Holsten dines with the failing Commander Guyen, who recounts decades of stop-start efforts to harden Gilgamesh against Kern and prepare an upload facility. Generations have labored and degraded in expertise, leaving Guyen convinced only he can lead humanity. He frames his coming upload as a necessary sacrifice and his burden as shepherd.

Holsten confronts Guyen about recordings from the abandoned moon base. Guyen argues return was impossible and then reveals cold contempt, calling the stranded “traitors,” exposing the ruthless core of his leadership. Despite Holsten’s wavering sympathy, Guyen’s fanatic certainty hardens.

As Guyen’s followers gather for the ceremony, with Vitas and Karst’s armed squad present, Holsten warns that unchecked growth will doom the awake population and blurts that Lain, Vitas, and Karst have been conspiring. Paranoia erupts; Guyen demands obedience and threatens eternal control, Karst refuses, and a gun is raised. Close-quarters fighting breaks out between the faithful and security.

Lain arrives disguised among robed acolytes, presses an industrial nail-gun to Guyen’s head, and orders Vitas to disconnect the system. Holsten realizes the upload is already underway; Lain shoots Guyen, killing his body. The ship convulses as a broken, looping voice—an incomplete Guyen—floods screens with scrambled imagery, sometimes seeming to resolve into faces. Lain detects multiple hostile processes, as if Guyen seeded helpers ahead of him, and begins isolating them.

The emergent Guyen-echo strives for life-support control while Karst’s squad clears the chamber. Vitas, shaken, commits to help Lain. Lain urges Holsten to get clear as another shudder runs through the ship, leaving the crew fighting to contain a dangerous, partially uploaded commander within Gilgamesh’s systems.