Video version: https://youtu.be/wv9Y8_TcD88

There is currently a traitor among us! One of the Seven Punks has gone rogue and is out to kill all the others, but who is it actually? Well, if look closely enough, you may realize Oda has left certain details that allow us to prove beyond any doubt the innocence of almost all but one of the Vegapunks, allowing us to pinpoint exactly who the traitor is by order of elimination. Stick with me until the end here, because the reasoning I’ll provide in the end will allow us to conclusively prove who is the only person who could be the traitor. So let’s take an emergency meeting and establish who we should eject!

CRIMES

So first of all we need to establish what crimes this traitor is guilty of:

• To start things off, in Chapter 1071, the frontier dome, the laser shield protecting the labophase sky island, was deactivated by someone, despite Pythagoras claiming he couldn’t see anyone on the monitor in the control room. This allowed CP0 and the Seraphim to sneak inside. This was first blamed as a technical error, though following that, the frontier dome instead would not turn off, making escape impossible

• Followingly, Vegapunk’s main unit, the Stella, suddenly disappeared. While he was with Bonney, during the time that Bonney was peering into Kuma’s memories, he suspiciously disappeared from the room, not to be seen again on any of the cameras

• Then communications were cut off, making it impossible to communicate via transmissions, and the den den mushi are being picked one by one to ensure that none of what’s happening can be recorded. One of the camera shots shows the entire floor being cut in half, which suggests it was the work of S-Hawk, with the Seraphim being ordered to get rid of all the den den mushi. This means that the mysterious silhouette seen in the chapter, while it could be someone else entirely, could just as easily be one of the Seraphim

• Similarly, Pythagoras was attacked by S-Snake. Though interestingly the S-Bear and S-Hawk were targeting Lucci and Kaku specifically, so whoever ordered them wanted them gone specifically as well. As Shaka points out, the fact that the Seraphim are not listening to his orders means it must’ve been one of the Vegapunks who issued them. I’d like to discard the idea that the Gorosei somehow made it in the labophase this quickly, and Shaka basically confirms that it is one of the Vegapunks. As Stussy explained recently, those of the same authority level cannot override orders created by someone on the same authority level, meaning that only the person who gave the original order or someone higher up the command chain can stop the Seraphim

So in other words, this means that this was the plan: one of the Punks let down the frontier dome so that CP0 and the Seraphim would get in, only to trap everyone inside the dome with the Seraphim. Then they disrupted communications while everyone was separated and are now using the Seraphim to pick everyone out one by one, Punks included.

But then who among the Punks is it?

SUSPECTS

Well, the easiest conclusion to jump to is that it is obviously Lilith. After all, she is the Punk that encompasses the aspect of “Evil”, making her naturally suspicious, and she was eager to try and fight CP0. But before you get to voting her out, it’s actually the complete opposite, as we can prove Lilith’s innocence beyond any doubt. Because as it’s been explained, only the person who originally gave the order or someone of higher authority can dispel the order of a Seraphim. And since we see Lilith ordering S-Snake to stop attacking them this chapter, but the Seraphim simply ignores the order, then it automatically means that Lilith was not the one who issued it.

Not to speak about the fact that Lilith was very relieved that Edison survived the attack against the Seraphim and seems very shocked and annoyed at this sudden betrayal. But most importantly of all she was simply hanging out with everyone else when the frontier dome was deactivated, which makes it hard for it to have been her.

Similarly we can actually say the same of Shaka, who yes, may be suspicious due to his serious personality and his face being hidden by a mask, but he too orders the Seraphim at the end of the chapter and is subsequently ignored. Shaka has also been present at the control room practically this entire time, and in this chapter we see him even react with extreme shock at what’s happening, which he wouldn’t really need to do considering that he’s all alone in the room and doesn’t need to fool anybody, as Luffy and Zoro were in the adjacent room. Shaka was also alongside Lilith when the barrier dome went down, so we can rule him out as well.

Pythagoras also follows suit since he too was in the room with the two of them when the frontier dome went down, and in this chapter he exclaimed that the S-Snake was not listening to his orders as well. Which to be fair he could be lying about, but I still find that unlikely considering how much the S-Snake took him by surprise last chapter and damaged his body really badly, still trying to finish him off in this chapter.

And to cap this group off, York not only was also present stuffing her mouth when the frontier dome went down, but she also ordered S-Snake to wait outside and was ignored, proving her innocence as well, meaning that we can easily rule out this group of 4 Punks.

This leaves us with two of them, but among them we also need to quickly dismiss Atlas, who is very unlikely to have had a hand in this from the simple fact that she was undergoing repairs during the time the frontier dome went down, as her face was completely busted and was undergoing repairs until last chapter, so I find it fairly unlikely that she could’ve achieved anything in that time. Which doesn’t completely prove her innocence, but circumstantially it just doesn’t make it realistic for it to have been her.

So this just leaves us with Edison, who similarly we can prove his innocence. He too was with the others when the frontier dome was down- Oh wait, no he wasn’t! In fact he was present hanging out with them at the time, but when the frontier dome went down he was mysteriously completely absent from the group of Shaka, Lilith, Pythagoras, and York, being completely gone from the group until he went to stop the Seraphim.

But hey, maybe we can excuse him through the fact that he also tried to stop the Seraphim in this chapter- Oh wait he didn’t! Aside from Atlas, who as we explained could not have been the one to deactivate the Frontier Dome, he’s the only other Vegapunk who did not issue orders in this chapter for the Seraphim to stop, making us completely unable to prove his innocence. But it actually goes a lot deeper than that:

Because more than anything, Edison is the one who issued the previous order to the Seraphim to stop! Which, think about it, as Shaka explains, no Vegapunk can overwrite the order issued by the previous Punk. Meaning, that the only one who could’ve overwritten the order for the Seraphim to stand guard outside to instead attack the other Punks inside the Labo could have only been… the one who issued that order originally, Edison himself.

Which means that through the basic logic of command hierarchy that Oda has established, Edison can be the only one who could’ve given out such an order. It’s still difficult to establish a motive and reason as to why Edison would want to betray the other Vegapunks, and we could speculate about it, but ultimately what matters is the hard evidence.

ONE MORE TRAITOR

So then that safely means we can eject Edison as our traitor …right? Well, actually, hold on, don’t vote yet, because there is still something that doesn’t add up. Edison could’ve easily set it up to disable the dome, he is the one who comes up with new ideas and new inventions after all, and he easily could’ve remotely disabled communications and given an order to the Seraphim to slowly disable the den den mushi and attack those in the labo during the time he was outside after giving his original order. But there’s one thing he really shouldn’t have been able to do, and that is kidnap and make Stella vanish.

So what if instead the one who did it was… someone else? And this may sound crazy, but what if the traitor is actually… Stella himself? After all, he too is a Vegapunk on equal authority with the other Punks when it comes to the Seraphim. So maybe he hasn’t been kidnapped, but rather, he escaped and is now up to no good.

And that’s a really fun idea, but if we really start thinking about it, it all begins to break down. For starters, Vegapunk was being pursued by Bonney when the shields went down, which makes it unlikely for it to have been him who did it. He then got turned into a kid by Bonney and saw her go into Kuma’s memories. Him being a kid is temporary as Bonney said it, but I’d be surprised if it lasted such a short amount of time. And, legitimately, I really don’t think he would abandon Bonney in Kuma’s memories when he went so out of his way so genuinely to protect her from being exposed to them as he had promised to Kuma all those years back. And how could he have gone all the way outside where the Seraphim were in such a short amount of time?

So thinking about it, I really don’t think that Stella disappeared and did all this out of his own volition, but rather that he did actually get kidnapped. But then if not Edison, then who could it have been? Well, we’re working under the assumption that there is one traitor, but what if there actually are… two of them? What if it’s not just one of the Punks who is plotting something, but someone else is also causing trouble on the island. And that certain someone is… Caribou.

Did you forget about him already? Because aside from the Punks, the Seraphim, CP0, and Bonney, he is the only other character on the Labophase right now, but conveniently Oda decided to not feature him for several chapters because he wants you to forget about him, which only proves that he is meant to be serving some hidden role. If Caribou wasn’t involved in all this, then Oda would’ve already shown him doing something else, but keeping him hidden means he must be intentionally involved.

And it makes sense, because what is Caribou’s forte? His devil fruit allows him to capture people. His swamp can take in living creatures and allow them to remain alive unconscious within him, as he is quite literally a bottomless swamp, something we saw when he kidnapped several mermaids from the mermaid cove who remained safely alive inside him for several hours. So he easily could’ve overseen Bonney and Vegapunk and while she was busy inside Kuma’s memory world, sneakily kidnapped him and made him effectively vanish. And why would he do that? Well, that’s easy, because this is Vegapunk we’re talking about, someone who if you kidnapped, you’d probably be able to get an enormous amount of ransom money from, so from Caribou’s perspective it makes perfect sense.

But does that mean that Caribou is working with the Punk traitor? Personally no, I don’t think that’s likely but he really doesn’t need to. As Shaka explained, there are mainly two mysteries at the moment, the disappearance of Stella, and the frontier dome not working. But that doesn’t mean the incidents are related, as Caribou could be responsible for Stella’s kidnapping, whereas Edison is the one responsible for the frontier dome and trying to kill off everyone.

THE TRAITOR NO ONE EXPECTED

This by itself is a satisfying answer, but there is one more possibility that I’d like to consider before coming to a conclusion. And that’s the presence of an eight Vegapunk that you most likely didn’t even think about. You may be confused at me saying this, but there is an eight part of Vegapunk’s brain that was introduced in this arc and that is… Punk Records. The storage space for Vegapunk’s brain where all of the Vegapunks connect to everyday, literally a part of his brain. Now from what we understand, Punk Records should just be a storage space, but what if it could’ve potentially at some point have gained a sentience of its own. After all Egghead has referenced a lot of different sci-fi movies and tropes, and one of the most classic tropes is the uprising of the AI, the computer itself that becomes conscious and tries to fight back against its creator.

So potentially in this case, Punk Records itself could have come alive and is now trying to get rid of its creator who is trying to leave the island and abandon it behind. This would explain why no one was visible in the control room when the frontier dome went down and why things like communications are suddenly being cut off, because it is the computer itself that is disabling them within the system.

As much as we can accuse Edison, we can only really do so through order of elimination, but it’s hard to understand his motive or prove him beyond shadow of a doubt. But on the other hand, the idea of Punk Records coming alive is still a farfetched theory that we can’t really demonstrate, only speculate about, so it’s a lot harder to nail down with proper evidence. So at the moment I do think it is safer and more logical to say that Edison is the one responsible for ordering the Seraphim and trapping everyone within the Labophase, with the kidnapping of Stella instead being Caribou’s work. But on the other hand, I definitely want you to keep in mind that Edison could simply be a red herring, and that the real impostor here is the very computer that runs all of these systems.

So, who will you vote out? Who do you think is the impostor in this case? Let me know in the comments who you think is the real traitor here, for you never know who you can really trust. After all, you can’t trust anyone, not even yourself.