So the whole Edmond to Count situation happens back in the case that sort of puts everyone into the positions we see them at when we meet Albert (it’s still the Danglars and Fernand team up against him with Villefort participating separately in the plot…but kind of different-)
Basically, Danglars wants to be captain and there are two people in the way, the captain and Edmond, which leads to the classic ace attorney murder case with Captain Leclere as the victim and Edmond as the defendant since he was at the scene (close enough to the incident that a missed shot ends up injuring one of his hands, which will come up later in the actual story-) and Fernand ends up offering to defend him as a supposed act of good will for the man his cousin’s about to wed, meanwhile Villefort acts as prosecution
In this one he does genuinely think Edmond is guilty at first, but starts to put together there’s something more going on through the trial, although the verdict ends up delivered as guilty before he can do much. Villefort ends up finding out Fernand had purposefully failed in defending him to have him sent to jail, but before he can do much, Edmond escapes from jail and a disfigured body is supposedly determined to be his from some failed step in the escape
So, Villefort ends up grappling with this for a while and retires from prosecution, ending up going into a career as a defense attorney instead, leading up to Albert working under him. Albert’s heard of the case with Edmond (the head of Fernand and Villefort’s old rivalry) but he’s heard of it from Fernand where he supposedly did all he could for the man compared to a cold and forceful Villefort that insisted on even the innocent being punished
Some of the cases have made up characters to fill in gaps and some have all tcomc characters-
The first case is the sort of classic tutorial case with an easier prosecutor and usually the friend of someone in the main cast as the defendant, so this one has Debray as the defendant, they were doing the classic activity of having a fling with another man’s wife (as one does) and unfortunately the girl ended up dead the day they decided to break it off with her with them as the last person that saw her alive at the place where she was killed. So, Albert takes on the case (Villefort offers, not exactly eager to have Albert immediately take on a murder case, but he only lets him work as Cocounsel since he doesn’t trust him to defend his friend and Villefort gives in) and Franz is the tutorial prosecutor
The second case of the first game is usually when something Bad happens to the mentor character, alongside typically introducing the full on rival prosecutor, so what better to do to Villefort than the classic garden stabbing. Benedetto is still there (although not as a baby-) and ends up getting accused of the crime for it. Luckily, this Andrea Cavalcanti guy is surely an easy client for Albert and won’t be revealed to be some guy named Benedetto and make everything harder for his defense attorney (constantly). Also Debray comes back as cocounsel for this one because Villefort’s out of commission and I think it would be funny for Albert’s usual cocounsel and temporary cocounsel to be the two people sleeping with Danglars’s wife in the case that reveals Villefort did that-
The count’s the typical mysterious, dark prosecutor that bears a strong hatred for defense attorneys for unknown reasons. Strangely, he seems to have a softer spot for defendants than most, and always strives for the truth. This, unfortunately, doesn’t mean he’s quick to believe Albert’s discovered the truth. Also, Maximilien’s the detective that works with him because I wanted them to work close together and I thought Max would be a good, loyal officer partner for him.
I have Most of the other cases vaguely planned out (with such hits as: opera crime, something supposedly supernatural, the Villefort family poisonings, bandits, and so on-) and hopefully I’ll end up writing them and putting them on Ao3 a bit clearer
There’s More but this is already very long so I’ll just end it with some Very Serious sketches of the AU from class yesterday
