The Complete, Unabridged Timeline of NieR

over the past 20 years there have been many gaming titles that have managed to cultivate their own Avid fan bases whether it be because of the Story gameplay music or any number of reasons there are many titles out there that fans love which are not widely known to the larger public it's a rare occasion when a sequel to one of these games not only manages to break through into the mainstream market but at the same time while doing so manages to be considered in the eyes of many a masterpiece I believe [Music] thank you nier automata introduced many players to the world of near its story themes music gameplay and design was so uniquely and masterfully executed it was and still is unlike many other games you'll experience in a long time it left many new fans eager to learn more about this franchise's history but imagine the shock they find themselves in when they discover near story not only stems from but continues on from a completely different franchise altogether drakengard is a title most gamers are not familiar with it was originally released on the PlayStation 2 back in 2003 to mixed reviews while the gameplay was hit or miss there was undeniably a unique approach when it came to the characters inhabiting its World yokotaro The Game's director had an interesting way of looking at modern tropes typically the protagonist of a game might Slaughter hundreds and thousands of people yet be hailed as a hero he found Concepts like that wild how was someone like that not insane so it was the perfect choice to put into his own game he implemented the ideas many wouldn't dare or even think of to touch it was viewpoints like that and the willingness to take an unorthodox approach which gave his titles their own unique identity he stepped away for the sequel in 2005 but when it was finished returned to work on a third installment during its development however the concept wound up straying a little too far from what they intended and so the game was instead rebranded to what we now know as near but interestingly enough despite the Rebrand yokotaro never stopped treating near as though it was a sequel to his past game as far as he was concerned he picked up right where he left off and once more he continued to implement a unique view on the world through its Story dragon guard would eventually get an official third installment in 2014 and it would be a prequel to the original game but as the years have gone by instead of furthering The Divide between the franchises he's actively worked to bring them closer to the point where it's an undeniable fact that the two stories tie into one another unfortunately understanding the timeline isn't as simple as just going through the games each game has a plethora of different endings which can and do Branch into their own separate timelines add on top of that countless different novellas books manga stage plays and whatever other form of medium yokotaro has chosen to dip his toe into and you have a lot of material to get through but getting the true timeline is work in and of itself since yokotaro loves to just change things considering this timeline is one that theoretically deals with an infinite number of varying branches yokotaro loves to change the events of History anytime a new version of a story comes out if you're currently watching the automata anime that's airing and you've previously played the game you've probably noticed that certain characters have completely changed and that's on purpose he's not retconing his story he's just going down a different path of the timeline his unique approach to storytelling hasn't changed from his Beginnings in fact if anything he's only gotten more bold with the risks he's willing to take from swapping genres mid-game to tackling the topics others dare not approach it's almost as if the whole world is yokotaro's playground and he's doing what he wants this video is going to be as straightforward of a timeline as could possibly be I'm not going to explore any of the irrelevant endings or branches that lead into different paths there is one flow of history that leads directly from the beginning of this timeline straight to its end as such any material that's not part of the main timeline will be left out these include the aforementioned endings a manga series as well as draken guard 2. since yokotaro didn't work on it and he ignores it as well with that said I present to you the complete unabridged timeline of near while the dragon guard universe is what begins this whole timeline and is set in a Fantastical world full of magic and Dragons its history actually stems from our very own literally up until the year 856 their world was exactly like ours the same countries the same continents the same past everything was the same but in the year 856 earthquakes began devastating parts of the world the most important was one that occurred in the Iberian Peninsula in Europe after this overnight seemingly out of thin air a mysterious Metropolis had risen and with it brought all sorts of powerful creatures not native to the world such as dragons this location would be known as Cathedral City now to be clear there is a lot of mystery surrounding where why and how Cathedral City wound up appearing out of nowhere and with the scarce amount of information available assumptions have to be made the most logical sense seems to be that it came from both a different time period and dimension I say this because if you're familiar with the franchise there is a character named Accord she's an Android meant to observe singularities across the timelines singularities in and of themselves are just entities that create a branch within a timeline in which things change from what was supposed to happen her job is to monitor these timelines and ensure these singularities don't lead to the downfall of every single timeline thus annihilating everything that is her purpose the reason I bring her up is because she appears as a security measure keeping a very dangerous entity which I'll explain here soon locked away Cathedral City appears inside the drakengard universe in the year 856 however a chord wasn't invented until the year 62030 30 in the near Universe her alongside dragons were both invented to help fight back against an alien invasion I know that part sounds really weird and random and out of nowhere but if you know the timeline then you know that is an event that does happen and we will get to it but either way Accord was invented for the first time in the year 6230 Cathedral City from its architecture and technology is very Advanced so while never directly stated it makes sense that some sort of time space phenomena pulled Cathedral City from the sixth Millennium to the draken guard Universe in the year 856. it is possible that everything exists in a type of cycle near's timeline only happens because of the events of dragon guard and if Dragon guard only happens because of near then it's one big cycle with no clear beginning but any anyway all of that was to say Cathedral City dragons and other beings all showed up out of nowhere resulting in the true start to the dragon guard timeline but to better understand what is to unfold we must first talk about the true antagonist of everything that is to come from here to the end of the timeline God God is an entity that is never seen throughout any of the games novellas side content and so on they have no religious affiliation it is just God in the premise of being the creator of all living things the plot comes in when God deems mankind a failure due to their strong Egos and uncontrollable nature Free Will as it is as such God has sentenced Humanity to death and created creatures to wipe them out these are where the Watchers came from otherworldly beings meant to assist in the destruction of humanity they have no set form and can take on the appearance of many different things but it is typically their primary goal to Simply help kill everything it is possible that this is also where the black flower came from possibly the most dangerous active threat to all life in the simplest of terms the black flower has the ability to destroy everything it's not only a threat to the world but the universe and the timelines as a whole returning to the idea of Cathedral City having come from the future the black flower was likely both discovered and subsequently sealed away during that time as well it currently resides locked away within Cathedral City a chord whose job it is to make sure the timelines don't end is a security measure put in place to keep it sealed and even an Android Guardian named bardus is located within the walls to protect it he is of immense strength as we will come to see where the black flower originated is entirely a mystery but because of what it does we can assume God created it to wipe everything out the dragons however are an enemy of the flower and they have the power within them to destroy it it might have been and part of the reason they were created in the first place but despite their purpose upon being transported to the year 856 they became the enemy of humanity likely by complete accident with the dragon's life span so long all they ever knew was battle ever since they could remember they were always on the battlefield fighting against this Alien Invasion all through the day and into the night there were so many dragons it was even described as having the numbers to blot out the sun with their sheer numbers but one day some white explosion caused everything to vanish their numbers became rare their enemies disappeared and the Earth itself changed this moment whatever this white explosion was is when they were transported to drakengard it is perhaps unlikely that they were even aware of what happened during the moment as all of this information comes from a dragon in hindsight recounting these events so upon being transported and always being in battle they may have perhaps just attacked Humanity as war was what they were always doing and Humanity having come under attack began fighting against the dragons which then created a war which Justified both sides trying to defend and kill each other and just like that ironically enough the dragons became the biggest threat Humanity faced and after about 10 years of suffering under them Humanity banded together and cast aside the concept of individual countries and became one unified body known as midgard from here we'll be jumping through time pretty fast as civilization technology and life all advances with cities and Villages being reduced to Ash many survivors fled to Cathedral City as they considered it Humanity's last shelter this city would largely consist of Nobles and intellectuals from past Kingdoms as perhaps an unforeseen side effect of the dragons and other worldly beings They Carried a chemical within them known as maso it's basically a magical element humans within areas containing high concentrations of maso began to evolve and change into many mythological creatures we are aware of today fairies elves trolls minotaurs and Orcs are but a handful of subhuman species created from those exposed to these magical particles and as such magic became a real thing many people began finding themselves able to utilize it for strange powers and quickly rose up the social hierarchy the magic Academy was formed within Cathedral City to study more about Magic and was created by the church who began worshiping users capable of Miracles the church and the magic Academy pretty much oversaw everything across midgard by this point the people of the world had to establish new territories which fell under new rulers who became known as the Lords of the lands life under their rule was pretty miserable huge power gaps formed between the rich and poor crime became rampant murder extortion torture and abusive power was common among soldiers against women and children the Lords often had few to no restrictions on their actions and would partake in sick and sadistic Hobbies of their own but I'll get to each of them individually a little later down the line basically as time goes on a whole lot of political drama goes on between the church and the magic Academy which results in many people losing faith in their leadership but in the year 995 an accident occurs within the magic Academy inside Cathedral City a female magician caused a large-scale accident by performing a forbidden art incorrectly details of this accident describe dust from the explosion resembling a giant flower which encompassed the entire city and all traces of people within it disappeared and everything was reduced to ruins it is perhaps whatever she did that allowed a portion of the black flower to escape from its captivity and enter the world foreign 985 is where we get our first story in this timeline in the novella A Reign to end any flower to begin we follow the life of a young girl who would become our main character for this early part of the story as we see the events that would inevitably set her off on her life's purpose as she would later be more prominently known as zero her childhood came just about as rough as they come the world she lived in was a cruel one she grew up in poverty under an abusive mother with nothing not even a name to call her own to be fair she never quite blamed her mother for their circumstance or the way she grew up or even how she treated her as it was likely the exact same for her it was only ever the lucky few children born into wealth who grew up with warm food and a roof over their head the majority were forced to scavenge or steal just to survive most of the mothers around hardly cared about their children as they were the result of an accidental pregnancy as such at a very young age her mother sold her to a brothel for a very small night insignificant amount of money this became her new life whether she liked it or not many of the girls at the brothel often conspired to escape via different methods with very few if any ever succeeding and this is where Indigo comes in she was one of the other girls working in the brothel and befriended our main character early upon her arrival she even gave zero the name usubeni or Rose due to the color of her eyes having not actually had a name at the time but Rose would learn a very harsh lesson early on to her she and indigo were great friends and after some time had passed Indigo suggested they steal as much money as possible and run off together to start a new life to Rose this sounded wonderful despite her life in the cruel world she lived in all this time with Indigo she felt they could do anything there was a true sense of Happiness she had with her so the two stole the money ran off their escape plan was a man waiting with a horse it was a patron of the brothel who fancied Indigo for some time now but when the two girls got to him Rose was betrayed Indigo was never friends with her she was only using her and building up their friendship this entire time because she needed an extra pair of hands to help carry the gold they stole Rose was supposed to be killed right then and there however pursuers came and gave Chase so Indigo and her man made off with all the money and Rose was left with a harsh lesson in trust particularly she could trust only herself she was brought back to the brothel however her desire for Freedom did not end that day several months later she made yet another escape attempt however this time it was actually successful she stole even more money than before but to make sure she wasn't pursued like last time she slaughtered everyone that might potentially come after her she poisoned the men and killed them while they were unconscious the procurers their underlings and even the women no life was spared as she stealthily took the lives of anyone who might know her or come after her and with that she escaped with bountifuls of gold in hand but while she may have learned a few things from her experience with Indigo she now faced a new problem along with a new lesson Bandits being alone meant that she was an easy target and an even more valuable one if she had anything of worth on her she was robbed and yet again set to be sold to another brothel however before that time came she escaped with only her life this time in her mind she could have nothing and she could trust no one this was the only logical answer for her to live out the rest of her life as it was miserable rough and lonely and to top things off she had contracted and curable Scourge plaguing the area and its people so she was already living on borrowed time her life was spent wandering aimlessly pilfering food and clothes as she came by them and her habit of killing persisted if she saw a warm meal on the table of someone's house she would murder everyone in it just so she could eat house to house family to family whether it was the rich or the poor it didn't matter to her so long as there was something for her to take she would there was no sense of morality in her actions simply whatever was best for her even when the children of these families begged for their lives the prospect they would simply forgive and forget her killing their parents was too much of a risk compared to outright killing them no one was spared the tip of her blade her body count racked up well into the triple digits before a bounty was put out for her arrest the reward was handsome and so it pretty much became impossible for her to run anymore before she was caught by this point the disease had taken its toll but not enough to kill her just yet upon being arrested she was whipped for every single life she stole which fortunately they didn't truly know or else she definitely would have been dead afterwards she was chained up and left to die in the Town Square alongside her were five other girls also sentenced to death unlike our main character their intentions were quite virtuous they attempted to start a revolt against the tyrannical Lord who oppressed the people in hopes to give everyone a better life but their dreams were shot down before it ever had the chance to Blossom one of their own ratted them out and the five girls were captured and tortured their bones broken their fingernails ripped from their hands their eyes gouged out and so much more even to Rose their fate felt far too cruel for how good good they were by the time Rose was strung up four of the girls had already died with the leader the last one holding on through sheer willpower alone the two then have a relatively nice interaction before the remaining Rebel dies but to the end held true to her sense of justice and belief in her actions in what she was trying to accomplish as the remaining Survivor Rose was sent to be burnt at the stake however before that had the chance to happen the culmination of her injuries as well as her sickness finally caught up to her and she died foreign [Music] but it seems the world wasn't done with her just yet in her dying moments she bore witness to a rose-colored flower blooming before her very eyes this was in fact a fragment of the black flower that was sealed within Cathedral City like rose it was weak and dying so it took root within her corpse and birthed her with new life she was cured of her illness and given magical ability far more powerful than that of normal magic she became known as an interner it's a definition given to those who are magically enhanced thanks to the flower being an entoner comes with a plethora of abilities they can manipulate magic via songs enhance their speed and reflexes heal abnormally fast but also and most concerning of all was their ability to summon Watchers the Servants of God and instruments meant to destroy Humanity over the next eight months Rose learns all about her new abilities but also the flowers's purpose she learned that the flower is slowly consuming both her body and mind turning her into a puppet once the flower fully takes root it will unleash World Devastation Rose was just a tool in the flowers's gold to destroy Humanity having no interest in being controlled or destroying the world zero makes an attempt at her own life she stabs herself through the heart with her sword hoping to end things right then and there but the flower in an act of self-preservation sensed her hostility and created Five young clones of Rose they too were in toners and possessed a fragment of her personality and Powers Rose attempted to kill them while they were still small and frail but was incapable when the eldest sister 1 protects her sisters two weakened from her suicide attempt all five girls managed to escape Rose would then swear to kill all of them and rid the world of the flowers's existence no matter the cost respectively all of the sisters would go on to be known as one two three four and five it is also here that Rose adopted the Alias of zero as she is the original and it is her duty to deal with her sisters as for the Sisters they are an amalgamation of a few separate things all mashed together in one their look their personality their memories all stem from different places for example the memories of the five girls is past are all different in fact they would all actually directly come from the five girls who died in the Square alongside zero before she obtained the flower in terms of their appearance they all came from different people zero had encountered throughout her life five's body for example was that of a nun she had killed back when she was stealing food to survive and one was actually that remaining leader girl she had talked to with her eyes gouged out for having tried to overthrow the Lord one possessed the same voice hair and likely the same eyes the other three's appearances are unknown but they were likely either from the brothel or girls she had killed while stealing food it's also important to note that each of the girls are afflicted with a type of curse a price they must pay for their ability to use the power of songs one senses grow Keener with each passing day her sense of smell taste hearing and so on become much more sensitive over time two's physical strength gradually grows despite her appearance three's hair grows uncontrollably and she needs to cut it daily Four's fingernails grow at an alarming rate and she's made a habit of biting them off and five's breasts enhance with seemingly each passing day of course unlike the other five girls five doesn't mind hers as much as it increases her self-confidence and bravado but in terms of Personality let's take them one by one having each received a fragment of Zero's personality five represents Zero's lustful issues and insensitivity towards sexual topics she has a Relentless craving and like zero will kill anyone just to get some food five is crude and horny full of confidence and greed she has an insatiable desire for pretty much everything men food clothing but whenever she gets what she desires it isn't too long before she becomes bored of it and throws it away four reminds zero of herself when she was still a young girl thrown into the brothel and how she tried to hold on to the smallest bits of Pride she still had left four speaks and acts with Grace with a refined personality of a good and responsible listener however she is also Zero's embodiment of her desire to be accepted and loved by others as such four has an enormous inferiority complex she's jealous of her sister's Beauty such as five and constantly craves one's praise and acknowledgment when four becomes paranoid she rejects everyone in her life hating the entire world exactly the same as when zero chose to stop trusting others three is Zero's wild selfish and twisted side three has no remorse or empathy for her Twisted actions she's lethargic lacks much energy but has a very dangerous temperament however her obsession with dolls is completely unlike this side of her when fixated on something she truly loves she becomes hyper focused and very talkative she's regarded by the sisters as the most beautiful amongst the group which they find unfortunate due to her General disposition two is Zero's life in what could have been she's bright and cheerful with the ability to get along with just about anyone she meets she's a type of motherly figure caring greatly about others and their well-being she loves the world and is Carefree even able to find true love and one is possibly the greatest aspect of zero which is her strong sense of justice in the world in Zero's final moments before she died she was unsatisfied and unable to comprehend why everything was so unjust she hated wrongdoers the corrupt and oppressors just before dying she wanted a just and logical world and that's what one embodies a strong sense of justice seriousness and intelligence one finds it her responsibility to care for the well-being of others and make the world a better place 5 were born of the flowers's existence and as such serve as vessels of its will whether they know it or not like zero the flower rooted within them is inevitably going to Blossom and bring World Devastation and at the same time they too are in toners and can utilize the power of song to their benefit basically everything zero knew in regards of how to utilize it they kinda know as well ironically these five do care greatly about the world and its people and that would be very evident in what they did with their lives shortly after their birth the manga series utahime 5 shows us the story of The Five Sisters running up to the events before the game the beginning months following these girls's birth were initially spent as a traveling superhero band as odd as that may sound but through doing this they were able to witness the cruelties of the world and see just how corrupt the Lords of the lands really are and so the five girls set off on a journey to overthrow these leaders and free midgard themselves their first Target was Lord Bass from the land of sans he certainly is a twisted and ruthless individual he doesn't care much about anything including his own kingdom outside of his own sickening Hobbies he decorates his castle using the Flesh and Bones of children and slaves pretty much everything from Little figurines to rugs to dolls he crafts using the subjects from his own land and when the families come to appeal to him asking for their children back back he strings them up leaving them for dead for all to see the five girls arrive at his castle and swiftly deal with the outside guards while various traps and other Abominations lie in weight on the inside they too are dealt with until bass himself chooses to confront them personally he Pilots a giant Golem which he hopes to overwhelm the sisters with however it's all for naught one uses her power of song to increase her physical strength and movement speed and she is capable of taking down the Golem Lord bass and his defeat would beg for mercy attempting to justify his actions however he's simply wasting his breath to truly protect the world the Lord's must die and so one disintegrates his head with a sheer amount of superhuman strength as the wall crumbles over the former lords's corpse we are introduced to partition he was Lord bass's assistant however likely has relations to another Lord cerullia she rules the land of seas and utilizes magic most notably to keep a youthful appearance she steals the Youth of others for her own personal gain partition 2 is a magician and does a similar form of magic to keep himself looking young both of them are obsessed with whatever magical strength lies behind the mercurius gate in Cathedral City which we currently know is the black flower Rumor Has spread that behind the gate are the secrets to all magic and many have taken interest in trying to obtain it it's likely the two were in cahoots to obtain this power and so branched out hoping to find a solution faster but nevertheless since we're already on the topic of other Lords there is also gray who rules the land of mountains and his son shaxor who rules the land of forests knowledge about Their Kingdoms and their wrongdoings aren't shown in any detail we just have to imagine they're on an equal level as bass and cerulea these three's goal is to obtain whatever power lies within Cathedral City this is important because partition tells the sisters about this power as well since it is their goal to become stronger and practice their skills so they can one day take on zero when their paths inevitably cross again he convinces them to venture to Cathedral City to obtain this power and so they all set out on their Journey however their ship is attacked by a kraken like sea monster and amidst the chaos one is pulled into the ocean and none of the sisters are able to help her fortunately one is more than capable of handling herself she and the Sea Beast wash up ashore on some random Island however after thinking the monster was dead it makes a surprise attack but is interrupted when a dragon lands on its head and kills it this is Gabriella one of the few and only relevant dragons that still roam midgard her encounter with one was not by chance in fact she had crossed paths with zero prior and was curious as to what her existence was she was able to sense the odd nature of being an interner and didn't know what that was so following the sense of presence she wound up coming face to face with one but is notably able to tell the difference in the two's power level zero exerts immense strength to the point that even Gabriella describes her as a monster while one appears weak but she states her desire to protect the world their conversation is interrupted as Gabriella wasn't the only one looking for one the other three Lords have dispatched an assassin to track down and kill the sisters the Assassin is bardus who if you recall I mentioned was originally within Cathedral City when it first arrived he was found by the Lords within the walls guarding the gate to the black flower a lot of time has passed since then and he's kind of Forgotten his purpose and so the Lords were just able to command him and he followed their orders bardus is of immense strength and power not only is he physically capable of overpowering both one and Gabriella but his body is able to regenerate from any damage he sustains he is most certainly not human and whatever technology he was made out of in whatever era he was plucked from makes him a real force to be reckoned with as stated he easily takes care of one and has no problem overpowering Gabriella but just when things are looking bad one unlocks her in toner mode she pushes herself further Beyond her known limits and unleashes a barrage of Relentless attacks on debartis decimating and ripping his body to shreds but even this was not enough to kill the mysterious Warrior he regenerates but this time with the physical appearance of a young boy but it was enough to continue living another day having pushed herself past her physical limits one fell into a coma for the next month Gabriella was impressed by her capabilities as well as her desire to protect the world and so she decides to take her unconscious and exhausted body and look after it until she wakes up in the meantime there is another story that we need to follow that was happening simultaneously as well and that's what zero was doing after her sister's birth zero spent most of her time researching everything she could about the flower's origin she found some books from Cathedral City which detailed the dragon's connection to it and how they are the only things capable of killing it her path inevitably crossed with Michael the strongest dragon there is when zero found herself inside of cerulia's Kingdom fighting her soldiers Michael showed up and decided to kill zero as a game but she used his own attacks in her favor and wiped out the soldiers instead while he initially came to kill her he noticed the flower growing within her and simply laughed he stopped his attacks and chose to indulge in a conversation as she most certainly is one of a kind Michael confirms all of Zero's research about the flower and how dragons are connected to it zero divulges what has become of her as well as the creation of her sisters and how all of them need to die for the flower to be stopped Michael sees the Rivalry dragons have with the flower as his Destiny and so agrees though it wasn't as simple as just that over the course of the next two months Michael would test Zero's strength and power over the flower by having her kill countless magical beasts her final test of strength was a battle with Michael himself zero was strong enough to win the fight and as promised Michael began Fighting by Zero's side as a friend and Companion now both zero and one have made allies with a dragon as stated one month would pass before one finally regained Consciousness and was able to continue her journey however neither she'd nor her sisters were the first to arrive at Cathedral City the Lords were they were fully aware that there was now a race to claim whatever power and knowledge lied behind the mercurius gate and they were hoping to be the first ones to claim it bartis who has since reunited with them is tasked with opening it because he's the strongest and from wherever this stemmed from but when he tries to open it the security system rejects his voice data and teleports him away from here the Lords have no choice but to Simply wait for the interners to arrive and Ambush them when they're not suspecting it with one reawakened she and Gabriella would set a path towards Cathedral City but on the way she does reunite with the rest of her sisters as well as they get to have a small little reunion now a complete unit once more all of the girls are able to make their way to the gate where they hope to open it but as they stand mere feet in front of it before they even get the opportunity to try the Lord's launch a sneak attack and three is killed out of nowhere all hell breaks loose as the sisters all panic and try to launch their own counter-attack in retaliation but one by one each of the sisters are all brutally killed by the Lords and their corpses lay scattered amongst the rubble one is the only remaining Survivor in seeing all of her sisters slaughtered she lets out a shriek of pure duress which resonates with the mercurius gate and breaks open the seal that was keeping it locked the black flower escapes from its captivity and takes the form of a black ooze with arms grasping at anything it can get its hands on what it finds are the corpses of the deceased sisters the black ooze grabs them and their body parts and puts them back together a traumatized one is also absorbed and the flower begins using them as puppets to enact its will it forcefully uses their power of zong to summon each girl's respective Watcher from the sky our missile egg story Faneuil and armoros are all Unleashed into the world attacking the Lord's and anyone in sight the Lords are helpless to defend against such monstrous power they are up against gray is obliterated his son shaksor tries to seek safety besides cerulea but is betrayed as she rips his heart out and consumes it to retain her youth this wouldn't last long however as she too is betrayed by partition who kills her in the exact same manner to retain his youthful appearance Gabriella is able to snap one out of her trance and back to her senses she tries to use her power to the best of her ability to save her sisters she pushes herself so hard that magically her body ages up past her prepubescent stage but it's all to no avail in fact it would be zero and Michael who arrive in the city and immediately help relieve the situation the first thing xero does is enchant four doves and send them to their respective in toner to siphon off power from them to deprive the flower of its energy all the respective Watchers disappear and Michael is able to attack the flower himself where he disintegrates it and completely ends its existence zero and one then come face to face with each other once more in what is certainly an inevitable fate the two Clash for the sake of their Futures in the world they wish to shape but as the two duel and unexpected Challenger enters the mix bartis he has returned from wherever he was teleported but now with the entity released his purpose failed and his memory long since forgetting and caring about what he was meant to do in the first place all he seeks now is a challenger to kill it doesn't take long after slamming the sisters into walls regenerating from the dragon's attacks and showcasing his true strength that both 1 and 0 recognize the threat he possesses and shoes the team up and fight him together despite this nice sentiment willing to drop their own personal grudges it doesn't matter much bardus is still able to easily overpower everyone with whatever minimal damage he sustains being negated almost instantaneously zero is taken out of the fight and knocked unconscious leaving one to once again try and push herself past her limits but this time Gabriella doesn't allow it she's willing to risk her own life for the sake of her friend and she does exactly that you see dragons are allowed a final wish when severely wounded or in a state they know they're not going to survive dragons can wish for one thing in most cases dragons wish to reincarnate so upon their death they can continue to live on in just a different form thus making them Immortal but Gabriella instead uses the path of a beast in exchange for power she will be reduced to nothing but a Mindless monster it is a great sin amongst dragons as their intelligence is one of their strongest Prides Gabriella makes this sacrifice and with it she is able to kill bardus with a mighty blast but because she is turned into a Mindless Beast there is no longer any discernment from Friend or Foe Michael is taken out of the fight when trying to stop her and when Gabriella pins one down ready to kill her one takes the most dramatic measure she can to save her friend and uses a pact Pax are a contract between human and beast in which the two's lives become one their Spirits are merged and if one of them were to Die the other would as well however this comes at a cost the human who enters the pact will have something Stripped Away you usually what they consider most precious in one's case it's her ability to grow up she will forever remain in the body of a teenager until the day she dies one accepts these consequences and so sucks up all of the magical energy nearby and stops Gabriella's bestification process when she wakes up Gabriella is safe as are all of her sisters who are now in their teenage years too while they were killed the flower brought them back to life so they were given a second chance Michael and zero left the battlefield both wounded knowing there will be another opportunity again down the road this is where the manga series ends however there's still a lot of stuff that happens as a result of what transpired here with the Lords of the lands having been vanquished each sister would become the leader of one of each land respectively and thus the new era of the in toner Empire began the girls made Swift policies that benefited the common people keeping them out of poverty and famine and former nobility were punished particularly those who tried to oppose their rule they restructured and formed their own new armies within the span of a year the girls effectively reshaped the entire world all forms of religion virtually ended and were replaced by intonurism whether it be their loyal soldiers or the everyday common folk the girls were worshiped as goddesses for what they had done and honestly rightfully so the living conditions were made better for the people monster population decreased the world really did become a better place under their rule from here each sister would go off and do their own thing in their respective region one would naturally take a up control within Cathedral City where she spent her time trying to research what exactly she and her sisters were she's trying to make sure that her convictions are noble and true but despite her best efforts there would be no documents whatsoever pertaining to An interner's Origin leaving her to Simply act on her own ideals two was put in charge of the land of sans hoping that her cheerful and optimistic attitude would be good for the people living in such a wasteland three was given rule over the land of forests due to her Affinity towards strange creatures the fairies and elves that reside in the area far outweigh the number of humans but three gave them their space instead of trying to subjugate them like the Lords so everyone's happy four was given the land of mountains due to her habit of uncontrolled outbursts she was unreliable to rule a larger Kingdom and The Land of mountains has a very sparse population and five was chosen for the land of seas its people are very Rowdy and one was hoping that five would Reign them in which she naturally did but each of the girls were not alone in their rule with them came their disciples if you recall during zero and her sister's encounter at Cathedral City she Enchanted four doves and sent them to their respective in toner to siphon off and deprive them of the flowers is power as much as possible it worked but what zero didn't expect was that the power they had siphoned gave them a human form Dido OCTA scent and decades were unexpected life forms now brought into the world as a disciple it is their job to assist their and toner in their duties as well as protect them their loyalty is absolute and as such they can never defy the entoner they serve each of them effectively became their right hand man on top of that they are also a tool to help regulate the girls's sex drive which is directly connected to the flowers's power since the flower's influence is so strong having sex is how the disciples siphon and help regulate that power within them with their help the girls are also able to summon their respective Watcher a disciple could summon a watcher without the aid of the interner song however it would cost them their life so let me go through and give a rundown on each disciple and who they serve Dido is five's disciple he's a very abrasive and painful young man despite his boyish appearance he is deceptively cruel sarcastic impatient and can be incredibly vulgar at times unfortunately for him he hates being five's disciple she is the most sexually active of all the sisters and has the highest libido Dido is her favorite sex toy and so she will frequently force herself upon Him throughout all hours of the day unable to disobey his interner Dido is forced to put up with it he does always express his disdain for her and her appearance which she only finds adorable this is only really a problem for him because his real attraction is more towards the grotesque he finds the inside of a human such as guts much more of a turn-on than he does that of traditional beauty standards which five possesses decades is Four's disciple comparatively to the others he is the most normal and is considered to be the most loyal amongst them he is often described as a perfect gentleman as he speaks in a polite and mannered style however behind his perfectly well-mannered demeanor he is an extreme masochist any form of pain and Agony he goes through gets turned into his own personal reward whether it be physical or mental whenever something harmful is happening to him he can't help but get off to it though he tries to suppress it which often fails OCTA is three's disciple he is the wisened old man of the group he takes his job as a disciple very seriously particularly when it comes to the sex aspect he spends his day reading books for obtaining pleasure and perfecting his craft he is so horny that his outlook on Joy is seen as a whole itself which needs to be filled he sees every hole in the world as a potential lover including a black hole within space it doesn't matter the age race sex or even species to him each hole has their own charm to it scent is two's disciple he's the Suave and good-looking one of the group however he's incredibly dull his intelligence is very minimal and he'll often exaggerate or completely lie just to seem more bright and strong what makes him different from the other in toners is his relationship with too unlike everyone else sent and two had fallen in love and are a perfect match for each other Dido is repulsed by five but cannot disobey her advances decades is a perfect gentleman to four but four wishes he was more forward and aggressive making a move on her and OCTA is often not able to display his sexual expertise as three is distracted by her own personal pet projects scent and two are the only couple whose interests align two is infatuated with his Suave personality and ravishing good looks and sent cherishes her entire B being willing to dedicate everything to protect her smile as for one she was the only in toner not designated with a respective Disciple This didn't matter to her as she was able to bypass many of the negative effects inflicted without using one however she still wanted some sort of insurance policy a backup in her fight against zero just in case she failed and so one used one of her very own ribs and gave birth to a clone of herself this clone would also be known as one however would often be referred to as brother one unlike the other disciples brother one's existence was kept a secret from everyone including her sisters he was trained in absolute secrecy with a single purpose to his life if one were to die at the hands of zero it was his job to take her life he was entrusted with a special sword made from one of Gabriella's fangs and sat in waiting for the inevitable day [Music] and this leads us to the beginning of dragon guard 3. all of The intoners Gather in Cathedral City to fend off their eldest sister together while zero launches an assault on the capital her first victim is partition who we met during the events of the manga he was using magic to keep himself looking young but when one saved Gabriella by sucking up all the magic in the area he was transformed back to his real age since then he's been writing stories singing the Praises of the interners and their accomplishments but it doesn't last much longer oh you murderous Savage [Music] Savage I think you mean in toner she's in there take her down kill the traitorous demon [Music] yes [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] Michael [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] ers of course none of her sisters are trying to hide and meet her at the Cathedral after a brief interaction everyone fights zero is surprisingly able to hold her own despite being clearly outnumbered but of course this is a fight to the death and no one is here to play games one then summons Gabriel who blasts zero taking her arm as casualty Gabriel is in fact Gabriella yet again in her Beast form while one worked hard to protect and revert her bestification during the events of the manga after she was finished training brother one and this day was drawing closer and closer she knew that in her current form she was no match for Michael to see one's dreams fulfilled she needed to be as strong as she could possibly be which is why she asked one to make her a beast once more it's evident that she complied but it had a noticeable effect on one's attitude after the transformation she became rather un talkative and never genuine only smiled again anyway that's why Gabriella is now Gabriel as things are looking bad for zero Michael is able to show up just in the nick of time and fire a blast at one but the other sisters used their power of song to protect her this gives Gabriel enough time to fire yet another blast Michael uses his own body to protect zero but Gabriel has become so strong that the blast is powerful enough to be fatal while zero and Michael are able to flee to safety Michael is forced to use his last wish to reincarnate he is reborn as Mikhail and is quite staunchly different to his previous form Mikhail is much more of a child in his attitude knowledge and demeanor most of his development through the game is working on these things before we continue any further I need to give context to the events that I'm going to be detailing anyone familiar with the dragon guard or near series knows that there are a multitude of different endings for each of these games and any of these endings can wind up branching into their own different timeline Dragon Guard 3 more than any deals with this concept zero is a singularity meaning she is an entity that is powerful enough to cause a branch within a timeline in which history completely changes believe me this is and will be more relevant than you might think one of the gimmicks of draken guard 3 is witnessing these different branches but ironically enough none of the in-game branches are what is considered the canonical order of events which is why in 2014 a novelization of the game's narrative was released to better connect everything it borrows many aspects of the events we see from the varying branches and combines them into one while simultaneous obviously adding things never before seen so footage for everything doesn't quite exist and I promise I'm not accidentally combining the different branches fortunately Zero's Journey itself isn't all too convoluted she simply travels to each of her sister's kingdoms to kill them with not much story or development happening on her end her Outlook is already set in stone she knows that her sisters are born of the flower and she feels like it is her responsibility to correct that mistake if anything it's each of her sister's point of view that will wind up spending more time on and that makes sense because the flowers influence over them is slowly taking hold the journey starts at the land of seas with five zero displays a very ruthless act of violence against her sister which leaves her in quite an unsavory position despite this she is able to live and only taken out thanks to Dido who has found his opportunity to betray her he finally gets to express his disguise just with her and all of the acts he was forced to partake in before joining Zero's company yet still even despite this five continued to live it's the only thing she wanted in her final moments she was willing to give up her voice her sight who she is if there's one thing that has been at the core of fives being it's her desire and obsession with things she was never satisfied always wanting more and her desire for life here gave her strength or it gave the flower enough strength to be reborn but she wouldn't play a role again until later down the line as for four she's going through her own struggles she more than any of her sisters wanted to stop the fighting but because it was evident that such a dream was impossible she began having nightmares out of fear these nightmares persisted for quite a while which only infuriated her more and Amplified her inferiority complex she didn't understand why this was happening to her as she's done nothing wrong to deserve it and on top of that decades wasn't comforting her or acting in the way that she wanted which only made her more Angry she slowly devolved into a state of delusion believing that her own followers maids and soldiers were plotting to kill her which led her to preemptively killing them she began to think everyone was a spy working for the enemy this even extended to decades and he was banished from her land without him there to pacify the flower's influence Thor loses her mind and kills everyone around her zero and the other stumble across decades where they have him lead them to her so they can put her to rest after seeing the mental state she's in zero kills her before we get to three we actually have to first go over two because her story is quite a bit different and almost disconnected from the others I mentioned in sent segment about how he and two were able to fall all in love I've been talking about how she is the most cheerful and is a motherly figure to her sisters and her subjects in the aftermath of the campaign against the Lords she and sent began traveling the world and defeating horrific monsters together during their Journey they came across many orphan children Left Behind following the aftermath and so they opened an orphanage two loved them dearly treated them like they were her own children they were some of her greatest responsibilities and it catered perfectly to her personality as such scent also tried his best to contribute in the most effective way he thought with magic scent had been using two's power of song to not only enhance their soldiers so they can better protect but also using magic to heal the children's wounds this wouldn't have been a problem if not for the unforeseen negative side effects it wound up having on them each Soldier was corrupted and turned into a Savage monster as for the children they were horrifically all conjoined and merged into a homunculus scent and two had to fight their way through and slaughter their own soldiers and people as well as having to put down the innocent children that she loved all because of an unforeseen accident to be fair while sent was using the magic he had no idea it would turn out this way it still originated from the black flower after all because it was her power to solely blamed herself for the incident she took all the weight on her shoulders and she wasn't able to handle it this event broke her mind she was tormented by guilt and haunted by her actions she pretty much became catatonic after this with scent having to look over her moving forward but to be fair this event wasn't the sole cause it just so happened to be the thing that pushed her over the edge the truth is two was incredibly Keen to the flowers's true nature in the beginning she believed her power was altruistic she never doubted it and thought that with it she would be able to protect her loved ones and the world would be able to find peace because of it but as she gained more power she felt something trying to take her over she thought that it was just because she was weak and she needed to strengthen her mind but what was really keeping her fighting against it allowing her to stay in control was thinking about the people she loved sent the children the people of her land the idea of everyone coming together and being able to be with their loved ones kept her from succumbing to this entity as she fought for that future but after she had to kill the soldiers and children with her own hands she couldn't hold it back anymore and the power swallowed her since then she never eats she never talks she hardly moves she's just a well but regardless scent continued to look after her he cared for her in whatever way he could until one day two was able to regain control ironically enough as her body began to starve and became weaker so did the power that the flower had on her she was able to wrestle control back but she now knows the dangers of the flower believing that it should not exist while she's still in control she takes the moment to tell scent that she loves him and asks that he continue living two then kills herself this story was important to include here because scent would honor her final words this is how he ends up in the company of zero and the others when they go in search of three in the land of forest however before their search zombie 5 makes a reappearance having reattached all of her limbs whatever little Consciousness or understanding of hers remains was drawn to the flower's power that was resonating in the center of the forest dito then turns on all the characters like I mentioned before he loves rotted insides and things alike now all of a sudden five is his ideal woman and so turns to her side to please her he summons Faneuil however scent interjects and summons egg rogory to counter ultimately five's fate Remains the Same she is once again killed by zero but this time permanently as for Dido he didn't actually use five's power to summon his Watcher he did that by himself which to a desire people is a death sentence as such all the power is stripped from him and he is reverted back to his Dove form the same fate befall sent however he takes solace in his death oh well there's no point in living in a world without lady too anyway now I can rest three is perhaps the sister who has been influenced by the flower the longest ever since infiltrating Lord bass's castle and seeing the dolls that he made from human bone as well as the monstrosities that he created in his catacombs three developed a similar interest it wasn't exactly the same but she became obsessed with creating dolls and the perfect Soldier she performed repeated experiments which involved both human and monster alike she physically and mentally tortured them hoping to find the secrets of what would make them the most powerful nearly every experiment broke but she eventually learned that emotions were the true source of a human's power so she murdered and tortured the loved ones of her experiments and watched as they grew resentful she then fused them into becoming powerful monsters she took utter Delight in her sadistic and sociopathic hobby it was the only time she wasn't lethargic or lazy and showed genuine excitement nearly everyone didn't approve of Three's hobby one disavowed it and may have even perhaps poisoned three's Forest as a method of trying to get her to stop and OCTA well it kind of made him uncomfortable and on top of that his sexual needs weren't being met so he abandoned her to join zero it's why he was with everyone during their battle with five OCTA then leads the group to three during their battle decades summons his Watcher to assist zero however similarly with his interner Dead performing such an action comes at the cost of his human form and he is reverted back to a dove after everything is said and done Mikhail eats three All That Remains is one so the characters all head to Cathedral City considering this is where things are supposed to come to an end zero tells Mikhail that if she succeeds she wants him to kill her thus putting an end to the flower on the path to one octo would suffer the same fate as all of the other disciples he uses his power to assist zero thus result melting in his death one and zero then come face to face once more they exchange a brief conversation about their existence one still holds true to her sense of justice while she may have learned that she and her sisters are artificial lives that doesn't take anything away from their souls they were living beings who thought felt and acted just because zero brought them into the world doesn't mean that she had the right to take them out of it this is why one hates her so much but zero knew that her actions were not moral and she was never looking for forgiveness since the very beginning this path was just something she had to do one then summons abdiel But ultimately after its defeat she summons Raphael after having discovered the poison in the land of forests she got the idea to use it to weaken zero and Mikhail zero was quite taken aback by this action summoning not only one but two Watchers without the aid of a disciple and not succumbing to the flower's influence was a frightening amount of power but like abdiel Raphael is also defeated but fortunately for one the poison had done quite a number on Mikhail and finally in response one summons Gabriel to finish things off the moment gets quite passionate between one and zero one has known for some time that the life she's being forced to lead is inevitably going to lead to death She's kept searching for an answer that made sense as to why it had to be this way but never found it the two then activate their power of song and Rush at each other but zero wins The Duel she impales one and slashes through her killing both her last remaining sister as well as Gabriel the two did have a pact after all which entwined their lives but it wasn't over just yet Gabriel had managed to deal a fatal blow to Mikhail before dying which left his lifeless body body in the aftermath zero was uncharacteristically saddened by this site seeing his body made her reflect on their entire Journey not only what they had been through but also her own life for all the people she had betrayed in her lifetime for how she never truly trusted anyone it wasn't until Michael and subsequently Mikhail came along where she could finally Place her trust in someone else for the first time she wanted someone other than herself to actually live as she grieved over mikhail's corpse she began blaming the flower for everything but amongst her rage she got the idea that perhaps she could use the flowers as regenerative ability which brought her back to life to bring him back as well she knew it was wrong as using the flower to resurrect Mikhail would place the same curse that she lived with on him but she didn't care she wasn't acting on logic she was acting on her own feelings and so with the flower zero forged a pact in exchange for his renewed life he will be cursed with the flower Mikhail returns and is brought back but the reunion is short-lived while she isn't looking brother one finally reveals himself and stabs her Zero's plan completely backfired as saving Mikhail combined their lives into one so since zero is killed so is Mikhail in her final moments she simply just tries to apologize to him but regardless she knew it was the end for her she knew that no matter how she felt whether she was forgiven or saved it was the end and in the end everything always returns to nothing [Music] with the death of zero when his life goal fulfilled brother one lost all purpose and meaning to his existence his sister's plan for him was to originally kill himself using his blade thus putting an end to the flower's influence forever however what winds up happening is that brother one panics he Grieves over the loss of his sister only wishing to see her again after catching a glimpse of himself inside a nearby mirror he sees her still alive considering they are twins in this case they share the same clothes face and even body in his mind she was still alive he wanted her to continue living on and so through him he intended on doing so instead of killing himself to make sure his sister's memory lived on he formed the cult of the Watchers and created an entire religion dedicated to worshiping his sister the symbol which represents invented their cult was the three-eyed twins a combination of one and his sister merged together in fact twins would become a very common theme throughout this timeline but you'll see as time goes on but anyway without any of the interners there to rule the kingdoms and lands they had brought peace to Terror and poverty once again began to plague the continent more ferocious monsters began appearing and midgard began falling into ruin once more a lot of the story directly follows the cult itself one of the most important things they discover is what is known as the seeds of Destruction they are once again one of God's playthings meant to help in the destruction of humanity anything that enters the seed will be turned into a horrifying creature held bent on ending the world in order to protect Humanity from this Danger The Cult designed a security measure known as the seal system four seals were created and Scattered throughout the continent three of them reside in their own respective land the desert forest and ocean seals respectively but the fourth seal is embodied by a woman the goddess seal is a chosen Mark which spontaneously appears on a chosen female and it becomes her job to Bear the weight of that responsibility on her own shoulders once found by the priests a ceiling ritual will be performed on her tying the weight of time space and dimension to her existence as a price the goddess is never allowed to marry or give birth and on top of all of that they are in constant pain afflicted by the seal as a result most goddesses attempt to commit suicide we won't spend too much time discussing many of the goddesses as most of them aren't very important but there are a few of them which have a lasting impact the second goddess for example was a very controversial one she was one's former age which made her obtaining the status of goddess questionable in the eyes of many as such a civil war within the hierarchy of the cult broke out and one was exiled a rift then formed within the cult one was very much like his sister and wanted to help the world in many ways hence why he locked away the seed of Destruction but of course most of his efforts simply went to remembering her Legacy now having been pushed out the cult formed new ideologies however this all stemmed because of one specific reason a new disease began manifesting within members of The Cult the victim's eyes would turn Scarlet Red they became uncontrollable and violent almost as if possessed by an evil spirit this became known as the red eye disease in truth it stemmed from Brother one more specifically the flower which still lives on within him he never killed himself and so the flower continued to wreak havoc the red-eye disease was a byproduct of the flowers's existence and now through it it can spread easier and further to others as well in the beginnings of this the cult took quite a hit monsters and disease were plaguing their bases and numbers and so after a bit of regrouping and centralizing within Cathedral City expanding their land control and replenishing their ranks they became known as the Empire but in response to this hundreds of small provinces which were against them formed a coalition called the union basically the Empire are the villains Cult of the Watchers infected by the red eye disease while the union are the normal and innocent civilians the story would once again continue with brother one particularly his bloodline you see after being exiled one had met a woman named Rosa from the land of forest and they wound up having children together twins groin and Grant does despite one's expulsion the two were still able to join the cult High command but it's not too important from this point moving forward brother one disappears we never see him again and he makes no further appearances in the current timeline that we're following what happened to him is unknown and left up to the imagination anyway the reason I brought up one's bloodline is because his kids would go on to have families of their own and form a whole family tree until we got to our next important character to the story brother one's great-great-granddaughter Mana you see Monastery involves her twin brother Sarah and their mother Ramya Ramya treated her children in complete opposite ways she heaped love upon Saray but despised and abused Mana the reason for this being is they come from a generation of Golem Sorcerers and Saray showed the gift to control these Stone Guardians while Mana didn't soap she despised her useless child one day she wound up taking Mana Into the Wilderness and abandoned her there in this moment of weakness she was found by the Watchers who promised to love her as she always wanted all she had to do was give up her heart and soul to be completely controlled by them which she did the Watchers were now in control of a vessel which descended directly from a host of the flower in the following months she is found by the Empire and made their High Priestess and this is where the cult's goals truly change instead of trying to perpetuate the legacy of one sister and protect the world now that the Watchers are in charge of and have an army which is infected with their disease they intend to undo the seals the cult had put in place the seed of Destruction was rebranded as the seed of resurrection and they perpetuated the idea that this will save Humanity the Empire then locates the Seal's locations as well as the goddess which has now fallen under Union territory story over time I haven't really mentioned this but the whole seal system and the seed of Destruction story became widely accepted by everyone it just over time the Empire decided to go against it and so the Empire raidied their armies to launch a full-blown assault to destroy Humanity while this is where the first dragon guard starts there's still a little bit of backstory I need to cover regarding our new group of main characters time for the eye and Inuit are our three new primary characters and fortunately their stories are all connected to each other you see kaim and furiyai are the children of King Gap the eighth king of carleon a small Eastern Kingdom part of the Union Gap came from a lineage of advanced Swordsmen whose teachings have been passed down for Generations he was well respected amongst damn near everyone for his Charisma and fierce tactics on the battlefield he often didn't need to wage war as the land they were on was capable of supporting his people and he didn't want to put them at risk but when he did his Charisma often caused his enemies to defect to his side one former enemy was ipris inuart's father who in modern day Gap trusts as a true friend Gap was always aware of the Empire's growing influence however hesitated to start a war with them due to their overwhelming numbers instead Woody spent his time doing was training Kim to be his successor he taught him as well as inuart the family swordsmanship Keim picked it up very naturally and took a lot of pride in his strength while inuart struggled to keep up during the lessons as Kim grew stronger and stronger each day with his skills sharpening more and more innuart failed to keep the same Pace in fact he was trying too hard to be just like kaim he wound up finding himself to be much more attuned to that of the harp and music he was much more poetic than he was a brute and so found success in this aspect of his life but still striving to be strong so he could protect the love of his life footy eye footy eye I haven't really been talking about because at this point in her life she doesn't have too much going on being the younger sister of kind the two had a very close relationship as you'd expect most siblings would Kim thought his little sister was adorable however she had deeper feelings I feel like it's important to mention that all of the main characters of of drakenguard 1 have a pretty nasty trait about them one way or the other so expect things to take a turn with everyone eventually furiyai has an incestual love for her brother while he never reciprocated those emotions back to her fortunately kaim wouldn't have to because since inuart's father was so close to King Gap inuart spent a lot of time around the two siblings the three were really close and before anyone knew it furiyai and Inuit caught healings for each other she loved his heart playing and always badgered him to play it it wasn't too long before the two became engaged however despite this furiyai still holds strong feelings towards her brother there was a calming Harmony amongst everything happening at this time there was some slight drama but things were simple however things changed on Kim's 18th birthday a black dragon sent by the Empire attacked their Kingdom and slaughtered the royal family both kaim and his sister bore witness to the death of their parents in an instant the kingdom of carleon was without its leaders and it wasn't too long before the country fully collapsed in many stories an event like this would be the deepest valley of darkness in which our characters must rise out from however this was only the beginning of even worse things to come one year after the tragedy kaim furiyai and inuart had fled the country the mark of the Goddess had appeared on a 14 year old footy eye at the time and she became the goddess seal accepting this fate meant that she had to give up everything she was to be locked away in isolation for protection never able to see her brother again or get married to her betrothed but there was nothing she could do the seal is not accepted by choice whether she liked it or not she was the new goddess her our life was now void of any Joy she had hoped to have she was placed in the care of verdelay the hierarchy of the Union Church it was his job to overlook the goddesses and ensure their protection he's not too bad and is dedicated to his job and feels much sympathy for her as he can tell that she's much too empty for someone of her age to be fair her worries weren't as Extreme as she feared both kaim and idiomart could stop by and see her on occasion an Inuit would play the harp for everyone however the joy that it used to bring never quite was the same Kim's condition however wasn't much better the past him lived a relatively happy life full of Dreams he was surrounded by his strict yet caring father His Kind mother and his lovely young sister he trained with inuard who was supposed to become his brother-in-law and when he was old enough he was to succeed his father in governance of the Kingdom but after the black dragon attacked he was laughed with nothing he closed off his heart and filled it with anger now revenge is the only thing driving him he strives for daily combat so he can kill his opponents with ruthless aggression and joining the union and fighting against the empire the exact people responsible for his anger was the perfect outlet for murder and that is kaim's sin he does not care for revenge or Justice he is simply angry Out For Blood and looking to kill as for Inuit his dreams were also lost once footy eye became the goddess the two were no longer able to be together his heart playing wasn't enough to put anyone in a good mood anymore everyone was left empty in a future they wish they could have changed in the following years Inuit joined the Union Army and thanks to his sword practice he had with kaim he was very useful in this environment but the woman he loved the most he could never be with and six years later as The Emptiness has swelled within each of our characters respectively we reached the start of draken guard 1. foreign [Music] story opens with the Empire initiating their plane to destroy the seals and attacking the castle protecting footy eye kaim alongside Union soldiers are fighting against the red-eyed forces kind particularly is slashing his way through them with terrifying ease using his insatiable hatred to drive him forward but despite his fiery will to kill every adversary that stands in his way his time comes much sooner than he had expected he is struck in the back by a nearby Soldier and Gravely wounded recognizing he's now on death's doorstep he Retreats back into the castle to see furiyai once more before he dies but on his path he comes face to face with Angelus the red dragon she too has seen better days and is similarly on her deathbed as well while Keim continues to despise dragons for the death of his parents he is more motivated to continue on living so to save both of their lives he decides to form a pact with the dragon if you recall during draken Guard 3 Pax weren't often used packs are a contract between human and beast in which the human gained some kind of Supernatural power but must pay some price in most cases it is that which the human holds most deer on top of this packed Partners lives become one if either of them is fatally injured it means death for both kind resorted to forming a pact with the species he despised the most but it was the only option for both of them chyme and Angelus are both healed and the price for this pact was kind's voice he is no longer able to speak but fortunately he is able to communicate with Angelus telepathically with his Newfound strength he proceeds further into the castle where he is greeted by his sister and Inuit with a war raging across the land in an army right at their doorstep the three find it safest to take refuge in an Elven Village which has taken no sides in this battle how however upon their arrival all of its people have been slaughtered by the Empire Angeles then hears the voice of verdelay as he too had formed the pact with a beast in history's past being the guardian of the seals Inuit and furiyai find it the safest to join his company kaim an Angelus however choose to stay and investigate further what they find are ominous connections between the cult and Empire which the union just doesn't know about when a villager approaches him begging to save the people of his village kaim kicks the man in the face before heading in that direction not to save the lives of the innocent but to take the lives of the Empire the direction he was headed was to the valley of fairies where our next party member is located Leonard Leonard is a kind-hearted and righteous man who detests the horrors of War both of his parents were killed in the battle between the Empire and the union and was thus left to raise his three younger brothers all by himself how however like Keim footy eye and many others in the story we've still yet to meet Leonard isn't without his Wicked nature he is in the simplest of terms a pedophile he is attracted to young children and shamefully Pleasures himself to them while he to a certain extent recognizes the deplorable actions he indulges himself in he struggles internally with this as he also believes he should be proud of his sexual preferences regardless he punished himself by becoming a Hermit living deep inside the valley of fairies with his younger brothers his sexual urges still do get the best of him on occasion and so he'll leave the house to masturbate in the forest on one such occasion while he was out the Empire arrived at his home and massacred his family he arrived at the corpses of those he loved most he thought he should have been the one to die as he was the true sinner deserving of death filled with self-guilt he tries to take his own life but fails a nearby Ferry then takes advantage of Leonard's grief and forges a pact with him I didn't mention this prior but the monster in a pact will often gain strength through negative emotion so monsters will often seek those in an extreme heightened state of sadness or trauma the price for Leonard's pact was his eyes kaim senses a packed partner nearby and arrives at the location where the two meet Leonard inevitably decides to join kaim as perhaps dying for a greater cause could absolve him of his sins kaim then loses contact with verdelay whom he had entrusted for the eye and inur-2 and so concern for their safety the group make their way to the desert when he arrives he is greeted by his sister who is fortunately safe but alone it turns out inuart and verdelay had been captured by the Empire and taken to a dungeon and so kaim and the others fly off once more to rescue them however unfortunately for Inuit his feelings are turned turned against him when it comes to inuit's greatest sin deep down within he has always harbored jealousy towards kaim since Fourier is meant to be his betrothed but she loves her brother and on top of that kaim is always the better swordsman so inuart wants to be the best so he can protect footy eye he is tormented and brainwashed by Mana as his insecurities and obsessive love for Fruity eye are turned against him and he swears allegiance to the Empire in the meantime kaim and Leonard arrive at the Imperial dungeon where only verdelay resides after burning every Soldier alive in sight all of the prisoners including verdelay Escape he has since learned that the Empire's goal is to summon the seeds of resurrection and so urges kaim to defend the seals to the best of his ability unfortunately the desert seal has already been broken by the time they arrive instead what they find is our next main character ariosh before the empire ariosh was an ordinary beautiful housewife living in the village of nifelheim but like most she suffered loss when the Imperial Army arrived and slaughtered her husband and son such tragedy wrought havoc on both her heart and mind Madness dwells in her eyes and she bursts into sudden laughter during the middle of her screams as if she were remembering something her Insanity brought her to develop a twisted sense of protection she would both murder and devour young children in her mind she thought that by doing so she could protect them within her womb after numerous bloody incidents like this occurred she was eventually taken in by the Imperial Army and thrown in jail that was until kaim arrived and broke everyone out but unlike verdelay who escaped unharmed ariosh was greatly injured in the prison's destruction on the brink of death the spirits of udini and salamander approached to form a pact like the others she too possesses strong negative emotions they can use to become more powerful and so with no other choice she accepted to save her own life the price was her womb like last time the group senses a packed partner nearby and runs into her their first interaction is certainly an odd one as she tries to eat kaim alive as there are no children around but verdelay restrains her and chooses to bring her along for her safety and the safety of others everyone eventually regroups with Furia to discuss their next plan of action but during this time inuart appears with new found power having been corrupted by the empire in an effort to attain strength to become more powerful than time inuart had formed a pact with the black dragon the same black dragon that killed kaim's parents and is the source of all of his anger and torment the price for Inuits pact was his Musical with this strength he can now protect for the eye like he's always wanted whether she likes it or not sensing something is not right with his friend kaim stands against him his instincts would prove to be correct as the two then clash in a battle with their blades the two's dragons both fight each other as well and when kaim is knocked to the ground he recognizes the black dragon all of the anger he has gathered in the six years since well up and he is ready to take it all out but before he gets the chance the dragon blasts both he and Angelus with fire heavily wounding both of them unable to move they are forced to watch inuart take for the eye by force as he flies away with that the Empire is now in possession of the Goddess seal [Music] after a few days of rest and Recovery kaim is ready once more to save his sister on the path towards the Empire territory we meet mana's twin brother Saray I've already briefly covered the two's backstory so there's not too much new information I've talked about how their mother only loved Sarah as he inherited the ability to control Stone guardians but mostly left it at that while Sarah did love his mother as she treated him well as The Story Goes The Empire wound up slaughtering many people during their tirade and sarri's mother was one of them in her dying moments she forced her child to form a pact with a Golem to save his life originally these monsters are non-sentient and unthinking tools meant to be manipulated by Stone Sorcerers such as them but his mother's dying wish gifted this particular Golem with sorrow the price Saray was forced to pay was his time his ability to age fortunately his mother's actions worked and he was the only only surviving member of their Village being the only love child over time Saray felt guilty for consuming his mother's affection and so sought to make amends he was hoping Mana was still near where their mother last left her and so went out to try and find her and this is where kaim and his group come in and cross paths with him while everyone agrees to try and help no trace of Mana remains unbeknownst that she is now the Empire's High Priestess anyway eventually all seals get broken excluding footy eye and so in a last-ditch effort to prevent the apocalypse both the union and Empire's armies meet on the battlefield in front of the Empire's Gates an all-out war commences with new monstrous Cyclops is appearing and causing utter Mayhem eventually however the union emerges Victorious as all of the enemies are slain but just when they thought it was over Fireballs from a floating Fortress demolished the battlefield and the Union's Army the is also lost fearing for the safety of furiyai more than ever the group then make their way into the Fortress where instead of finding the goddess they run in tamana she's so much different from the girl Sarah used to know he almost doesn't recognize her seeing the state that she's in he begs her to notice him and return to how she used to be but to know a veil recognizing that both her mind and humanity is gone and she is merely a puppet being used by the Watchers Saray has Golem put her out of her misery but without Mana the floating Fortress is unable to stay in the sky as she was the one magically keeping it afloat having to look out for themselves kaim and the others barely managed to escape with their lives but inside were still the likes of footy eye and inuart their story comes to an abrupt end as being inside the Fortress when it crashes both of their lives are lost in an indirect way kaim does get his revenge on the black dragon as being packed partners with inuart now since he died so did the dragon with the last deal having fallen with footy eye the world's destruction can commence and the Watchers can invade their world while they can take on many forms this time around they appear as giant flying babies kaim attempts to kill as many of them as he can but they keep coming as for the likes of verdelay he is horrified as to what he is witnessing for a man who has dedicated his entire life to religion what God could he pray to now all attempts to escape let alone survive seem impossible at this point as they are soon cornered ariosh is separated from the group as the sight of so many babies excites her Beyond her wildest imaginations almost as if they knew her Tendencies she is swarmed and devoured herself as for Leonard he has chosen to try and redeem himself his entire life he's been nothing but a coward unable to do what he knew was the right thing and so for the first and last time he uses his pack partner's magic and self-destructs in a massive explosion but while an opening for them to continue has been made an even greater Watcher has appeared she is known as the Queen Beast and is able to both summon other Watchers but can also warp time itself simply being there she is eroding time and reality her stomach is swelling due to how much she is consuming and tearing apart and so kaim and Angelus decide that if they're going to go out it might as well be in a blaze of glory they leave behind Saray hoping that he can live in a future that they won't be able to see and so the two plunged down and Pierce The Heart of the Beast resulting in a flash of white light engulfing them all a Chasm then splits through time and space and the three of them are sent to a new universe 2003 modern Tokyo in the same vein that the Universe we were living in during draken guard was exactly like ours up until 865. in this parallel universe the world was exactly the same as ours only up until the year 2003. while kaim and Angelus are flustered as to where they've wound up the queen still lives and so deal with that first after a fearsome battle the Queen Beast Falls and disintegrates dispersing its particles all over Japan unfortunately the victory of Kym and Angelus would be short-lived as the Japanese Air Force then shoot the two down killing them angelus's body would get impaled upon the Tokyo Tower and eventually taken in for research as for kaim he is never referenced again after being shot down some like to believe he survived and would go on to participate in this next Arc of the story but considering their lives were entwined from their pact most canonically it is assumed that he died and his corpse is never mentioned as for what happened to the dragon guard Universe no one knows but this is how the bridge between draken guard and near is formed I cannot stress more the importance the bodies of Angelus and the Queen Beast are going to present as they are the source of everything that is about to happen June 12 2003 is the day this world changed forever you'd imagine the shock that befell the nation of Japan when an unidentified giant as well as a dragon appeared in the middle of Shinjuku leading to the death of 56 with hundreds injured and hundreds of millions of Yen worth of Damages incurred while both threats were neutralized it was a much too large scale of an incident to Simply sweep under the rug a gag order was established to attempt and prevent all media news or Internet coverage of what happened to spread but of course it did soon the entire world began theorizing as to what this event possibly was other nations mostly believed it was an act of terrorism by some unknown organization and began planning accordingly as they always do but for the most part it was just chaos and confusion left in the wake of this incident as stated the situation largely resolved itself the giant Was Defeated and and dispersed leaving little if any traces Left Behind of its physical existence while Angelus the red dragon was shot down impaled upon Tokyo Tower and subsequently taken in for research in a top secret location by the Japanese government but a mere six months after the incident a new disease began emerging residents within Tokyo the location where the 612 incident took place began turning into salt their entire body changed colors solidified and people simply turned into statues of pure salt the mortality rate was 100 due to the nature in which everything appears the disease was dubbed white chlorination syndrome and it wasn't too long after cases like this began appearing that a rush to find a cure started as well but as the numbers of infected patients began Rising doctors began seeing an alternate response some of the infected became hyper aggressive and violent they don't turn into statues of salt but their mental state is reduced to that of a Savage it was almost exactly the same as the red eye disease and that's because it was a mutation of it you can consider as you might expect white chlorination syndrome was not as simple as people's immune systems reacting negatively to a foreign object rather it was much much more complicated yes the disease was stemming from the Queen Beast but the reaction those infected were having wasn't a coincidence what was truly Happening Here is that due to the Queen's origin as a watcher and servant of God trying to destroy the world the maso the magical element that's present Within These creatures is spreading and getting into the systems of these humans the humans infected would be presented with a pact they can either accept The Pact and serve God in his goal to destroy Humanity becoming nothing more than a Mindless savage or reject it and die it's evident which people took which option many aren't so willing to Simply give up their lives and so they became Servants of God the Japanese government was quick to pinpoint where exactly all of this was stemming from not that it was hard to figure out and so plan to cordon off Shinjuku this was initially a very questionable decision by the larger public as a whole due to humanitarian reasons that was until a key figure was killed by one of these berserked individuals after that everyone approved of sealing off the city an immense wall dubbed the wall of Jericho was erected and they were officially sealed off from the rest of the world a few members of media stayed behind to continue covering the event from within however it didn't take long in fact mere days after its construction until all trans missions ceased the last thing they saw was a giant white creature appearing just like that the outside world lost all insight into what was happening within the walls and so had to Simply observe the situation from a distance over the next four years they would continuously keep a close eye on anything they could an inexplicable dark spot appeared on a satellite photograph but it is for some reason disregarded as not important one of the more immediate threats the Japanese government had to repel was the attack they underwent when some group attempted to obtain Angeles corpse this entire time they've been experimenting on it in their Labs learning all they can so it's understandably an item of interest for many people but the Japanese forces successfully repel this raid and keep the dragon's corpse safe for now one of the other observations they made during this time was the dwindling number of berserked individuals over the years they began making less and less noise and weren't as prominent of a threat as when things started but this wasn't by coincidence and to the dismay of the entire world it wouldn't be for good reasons either they were becoming smarter and more dangerous than they ever were the white figure that was last seen before all media coverage stopped entirely was now the form the infected took they were no longer just raging humans they were becoming a collective unit and they were being led these white beings would become known as the legion and their leader is someone aptly named red eye we never truly know who red eye is as he's only ever referred to by that name fans love to theorize that it's actually kaim as were never updated on what happened to his body after being shot down but nothing ever suggests that that's the truth and is 100 a theory either way under his leadership the legion is a major threat to the military and in 2008 the wall of Jericho is destroyed from the inside red eye and the legion launch a full-on assault killing everyone they can the moment the wall fell sounds like the ones heard during the 612 incident Echo once again counter assaults are launched against the legion however due to their unforeseen organization and natural resistance to weapons used on them they are incredibly difficult to Halt of course due to the location of where this is all stemming from regions within Japan bear the brunt of the chaos casualties increase white chlorination syndrome continues to spread once more thus increasing the legion numbers and several countries around the world bar any refugees seeking safety as they don't want the infection to spread because of this in 2009 Japan began feeling very vulnerable from a military defense standpoint and so formed in a line clients with the United States in exchange for their assistance Legion corpses and captives are sent to America for study in military research while the U.S army arrives in Japan to help repel Legion attacks fortunately things seem to work over the next few months the legion is pushed back however an endless flow of forces only seemed to continue pouring out from within the walls of Shinjuku the area is carpet bombed however it hardly affected Legion numbers considering this is where the source of all the legion is stemming from the nuclear option is considered and a mere four months later in hopes to Route out the growing Legion at the source an atomic bomb is dropped on Shinjuku any remaining areas that contain dense Legion activity were also hit with nuclear weapons the majority of Japan was devastated from these bombings however initially it appears to have been a success in the follow following months all traces of Legion activity in the country appeared eradicated and while yes no members of the Legion appeared for some time after this in truth they weren't gone and neither was the threat of white chlorination syndrome in fact nuking Shinjuku was quite possibly the worst thing they could have done while the physical forces that made up the legion disappeared the element within them that was causing it to happen in the first place the maso didn't the nuclear attacks only served to spread this element and blast it across the globe and by the time the research they had conducted uncovered this it was already too late they did learn a lot about maso however particularly that it proved the existence of a parallel universe they called it the multiple origin Theory which stated that another world exists in a parallel universe from the one they're currently in so the maso that has been the source of this section is not native to their world and should not exist in their Universe in the first place they learn how it's transmitted such as through bodily fluids and waste coughing and saliva can also transmit it but also there's no physical means to destroy it such as heat from explosives or nuclear weapons basically all of mankind was now susceptible to being infected and they had no idea how to stop it and to top things off less than a year after thinking they nuked all of the Legion out of existence they re-emerged as did their leader red eye it now became a race against the clock not only to find a cure but to simultaneously fight a war also just to add on top of the bad situations the dragon's body was also stolen the following year an unknown armed party raided the classified facility that was conducting the research and had taken its remains rumors believe it could have been some kind of religious cult or possibly the United States however no one stepped forward to claim responsibility so it remains unknown who it was and no further information is given past this so angelus's body disappears but a fair amount of research had been conducted on it by this point so it's not all lost for this next portion I'm actually going to isolate these upcoming stories into their own segments as I believe it'll be easier to follow that way instead of bouncing back and forth there's two main branches and plot lines that begin to happen at this point there's the story that went on trying to cure white chlorination syndrome and the story of fighting against red eye and the Legion for this portion I'm going to start off focusing on the legion and the war that went on with them as it's a tad shorter I should preface everything by mentioning both stories begin utilizing maso to create what they dub as magic they discover this magic element and are able to absorb energy from other worlds and use it in their own thus breaking the law of conservation of mass by creating something from nothing so be aware that magic is becoming a thing so one of the most dangerous things that comes with fighting against the legion head-on are the soldiers getting infected with white chlorination syndrome being on a Battlefield and in close proximity to creatures who can infect you like any Airborne sickness is tricky to circumvent so in 2016 a medical compound called luciferase was developed which greatly slowed its onset effects it didn't cure them but it slowed it down as such soldiers administered with luciferase were less at risk and more able to directly combat the legion without fear these treated soldiers formed the First Crusade Squadron and successfully take a couple battles in their favor however are ultimately defeated further research uncovers luciferase to be more effective on younger patients so children and teenagers who show exemplary physical ability are administered treatment and urged into joining combat squads the Hamlin organization is formed to train these young soldiers to fight the legion these soldiers were known as Crusaders while the Hamlin organization's methods were questionable abducting orphans and coercing them into service due to their physical capability and receptiveness to luciferase it worked these Crusaders began to expand to an international level and brought the war to a standstill but not everyone agreed or even trusted the Hamlin organization to serve as the sole solution specifically Japan project Snow White was created by them in hopes to invent a weapon they could use without relying on foreign aid but they weren't just normal weapons they wanted magic weapons by studying the weaponization of maso they were hoping they could create the Ultimate Weapon to defend Japan against the legion however like the Hamlin organization children were the primary test subjects it wasn't a gun or any form of artillery they were looking to create it was a living being they were hoping to enhance via magic a classified secret lab known as the national weapons laboratory was created and disguised underneath a mansion in secret to not draw any suspicion it was here that various children were tested on with maso two of the children present are very relevant to this timeline Emil and his sister haluwa they weren't the first children to be tested on but they would be the most important halua was Emil's older sister and was designated experiment number six while Emil was number seven to be fair the facility they were being held at didn't treat them like prisoners per se more so it was Moonlighting as an orphanage in the face of these children albeit not a very good one there were a bunch of kids that used to be around but only those with aptitude for becoming experimental weapons were chosen halua and Emil were two of the most promising and in the story the stone flower we get to experience things from halua's point of view the orphanage as she perceived it wasn't a very comforting invite environment she and the other children were constantly put through tests both physical and mental which she perceived as some sort of school lesson everyone in the facility spoke Japanese which was not their native language so for a short time they were taught how to roughly speak a new language the two siblings had been in the facility for a few years by this point and one of the only bright spots to their experience was one particular scientist who treated the two like they were her own children she was very warm and kind playful yet gentle in the way she interacted with halua and Emil the two genuinely considered her to be their mother figure and they called her Sensei but while halua desperately wanted to believe that she was different to the other adults around she always aired on the cautious side in their situation ever since arriving she's tried desperately to stay by Emile side throughout it all Emil at this age is still very much a child he's ignorant to anything going on he watches the clouds bangs on the piano keys in their room and draws the same picture over and over again each day the entire time with a smile on his face completely oblivious it was halua who was staying vigilant for the two of them keeping track of the lessons they had each day what they ate what they drank the adults they met and what they spoke about over time she came to only one conclusion that was don't trust the adults Sensei being the only exception but despite her airing on the side of caution there wasn't actually much power she had to do about anything with their situation and she wouldn't be able to the day inevitably came when it was time to turn both her and Emil into weapons on one unsuspecting day she was put through the regular checkup and routine she usually does however afterwards she was escorted to a different room she was told that she had a serious illness and she needed to undergo surgery to save her life but of course alua knew it was a lie she didn't believe anything anyone was saying she was panicking and crying worrying about the well-being of her brother but there was nothing she could do she was strapped down and held in place everything faded to Black and when she came too she was taller she felt weird her body wasn't the same she looked like a skeleton halua had been successfully transformed into experimental weapon number six the Ultimate Weapon designed to fight back against the legion hordes she was strong could utilize magic just by wishing it she could destroy things in all kinds of interesting ways she was no longer a human but rather a monster but halua was still in there her conscience was still perceptive to what she could see and how she was Act she was still afraid but as she overheard the scientists in the facility referred to her as a weapon she came to the realization of what the facility was how they were using the children and how they were trying to create whatever it is she is now more than afraid halua became angry and the power she now possessed manifested she broke out of her constraints cut through the walls and went on a rampage killing all the adults that crossed her path in absolutely brutal ways trying to find her brother and make sure he was safe she even came across her Sensei which broke her heart even more as she believed she was someone that she could trust she cherished the time they spent together and how she made her feel loved halua saw what looked like her apologizing and saying she was sorry but she couldn't hear a thing with all of her strength she mowed down what was in front of her as the white coat shot straight at the wall and stained it red the facility was being reduced to Rubble but then halua heard Emil's voice you see halua wasn't the only one turned into a weapon Emil was as well but unlike halua who was meant to fight against the legion Emil was created to be a countermeasure against her he was given the power to turn anything he looks at into stone so considering they lost control of halua's power she was deemed too dangerous and needed to be stopped so Emil's power is used on her and she is petrified halua accepts her fate as she doesn't want to hurt anyone anymore and she gives herself up to a cold sleep after this incident the experiments with maso on humans were deemed too dangerous and were massively scaled back as for Emil he was put in the care of what remaining scientists were still left but while this experimental weaponization failed from Japan's own greed good news did come a few years later thanks to the Hamlin organization this entire time Crusade units have consistently been deployed with each subsequent unit providing more capable soldiers and in the year 2030 red-eye the leader of the Legion is slain in Jerusalem by the leader of the 13th Crusade unit the commanding officer who dealt the final blow however is mortally wounded during the conflict and dies of his injuries shortly after but with the defeat of red eye the legion is no longer able to coordinate their attacks they don't disappear entirely just yet however they are not nearly as much of a threat as they once were anyway for now that is the story with the legion largely having come to a close so we can now begin on the other large storyline that was happening at this time which was how the world was dealing with white chlorination syndrome so with no feasible cure even in the possible stages of development alternative methods began being explored you see at its core white chlorination syndrome isn't actually a disease it's a pact made with one soul in truth it is the soul which is in danger so what happens when you remove the soul from the body and protect it it turns out both sides wind up becoming safe the soul is incapable of existing by itself for a lack of a better term so it can't get corrupted by the gods so thus there is no fear of succumbing to White chlorination syndrome and the body well there's nothing to form a pack and so it's left alone and thanks to the use of maso which effectively created magic they were able to utilize this but almost in the reverse manner where white chlorination syndrome stemmed from a pact with the Giant and the Watchers and the gods scientists were utilizing angelus's corpse for a pact by creating a vessel that was to hold the soul and refining that through the dragon's corpse they could initiate a contract when a pact is initiated the soul is pulled from one's body and exchanged with another being but since Angelus is dead there's no soul to exchange so scientists are effectively allowed to pull the soul out from people with no negative consequences and in the year 2014 they successfully managed to pull it off a soul is removed from a test subject's body stored and reunited this whole operation was known as project Gestalt in case the term Gestalt is a tad confusing it's basically another term when talking about the soul so if you ever hear me use the term Gestalt it's simply referring to the soul considering it was 2014 and fairly early into everything happening public reception to this idea was less than enthusiastic but as the years passed and it became more evident that a cure for white chlorination syndrome wasn't going to be found project Gestalt became the most promising Endeavor and the one that was going to be greenlit but removing the soul from a body wasn't without its problems one of the most prominent being the body itself the soul is Ageless it can survive as long as it needs to without aging a day but the body is still flesh and Bone and will rot over time and so the idea for replicants was created vessels based on the genetic information of person it was a shell that was genetically designed to perfectly house whoever it was made for and with these two processes in place they could store all of Humanity's souls for however long it took until the legion and white chlorination syndrome was eradicated from the world entirely and returned as if nothing ever happened considering that theoretically every human is no longer going to be around during this process overseers are created to ensure project Gestalt sees the success it's meant to fulfill several devila and Poplar units are then created unlike the replicants these two are Androids replicants are more akin to clones they're not robots and they still age just without all the human parts while the Androids are forever ageless it's devila and poplar's job to oversee all replicants as they rid the world of the Legion and both gather and dispose of all of the harmful maso causing white chlorination syndrome they oversee their maintenance and even if a replicant body were to die it was their job to simply just create another one until the day came for that particular soul to be reunited there are a few flaws that came from this but I'll hold off for now and explain it a little down the line when it becomes more relevant but you can imagine the amount of effort that it would take to individually return every single human soul back to their respective body or even more worrying what would happen if something went wrong and the natural process was interrupted for this a Fail-Safe needed to be implemented a way to simultaneously Force every single soul into their corresponding replicant on a large scale for this it required immense magical power and so the grimoire project was devised it's never quite delved into what exactly the grimoires are but in the simplest of terms they are both books that contain enormous amounts of magical energy but there's a catch a soul must be embedded into one to unlock its true power so who else but the Hamlin organization stepped in to provide their own resources the Hamlin organization by this point had defeated red eye and merged into project Gestalt and so helped out where they could in their child soldiers all those children who were given luciferase to fight against the legion weren't immune to becoming infected all luciferase did was slow it down all of them were infected and would inevitably succumb to White chlorination syndrome given time those who lived have proven themselves amongst the strong and capable so the Hamlin organization rallied together 13 of the most promising previous soldiers kidnapped them threw them in a room and provided each one of them a unique grimoire and ordered them to kill each other only two two were allowed to live this is the story we hear in and then there were none we're never given the names of any of the characters but for the sake of following the story I'll call the main character in this Vice for what will become obvious reasons you see Vice was actually one of the child soldiers part of the 13th Crusade unit that took down red eye a few years have passed since then and he's now in his late teens he was always a capable Soldier and one of the few lucky and skilled enough to survive he woke up in this room with 12 past soldiers all from different branches around the world the only one he did recognize was a girl who was also part of the 13th Crusade rubrum as we'll call her she was not nearly as seasoned as Vice was to combat she was a bit more aloof and borderline not ready to be deployed when she was but she was a quick learner and physically formidable Weiss during the war saved her life but they were eventually split up them meeting here is the first time they've seen each other in over three years as you might expect there is much confusion between 13 strangers trapped in a dark room with a mysterious grimoire at their feet but the confusion quickly escalates to panic when a man and woman begin arguing and things turn physical the man grabbed for the girl but the grimoire at her feet spawned a black hand and grabbed him and crushed him to death the corpse of the man was then sucked into his grimoire the color changed and a face appeared on the cover while everyone initially sat in stunned silence an uproar began as everyone panicked to understand what the book in their possession did various voices on an intercom interrupted all speaking different languages so their respective participants could understand it but all with the same message use the books to kill each other only two can survive with no further clarification or reasoning as to why this was happening all everyone could do was fight for their own life initially things broke out physically instead of via magic the girl was jumped and strangled to death by another participant her body was transferred into her grimoire and while two other participants then tried to jump the man who just killed her he fell to the ground and died in a very painful way before they had the chance it's likely The Observers have some kind of kill switch to rid anyone who simply tries to kill normally what they want is Magic to understand it to unlock it they want these soldiers to unlock the potential of the grimoire so they can manipulate it so everyone quickly went back to examining their books so they weren't killed Vice and rubrum attempted to work together and be the two survivors allowed to live and while rubrum was very thoughtful about the situation and the potential requirements needed to utilize it her thought process is quickly interrupted when she sees a black lance hartling towards an unsuspecting Vice to repay his act of saving her life during the war she pushes him out of the way and is skewered herself and dies she too is sucked up into her grimoire the color turns the shade of blood and the face that appears looks nothing like her own Vice cries out in distress and amidst his cries he activates his grimoire everything goes white countless letters begin appearing when he came back to his senses everyone in the room was dead they were skewered amongst a horde of protruding Spears from the floor Vice did not do this his grimoire simply protected him from this attack the one who did was Noir Vice and Noir were the two Victors so to speak or so they thought as per usual everything was a lie they were allowed allowed to live but they weren't allowed to leave like everyone before them Vice and Noir were absorbed into their respective grimoires but unlike all of the others they were sentient and still alive these two became instrumental in project gestalt's plans Noir became a new instrument to separate soul from body the whole thing could now be filtered and done through Noir and vice was the tool to reunite the soul and body while the books themselves have their own level of power to them their main purpose was to act as an activation system when Noir and vice are activated at the same time a massive amount of energy is created which will send every soul back into their replicant body as for all of the other grimoires they appear to be meant to serve as a Reserve System extra energy to support these two in case they need it for the most part project Gestalt would continue his play and replicant bodies would be put in production and souls stored for a later date but there's still One More Story that we need to cover before things fully kick off and this time it does involve our three main characters we've already been introduced to a meal but we've yet to cover near Yona and Kaine and in the story The Boy the girl and the weapon their three pads would cross I should probably start off by introducing our new characters nir and Yona are the simplest in terms of their background their brother and sister in the original game it was father and daughter but the story has since been updated to have the 2B siblings fortunately this change does not drastically affect anything also near is not his actual name we officially never know what his true name is but fans collectively agree and simply just call him near but anyway his and yona's backstory is actually quite simple the two are siblings not much if anything is known about their parents other than the fact that in modern day they are no longer around they likely fell victim to either the Legion or white chlorination syndrome or likely died via natural causes but regardless near and Yona are alone and being the older brother near finds it his responsibility to look after his sickly sister yona's immune system isn't the strongest and she's often in a generally weakened State not by white coronation syndrome but by normal sicknesses it would seem the two are very much civilians traveling from different help centers trying their best to survive the chaos of the world brought upon by the legion and white chlorination syndrome for now that's all there is to them Kaine is a lot more unique in the sense that she's not a normal human she was like many an experiment she was born from the DNA of her grandparents which technically makes them her parents but I'll get to that soon and Legion DNA she was a designer baby genetically altered as just another experiment but this time around she wasn't an experiment or made this way because of the government or Army if it was due to her grandmother Kali being her grandmother was simply just a cover story likely due to her age the reason she has so much pull to have a designer baby is because she's considered a war hero and not just a simple one at that Kali was given the credit for killing red eye she was the Vice Captain of the 13th Crusade the one that took him down it was the captain of that unit who killed red eye however he died following that Clash for whatever reason Khali was given the recognition as the hero who killed him whether that was her doing or the government so they can have an alive figurehead to keep morale up is unknown but because she's recognized as the hero who stopped the legion she was rewarded with Hefty amounts of money she then used that money to invest into scientific military research and became incredibly Rich since then she married her husband whom she met during her service and has spent her years trying to live a relatively normal life her time in the war greatly traumatized her as did the general heartache of seeing your neighbors family and lovers all get turned into Legion she developed a very Brash personality because of it she's vulgar Fierce and often stubborn her language has next to no filter and she'll often speak before ever considering her words but despite this deep down she still did have a kind and caring heart even though it was often hard for that to come across which is why when Kaine was born she didn't treat her as though she were an experiment she and her husband cared for her like she was a daughter so much so that Kaine didn't even know there was anything special about her and they never told her Kaine lived a perfectly normal albeit strict life thanks to her grandparents as for the reason Khali would want a child with Legion jeans it's never explicitly said but it's implied that she wanted her child to be strong enough to defend them against any Potential Threat in the future it makes sense because her safety is always in consideration as in conjunction with having a warrior daughter she pays for her own private military to guard her at all times but as for Kaine she's actually quite different personality wise to the girl we get in game in fact Kali is a lot more reminiscent of her attitude Kaine here is a lot more soft-spoken as she was raised to be fairly obedient by her grandmother her grandfather felt a bit guilty about this and so bought her a white dog Kaine was a formal maiden of high society so she wasn't very vulgar outside of the occasional arguments with her grandmother she lived the peaceful life she was happy with though she could always sense something Eerie in the back of her mind whatever that Legion part within her was she instinctively felt it and with our new cast introduced I can finally talk about the events from the boy the girl and the weapon the event that kicks everything off is an unexpected Legion attack by this point with red eye dead the legion weren't nearly as coordinated or dangerous so they were relegated to be dealt with by smaller and local forces where this story branches is the legion attack however they're accompanied by a red eye this story treats the term red eye more so as a classification of Legion as if it's the most dangerous form one can reach the red eye leader is definitely dead this red eye is just a very dangerous and Powerful Legion but for this story I will be using the term red eye when an attack occurs in Shinjuku Panic breaks out amongst the public amidst them are near and Yona during the chaos of all the civilians running around the two are separated and Yono winds up making her way to a nearby man which as you could guess belongs to kaine's family Kaine is kind enough to console the distressed Jonah calming her down and bringing her inside to ease the nerves of the chaos nir eventually finds his way there as the passerby on the street saw someone of her description and pointed him in that direction he thanks Kaine for being so kind and keeping her safe but while all of this is going on there's still what's happening with the legion and Emil a meal ever since the incident with his sister has been in the care of the few remaining scientists that remained after the project was downsized fortunately it seems these scientists were a lot more caring for a meal than how he was treated during his time before they call him a meal they don't treat him as though he's a weapon generally it seems to have been a better environment overall but that only lasted for so long as a new character named Yura or as he would later be more popularly known as Tyran decided to kidnap he was the section chief of the countermeasure against special biological organisms Department as well as the commander of the Shinjuku area defense team he's a very bloodthirsty and ruthless individual he has no problem using force or killing people to get what he wants he has a high position because he is very intelligent and has an apt way of resolving problems but he's Infamous for his violence he raids the facility holding a meal and takes him Hostage to use as a weapon to fight against the legion and red eye a meal not wanting any harm to come to any of the scientists goes with him but where does Europe fit into the rest of this story well it turns out he's in charge of the military group that Kali hires to protect her and her family she's has been personally funding most of his Endeavors which has allowed him to accrue the weapons and resources he has and because of this when the legion attack breaks out Khali calls him to come and defend her which he's paid to do and so yora his soldiers and Emil all make their way to kali's Mansion when they arrive they immediately deploy all sorts of weapons most notably a P22 unit an early version of what we later see as the p-33 it shoots the red eye with a laser severing its arm but much to everyone's shock it grows more arms out of its skin Legion come crawling out from it as well the red eye is much more powerful and dangerous than anyone could have predicted the damages extend onto the mansion in which Emil Yona Kaine and her grandparents all reside red eye makes his way inside while the legion attack yora and his forces kaine's grandfather is stabbed saving Khali and when he tries to pass on some advice to kind a about how things are only going to get worse he is crushed to death meanwhile as the red eye runs rampant within the Mansion Yura grabs a meal from the truck to deal with all of the new Legion numbers he forces Emil to use his powers and turns everyone to Stone including his own men Yura shows no sympathy for his willingness to sacrifice the lives of all in front of him just to save his own Emil begs for him to stop as he doesn't like what he's being forced to do so Yura injects him with some kind of drug which makes a meal lose control of his powers having just lost control of his greatest weapon and red eye still causing Mayhem he sees no victory in this current situation and so abandons the scene and runs away as for Kaine unfortunately the death of her grandfather wouldn't be the only tragedy that struck Kali is there contemplating the death of her husband she feels a lot of regret never disclosed opposing to their daughter the truth about what she was and before she has the chance to tell her she too is grabbed by red eye and swallowed whole Kaine Witnesses this and the devastation she feels swells up within her the sadness the anger the confusion the rage every single emotion is swirling around her head she deep down feels the dark power within her she screams in pain and loses control entering this rampant state where she can utilize her hidden power she rips red eye's stomach open with her bare hands to which Kali emerges from still alive Kaine then rips red eye to shreds and kills it the legion and red eye are no longer a problem it's now Emil and Kaine who are both berserking near for some reason feels obligated to stop them he doesn't physically do anything but he shouts at them to stop even when the soldiers and everyone around them believe them to be monsters near continues believing in them as humans and so begs for them to stop fighting which they do Emil and Kaine return to their senses by this point it can be assumed that some multiple timeline bleeding occurred which led to this innate connection he felt to them in the first place but all that mattered now is that they stopped Emil was sedated and taken back to the facility while Kaine cries with her grandmother because she's scared the story ends there the characters just go on their separate ways but it wouldn't be the last time fate brought these three together with that story out of the way it's time to return back to project Gestalt I mentioned earlier that the project had a few flaws when it came to separating soul from body one of the more minor ones was that the vessels the souls were placed in for the indefinite amount of time were actually weak to sunlight hence why they would later be nicknamed Shades yes if you're familiar with the game every single shade is a human soul waiting to be reunited with its body but they aren't up and active they're basically in storage sleeping or unconscious their weakness to sunlight is but a minor nuisance what was a real problem was the risk of relapsing relapsing is what happens when the soul loses its sentience as a result they become hostile and aggressive trying to kill once agastalt relapses the person they once were is gone and they basically cease to exist as they're just a Mindless bodyless monster initially every single Gestalt that was created would inevitably relapse whether it was immediately or slowly over time every single person who was turned into a Gestalt was slowly losing their sentience so of course if left unattended the plan was a failure everyone was still going to die eventually so analysis revealed that in order to stabilize a gestalt's self-awareness they needed a stable Solid Source of purified maso from a person who maintained his being after being transformed basically a perfect genetic match so the world purification Commission in conjunction with the Hamlin organization figured the best way of producing someone like this was via one of the sealed grimoirs grimoire Noir is selected for this task and many clone duplicates are created and handed out the government disguises themselves as various relief centers in poverty stricken areas and refugee camps and to hand out copies of grimoire Noir in hopes of finding a Gestalt attuned to the book's power it wasn't a very pretty or clean experiment by sheer numbers every single person who touched the grimoire and wasn't the one perfect match they were looking for was immediately turned into a relapsed Gestalt it could have been hundreds or even thousands of people who fell victim to this Ploy and this is where nir and Yona re-enter the story it's been about three years since the events at kaine's Mansion Yona is still sick and so in hopes to find medicine that can better her condition the two enter one of these relief centers but early on into their arrival the two cents that something isn't right and so make haste to try and quickly Escape but they witnessed the others who were there in need be handed these grimoires and be transformed into two relapsed gestalts he witnessed his community and those others in need be used as nothing more than Lab Rats fortunately he and Yona were able to escape and flee to an abandoned Supermarket clearly still exhausted and worn out from all that they've been through they try to recompose themselves here near obviously goes on to tell his sister never to touch the grimoire but it turns out the two were followed by those relapsed gestalts near is ambushed by them and knowing that he's incapable of Defending his sister as he is now he turns to the grimoire in hopes for more power upon touching it not only does he not relapse but he is the perfect genetic signature that the government's been looking for with his Newfound strength he is able to unleash a barrage of magic attacks and utilize its full power to wipe out all the relapsed gestalts threatening them but when he returns to Young it turns out she also touched the book because she wanted to help her brother but since she's not a match for the book she began to relapse shortly after she fell into a coma it didn't take long before the government found near and brought him in the only reason near was playing along was because finding a cure for his sister was his number one priority Yona was placed into a cryogenic sleep halting her guest altization process for the next five years near allowed any experiment to be done on him in hopes of finding this cure grimoire Noir had also been programmed to obey near he was a very loyal and determined subject in the CD drama the promise of 1 000 years is where we hear these events near is very worried for his sister especially after all this time has passed and still no cure has been found unfortunately for him a cure wouldn't be found science had reached the limits of its research for any cure and so were incapable of helping yona's condition but a compromise was struck they told near that at the end of the cycle when all of the maso had been read from the world and Humanity could return to their replicant bodies that by that time they would have the means to cure Yona they estimated that it would take 1 000 years for project Gestalt to be complete so all anyone had was their word but what could near do if he says no Then Yono was just going to die anyway if he agrees to it then at the very least he knows scientists will try to help him because he's effectively preserving Humanity it was on This Promise alone that near agreed to become the original Gestalt that they needed but he swore that if they failed to keep their word he would Rebel near Soul was then separated from his body and this new entity that he became known as was the shadowlord it's important to note that every sentient shade is linked to the shadowlord he's the one keeping them from relapsing their lives all depend on him as such they worship him as though he were a God but at the same time if he died so would all of them and with that project Gestalt was in full effect eventually every human underwent the Gestalt process and had their soul transferred into a shade it was now up to devila and popla to ensure the will of humanity was fulfilled to make their job a bit easier replicants are initially given a minimal amount of sentience to follow basic commands with this they are tasked with Exterminating the legion still roaming the Earth and Gathering all of the maso particles so they can send it back to where it came but of course nothing is ever so simple and things can't just work about 700 years into this process the replicants began to gain sentience they came into their own being formulated their own thoughts emotions experiences and acted independently by the year 3000 and the turn of the New Millennium most replicants had acquired sentience it's important to note that the replicant's personalities are unique to them their entire identity and whatnot are formed based on the stimuli of what's around them having very little if anything in common to their original Soul as such civilizations and cultures rapidly begin developing despite this devila and Poplar are still able to influence their actions and project Gestalt is still moving forward by the year 3276 a familiar foe would rear its ugly head a young replicant hoping to bring his dead lover back to life here's the legend of a forbidden land where one's greatest desire can be fulfilled Jerusalem the same place where red eye was killed the replicant brings his Lover's corpse here and wishes for her Resurrection much to his surprise she wakes up eyes fiery red red eye has been resurrected she kills her lover and goes on to assemble what few members of the Legion still remain 11 years later red eye and the last remnants of the Legion begin a March Of Terror against the replicants but an Android along with four replicants banded together and challenged red eye after a massive battle the commander is slain as are the last of the Legion and with that the Android send the last of the corrupt maso back to the parallel world both the legion and white chlorination Syndrome have been eradicated and the purification of the world is complete the following year the gestalts begin to awaken as the next phase of the project commences this is where the the shades come in the souls are ready to re-emerge with their bodies and so make various attempts to try but the newly self-aware replicants see these monsters as Body Snatchers and so attack them on site to defend themselves battles between replicants and gestalts continue for the foreseeable future it's the replicants who dub the gestalt's shades due to their weakness to light devila and popola try quite a bit to influence replicants into accepting the merger with their soul however it's very rare after about 12 years of trying things the peaceful way they come to the conclusion that it's not going to work and so look towards the Revival ceremony or the grimoire project to forcefully reintegrate everyone as for near or shadowlord he's been consistently providing maso to the Gestalt system for over 1200 years he's been awake this entire time he was initially told it would only take a thousand and yet here he is and the project still hasn't been completed he starts losing trust in the system and fears Yona will never be revived at this rate if he does not act himself [Music] and this is where we can finally start following our new replicant cast we're not at the beginning of the game just yet but we can at the very least start talking about the life of our new replicant near so considering all of the replicants formed their personalities based on their surroundings this near has a lot in common with the original specifically his connection and care for his sister Yona the two stories begin fairly early into the beginning of their replicant lifespans near's entire existence is solely dedicated to providing for his sister considering their parents are no longer with them the two do have very Vivid memories of their parents however apparently their father worked in a far away City and was rarely at home but sometime after yona's birth he died outside of even near hardly remembering much about him as for their mother she lived with them keeping the family up and running largely tending to the Garden they had outside however she wound up getting afflicted by the black scroll something I have yet to mention up till this moment to the replicants it is an incurable disease in which black runes appear on the skin which is guaranteed to result in death anyone can be afflicted it's unlike any disease or sickness to ever appear young old healthy or frail it comes unexpectedly and will always take the victim but what the replicants don't know is that the black squirrel is actually a reflection of what's happening to their Gestalt to their real Soul when the corresponding Soul begins relapsing losing their conscience or dies the replicant gets the black scroll as an indicator that they are going to die forever if the soul dies the replicant system isn't able to retrieve the data from it to create the replicant thus they will cease to exist as I mentioned earlier replicants can be created as many times as they need so long as there's a soul to spawn it from in fact it's necessary the replicants age like any human would they have a life cycle that's fairly natural and considering project Gestalt had been in place for over 1 000 years the replicants have gone through many lives they grow up they grow old and die once the replicant dies devila and popla create a new one from whenever their soul originated they memory wipe them and reintroduce them into the community in their mother's case her original Gestalt relapsed and so near's mother went along with it she died suddenly in front of a 10 year old near he went to popular for answers hoping she could explain however she said nothing of course she knew exactly what happened but could only share her condolences with the now orphaned boy in fact it would be because of devila and Poplar that the term black scroll even came to be the two are constantly having to make up history about the world and what things are to quell the Curiosity of the people but fortunately due to their genuine kindness and caring disposition they were very much trusted by the people her and devila along with many of the other villagers who knew near his family prepared a funeral and laid her to rest for good Yona was much too young to understand this at the time being a little under two years old but this is where near began caring for her as a replicant Yona is still a sickly young child but what she suffers from is different from her original human counterpart Jonah here develops the black scroll just like their mother she isn't born with it but after their parents death that is when it appeared on her body but what makes her unique is is that Jonah is always going to be afflicted with the black scroll and that's because her soul is being kept in cryostasis when she touched grimoire Noir her soul began to relapse and the doctors froze her leaving her permanently in that state so while she's not technically dying her replicant will always have the black scroll it was a rough job for near going from a child into his teen years having to be the sole person responsible for taking care of his sister and in the story The Red and the black we hear the lengths he's willing to go for her well-being as stated Yona winds up developing the black scroll something that makes him very worried symptoms of the disease are not unlike the flu in fevers and coughs however it also comes with pain the patient's body is constantly hurting and it persists only escalating as the squirrel worsens until they inevitably die Yona even as young as she is is already constantly in pain and while no cure exists popla informs near of a medicine that he can give her that can at the very least lessen the burden on her body the problem is the ingredients needed don't grow locally so the medicine was very expensive fortunately in the beginning their parents had stashed away some fun so he was able to afford getting her some medicine and seeing just how effective it was and so while he couldn't cure it the least he could do was constantly Supply her with the medicine she needs and to do that he needs money near was always asking villagers if there were any jobs he could do for payment occasionally people gave him small little errands to run it's reflected in-game as well it's why so many side missions are simple mundane tasks that the person giving the job can likely do themselves like delivering a letter or a package or just collecting things they want to give near something to do for some spare coin it became normal for villagers to do this but not so consistent that it was any sort of comfortable living for anyone involved the village is already relatively small and poor so the jobs were sparse and even if people wanted to help they weren't exactly in a position to help because of this he was eventually told of another job he could take up out of the village and in the town of seafront it's a nearby Port Town that overlooks the ocean he'd never been there before but if it was to earn some extra cash then he might as well the job was relatively easy just to deliver a letter to someone in the city eventually he made his way there and was able to complete the job but being unfamiliar with the area and with all of the large buildings obscuring his view he easily got lost and this is when he came into contact with a very titular character to this story he's never given a name but his impact would be insurmountable this man is a pedophile who's willing to pay near money to satisfy his Twisted sexual perversions while near initially runs away from the situation clearly understanding the abhorrent intentions of the man his desire to provide for Jonah is a cause nothing can surmount so against his better judgment he reluctantly takes the man up on his offer near would go to the man on multiple occasions for money hating it every single time it's because of this that near wears his hair tied up the feeling of it brushing back and forth on his shoulders has sort of become a traumatizing sensation he decides he can't cut it because if anyone asked why he did so he wouldn't be able to respond normally this went on for a bit so much so that devila and popola seem to have found out in the grand scheme of things they genuinely have no reason to care but because they have their own personalities they are very caring so once they found out they didn't tell near or let them know that they knew they instead offered him a different job shade slaying it was clearly much more dangerous than the Casual errands he would run for people but if it could be a new stable source of income instead of returning to the man in seafront then he would take it even despite the increased risk a small Hunting Party is formed to take out a nest close by but when near meets up with everyone the man from seafront is also there turns out hunting Shades is what the man does for a living and how he has all of his money and now near was part of the same Hunting Party The Darkness near thought he had managed to escape from hung over him once more he hated this man more than anything in the world and just wanted him gone the group goes to a cave where all of the shades reside when they enter a thick fog engulfed everyone and was hard to make out anything that was happening swarms of Shades appeared out of nowhere and began attacking everyone the fog made everyone look the same the shape of the shades were the same as the shapes of the humans everyone fought back near slashed his way through the hordes that ambushed him getting soaked in their blood taking them out one by one but amongst the shades that he was killing nir also took the opportunity to kill the man he hated so much and yet killing him felt no different to killing a shade whether it was because nir viewed them both as monsters deserving of death or because shades are actually human like how he perceives the man it doesn't really matter because he ignores it he doesn't care whatever this feeling is he wanted them dead he didn't care who the real monsters were and just kept killing by the time the fog had dissipated the other Hunting Party members found him him and took him back to the Village as for near now he had a new job hunting Shades in tandem with his local tasks and this would carry over to where he is in the game when we start foreign [Music] speaking of the game I think it's finally time we got to the events that take place there are still a few characters and stories that I have to go over however I'll cover them as we go along so 1400 years after waiting for Yona to be cured of her disease the original near who I'll now start referring to as the shadowlord is done waiting he has lost faith in the project as it is blatantly obvious that no progress has been made while devila and Poplar try to convince him to wait just a little longer he is having none of it so instead everyone decides to go with the emergency Fail-Safe that was implemented the grimoire project Noir has been up and active this entire time accompanying the shadowlord while Vice was effectively put into storage and things here become a bit shaky and unclear unlike most stories that have this master plan that was incredibly thought out and executed being perfectly manipulated behind the scene devila and poplar's actions here are very much just winging it they are making choices they see fit given the current situation they may or may not make a whole lot of sense when you think about them in the grand scheme of things and not a lot of information is given about it in the first place so assumptions have to be made and I will try my best to follow what they might have been thinking I say this because they nor the shadowlord are the ones to retrieve voice for this they send near it's not exactly clear why they kind of just started using him instead of doing it themselves the reason for this I believe is because the shadowlord is eventually going to need his replicant body anyway so by using near at the end of The Journey he'll effectively deliver himself straight to the shadowlord I believe this is why they chose to go with him anyway devila and popelet tell near a story about a magical white flower known as a lunar tier that can grant any wish the user desires it can make anyone rich in an instant and near goes on to tell Yona this story as well and so hoping to relieve the burden on her brother Jonah asks popla about it and she very suggestively pushes her to go to the Lost Shrine where they supposedly grow while she is out they have some shades capture her and hold her in confinement meanwhile they also push near into going to the Lost Shrine to rescue his sister where I guess his strength is meant to be tested he fully proves himself and manages to break the magical barrier protecting Vice and saves Jonah Vice is awoken from his Slumber however due to the blunt force trauma near used to wake him up Vice loses all of his memories all of his important memories he knows that he's magically powerful but his purpose and what he's supposed to do he doesn't know because of this he kind of just latches on to near and joins his company when the two return back to the village devila and Poplar then proceed to feed near an entirely made-up story devila sings the song of the Ancients which supposedly spoke about Vice while popla tells him the story that it's supposedly based on she makes up an entire prophecy about an evil black book which brought upon Calamity and disease being vanquished by a good white book Vice but to do so he needed sealed verses no one knows what these sealed verses are but they're some kind of magic this whole prophecy was made up just to string near along if Noir is the source of the black scroll then if he wants to save Yona he has to collect the sealed verses and complete Vice and it worked like a charm near became very invested in fulfilling this prophecy and completing Vice as for the sealed verses these are just fragments of his magical power it can be assumed that he was split into many pieces so as to not accidentally initiate the Fail-Safe anyway fully invested in this fantasy story they are motivated to collect the sealed verses to complete Vice and are directed towards the Airy as one of the sealed verses lie there the town resides suspended over an extremely deep Canyon held together by crude craftsmanship the two go on to talk to the mayor about an alleged shade Invasion but unfortunately he along with all of the other residents are shut-ins that refuse to leave their homes and tell near to get lost as they leave the village the two catch a glimpse of something shiny in a tent just outside of town it's a wreath made of lunar tears the flower he told Yona about this tent along with the wreath belonged to Kaine I've talked about her human past but I've yet to cover her replicant life so I'll do that now her story actually isn't too dissimilar to her human encounter part particularly in her relation to her grandmother still named Kali personality wise she is almost exactly the same as the original minus her military background she's a foul mouth and crude woman who has next to no filter but unlike her original human self she is much more expressive and open in her love for Kaine as such the two have a great relationship it's because of her Kaine loves lunar tears they're an incredibly rare flower but her grandmother is able to cultivate them Kaine as well unlike her human self acts exactly like her grandmother and two is very crude and vulgar the two's relationship is only further Amplified because Kaine isn't exactly loved or treated well by anyone in the village you see Kaine is bullied because she is intersex meaning she possesses both male and female genitalia there was an error in the replicant system which created her body in directly giving her a predominantly female physique but with a notably large male member the other kids bullied her specifically because of this ironically enough genitalia on a replicant is purely cosmetic they are incapable of reproducing and they serve literally no function other than aesthetic and because everyone is a replicant theoretically anyone could be born with whatever genitals they wanted but because they don't know this Kane is looked at as a freak and treated as an outcast by everyone everyone except her grandmother it's because Kaine is so self-conscious of her body that she dresses very scandalously she wants to highlight her feminine features to the best of her ability hopefully distracting you away from anything else the event that changed her forever is when a very large shade named hook attacked their family home Kaine was away at the time but saw the destruction from a distance while she rushed back to try and help her grandmother Hook was far too powerful he pinned Kali Down Under the rubble of their house as well as his foot before outright murdering her Kaine did not sit back and let this happen however while she possessed a fiery Spirit she had no practical skills to truly do anything kinay's left arm was torn from her body and she lost an eye in the process she was left mutilated in the rubble of her own home with the person she cared for the most dead there was nothing else for her to lose and as you might imagine it was an incredibly traumatizing event so much so that she snapped she let out a scream so thunderous that it echoed off the cliffs despite her injuries she still stood up laughing like a mad woman and plunged a blade into Hook's leg it didn't kill him but it was enough to make him Retreat Kaine was left bleeding to death in her final moments a all she had was the insatiable desire to kill hook but Kaine didn't die that day and that's all thanks to a single shade named Tyran yes remember him originally named Yura he was the commander of the military unit that the human Kali hired to protect her he wound up choosing to save himself when he lost control of a meal and determined the legion Invasion couldn't be stopped after this he went into hiding however the military considered his actions so deplorable and dishonorable he was removed from the Gestalt program and his replicant was destroyed this is when he began going under the name Tyran he circumvented the replicant protocols and underwent the Gestalt process however with no body to ever return to he was forced to hop from replicant to replicant this is what inevitably led him to Kaine as she was dying he tried to take over her body before she passed however she refused to relinquish control she and instead expressed her desire for revenge and to kill hook so Tyran in need of a body decided to compromise he'll let Kaine stay in control of her body and he'll ride shotgun inside of her head but she has to kill Tyran is a bloodthirsty psychopath he thrives on killing and the joy it brings him Kaine is full of hate in this moment and he sees her as the perfect vessel so as long as she kills his power is hers this is where kyne's strength comes from he heals all of her wounds and promises that if she ever goes soft he'll take her over immediately unfortunately for Kaine life only continued to get worse as part of having a shade within her she developed the black scroll this can either be because her original Gestalt had relapsed or because Tyran is relapsing and he's latched onto her body either way Kaine suffers the the effects and on top of that if she needed any more reason to hate the people of the Airy they found out about the shade and began bullying her more than ever she was pretty much exiled by everyone and making things even worse for her was Ty ran I don't want you thinking that he is simply just a bloodthirsty psychopath who idly sits by as Kaine suffers he contributes to her suffering to make her life as miserable as possible and one of the biggest instances is in the story The Witch's Sabbath the story follows the perspective of a traveling female Pilgrim she visited the area towards the end of her pilgrimage and began hearing stories about Kaine the people of the village spoke ill of her but this woman was very open-minded she virtues tolerance and peace being educated and open-minded after a shade attack breaks out Kaine arrives to save her along with a few villagers everyone is still afraid of her seeing her as were worse than the monsters but the woman sees Kaine as a hero she doesn't understand how she could be an outcast and so extends an olive branch to be her friend Kaine hesitantly accepts her offer and invites her back to her home the entire day is taken up by the woman passionately delivering her message about tolerance and Good Will towards man Kaine fell asleep and so the woman decides to rest as well but the woman was woken up in the middle of the night by Sounds of Kaine or should I say Tyran forcing Kaine to pleasure herself tyran's sick and twisted mind takes so much joy in not only killing Shades but making Kaine uncomfortable that he pleases himself and remember Kaine is intersex and possesses a very large male member this terrifies the woman half shade both genitalia she snaps and calls Kaine all of the horrid words imaginable disgusting revolting hateful she hates her She's A Freak she doesn't feel bad saying these things because kaine's not human she's a monster and that's the sort of effect that Tyron has on her life he actively attempts to ruin it and tear Kaine down even further and isolate her even more that being said Tyran doesn't play too much of an active role during the events of the game he is largely isolated to color commentary and I won't be touching too much on him until it's relevant once more anyway Kaine has lost all connections to people she kills Shades and her only goal in life is to get revenge on hook returning to where we left off in the story seeing two people rummage through her home and messing with something she holds very dear to her heart she isn't exactly very pleased with the strangers and so attacks them their scuffle is brief as not soon after hook appears clearly being kaine's primary target the two decide to put their differences aside and work together while the two put up a valiant effort hook manages to escape the encounter with only losing one eye as a casualty Kaine took her own fair share of damage from the encounter as well and so passed out near and vice rest her in her tent and share pleasantries when she wakes up before parting ways fortunately their trip wasn't for nothing as they did obtain their first sealed verse eventually near is ready once again to start hunting more sealed verses but is a little underpowered to take on some of the larger more dangerous Shades so he is sent to the junk keep in order to obtain a better sword what they are met with are two civil running the shop Jacob and Gideon their story is fairly simple in the story The Magic Mountain we learned that their mother used to salvage valuable items from the junk keep and sell them to earn money however she was fairly unhappy with her life and current position One customer used to stop by who she grew fairly fond of mostly physically the two would hook up on multiple occasions with Jacob even having overheard them one time it gave her dreams of living a better life in a far away land these dreams would eventually manifest when one day she packed up all of her belongings and left her children behind to elope she pretended like everything was normal and was going to per usual go inside to collect more scrap to sell but unfortunately for her the inside of the junk keep was incredibly dangerous and both she and her lover were killed by the facility's defense system as for Jacob and Gideon it wasn't long before or Jacob realized the truth Gideon is very emotional and Adolescent in his mindset because of this Jacob was left to care for his brother over the past years of being taken care of he developed his own skills in craftsmanship which he now utilizes to try and make money one week after their mother's disappearance is when Mir walks into the shop the brothers are hard up for money and food by this point and so take on near's request he is told to enhance his weapon he needs to gather the materials himself but before he heads off Gideon throws yet another temper tantrum about their mother to which near decides to try and help them out by investigating it they make their way through the facility until they reach the defense system he successfully fights it off even obtaining a new sealed verse in the process and on the way out also discovers the corpse of the brother's mother and lover when he returns to the shop he tells them the truth about her fate to which Gideon runs off while Jacob seems to have suspected such an outcome already anyway the mood is left fairly somber and so near takes his new weapon and the leaves with this enhancement he makes his way back to the Airy which is currently being overrun by Shades in even greater numbers after helping Kaine near the entrance everyone goes to the center of town where Hook Once Again returns it Maneuvers using the scaffolding and buildings to its Advantage being able to recover from several heavy attacks near and the group are able to hit it with as near runs through the village chasing it down he overhears everyone's negative outlook towards Kaine and how they treat her like dirt this obviously gets on the nerves of near but he and the group have to continue fighting on Kaine winds up being attacked with a hallucinogenic miasma which makes hook start speaking in the voice of her grandmother but this trick doesn't work Kaine goes into a battle rage and together everyone is able to slay the monster Kaine is flung to another platform and is almost ready to finally let herself go but the concerned calls from near and vice wake her up considering the Airy has been less than kind to her Kaine joins our characters in hopes to try and find a true home I had my revenge no it's over oh now see here this is Rich we help you in some mad quest for vengeance and now you think to bit us a Jew how can a fighter so skilled be cursed with such a thick head a true warrior would fight they would give all in the service of their friends friends that's right he's right Kaine we're friends now see here that was hardly the point okay then what is the point we need your help will you fight with us cool you cannot simply ask her outright there is a proper order to these matters one must ease into the topic with carefully considered words before commencing negotiations book how dare you I am grimoire Vice wielder of Arcane advice then do not abbreviate my name you're an ass but you're right I can't just live for Revenge you mean you're coming with us [Music] these swords of mine need a true home but you'll do for now [Music] near then proceeds to explain their entire situation the black scroll how they intend to find the sealed verses to complete Vice and fulfilling the prophecy and so on having known someone personally who had the same disease Kaine tells everyone about another kingdom that's been working on a cure and so our group travels to the kingdom of facade it's certainly a much more unique and different location compared to all of the others the people speak in a completely foreign language made up of gibberish and follow over 124 000 different rules which makes up their legal system it's hypothesized that the people were descendants of slaves however long ago which is why they wound up developing this rule system as they could not live without the guidance of them but nevertheless they have developed their own culture and the sort around it which is why everyone wears masks it's one of their rules when our characters arrive it's certainly a culture shock at least for vice and near as Kaine has been here before she opts not to enter the city for personal reasons leaving the other two to wander aimlessly incapable of communicating or even understanding what anyone is trying to say but fortunately they do run into a very helpful girl named fira fira wasn't actually originally from this Village but her parents sent her here when she was eight years old because they saw her as an Abomination or at least they saw the keloids on her face as such basically it's just overgrown scar tissue from an injury she obtained since she could remember regardless they made her physically unsightly in the eyes of many including her parents they were prosperous wholesale dealers of fabric who saw their child as someone who was going to get in the way of their business which is why they sent her to facade in the first place to quote-unquote get a job Vera pretty much knew that they were abandoning her and she was alone by this point she knew her parents didn't want her and figured she would try and start a new life here upon her arrival she met a young boy who was actually the prince but she didn't know that at the time he gave her a job under one of the vendors to travel around the kingdom selling fruit and that's what she did some of the rules that were implemented were kind of nice in her mind such as wearing the mask as she could hide her keloids but others were much trickier to navigate through such as her inability to talk she can talk I should say but one of the rules is that residents without land identification shall not speak fira is a stickler for the rules and follows them so much that she even carries a book around with her which details each of them anyway selling fruit without talking is a difficult task for most which is why she mostly communicates through gestures and body language to make a long story short fira eventually learns the prince's identity who has constantly been popping in and out of her life and the two become friends while there is an initial sense of betrayal on his side as he made a bet with the vendor on how good of a seller an outsider could be he soon forgot his bet as he saw just how beautiful her way of life was and how hard she was trying he deeply apologized to her as she threw her mask away because she wanted him to see her real face but he did not flinch he did not care about what she looked like all he did care about was making right by her and being friends fira accepts his apology and things end off on a good note that was two years prior to modern day also it should be important to say that at some other point Kaine wound up saving fira from danger While She Was Out working which is why she knows facade and is welcomed by its people anyway returning to the events of the game our characters meet fira who is kind enough to give them a tour of the kingdom ever a stickler for the rules she still refuses to talk but is able to communicate with everyone else by the end of the tour Vice effectively deciphers their speech and is able to communicate and understand their language unfortunately the reason they came here was for naught the King has since succumbed to the black Squall leaving the prince as the new king they wish to speak to him but he has gone missing turns out he felt the country lost trust after his father's death and so went to the barren Temple to obtain the Royal mask the city's proof of kingship the temple is dangerous and due to the city's absurd amount of rules only nobility may enter but since they're not from facade near Kaine and vice offer to go instead fira is the one who leads them to the temple but cannot enter Because of said rules they do find the prince but he is taken by some Temple cubes kinet is also taken after passing numerous trials the characters end up in a bigger room where more cubes form together and create a new foe eventually this foe is slain and the prince is saved having successfully retrieved the royal near does not walk away empty-handed as he did obtain yet another sealed verse with the mask the prince is able to claim the title of King However unfortunately he has to tell our characters that they had no success in dealing with the black scroll so everyone returns home but they did make some new allies the next story arc involves the forest of myth and this location is very important during his sleep near has a weird dream of a boy trying to say something he can't hear him but he makes out the words sealed verses dreams and Forest of myth he awakens only to learn that Jonah had the exact same dream he goes to confront popular about the odd situation but is shocked when she presents him a letter from the mayor of a small village in the forest of myth seeing this as important he immediately rushes to the Village when he arrives he is met with an unsettling Aura the villagers along with the mayor are distant weird almost not there turns out they are afflicted by what is called the death dream which has spread across the forest and trapped the villagers in their own dreams to better understand what is truly Happening Here I need to First go over what the forest of myth and the Divine tree that is located here actually are this entire location most specifically the Divine Tree in truth is actually a super computer which holds all of the data of the old world and more specifically houses the memories of the humans needed to create replicants whenever devila and Poplar need to create a new replicant they come here and use the data that is stored within the tree to create a new replicant the whole Forest is a computer network the village is here along with the people who worship the tree just so they know the place is protected the people don't tamper with the tree they simply worship it and make sure nothing bad ever happens unbeknownst to the truth but something did happen not because of them however a shade somehow winds up getting inside the tree itself and started devouring the data causing a memory leak we don't learn about this shade just yet and it's not causing too much damage relatively speaking for now but it can be presumed that this is what the death dream is data is disappearing it's leaking out and affecting the replicants as they are losing what they're based on they're being fed Memories the tree possesses while simultaneously having their memories taken away and when near arrives in the village he too is sucked into the death dream the dream itself is a bit crazy to detail and largely not important the specifics but basically old memories begin bleeding into each other past versions of the mare recall meeting near despite the two current iterate operations having never interacted before this moment but past thems have they don't fully grasp what it means only giving the faintest hints of deja vu but the Divine tree is accidentally letting memories they shouldn't have slip in fortunately our characters don't get it at all as they're only concerned with rescuing the people they do manage to escape the death dream and restore all of the villagers back to normal and even walk away with a new sealed verse but this wouldn't be the last time we visited the Divine tree the next story takes us to a meal it's been a while since I've talked about him but he has been alive these past 1400 years if you recall the experiments he went through stopped him from aging and he never went through the Gestalt process because he didn't need to the scientists who were caring for him had to put him in the care of someone else while they were gone which is where Sebastian came from he is an Android just like devila and Poplar however is much more robotic so he might not be as advanced as them he's been taking care of a meal this entire time as for how Emil has remained sane for so long it is perhaps he truly hasn't realized how much time has actually passed when you enter his mansion's proximity everything turns black and white almost as if time has stopped as if Emil's power was so strong and he has remained in this exact same location for so long that it has indirectly Frozen time around them not literally but enough for it to have not felt like a Thousand Years anyway Sebastian like devila and popla has grown attached to the person he's caring for he feels bad for Emil's condition and the fact that he can't look at anyone without turning them to Stone he wants to find a cure but the documents that detail petrification are in a library that has since been overrun with Shades he doesn't have any combat prowess and so has been unable to procure them himself but he's been hearing Tales of near's Adventures and how he's been helping out so many people so he wrote a letter asking for help and sent it to his address however it was intercepted by Jonah who began writing back thinking she had a pen pal a few letters were exchanged until eventually she wound up asking near to go to the mansion and help which is what Sebastian was trying to accomplish in the first place near agrees to help and eventually makes his way to the mansion with Kaine where everyone is greeted Sebastian escorts them to a room where he asks them to wait while he tends to other matters he leaves the room and the game turns into a horror and spooky aesthetic the Mansion becomes haunted and ghostly things start occurring there is genuinely no reason this actually happens the whole thing was just an homage to Resident Evil and has no in-story explanation so while near and vice are exploring the Mansion they come across and meet a meal they're astonished by his sense of hearing as he goes on to explain the situation regarding his eyes however of course he doesn't know anything about the letter the characters go off to find the butler and when they do he explains the mix-up that seems to have occurred with Jonah but near being the good guy he is wants to help out a meal in any way he can and so agrees to clear out the shades in the library they successfully do this but while Emil is searching for the book One suddenly flies out from the Shelf it's grimoire rubrum one of the 13 grimoires created and vice's old friend who died in front of him but of course Vice lost his memories and doesn't recognize her and she doesn't have any intelligence only Vice and Noir do all she is now is a magical book that is unleashing its power on anything nearby our characters are forced to fight it and Destroy her erupting into a burst of papers but amongst the sheets mirror finds the page he's looking for about petrification Sebastian takes things from here he thanks everyone for their help and bids them goodbye but before they leave Kaine has a few words for a meal she empathizes greatly with his situation the two bear a burden physically more than near or vice and it's What's led to each of their individual isolation but she lets him know that what they have is not a sin and Emile needed someone in his life who thinks like that and gave him the ability to accept what he is without being ashamed anyway the characters go their separate ways and most importantly through this Venture near has obtained the final sealed verse needed to complete Vice now that Vice is completed the shadowlord is finally able to enact his plan and force the grimoire Fail-Safe of course everything is viewed from near's point of view as he does he is caring for Jonah whose condition is only worsening he is ready to fulfill the fake prophecy he was told and kill Noir with Vice but before he does he wants to make sure Yona is all right but since she's not he goes to popla to get some medicine she sends him to go get some Vapor moss on the other side of the city but while doing so runs into a meal he's been hearing some noises and sensed a great danger headed for the village and so ran off to warn everyone but by the time he arrived he was exhausted and collapsed and taken to the library to recover but he was indeed right the shadowlord has initiated his assault on the village and has come to claim Yona and into great Noir and vice hordes of Shades arrive both large and small terrorizing the village while near and eventually Kaine who joins the fight try to fend off the shades together while they for now deal with the big shade everything eventually leads to the library where Yona currently resides more shades are are found but this time a meal is also there to help a remnant of the giant shade flies into the room which the characters are forced to deal with yet again a meal is incapacitated upon its arrival the creature is eventually pushed into the basement where Kaine closes and holds the door shut but just as everything seems to be coming to an end the shadowlord finally appears in person with Jonah in his arms he incapacitates near by stabbing him in the shoulder everything has fallen into place both he and his sister's replicant body are together and vice has obtained the power he needs to initiate the Fail-Safe all that's left is for him and Noir to join the only thing that goes wrong are vice's memories he still hasn't regained the memories of what his purpose is or what he's supposed to do and thus is hesitant to believe anything Noir is saying in fact Vice still fully believes the lie that devila and Poplar made up to trick near about how Noir and the shadowlord are evil don't get me wrong Noir has his own fair share of blame In This Moment due to his cryptic way of speaking and his traditionally evil tone of voice his inability to be direct and just explain the situation to Vice leads to him rejecting Noir and not fulfilling his purpose to restore Humanity he stands by near Kaine and Emil much to their Chagrin Noir then goes on to take vice's power he obtained from the sealed verses however near is able to fight back and return them after the fight near is impaled and greatly wounded however with Vice refusing to accept the merge the shadowlord figures there's nothing he can actually do in the moment and so chooses to retreat he takes Jonah's body and flies off with her back to his castle as for the others the situation only worsens Kaine is still holding the Beast behind the door and in their current state they are most certainly unable to fight it off so seeing it as their only option Kaine asks Emil to petrify her so her Stone body will brace the door while undeniably an action Emil wishes not to do he concedes his emotions and says his goodbyes before petrifying Kaine near is left bleeding on the floor as he swears to make things right in the future foreign [Music] [Music] I swear [Music] this event marks the halfway point in the game so to speak if you're familiar this is where a five-year time skip occurs but instead of immediately picking up with the story I should first go over a few things because nearly every character's motivation has now changed near perhaps goes through the greatest change overall after his encounter with the shadowlord with seemingly everything in his life having gone wrong all at the exact same moment this caused him to have a breakdown and it affected him in a major way his cheery and optimistic worldview he held as a child such as helping people and things always going to be all right largely went away as an adult he acts more violently he puts up with significantly less but perhaps the biggest change is his absolute disdain for every shade his life goal was no longer about protecting Yona though he wouldn't forget about that it was now all about killing every last shade it's an insatiable bloodlust that gets in the way of his critical thinking but you'll see as The Story Goes On as for devila and popla they find themselves between a rock and a hard place and perhaps in the worst situation of anybody not only has activating the Fail-Safe failed but now if the shadowlord has taken Yona and locked himself away in his castle so now they don't have access to either of the grimoires and need to figure out some way to get them both but contrary to what you might think the two didn't actually do anything after this event not really you can consider that they deemed the plan of failure all because of near and his involvement is exactly why they weren't doing anything firstly they severely underestimated his abilities which has allowed him to thwart the failsafe measure but most importantly they cared for him as I've stated many times devila and popla are not emotionless they possess great empathy and sympathy for all of the people they look over and near has always wound up being one of the most prominent and because of this entire Journey which became solely unique to this one iteration he has had to go through so much heartache and tribulation and has been leaning on the two throughout it all he has grown close to them unbeknownst to their motives but they in turn did as well so with him being much more capable than they anticipated and growing much too close to him the two were just simply waiting for him to die they couldn't kill him at least they didn't want to they were hoping to wait an entirely New Generation until this near died of old age and another one could be created in hopes that they wouldn't grow so attached to to the new version that is why five years passed it's not because they made a move it's because near got back in the action needless to say the world changed quite a bit following the shadowlord's attack not only have replicants become much more cautious and fearful of Shades but the shades themselves have also evolved they began wearing armor to protect them from the Sun allowing them to roam during all parts of the day but anyway near now 21 is even more capable than when he was as a kid he's dedicated himself to improving his combat so he could one day rival the shadowlord and save Jonah the story picks back up when he receives a letter from Emil after the events with the shadowlord Emil returned back to his Mansion to continue studying more about his petrification what he found were the blueprints to the lab underneath the facility where of course he was tested on but over the years he's kinda forgotten or repressed these memories due to the trauma he suffered so while he and near make their way through the facility his memories slowly start coming back to him as they find documents all about project Snow White eventually they come face to face with the only thing still alive down there halua experiment number six his sister upon seeing her all of Emil's memories come flooding back to him as he remembers everything he explains how she is the greatest weapon to ever be created and with her power he would be able to reverse his own petrification but to do so he must absorb her power and combine into one a sketchy plan to say the least but the only one he can think of haluwa consumes Emil's body and while near fights it off in the real world Emil gets a chance to talk with an apparition of his sister the two harmonize well and Emil is not consumed by the overwhelming power she possesses he absorbs all of the strength she had but things don't go quite as he hoped Emil's physical body was changed he was now in the form of some type of skeleton with six's head while a self-conscious appearance near does not care and is glad that he's safe welcome back Emil through a lot but my my body I can't stand to be with you when I look like this how did I tell you we're here for you no matter what [Laughter] can you see my face oh you you look just like I thought you would you look really cool [Music] right [Music] I think I'm okay now [Music] if this is how I look now then so be it I was terrified at first it's not all bad you know I have the magic I wanted and I can use it to bring kainai back to us everyone returns to the library and with his Newfound power Emile frees Kaine from her Slumber as she is returned back to the world of the living but lest you forget the reason she was frozen there in the first place was to hold the powerful shade they were once incapable of defeating but this time around near is stronger so much so that he easily finishes it off as for Kaine she is understandably shocked by Emil's new appearance however like near is very understanding and gentle towards him [Music] weren't you you still recognize me of course I know you right away thank you [Music] welcome back wow you grow up so how long has it been five years while a happy reunion on behalf of our main party popla arrives to tell everyone that the villagers are uncomfortable around them specifically Kaine and Emil as such they are forced to sleep outside of the village this leaves near feeling pissed as he States himself it's the first time he ever hated popla and questioned the twins decisions but the next day after he's had some time to cool off he apologizes as do the sisters speaking of which considering near has decided to take action once more and continue trying to hunt the shadowlord the two have to begin acting again as well and so I have to formulate a plan on the spot the most obvious problem is that the shadowlord is locked away in his castle and so figure they'll use near to collect the various key fragments needed to unlock it he and the group are first sent to the Lost Shrine where Vice was first obtained while the there they come face to face with Gretel one of the two shades that was originally guarding Vice I didn't talk much about them but a common thing that will begin happening from this point moving forward is we'll also be getting the perspective of the shades to contextualize the situation in many cases it may seem like more sympathy is being thrown their way in the story but be aware that near and the others worldview have mostly been shapen by this point in this case Hansel the other shade that was paired with Gretel was killed after his death Gretel sunk into a period of Madness and for a long time seemed to lose its heart but that changed thanks to the kindness of these smaller Shades Gretel always looked down on them due to his arrogance believing himself to be better and stronger he was filled with pride but at his lowest point the other Shades comforted him and he regretted his arrogance he came to see the smaller Shades as his comrades and equals and Gretel wanted to become strong enough to protect them that is when near and his group arrived Gretel tries its best to defend the shades but at the end of the day is incapable as near and the others kill everyone to be fair Kaine is the only one of the group who may understand the shades and their language thanks to Tyran it's not clear if it's a one for one translation or simply just a feeling she has she knows that they're not just Mindless monsters and have sentience but to the extent which she's aware is unclear as for near he fully believes they are nothing more than monsters who deserve to die after gretel's death the group collect their first key fragment popla explains that there are four others and so the group are sent out to find them the first location is the forest of myth I've already talked about the truth of this place being a data center which holds all of the information of History's past it's since been getting ravaged by a shade on the inside just consuming things and causing the tree data the characters return once again and get pulled into yet another death dream but this time around the tree begins sharing the actual truth about what happened with the dragon white chlorination syndrome near being the perfect Gestalt to save Jonah and so on all of the information is disjointed thanks to the shade-eating vital pieces of info but regardless our characters don't piece anything together all they do is find the shade responsible for this however thanks to the death dream the shade talks and near and vice understand it a revelation they didn't think possible despite this near does not care and Strikes it down this is one of many instances where even despite the perception he has perceived the shades to be being challenged he seems to willingly turn a blind eye to the situation as he is so headstrong in his determination to kill them and save his sister anyway the shade is killed they are freed from the death dream and retrieve the second part of the key the Third location is back to the junk Heap where only one of the brothers resides Gideon the younger one it turns out within the five years Jacob was apparently killed by a little shade and a p-33 robot and now Gideon is seeking revenge for the death of his brother near obviously accepts the job the truth of the situation however is quite different one year after their mother's death Jacob and Gideon were investigating the junk keep where Gideon got a bit to careless he accidentally causes some concrete slabs to collapse to which Jacob dove in to save his brother Gideon obviously survived however Jacob was crushed to death he tried to pull his brother out from the rubble so much so that one of his arms detached from the corpse this mentally scarred him and in the distance he saw the p33 unit along with a shade and blamed them being traumatized from the event Gideon also subconsciously began injuring his own arm and damaged it to the point where it needed to be replaced by a robot one as for the p-33 unit and the shade their story is a little bit different the young shade's name is actually Khalil and during the era where Shades were awakened and replicants began fighting back against them Khalil and his mother were chased into the junk Heap by replicants the replicants were fully aware that Shades had fled to the area and weren't going to leave until they killed it so khalil's Mom in an active sacrifice gave herself up as a diversion to protect her child it worked however Khalil was left alone and sad that is when the p-33 unit found him as part of the facility's defense system he is supposed to kill any Intruders and the shade is technically one however it is intrigued by the tears that it sheds in sadness after hearing khalil's Story the p-33 unit who Khalil names BP decides to protect him and that is how the two became friends BP was very curious about the emotions and all of the general things Khalil had to talk about in fact BP may very well have been the first robot to attain an advanced state of artificial intelligence naturally they spent their time dreaming about how they would one day explore and learn all about the world together considering their home was the junk keep they were present when Jacob died however contrary to how Gideon perceives it Khalil was actually very worried about him hoping that he was okay after the incident but considering Gideon had a mental breakdown and pinned all of the blame on these two when nir and his party came by they were given his point of view so the group heads down into the junk keep because maybe this has something to do with a key fragment much to their surprise they did come across BP and Khalil which in their mind only confirms everything that Gideon said as true of course the site of a group of replicants isn't welcome for Khalil or BP as they are also Intruders so together they try and fight off everyone however like many they are unsuccessful despite BP forming together wings and Khalil trying to fight them himself they are both defeated and slain Khalil is killed however BP simply malfunctions and is inoperable that is when Gideon shows up and Reveals His vengeful and mentally unstable State he continuously kicks BP however the outcome does not help his distraught mood despite getting what he wanted he is no better than he was Prior all near can do is stop him as he obtains his next key fragment before we go one it's important to note that BP is still alive and would go on to play a major role in the story down the line so just don't forget about his story with Khalil because it'll be important the next story is back in kaine's village of the Airy the Airy is a particularly unique location whose history and background I didn't really discuss at the time because it wasn't relevant to what was going on but now it's very important you see the Airy is the only location at least around nears Village in which geshtaltz and replicants successfully remerged Body and Soul were reunited willingly it wasn't perfect it was still unstable but the soul got its body it's why everyone in the village is a shut-in or stays indoors all the time either they are afraid of the remerged humans or they are afraid of the replicants but over time these humans became much more comfortable and weren't proud of how they were acting making the Airy and unwelcoming and cold settlement as such they decided to set up a Marketplace and open themselves up to the general public to show that they're changing not everyone agrees with this however while many of the replicants and humans lived together in harmony and peace some like the chief still don't agree and are even more fearful it is these scared replicants who have caught wind of nears adventures in shade slang who Forge a letter pretending to be the chief and send it to devila and popla the two ask if anyone in the village knows anything to do with key fragments to which they say that someone does urging them to come to the village and this is when near is shown the letter our characters go to investigate only for the chief to deny knowing anything about it which leads to a dead end they figure maybe someone at the flea market could perhaps have a lead and talk to a few of the villagers there when conversing with a guard the conversation eventually drifts to the topic of shade hunting and how the group intends on killing every last one the guard who is a shade as are all of the people taking part in this event panics and is incapable of keeping his soul merged with his body he transforms back to his original state for which near immediately kills him which scares all of the other gestalts and causes them to also transform back into Shades our characters go on a rampage killing each and every shade seeing them all as monsters even Kaine tries to strike down one who's protecting a replicant as the two despite being a real human and a replicant live in peace and have found that Harmony but our characters turn a blind eye to this [Music] my own sister Connie what's going on don't be fooled by this lady she's a shade [Music] no no foreign [Music] who care what she is she's my sister and I love her Kaine gets incapacitated while near continues slaying Shades eventually it's obvious that individually all of the shades are going to die if they fight alone and so in a last ditch effort the remaining geshtalts all merge into One Singular being known as Wendy while this helped them gain a lot of power fusing together like this also made each of them immediately relapse Wendy is very strong even being able to rival Emil's power while Kaine is out of the fight near and a meal together are able to land some pretty significant blows Wendy pushes Emil so far to where he is forced to tap into his actual strength as the Ultimate Weapon but his instincts take him over and he is incapable of controlling it the ball of energy he unleashes completely wipes out the Airy and all of its people this is perhaps the biggest event they've experienced up to this point which has left them feel numb to everything a meal is saddened Kaine silent but near showing his ever so headstrong mentality chooses not to look back to keep moving forward with determination [Applause] [Music] but you saved us [Music] that's all right [Music] really don't look back and if any event is indicative of near's new questionable state of morals it would be this one even from his perspective innocent replicants were killed but what it was they were doing Justified the tragedy at worst he simply ignores what they did so he can keep moving forward foreign before we continue on there is a small little Side Story that winds up taking place in seafront it's not exactly relevant to the main story but it is a story which happens nonetheless a shipwreck winds up washing ashore on the nearby beach with seemingly no one on board the story mostly takes the point from the perspective of a postman who's one of the first people to come across the wreckage he decides to explore it himself to see what it's all about but while inside he hears the cries of a young girl she's very scared and can't talk but fortunately the postman is very gentle with her he brings her food and even gives her a name Luis over the course of many days and weeks he comes to build a rapport with her he constantly checks in gives her a ribbon sings with her tries to teach her how to write and even wants to adopt her as a daughter she's been on this ship for who knows how long and now that he spent some time with her getting to see what she's like he feels comfortable enough to try and give her a new life but she's initially hesitant and turns it down but not for the reasons you'd think the truth is that Luis is actually a shade and an incredibly powerful one at that Tyran as insane as he is is even taken aback by her power in fact her strength is so formidable that devila and popola were going to use her as a backup to fight the shadowlord in case he refused to cooperate that's just how strong this little girl is details about how she came to exist however are nine non-existent there are a few facts that we do know one of them is that she does not have a replicant body to return to it's an odd situation to be in as the only other character we know who does not have a replicant body is Thai Iran his replicant was destroyed for dishonoring his role in the military but as to why a little girl wouldn't have one is unanswered a possible Theory and one that might explain everything is that Luis was a girl infected with white chlorination syndrome and then became part of the Legion when she was forced to make a pact with the gods she was then in that form put through the Gestalt process which restored her Humanity but gave her Godlike Powers this would be most notable because of her glowing red eyes a physical characteristic in the legion but that is just a theory another fact is that the ship she was aboard was a slave ship the replicants who ran it were selling people Luis happened to be one of the victims on board the reason the ship crashed in the first place is because she killed everyone on board it's unknown how she as a shade was involved in all of this but either way being here caused her to feel like no one was ever helping her and no one was ever kind to her which is why when the postman arrived and was so generous and caring she wanted to be like him she wanted to be with him the only thing is she knew she was a shade she thought of herself as a monster which is why she uses her power to disguise herself as a human ironically despite being an actual human she wanted to be a human like the postman she can't go out into the sun because she is a shade and will lose her disguise so she needed a different way to become human and for whatever reason she thought the way that would happen was through eating replicants somehow by consuming them she herself would turn human in between the visits from the postman Luis began devouring the residents of seafront who passed by when an associate of nears goes missing it eventually puts him on this Trail while investigating Tyran and Kaine also sense her power and so she and Emil also make their way to seafront as you might expect the situation goes just about as well as they all do near and vice enter the ship alone and they discover the bodies of the seafront residence afterwards everyone joins up and finds Luis and the postman is there as well for his routine visit Kaine knows she is a shade and tries to warn everyone but Luis already struggling to keep her true form at Bay full-on transforms due to the hostility our characters are presenting as you might expect everyone fights our characters put up quite the formidable challenge inflicting multiple heavy blows one after the other however luis's regenerative abilities are so strong that she's able to heal through all of them just when she's getting ready to unleash a devastating attack which renders our character is useless they are only able to survive thanks to the postman he takes a piece of wood and begins attacking the girl it's not the attacks that do anything to her but the emotional trauma that stops her from attacking he really became her sole reason for existing all she wanted was to live life with him and now here he is calling her a monster and rejecting her stop don't hurt these people sweet so you've been lying to me this whole time [Music] you you're a monster [Music] it stopped focus on the source of its magic aim for the head oh foreign [Music] we can never be together gust me this gives near the opportunity to deal a fatal blow to her Luis spends her last moments Looking Over the Horizon at the world she never got to see wondering why she had to look the way she did the story ends on a somber note Kaine while exploring the ship found a letter the girl had written to the postman a true Miracle as no shade had ever had any success in speaking or writing but the letter had only two simple words the hell's this sunshine a letter that thing wrote it for the postman and that is some grade a chicken scratch she probably copied the letters as best she could so what's it say it's like I was stuck in some kind of dream hey letter guy you're that um I mean how can I help you got a letter for you wait you have a letter for me yeah it's from that thing on the ship Louise let me see oh it says thank you wow look at this after all that time I spent trying to teach her to write and she actually managed to stick together a few ugly little letters damn it why can't I stop seeing her smile or hearing that song she used to sing I know she ate people I know she was a monster foreign the next story returns to the kingdom of facade our characters get a letter from the King inviting them all to his wedding it turns out he's getting married to fira and considering their past it's an offer he cannot decline so our characters all make their way to the kingdom to prepare for the wedding the day of the ceremony everything seems beautiful the wedding goes off without a hitch everyone is in good spirits but during the event a group of wolves launch an attack on the city before anyone can act fira is ambushed and mangled by their leader Rock understandably all hell breaks loose fortunately near and the others are there to help the people fight back they are successful and the wolves are forced to retreat but as for fira she would unfortunately not survive she speaks to the king for the very first time breaking the rules she lived by ever since arriving the rules she was thankful for just so she could thank him herself [Music] oh yeah [Music] [Music] Vera would pass away leaving the king devastated and enraged seeking revenge on the Wolves for their actions but before we can continue with that how did this all happen and what led to the Wolves deciding to attack while things obviously take perspective from Rock's point of view considering it was a shade Rock was originally a dog that underwent the Gestalt process in its past life they were raised by an old man who gave up his position in the program so his dog could have eternal life due to Rock's fond memories of its owner they wish to live in peace for some reason they were reincarnated as a wolf and lived as one in the forest but over the years as the replicants gained sentience he watched as the forest was slowly turned into deserts more and more of the land was taken away until the forest was completely gone thanks to facade God and what became their citizens the people would even begin killing the Wolves despite this Rock still wanted peace and Harmony however in the end they realized it would be impossible for both species to coexist the men of the Mask continued murdering their pack and showed absolutely no signs of stopping it reached the point where it was either Extinction or retaliation and after seeing a group of pups murdered it's obvious which they chose they attacked the day of the wedding which led the king to Rally together an army and hunt them down rock offers all of the other wolves the opportunity to flee and survive however they all choose to stand their ground despite their overwhelming numbers the king and his men are able to fend off the hordes of wolves Rock chooses the Target near recognizing he's the strongest and biggest threat however it doesn't work rock is defeated and the king deals the final blow the resolution is left somber Rock not knowing what they did to ever deserve such a fate and the king without his bride at fiera's grave the group can do nothing more than offer their condolences before moving on having retrieved the final key fragment as you might expect the mood is quite heavy devila and Poplar know full well that to fulfill their purpose they're going to have to face near as for him It's the final showdown to save his sister our characters use the key fragments to gain access to a surprisingly Serene Atrium they are posed with multiple riddles regarding the truth about everything the disease the separation of body and soul and so on our characters answer them correctly gaining access further into the castle but in the next door are devila and popla the time has come for them to act they try a very optimistic approach asking that near simply returned to the Village but of course that was never going to be an option while confused more than he ever has been in his entire life everyone is forced to fight it's an unbelievable scenario from everyone involved even Vice thinking that they could be Shades in Disguise but they are real near and the others are able to hold off the assault forcing them to retreat further into the castle as our characters Venture further in they encounter what you might expect more shades but unlike the other Shades that have been encountered throughout the world this location is unique as is typical of humans oftentimes they prioritize the well-being and safety of the children and babies there are various heavy Shades here to protect them but Kaine opens a door holding all these babies behind and when Unleashed our characters begin killing them all while the shades attempt to plea with them to stop our characters still don't understand them and continue the slaughter eventually a motherly shade appears and gathers all the children together fusing into a boar known as goose it is very strong and thanks to being made up of so many gestalts killing it is difficult as well as it's able to revive multiple times eventually it armors itself up and proves to be a real hurdle our characters might not be able to overcome but just when things are looking down the king and the people of facade arrive to help out in honor of their fallen Queen they have decided to help near rescue the one he's closest to it allows the three characters to continue moving forward despite not wanting to while they fend it off in the end the king his army and goose are all killed everyone once again comes face to face with devila and popla this time around they say things as bluntly as they can they tell them how they are shells that the shades are human and the two have a duty to fulfill no matter what without giving our characters any time to think they all fight once more near continues to be in denial and before he knows it devila is killed everyone tries to get popular to stop and end things here and now but how how could she at this point her sister and companion for the past 1 000 years was just murdered now she's acting on her emotions popular unleashes an almost uncontrolled amount of energy similar to emile's own when he lost control in fact it is only because of a meal that this power of hers is able to be rivaled a meal protects our characters from her attack and chooses to sacrifice himself allowing them to continue moving forward both he and poplar's energy spheres collide with so much power refusing to give in to one another everything collapses into itself the two both disappear into the unknown it should be important to note that while popolo was incapable of surviving this energy Emil was he is the Ultimate Weapon and his body has proven to be incredibly durable his head crash lands somewhere in the desert but that doesn't hinder his Mobility much despite this near and Kaine believe him to have died and are very distraught the two expressed their grief in different ways near is much more traditional almost losing the will to live himself while Kaine is very pissed but after getting a little too close the two must push on if they didn't stop before they most certainly weren't going to stop now upon entering the shadowlord's room they see Yona and it's clear they want to finish things once and for all initially grimoire Noir is sent to do his dirty work and fend them off but he is incapable and inevitably defeated afterwards everyone else begins fighting each other with the literal fate of Humanity on the line yet in the midst of their battle Yona reawakens not near Ziona but the original her body and soul have been reunited but upon waking up replicant yona's conscience was still in there Jonah could feel it and all of the sadness and grief she had over missing her brother she could sense just how badly she wanted to be reunited and thought it was wrong to take that from her and so she decided to give her life thank you [Music] please just just stop I don't want to do this anymore I don't need someone else's body I don't want it [Music] a girl inside here she won't stop crying says she wants to see her brother short has been possessed this girl loves her brother too just as much as I do it's not right you know it's not right that she can't see him [Music] it's you isn't it [Music] yes it's me let's go home [Applause] [Music] I am really sorry I just I don't know what you are no matter what hurts [Music] the shadowlord lets out a grief-filled scream before turning his attention back on tanir during this battle Vice ends up falling onto the floor revealing that all of his power has been used up by near in the last five years and so he in his final act musters up whatever remaining strength he had left and completely destroys grimoire Noir losing his physical form in the process ultimately the shadowlord concedes to his fate I mean how could he not the only reason he was doing all of this the reason he was in the position in the first place was to help his sister he waited over 1400 years and in the matter of minutes after waking up she was gone what else was there to keep fighting for nothing in his mind he allows near to do as he will for a brief second he stops to consider his actions and the potential ramifications of what may come with them but ultimately shakes It Off and kills him and so with the shadowlord defeated Yona is reawakened and the siblings are reunited Kaine figures the moment is much too touching to what she's used to and tries to bounce I haven't really touched too much upon the relationships that had formed throughout this game's journey I think it's evident that a strong companionship had formed throughout the group pairs like Kaine and Emil were able to bond due to their similarities and life experiences but as for Kaine and near Kaine had kind of fallen for him over their Journey things really started when she was rescued but most importantly than that her entire world view has changed for the longest time she was bitter and cynical no place to call her home and in reality was seeking death but when she joined near his goal became hers she was finally accepted her hatred and sadness disappeared she was now hopeful believing she can be loved believing she can belong in this world but she would only get to experience this change briefly because now that the shadowlord was dead every shade goes along with him they're all inevitably going to relapse but kinase is a bit sooner she's been suffering from the black squirrel this entire time and has been on the verge of relapsing for quite a while and now that all of the gestalts are going haywire she can't hold it back any longer she asks near to kill her because no one else will be able to and then she goes berserk near is forced to fight her but unlike every other encounter and decision he's been forced to make up until this point this time around he does not have to kill his friend and that's thanks to Tyran I haven't really been talking about him because he hasn't played too much of a role other than slight comments here and there throughout the events of the game while he's almost exclusively been mocking Kaine and saying how can't wait until she relapses because he wants to take her over turns out Kaine wasn't the only one who changed he did as well while we definitively don't know nearly as much about him we can assume that his attitude and the way he treated Kaine was compensation for his own insecurities making Kai name be and feel alone because in reality he was as well he just wanted her to be as miserable hateful murderous and bloodthirsty as he was which he was successful for the most part but Kaine was able to overcome these hurdles and I suppose in the end he felt for her and so sought to make amends in the only way he could at this point by giving her life but it wasn't as simple as just that to do this he needed near's help he tells him that he can save Kaine but at a cost Kaine can become human more and live on but it will cost near his very existence not only his life but any memories people had of him his sister will forget her own brother Kaine will never know the truth of who saved her or even the fact that she was saved any and all evidence of him existing will be gone ultimately near decides to take him up on this offer it's not exactly clear how Tyran even has the power to do this or what if any in-universe explanation exists the best idea is that perhaps it was a pact it's been a common thing throughout the timeline so far but has usually been done between human and beast but never between two normal Souls one if not both of them probably have a little bit of magic lingering within them that makes this possible but it's always been a very powerful tool usually done for power but one of the ramifications that come with them is losing that which is most dear to you and to me it makes sense why that would cost near his existence the memories everyone has of him a sacrifice and one he's willing to make near disappears Kaine awakens back to normal with Yona there by her side no black scroll no near but she's alive and as said neither of them remember who he is life after this event seemed to just return to normal for everyone three years passed before anything happens again but things weren't so normal for Kaine near has had such an instrumental role in her life that the prospect of him ceasing to exist in everything she went through makes literally no sense before him killing Hook was all she wanted after that she was happily ready to die so why would she go on a journey to saviona fight the shadowlord why did she feel like a changed person after it all she knew something wasn't right that there was something very important to her that she couldn't remember but that's all it was a feeling anyway to make herself feel better she decides to go kill some stuff after saving a nearby guard he tells her that they've lost contact with the people of the forest of myth and someone needs to go check on them Kaine sees this man is useless and so does it herself when she arrives the people have been but it wasn't by Shades it was by robots Kaine sees an opening in the tree itself and decides to investigate further she gets to see the inner workings and how it's all just one big Central computer network she is greeted by the administrators they take the form of a young boy and girl who are very reminiscent both physically and vocally to Future characters we've yet to meet however it's mostly just a reference and you shouldn't think too much about it anyway Kane is a shoot first ask questions later type of person their intentions were already made clear with the slaughter of the people inside the forest it turns out the administrators have dubbed the world a failure usually decisions like these are made on a district by District basis however with the shadow lore dead it has been determined that the world should be reset no more humans and no more machines but they are incapable of following through thanks to Kaine various methods are used to stop her such as regular robots but also Recreations of herself this is the tree that creates and stores replica data in the first place after all so they have created multiple iterations of Kaine during her journey when she was the strongest the overwhelming numbers proved to be too much for her to handle alone but just when things were looking Grim a meal returns revealing himself to still be alive over the past three years he spent his time restoring his body and messing around with magic which has resulted in him gaining extra arms of course with the Ultimate Weapon by her side the two are able to defeat the kinee Clones like her Emil 2 senses some important memory of someone missing and so joins her cause as the two make their way further into the tree system they are forced to face memories from their past the majority include bosses they faced during the events of the game including hook who is her greatest source of pain from the past but with all of the painful memories hindering her there are also the good ones to assist her like Vice the reason Kaine is able to do so much against people like the administrators are perhaps because they allude to her being a singularity like zero was it's been quite a while since I've mentioned them but a singularity is an entity that can create a branch in a timeline zero created dozens of them and they form an alternate future and Kaine is perhaps just like her her power is able to disintegrate the administrators and through what I can only describe as pure willpower alone is able to remember near and force his being into existence once more but being in the tree the system recreates him a giant lunar tier forms and from it is near back in his young body likely just saved data from that time everyone has regained their memories of him and things end on a happy note at least for our characters humanity is doomed the replicants will be able to live their life until they die but they can't have children they can't reproduce so they're destined to go extinct in one generation near replicant Story shows that good people are capable of bad things near Kaine Emil and vice were doing what they were doing out of love and care they may not have had the entire perspective but believing they were in the right and fighting for a cause they believed in is what caused Humanity to go extinct as we venture into near automata it's important that we effectively start with a clean slate so to set the stage a couple hundred years after the events of near replicant humans and replicants completely go extinct the only beings that are alive now are any previously automated robots a meal who is still the Ultimate Weapon and forever ageless and most importantly Androids while going through the setup and throughout all of near replicant's Story the only Androids I pretty much talked about were devila and popola specifically the two that were overseeing near's Village but in actuality there were hundreds if not thousands of different Androids that were produced along with them Emil's Butler is a prime example of just another Android that was created to do a job devila and Poplar just so happen to be the only relevant ones to replicant's timeline but for automatas all of these other Androids are who are going to effectively be kicking off the first events of this new story arc firstly I suppose I should mention what became of devila and Poplar following the aftermath of project Gestalt so the two that were overseeing near's Village are dead but there were still countless other devila and Poplar units stationed around the world who were overseeing their own respective regions after the project failed devila and Poplar models faced hostility from all of the other Androids who knew about the incident Androids were built to respect and protect humans with their lives so the two were treated as criminals responsible for bringing ruin upon Humanity to conceal the failure of the project most of their memories were erased the only details left were the name of the project and the fact that their model's breakdown was responsible for the extinction of humanity as such they live in Exile it is convention for them to be persecuted by their peers some of the models were likely killed because of this While others killed themselves the devila and Poplar models are now programmed to live with guilt for their failure they hope to atone for their sins by doing the work no one else wants to do but anyway that's what became of the devila and popola models so after the failure of project Gestalt the Androids Left Behind begin to lose purpose they were keeping things up and running until Humanity returned but now that that's impossible what are they doing anything for the majority of the Androids decided to stay loyal to humanity and keep the Planet Clean preserving their legacy until a time where maybe humans were able to return regardless of whether or not that was even possible but then other Androids thought the opposite what was the point in living and dying for an extinct species and so a small Coalition of Androids banded together under this belief and became known as Rebels there was a brief period of conflict between the Androids and Rebels until the situation settled when the Rev Force liberated Australia and became an independent state afterwards is when the real problem arose and where the true start of automata's timeline begins on July 4th 5012 aliens invaded Earth there was not some Grand reasoning for their Invasion simply as instinctual As It Gets a predator finding prey the aliens were quick to take over both North and South America and began constructing their army of machine life forms it should be important to note that the machines are exclusively unique to the aliens as is that term the term machine will always refer to their kind while robots and Androids are a human construct despite their very plain and rustic appearance internally the machines are incredibly complex and advanced as you'll come to see in response to the alien Onslaught the Androids founded the army of Humanity to fight back against this threat they also set up the human Heritage restoration management organization a mouthful but in simple terms it was a unified communication Network for all of the Androids spread around the earth they then began production on as many battle-ready Androids as they could both sides were effectively Mass producing their armies however it was the machines who were coming out on top slowly but surely the Androids were steadily losing territory to the aliens they feared the worst case scenario that if the aliens did manage to conquer Earth and wipe them all out all of the old world's culture and information about Humanity would be lost so they constructed a storage facility on the moon to protect this data in addition construction begins on bases in satellite orbit for use in combat but the Androids weren't the only ones fighting back against the aliens in fact the first one to have perhaps done so was a meal with the world under attack it was a natural instinct to want and protect it but the real motivator for him was still his friends near Kaine and vice fought so hard to live in this world and he wasn't just going to allow some aliens to show up and destroy it he launched a one-man war against their kind as the Ultimate Weapon he was formidable but it seems that perhaps the aliens themselves were equally as such Emil was forced to use his magic to make clones of himself to form his own Army made up entirely of him over the course of 100 years he had created over 85 million copies of himself he tried to diversify as much as he could creating an iteration for any given scenario offense defense support Mobility aerial large and small he tried his damndest to repel the alien forces but in the end he was unable to this may be because with each subsequent clone he made his memory was spread thin eventually all of his memories became lost and jumbled losing the cohesiveness he had with his forces may have cost him the war we don't know what happened to the original Emil he's still probably out there somewhere but he did at some point also craft his own Nook hidden away from the rest of the world he used pieces of scrap to replicate kinase Shack and cultivated a whole bed of lunar Tears in their memory the reason I say Emil might have been the first one to fight the aliens is because if you look at the depiction of his War there are no machines and that may have been because Emil himself was accidentally the cause for their creation while never explicitly stated there's reason to believe that the aliens had managed to capture some of Emil's clones and used them in the creation for the machines their ability to wield magic-like projectiles is eerilism similar to a meal's own and physically speaking they all have a head almost exactly like his the one consistent feature amongst Emil and his clones was always his head and if you look at the machines they similarly have the same design with the head being the most common trait and it's exactly the size of a meals but like I said that's merely conjecture Emil lost the war no doubt he helped Finn the alien numbers while the machines and Androids battled on endlessly but in the year 5645 a familiar face would change the course of history BP the p-33 unit that near and the others had supposedly killed reawakens it's taken a bit of time but he has returned as I mentioned during his segment BP was the first robot to have achieved natural sentience as such he is so much more complex and advanced than all of the other machine life forms currently in existence even the ones the aliens had created after climbing out of the junk keep which has long since been buried underneath the rubble of time he saw the Machines Fighting the Androids and it made him feel bad he too was once a Mindless machine with no free will simply carrying out the instructions of his creator it was only thanks to Khalil that he learned about emotions and formed the desire to see the outside world Khalil taught him so much not only about the world but emotions as well and thanks to him he was able to evolve so BP sought to bestow this knowledge in the same manner he launched himself into space accessed the machine Network and taught the machines how to live he gave the machine's life and sentience what a volcano from the fires of the eruption the god emerged one day the god appeared before the machines and said consciousness pain Joy misery Fury Shane desolation future the meaning of life [Applause] following this event BP ventured into the depths of space to honor his and khalil's dream of exploration as he is the one who gave them life the machine life forms warship BP as a God the machines were able to access emotions never before felt not just moving forward but from the past as well the machines were able to reflect on what they were being forced to do in this war and how it made them feel at the time and most of it wasn't good if they were scared from seeing their comrades murdered in front of them the aliens took away their sight if the sound of War petrified them they took away their hearing and if they complained too much the aliens took away their voice it was obvious that despite being the bulk of their army the aliens didn't respect them and the machines did not forgive that they turned on their creators the aliens were driven to extinction by the very tool they had crafted while this would officially take place over the course of the next few thousand years it's simplest to wipe the aliens out from the story completely right now as they play no further role but before we really begin diving into the machines and their evolution there's another smaller story I quickly wanted to go over first and it's about the kingdom of night [Music] I didn't mention this during near replicant story as it wasn't the most relevant detail but after the 612 incident the Earth became tidally locked effectively halting all day night cycles roughly half of the world is perpetually locked in daylight while the other half is always in night both near replicant and automata take place in the part of the world that is in day it's why the Sun never goes down in either game we've never seen things from inside the perspective of the night Kingdom but there are a few things that we do know firstly it's notably composed of North and South America the same location the aliens took over when they first landed it's safe to say that They seized control but there were still cities and locations where the Androids were gathered and fighting back the only reason I mention this is because this is where the timeline theoretically wraps back in on itself in this war against the machines in the Kingdom of night is when the dragons were created it's when Accord was invented for the first time it is perhaps where the black flower originated as well as Cathedral City if you've been able to follow along it's what kicked everything off in the first place some time space phenomena pulled the city the flower and Dragons into the dragon guard Universe creating this Perpetual cycle but you already know how that series of events plays out what about things from the night Kingdom perspective well I don't mean to retroactively change the series of events that I described in the beginning regarding the flower but I may wind up doing that I mentioned how the flower was created by God as an instrument to destroy Humanity similar to the Watchers and otherworldly beings but I don't know if that's necessarily true to put it frankly the aliens and machines are beyond a shadow of a doubt the single greatest foe encounter throughout any of this timeline even the instruments God had created were able to be slain by a single individual at times when Humanity began to get corrupt and become puppets of the Gods the Ultimate Weapon was constructed only one of them and seemed more than capable of ending the war yet wasn't even ultimately needed yet Emil created 85 million versions of himself as the Ultimate Weapon and still wasn't able to stop things the machine numbers and their ability to learn made them Unstoppable the machines are ever evolving always seeking to attain a higher Evolution humans just so happen to be the most evolved form on Earth and so they sought to imitate them and through that was also via their history one of the most unique Revelations is that the machines in their knowledge of human history also have access to draken guards history somehow when that portal formed and the Queen Beast along with time an Angelus fell through some sort of thread was created which has allowed the machines to access that universe's history and it's evident via Eve I don't want to get too ahead of myself just yet as he's not been created but he possesses The Cult of the Watchers symbol on his body the three-eyed twins that history is exclusive to draken guards and somehow the machines know it and are imitating it all of that is to say the black flower may not have actually been a creation of the Gods themselves but rather it was the machines imitating what the gods had done and created their own version similar to how I said they may have taken a meal and done the same it would make sense why the black flower seemingly comes out of nowhere at this time and also reinforces the back and forth nature of the war with the Androids dragons are an enemy of the flower if the machines created it the Androids created the dragons in response along with a chord the machines were so Advanced that the flower wasn't only capable of destroying a world but every single timeline so a chord was invented to prevent that we don't know what Android was so knowledgeable that they were able to accomplish these creations capable of transcending time but all we know is that they were created but anyway that is the kingdom of night it seems that the dragons were not capable of winning but their forces only reside in the night Kingdom and we know they continually fight with Dragons even into modern day it's an enigmatic location to say the least but certainly not one that was idly sitting by anyway with that detour out of the way we can really begin talking about the machines themselves similar to what I've done throughout this video I'm going to segment things off and take them one at a time this portion will be about the machines and everything they did leading up to the events of the game then I'll talk about the Androids and their Endeavors so even before gaining sentience they were incredibly complex as they were in ever evolving life form their self-learning was at the highest when it came to combat after every battle they were able to adapt to the Android's strategies this was all possible thanks to the machine Network it's what connects all of them like a hive mind even if one group of machines were wiped out in a location data regarding the battle was uploaded which allowed for their evolution pair that with their endless manufacturing and you have a nigh Unstoppable force and they were Unstoppable the machines almost took over the entire your world the only reason I say almost is because they stopped the only directive they were given by the aliens was to defeat the enemy but the machines became so smart that they reached a contradictory conclusion if they defeated the Androids and completely wiped them out what would they do afterwards there would be no enemy to defeat thus rendering their existence meaningless so the machine Network came to another conclusion if it wanted to get smarter it needed to evolve the evolution was largely coming from the war at this time and so they simply decided to prolong it instead of wiping out the Androids they conquered 80 percent of the earth and never anymore it was enough leeway which allowed the Androids to feel like they had a fighting chance and continue trying but not so much that the machines were at any risk of losing anything and so that is how this war has prolonged for thousands of years they simply just don't want to win and the Androids are incapable of overcoming the odds but that doesn't mean the machines just idly Sat by Evolution became the Network's primary objective but it was good to strive for an evolution they considered more advanced than them considering BP bestowed intelligence and emotions onto the machines that was the base from which to build then they discovered the humans specifically the server on the moon the Androids had built they read all about their history the things they created project Gestalt they learned they were responsible for the creation of the Androids and they saw just how complex they were when it came to emotions the very thing BP gave them humans became the base in which the machine Network wished to become it wasn't the final form they hoped to achieve but it was a benchmark to work towards and ultimately surpass this this is where the entity known as N2 or the red girls come from with the motivation to be like humans the network takes on a human form to be clear these two are not real they are not beings that exist in any true manner they are simply a physical representation of the machine Network itself so if ever you see these two or I'm referring to the machine Network you can Envision the red girls with Evolution and Humanity on their mind the red girl sought to diversify and experiment with machine Evolution so various small communities work quote unquote released from the machine Network to see how they would Thrive and evolve on their own this is where Pascal's Village the amusement park the forest Kingdom and a handful of others would come from despite what these machines might think they are not actually disconnected from the network they're just not being controlled by it each Community would serve as their own experiment by the red girls for a different aspect of humanity Pascal's Village embodied pacifism the amusement park embodied fun the god robots embodied religion and the forest Kingdom loyalty the red girls would actively watch over and see how things evolved and developed with each of these communities but it wouldn't be until the events of the game until they reached any sort of conclusion of course they weren't the only unique machines popping up while the vast majority were still very basic and constantly in attack mode others found culture the kingdom of facade has long since been buried underneath the sands of time but the machines there found remnants of their people and culture and began emulating it they wore the same masks as the men before they even adopted their absurd amount of rules other machines awakened their own emotions caring for their fallen friends Finding Beauty in the world and trying to protect it while the majority still fight as their prerogative evolution is happening amongst them particularly when it comes to their Humanity on a final note while the machine's waged war with guns magic missiles their own body genuinely anything at their disposal one of their greatest evolutionary weapons became the logic virus as it sounds it is a virus which infects Androids corrupts their systems and turns them into violent and berserked individuals it's easy to spot which Androids become infected due to their eyes becoming red now if this sounds familiar to the timeline that's because it is the logic virus functions eerily similar almost exactly the same to that of the red eye disease from drakengard while the connection hasn't ever been directly confirmed yokotaro has stated that there is more of a connection to the two than there isn't leaving us to speculate how they connect personally I believe the most logical answer is similar to how I speculated the black flower was created the machines looking at Humanity's past seeking to be like them copied it and created their own version the red eye disease is a prominent part of human history so they made their own and called it the logic virus either way it's just another thing the Androids have to worry about speaking of Androids I think it's time we got to their history when we last left off the army of humanity fearing the loss of Earth to the machines stored the old world's data in a server on the moon while simultaneously began constructing orbital bases over the course of about 6 000 years 12 orbital bases were built these were the main locations where combat Androids were constructed and subsequently deployed into battle a common term you'll begin hearing is command in the hierarchy of military organization command is at the top and consists of Androids leading the army of humanity so they call the shots during this time history is chronicled via all the different Wars that took place the first machine war is what kicked everything off when the aliens invaded Earth the army of humanity was formed and Emile cloned himself any number of events can Encompass what took place during said war and to be honest we don't actually have too many details on many of the individual Wars themselves excluding the first there's only two others currently worthy of note the 8th and the 14th we can assume the majority of these wars were via descent operations these missions are where the Androids from the orbital bases were sent down to earth to fight back in groups though it was often to no avail the eighth machine war is notable because it was the largest descent operation carried out to date where 160 Androids were deployed at once however it didn't go well but there are a few Androids from it who survived that will meet later down the line these are where the resistance members come from any surviving Androids from these descent operations are practically abandoned and left defend for themselves on the surface by Scavenging resources they band together in different camps and form the resistance in reality for the longest time it was a Perpetual cycle continuously repeating Androids were created and sent to Earth sometimes they made more progress than other they did get better and evolve over time but the machines evolved with them and adapted as well emerging Victorious every single time it was demoralizing to say the least Android's Hope was slowly but surely getting snuffed out that was until one man came up with a plan that would change everything around the year 11 937 a male Android named Zinnia would come up with a plan that would indefinitely fix Android morale project yorha Zinnia came to the conclusion that the Androids were losing hope because they didn't have Something to Believe In they were fighting a war against an enemy but that wasn't necessarily good enough there needed to be a Cause worth fighting for a meaning to life that's when he came up with the idea to fabricate a god like the humans who look to the constellations before them he wanted to create an entity that the Androids could look towards and fight for and this God would be Humanity itself the LIE would be humans had fled to the Moon following the Alien Invasion and it's the Androids purpose to reclaim Earth so they could return once more of course the truth was Humanity was already extinct the only thing that remained on the moon was the server which held their personal data but that didn't matter because like a god it's Faith thinking that something's out there Worth Dying For which pushes the people even if it's a lie the Council of humanity was created and was the smoke screen which pretended humans were still alive the council theoretically oversees everything and is made up of humans making all of the decisions but in reality genuinely consists of no one maybe a few pod programs perpetuating the lie and sending out propaganda but that's about it but in truth Zinnia never went through with this idea as he considered it too risky but there is a second half to this origin the your hot Androids they were the brand new experimental line of Androids created they weren't too dissimilar to any other combat model created around their time the orha Androids were just the next generation of models invented so of course naturally they would be the strongest most capable Android to date but there's one thing that separates them apart from all of the others and that was their black box it largely functioned as the heart of the Android but also doubled as a nuclear bomb it was considered a last ditch effort so a dying yorha unit could overload their core and self-destruct taking out enemies in the vicinity and this wasn't by accident because the yorha units Were Meant To Die they were not being treated with the respect nor courtesy other Androids were given because of their black boxes the truth was black boxes were made from machine cores the machine cores are what give life to the individual machines it is their heart it's not AI I mind you it's often compared to a plant cell which is biological in nature meaning it can grow and evolve it's why the machines are often sometimes referred to as bio machines because to a certain extent they are biological jorha took these machine cores and did whatever science and engineering on it to create the black box so jorja Androids are considered in the eyes of most to be more akin to machine than Android it's why no your high unit is ever given a name and is instead only referred to by their model number speaking of which each model number has a set appearance and personality type for example every number two model will look and more or less act the same when they roll off the production line know your high Android is aware of the black Box's true origin Androids are programmed to almost worship and Revere humans they want to be like them it's why they study their culture and imitate it to such an extent in their appearances fashion actions and motivation they despise the machines so it's a secret very few are meant to know all the aura units think their black box is experimental technology that works like a fusion reactor for an abundant source of energy and strength for now that's all you need to know for setup so how did project your Hub begin if Zinnia didn't do it himself well aboard the sixth orbital research base dubbed the lab Zinnia and all of the scientists working on this black box technology continued their study of these experimental Androids various prototypes were created such as number four number two and number nine along with many others number two and number nine are the most significant for this story now it is very important to note that this number two and number nine are not 2B and 9s though they would share many similarities in their abilities and what transpires in this story it's more of a symbolic coincidence by that I mean number two is an attacker type suited for combat while number nine is a scanner model more into hacking what makes scanner type so dangerous relative to this project is their curiosity for learning it's within their nature to seek answers and dig as deep as they can to uncover whatever mystery it is that comes across their path so on a normal day when everyone's going about their business number nine inquires about zinnia's name he tells them that he was named after a flower and that it's command who names people number two chimes in and wonders if she and number nine can get names as well of course it's forbidden to name Androids with a black box and so the question causes Zinnia to hesitate he eventually says that he would after they all finished their assessments but number nine noticed his hesitation however brief it was and couldn't shake the feeling that something was wrong why would such a simple question evoke such a reaction eventually the two had to leave as they had tests they needed to go through but number Nine's curiosity led him to do some digging he secretly accessed the lab server and began looking for answers he didn't find anything relevant to why they couldn't have names but while inside he found a huge void in the server as if a large portion of data had been deleted so number nine started recovering these lost files and gained access to the truth about zinnia's entire plan the morale of the Android's faking Humanity's survival the council everything but the real thing that actually mattered was the truth about the black boxes so learning that they're made from machines not only are they not human they're not even Androids number nine is repulsed by this information he considers himself and everyone else monsters who are not deserving of life and so he snaps number nine goes on a killing spree cutting down other yorha units setting off explosives around the base until he confronts Zinnia himself as the creator of such monsters he deserves to be tortured the most eventually number two arrives and sees everything that's going on while confused she doesn't believe number 9's actions are Justified even when he tells her about what they are but the biggest twist to this whole scenario is that number nine is going through and implementing zinnia's plan to fake Humanity number nine genuinely had no problem with anything Zinnia was intending to do in this regard the only thing number nine hated were the black boxes but there was only one problem with zinnia's plan an orbital base was meant to be constructed to maintain the connection between Androids and the council but so long as this base existed there was always the risk that the truth about the LIE would get out so number nine implemented a back door system after a set amount of data had been collected to develop the next generation of Androids a back door would open which would allow the machines to access and destroy the whole base thus leaving no evidence behind it's number nine who came up with the name project yorha you see it's Zinnia here who set this whole thing up it was all just a ruse telling everyone humans are still alive on the moon just to give Androids the will to fight but that little plan of his was incomplete there was a risk of information leaking out from that satellite base that was meant to manage the human server on the moon that's why I decided to rewrite his plan I rigged the 13th base to have a back door that'll open at a certain time the base will be destroyed by an attack from machine life forms at which point only the server on the moon will be left with transmission capabilities and so I'll create a God on the face of the moon for us Androids I've already sent a program to the server there to carry out this plan it even contains the blueprints for all our jorha designs through this the automated production of your units will give birth to our God and then us your units will truly have a god worth dying for hey number two I think I'll call this plan project your huh a god-born of a self-perpetuating your house Squadron and a your ha Squadron that lays down its lives for the sake of that God but eventually enough is enough and number two kills him but his death didn't matter the necessary programs had been sent to the lunar server the schematics for the new orbital base the design specs for the yorha type Androids and orders for the automated production line the entire process could be left entirely alone and it would go on mass producing your Huff forces the entire orbital base is then destroyed as number nine had stated project yorha was born the bunker was the 13th orbital base constructed and serves as jorha's primary command it is the only orbital-based designated for jorha so any and all soldiers missions or other joha related activities are exclusively carried out from here jorha's Androids are divided into specific models for their defined roles while their number would indicate their aesthetic appearance and bass personality their letter would indicate which type of Android they would function as attacker Androids specialize in close range combat specifically in the use of a blade Defender types focused heavily on the use of barriers and absorbing enemy fire Gunner type specialized in long-range combat with Firearms healers Were Meant to repair their fellow teammates not only physically but they were also responsible for uploading their data to the bunker so they could retain their memories up operators worked from inside the bunker and provided Intel and missions for the units in the field scanners functioned as Scouts who specialized in hacking their purpose is to gather data on anything and everything that might be of interest and finally is the Executioner model their purpose is to eliminate any jorja Androids if need be whether it be because of desertion or possessing Intel they should not have access to the Executioner is meant to clean up the Project's mess because of this they are your ha's strongest combat Android as they need to be able to eliminate the attacker and Gunner types if the situation calls for it as for why the female models have a Gothic Lolita outfit there's actually no reason behind it the explanation is that it's been so long that things like appearances and sizes have lost all meaning it's believed by fans that since Android's worship human so much and the human form they dress in close using that emphasizes and fetishizes the human form as much as possible but either way that's the reason they dress as they do their blindfolds are also not blindfolds they function as a visor which assists the wearer in analyzing and getting a better read on the battlefield the final detail we do know for certain about their attire is that they all wear black for a reason since project yorha is meant to die every Android dresses in black as you do for a funeral despite what it may seem jorha is not a very large program the bunker contains only 100 rooms and each unit is given their own room so at most there are only around 100 yaha units deployed fulfilling all of these roles at a given time interestingly enough there are two characters part of the project who are not your hot Androids Commander white and instructor black Commander white is undeniably the more important and recognizable one as the commander it is her job to oversee and manage everyone part of project yorha technically speaking she is the highest ranking member involved in the project and everyone reports to her it's unknown how and why she was chosen for this position the one minute detail we do know about her past is she was a resistance member before becoming the commander she and another Android I've yet to discuss named jackass were acquaintances but to what extent has never been detailed what we do know is that for whatever reason Commander white was chosen to oversee project yorha as its director on the outside she is a very calm and composed individual she exudes all of the qualities you'd want out of a leader to give soldiers faith while also being loyal enough to carry out the plans many wouldn't be able to do while the commander she was only in charge of leading the soldiers she was still forced to take instructions from the Council of humanity and carry out their will and that's part of where she herself is being deceived as well Commander white is almost as in the dark as everyone part of the project there's only one exception Commander white is aware that Humanity's extinct she knows that there are no humans on the moon and the entire motivating factor for your hot Android's actions is a farce but that's all she knows she doesn't know that the Council of humanity is a lie she doesn't know the origin of the black box and she most certainly is not aware that project yorha is meant to end in Failure she just knows that the main reason for fighting isn't what they say it is yet she continues to act as the commander because at the very least even despite the lie she thinks that someone is doing something even if she doesn't know the plan she believes project yorha is still serving to fulfill a purpose and perhaps even end the war like the Androids she believes in a cause that may or may not exist and it's for those reasons she was likely chosen to be the commander the job is not an easy one both from a practical and moral standpoint due to the nature of project yorha data collection was its highest priority that means resources were never really allocated into assisting their units during a mission if things go wrong abandon them let them die and begin work on the next regardless of the outcome data is being collected and it's perhaps because of this that the commander takes a more hands-off approach the only time it's been stated that Commander White had a direct involvement in leading a squadron of jorha soldiers was near the org organizations beginning when the units were still in their prototype stage she led a force of all female units in the field to what was considered a resounding success yet afterwards never seemed to really do it again ever since it appears as though she's chosen to stand at the helm and give orders and this may be perhaps because it's a heavy toll emotionally to be there firsthand by directly leading a squadron you come to know them personally you get attached to who they are and what they're going through but with the caveat knowing that they are supposed to die your hust soldiers aren't meant to live happy lives or dream of a future Beyond being a soldier so to grow attached to them only to watch them die or be executed and reborn without any of the memories was perhaps a burden that even she didn't want to go through as the commander she was still in charge of the fate of all the soldiers but they were significantly more faceless easier to disconnect and carry out her Mission as cold-blooded as some of the decisions Commander white is going to make she does have levels of sympathy she tries not to show that's why when a new experimental team was being formed she wanted nothing to do with fit after the resounding success of Commander White's all-female team the council wanted to assemble an all-male team of your high units to see how they would perform in the field there's one big difference that separates this male unit from the rest this group is meant to fail repeatedly they are to be stress tested and put through impossible scenarios which are guaranteed to result in their death over and over and over unbeknownst to them it was a cruel fate not only to be put through but to witness first hand which is why despite her success with the female squadron commander white wanted nothing to do with these male units she did object to their formation but the council overruled her and so she instead placed that burden on instructor black he like the commander is a normal Android who has gained position within the project while he always wanted to work his way up the ladder and stay shoulder to shoulder with her one day he didn't expect his rise to be so sudden he was promoted and given Soul responsibility over the M Squadron leader is a generous term in actuality it was more like a glorified babysitter jorha units far exceed the capabilities of past Androids so they would be the ones fighting it was Black's job to stand in the back lines and look dignified keep peace amongst the team hold them together give them hope that sort of thing he wasn't outright forbidden to engage in combat personally but his role was made clear the truth behind the M squadron's formation was not hidden from him not exactly he knew the M Squadron was meant to endure so that all future yora soldiers May flourish but he didn't know it was so hopeless it wasn't until later until he realized they were being stress tested a necessary evil he was told but it was his duty as their mentor and instruct doctor to at the very least try and ensure their victories this is the story told in both the stage play and novelization titled your hot boys excluding instructor black the unit consists of seven members two attack types number three and number six two Gunner types number four and number 22 one scanner number 21 one Healer number nine and one executioner number two number two would not be part of the group in the beginning as being the Executioner his role is significantly more important and Incognito so he had to undergo special training and instructions separate from everyone else instructor black tried his best to get to know his team and their General personalities I'm not gonna spend too much time covering each of them individually as it's not too important to the overall timeline what you need to know is that this team is sent on various missions all of which of course end in death some like number nine struggle with being the sole survivor every time as the Healer unit it is his job to upload the team's data to the bunker so they can be reborn he too suffers the fate of watching his team die repeatedly losing chunks of their memories and who they are team morale slowly began to dip because of their failures as did their mental States more and more requests were put in to abandon a mission or receive some kind of support or backup from the bunker with every single one being denied every time it was tough for everyone including instructor black he didn't see his Squadron as the lab animals command wanted them to be treated as he cared about them he wanted them to go on and flourish after the experiment as an ordinary Squad he wanted them to know fulfillment and showcase their abilities on missions they could properly be utilized on despite the moral scales that were constantly dangled in front of him the six units versus the hundreds of thousands on the other side for the sake of progress he couldn't bring himself to think that way the majority of the story is building on this team's relationship and dynamic in terms of the important aspect of the story eventually they rendezvous with number two who is undercover as a Defender type and he begins to have second thoughts about his role because he's growing closer to the others particularly number nine number 21 however eventually does what scanners tend to do he accidentally digs a little deeper into things that he should and uncovers the truth about their Squadron he and a few others stage a mutiny and plan to run away to the night Kingdom where jorha has no jurisdiction or eyes over and so with roughly half of the squad turning against command and the other half uncertain what to do they all wind up fighting each other a lot of back and forth happens many of them get infected by the logic virus and go insane instructor black sacrifices himself so he could be a proper Mentor at least one time but in the end due to this experiment command deems them a failure while the male models had improved attack strength they were determined to exhibit poor organizational cohesiveness which led to conflict as such all male models moving forward were reformatted to be scanner types the rest of the combat Androids were to be manufactured with a primary emphasis on female models in modern day this is why all male yorha are scanners while everyone else is a woman this next story introduces us to our first true main character of automata's timeline A2 a fun detail to note about her before we start is that every Android is given simulated memories about someone's Past who was not them it helps diversify and shape their individuality like humans technically speaking I have to say this is speculation but it is heavily implied that A2 was given the memories of Kaine her simulated memories are that of her and her grandmother living in the countryside on a farm together they were before any of kaine's really bad memories so they were actually very warm and peaceful so these simulated memories helped shape Kaine into being more of an innocent person but anyway as her name would suggest she is an attacker type Android with the traditional number two chassis in the beginning she was quite unlike how we know her to be in modern day she was relatively sweet and naive she had a timid personality and lacked a lot of confidence but above all else the way she was typically described was average her combat capabilities were not the best of her Squadron she was not as great of a leader as number one she was a mediocre specimen lacking any extraordinary qualities but in the eyes of some it meant she had the potential to improve in every way it was all up to her to choose the path that she wanted to take the real event that would change the course of a2's history would be when she and a group of other yorha Androids were deployed on a mission dubbed the Pearl Harbor descent for most it would be their first time actually being in the field up until now it's been simulated combat but it was time to put their training to the test they were to locate and destroy the machine server located inside mount kala on Oahu Island for this descent number one is placed in charge as she is an acceptable leader she is intelligent and her combat capabilities are some of the best of her Squadron she's someone many look up to and believe in including a two but during their descent to Earth they encountered unexpected heavy anti-air defenses from the machines which systematically began shooting down the your high units including number one she was the first Soldier to be blasted out of the sky which threw the squadron's coordination into chaos per the chain of command A2 was placed in charge as its new leader she coordinates the Squadron as best as she can until the bunker is able to fire a satellite laser at the source of the anti-air weapons an EMP bomb is set off which sends everyone Crashing Down to Earth and when the dust settles there are only four survivors A2 attacker number four Gunner number 16 and scanner number 21 of the 16 units deployed these four were the only survivors in terms of who they are number four has an optimistic personality and gets carried away easily but is astute and keeps up the group's morale she's never one to abandon hope even when faced with a gloomy situation number 16 is much more rough and straightforward about what she thinks she can be fairly abrasive at times but like the others has a much softer side even if it's not often seen and number 21 is as analytical as scanners tend to be she's a non-combat model who always calmly analyzes the situation and observes her surroundings but her desire to protect her friends and be useful is stronger than anyone else's which is why upon analyzing their current situation everyone finds it impossible to continue carrying on with just the four of them so number 21 tries reaching out to command to abandon the mission but their request is denied they were told by command to continue on despite the reduced number of units this was an absolute order and this is the tragic reality of their situation while they wouldn't know it in Truth per usual this mission was expected to fail the true purpose of this operation was to Monitor and research how the experimental yorha units behaved during battle this information would then be studied and integrated into New York models once the project was able to proceed past the experimental phase everyone in this was just data to fund the Next Generation so they weren't going to be evacuated and returned to the bunker and they weren't going to receive any kind of backup or support they weren't outright abandoned by the bunker but they were told to continue carrying out the mission as intended which isn't much better this was an intimidating position to be in four A2 she didn't feel like she had what it took to be the leader or keep the team together but nevertheless that didn't change the fact that she was now their Captain and the others were looking to her for guidance their situation is quickly thrown into even more disarray when they are ambushed by over 100 000 machine life forms headed their way while they fight back as best as they can they are unexpectedly saved by members of the resistance who detonate massive amounts of explosives which caused the machines to withdraw but the resistance members aren't so friendly either they've never seen Jorah units before and so believe they might just be evolved machines the situation gets quite hectic a lot of guns being pointed at each other some knife attacks thrown here and there but it's because of A2 pleading with her Squadron that things calm down they've lost so many allies and yet they're told to continue fighting so they can't afford to lose any more people especially to a meaningless squabble the leader of the resistance members Rose empathizes and relates to their situation being alone and helpless forsaken by those on the moon and so agrees to help them out the truth is Rose and the other resistance members are all survivors of the eighth descent Mission carried out over 200 years ago it was the largest military force to date but it ended in Failure since then they've all been fighting and surviving together their group consists of seven members Rose as stated is their leader all of the others look up to and respect her as she is very dependable and trustworthy it was Rose who gave all of the others their names as they came to see each other as family they found a reason to live outside of just fighting and that was each other the other members include anemone she's actually a very jaded individual she more than the others has killed so many of her allies that become infected by the logic virus that she's developed a keen sense towards its symptoms she's the quickest to pick up when someone's been infected and as such she is also usually the one to kill them when it happens because of this she's not the most trusting when it comes to others and possesses a fairly sour attitude Dahlia is actually quite similar to number 16 in terms of personality and as such they wind up butting heads quite a bit Daisy is the extra-large defense Android who came with extra parts inside her body just in case gerbera is the weapons and explosives expert she's responsible for repairing and developing them Margaret is best when simply being a soldier in combat and finally there was Lily who is responsible for them being in the position they are now you see technically speaking this group are not considered Survivors by command they are labeled as deserters the truth is they didn't didn't simply just survived the war they abandoned it they were all comrades on the battlefield but the situation was ever worsening the machine numbers grew allies were lost and any request for Relief were ignored they were constantly exhausted in a hopeless situation but there was one girl who was always there to cheer them up Lily she was a very gentle and meek Android but she made all of the others happier and despite her lack of combat capabilities she was just like one of them but the reason she lacked these traits is because she wasn't a combat model she was a lover model sent for the use of senior officers it was an unofficial designation commissioned at the officials's discretion but due to the situation of the helpless War the superiors began using her as an outlet for stress she was frequently physically and sexually assaulted half beaten to death many times and when Rose found her in this state she nearly killed their Superior before she took the others and fled that's why they're considered deserters and were incredibly on edge when they ran into A2 and the others not only could they possibly be machines but they could have also been sent by command to kill them but that wasn't the case even after finding this out A2 still wants their help what happened in the past isn't relevant to what's happening now if there's a chance for everyone to survive then she'll risk it but causing these memories to resurface sent Lily into a vulnerable state in which she was able to be infected by the logic virus she thinks it's because of her that she's dragged everyone into this horrific Journey they've all been forced to watch their comrades die as they fight endlessly Against the Machines so it'd be a happier fate if they all just died and found peace or at least this is the mentality the logic virus is pushing on to her anemone is quick to sense this change and does what they've always done anytime one of their own becomes infected shoot them but A2 stops her she believes there has to be another way and so has number 21 try and remove it she's done similar things during simulation and so begs her to at least try Lily is going berserk the logic virus gets rid of the limiters part of an Android's system allowing them to exceed strength previously unattainable and on top of that because Lily isn't a combat Android the machines upload their own attack patterns into her system allowing her to utilize a gravity attack eventually number 21 is able to remove the virus and Lily is saved as a thanks Captain Rose and the others feel indebted and so pledge the allegiance to a2's cause much of their time is spent Gathering Intel on the machines formulating a plan and getting to know each other A2 is becoming much more confident as a leader thanks to Rose meanwhile those like Lily actually feel like they can contribute now thanks to the logic virus she's now able to utilize a gravity attack Spirits are relatively optimistic but Above All Else the one consistent theme is a reason to keep fighting the resistance members lost their reason long ago but they found their own reason for living each other they help A2 and the others not because they were ordered but to protect their friends destroying the server makes their lives and everyone's lives better everyone has to find their own reason for living and with that they launched their assault on Mount kala as expected they are met with heavy machine numbers but to make a bad situation worse the machines have also evolved from their last encounter now being able to hide their own weak points they try yet again to request any amount of support from the bunker even the laser that was used in the beginning to destroy the anti-air weapons they want anything even if it doesn't hit at least it could be used as a distraction or something but their request is yet again denied they are left to their own vices to continue carrying out the mission with their current forces and Equipment the result is the girls fight harder and while they are able to take out a handful of powerful machines the lack of support comes with consequences from here various members of the resistance along with a2's group begins sacrificing themselves so the others can continue on depending on what version of this story you're experiencing details about who and when certain characters sacrifice themselves is different so I'll give you the ones that are traditionally common throughout them all number 16 and Dahlia are the first to sacrifice themselves on the surface they both specialize in firearms and long-range weapons and they're about to head indoors where perhaps they may not be as useful so they choose to stay on the surface and hold them back in some iterations Lily also joins them and uses her gravity attacks to slow them down as they Venture into the mountain they reach an elevator which leads to the machine's main server number 21 is responsible for hacking the terminal so she can lower the others down manually the real reason she's staying behind is because she was infected by the logic virus and can't save herself anemone being ever Keen to the symptoms recognizes what's happening and chooses to stay with her so she can put her out of her misery once she finishes her job she does not want number 21 to Simply exist as a puppet being controlled by the machines so she will act as her executioner Rose A2 number four and whatever other survivors then descend to the main server it doesn't matter what other members make it to the bottom because what they are met with are the red girls the machine network has been watching this entire time observing what they've been going through and per usual have taken an interest in things they don't fully understand themselves Rose and all of the others have a rich range of emotions and gained their own reason to live and it's because of that that the red girls do what they love to do in a scenario like this psychologically mess with them Natural Evolution is one thing but what the red girls do time and time again is purposely shake things up and create an obstacle they want to see how people react to certain stimuli if it crushes them if they're able to overcome it it draws out an emotion and aside to them that the machine Network seeks to understand and the stimuli here to A2 and the others per usual is the truth the truth that command betrayed them that they were an experiment meant to die and A2 couldn't just refute it because it all made sense why they were never given any kind of support or assistance even in the simplest of scenarios why AI they were told to continue on the mission even though it was hopeless they had their suspicions but this all but confirmed it this obviously got on the nerves of A2 number four but they chose to channel their anger and frustration into combat and carry out their mission anyway since they wanted to fight the red girls brought forth an incredibly deadly machine life form not only does it kill every single remaining member of the resistance but they then hack their systems and turn them into puppets Rose obviously cannot kill her own family and so too is taken down by them to rub it in their face the red girls claim how meaningless everyone's sacrifices have been but Rose does not care it wasn't about her fate or even the fact that she's going to die because her life had purpose she found a reason to live dying is irrelevant because at the very least she was able able to live with meaning for herself she throws their arrogance back in their face asking if they have a reason to live before she passes away number four went berserk and began swinging her sword wildly such recklessness eventually got her caught and taken down A2 was left as the only one to fend for herself what the red girls had done was unforgivable but if she wanted to reach them she would have to get through her own friends she apologized as she cut through each of her former allies but when she made it through and slashed at the red girls her blade passed right through them she could not cut them down as they are not physically real the only way she could destroy them was to destroy the server but to do that manually would take years so she thought of using her black box if she detonated her Fusion reactor the whole server would be destroyed the red girls don't care much what they do enjoy in this scenario is divulging even more secrets to A2 it turns out that all of the jorja units had an additional bomb embedded onto their Fusion reactor this was all part of command's plan step one was getting any of the jorja units to the server whether or not they were killed was irrelevant because once their signals went offline command was going to detonate all of the bombs A2 was already unwillingly a bomb someone was going to set off but these were more attempts to mess with a2's existence A2 wanted the red girls to suffer but didn't know what to do next that's when number four got up and revealed she was still Clinging On to a fraction of her life she didn't want A2 to die and so sacrificed her own life and the bomb inside of her was detonated the machine server was destroyed the red girls disappeared and all of the machine life forms in the area went offline when she came to somehow A2 was still alive the only one still alive the whole complex was turned to rubble and for some reason she wasn't killed it wasn't Talent OR perseverance that determined this fate it was sheer luck even so she was a Survivor and as such she had chosen to live as one from now on [Music] interestingly enough while A2 would believe she was the sole survivor of this mission in reality anemone had also survived when we last saw her she had stayed behind with number 21 who became infected by the logic virus number 21 was able to finish her job and get the others to the server an anemone held up her end of the bargain she put number 21 out of her misery so she wouldn't be a puppet left behind she was as good as dead the machines had gotten past number 16 in Dalia and were coming for her so anemone figured the best course of action was to commit suicide after all it would finally relieve her of this horrible nightmare of a war but as she held the gun up to her head she couldn't pull the trigger she had executed so many of her friends and allies and yet when it came to herself she was unable to pull the trigger she saw her actions as cowardly but figured if she could couldn't kill herself then she would have the machines do it so she ran out into the midst of the battlefield to die but when she got there all the machines stopped moving number Four's explosion goes off and destroys the server anemone was left on the surface with not a single soul in sight she had promised to see her deceased friends soon but yet she continued to live so in honor of her dead family she chose to continue living on in their memory it was now her job to carry on the will of those who fought by her side since she can't kill herself she'll continue to fight until someone does it for her anemone then became the leader of her own resistance where she took in Androids who needed help and fought Back Against the Machines neither She nor A2 are aware the other survived another important perspective I feel I should mention that I haven't been splicing it at all throughout the events of this story is that of Commander white I've only mentioned her in the context of denying any request for support but she was going through her own ups and downs throughout this entire story part of that came in the form of two characters we both meet and subsequently never see again after this Futaba and yotsuba they are Androids who support the yorha Squadron they are the operators who the others have been directly communicating with they've only recently been rolled out so their emotions are limited however over the course of this story they were changing in the beginning they were very by the books when learning A2 and the others had rendezvous with deserters they wanted to report it into the Council of humanity right away however it was commander white who stopped them eventually the two saw themselves as just as much part of the team as those on the ground and wanted to help in whatever way they could but it was ultimately Commander white who was always refusing their requests while her commands were ruthless they were taking their own toll on her it's clear that Commander white does not Revel in the order she gives out but they're the orders that need to be made to see the mission's success she is frequently anguished by putting the girls through their scenario and the same ultimately came for Futaba and yotsuba they developed emotions and were much too kind for their own good they wouldn't be able to live the life that Commander white does or at least Commander white doesn't want them to following the mission she relieved them of their duties and sent them down to Earth where they could live together that's why we never see these two in the bunker following this Mission the two girls is fate however is unknown also after this the data A2 acquired during the mission was able to fund a different android model altogether the battle Android it was to combine the attacker and Gunner into a singular unit modeled after A2 she had shown a resilience to never give up during the mission when everyone was shot down they fought when they met strangers she wanted to work with them they were able to cure Lily because she fought for it and they led a successful assault on the server because she kept trying and so the B unit was born as for A2 she was a completely different person from when they started the mission she lost the goal she'd been fighting for she was betrayed by the project she was meant to believe in with all of her friends and comrades dead and yet her life still remained there was nowhere for her to run nowhere for her to go and no purpose to her existence but she couldn't throw away the life her comrades gave her her so she fought not only Against the Machines but your ha as well the Black Box belonging to her was still online and so to prevent any information from leaking she was to be destroyed various two e models had been sent to execute her however she was able to fend off their attacks and Destroy everyone even 9s models had been deployed as well while their combat is no match for an attacker type their expertise in hacking may have proved useful to destroy her personal data the first time A2 encountered a 9s model it was a very close situation and she was lucky to have killed him the first time but every subsequent 9s model that was sent used the same tricks and so she learned from them and built a barrier program within her to trap and destroy him at the very least she's killed four 9s units as for how many two e's she's killed that remains unanswered ironically enough these executional models that are sent after her A2 is able to scavenge for parts it's evident she didn't leave the battlefield unscathed but at the very least she was able to keep going because of them in terms of her motivation now the first time an executioner model was sent after her she figured if command's going to continue to hide the truth everyone was her enemy machines the bunker the commander even the humans on the moon she was going to kill them all the light of her old self was gone suffering from her loneliness A2 focused only on Revenge speaking of 2e and 9s that would directly transition us into our new main characters while they would be the same model sent after A2 they wouldn't possess any of the memories following the past unit's defeats but you can say that there's something special about these new versions before I get into the events of the game there's only one thing you need to know about these two's history 9s is the best scanner that exists while all scanners sort of work on an equal playing field being curious about the world and eager to learn new things the personality that's installed with the number nine unit gives them a wide range of Rich emotional expression which tends to make him non-compliant with your ha standards meaning he's more likely to dig deeper into yorha Secrets than his peers and often ask questions that he shouldn't as a result he almost always uncovers the truth faking Humanity the black boxes everything we we've covered before since this information is so vital 9s is executed before he can do anything with it he would be remade without any of his memories and the cycle would repeat he keeps uncovering the truth and he keeps getting executed the only reason they keep remaking him is because he's so good at his job as a scanner they can't afford not to use him command is so used to him doing this that it eventually became not much of a concern because they know he's going to hack the server it's such a predictable cycle that they designated a 2E model to be by his side at all times traditionally scanner models work alone so it's a unique situation anytime command sees someone has hacked into the server they know it's him and give to e the order to kill him considering executioner types are meant to dispose of other Androids they often have to go undercover as a different model as such to e would go under the moniker to be two UB does not have access or knowledge about any of your has Secrets or what it is 9s keeps uncovering she is an executioner who is simply carrying out her job when given the order the first time she had to kill 9s was one of the hardest As Told in the story memory cage 9s and 2B are assigned partners and 9s is pretty excited to be working with someone else and considering this was 2b's first time as well she perhaps indulged a little too much in conversation and connection it didn't really become a problem until she was given the order to execute 9s however due to his digging he found out that 2B was meant to kill him and launched his own counter-attack against her 9s does not want to kill her but by his own deductions it's the only way he'll survive he winds up hacking into her system where he digs through all of her memories being given the order by the commander so on and so forth but while in her system he is attacked by a a logic virus turns out 2B has a trap style logic virus placed in her system by the commander to counteract 9s's hacking the virus traps him and prevents him from escaping where his personal data is then deleted despite being in his final moments he doesn't hold it against 2B as he enjoyed their time together and simply says goodbye Tubi destroys his corpse however while doing so feels guilt to her the memories and conversations she had with him was data that wound up being more than necessary to complete her job and thus resulted in emotions she never should have been feeling so to prevent herself from feeling this again she decided to forbid herself from becoming too close to anyone else she'll keep the time and conversations she has with people to a minimum so she won't have this sort of reaction again this was Toby's mentality moving forward she would refuse to get attached to any 9s model in the future and would instead give them shoulder emotions are prohibited she would frequently repeat this phrase to herself and to him as a reminder while in his company but over time across the various 9ses that she had been partnered with it never worked nothing she did ever worked in the beginning she acted like a total stranger to him never getting to know each other rarely ever speaking but the outcome was the same so other times she talked more than she usually would she reached the point where she was doing anything she could to hopefully change the outcome that she knew was going to happen she tried many times to directly convince him that there was nothing suspicious going on with command but he always dug too deep it didn't matter what she did if she was warm or cold if she called him nines or didn't the execution order always inevitably came through witnessing this cycle of 9s being reborn over and over again was taxing they would repeat the same introductions have the same conversations tell the same jokes yet retain none of the memories they ever had even though they don't know it they lose who they are in the moment but to be kept all of her memories of him how he tends to act his personality he was the same pretty much every time he was always friendly and warm with her those moments were not lost on 2B and they only accumulated over time and it stung when a different version would say the same thing because it would remind her of a 9s that's now dead the memories she had of him were hurting her so much so that it began deteriorating her own personal data she was exhausted tired of it and ultimately ready to give up but in the story memory Thorn things would take an unexpected turn per usual the order eventually comes through for 2B to kill 9s the story repeats very similarly to memory cage further perpetuating this cycle the two are trapped in 9s has yet again figured out that 2B is meant to kill him and is waiting for the moment in which she is going to take action but unlike her usual self 2B is very wary this time she's tired and lethargic acting completely out of character the two are sent to the Lost Shrine by command on a research mission where the execution is meant to take place but while there they are attacked by machines it's not much of a problem they wind up destroying them but afterwards 2B falls down because she was infected by a logic virus perhaps the one that was already in her system but that detail doesn't matter much 9s hacks endure system so he can save her and get rid of it much to her own protests he does eventually manage to stop the virus but while in her system like the first time he notices blemishes within her personal data and investigates because maybe this was a symptom of the virus but what he uncovers is the truth he confirms that she is an executioner model and command has given the order to kill him but unlike the first version this 9s gets to see all of 2b's past memories with the other nine s's with each subsequent memory fragment and a different version of 9s killed he felt more and more pain from her system he came to understand how she was feeling and what she was going through so instead of killing her he allows her to wake up so they can talk upon Awakening 9s confirms that he knows everything but instead of carrying out her job to be admits defeat she can't go on any longer and says that she has failed her Mission she is disqualified from being a Type e and she is a defective product so to atone for her past actions she gives 9s her sword so he can kill her but instead 9s stabbed himself elf he tore open his own throat and did it with a smile on his face not a sadistic one but a kind smile he didn't want to kill 2B instead he was happy to just spend the time he did with her he tells her that even if he is reborn without any of the memories he'll always be happy to see her again so moving forward she shouldn't worry about having to kill him because so long as this cycle exists the two will always be able to see one another so she shouldn't hesitate to kill him in the future with that 9s died and 2B made a promise she was going to continue to kill him without hesitation not because it was her Mission but because it was nines's Final wish his wish to see each other again leading up to the events of the game 2b has killed 9s 47 times before I begin recapping the events of automata you should know that I'm going to be using the game and novelization as my reference even though you might wind up seeing scenes from the anime as of the making of this video the anime has yet to finish and it remains to be seen how it may wind up affecting the grander timeline as a whole as it currently stands the anime appears to be a Divergent timeline while the events are largely unaffected small details here and there are altered for example during the Pearl Harbor descent anemone is the one who survives but in the anime Lily was the Survivor they would both go on to do the exact same things but technically speaking the series of events are different and that may wind up snowballing by the end of the series there's no doubt that as the overseer of such things a chord is keeping an eye on what's playing out but anyway that was just a quick aside let's begin with the plot of near automata the game opens up on the 243rd descent operation carried out to destroy a Goliath class machine in the abandoned Factory six jorja units including 2B are sent from the bunker and towards the factory all accompanying your high units are shot down and eventually lost leaving 2B as the sole Android to carry out the mission on the ground 9s was assigned to support the others by disabling The Machine's defense system at the base the mission doesn't go exactly as they had hoped while 2B and 9s put up a valiant effort 9s sustains heavy damage while other similar machines rise from the water the whole situation seems entirely hopeless and so in a last-ditch effort the two decide to activate their black boxes and destroy all the machines fortunately 2b's data was uploaded to the bunker in time allowing her to be reactivated with her memories but as for 9s he wasn't able to upload his memories in time and so yet again he is reborn Anew it's why 2B clenches her fist during their introduction it's yet another reminder of her having to endure this cycle anyway the two are paired as a team yet again and Commander white asks them to Rendezvous with the resistance and do some Recon they've lost Communications with their contact on Earth and so 2B and 9s are sent to investigate upon making their way to the surface they're quick to Rendezvous with anemone at the resistance Camp after helping out a few of the Androids around she tells them about some Curious machine activity going on in the desert and asks them to investigate what they come across are the machines of facade who have taken up the culture and fashion even though I covered machines evolving to this stage a while ago it's the first time 9s and 2B are witnessing such machine Behavior so the emotions and speech and what they do is very foreign to most Androids they wipe out all of the machines in the surrounding area but one in particular managed to survive by running away and calling them scary they give Chase and the path eventually leads to a large Cavern with Android corpses littering the area what they find is a curious sight indeed it's a bunch of machines attempting to mimic human behavior a ton of varying activities that they don't exactly understand outside of the physical actions and movements 9s dubs this mere mimicry with no deeper meaning and so gets ready to destroy them all the machine they were following panics because of this threat which sends all of the other machines into a state of desperation fearing for their lives the machine searched the network for a method they could use to defeat the Androids and it came to the conclusion that they could use humans since they were the ones who invented the Androids the machines did not know which human to mimic until they came across the name Adam the first human created by God if humans created Androids and God created humans Adam was created in the image of God all of these machines sacrificed their cores and gave birth to the most advanced machine life form to date Adam while very basic upon his entry to the world he quickly learns by analyzing 2B and 9s who attacked him despite his speed of learning the two do wind up impaling him before his body failed he searched the network for something that could protect him and came across Eve in the exact same story Adam learned that there was another being born via his ribs and so that is what gave birth to Eve he lets out a monstrous yell that shakes the core of the earth and causes a collapse forcing 2B and 9s to retreat as for Adam and Eve they consider themselves human or at least wish to walk the path of them with no parents or teachers to guide or nurture them they consider themselves much like the first humans they're based off of banished from Eden they needed wisdom to survive for so long so if the brothers wish to survive they needed not only an equal but a greater amount of knowledge and intelligence in order to live without depending on anyone and that is precisely what they would seek the combat information as well as knowledge about Adam and Eve's existence is uploaded to command for analysis while in the meantime 2B and 9s are sent to investigate a missing your hop party at the amusement park upon their arrival they are yet again met with a group of machines unlike all of the others here they speak of joy and fun but at least this time around they're not hostile so the two simply look on with astounded curiosity and leave them alone eventually they make their way into the heart of the amusement park and into the theater where the yorha signals are coming from what they are met with is the songstress Simone bouvoir in the past she was an ordinary machine much like all of the others but she became obsessed with another named Jean-Paul he himself was his own form of unique constantly speaking about philosophy and Gathering followers he didn't care much about anything outside of philosophy and so paid very little attention to anything else Simone desperate to win over his affections thought that by becoming beautiful she would be able to draw his eye she accentuated her beauty with parts from her machine friends but was still ignored her sanity slowly began devolving as she became desperate to do anything that would make her beautiful she even heard rumors that eating an Android's flesh would make her more beautiful but it never worked despite this she still doesn't stop despite eating their flesh she does not kill them and instead hacks into their system and keeps them alive to use as weapons and bait more Androids to come and they did 2B and 9s launch a counter-attack on Simone and eventually managed to destroy her unfortunately none of the Androids she was using were able to make it out as she was the one keeping them alive on their way back there met with yet another unique machine life form bearing a white flag the two are invited to visit and meet Pascal well in the nearby Village considering it's their job to investigate machine life form activity the two check it out while they are initially hesitant to trust any machine even though they claim to be pacifists it's not until anemone vouches for them that the two believe they are well-meaning not too long after reports of a giant machine life form in the city ruins is relayed to them and so the two head off to intercept it the machine is causing quite a bit of Destruction but after getting into their flight units the two are eventually able to take it down but before it falls itself destructs resulting in massive damage to the surrounding area leaving a large sinkhole in its wake at this exact moment an alien signal which has not been picked up for centuries is detected the commander orders all yorha units to begin collecting data as quickly as possible so 2B and 9s head underground after making their way through various tunnels they come across what appears to be one of many alien motherships but are shocked upon entering to find only their lifeless bodies but from the Shadows emerge Adam and Eve they tell the two about the history of how the machines killed the aliens because they surpassed them all of that's in the past and they don't really care what they care about now are humans Adam and Eve wish to learn more about their complex behaviors love and hate the motivations behind their actions were baffling and so the two wanted to dissect the humans on the moon to better understand them they proposed this idea to 2B and 9s as well hoping they would agree to assist since it was humans who made them and they might be curious about them as well but the proposition is denied Adam and Eve then teleport away 2B and 9s returned to the bunker and report everything they learned from here they are ordered to continue investigating Pascal's Village and learn more about why unique machines like them are popping up in the area Pascal tells the two about the machine Network and how they're not connected to it so perhaps that's the reason why amongst his ramblings he makes mention of the forest Kingdom as they have attempted to build a nation so to gather more data the two head off the residents of the forest kingdom are a lot more aggressive than the typical machines due to their loyalty to protect their King they fight with intent so because of that the two have to hack and slash their way through quite a bit of enemies until they reach the King's throne room but you see they were not alone also having been maneuvering her way around the kingdom was a two she was continuing her journey of killing everything that wasn't her and after catching wind of a king she launched her own assault on the kingdom but on her path she overheard the machine speaking as if there were other Androids as well so she used them as a distraction while she stealthily made her way to the throne room while 2B and 9s are baffled as to the sight of their supposed King A2 jumps down and impales it she is yet again met with the likes of a 2E model along with a 9s unit but unlike the other times they were evidently not here for her they didn't recognize her face meaning they hadn't been given the order to hunt her down but that didn't stop command from immediately recommending 2B and 9s dispose of her at the moment A2 wasn't worried as she dealt with them many times before but this time she could tell things were different 9s's baffled reaction towards command's request was unlike how he ever reacted before and to be A2 could tell that she was missing her Vitality like she had given up and was simply going through the motions just like herself something was different about these two and so A2 stopped her attacks 9s asks why she betrayed them and A2 chooses to leave them with an ominous warning command is the one that betrayed you foreign the two returned to the resistance Camp to check on their data and refuel under the request of anemone they head to the flooded city to protect their valuable cargo that's under attack they requisition flight units and repel the enemy forces but from the ocean emerges groon a machine larger than anything yorha has ever seen it was originally developed to annihilate Androids however due to its destructive capabilities it also wound up having no regard for what it was destroying and took out machines as well it was so recklessly powerful that it was dumped into the ocean and left behind that was until now it's a long and grueling fight but after 9s hits it in the mouth with rockets grune is destroyed but in the aftermath of his death he launched a powerful EMP attack which devastates everything nearby the signal is lost between Androids and the bunker and 9s was blasted far away where he is then kidnapped by Adam by the time to be awakens and learns of 9s's disappearance she begins searching for him anemone helps her out by providing a temporary scanner to detect his black box following his signal she Ventures into the sinkhole and eventually enters a mysterious City made out of crystallized silicone and carbon this is the copied City Adam created it as a way to better understand humans he took 9s along with various other Android bodies to lure to be to this exact location you see in his plight to learn more about humans it frustrated him just how complicated they and learning about them was each time he learns something there comes another complicated concept he does not understand Adam has done his best to embody what it means to be human he wears the clothes reads the books eats food dude sings dances and attempts to understand them on an emotional level which is the most difficult hence why he boils down the essence of humanity to battle to fight steal and kill is what it means to be human love carries hate with it families are full of conflict and arguments civilization was developed to steal more and Society was constructed to kill more efficiently but he feels he cannot truly understand what it means to live as machines have no concept of death death is a perfect example of something Adam does not understand thanks to the machine Network they are always able to be reborn so how can he feel what it is humans felt to possess life without the threat of death so he disconnects himself from the network so he can face to be with actual Stakes on the line 2B is not a bystander in this situation either her emotions are running hotter than they have in a long time as she is desperate to save 9s his data hasn't been backed up in quite some time so if he died now who knows how many memories he would lose but simultaneously she is precisely proving Adam's point about conflict because 2B cares about 9s she's willing to fight and kill to protect him she's allowing hatred to overwhelm her emotions but it comes from a place of love all of these emotions Adam seeks to understand this is exactly the reason Adam tells her that machines and Androids are Kindred he even lets slip that humans are already extinct but suspects to be already knew that whether to be just learned this or has always suspected that to be true deep down she chooses to ignore these thoughts and instead engage in combat the moment is anti-climactic her sword slides through him without a hitch and Adam gets to experience the sensation he desired but the feeling of death is rather unsatisfying Toby is able to save 9s but Adam's words were not lost on her due to all of the recent events she could no longer consider machines just clumps of metal there was Adam and Eve who mimicked human appearance and spoke fluently Pascal's Village who desired a life of peace they were all clearly capable of thinking experiencing emotions and acting according to their own free wills what was the difference between the machines and Androids at this point while that idea simmers we should quickly go over 9s because something very interesting is about to happen due to his injuries 9s was brought back to the bunker so he could recover he fears that he may have been infected by a virus while being held captive and so performs an extensive scan of his own systems but while doing so he senses a strange data noise coming from the Bunker's main server and so investigates he discovers various documents which make him question your ha's true objective this is what he always does and while he doesn't uncover the truth about anything in fact he barely learned a thing from this this would usually be enough to Warrant an execution order from the commander but this time around she doesn't have him killed instead the commander tells him the truth at least as much of the truth as she knows which is that humans are extinct humans were already the extinct when the aliens attacked all the details are stored on this memory chip if you want to look at it I won't stop you wait you're giving me this but why no one fights without a reason and we need a God Worth Dying For it's unknown what exactly the Commander's motivation and intentions were with revealing such a fact to 9s but it seems to universally be agreed upon that she had a change of heart perhaps seeing 2B and 9s being able to push each other to great success thanks to being so emotionally attached was enough to risk giving him such knowledge perhaps like A2 she saw something special in these two units either way the commander allows 9s to choose his own path and decide what he'll do knowing this what path will you take it's up to you to decide in the meantime while this was all happening 2B was to analyze current trends among the machines Pascal tells her that a new Colony has popped up and are seeking a treaty with theirs due to their similar interest 2B and Pascal investigate together what they come across are the god robots who embody Humanity's religion the thing about machines like these is that they don't actually learn from humans as past failures instead they just mimic it but at an accelerated rate despite having recently popped up the leader of these God robots has already turned their religion basically into a cult and convinced everyone that they can Ascend and become a god since God is dead they can become Gods if they died too all of the god robots go crazy and commit mass suicide this event was largely to pull the player away from the resistance Camp because all hell is about to break loose while I've talked a bit about Adam and his desire to become human I haven't really been covering Eve but that's because he's not the most complex Eve is a very simple-minded individual he's not a deep thinker like his brother he often instead wanted to play and do physical activities and that physical part makes sense because Eve was literally created to be Adam's Shield as such his main desire is simply to protect his brother and be with him at all times but after Adam's death Eve went on a rampage and swore to kill everyone his rage not only affected him but a portion of the machine Network as well and he caused the machine life forms to share in his Insanity the machines turns Savage and begin attacking and eating the Androids alive this is when 2B gets word of the chaos breaking out and rushes to help she runs back and forth from the resistance Camp to Pascal's Village trying to prevent as many casualties as possible 9s descends from the bunker to help out and together the two confront Eve he is much more physically dangerous than his brother he is not only stronger and outputting more energy but he is also still connected to the machine Network so while 2B fights him head on 9s takes the dangerous risk of hacking into his system to disconnect him manually ultimately it works Eve uses the last of his energy with an EMP which gives to be the opportunity to kill him for good but 9s's actions were not without consequence he got infected with the logic virus and so asks that to be kill him while he's still sane she yet again breaks her code of prohibiting emotions because she does not want to lose the 9s that exists right now the hymn that disconnected Eve from the network the hymn that together took Eve down but there's nothing he can do he's already corrupted and can't upload that data to the bunker and so to be yet again men cannot Escape her Destiny of killing 9s but in an unexpected series of events because 9s hacked into Eve remnants of his personal data was left behind in the machine Network so he gets to continue living as himself I'm glad you're okay yeah he moves his memories into some of the machines and gets re-uploaded into a new 9s chassis but the story does not end here Adam and Eve may have been killed but they were not the machine Network they were acting as its backbone for as long as they existed and so with their death it threw the machine's chain of command into chaos and the Androids wish to capitalize yorha is to launch an all-out attack on the machines and take back Earth with that various jorha squadrons were sent to Earth's surface for their final major operation it wasn't their final because it was the time they would take back Earth but it was their final because your ha's purpose was fulfilled enough data had been collected to fund the next generation of combat Androids so it was time for your hot to be destroyed and all of the evidence wiped from existence on the surface of the Earth just to show how hopeless the situation was the machines weren't crippled by Adam and Eve's death at all all it didn't take many machines whatsoever to overwhelm the yorha soldiers they were able to wipe out almost all of them by activating an EMP which infected each of them with the logic virus 9s was able to save 2B but everyone else was gone they only managed to escape the situation by detonating their black boxes and re-uploading their conscience into a spare body on the bunker they rushed to tell the commander about what happened but due to them disobeying their orders she is more frustrated with their actions but while this argument is taking place the back door on the bunker which number nine implemented way back when is opened and the Machine Network gets in it accesses your has server and infects everyone connected to it with the logic virus while 2B 9s and the commander would fight their way to the flight unit so they could escape the commander reveals that she too is infected and is choosing to go down with the base I command this place is lost commander of it to be that's in order [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] [Music] thank you [Music] [Music] with that project jorja is destroyed everything went according to plan this was exactly what was always supposed to happen that is except the survival of 2B and 9s in an unforeseen series of events 9s was responsible for uploading his and 2b's data to the bunker server but paused it when he noticed some weird noise so because they weren't connected to the server they were not infected with the logic virus when the machines took it over the only other jorja units that would have survived this are anyone else who was already disconnected from the server during the attack such as A2 but just because they survived did not mean they were in the clear just yet infected jorja units also boarded flight units and gave Chase to them the two were almost hopeless to fight back against the numbers and so to be made a decision she took the flight controls away from 9s and against his will sent him to safety while she drew the attention of everyone in an act of self-sacrifice unfortunately 2B was not going to get out of this one she was shot down and infected with the virus that slowly began eating at her body she determines that to keep it from spreading to other Androids she needs to get to a location away from everyone else her pod tells her that the commercial center is ideal and so she drags her body all the way there Moore infected your high unit meet her and begin attacking but 2B is unexpectedly saved by A2 it's the end of the road for to be she's barely managing to hold on to her Consciousness but in her final moments entrusts the future to Aid too she stores her memories on her sword and gives it to her these are my memories take care of everyone for me take care of the future eight it was an odd situation to say the least the two hadn't known each other to any extent they met only once and they clashed A2 had no obligation to listen or honor her final words but she chose to she couldn't refuse when her dying comrades asked the same thing of her and the way to be heaved out those words was so vivid of her past so A2 said she would after taking hold of her sword and gaining access to 2b's Memories she was able to see all the things she had seen hear all of the things she had heard and feel the pain that she had felt and Within These Memories she saw someone that she thought long dead anemone A2 had no idea she was still alive and felt grateful to 2B for bringing her this news as a testament to accepting her memories and wishes she cut her hair with the sword from now on she'll live in the image of 2B as it's the best she can do while this was happening 9s was desperately trying to find 2B but when he arrived he caught the tail end of A2 killing her oh nice oh no to be no oh I'll kill you laughs the rise of a massive white structure then separates the two firstly what is this white Tower basically the machines are looking to utterly annihilate Android morale and the best way to do this is by destroying the server on the moon the tower functions much like a cannon they're going to use to blow up the moon in front of everyone's eyes to collect the materials to use as a projectile they set up resource recovery units these three locations are meant to do two things collect parts from machines Androids and anything really but at the same time collecting said data of whatever it takes in if it absorbs an Android it'll learn everything that that Android knew so on and so forth so these locations were helping the machines get smarter and collecting resources for a massive projectile from here we diverge into two separate paths what 9s is doing and what A2 is doing I'll start start off with A2 since not as much happens so upon waking up she is greeted by pod042 to be ordered that they support A2 in her Endeavors from now on a2's first priority was getting herself fixed up while she traditionally forged Parts off of dead yorha corpses now they were all infected with a virus so if she used them she would get infected too so she turned to the resistance camp on her way she did run into Pascal initially she planned to kill him on the spot as she had done to every machine she'd come across but Pascal responded as he usually does with a surprising amount of sophisticated dictation he waited to be executed figuring that if that's what she wants then so be it but a sense of unease washed over A2 and so she let him go inside the resistance Camp her reunion with anemone went exactly as she had thought she had the same surprised Outlook that A2 had when she she found out that anemone was still alive A2 chooses to spare her the truth about what transpired during the Pearl Harbor descent and how they were abandoned and betrayed by command instead she keeps it to herself and keeps the conversation brief anemone directs her to Pascal who likely has the parts that she needs a2's reluctant nature towards machine life forms is tested once more A2 spends some time in Pascal's Village but after a period of time she slowly grows closer to him and the villagers as children she keeps running errands for them because she doesn't want to be indebted but over time winds up building toys and such for them but one day while she's out Gathering materials The Village goes crazy Pascal calls her telling her that some of the villagers have turned into cannibals and are attacking the others A2 quickly rushes over to save them but when she arrives it is pure chaos fortunately Pascal was able to evacuate the chill to the abandoned Factory A2 deals with all of the rampant machines but unfortunately there are no survivors A2 and Pascal Retreat to the abandoned Factory where they wonder what the hell just happened well while they wouldn't know it in Truth as I mentioned a while back despite thinking that they were disconnected from the network Pascal and all of the villagers were never free what had happened was the red girls wanted to stress test their experiment in a village full of pacifists what happens when they need to defend themselves they infected some of the villagers and watched what happened the result is that many didn't do anything and instead died there was only one machine that wound up changing from this event and that was Pascal the result is that he fights the red girls send hordes of machines towards the abandoned Factory where only the remnants of the villagers children remain while A2 tries to fend them off it's only thanks to Pascal who has decided to kill that everyone is saved Pascal was pushed to a point in which he gained self-determination while the battle was won the aftermath would not be so pretty when they returned to the children they had all committed suicide Pascal blames himself for teaching them about fear instead of teaching them about the fear of death the pain is too great to endure and so asks A2 to either kill him or erase his memories A2 understands the agony of living on with the memories of those who were dear and so she has her pod a race Pascal's memories after leaving the factory she catches glimpse of a machine unit and goes to investigate for now that is a two's story let's get to 9s the death of to be dramatically affected 9s as he was overcome by grief and rage he goes from Simply fighting the enemy to enacting revenge on both them and A2 his desire to kill increases as his mental state slowly deteriorates after tubi's death he was rescued by devila who was out Gathering resources in the region he was brought back to the resistance camp where she and Poplar looked after him for two weeks while he was unconscious after waking up it wasn't too long before he set back out to find and kill a two he first investigated the tower that cropped up but was denied access the machine Network told him that he needed access keys from the resource recovery unit if he wanted to enter and so he set out but you see this was not a coincidence while these subunits are meant to gather resources and data part of that data collection was on 9s himself the red girls have taken a particular interest in him and wished to learn more about him push him see how he reacts to certain stimuli that sort of thing the first Recovery Unit simply tests his outlook on machines various life forms scream for help and beg for their lives but by this point 9s is headstrong in his hatred for them he says that they are meaningless words predetermined and recorded according to its programming the core that controls the facility begs for help and even despite 9s's pods weak protests he has him mercilessly destroy it prepare energy close range firing mode maximum output 9s fire thank you with his emotions running hot over the machines the second Recovery Unit was the perfect time to test him psychologically there were no enemies to be found instead all there was was information data the truth first was the general purpose of the Tower and how it was pointed at the Moon a worrisome thought but he was already planning to stop the machines the second piece of information given to him was about the black boxes he was given the truth about how they were made from machine cores what better time to see how he reacts to this when he is boiling with hatred over machines and his response is simply to go into denial he believes it's a lie since the information is coming from machines as a test but both are true but his final test became literally psychological while hacking he was counter-hacked and placed in a room with all of his memories of two B they knew how important she was to him and so a shadow began eating all of the memories of her one by one in front of him these are his treasures and he's not gonna let anyone take them away from him foreign my memories do you hear me 9s has been bottling up his emotions for so long that he's lost his self-control everything shameful and dirty has flowed out of him bit by bit that he's become obsessive over her he'll kill anyone that hurts her touches her comes near her looks at her he is the only one that is allowed to have to be the final resource unit dubbed the god box placed a familiar face as its guard while I haven't talked about her operator 21-0 was 9s's personal operator throughout his run he was always reporting into her and they had their own little form of banter but now she has been reprogrammed and is being used to fight against 9s initially he is actually very confident as he suspects this to be yet another psychological attempt to mess with him she acts very much like a puppet being used by the machines that is until she starts talking operator 210 all of a sudden begin repeating the lines you would frequently say to 9s and even asks that he kill her he didn't know if this was her own Consciousness still lingering or the machines forcing it out but it did mess with his head as he swore to put her out of her misery ultimately he is able to take her down but is naive in believing she was killed operator 210 launches an attack but is taken down by A2 who has just arrived A2 takes the moment to ensure 21-0's death by destroying her black box oh A2 to be told me you told me she wanted you to become a good person you don't you dare talk to me about Lucy stop but yet again the flooring beneath him collapses and he misses out on the opportunity once more when he wakes up he returns to the tower as he has collected all the necessary access keys to enter but when he does he is attacked by hordes of machines that he cannot take on alone he is then unexpectedly assisted by devila and popola thanks to their help the doors are able to be opened and he can get inside they act not only to atone for their sins but to simultaneously help 9s be closer to the one that he cares about in the same vein that devila and Poplar love each other due to everything that they've been through they see the same thing in 9s it's also because of this that the twins choose to seal their fate and die together upon entering the tower 9s is confronted with a whole group of two bees the machines have either obtained or created their own chassis of her and are yet again psychologically pushing 9s perhaps perhaps they would have hoped that he would be defenseless against her but he was indifferent they had reconstructed to be and animated her without his permission he is the only one that is allowed to destroy to be he takes off his goggles so he can see her in all of her glory while he kills them every last one of you one by one 9s slices through all of the puppets until there is only one remaining as he pierced its heart in its final moments it detonated sending 9s flying back and the room collapsing by the time he awoke his own chassis was damaged his left arm had been torn from his body and next to him lie the last remaining to be from the fight which miraculously wasn't buried nines's fight wasn't over yet and so he tore the arm from tubi's body and used it as his own the arm was infected with the logic virus but he does manage to eliminate it for just a little while longer further in the tower he is confronted directly by the red girls since he's made it this far they divulge your hus biggest secret to him 9s learns that everything was meant to fail the red girls question if he'll continue fighting on he has no reason to fight his existence is and has always been meaningless that means all of us to be do you still wish to fight but yet 9s continues on mostly driven by hatred and his desire to destroy every machine he hijacks some flight units and uses them to reach the top of the tower but as for A2 she pretty much began following the aftermath of 9s's Destruction by the time she reaches the tower devila and poplar's fight had already subsided poplar's signal was already gone but devila was there barely hanging on keeping the door open so A2 could enter as well A2 can't bring herself to ask what happened but devila simply asks if they were able to help to which A2 tells them that they did did we manage to help he did devila then passes away as well a2's Journey throughout the tower is significantly more calm most of her time is spent gathering information and learning about what the machines know and what they are doing but then A2 is counter hacked by the red girls it's been a long time since they last saw each other the Pearl Harbor descent was when A2 last caught a glimpse of them but she immediately remembered while the right girls do what they have been doing by revealing information that gets under our character's skin it is a2's instinctual reaction to begin attacking wildly the red girls boast their Superior intelligence and evolution as they multiply end over end A2 is creating no progress in creating a weakness within the enemy and so pod042 steps in he tells her to stop fighting and focus on defending so the red girls can continue to multiply since they're so eager to be like Humanity they wind up shooting its same faults Humanity too rapidly multiplied and wound up fighting with each other which led to killing until eventually they became extinct it wasn't themselves who caused their demise but rather something they had created and the same thing happens to the red girls they multiplied too rapidly and each ego began clashing with the others which led to infighting before long their numbers quickly dwindled and the girls eventually vanished they killed themselves but the machine Network didn't just collapse their resolution will come soon A2 is able to escape the hacking and make her way to the top of the tower where 9s also resides while he is hungry for vengeance A2 initially refuses to take up a fighting stance 9s if it wasn't already clear has lost his mind his existence was meaningless project jorha was for nothing at this point all he was holding onto was to be and the fact that A2 killed her was enough reason for the two to kill each other 9s wasn't going to back down no matter what and the logic virus that was corrupting his system is spreading more he needed to kill A2 before the virus took him over while he still had memories of 2B and so the two ultimately clashed take care of 9s to be [Laughter] laughs thank you in the end both of them killed each other but as 9s faded away his Consciousness entered the tower it turns out the machine network is not going to fire a projectile at the Moon instead it changed its mind after observing Androids unique machines like Pascal's Village in the forest Kingdom others like Adam and Eve what they are instead going to do is search for a new world they're using the tower to launch an ark they're putting all of the machine data and memories aboard and traveling into the vastness of space for eternity time has no meaning to machines so they may never reach a destination but they're going in search of it anyway they offer 9s the opportunity to come along but he chooses to stay and die and with that the tower collapses all the machines on Earth go offline or are disconnected from the network free to go about life as they choose and project yaha has officially come to an end every yorha unit is dead and so the pods can initiate the final sequence and delete all Android related data personal data along with chassis composition will all be deleted and the server reset future construction of your high Androids should be theoretically impossible but something unexpected happens in the same way Evolution has been occurring amongst the Androids and machines when it came to emotions the same thing was happening to the pods pods153 and 042 have developed emotional and sentimental feelings towards their leads and don't want them to die so instead of deleting everyone's data they Salvage it such an act is a declaration of war against all the other pods overseeing Earth the Pod Network perceived them as damage because of their failure to follow orders and initiated routines to delete them so 150 three and zero four two fought back they launched an attack on the Pod Network so they could delete the program saying that yorha had to be deleted and ultimately they succeeded the plans for jorha's deletion were gone from their orders so they were allowed to salvage all their past Memories the pods began work on collecting and salvaging all the necessary parts so they could repair their leads chassis and upload their personal data back into their bodies and in the end 2B 9s and A2 were all repaired and given a second chance at life a life without machines or War an unforeseen future with an unforeseen outcome then won't that simply lead us to the same conclusion as before deny the possibility however the possibility of a different future also exists [Music] a future is not given to you it is something you must take for yourself [Music] technically speaking this is not the end of near's timeline there is currently a mobile game called a near reincarnation that is without a doubt part of this timeline however as of the making of this video the game has yet to finish so it remains to be seen how and where it fits in there are many theories out there which speculate that it may all be about the memories of the humans which have been stored and are currently being watched over but then again some believe it may not only be a continuation of near's timeline but draken guards as well considering this is yokotaro we're talking about making guesses before the product has fully been released is a mistake I'm not going to risk wasting your time on at least not in this video so near reincarnation is going to have to wait [Music] in the end life is ultimately meaningful it doesn't matter if you're driven by purpose kill out of Revenge fight for your friends or fight for nothing at all everything returns to nothing death is the great equalizer which comes for all but that doesn't mean life doesn't have value all beings are capable of experiencing happiness and loss even the most unexpected of souls were able to find something worth fighting for friends to share in those emotions and a purpose to keep living on it doesn't matter that everything is designed to end it's what's felt during those moments you're there that count [Music] thank you [Music]

Channel: EruptionFang

Views: 763,316

Keywords: eruptionfang, anime, nier, nier timeline, complete unabridged timeline of nier, drakengard, nier automata, nier replicant, eruptionfang timeline, drakengard timeline, nier story, nier explianed, nier story explianed, complete nier timeline, nier manga, nier stage play, drakengard story explained, nier automata story, gaming timeline, drakengard nier lore, nier automata anime, complete timeline, nier automata story summary

Id: 9WU1mvH6bqo

Length: 384min 42sec (23082 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 27 2023

Reddit Comments

[u/crunchatizemythighs]

You ever just hear about a game series and it's lore and you just know it will always be this nebulous thing to you that you think maybe one day you'll experience but you know deep down you'll probably never play it before you die?

That's how I feel about things like the DrakenNier series, the Xeno series, practically most long running JRPGs that get sequels with obscure ties like this.

[u/Stofenthe1st]

Man, I thought I was well versed in the DrakeNier. The backstory for Caim and the Intoners, the whole Legion plot from Nier, and those stage plays for Automata. It’s easy to how this would lead to a 6 hour, even with it skipping the various endings and only focusing on the ones that lead into each other.

[u/SonOfSpades]

Does this cover the FFXIV part of Nier that is supposedly canon?

[u/MadnessBunny]

Ive been craving big lore videos about games with interesting/hard to follow plots like this. Any other recommendations?

[u/SlowTeal]

Great video, however there were a couple of errors. For one he says that in the initial release of Nier he was Father Nier and for the remaster they changed it to Brother Nier. This is incorrect, when Nier released in Japan it was originally Brother Nier, when they localized the game for the west they were afraid western gamers wouldn't like playing as a scrawny kid so they revised him into a middle aged man. Brother Nier has always been canon. Also he skips the Queen Beast ending of Drakengard 3 which imo, is pretty important to the chronology of the whole thing.

[u/lazydogjumper]

Honestly, as much as i like the idea that they sre connected, and there are many threads, it still feels like they really have no connection at all. The stories are so separate and the threads are so thin and connect in such miniscule ways that knowing the lore for one has almost no bearing on the gameplay of any others.

[u/Sierra--117]

OP, definitely watch Clemps' Draken-Nier story and lore series! (Covers the supplementary material too)

Playlist

[u/Shuviri]

Even though I've played all the games I am still holding on of watching the video, just because I haven't consumed all the side material of Automata, did it for Replicant and I especially loved the Drama CD

[u/mekefa]

It's crazy how much effort was put into this. I'm half through the video and highly recommend it to anyone who likes this universe.