, the Steel Dragons show up and talk her down from self-destructing, and when Lamia says there's no place for her in this world, Kyosuke promises to keep one there for her. She relents and decides to stick around.
	The Einst are gone, except for Excellen, who is part human. She's not displaying any weird symptoms or getting sick, but she's still afraid of the possibility of regression. Kyosuke assures her that if it came to that, he'd kill her himself. She teases him about being a ladykiller, and just like that, they're back to normal. She remarks that if they ever have kids, she'd like to have twin daughters and name them Lemon and Alchemie. Kyosuke likes that idea.

	The Earth Federation is now under the rule of President Graien Grassman following his successful coup.
	The Tsentr Project, a highly shady government-funded group of scientists ranging from quirky to insane, continues to get funding and support from Graien's aide Nibhal Mubhal. Nibhal is providing backing to the Tsentr Project on behalf of a certain Mr. Steinbeck, who is very exacting in his demands for them to produce results and deliverables.

	Mitsuko gets off scot-free in her dealings with aliens and the Neo DC, considering that Graien was in on her scheming. In fact, Isurugi Industries is currently arranging a curious new acquisition, a little-known industrial equipment manufacturer called Wong Heavy Industries, based in Dalian, China.

	The Steel Dragons are scattered to the winds again, with the ATX Team being sent off to a remote base in Russia for a while. They've lost Lamia, who got scouted by Kai for his new Aggressors, but they've gained Kusuha, who's now inseparable from Bullet. RyuKoOh and KoRyuOh have gone to sleep at the Tesla Reich Institute to rest up for coming dangers, so Kusuha and Bullet will be piloting a two-man Grungust Type 3 for a while.

	Kai had to let Rai go since the SRX Project got unfrozen, but he's got a whole new assembly of people for his new Aggressors: Latune, Arado, Seolla, and Lamia. Since the Schoolchildren don't have anywhere better to go, Kai's going to take them under his wing. He's not the only surrogate father figure they have, either—Giada and Garnet retired from the military months ago to settle down and have kids, but they still treat Latune as a daughter, and they welcome Arado and Seolla as more family.

	And so the Inspector Incident winds down to its conclusion, while some other plot threads start to pick up steam.

	See you next time for Super Robot Wars Original Generation 2.5: Unified Wisdom.