History Headscratchers / MegaManBattleNetwork

** Ugh, agreed! There was all that stuff with Serenade and Bass and character origins and backstory, and then 4 starts and...nothing. Poof. Serenade's gone, Bass is relegated to Bonus Boss status, the Undernet is a Wretched Hive instead of a safeguard for the last best hope of the network again, and that exceedingly interesting comment Bass made when he caught the Giga Freeze ("So you're a Chosen One too?" is never expounded upon. I like the last three games okay, but I wish they'd incorporated the overall storyline into them.

* I don't get Regal's plan in the fourth game. He wants to create a new world of pure evil, which is silly, but I'll accept it. But how is the asteroid involved? His plan seems to be something like this:
** 1. Sabotage laser plan.
** 2. Propose Navi plan.
** 3. Delete [=MegaMan.EXE=].
** 4. Gain control of asteroid.
** 5. ???
** 6. Profit!
*** Regal didn't really ''have'' a developed plan until the last third of the game. All Lan and [=MegaMan.EXE=] did were bump into a few of his agents, not the organization at large. That's why they had to use so many pointless tournaments as substitute for an actual plot. As for what he wanted to do with Duo; got me.
*** Duo (and the asteroid) were unaccounted-for elements, I do believe.
*** Actually, it's a bit sparsely fleshed out, but it seems to go something like this: In [=BN4=], Regal was already convinced HumansAreBastards and Nebula was already entering mainstream by the time the game rolled around, and even though he was probably planning to enact the [=BN5=] Soulnet plot, the big rock about to hit the planet showed up, and since he was convinced humanity sucked, he wanted to make sure the big rock hit the planet. He failed, so by [=BN5=] he activated his backup plan (technically his first plan until the asteroid showed up). As for the [[MadeOfEvil Dark Chips]], he wanted to prove HumansAreBastards in both [=BN4=] and [=BN5=], and what better way to do it than by corrupting the Internet, which the whole world is pretty much literally connected to. In short, the thin plot can be justified (on Regal's ambition's end at least) by the fact proving HumansAreBastards was his baseline motivation for both games, on [=BN4=] had him attempt genocide via ColonyDrop due to his disgust, and [=BN5=] had him instead try to enact massive MoreThanMindControl to acheive the same result.
*** according to another wiki: "Regal's plan was to alert the program Duo of the evil that existed on earth and then stop the program with his Navi, [=LaserMan=], to look like a hero." presumably after that the world would acknowledge him and follow his every whim... [[DudeWheresMyRespect but we see how well that went for Lan]] and he wasn't even PLANNING on saving the world
** Regal didn't really ''need'' a plan at the moment. [=LaserMan=] had the self-sufficiency to run Nebula by himself while Regal was busy helping to save the world. There was no real "plan" until Regal realized (after the early tournaments) that the meteor was a giant computer system (it's unclear if he and [=LaserMan=] were even aware of Duo in the first place). [=LaserMan=] and [=ShadeMan=], meanwhile, are busy trying to deal with the [=MegaMan=] problem (more specifically, his newborn Dark Soul). It would've been nice if the game went into more depth about the second part.

* There is something that is more jarring in 3 than a kid dodging machine gun bullets. It's the plot itself. Evil organization out to unleash some cyber Eldritch Abomination that devastated the net years before. It got sealed away and the keys to break the seal were hidden throughout the world. Standard stuff.... Here's a question. This is a relatively advanced society. Why would they hide the keys to a monster that could blow the world to hell in a school computer, a zoo, and a hospital?
** Well would ''you'' look there? Besides, in [=BN=] 1 the Fire Program was inside Lan's ''oven''. That's even worse.
*** Dr. Hikari hides a McGuffin in a [[HiddenInPlainSight deceptively simple location]] in his own home? How is that "worse"?
** Also, we never actually see the facilities used to hide the [=TetraCodes=] themselves. It's possible there's military-grade security behind that one door in the school you can't open, that one building in the zoo with no windows, and one of the floors in the hospital you don't ever see.
** The adults in this universe have proven themselves (on numerous occasions, I might add) to be ''complete idiots''.
** Of course they seem odd. Their seeming unfittingness really a point in their favor, since most people pass by them, unconcerned. The problem arises in that Wily happens to know ''exactly'' where to look (and that's still entirely justifiable, given how intimate Wily is related with the history of the game's world). For example, if Wily knew that Dr. Hikari has hidden the Fire program somewhere ''in his house'', it would be more fitting than the plan he and Match build around the fact that it's hidden in the oven.
*** It would have been nice, of course, to have these choices ''explained'', however.
*** Actually, when you think about it, it can't be explained as it is illogical to hide something so important in a place so easy to access, but when you think about it, that's exactly it, if you were to hide something that can destroy the world, the last place people would think to look for is possibly the most obvious, easyly-accessible place
* Battle Network question: Lan takes a couple hundred thousand rads of EM radiation during the final battle in [=BN2=]. How does he [[spoiler:manage to have a son with Mayl]] following [=BN6=]?

* In ''Battle Network 6 Gregar'', Cyber Academy has surveillance cameras in every classroom and dispatches armed security robots if someone walks in without ID. Yet their teaching staff includes a on and off again terrorist, an ''actual'' terrorist (albeit a reluctant one) and an assassin. Go figure.
** Well, all of them work as teachers here, and thus, they might have their own ID card. Mr. Match is [[HeelFaceRevolvingDoor already a good guy these days]], nobody knows that [[spoiler:Mach]] is a terrorist until the endgame, and Dark Scythe is probably a good enough assassin to convince everyone to give him the teacher's ID card. The next question will be what Dark Scythe is supposed to be teaching, or who he's supposed to kill.
** The [[spoiler: Principal]] himself is a villain. Problem solved.
* At the end of [=BN2=] we have some kind of fruitcake radiation that grows computers and starts mixing the real and cyber worlds of Kotobuki. Alright, I can suspend disbelief on that, it looks really cool and eerie. What really bugs me about it though, is that there was no ''VideoGame/AdventuresOfCookieAndCream''-esque team up where [=MegaMan.EXE=] and Lan break that barrier and jump back and forth between their worlds -- [=MegaMan.EXE=] shooting down doors, Lan whacking Metools with a mop, etc. Just seems like the perfect opportunity for FishOutOfWater is all.
** My guess? Nobody wanted to come up with an explanation for how Lan would be able to fight endgame-grade Viruses, considering he's not exactly equipped to use your chips.

* At the end of the first Battle Network Game, Hikari mentions that he had to change Hub's DNA because if it was 100% identical, that damage to the navi would damage Lan, too. How does that work, exactly?
** I think that it has to do with the '''Full Synchro''' status effect. When Navi and Operator are acting completely in sync, they become linked in a way. If Navi and Operator also share DNA and mental state... I don't really know that this is an adequate explanation, but quantum physics posits that if two particles have identical quantum states, they are, in effect, ''the same particle.'' Maybe that applies here?
*** According to the NT Warrior manga, this is exactly how Full Synchro works, and [[DangerousForbiddenTechnique why it's such a difficult and dangerous technique to use]].
** The world of the game is written to treat the material and cyber worlds as subtly overlapping dimensions (the second game's climax proved that bugs and radiation ''do not mix''). On top of that, [=MegaMan=] does not properly ''fit'' into the Cyberworld as a normal Navi (when he taps into his human [=DNA=], he gets absurd boosts in power). Lan and Mega could essentially create an double-ended dimensional anchor that results in the damage Mega takes bleeding over to Lan.

** Because a shadow is dark,[[DarkIsEvil dark is evil]], heroes defeat evils, and [[HeroesPreferSwords swords are heroic]]
* In the airplane scenario in 2, ''what the hell was Gauss's actual plan''? He said he was hijacking the plane, but he didn't make any actual demands, and he already had the [=HighPower=] program he was there to steal. He was just trying to crash the plane! [[TooDumbToLive With him on it!]] Even worse, Gospel's leader was on the plane as well! If Lan had ''failed'', Gospel would have wound up [[SelfDisposingVillain assassinating their own leadership]].
** Gauss was lying and the airplane hijacking was a pretense to distract from the actual theft of the [=HighPower=] program. Nobody's going to be looking for a thief when the world is going to Hell around them.

* Battle Network 3. Right after the HopelessBossFight against Bass, an unnamed, generic Navi shows up. Said Navi then uses Dark Aura and says that even if the whole cyberworld collapsed, he'd be safe. The problem is that in gameplay Dark Aura vanishes if it is hit by an attack that does at least 300 damage. So why doesn't the whole cyberworld collapse every time Lan pulls out the Lifesword program advance or any other heavy-hitting attack?
** It's called "hype", yo.

* Number Man's level in the first game has you entering passcodes based on the number of things in school. One of the hints is the amount of doors in school. But the last door you find is locked and there are additional doors behind it. Which means you're granted access for entering the wrong amount of doors.

* The first game had a feature where Mega Man's health would recover after every battle. In-universe, why would they get rid of this feature? Kind of a step back to remove that ability from the Navis or [=PET=]s.
** Aside from the need to add more difficulty for the player and more of a sense of danger in the plot, that ability only ever came up in one story scenario. In all other instances, Mega Man and other Navis acted like battles really did take a toll on them despite the fact that, by gameplay standards, anything that doesn't outright kill them would be immediately shrugged off. We can either say that in-universe, instant recovery wasn't considered canonical or that the advancements in technology meant that changed the Internet into something other than narrow paths in a salmon-colored void of floating gold letter "e" into unique areas made instant recovery infeasible in exchange for other improvements. Like speed, damage, and more varied abilities. Updated Navis can't instantly recover from battle, but their performance in battle is so much better that they'd delete a non-updated opponent quickly enough to make out of battle recovery irrelevant.

** I think it's hinted in game that [=MegaMan.EXE=] Grew with Lan, but because he was in the cyberworld then he would be exposed to more information than stimuli, making him the more proper one while Lan is the more reckless one.

*** The reason he doesn't just do the same thing as he did in the tank is simple: ''[[CriticalResearchFailure He does.]]''[[note]]The area where you fight him has random encounters with stronger versions of the ???? virus from the tank.[[/note]]

*** Actually, it's a bit sparsely fleshed out, but it seems to go something like this: In [=BN4=], Regal was already convinced HumansAreBastards and Nebula was already entering mainstream by the time the game rolled around, and even though he was probably planning to enact the [=BN5=] Soulnet plot, the big rock about to hit the planet showed up, and since he was convinced humanity sucked, he wanted to make sure the big rock hit the planet. He failed, so by [=BN5=] he activated his backup plan (technically his first plan until the asteroid showed up). As for the [[MadeOfEvil Dark Chips]], he wanted to prove HumansAreBastards in both [=BN4=] and [=BN5=], and what better way to do it than by corrupting the Internet, which the whole world is pretty much literally connected to. In short, the thin plot can be justified (on Regal's ambition's end at least) by the fact proving HumansAreBastards was his baseline motivation for both games, on [=BN4=] had him attempt KillEmAll via ColonyDrop due to his disgust, and [=BN5=] had him instead try to enact massive MoreThanMindControl to acheive the same result.

* At the end of [=BN2=] we have some kind of fruitcake radiation that grows computers and starts mixing the real and cyber worlds of Kotobuki. Alright, I can suspend disbelief on that, it looks really cool and eerie. What really bugs me about it though, is that there was no AdventuresOfCookieAndCream esque team up where [=MegaMan.EXE=] and Lan break that barrier and jump back and forth between their worlds -- [=MegaMan.EXE=] shooting down doors, Lan whacking Metools with a mop, etc. Just seems like the perfect opportunity for FishOutOfWater is all.

** Battle Network 2 [[YouFailNuclearPhysicsForever fails radiation forever.]] All it does is make people ''walk funny'', if the [=NPCs=] are any guide. So Lan should be fine. Besides, had he even hit puberty yet?

*** And its possible Lan isn't going on those kinds of sites... wait, porn often has viruses... perhaps they keep unintentionally deleting it all? [[CrowningMomentofFunny and I do like the concept of him actively removing any he finds...]]