#mecharashi

※Mecharashi is a mecha-themed tactical turn-based sport. The sport adopts a singular part-destruction fight system, the place you may assemble mechas nonetheless you need, equip a wide array of weapons, and select your favourite pilots to have interaction in battle. When any a part of a mecha is destroyed, its battle effectivity will diminish considerably. By focusing assaults on essentially the…

This is the last chapter of the Blair arc. The ending is bit... anti climactic? Blair's boss fight, if it can be called that, felt less impactful that William way back when, or even spider v spider Yevgeny. And then Rosa situation, uh, well, it mostly just serves to introduce Ada, rather than actually resolving anything. Obviously, the story continues, but the pacing could certainly be improved, especially since the last couple chapters dragged quite a bit.

Anyway, the notes:

William pov about the war 20 years ago: driven from East Thepia to west of Foren River, from controlling the mines to begging for mercy from the DL and corporations. All glory and sacrifice wiped away by the politicians' deal

Eileen and Cicero are working on him. As expected of an Obsidian person, Eileen is playing all sides, and Cicero just rotates between whoever will give him a lab, it seems.

Arnold put a clip of his speech on Skynet, getting 70+ million views, then had the DL expose more evidence in a media campaign. He's slippery as expected of a career politician. He keeps at this later too.

The Union Council issued a degree officially removing Blair from power as Viceroy but not for his arrest, giving him leeway to escape Milkhama with all his most important research and experiments.

Blair's NDF forces are fighting among themselves, some surrendering, some still following his orders.

Raven is hanging with the Ashes after he and Valentina busted Marcus out of an NDF lab.

Electric Eels are still working for Blair... poorly. They manage to do friendly fire with a Titan given to them by not turning on IFF

Lots of NDF have deserted and cooperating with the Ashes and Free Milkhama.

Raven is very relieved that Arnold survived lol. Marcus finds out that Ana and the others are alive too, in the buffer zone.

Yevgeny calls all of Milkhama a testing ground for pilots and STs. He's apparently from an "extinct homeland" and a "dead nation."

The result of Blair's research with many partners is an "implantable simulated neural tree" which stores and duplicates the uploader's consciousness, then uses an arashium implant to influence the thoughts of ST pilots

This creates "pure warriors" who think only as Blair programs them to, like the 17th. Mass mind control, it seems?

Yevgeny: someday they'll meet again as electric signals in the vast arashium network

Yevgeny and Natalia are in touch, he's giving her intel on Blair. As a reminder, they're supposedly from the same dead homeland (Ovett, presumably?)

Evergreen trees in the background... what is the climate around here...

Blair's mercenaries and Predators are clearing out the labs.

The DL is staying out of the conflict to avoid it escalating from an internal dispute to an international issue.

Doll Group and Eileen are helping. It's unremarked upon, but Eileen is trying playing all sides here.

Free Milkhama is moving to break out of the buffer zone into West Milkhama.

Yevgeny: Time to rock

This man is truly a meme

I'm not clear on what is going with Mary here. She seems to have remained working for Blair to keep him from sending her students/younger soldiers out to fight (was it a deal or just her initiative?), then she agrees to turn on him and testify later...?

Hong is at Tundra Pass. Tundra??? What is the climate here?!

Natalia revealed something about the DL to Sylvie, but Sylvie thinks it's very sus that Natalia didn't include the GKD. Sylvie is really learning about Natalia's methods lol

Valkyrie was being kept at the Sunset Valley lab, authority is transferred to Lucia, who is now falling back to Rayneburg. Blair is planning to escape Milkhama via the port there and official forces can't stop him because there's no warrant for his arrest.

Eileen doesn't care who wins politically, Blair or Arnold. Obsidian can find a way to ally with and use either one, after all.

Yevgeny tells GKD where to find some Ashes members so they can save them from the lab before mysteriously disappearing. Meanwhile, Predators are rounding up people in the streets as test subjects. Wild stuff.

Ada shows up to fight at the lab.

UNCS "has no future" without Milkhama's arashium. Back in XC 100, they almost achieved "arashium supremacy" by dominating Milkhama.

Kaidan saved Blair's caravan from the Ashes in XC116 (now three years ago)

Arnold's resolution to apprehend Blair finally gets approved by the Council, but they want his trial to be on the mainland.

"Lady M" sent Arnold a message.

Kaidan gets unexpectedly worked up during the final stretch. He's much more into Milkhama independence and against the current system than you'd expect.

Raven....

Harvey's full name is Harvey Lynch. Two years ago, she flipped GKD and their STs in to the water.

Rosa is... inside Lucia's ST?

Ada shows up dramatically, and Rosa finally has a reaction with her appearance. Ada can control even Lucia's ST and resist Rosa's control.

Ada is in DL Special Mobile Squad. She takes off with Rosa (off screen).

XC 118 Dec 8

Blair's ST was called Hades. No logs remain. He was charged with crimes.

Blair supposedly plotted to assassinate "Parliament members" (Arnold?) and make the governor stand down.

Arnold is the new Viceroy.

GKD bounty was withdrawn, but the GSA is monitoring them.

Jason Roviner

"Fran River" lol

Rosa was taken away by Ada, but she is officially considered missing and the DL is blamed. Arnold notably shifted the investigation and overall blame from Obsidian to the DL, who largely stayed out of the situation and more or less got used by him. Given Eileen's everything, he might be Obsidian's new government squeeze.

Kaidan participates in a simulation to show some flashback events. Two are about three years prior. Apparently, what happened back then is Cicero took Ada and fled to the DL. Rosa seemed to have fought both the NDF and chased after Cicero, though he was ultimately able to escape.

There is also mention of Dr. Newman's escape (attempt?) 7 years ago. This is very weird timing because he died 3 years before XC 116, which is now about 3 years ago. It's possible for this to maybe add up to 7 years, but it's a bit of a stretch. In any case, Dr. Newman is killed by Blair in the last simulation. His face and voice are blurred out though. The setting seems to be the buffer zone, but maps get reused a lot, so it's hard to tell.

Based on what Blair says to him, Dr. Newman wanted to "win back" his family as well as his reputation and such. It seems he had a crisis of consciousness after inventing Hyper Aptamer.

The family reference is because Aynis/Agnes is here. From the other server spoilers, her last name is Newman. Her actual name is hidden and she's referred to as Ophelia by the combat UI for some reason. She taunts Kaidan for not knowing anything and also says she's going to take back what is hers. Seems she's mad about her dad adopting Kaidan.

She tells Kaidan to become a "true" Hyper Aptamer.

Though toward the end, it becomes "Hyper Adapter" instead.

Previously, Cicero said that the goal of their research was to let pilots control STs with their brainwaves, which would be done via a biometric reader, and STs built for this are the Nova Frames. Those who can take the implants for piloting Nova Frames are “Hyper Aptamer.” Somewhat throwing the wrench into all this is that Melissa can just remotely control her (normal?) mech because she's got special Arashium powers, and obviously Rosa can control any mech remotely just because. Rosa's hacking powers can even be extracted. So "true" Hyper Aptamer/Adapter should be something more interesting.

btw "aptamer" is related to molecular structures like DNA, RNA, etc. They can be used in some situations similar to antibodies. The term is a neologism, and the guys who coined it said "We have termed these individual RNA sequences 'aptamers', from the Latin aptus, to fit." Doesn't explain much, but if you assume Adapter could be another suitable term, it should be something about fitting or connecting (to the ST?)

As a cute touch, Ophelia pilots Twilight Fang, which is sometimes treated as Kaidan's mech, even though as a double knuckle fighter, she can't even activate its passive for using two different weapon types. She also has a skill called "The Strong Survive"... which buffs allies.

"Ophelia" mentions an old woman giving her a gift, which is probably an electronic intrusion device that Natalia refers to later.

Natalia seems to recognize her and says this is above her and Naomi's pay grade. She has Naomi lie to Kaidan and say they can't trace the hacking.

As a side note, Natalia mentions that Yevgeny disappeared after Sunset Valley and says "who knows what he's up to"... when she's allied with him secretly...

Broadly speaking, I'm surprised the main story is still ongoing. I thought for sure they would have wrapped up Blair by now, since iirc chapter 9 is the last one available, and that's with the two post-launch chapters that were added. But no, we're still kinda just running around.

October XC 118. We started in April, so moving around across Milkhama takes months.

Lorine Mountains Buffer Zone

The gang thinks Arnold died at Rayneburg, but the pre-chapter text says "Executor" is "KIA" with the quotation marks, so lol

Lorna appears to save NPC Field

NPC and boss designs in this game are diabolical. Who allowed this

Lorna mentions having a sister. She's a kid about the same age as Emily.

"Free Milkhama" is a group including the refugees GKD helped at Foren River. There is a Free Milkhama Zone (within the buffer zone) where they try to push out DL and UNCS influence.

DL is "picky" about who they allow in, so they squeezed the refugees out into the border zone. (UNCS also had mention of a citizenship system that did not sound good.)

"Lian" and "Field" were kidnapped, along with others, which was recorded by Pochi, as more subjects for the human experimentation.

Lian is referred to only once and it seems to be the same Lind who is mentioned several times later but isn't shown with a portrait.

Kaidan is all about calculated risks.

UNCS has been making STs that crudely mimic Rosa's abilities via a device that mimics her brainwaves.

Winston performs surgery to remove "Arashium ware" from a refugees head. It was also in the soldiers from the 17th. It's Obsidian tech.

Winston at least claims that he was pressured to change his research.

Lind seems to be from the Ashes. Ashes split between Yevgeny (old rebels) and Marcus (former Armored Corps).

Blair's flunkies Lukmund and Major Shin Sagara of Falcon Airborne Corps. Lukmund is East Milkhama Governor, but he doesn't control military actions. Sagara is apparently a big shot, "NDF's secret top gun, "the Falcon" and runs important black ops for Blair. Blair even shows up to save him at the end.

NDF is bombing with buffer zone, which is not a good look politically

Catherine uses the Neural Frame Boost System, which has a high failure rate.

"MD orders"? related to Obsidian?

Natalia is in contact with the NDF and the DL, playing all sides.

Valentina sends someone (from GSA) to pick up Raven from the hospital. He's taken to where Valentina was assigned to "work on" Marcus.

Arnold faked his death with cooperation from the DL to draw attention to Blair.

William Stein

Kelly Polis, sniper, ex DLAF 13th Mobile Squad

Eileen is here too. North Lorine Buffer Zone is "under Obsidian supervision"

Central Mines

Eileen's boss, the Obsidian chairman Obelisk, wants to work with GKD and "Arashium specialists" (the Epiphyllum), which is a really funny euphemism for the human experimentation subjects. (Other guy is Raphael Gideon, which I always forget)

Major historical events given as Obsidian's founding, Border Wars, superpower intervention.

Fabled "future resource" Arashi Ore

Surveys show richer deposits east of Foren, so in DL territory

Obsidian discovered Arashium

Ada is shown. She and Kelly wear very similar battle suits. She's with the DL and Sylvie is unsure if her goals align with theirs, even if she's Rosa's sister.

Flashback to Rosa's defection. She had a plan to break into Parrill lab and Ashes (Yevgeniy) joined in. He says she waited 7 years.

Kaidan and co were put into hibernation for transportation before the experiments.

NDF soldiers are doubting Blair because of the Predator-like experiments on the 17th and Arnold's speech at Rayneburg

Mary chooses to save "hostages" over following orders. She hates the Predators.

Union Council News Agency

Rumors about everything are everywhere online, which is part of the plan to pressure for investigation using public opinion.

Shawnee is unhappy lol, seems she didn't expect this much of a shitshow.

Hyena, Lone Wolf and Vulture are alive.... seeing these guys is really....

Blair's "Big Launcher plan"

The critical operation was sooo hard. I only barely managed it. But I guess now I'll just kinda screw around for a while and grind ST upgrade mats, whew.

Most of this chapter is maneuvering by the support cast. There's a lot of everyone doubting each other's motives... aside from GKD and Epiphyllum, who are just kind of in the background. So let's go over them.

Raven gets doubted by Arnold and Natalia, but he's a genuinely idealistic guy who tries to be a double agent feeding false info to Blair, but ultimately fails and gets seriously injured by his father's forces. Blair just straight up orders his men not to hold back, crazy stuff.

Arnold was planning to use Raven as a shield against Blair because he assumed Blair would hesitate to put his son in danger, but he seems to have genuinely wanted to expose Blair's war plans and maintain peace. He tries to reveal the situation publicly but gets captured by the NDF forces.

That brings us to Natalia, who's implied motivations change a few times. She's initially a GSA agent who is aiding Arnold, then it's said she manipulated Arnold to become a distraction to Blair so that she could go to retrieve Hyper Aptamer data from a secret facility, though she continues to aid GKD in escaping after the Rayneburg situation, but at the end, it's revealed that she's actually... an agent of Ovett? And so it Yevgeny, who has been using Ashes as a cover??

Actually, this is kind of in line with the naming. Ovett = Soviet, so you can guess by the Russian names. But that really makes Naomi sus lol

There is also one more sussy player: the person Natalia contacts in the hidden facility and gives the info to as a "backup." Based on the silhouette of the talk sprite and the position, it should be.... Rosa? Supporting this somewhat, when you fight Rosa in the secret facility, she doesn't attack you pretty much at all. It's super passive. So it would seem that she's leading everyone to believe she's completely brainwashed, but she's actually biding her time to make a move. Truly, the game's waifu.

That said, I'm really wondering about the timeline. Natalia calls that old facility Rosa's (?) old post, and they say the last records there were of pre-XC 112 STs. The war ended in XC 101 though, which would probably be before Rosa's time. She can't be that old, even if you push for some child soldier shenanigans.

Anyway, other notes:

Blair has put West Milkhama under lockdown. Controlling communications outside the island and even inside as well, he blocked the GSA investigation.

Arnold is a Senior Union Council member and Special Investigator. He's often referred to as a senator, but there hasn't been any mention of a Senate in UNCS, only the Council and "the Prime's office." Natalia also refers to a "committee" but I don't know what this is.

The lockdown has pushed Arnold to hide in the Monty Mountains. This location was suggested by Natalia, as part of her pushing him to become a distraction for Blair.

Blair is at the Milkhama Mansion.

"If the State keeps the DL peaceful," which I don't understand. "The State" should be something in the DL, but we don't know anything about the DL's internal structure.

The old facility Natalia wanted to reach so much was the first Hyper Aptamer facility, run by Dr. Newman.

Blair is supposedly working with Ovett as well as Obsidian.

Monty Mountains facilities are "restricted" post-war.

Arnold seems to not have a bionic computer and uses assist drive to control his ST?

The war ended 17 years ago, according to Arnold's speech, which lines up with XC 101. He does also round it as the war being 20 years ago, but it probably lasted several years anyway.

There is a War Memorial in Rayneburg's Central Square. Arnold gives a speech there.

Afterwards, this is refereed to as "Battle of Rayneburg."

The Council still wants Winston. Everyone does lol

Melissa and Rebecca know Pip as fellow bounty hunters. Electric Eels are still being hired as muscle by Blair.

Still, since I did get the Catherine showdown, it seems the only part missing would be the wrap up. Reddit told me that Camilla becomes Eileen's subordinate afterwards, presumably having lost all her memories (while Melissa and Rebecca go back to their normal lives). Kind of a bummer, but it was pretty unavoidable.

Diving is described as a direct neural link.

When at the Hunting Grounds, Melissa describes what looks like Economizers as co-sense devices.

Economizers can force Dive mode on the subjects.

Camilla was outside for 2 months. Before Sofia came, Damon taught her about stuff like morals and not killing people if possible. But Camilla killed the mercenaries at the hideout she took over.

Sofia was using MM44 drug. She is Subject 18. She was originally a refugee who became a mercenary to secure passage for her family off the island. But during an operation, she became worried for her family at a nearby refugee camp and abandoned her job to go look for them. Instead, going over to the camp resulted in it being destroyed.

Arashi hammer can prevent Dive, but it needs to be attached to the ST.

STs can also do emergency hypnosis, at least for the Predators and test subjects.

"A storm of Arashi particles to those who can sense them"

During this whole business, Camilla was piloting a Malthus copy specifically designed to look like Eileen's mech and also possible for Eileen to remote control.

A year ago, Melissa was just a "canary" at White Maple. Eileen comments this, but it doesn't seem like she and Melissa had any contact before the incident with Camilla at the arena.

Disconnect surgery stabilizes the subject but also erases memories. Damon wanted to protect Camilla from it. After the surgery, the subjects will even serve their abusers blindly. (Which... is basically what happens to Camilla in the end, even if Eileen has shades of gray somewhere in there.)

During their confrontation, Camilla establishes a "direct sensory link" with Catherine.

Rebecca has resonanace but no (Arashi) contamination. Arashi contamination is what gives Melissa her powers, incidentally.

Catherine was given "S87" (drug?)

Melissa has piloted the same ST for four years. Since she knows it well, she can control it remotely even from outside the cockpit. (Similar to Rosa's "hacking" of enemy STs, but much more limited.)

Melissa and Rebecca are working for Alyson Doll, and Melissa owes her a bit over 3 million.

Rebecca is hilariously okay with cheating by having Melissa support her from outside the arena. Incidentally, Melissa does indeed do remote repair with Arashi powers.

Alyson has been helping them hide Melissa's powers.

Melissa can sense Camilla over a distance after they connected at the arena.

Ms. Chili, Milkhama's signature energy drink with spice. The girls drink it because they can't handle coffee lol

Melissa has memory loss too. It's just generally associated with Arashium corruption. She has lost all "pre-Milthus explosion" memories.

Eileen contacted Alyson and sent them to the Hunting Grounds (location is normally a secret). In general, Alyson is very interested in stealing Obsidian's research secrets.

Eileen's modus operati is pretending to be entering a deal for something reasonable like exchanging some information while she's actually manipulating you as part of a greater plan.

Melissa gets several instances of going kinda evil when she's empowered. It's kind of funny. She's a nice girl, so she just can't handle the power.

She takes a White Maple Arashi suppressor drug that is similar to the Predator drugs but weaker.

The EM14 that Eileen gave Camilla actually does the opposite, intensifying Arashi (mental) erosion.

Melissa can read the memories of test subjects, but only the unstable ones pre-Disconnect surgery.

Hyena pilots Blue Bird.

Melissa is near Catherine's level, being able to dive without a special ST.

Anyway, the Reddit comments also explained the overall plot: Camilla is the most successful creation of Project Rebirth, and was either raise or outright created in their labs. Because of this, she never really had any memories from before the Hunting Grounds and the people there. Eileen is part of a power struggle at Obsidian, between the conservative Chairman Alexander Obelisk, a descendant of the founders, (Eileen's faction) and the radical CEO Raphael Gideon. Rebirth was under the CEO, but Eileen wanted to get its best subject under her control.

For this, she staged a riot at the Hunting Grounds two months prior. Promising them support, she convinced Sofia and co to help her take Camilla outside. All the Eileen pov stages were this incident two months prior. Afterwards, all of Camilla's comrades either died or lost their memories.

However, Camilla still wanted to go back and save them. Eileen gave her the drug to accelerate the mental erosion, but Camilla still clung to her will. So Eileen orchestrated the entire return to Hunting Grounds to break Camilla's hope by showing her that there was nothing left for her. Once you lose memories to Arashium erosion, even if you recall the information again later, the associated feelings will be gone. After facing him, Camilla can't even recall Damon or Egu's real name, even though Damon was so important to her before. In end, she faces Catherine to burn away her fury and... loses herself.

In between all this, there are Melissa and Rebecca, who become involved because they happen to cross paths with Camilla and sympathize with her.

And that's the event story.

It was okay. It was nice to see so many characters getting introduced and interacting with each other to some degree, and of course Obsidian is a major part of the story, so this is all fairly relevant. And I've seen the Predator trio as bosses in Clearance Ops, so it's... honestly, kinda painful seeing their situation. Props to the story for not backing down. Everyone from Hunting Grounds loses their memories or dies, there isn't any way out for them. Sad stuff!

It did make me like Rebecca and Melissa, and also Alyson. Poor Camilla tho... Eileen was amusingly manipulative all the way through. You could tell after a while that she was not on the level just because she often switched between being very emotionally supportive and saying stuff like "hope doesn't save anyone." Truly girlboss tho, hope we see more of her.

A couple other things. First, the story used a fair amount of literary references like the thread of spider silk and the Ship of Theseus. Not what I expected, given how barebones and direct the main story has been. Second, the Rebecca and Melissa sections piled on the modern, self-aware references. "That only happens in anime" "this is a very cliche plot twist" etc. I don't appreciate that kind of thing, so I hope it doesn't become a staple.

Still, not bad for the first event. Biggest problem was ultimately that they overturned the combat sections. This early in, it's unreasonable to expect people to have sufficiently high level characters and mechs.

Starts on Jan 5, XC 118 (which puts it a few months before main story chapter 2)

Doll Arena with 200,000 people, holding the Ultimate ST Championship (USTC).

Rebecca, "The Cowgirl," is a popular figure. She tells the audience to scan a promo code on her ST lol

Melissa is her partner (referred to as Canary in their short bios). She's able to perform "Arashium Dive" to do Magnetized Repair for Rebecca from outside the arean. She threatens to fry Camilla's spine and there is mention of a sensory link.

Melissa and the crowd at large react very negatively when they realize Camilla has connection to Obsidian. It's apparently commonly perceived that Obsidian is the cause behind all the island's problems.

Camilla is an escapee from the Hunting Grounds, the location where Obsidian conducts experiments on their elite pilots, Predators. She is subject 14. Other subjects include Sofia "Lone Wolf" (a former merc with leadership skills), Damon "Vulture" (a former criminal), and Egu "Hyena" (seems to just be kinda evil). These guys are actually bosses from the first Clearance Ops, kinda fun seeing them. Camilla wants to go back and rescue them.

She has difficulty remembering things and needs to take medication. Eileen offers her EM14, derived from MM42 (both meds).

Predators act in 14 man squads.

At the base, they are controlled by devices called Economizers.

There is mention of a "Disconnect Surgery" that, once performed, would stabilize Camilla, but presumably it's also the final step in the de-personification process of creating Predators.

Eileen and Camilla are ambushed in Siniestro Jungle, where Camilla was "borrowing" the base of a merc group. It should be close the Arena.

Eileen mentions wanting the "most successful creation" of Obsidian's human experiments.

Anyway, we get a lot about Obsidian's specific direction in their human experiments and also a bit about Arashium.

XC 85: the Labor Poisoning Incident. It was discovered that Arashium has subtle effects on the human mind. It destroyed the minds of miners who came in contact with it (something that also comes up in dispatch missions), making them act out, but they also synchronized with it, gaining unspecified abilities.

XC 95: Labor Revolt. Dementia patients matched trained Obsidian pilots in STs.

XC 105: Obsidian's Milthus branch begins human-machine fusion experiments, code name: Hunting Grounds.

This "Rebirth Experiment" seeks to use Arashium contamination to trigger re-evolution of humans into "Predators" that are above ordinary people. However, part of the process to better fuse humans with STs is wiping their human memories, leaving only combat skills. Unlike UNCS's Hyper-Aptamer project, Obsidian's spinal replacements aim for mind control.

(There is a point here. 105 + 13 years would be 118, but this supposedly takes place in January. At this point, Catherine and Hawkwood are both namedropped as already being out there, working, so it's unclear why it's only now that the goal of the experiments is achieved.)

A term that comes up often but isn't clearly explained is Diving with STs. Supposedly, human instinct rejects it. Melissa is capable of it. Eileen is not. The predator experimental subjects are. When Camilla does it to protect herself from Melissa, this is detected by Obsidian. It improves piloting ability, but it's not specified how. When Catherine Dives, it's terrifying and supposedly the only example of 100% memory wipe (memory suppression?).

I'm not sure whether the main story touches on any of this, since I haven't started chapter 6 (1.1 will add chapter 9, so there's quite a bit to go). But man.

In a general sense, I get that the politics are portrayed as murky, but they're almost too murky, causing the characters to more or less walk in circles. We start in UNCS, escape with a bounty after getting backstabbed, run to the DL and Cicero with the girls (two years later), only for the girls to blow things up with Cicero because he's an immoral science type who is also doing human experimentation, and then things blow up with the DL too, but then we're allying with other people in UNCS and the DL is landing a hand... and we're back in UNCS. It seems like Obsidian is the current shadowy evil and Viceroy Blair is the current final boss?

GSA seems to be referred to as "Security Bureau"

Somewhat out of nowhere, the goal of the GKD is given as getting back at Blair. This is probably because Blair is the current main enemy of the story, but I don't think they've mentioned wanting to get back at him before.

Catherine is called Commander here, rather than Captain like before. tbh I'm not sure what the difference would be.

Obsidian is referred to as a pharmaceutical company, the oldest corporation in Milkhama. Some additional stuff says it was here before the UNCS and DL arrived.

Locations: Belsuth, Port Kelvin. Kadrey and Belsuth are big ports, but Kelvin is not. It doesn't even have a DL office, so Obsidian treats it as a private entrance to Milkhama.

Captain Hawkwood, also from the Predators. Lucia Voight is also with them, but she has much more active position, with much more authority, almost like a representative. Catherine has a mode where she just completely loses it. Even her chest stops bouncing in the idle animation lol

Milthus is a mega neutral port. As a reminder, Milthus is also the name of a major bank, which presumably prints the Milthus dollars that are the in-game currency.

Siniestro Jungle (in the DL) is mentioned in a lot of dispatch missions. Being in DL, it should be different from the Northwest Jungle in UNCS.

"National Defense and Security" spokesperson makes a statement. Is this different or related to the NDF?

Shawnee has Kaidan branded a terrorist leader (ice-cold), though this becomes a bit weird when she's back as an ally in like three sections.

DL police captain Adrien

DL security law

UNCS Ship Administration

Raven is now a sergeant major after getting demoted

Blair mentions that Obsidian has the "last Diaz on the planet" which should be Ada. Obsidian tries to sound him out about Rosa ("mystery pilot"), but it's not clear if they really understand that it's her yet.

The UNCS has a "Council" I think

Shawnee is a rising political start in the DL. She explains that the DL is a "more loose alliance" compared to the UNCS, which leads to more political views and directions among its ranks. There is no single leader like Blair (for Milkhama). It's somewhat related to Cicero not really getting deeper into their upper ranks and having to run private bodyguards to help us cross the border, rather than getting actual DL troops to show up.

Shawnee herself likes stability and feels the GKD is too disruptive, so she wants us out as quickly as possible. And if happen to take down Blair because she gave us a little helping hand, all the better. Politics, man. (Honestly, I'm more with the Epiphyllum on this. Kaidan's flexibility is smarter, but man...)

Aside from this, I read the short blurb bios for all the pilots I have. There's some interesting bits (Rosa's quoted for Kaidan's, Winston is apparently into some hardcore experimentation that pushed Dr. Newman's limits but somehow not a bad man (?), some info on characters I haven't even seen in the story yet), but the only important-sounding element is two mentions of a nation we haven't see yet: Ovett.

Given the name and the last name of the character who is specifically from there, I wonder if it's meant to be the Soviet Union stand in. UNCS is probably meant to be the US analog, and it being more "loose" and internally inconsistent probably would make the DL the EU?