History Headscratchers / Borderlands2

** One more thing: Most players don't use Hyperion weapons often, (with shotguns being the exception.), and Jack has arm cannons that only he can use, and can punch you in the final fight. So if the loaders and Engineers and soldiers see Handsome Jack running around holding a Torgue Assault Rifle while slashing up people with a blue sword and throwing incendiary Tediore grenades around, that's certainly ''not'' their boss. Oh, and remember that ''your boss is shooting at you.'' Jack likes to belittle and verbally abuse employees when he can, but he doesn't attack Hyperion-controlled areas for fun.

[[folder:Jack a Siren]]

* Is Handsome Jack a siren? No one at any time outright says he is, but almost every time he shows up, he exhibits very siren-like abilities. Also, in the "Assassinate the Assassins" mission, one of the audio logs says that he already knows where three sirens are, with the implication that Lilith is NOT one of the ones he's referring to. [[spoiler: That leaves Maya, who he knew was on Pandora and was an aspiring Vault Hunter, Angel obviously, and... who else?]] Or am I just reading too much into an off-hand statement that he could've been including Lilith in after all?
** All Sirens are female. And he was definitely including Lilith in the three. The implication was "I know what Lilith looks like, and these girls aren't her, and I'm not going to believe you managed to find one of the other three Sirens through sheer dumb luck."
** First time I did that quest I figured he was including Steele. Sure she had been dead a while at that point, but it's not like a replacement pops into existence the moment she dies.
** Um, actually, according to ''Borderlands: Origins'' that's exactly how it works. Or rather, a new Siren is born the moment a Siren dies.
** I'm pretty sure this is a case of TheDevTeamThinksOfEverything. There can only be six sirens in the universe: Angel, Lilith, and one "canon" Maya, but he's also accounting for the fact that the player party can consist of up to four sirens. That makes six.

[[/folder]]

[[folder:Roland's [[spoiler:Death]]]]
* If he managed to [[spoiler: already go through digistruction after dying many times in the 1st Borderlands, why couldn't he respawn again after Jack shot him dead?]]

[[folder:Roland's [[spoiler:Death]]]]
* If he managed to [[spoiler: already go through digistruction after dying many times in the 1st Borderlands, why couldn't he respawn again after Jack shot him dead?]]
[[/folder]]

** One rather elegant solution: Angel switched Jack and the Vault Hunter's accounts just before she died. She knew Jack would want to kill the vault hunter (permanently) at some point, and delete them off the system. She also wanted to delete Jack, but he obviously would notice. This explains a lot of what follows in the game.
*** After Angel's death, Jack vows to be the one to kill the vault hunter. And nobody else is allowed.
*** Jack ''checks'' to make sure the vault hunter is actually IN the new-U system by giving you the "Kill Yourself" quest.
*** Just before the final battle, Jack deletes the Vault Hunter's entry in the system... but due to Angel's trickery, he actually ended up deleting ''himself.'' So he dies permanently.

* Speaking of voice acting, in case anyone was wondering why both Creator/LuciChristian and Creator/CheramiLeigh are both credited as Gaige, and why you hear Luci's voice for all of Gaige's non-Anarchy lines, the explanation is rather simple: Cherami was brought in because they felt that Luci didn't quite have that "Rebellious Teenager" edge in her voice. Cherami dubbed over all of Luci's lines, as well as the Anarchy lines that Luci never got around to. By the time the character was released (which would be as a pre-order bonus when the game launched), Gearbox quickly realized that they just... ''forgot'' to switch out Luci's dialogue. It was very simply just a last minute oversight. However, the game had already launched, and Luci's lines were already being heard, so they decided to roll with it and give her credit (Removing her lines at that point would've been a dick move). [[WordOfSaintPaul Cherami thinks that it is rather appropriate that Gaige's voice "changes" the more she goes crazy with power anyway.]]

[[folder:The New-U stations]]

--> ''"Hyperion suggests that you do not think about the fact that this is only a digital reconstruction of your original body, which died the first time you respawned. Do NOT think about this!"''

* It's confirmed in deleted files, that, yes, [[spoiler: Angel hacked the New-U station...and Jack both knows about it, and will TAUNT you over it.]]

* Honestly, I think the only explanation to these is that the New-U system is just a gameplay mechanic, and should probably just be regarded as a case of GameplayAndStorySegregation.

* MST3KMantra is the only real explanation. New-U Stations are used in missions on multiple occasions to be written off as GameplayAndStorySegregation. Some of these are minor missions, but Armory Assault is a major mission that is treated as canon.
* According to [[http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/13gsxi/iama_mister_torgue_and_will_answer/ this page]] the Snarky voice clips were added to make the New-U stations feel like in Universe technology If they hadn't been added it would have been like [[Franchise/FinalFantasy Aeris' death]], i.e. they are just a gameplay mechanic.

-->Regarding the New-U thing: that's my fault, but not for the reasons you'd expect. I sincerely believe that if I hadn't added any dialog to the New-U stations (the snarky lines from the Hyperion female voice), then the New-U's wouldn't have felt like an in-world technology -- they would have felt like a meta aspect of the game.
-->When Aeris dies, you spend, like, a second wondering why Cloud doesn't just use a Phoenix Down on her and then you say "screw it" and move on, because nobody in the story acknowledges that Phoenix Downs even exist and you're pretty sure they're just a gameplay mechanic. If I hadn't added dialog to the New-U stations, I think you-know-who's death would have functioned in much the same way.
* The stations have to exist - remember when you have to get a new one to Fast Travel back to Sanctuary? That's literally the only way to get there after that - you have to Fast Travel from a New-U. At the very least, Fast Travel exists. For me, what's on this page neatly wraps everything up except for this: Why does Roland not respawn? There's even a shot of his tombstone during the credits. Could the original Vault Hunters have been removed from the system between games?

* Here's a possibility: Hyperion doesn't actually OWN the New-U technology. It already existed on Pandora before Hyperion took over, back in BL1. When they came to Pandora, they simply piggybacked their own technology on top of the existing New-U stations. Now, at the very beginning of both games, who do you talk to first? Claptrap. Claptrap's real purpose, aside from opening doors, is to register users onto the ''old'' New-U network. In destroying all of the claptrap units except one, Hyperion managed to find all the data on the old users from the old network, and transfer their accounts to Hyperion's network. Except for the new vault hunter in BL2, who gets registered onto the ''old'' network by the last remaining claptrap that Jack missed. When he gives you the mission to kill yourself, he's may be laughing into the ECHO device, but in reality he's scratching his head wondering why he can't find your name in Hyperion's user list...

* For what it's worth, one of the new lines for the New-U stations in Dragon Keep [[BreakingTheFourthWall explicitly says]] [[FandomNod the New-U stations aren't canon]]. But then again, Dragon Keep is a [[ShowWithinAShow Game Within a Game]], so perhaps [[MindScrew the New-U stations saying they aren't canon isn't canon]].

* What about Nisha (aka, the Sheriff of Lynchwood)? She was Jack's girlfriend and there is absolutely no reason why Angel would go out of her way to remove her in particular from the New-U database, yet when she dies it shocks Jack so much he actually stops being a ComedicSociopath for a moment.

[[folder:Handsome Jack]]

* this is kind of on a different subject but I think it fits this folder's content. So Jack has [[spoiler:A siren for a daughter and is using her to charge the vault key]]. Now if he just bided his time and waited for the vault key to finish charging and for his men to get the warrior. Then he simply has to just use the warrior to kill everyone. Simple as that. So then, why is he randomly hiring and killing vault hunters claiming them to be bandits when he brought them here? What was the point of even [[spoiler:tricking the new vault hunters into taking out Sanctuary's shield? Hell, why did he do anything other than wait?]] Seriously, the only reason Jack lost is because he hired, attempted to kill, and kept pissing off the new vault hunters. If he never hired them they would never have joined the resistance whom would ineffectively pound away at Hyperion until they all died.

* It's made pretty clear that they're not as good as the real thing (one of the New-U quotes speaks about the fact that a person's new body is a digistruct as if it's FridgeHorror, Tediore are less effective/cheaper than similar guns, etc). Also, it appears most of the scavenging is based around designing things to scan into the digistructs (as happens to vehicles a few times in both games). I think the same New-U quote I mentioned says that they're some sort of HardLight construct, which would be temporary by definition.

* The technology clearly has both inherent limitations (It's unable to recreate Eridium, otherwise no one would bother digging it up) and has some kind of arbitrary enforced limit (Tediore guns can recreate themselves endlessly but are dependant on a finite supply of ammo). The latter is in dire need of a LampshadeHanging or a HandWave: maybe matter replication technology is protected by [[CopyProtection DRM]] as the attempt of corporations to create artificial scarcity so they can sell goods?
* Another possibility is that they can't produce explosives/combustibles/anything that generates energy from nothing (or maybe they can, but it's not economical, hence why ammo can still be stored in a storage deck). This would explain why ammo can't be produced except by higher level weapons and class mods, or by absorbing the energy of several bullets with the right sheild (they can make the guns, digistruct whatever features a grenade mod provides onto a protean grenade, but still need a supply of ammo/"blank" grenades to provide the energy and sometimes extra ammo to provide the energy for extra effects) and why Scooter freaked out about the petrol eating rakks in the TORGUE DLC.

* Digistruction modules probably work by turning matter into energy and vise versa, and rearranging stored energy/matter into new shapes with blueprints. When you fast travel your body is broken down into energy by a digistruction module and broadcast through the air to the receiving fast-travel station where it is turned back into matter and rearranged back into a functional body. The Renew-U stations remotely deconstruct your dead body and rebuild a new one from the same component atoms. (This is probably why the fast-travel stations and renew-U stations were the same machines in the first Borderlands, they work on the exact same principles.) When you scan a bandit technical into Scooter's catch-a-ride system that gives him the blueprints for a bandit technical, but the raw materials used to construct new ones comes from scrap metal in Ellie's junkyard and Scooter's garage which is remotely beamed to whichever catch-a-ride location you are using. Vending machines work the same way, Marcus beams the raw materials to the vending machine from his personal warehouse and the vending machine builds the gun using those raw materials and the blueprint. Same deal with Tediore guns, when the gun explodes your personal digistruction module that stores all your guns and ammo remotely deconstructs the exploded bits of the gun and rebuilds literally the same gun in your hands (the ammo that was expended to fuel the explosion is lost however). This is why you still have to pay for things from vending machines and why Eridium can't be replicated and why Pandora is still a scavenger world, digistruction may be a wonderful technology that can build and duplicate virtually anything but you still need to find the raw materials first. And raw materials can be in short supply on Pandora.

*** They do tend to carry more than one weapon around with them...

*** Yeah, but Jack's body double ''looks'' AND ''sounds'' like Jack. It isn't by any stretch of the imagination that hard for Hyperion to make all their employees wear a signal that indicates them as an employee of that company and an ally to their own robot forces. Just because it echos his bio signature doesn't mean you look like him. The robots could just be all like "Handsome Jack detected in the area. Hyperion signal not found. Visual confirmation: NOT JACK."
*** Yeah, remember, Loaders ''have eyes''. They can visually ''see'' that said Siren/gun-toting dwarf/heavily-armed commando/walking Metal Gear reference/teenage mechanic+deathbot/massive walking slab of meat doesn't look anything like Jack. Even if they can't, the Hyperion soldiers running around can, and can issue alerts as to the actual threat. And if for some retarded reason ''they'' can't, then ''Handsome Jack himself is watching you attack the mountain'' and can issue orders to his Loaders. Hell, the bio-signature doesn't even fool the death wall. The only thing that the bio-signature works on is the biometric scanner itself.

*** Then why is it still dispensing water, and moreover, why has Hyperion built a power plant below it ?
*** The bandits, as stupid as they are, probably found some way to make it work-remember, nearly everyone on Pandora seems to be experienced with technology somehow. Hyperion built a power plant below it because Jack told them to and he's insane.
* Also, it's a ''memorial'' dam. Like a monument.

* Also, it's a _memorial_ dam. Like a monument.

* I know it probably has to do with the fact that the game's geography is shrunk compared to what it should be if it tried hard enough but still ; the dam makes absolutely no sense. For starters, it has no reservior. Even worse, it couldn't possibly have any since it dwarfs all surrounding geology. Second, its interior is completely off the wall, for one simple reason that we can see daylight coming in from the top third room, which makes no sodding sense. Now, we know that we are not at the the level of the entry because the end of the level shows destroyed walls which indicate it as just under the top, but the whole of the top is made of concrete and blacktop, with no indication of any place where this window could go. And the turbines still run, several rooms are is still flooded and the dam still dispenses water, which I must assume is summoned from the aether.

* I know it probably has to do with the fact that the game's geography is shrunk compared to what it should be if it tried hard enough but still ; the dam makes ABSOLUTELY NO SENSE. For starters, '''IT HAS NO RESERVOIR'''. Even worse, it couldn't possibly have any since it dwarfs all surrounding geology. Second, its interior is completely off the wall, for one simple reason that we can see daylight coming in from the top third room, which makes no sodding sense. Now, we know that we are not at the the level of the entry because the end of the level shows destroyed walls which indicate it as just under the top, but the whole of the top is made of concrete and blacktop, with no indication of any place where this window could go. And as if to say "we don't care, and fuck you if you do", the turbines still run, several rooms are is still flooded and the dam still dispenses water, which I must assume is summoned from the aether.

* I know it probably has to do with the fact that the game's geography is shrunk compared to what it should be if it tried hard enough but still ; the dam makes ABSOLUTELY NO SENSE. For starters, '''IT HAS NO RESERVOIR'''. Even worse, it couldn't possibly have any, since it dwarfs all surrounding geology. Second, it's interior is completely off the wall, for once simple reason that we can see daylight coming in from the third room, which makes no sodding sense. Now, we know that we are not at the floor level because the end of the level shows destroyed walls just under the top, but the whole of the top is made of concrete and blacktop, with no indication of any place where this window could go. And as if to say "we don't care, and fuck you if you do", the turbines still run, several rooms are is still flooded and the dam still dispenses water, which I must assume is summoned from the aether.

* I know it probably has to do with the fact that the game's geography is shrinked compared to what it should be if it tried hard enough but still ; the dam makes ABSOLUTELY NO SENSE. For starters, '''IT HAS NO RESERVOIR'''. Even worse, it couldn't possibly have any, since it dwarfs all surrounding geology. Second, it's interior is completely off the wall, for once simple reason that we can see daylight coming in from the third room, which makes no sodding sense. Now, we know that we are not at the floor level because the end of the level shows destroyed walls just under the top, but the whole of the top is made of concrete and blacktop, with no indication of any place where this window could go. And as if to say "we don't care, and fuck you if you do", the turbines still run, several rooms are is still flooded and the dam still dispenses water, which I must assume is summoned from the aether.

[[/folder]]

** Maybe the Vault Hunters use their imaginations the same way Brick did in the trailer for the DLC.