NEWSFLASH: In a surprise confrontation between Socratease Kenobi (‘Bob’) and an evil henchman of the Analytic Empire (whose mode of presentation shall remain uncertain, at least until you’ve seen the next episode…), the ancient philosopher was ruthlessly slain by a single swipe from the Dark Lord’s truth-saber! In an apparent taunt to the great behelmeted one, Socrates jibed “You can’t win you know — if you strike me down I will become more knowledgeable than you can possibly imagine!”. What could he have meant? Meanwhile, young Ludwig Starthinker, the hero of our piece, watches on in dismay, powerless to intervene, as his hero and mentor’s life is tragically cut short by this terrible agent of evil, vanishing suddenly in a mysterious puff of logic…

Elsewhere, the Empire are in ruthless pursuit of the philosophical rebels, attempting by fair means or foul to dispose of their speculative arguments. After a fierce debate concerning the fundamental nature of mathematics, the rebel base is destroyed and our friends are forced to flee in their ship, the Phenomenological Reduction, to a remote planet with a rarefied atmosphere of ontological parsimony where Ludwig has a strange vision of his former teacher, Socratease, who advises him to travel to the Transcendental system and seek out a wizened old man with pointy ears who goes by the name of Master Kant. There he will complete his philosophical training and learn the arguments required to bring down the rank brand of empiricism that is sweeping the university. Ludwig complies and finds his new Master to be both fascinating and incomprehensible, as well as a little irritating, if truth be told. He finally breaks off his studies half way through the Transcendental Analytic (which was getting awfully complicated and confusing anyway), to go and rescue his friends, who have travelled to the floating cloud city of Berkeley, and whom he intuits are about to encounter some kind of trouble...

With his philosophical powers still incomplete, Ludwig was unable to discern that his friends’ plight was in fact A TRAP, and he finds himself caught up in the twisted machinations of the evil Emperor, founder and architect of the Analytic Empire, and supreme philosophical ruler of the university (for now, at least). Our hero’s friend, Karl Marxo, has been captured and is encased in synthetic a priori propositions to be sold off to a bounty hunter by the name of Johnny Locke (J-Lo to his friends). Even worse, in an epic duel with the numerically identical agent of evil that brought down his former mentor, our hero is brought face to face with the horrifying truth that he is none other than the son of the Dark Lord himself! Fortunately, Ludwig escapes from the encounter unharmed (well, almost — his hand was cut off, but other than that he’s OK). Scary stuff but with plenty of scope for a sequel, and possibly merchandising rights, the saga concludes in Episode VI: Return of the Philosopher Kings…