While escaping the Lord Commander, the crew find themselves in the direction of a black hole. Unfortunately, the black hole also directly leads to Invictus.
The episode provides examples of:
- Abusive Mom: Commander Ergon, Quinn and Avery's mother and a strict officer and mother who seemed to treat her own daughter more like soldiers-in-training rather than her own children and had their careers planned out for her with the girls having no say on it. After Avery nearly drowned, their mother's idea of disciplining was to lock Quinn, who was still a young child, in a morgue full of dead soldiers' bodies in order to teach her how commanders like her are affected by the deaths of their soldiers, telling Quinn that she'll have to bear the same kind of pain one day, as well as reminding her of her responsibility towards Avery, didn't even bother to listen to Quinn's side of the story or ask if she was hurt and allowed Avery to watch her sister's suffering even though the competition that almost ended in death was Avery's idea and Quinn could do nothing to stop her but their mother was far stricter with Quinn since she wanted her eldest daughter to take her place as commander and due to Quinn being the older sister despite there not being much of an age difference between the sisters.
- Big Little Sister: Avery is taller than Quinn, but she turned out to be the younger sibling when Avery called her big sister. When they were children, Quinn looked much younger than Avery due to her pigtails while Avery looked far older with her military haircut and tomboyish clothes.
- Body Horror: The episode closes on Quinn's poisoning having reached her face, covering it in disturbing yellow Volcanic Veins and even turning her eyes yellow.
- Dark and Troubled Past: Quinn once had a younger sister named Avery who she was separated from when they were fighting in an undisclosed war and both had a strict, borderline abusive mother who treated them more like future soldiers than family.
- Eye Scream: Avocato accidentally gets his eye knocked out. Worse, KVN volunteers to reinsert it by grabbing the eyeball by its optic nerve.
- Foolish Sibling, Responsible Sibling: Avery was the foolish sibling to Quinn's responsible. She was shown to be impulsive and arrogant in her attempt to prove herself superior to Quinn, nearly drowning while chasing a beacon despite Quinn's protests, and ignoring Quinn's orders during combat, running off to the frontlines and dying in the ensuing explosion. It was implied by a medical AI that Avery's actions were due to the fact she greatly looked up to Quinn, rather than being jealous of her.
- No-Sell: KVN is completely unaffected by the gravity on the ship being tripled.
- Ship Tease: Little Cato is shown to be worried for Ash throughout the episode when she is feeling sick due to Invictus. He is later screaming and crying when Ash sacrifices herself for them, not wanting to leave her behind.
- Sudden Anatomy: When KVN berates Avocato for his supposed lack of lower-body strength, he pulls up the sleeve of his pants... To reveal a massive, hulking leg bulging with realistic muscles and veins, that couldn't possibly fit inside said sleeve to begin with if it wasn't for the show's art style.
- Tough Love: Quinn and Avery's mother was a strict commanding officer; after Avery nearly drowned, their mother locked Quinn in a morgue full of dead soldiers' bodies in order to teach her how commanders like her are affected by the deaths of their soldiers, telling Quinn that she'll have to bear the same kind of pain one day, as well as reminding her of her responsibility towards Avery (even though the competition was Avery's idea and Quinn could do nothing to stop her).
- You Didn't Ask: Avocato, Little Cato and Biskit struggle to reach the engine room due to increased gravity, however shortly after entering the engine room Biskit suddenly decides to readjust the artificial gravity throughout the ship. Avocato is greatly annoyed, asking Biskit why he didn't do it sooner.
