It’s a flashback to the Grand Race and our first real look at who Farahnāz Augusta, the previous ruler of Ades, was like. Giselle’s father, Atamora, wins the race, but a group of assassins assault the awards ceremony. Kaiser, Atamora’s flying partner, is killed protecting Farahnāz, and Farahnāz’s bodyguards do good work protecting her. However, the main assault appears to be a diversion as two of the very pilots attending the awards ceremony are the ones to ultimately assassinate Farahnāz. Fam then wakes up from her flashback, seemingly in the custody of Glacies forces.
Empress Farahnāz Augusta: The last hope for peace
So we finally get to witness the events that led up to Farahnāz Augusta’s assassination. Ironically, she ends up getting killed while trying to protect Millia. It’s hard to imagine how the Ades Federation could have possibly gone in a more opposite direction that what Farahnāz wanted it to after her assassination. She knew there might be setbacks, but didn’t want them to bring down the overall peace. Yet, that’s exactly what happened. Hopefully Sara Augusta’s main advisers, particularly Vasant, remember what Farahnāz had wished for originally.
I still wouldn’t be surprised if the assassination was orchestrated by people within Ades itself, with the prime suspect being Luscinia if that is the case. He clearly has a disdain for the Exile refugees, though it’s unknown whether he still felt that way before the assassination.
I also found it somewhat mysterious why Farahnāz had two bodyguards that looked suspiciously like Guild members. This was supposedly taking place before the Prester Exile even returned, which perhaps begs the question of who the Guild are from originally.
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Some stuff from the artbooks: The Guild basically was set up FOR the Exile Project, as overseers of the colonists being sent out to the various presters while Earth recovered from the devastation it suffered six hundred years prior to the first series. It is assumed that one chapter stayed behind on Earth to oversee the reclamation, as it is mentioned that a signal was supposed to have been sent out so that all the branch Guilds would bring their charges back once Earth had fully recovered.
Obviously something happened, as the various Exiles came back in different waves over the past two or three hundred years. Also, as the new Travelers from the Hourglass manga chapter shows (http://www.batoto.net/read/_/85899/last-exile-sunadokei-no-tabibito_ch6_by_mangawari), the Earth Guild is nowhere near the shape it was during the previous Augusta’s time; indeed, it’s already in danger of dying out, as it’s reached its limit with regards to cloning technology.