History Fridge / MegaManZero

** The battle music for Copy X's OneWingedAngel form, "Fake", is also a rearrangement of the battle music used for Vile and Sigma's fortress bosses in the original ''Mega Man X''. To date, Vile has ''never'' been the BigBad in ''any'' game he's appeared in; the most he's ever been is a pawn or TheDragon for Sigma, the X series' perennial BiggerBad. [[spoiler:Next time we see Copy X, he's a pawn for the ''Zero'' series BiggerBad, Dr. Weil, who's also been pulling the strings for the entire series. ''Copy X is a fake BigBad.'']]

* Zero's decision to kill Weil seems to be spitting on the laws of robotics that were so important to the series. However, his decision is in accordance to the Zeroth Law of Robotics which in essence is a threshold law designed to protect the human race, as obeying law 1 would cause humanity to be harmed through inaction. It's made especially ironic given that Zero was never built with the laws in mind (Wily made him and all, and he's technically a "Robot Master"), yet he unwittingly follows the most important law.

*** Weil is also a mass murderer despot. The sprirt of Law Zero was intended specifically to stop people like him (think of Adolf Hitler and Pol Pot), and will override the first law.

*** Speaking of which, remember the ending of ''VideoGame/MegaMan7''? Wily got away because Mega Man couldn't follow the Zeroth law. Then he went on to create the Maverick Virus, and you know the rest. By following the Zeroth Law, Zero was able to do what Mega Man could not -- destroy the villain and create an era of peace.
* The final battle with Zero and Omega Zero can mirror the fact that Zero is fighting his [[SuperPoweredEvilSide old self]]. Remember that in ''X2'', Sigma made reference to Dr. Wily for Zero being his last creation made. In ''X4'', we know who the silhouette is in the beginning of Zero's nightmare. And ''X5'', everyone obviously knows, but Sigma does not refer to him by name to X and Zero. Also, Zero was ''AxCrazy'' with Sigma's flashback. All the plot build-up from the entire ''X'' series to ''Zero 3'" makes a true resolution of the story of Zero finally taking down what represented his evil side. And since Zero lost his original body, Dr. Wily's final creation is technically destroyed, but the original Zero's mind still exists.

** By extension, the [[BlindIdiotTranslation Z-Saver]] chip in the Battle Network series features Zero series Zero through the same connection.
** This may count as Fridge Heartwarming: At the end of the series, Zero is dead and is supposedly in Cyberspace. Fastforward to VideoGame/ProjectXZone, Iris is brought back thanks to the representatives of Franchise/DotHack. Now, what does .hack have in common with the Mega Man series? Cyberspace. Zero also vows to find Iris once again. So, in essence, at the end of the series, Zero and Iris are finally [[TogetherInDeath reunited]].

* Of course the Proto Form[=/=]Junk Armor would reduce your defense. WordOfGod says it's the Black Zero armor from the X games. Where does Black Zero appear the first time? At the end of ''X2'', when it was easily destroyed with a single slash.
* Due to Copy X's nature, he was doomed to go crazy. When Copy X finally meets Zero, he freely admits that he is a copy of the original. But how exactly did he come to this conclusion? ''Everyone'' believed him to be the true X, except for Ciel. Imagine how his life would have been ever since he was born; he's activated as a newborn reploid with the experience of a child, but everyone around him believes that he's their beloved X come back to them. Already, he's had an impossibly heavy mantle of expectations hefted onto his shoulders before he even really knows what's going on. So he tries to fit into these large shoes and be the 'X' they want him to be -- after all, they say he's X, so he ''must'' be X, right? But... he doesn't have any of the memories or experiences of the original X. Eventually, he comes to the only real conclusion; that he's only a copy of the original. His entire life is based on a gigantic lie. If everyone knew the truth, they would abandon him, because he's not the X that everyone loved and respected. He, understandably, suffers a psychotic break. It's at this point that he begins his campaign of iron-fisted rule, because if he can't ''be'' the beloved X, then he has no choice but to be ''better'' than him in order to earn that love by his own merits. Copy X might be a cruel tyrant, but his upbringing really didn't leave any room for anything but an unstable, emotionally skewed individual.

** The battle music for Copy X's OneWingedAngel form, "Fake", is also a rearrangement of the battle music used for Vile and Sigma's fortress bosses in the original ''Mega Man X''. To date, Vile has ''never'' been the BigBad in ''any'' game he's appeared in; the most he's ever been is a pawn or TheDragon for Sigma, the X series' perennial BiggerBad. [[spoiler: Next time we see Copy X, he's a pawn for the ''Zero'' series BiggerBad, Dr. Weil, who's also been pulling the strings for the entire series. ''Copy X is a fake BigBad.'']]

* Think of the attitudes humanity has towards genuinely non-violent robots: in [=MM9=], we see [[spoiler:the Robot Masters are still online when Wily finds them]]. In [=MMX6=], Gate's Reploids are killed off due to their potential risks instead of merely reassigned; in the context of this series, robots are basically sentient, so humans are willing to leave living people ''to basically starve to death, or outright kill them, out of convenience.'' Yet, people like Dr. Wily and Weil get to live, with no "kill on sight" orders established before being captured. How ''horrifically'' skewed are humanity's priorities towards robots and humans to even allow this to happen? The worst part about this? This means that Dr. Weil's BreakingSpeech ''[[StrawmanHasAPoint has ground.]]'' [[HumansAreBastards Only humans understand the joy of power, indeed.]]
** This goes double when you read [[AllThereInTheManual Mega Man Zero Official Complete Works]]; his reason for starting the Elf Wars was that he thought Reploids were getting off too easy for the massive destruction caused in the Maverick Wars, especially once the plan to solve the Maverick problem was to basically install anti-virus software and call things even. On the surface, it makes sense; each ''X'' series game chronologically takes place a few months after the last one, meaning not even half a decade had passed since Reploids were made before Sigma caused multiple wars and a ColonyDrop. And similar to how Weil fails to grasps his exile was his own fault, the wars were humanity's fault for making Reploids so powerful in the first place.

** The battle music for Copy X's OneWingedAngel form is also a rearrangement of the battle music used for Vile and Sigma's fortress bosses in the original ''Mega Man X''. Vile was the first boss of that game, and easily mistaken for the BigBad as a result when he's really just a pawn for Sigma, the ''actual'' BigBad. [[spoiler: Next time we see Copy X, he's revealed to be a pawn for the ''Zero'' series' BiggerBad, Dr. Weil.]]

** The battle music for Copy X's OneWingedAngel form is also a rearrangement of the battle music used for Vile and Sigma's fortress bosses in the original Mega Man X. Appropriate, given Zero's opinion of Copy X. He sees Copy-X the same way he saw Vile; a villainous rebel without a cause to fight for who could only ever be the BigBad of ''anything'' if there wasn't some BiggerBad for him to be a pawn of. [[spoiler: We meet the BiggerBad in ''Zero 2''.]]

** The battle music for Copy X's OneWingedAngel form is also a rearrangement of the battle music used for Vile and Sigma's fortress bosses in the original Mega Man X. Appropriate, given Zero's opinion of Copy X. He sees Copy-X the same way he saw Vile; a villainous rebel with no cause to fight for who could only ever be the BigBad of ''anything'' if there wasn't some BiggerBad for him to be a pawn to. [[spoiler: We meet the BiggerBad in ''Zero 2''.]]

** It was also in the underground lab Ciel found Zero in, so that data probably included backups of Zero's memories, in addition to blueprints for his weapons. So this might also be why he never completely recovers from his EasyAmnesia.

* In the first game, you're sent to retrieve data from the intro level. When you get back with it, Ciel laments that aside from the Triple Rod and Shield Boomerang blueprints, most of the data was corrupted and useless. Because it was stored on the server inside the boss you shot at, electrocuted, and/or sliced in half to get to it. [[NiceJobBreakingItHero Oops.]]
** It was also in the underground lab Ciel found Zero in, so that data probably included backups of Zero's memories, in addition to blueprints for his weapons.

* In the first game, you're sent to retrieve data from the intro level. When you get back with it, Ciel laments that most of the data was corrupted and useless; they were only able to recover enough of it to create the Triple Rod and Shield Boomerang. Because it was stored on the server inside the boss you shot at, electrocuted, and/or sliced in half to get to it. [[NiceJobBreakingItHero Oops.]]

* In the first game, you're sent to retrieve data from the intro level. When you get back with it, Ciel laments that most of the data was corrupted and useless; they were only able to recover enough of it to create the Triple Rod and Shield Boomerang. Because it was stored on the server inside the boss you shot at, electrocuted, and/or sliced in half to get to it. And it was in the lab Zero was found in before Maha Ganeshariff got to it, so that data probably included backups of Zero's memories, in addition to blueprints for his weapons. [[NiceJobBreakingItHero Whoops.]]

** X and Zero have both fought OneWingedAngel bosses many times before, and so they would know how to exploit BossArenaIdiocy to their advantage. Copy-X does not have that experience, and his OneWingedAngel form has all the same design flaws Sigma's various forms had in the previous series.

*** All of this come up because Weil himself brings up the topic, that Reploids like Zero should serve, and never harm, humanity. It basically blows on Weil's face due to the Zeroth Law.

* The final battle with Zero and Omega Zero can mirror the fact that Zero is fighting his [[SuperPoweredEvilSide old self]]. Remember that in X2, Sigma made reference to Dr. Wily for Zero being his last creation made. In X4, we know who the silhouette is in the beginning of Zero's nightmare. And X5, everyone obviously know, but Sigma does not refer him by name to X and Zero. Also, Zero was ''AxCrazy'' with Sigma's flashback. All the plot build-up from the entire X series to Zero 3 makes a true resolution of the story of Zero finally taking down what represented as his evil side. And since Zero lost his original body, Dr. Wily's final creation is technically destroyed, but the original Zero's mind still exists.
* Why doesn't X show up in Zero 4? He's finally dead. In Zero 2, his physical body's destroyed, and in Zero 3, he leaves Zero to return to Cyberspace.

** By extension the [[BlindIdiotTranslation Z-Saver]] chip in the Battle Network series features Zero series Zero through the same connection.
** This may count as Fridge Heartwarming: At the end of the series, Zero is dead and is supposedly in Cyberspace. Fastforward to VideoGame/ProjectXZone, Iris is brought back thanks to the representatives of Franchise/DotHack. Now what does .hack have in common with the Mega Man series? Cyberspace. Zero also vows to find Iris once again. So in essence at the end of the series, Zero and Iris are finally [[TogetherInDeath reunited]].

* Of course the Proto Form[=/=]Junk Armor would reduce your defense. WordOfGod says it's the Black Zero armor from the X games. Where does Black Zero appear the first time? At the end of X2, when it was easily destroyed with a single slash.
* Due to Copy X's nature, he was doomed to go crazy. When Copy X finally meets Zero, he freely admits that he is a copy of the original. But how exactly did he come to this conclusion? ''Everyone'' believed him to be the true X, except for Ciel. Imagine how his life would have been ever since he was born; he's activated as a newborn reploid with the experience of a child, but everyone around him believes that he's their beloved X come back to them. Already he's had an impossibly heavy mantle of expectations hefted onto his shoulders before he even really knows what's going on. So he tries to fit into these large shoes and be the 'X' they want him to be -- after all, they say he's X, so he ''must'' be X, right? But ... he doesn't have any of the memories or experiences of the original X. Eventually, he comes to the only real conclusion; that he's only a copy of the original. His entire life is based on a gigantic lie. If everyone knew the truth, they would abandon him, because he's not the X that everyone loved and respected. He, understandably, suffers a psychotic break. It's at this point that he begins his campaign of iron-fisted rule, because if he can't ''be'' the beloved X, then he has no choice but to be ''better'' than him in order to earn that love by his own merits. Copy X might be a cruel tyrant, but his upbringing really didn't leave any room for anything but an unstable, emotionally skewed individual.

** Remember, Wily became evil because his pride was hurt. Meaning if he won, it would be more or less just to prove he's better than Dr Light. If he won, mankind would probably just have to deal with his ego for a couple decades until Dr Wily dies (he's already quite old.) Compare that with the nigh undying [[WellIntentionedExtremist Sig]][[KillAllHumans ma]] and [[ItsAllAboutMe Doc]][[FantasticRacism tor]] [[DystopiaJustifiesTheMeans Weil]], and [[RootingForTheEmpire you'll be rooting for Dr Wily in no time.]]

* Think of the attitudes humanity has towards genuinely non-violent robots: in [=MM9=] we see [[spoiler:the Robot Masters are still online when Wily finds them.]] In [=MMX6=], Gate's Reploids are killed off due to their potential risks instead of merely reassigned; in the context of this series, robots are basically sentient, so humans are willing to leave living people ''to basically starve to death, or outright kill them, out of convenience.'' Yet, people like Dr. Wily and Weil get to live, with no "kill on sight" orders established before being captured. How ''horrifically'' skewed are humanity's priorities towards robots and humans to even allow this to happen? The worst part about this? This means that Dr Weil's BreakingSpeech ''[[StrawmanHasAPoint has ground.]]'' [[HumansAreBastards Only humans understand the joy of power, indeed.]]
** This goes double when you read [[AllThereInTheManual Mega Man Zero Official Complete Works]]; his reason for starting the Elf Wars was that he thought Reploids were getting off too easy for the massive destruction caused in the Maverick Wars, especially once the plan to solve the Maverick problem was to basically install anti-virus software and call things even. On the surface it makes sense; each X series game chronologically takes place a few months after the last one, meaning not even half a decade had passed since Reploids were made before Sigma caused multiple wars and a ColonyDrop. And similar to how Weil fails to grasps his exile was his own fault, the wars were humanity's fault for making Reploids so powerful in the first place.
** All of them makes Weil [[UpToEleven even more terrifying.]] How? Because it means he had a good reason behind his FantasticRacism. ''He [[WellIntentionedExtremist ha]][[JumpingOffTheSlipperySlope d]]'' '''JUSTIFICATION.'''
* Weil's "warning shot" with the Ragnarok was the only reason Zero & co. were able to defeat him. If Weil had just kept his mouth shut and improved his aim (which he had plenty of time for since he was presumed dead from the destruction of Neo Arcadia), he could have used that shot to annihilate Area Zero ''or'' the Resistance base where Zero and Ciel were at the time. That's right, if it weren't for the VillainBall, [[TheBadGuyWins Weil would have won,]] [[YouAreTooLate right then,]] [[TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt right there,]] [[DownerEnding with nothing you could do about it.]]
* From the manual: Weil was among the scientists who tried to resolve the Maverick Wars; specifically, he and his colleagues studied Zero's empty body. However, while Ciel's ancestor studied Zero's cognitive program for a cure, Dr. Weil viewed Zero's body as the ideal weapon to end the wars and used it develop Omega, while Ciel's ancestor created the Mother Elf, which would be used by the original X to purge the Sigma Virus for good. Dr. Weil then proposed Project Elpizo, a plan to combine the Mother Elf with Omega to exert control over all Reploids. This put Dr. Weil at odds with X's ideals of coexistence between humans and Reploids. Undeterred, Dr. Weil placed a "curse" on the Mother Elf that turned her into the Dark Elf, and created clones named Baby Elves to control Reploids and make them fight eachother in a massive battle royale. The panic and destruction caused the people to favor Project Elpizo, but X and Zero (whose program was put in a new body) recaptured the Dark Elf, forcing Dr. Weil to unleash Omega in the battlefield. Omega would move on to slay a large number of humans and Reploids before being finally defeated by X and Zero. Omega was sent away to Earth's orbit in the Forbidden Ark, while a group of humans converted Dr. Weil into a cyborg and cursed him to wander the wastelands of Earth as punishment for his crimes.\\\
Now remember when he said "I am The Devil"? Now consider these: Being one of the good guys at the start? Check. Being envious to one of the good guys that solved them all? Check. Cursing the tool (i.e the Mother Elf) that was previously used for peace, and created an AntiChrist, to wreck chaos, just to spite said good guy? Check. Being banished to "hell" after all he had done? Check. [[MemeticMutation Falls from the "heaven"]] [[Franchise/StreetFighter like]] [[LargeHam lightning]]? Double check. Said good guy sacrificed himself to stop the whole mess? Check. Now sum them up, and then you'll think of him as ''[[{{Satan}} Lucifer, aka the Devil itself]].''

* When Copy X finally meets Zero, he freely admits that he is a copy of the original. But how exactly did he come to this conclusion? Everyone believed him to be the true X, except for Ciel. Imagine how his life would have been ever since he was born; he's activated as a newborn reploid with the experience of a child, but everyone around him believes that he's their beloved X come back to them. Already he's had an impossibly heavy mantle of expectations hefted onto his shoulders before he even really knows what's going on. So he tries to fit into these large shoes and be the 'X' they want him to be — after all, they say he's X, so he must be X, right? But ... he doesn't have any of the memories or experiences of the original X. Eventually, he comes to the only real conclusion; that he's only a copy of the original. His entire life is based on a gigantic lie. If everyone knew the truth, they would abandon him, because he's not the X that everyone loved and respected. He, understandably, suffers a psychotic break. It's at this point that he begins his campaign of iron-fisted rule, because if he can't be the beloved X, then he has no choice but to be better than him in order to earn that love by his own merits. Copy X might be a cruel tyrant, but his upbringing really didn't leave any room for anything but an unstable, emotionally skewed individual.
** Bonus: he ''wasn't'' put into 30 years of morality testing, unlike X. He really doesn't know better about the right thing to do.

** This may count as Fridge Heartwarming: At the end of the series, Zero is dead and is supposedly in Cyberspace. Fastforward to ProjectXZone, Iris is brought back thanks to the representatives of Franchise/DotHack. Now what does .hack have in common with the Mega Man series? Cyberspace. Zero also vows to find Iris once again. So in essence at the end of the series, Zero and Iris are finally [[TogetherInDeath reunited]].

* Zero's decision to kill Weil seems to be spitting on the laws of robotics that were so important to the series. However, his decision is in accordance to the Zeroth Law of Robotics which in essence is a threshold law designed to protect the human race, as obeying law 1 would cause humanity to be harmed through inaction. It's made especially ironic given that Zero was never built with the laws in mind, yet he unwittingly follows the most important law.

*** He was also designed and programmed by Dr. Wily, a scientist who probably ''wouldn't'' have programmed any of his creations to be three-law compliant. For all his genius, Weil ''[[VillainBall didn't]]'' [[VillainBall bank on this]].
*** Irony: Despite not being programmed with the three laws, Zero CHOOSES to obey them of his own free will.
*** Not really. He tries to put down Dr. Weil.
*** Weil is also more machine than man at that point, particularly when he's fused to Ragnarok.
*** Weil is also a mass murderer despot. The sprirt of Law Zero was intended specifically to stop people like him. For another example, people like Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, and Pol Pot and their atrocites would be an adequete threshold to trigger an appropiate Law Zero action.
*** I'm pretty sure the Reploids were never built to be ThreeLawsCompliant in the first place. That was just the Robots of the Classic games. Reploids are meant to have free will.
*** Also, Dr. Light's dream was for humans and robots to live and treat each other as equals. Zero treated Weil like any other Reploid he's fought, demonstrating that equality. He even outright calls him "just another Maverick," a term which up until then was [[FantasticRacism used exclusively for Reploids]]. This also explains why it fell to Zero to realize Light's dream: for all his talk, Light subconsciously ''did'' still put human life higher than robots, hence Rock being ThreeLawsCompliant and X's 30 years of testing. If he had accepted that there are times to kill, Dr. Wily would've been picked off before Zero could be built, preventing so much pain and suffering.

* The final battle with Zero and Omega Zero can mirror the fact that Zero is fighting his [[SuperPoweredEvilSide old self]]. Remember that in X2, Sigma made reference to Dr. Wily for being the last creation made. In X4, we know who the silhouette is in the beginning of Zero's nightmare. And X5, everyone obviously know, but Sigma does not refer him by name to X and Zero. Also, Zero was ''AxCrazy'' with Sigma's flashback. All the plot build-up from the entire X series to Zero 3 makes a true resolution of the story of Zero finally taking down what represented as his evil side. And since Zero lost his original body, Dr. Wily's final creation is technically destroyed, but the original Zero's mind still exists.

** Remember, Wily became evil because his pride was hurt. Meaning if he won, it would be more or less just to prove he's better than Dr Light. If he won, mankind would probably just have to deal with his ego for a couple decades until Dr Wily dies(he's already quite old.) Compare that with [[WellIntentionedExtremist Sig]][[KillAllHumans ma]] and [[ItsAllAboutMe Doc]][[FantasticRacism tor]] [[DystopiaJustifiesTheMeans Weil]], and [[RootingForTheEmpire you'll be rooting for Dr Wily in no time.]]

* In the manga adaptation of the first game, Copy-X (here called the "Perfect Reploid") is a fusion of the Four Guardians created by [[CanonForeigner Ciel's younger sister, Cial]], rather than a copy of X himself. It may sound crazy, but the Four Guardians were made from four pars of X's [=DNA=] in the series

*** Also, Dr. Light's dream was for humans and robots to live and treat each other as equals. Zero treated Weil like any other Reploid he's fought (even outright calling him "just another Maverick," a term which up until then was used exclusively for Reploids), demonstrating that equality. This also explains why it fell to Zero to realize Light's dream: for all his talk, Light subconsciously ''did'' still put human life higher than robots, hence Rock being ThreeLawsCompliant and X's 30 years of testing. If he had accepted that there are times to kill, Dr. Wily would've been picked off before Zero could be built, preventing so much pain and suffering.

*** Also, Dr. Light's dream was for humans and robots to live and treat each other as equals. Zero treated Wiel like any other Reploid he's fought, demonstrating that equality. This also explains why it fell to Zero to realize Light's dream: for all his talk, Light subconsciously ''did'' still put human life higher than robots, hence Rock being ThreeLawsCompliant and X's 30 years of testing. If he had accepted that there are times to kill, Dr. Wily would've been picked off before Zero could be built, preventing so much pain and suffering.

* Think of the attitudes humanity has towards genuinely non-violent robots: in MM9 we see [[spoiler:the Robot Masters are still online when Wily finds them.]] In MMX6, Gate's Reploids are killed off due to their potential risks instead of merely reassigned; in the context of this series, robots are basically sentient, so humans are willing to leave living people ''to basically starve to death, or outright kill them, out of convenience.'' Yet, people like Dr. Wily and Weil get to live, with no "kill on sight" orders established before being captured. How ''horrifically'' skewed are humanity's priorities towards robots and humans to even allow this to happen? The worst part about this? This means that Dr Weil's BreakingSpeech ''[[StrawmanHasAPoint has ground.]]'' [[HumansAreBastards Only humans understand the joy of power, indeed.]]

**** Irony: Despite not being programmed with the three laws, Zero CHOOSES to obey them of his own free will.
***** Not really. He tries to put down Dr. Weil.
***** Weil is also more machine than man at that point, particularly when he's fused to Ragnarok.
***** Weil is also a mass murderer despot. The sprirt of Law Zero was intended specifically to stop people like him. For another example, people like Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, and Pol Pot and their atrocites would be an adequete threshold to trigger an appropiate Law Zero action.
***** I'm pretty sure the Reploids were never built to be ThreeLawsCompliant in the first place. That was just the Robots of the Classic games. Reploids are meant to have free will.

Now remember when he said "I am The Devil"? Now consider these: Being one of the good guys at the start? Check. Being envious to one of the good guys that solved them all? Check. Cursing the tool (i.e the Mother Elf) that was previously used for peace, and created an AntiChrist, to wreck chaos, just to spite said good guy? Check. Being banished to "hell" after all he had done? Check. [[MemeticMutation Falls from the "heaven"]] [[StreetFighter like]] [[LargeHam lightning]]? Double check. Said good guy sacrificed himself to stop the whole mess? Check. Now sum them up, and then you'll think of him as ''[[{{Satan}} Lucifer, aka the Devil itself]].''

****** While the Reploids are meant to have free will, they are also supposed to be Three Laws compliant. The opening text from the original Mega Man X (presented as a note from Dr. Light himself) mentions that he is sealing away X for 30 years to put him in a kind of "test mode" to make sure he complies with the Three Laws of Robotics (or at the very least, the first one). Since all Reploids are based off of his design, it seems reasonable that they are meant to be Three Laws compliant.

****** While the Reploids are meant to have free will, they are also supposed to be Three Laws compliant. The opening text (presented as a note from Dr. Light himself) mentions that he is sealing away X for 30 years to put him in a kind of "test mode" to make sure he complies with the Three Laws of Robotics (or at the very least, the first one). Since all Reploids are based off of his design, it seems reasonable that they are meant to be Three Laws compliant.