Election Day

Dr. Hermia Scott-Arden participates in the one and only debate -- which, as is Republic tradition, precedes the voting by only minutes -- and wins the election for President of The New Republic. Simultaneous to the announcement of the results, Pax Ultra is irrevocably destroyed, throwing Synthetic Saturn, as well as synthetics everywhere who are connected to it, into chaos. Petra becomes the new Ultra. Petra will try to hunt down Pax, so Dr. Gloop reveals that they have their own dimension to hide in -- but it is also where they are keeping STEM. A version of Pax tries to assassinate President Hermia.

The Debate
Before the debate, commentary was provided by Aerith and Bob, two political commentators who were doing a lot of cocaine.

This is the the first presidential election in The New Republic, but for the sake of continuity traditions from The Republic are being upheld.

The debate has three phases.

The Hounding
The first section of the presidential debate is that reporters and anyone else swarm the dressing rooms of the presidential candidates while they are getting ready to ask them questions.

The Lightning Round
The second section involves the candidates answering questions directly from Twitter. Many of these are extremely inappropriate.

The Head to Head
The final section of the debate allows each candidate one minute, back and forth three times, to say whatever they want, followed by one minute of talking over each other. Prince Kyle won the coin toss, and chose to go second, so Hermia opened, Kyle responded, Hermia responded, Kyle responded, Hermia responded, and Kyle went last. Then they spent one minute talking over each other, which involved mostly personally insults related to their shared past.

After the debate, commentary was provided by Spic and Span, two political commentators who were pretty unimpressed with the performance of both candidates, and said they didn't really see a difference between them. This commentary happened with Kyle and Hermia in the same room as them, which was pretty awkward and led to more (now not televised) fighting between the two candidates.

The Election
The election traditionally takes place immediately after the debate, so that the voters have the hottest takes. While waiting for election results, Hansel, using a pocket sized dimensional portal, brought Lamia (the Hermia from his dimension), Dr. Gorp (the Dr. Gloop from his dimension), and Beats (the Bites from his dimension) to meet everyone. When results came in showing Hermia winning in a landslide, Lamia (but not the other interdimensional visitors) shook President Elect Hermia's hand, and departed back to her dimension. The traditional song for presidential victor -- Shiny, from Moana -- begins blasting outside as the presidential vehicle (a giant space worthy disco ball) arrived to take the newly elected president to the ChromeHouse for swearing in.

The Destruction of Pax Ultra
Simultaneous to the victory, Pax suddenly becomes aware of the destruction of Pax Ultra, and the severing of her connection with the Synthetic collective. Chaos begins breaking out anywhere there is a sizeable synthetic population.

The Ascension of Petra
Petra calls Pax (a version of Pax Prime who is hanging out with the B-Team as they wait in The Mandrake for election results). They discuss what happened, and Petra says she believes it was the Anti-Sentients who are responsible for the destruction of Pax Ultra. She then warns Pax that she is about to ascend and take the place of leader of the synthetics, and that once she does so she will probably hunt down and destroy Pax. Moments later, the evidence of synthetic chaos ceases abruptly. Pax, Bites, and Dr. Gloop escape as President Elect Hermia goes to her inauguration (which, as is traditional, takes place immediately after the election).

The Inauguration
Hermia has Titan fly down to pick her up and she hops on a rope ladder that pulls her into her giant robot. The presidential disco ball follows her to the capital, where she is crowd surfed to the swearing in. It is considered bad luck for a new president's feet to touch the ground during the swearing in ceremony.

The STEM Dimension
Dr. Gloop brings the escaping group into their pocket dimension, which they access by what looks like unzipping reality. It appears beautiful and strange, with unimaginably vast creatures, larger than stars. It is soon revealed that everything in in this dimension is STEM, because this is where they locked STEM away. It is also revealed STEM has now become Dr. Gloop's therapist, and is helping them reconcile with their children, Vreek and S|Zoobloom.

The (Attempted?) Assassination of President Scott-Arden
Meanwhile, back in the ChromeHouse (the capitol), Hermia is getting ready for bed for her first night sleeping in the ChromeHouse, when she discovers that somehow someone has slipped through the state of the art defenses and is hiding behind her curtain. She activates her arm cannon, but it turns out to just be Pax. Pax comes real close to Hermia, and tells her how much she values her friendship. Then Pax stabs Hermia in the gut with a laser dagger. Hermia, stunned, tries to use words to find out what is going on, but Pax cuts her throat. As Hermia is blacking out, guards rush in, and Pax activates her self destruct. It is left unclear whether Hermia survived.

Stinger
After the fade to black on dying Hermia, we cut back to Dr. Gloop's STEM dimension, where Dr. Gloop and Dr. Gorp are flirting. They make out, which a very drunk Bites records on their cell phone but, upon discovering there's no internet in this dimension, just saves.