[Last Week Tonight with John Oliver airs every Sunday night on HBO and Channel One Deling]

Ultimecia - the sexy witch from the future who will make you her slave forever, while also subjecting you to her beastiality foot fetish.

Ultimecia is a sorceress - someone who can use magic without the need of technology like paramagic or Guardian Forces, or anything like this girl who pulls random spells out of a hat, dances in a field of flowers with a big sign that reads "The End", and then simply says "I win." Sorceresses have been with us for thousands of years, but recently, they've gotten themselves a pretty bad rep.

[News reels]

"Another raid by Esthar, this time in the quaint town of Winhill."

"They say that the soldiers are kidnapping little girls in the hopes that they'll find a successor for Sorceress Adel."

"Galbadia taking the world by storm, as today Sorceress Edea ordered the launch of missiles at Trabia Garden."

"[Edea speaking] What happened to the evil, ruthless sorceress from your fantasies? The cold-blooded tyrant that slaughtered countless men and destroyed many nations? Where is she now? She stands before your very eyes to become your new ruler. HAHAHAHAHA."

[John clears his throat]

Now I don't know about you, but when I hear someone unabashedly say, "Hello, I'm your new tyrant, ha ha ha ha ha," my first thought isn't "let's throw a parade for her!" But that's exactly what Galbadia did! Though I will say, I absolutely love those outfits the dancers are wearing. If you can pull off jingling skirts and red leather bodysuits while styling your hair like bull horns and shaking your body like Kiros Seagill with his knives out, then you can pull off anything. Also, did you see their striped crew socks and high top sneakers? Simply amazing!

But we've never seen a sorceress quite like Ultimecia, who has the ability to send herself back in time and wreak absolute havoc on our world. So for tonight's story we're going to focus on three things: Who Ultimecia is, what she wants, and what we can do to stop her.

To understand who Ultimecia is, we first must look at the current geopolitical crisis, particularly the one caused by Sorceress Edea, seen here gloating over the body of a young man whom she has apparently just impaled with an ice spike. Sorceress Edea had gone from ambassador to supreme ruler of Galbadia in just under a month, and in her short time in power she advanced a number of initiatives, like murdering the former president Vinzer Deling in front of the huddled masses, and reanimating petrified iguanas to sic them on entranced teenage fangirls.

But one of her highest priorities was to hunt down and eradicate SeeDs - you know, the elite mercenaries from Garden trained as child soldiers, a practice that apparently, everyone in the world is okay with. SeeD has run afoul of Edea and Galbadia more than once now, like in their botched assassination attempt at her inauguration, or when this idiot practically said "Hi! We're from Garden!" while live streaming his kidnapping attempt of Vinzer Deling on national TV. In case you don't remember, let's watch it again now:

[Zell]:"YOU STUPID IDIOT!"

[Squall]: "Be quiet."

[Zell]: "Instructor, I know! You're going to take this stupid idiot back to Garden, right!?"

[Squall]: "Shut up! NO!"

[President Deling]: "I see... So you're all from Garden. Should anything happen to me, the entire Galbadian military will undoubtedly crush Garden. You can let go of me now."

[Seifer]: "Nice going, Chicken-wuss!"

[John smiles and raises his eyebrows]

Chicken-wuss! That's a new one. What is that, some kind of secret SeeD call sign? "The eagle has landed, send in the Chicken-wuss?" Do they call him Cluckypuss for short? Also, did he call this whip wielding, belt wearing dominatrix in glasses his instructor? I'm in the wrong line of business, sign me up for Garden!

In any case, SeeD has been squarely at the top of Edea's shitlist. Trabia Garden has been wiped off the map due to Galbadian missile strikes, and Galbadia Garden was converted into her base of operations as she pursued SeeDs around the world. Now you may think, well of course Edea would go after SeeDs! - she's a maniacal sorceress, and SeeD assaulted her with their legions of tattooed poultry, as well as this cowboy poised to assassinate her from atop a carousel decorated with holographic clowns. But it may surprise you to learn that her true motive for exterminating SeeDs runs far deeper, as she recently explained in her own words:

[Edea]: "I have been possessed all this time. I was at the mercy of Sorceress Ultimecia. Ultimecia is a sorceress from the future. A sorceress many generations ahead of our time."

[John O.]

Yes! The horrific actions taken by Edea were not her own, but those of Sorceress Ultimecia, possessing her from across the gulf of time to commit her horrible atrocities. Now you may have trouble believing this sort of excuse at her word. "Yes, your honor, I plead guilty by reason of being possessed by a witch from the future. Trust me, this is all true, I'm not lying to you!" But there may be evidence to substantiate her claim, based on other actions she had taken while purportedly under the possession of Ultimecia.

In addition to hunting down SeeDs, Edea was laser focused on seeking this woman: Ellone, a young lady with the mysterious power of sending people to the past. Now, we don't know much about how Ellone can do this, but you've got to admit, it sounds pretty invasive. "Daddy, where do babies come from? You know what, never mind, I'll just delve into your past and see for myself." But Ellone's power might just be the key to Ultimecia's motivations, as explained by Dr. Odine, Esthar's chief scientist and foremost expert on sorcery:

[Odine]: "I researched Ellone's power long ago. I made out a pattern from ze electric current running through Ellone's brain. Once ze pattern was determined, it was easy to mechanize. It may only be a toy right now, but in ze time of Ultimecia, it iz an impressive working machine!"

[John O.]

Now if a man dressed this confidently and speaking with that accent tells you anything, you can be sure to believe him! So Ultimecia is able to travel back in time via this machine, and is seeking Ellone, supposedly to use her power and go back further. Why, do you ask? Well, the reason for this may be to achieve something called Time Compression. To best understand what Time Compression is, here's Edea once again:

[Edea]: "Time compression… It's time magic. Past, present, and future get compressed."

[John O.]

That's right - Time Compression is past, present, and future, getting compressed into one moment. It's a world that only someone as powerful as Ultimecia can exist in, and something we must prevent from occurring at all costs. So given that we have this all-powerful sorceress coming back in time, seeking to create a world only for herself, what are our options to deal with her? Well to start, let's preface this with the fact that we still have problems to deal with right in front of us. Ultimecia is still very popular in Galbadia, even knowing that she plans to destroy the world:

[Galbadian Soldier]: "With Sorceress Ultimecia behind us, Esthar and its technology are nothing. We can beat them so easily. It'll be a second coming of the Sorceress War."

[John O.]

Ok, arsehole. It'll only be the end of the world, but whatever. That's fine. You do you. But he has a point that it will be very difficult for any non-magic users to combat sorcery. The most plausible option is to fight fire with fire, leveraging technology to give soldiers the ability to use magic where they otherwise couldn't. And the group best poised to do this is none other than SeeD.

SeeDs are trained to augment their abilities by junctioning Guardian Forces, non-corporeal entities that let them draw and conjure magic as well as the entities themselves. When employed efficiently, Guardian Forces make SeeDs an even match against a sorceress, possibly even enabling them to defeat her. But their use is not without controversy, as there are emerging claims that continued use of Guardian Forces can cause long term memory loss:

[Squall]: "...Why is it that we forgot? We grew up together as kids... How's that possible...?"

[Irvine]: "How about this? ...The price we pay for using the GF. The GF provides us its power. But the GF makes its own place inside our brain..."

[John O.]

Yes, with chronic GF usage, these orphans managed to forget they grew up together! It must make for awkward family gatherings. "Sorry, Grandma! I don't remember who you are, but watch as I steamroll your house by summoning this runaway train!" But it's important to note that these kids are prepared to fight Ultimecia, even knowing the consequences of prolonged GF exposure.

Having soldiers with this power, it becomes necessary to send them forward into the future, bringing the fight to Ultimecia in her time. One possible way to accomplish this is to actually let her achieve Time Compression, albeit for a brief period, so that our chosen warriors can cross over into her world. Now you might think it daft to recommend fighting Ultimecia by sending a gang of amnesic orphans into the future, but if you listen to Cid Kramer, the headmaster of Balamb Garden, they might just be fated to do so:

[Cid]: "SeeD will defeat the sorceress. The Garden will train SeeD members. The many missions around the world are only training for the final battle against the sorceress. But now that the sorceress has become a major threat, our true mission has begun."

[John O.]

So as crazy as it seems, lending our support to these kids on their quest might just be our best chance at a brighter future.