View source for Knights of the Eastern Calculus

[[File:Knights of the eastern calculus heraldry.jpg|thumb|Knights of the Eastern Calculus]]

The '''Knights of the Eastern Calculus''' (often the '''Knights''') is a group of pseudonymous, notorious and highly-skilled computer crackers.

They interact with [[Lain Iwakura]] in various ways, possibly trying to trick her into entering The Wired or join them. They use [[Taro]] to get to her. In some way, they are responsible for the use and distribution of the [[psyche]] chip, which somehow massively improves network performance despite being a CPU. Other technologies they are suspected of creating and/or distributing include [[KIDS]] and [[accela]].

One of them is very fat, and says "I'm better than all you bozos!", referring to the law-abiding computer security experts who try to shut the Knights down.

The Knights are assassinated by the [[Men in Black]], or commit [[Suicide in Serial Experiments Lain|suicide]], after Lain leaks their membership list onto [[The Wired]].

Their name is a reference to the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knights_of_the_Lambda_Calculus Knights of the Lambda Calculus], a semi-fictional group of Scheme enthusiasts at MIT. Lambda calculus itself is a formalisation of computation - one of the most fundamental and powerful ideas behind the concept of a computer.

==Known Knights members==
*[[Shoko Masatsugu]]
*[[Masuoka Takuyoshi]]
*[[Freeter]]

== Trivia ==
* The name was inspired by a real hacker group, going by the name of '[[Wikipedia:Knights of the Lambda Calculus|Knights of the Lambda Calculus]]'.

[[Category:Conspiracy]]
[[Category:Characters]]