18 Her Last Bow

Nanami, the first machine to awaken a sense of self, unwittingly inspires more machines to follow suit during her travels on Earth. Having evolved beyond their programming, these awakened machines have emotions, exercise free will, and resist the Punishing Virus to a certain degree. One example is Nozzle, the painter robot who adopted graffiti as self-expression after seeing Nanami’s doodles.

Gestalt observes this phenomenon and concludes that the future of Earth lies with the machines. According to its calculations, humanity only stands a minuscule chance of surviving. Gestalt believes Nanami should awaken more machines and assume the role of their leader—the Sagemachina—rather than helping humans. However, it predicts that Nanami will be reluctant to give up her current life with her friends without adequate explanation. Hence, Gestalt establishes a connection with Nanami while she is in the desert ruins and shows her a simulation of a potential future devoid of the Sagemachina’s leadership.

In the simulated future, Nanami traverses a perpetually frozen Earth in search of humans. She encounters a sniper robot who reveals that the drastic temperature drop subdued the activity of the Corrupted but also rendered the planet uninhabitable for humans. Recalling its mission to protect its human creators, the robot agrees to set out with Nanami on her journey to find any remaining survivors.

The pair comes across scattered belongings in the snow and follows them to an underground nursery tended by a nanny robot. Nanami’s hope turns to horror upon finding a corpse in the crib—the robot has been mindlessly repeating its caregiving task without realizing the human’s demise. The robot finally sees the truth through its interactions with Nanami and experiences deep remorse. Nanami comforts the newly “awakened” robot and sets it free. The nanny gives Nanami a recording from a survivor before leaving.

Nanami and the sniper robot learn from the recording that Babylonia deemed Earth unfit for human life and abandoned the planet. Survivors left on the surface perished due to a lack of resources. After discovering the fate of its creators, the robot bids Nanami farewell. Even though humans are long gone, it decides that the only thing it can do is continue performing its designated tasks.

After many days of wandering, Nanami encounters a silver-haired android named Haicma. Haicma recognizes Nanami as the Sagemachina, whom she has been seeking for more than a century following a prophecy by an awakened machine nicknamed “the Mother.” Haicma explains that the Eternal Winter resulted from the failed development of the Empyrea frame. Despite the failure, Babylonia persisted in its efforts to develop specialized Construct frames. The experiments consumed massive amounts of energy and resulted in climate change. In the planet devoid of humans, awakened machines formed a faction called the Church of Machina, to which Haicma and “the Mother“ belonged. The Church eventually collapsed without the Sagemachina to lead them.

Having witnessed the extinction of humanity and the tragic fate of awakened machines left on their own, Nanami understands why Gestalt advocated her to become the Sagemachina. Nanami promises Haicma that she will not allow such a sad future to become a reality and exits the simulation.

In the real world, Nanami resumes her journey. She follows Gestalt’s instructions and makes a conscious effort to awaken more machines, believing it will help avert the doom caused by the Eternal Winter. After the Amberia incident, she reconnects to Gestalt using the antenna in the ARU. She asks Gestalt to make another deduction of the future that accounts for the increased number of awakened machines. Gestalt obliges, but not before warning Nanami of the dangers of simulating the future. Such calculations require massive computing power, and any damage Nanami sustains in the simulation will also negatively affect her real-world self. Despite the risks, Nanami enters the second simulated future.

Nanami finds herself in the middle of a battlefield. A group of human soldiers attack Nanami, but Haicma intervenes and escorts her to safety. Even in this future, the android remains a steadfast ally to the Sagemachina. At the Sanctuary, the headquarters of the Church of Machina, Haicma and another machine named Spooner explain the situation to Nanami. Here, humans and machines wage a deadly war. Although Nanami awakened more machines and avoided the tragedy she saw in the first simulation, the machines failed to attain an understanding of emotions, unlike Nanami. The incomplete awakening happened because Nanami took on the responsibilities of the Sagemachina too late. Without her guidance, the newly awakened machines regarded humans as obstacles. Even Haicma initially took part in the Church’s attack on Babylonia and contributed to the fall of humanity.

Zero, a machine who claims to “love” Nanami, leads the machine army. She reveals that the Church is planning an assault on the final human stronghold. Nanami secretly devises a plan to foil the attack.

Outside the tower, Nanami encounters Murray and asks him about news concerning her friends. To her dismay, he narrates the account of humanity’s downfall. Liv perished while using her Empyrea frame. In a recent battle in an underwater fortress, every member of the Strike Hawks and Cerberus died, leaving Wanshi as the only survivor. Bianca became a “witch” when she wielded a weapon forged from the Punishing Virus. The Commandant and Murray survived, but both suffered serious injuries. The Commandant, no longer capable of serving on the frontlines, replaced Hassen and Nikola as the leader of all humanity. Every other faction on Earth vanished. The Gray Ravens fight on with Murray as their commandant, but humanity’s end is imminent as they struggle in a two-front war against the machines and virus. Although Nanami is devastated by the fate of her friends, she resolves to help the survivors in any way she can. She informs Murray of Zero’s plan and advises him to evacuate everyone.

The next day, Zero presents Nanami with a “gift.” She launched a surprise attack to massacre all human survivors and turned their remains into a gem. Her flawed understanding of “love” causes her to believe that such actions can earn the Sagemachina’s affection. Horrified, Nanami blames herself for her failure to guide the machines. She fights her way through Zero and her army to reach the core of the Sanctuary, from which she reconnects to Gestalt. Vowing to avert this future at all costs, she exits the simulation.

Upon Nanami’s return from the second simulation, Gestalt posits that even if Nanami prevents the Eternal Winter, humans will inevitably perish from another catastrophe, namely the war against the awakened machines. Nanami insists on finding a future where humans and machines can coexist. She makes a deal with Gestalt: unless it helps her perform more deductions, she will not awaken more machines. Gestalt agrees, and Nanami initiates countless simulations in search of a way to save humanity.

Nanami’s search ends in one failure after another, but she refuses to give up. Repeated deductions of potential futures enable Nanami to transcend the three-dimensional perception of time. Nanami hears the voice of the “Universe,” who explains that unlike humans bound by their linear perspective of time, beings in higher dimensions navigate the past, present, and future without constraints. In this state, she identifies the variables in the timeline that are crucial to reaching the future she is looking for. First, she sees the vision of the Commandant lying unconscious in the Star of Life and Liv in her Empyrea frame. She then moves to another moment in time and meets the Commandant’s past self. The short but heartwarming interaction with a dear friend brings a smile to Nanami’s face. At this moment, she realizes the essence that distinguishes humans from machines is love.

The voice of the “Universe” declares that Nanami has obtained the qualifications to travel to a broader universe and shows her a scene from another potential future where she encounters her future self. This future resulted from Nanami sacrificing her freedom and turning herself into the central AI of the spaceship DeLorean-Discovery. She gathered all the awakened machines in the spaceship and left Earth in humanity’s hands while she searched for new possibilities. At the end of her journey, she found the origin of the Punishing Virus. From this future, Nanami transmitted to the past the information that would help humanity pass the trial that awaits them.

Before bidding farewell, the future version of Nanami reminds her current self that what she has seen is one of many possible outcomes: at present, Nanami still has the freedom to make a different choice. She then advises Nanami to seek out a woman named Ishmael once she has made her final decision.

In the present timeline, Nanami shows up in Babylonia during the development of Empyrea. At the end of her countless deductions, Nanami realizes that she alone cannot prevent humanity’s demise; the Commandant is the key to the future. Following the hint given by her future self, she visits Ishmael and asks for her help to awaken the unconscious Commandant—this allows the Commandant to save Liv in time, averting the tragedies that occur because of her death and Empyrea’s failed development.

Nanami returns to Earth and asks Gestalt to provide her with the “coordinates” necessary to save humanity and their creations. She waves goodbye to Babylonia and embarks on a new journey, believing that the future can always change.