[chronotrig]

I really don't see where you guys are coming from on this. On the one hand, you admit that EP5 makes no sense as presented and that a lot of the truth is hidden or twisted. On the other hand, you claim that certain statements must be true no matter what, even though I've shown things that could point to the contrary and you have shown no proof.

Here's yet another possibility for getting around this: when was meta-Erika created?
It's possible that Bern was able to put piece-Erika on the board, but there's a lot of evidence suggesting that it was Lambda. If so, when was Bern given control of Erika's piece? Do we know for a fact that Lambda gave her control as soon as Erika washed up? The first time we even see meta-Erika is well after the gold has been discovered, and long after the scene where everyone appeared in the parlor.

So, what if Bern was given control of Erika sometime after the parlor scene? The opening scenes, including Erika's dramatic entrance, were shown to her in the same way Battler saw them. In fact, if this weren't the case, it would mean that the first chapter or so of the replay would have been mostly original material for Battler's benefit, since Erika is clearly shown from an outside perspective. I'd hardly call that a replay.

In this case, Bern has already seen the parlor scene just as we have (meaning that the replay was actually fair for this part, hardly an ridiculous assumption). She saw it from Battler's perspective, and saw Kanon and Shannon together. By this point, it would not have been in the least bit stupid of her to assume that this was the total list of people on the island. So, in the future, she had no need to worry about problems like that.

In other words, Bern's assumption was stupid only if nearly every person who denies Shkanon based on that scene is similarly stupid. Why should she force Lambda to go back and check everything again with Erika? What reason could Battler possibly have for lying about Shannon and Kanon both being there? Has the thought of Shkanon even crossed her mind? (Let's be fair now; the vast majority of readers heard of Shkanon from someone else instead of thinking it up themselves.)