History Fridge / MegaManZero

** It also tragically [[Main/Foil mirrors]] Zero's development till Mega Man Zero 3. Zero is always hailed as the real hero, even if he lacks the memories of his past. Zero never considers himself an hero and his only concern is helping the Resistence as a warrior regardless if he's the legendary Zero or not. However, not only Zero's subconcious actually can in some way call back his past experiences highlighting he's the real deal; when the Resistence learned that Zero's body it's a copy, no one of his allies really care about it and are not willing to let a small detail like a copy body deters them from aknowledging how much good he has done for them. Copy X however was so obsessed to be perceived as a hero he forgot (or never learned) how to ACT like an hero, his immaturity and lack of proper guidance and experiences ended up being his pathetic undoing unlike the revered to the end Zero.

** It also tragically [[Foil mirrors]] Zero's development till Mega Man Zero 3. Zero is always hailed as the real hero, even if he lacks the memories of his past. Zero never considers himself an hero and his only concern is helping the Resistence as a warrior regardless if he's the legendary Zero or not. However, not only Zero's subconcious actually can in some way call back his past experiences highlighting he's the real deal; when the Resistence learned that Zero's body it's a copy, no one of his allies really care about it and are not willing to let a small detail like a copy body deters them from aknowledging how much good he has done for them. Copy X however was so obsessed to be perceived as a hero he forgot (or never learned) how to ACT like an hero, his immaturity and lack of proper guidance and experiences ended up being his pathetic undoing unlike the revered to the end Zero.

** Adding to this, Maha Ganeshariff's weakness to the Thunder Chip might seem odd due to him being a NonElemental boss...until you notice he's fought in a room [[ElectrifiedBathtub full of knee-high water]].

** Speaking of Omega’s EX Skills, most of them seem to be some form of Giga Attack from the X-series… except Ryuenjin. Why would he have that? It’s Iris’s weakness! Way to rub it in, Weil.

** Speaking of a monster of his own making, the entire reason Dr. Weil caused the Elf Wars in the first place was because of his indignant anger over the Reploids getting a slap on the wrist because the Maverick Virus was cured. While not wholly justified, given the nature of a corruptive computer virus that makes one BrainwashedAndCrazy versus something like someone claiming they were JustFollowingOrders, it also means Weil himself had vindication, as he was likely only one of many humans enraged about the aftermath of the Maverick Wars, and the persecution of Reploids in the ''Zero'' series' present only further proves him right. And as the villains of ''VideoGame/MegaManZX'' would go on to show, there really would be more people willing to commit atrocities in the name of what they believe in; Weil may be the absolute worst of the ''Mega Man'' franchise, but put anyone in his shoes and the series goes to show that ''any human'' could become another Weil.

** Speaking of a monster of his own making, the entire reason Dr. Weil caused the Elf Wars in the first place was because of his indignant anger over the Reploids getting a slap on the wrist because the Maverick Virus was cured. While not wholly justified, given the nature of a corruptive computer virus that makes one BrainwashedAndCrazy versus something like someone claiming they were JustFollowingOrders, it also means Weil himself had vindication, as he was likely only one of many humans enraged about the aftermath of the Maverick Wars. He was just the only person with the resources and means to act upon that indignation. And as the villains of ''VideoGame/MegaManZX'' would go on to show, there really would be more people willing to commit atrocities in the name of what they believe in; Weil may be the absolute worst of the ''Mega Man'' franchise, but put anyone in his shoes and the series goes to show that ''any human'' could become another Weil.

** Even worse, the Official Complete Works states that it was the Eight Gentle Judges that Weil created who sentenced him to exile. Humanity not only didn't have it in them to pass judgement on a fellow human for his horrific crimes and left it to the Reploids to solve for them, but they gave his fate up to something he could easily have manipulated, to which it's stated [[BrainwashedAndCrazy he did]]. They basically handed Dr. Weil his long-term revenge plans on a silver platter by giving him the perfect out to exploit, because no one wanted to take responsibility or charge on any of it. And yet they put him in a regenerating armor that kept him alive, just so [[AndIMustScream he could die over and over again to suffer for eternity]], not only justifying said vengeance further but showing a gross incompetence for immortalizing a madman and an almost petty and vindictive attempt at punishment only humans could have chosen to inflict upon another human... the exact thing Weil attempts to do in ''Zero 4'' by giving humanity a slow, torturous extinction. Weil is a monster of his own making, and yet humanity's decisions in regards to him only help reiterate that he's the worst of a complacent and vengeful humanity that can always produce another Weil.

** Even worse, the Official Complete Works states that it was the Eight Gentle Judges that Weil created who sentenced him to exile. Humanity not only didn't have it in them to pass judgement on a fellow human for his horrific crimes and left it to the Reploids to solve for them, but they gave his fate up to something he could easily have manipulated, to which it's stated [[BrainwashedAndCrazy he did]]. They basically handed Dr. Weil his long-term revenge plans on a silver platter by giving him the perfect out to exploit, because no one wanted to take responsibility or charge on any of it. And yet they put him in a regenerating armor that kept him alive, just so [[AndIMustScream he could die over and over again to suffer for eternity]], not only justifying said vengeance further but showing a gross incompetence for immortalizing a madman and an almost petty and vindictive attempt at punishment only humans could have chosen to inflict upon another human. It makes Sigma's KillAllHumans ideology downright seem merciful since he never once attempted torture beyond emotional turmoil, and almost ''vindicated'' to a horrific degree.

** Even worse, the Official Complete Works states that it was the Eight Gentle Judges that Weil created who sentenced him to exile. Humanity not only didn't have it in them to pass judgement on a fellow human for his horrific crimes and left it to the Reploids to solve for them, but they gave his fate up to something he could easily have manipulated, to which it's stated [[BrainwashedAndCrazy he did]]. They basically handed Dr. Weil his long-term revenge plans on a silver platter by giving him the perfect out to exploit, because no one wanted to take responsibility or charge on any of it. And yet they put him in a regenerating armor that kept him alive, just so [[AndIMustScream he could die over and over again to suffer for eternity]], not only justifying said vengeance further but showing a gross incompetence and an almost petty and vindictive attempt at punishment only humans could have chosen to inflict upon another human. It makes Sigma's KillAllHumans ideology downright seem merciful since he never once attempted torture beyond emotional turmoil, and almost ''understandable'' to a horrific degree.

** Even worse, the Official Complete Works states that it was the Eight Gentle Judges that Weil created who sentenced him to exile. Humanity not only didn't have it in them to pass judgement on a fellow human for his horrific crimes and left it to the Reploids to solve for them, but they gave his fate up to something he could easily have manipulated, to which it's implied he did. They basically handed Dr. Weil his long-term revenge plans on a silver platter by giving him the perfect out to exploit, because no one wanted to take responsibility or charge on any of it.

* The forgotten laboratory, where Zero is found and resurrected as well as the final stage of his fight against Omega, is in complete and utter disrepair. Considering canonically that Zero's data was expunged from the records so he wouldn't be found, that's one thing, but the place was also the origin of Cyber-Elf research -- and where Omega was created, and likely the Mother Elf's corruption into the Dark Elf. Even if the facility was damaged and abandoned from the Elf Wars before Zero sealed himself there, it also doesn't explain why he's so tattered and torn up that it took Passy's HeroicSacrifice to revive him. What in the hell happened to this place that Zero's own resting place looks like an apocalyptic bomb shelter rather than a proper research facility?

* 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.
* 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. 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.

** Adding to this, Maha Ganeshariff's weakness to the Thunder Chip might seem odd due to him being a NonElemental boss... until you notice he's fought in a room [[ElectrifiedBathtub full of knee-high water.]]

* Players new to the ''Zero'' series may wonder why charged shots and sabre slashes do so much damage to bosses ''(chopping off a good quarter of their life bar)'', in comparison to the ''X'' series, which may see, at most, three or four ticks off of the health bar at best. A clue might be found in the design overhaul the game took - by getting rid of the bulkier designs (such as the heavy armor and huge metallic boots), the Reploids have effectively traded defense for a slimmer, more streamlined design.

* 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.]]

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 all the problems? Check. Cursing the tool (i.e the Mother Elf) that was previously used for peace, and created an AntiChrist to wreak 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]].''

* 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.]]
* 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.]]

* The fact that the rank-and-file Pantheon troops look like CyberCyclops versions of X. Zero spends four games butchering robotic mockeries of his best friend en masse.

* The appearance of Colonel alongside Vile, Agile, and Bit initially seems odd... until you realize how draconian Neo Arcadia has become; if they’d label someone like Alouette as a Maverick, they would of course lump Colonel in with those sorts of crooks!

* Why does "Fate ~ Theme of Weil" play before every boss in ''Mega Man Zero 4''? Because these are not just any old Mutos Reploids; these are the Einherjar Eight Warriors, an elite squadron of Neo Arcadia's most fearsome soldiers. Many of them proclaim their loyalty to Weil specifically in pre-boss dialogue, and they are all eager to see Ragnarok destroy Area Zero (with exception of Tech Kraken, who merely wants to avenge Phantom).

** Also: ''[[MeaningfulName Zer]][[PunnyName oth]]'' Law.
*** Weil is also a mass murderer despot. The spirit of Law Zero was intended specifically to stop people like him (think of Adolf Hitler and Pol Pot), and will override the first law.
*** All of this comes 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.
*** 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 the fourth game 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.
*** 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.

** 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]].

* 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.
** 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.
** 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 plenty of BossArenaIdiocy for Zero to take advantage of.
** In previous ''Mega Man'' series, the first stage of the final boss has a unique boss theme not used anywhere else in the game. Not so with Copy X; his first-stage boss theme in ''VideoGame/MegaManZero1'' is the same "Crush" that was used for every other boss encounter. Copy X isn't X. He's not on the same level as Sigma or Dr. Wily before him. As far as Zero is concerned, Copy X is just another boss.
** 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 BigBad. [[spoiler:Next time we see Copy X, he's a pawn for the ''Zero'' series BigBad, Dr. Weil, who's also been pulling the strings for the entire series. ''Copy X is a fake BigBad.'']]
* 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. It was in a server in Maha Ganeshariff's body. Maha Ganeshariff's elemental weakness was the Thunder Chip. [[NiceJobBreakingItHero What happens to data when the server it's stored on gets zapped by lightning multiple times?]]
** 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 mission might also be why he never completely recovers from his IdentityAmnesia.

** Also, Zero didn't canonically meet or battle Agile and Bit. But Phoenix Magnion isn't pulling those images from Zero's past. He's pulling from X's. Vile, Agile, Bit, and Colonel are all fortress bosses in the first four games of the ''VideoGame/MegaManX'' series, respectively.
** Toss in Zero himself as the fortress boss from ''X5'', and you have the entire canonical ''Mega Man X'' saga represented in this one attack.

** 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.]]
** Omega is exactly what Zero originally was before he [[HeelFaceTurn joined X's team]] and the Maverick Virus jumped to Sigma.

** 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 grasp that 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. ''[[WellIntentionedExtremist He]] [[JumpingOffTheSlipperySlope had]]'' '''JUSTIFICATION.'''