Annotated 25-15
As a character, Annunziata only has so much to recommend him: his range is pretty thoroughly explored in this one chapter. But as a source of hilarious John Waltrip faces, he’s rivaled only by Frigg.
Meanwhile, Guildmaster Persson gets his second-best scene in the canon (and certainly the one he’s going to enjoy the most). This is the broadest foreshadowing yet of how this arc will end. Persson doesn’t even need to be an Altruist conspirator to foresee how this little scheme of the Admiral’s is going to blow up, and in whose face.
Which of these three is the comedian again?
Embraisch seems to be wondering the same thing in the last panel…
Annunziata cannot see past his own nose (or his figurehead, if you prefer). There is little worse than a dumb man who thinks he is clever *gestures at everything*.
Wait, is the Altruist conspiracy an actual thing? I thought it was just a delusion …
Did I miss a big part of the plot the first time around? 😱
Yes.
There’s no less blunt way to put it accurately. There’s a whole chapter where Pardo, Iwatani, and a bunch of the other Heads of Houses tell Syr’nj: Yes, we do in fact have an altruist conspiracy which controls Gastonia. A later scene where Syr’Nj, evidently wincing at having to do so, tells Sundar that he was actually right and there is “a conspiracy that calls itself altruist.” And in the last scene where Dean Reynolds appears he sums up “the ‘altruists’ were all selfish war criminals.”
In fairness, it’s rather hard to tell apart conspiracy stuff from out in the open Gastonian business as usual.
Persson is one of my favorite characters