Miyako said to be at the Skytree at noon, but let’s go ahead and surprise her by showing up at 11:30 instead (it does not actually make a difference whether you arrive on-time or not). After meeting up at the plaza we head underground to a different part of the lab, where Miyako waits with another platoon of JP’s agents and Daichi, who’s once again been tied up. After the opening remarks Io wonders what this place is and the camera pans back to show us that the stage we’re standing on now is in fact that giant “device” that Miyako spoke of. The “floor” is actually the tops of four massive containment tanks, three of which are occupied by the Triangulum, and at the very top is a smaller one surrounded by thirteen capsules in which Al Saiduq is still floating, unconscious. Yamato comments that all of the players are finally assembled in one place and Miyako agrees, saying everything she’s done since her “awakening” has been leading up to this point. She draws her sword and Daichi screams like a little girl, but all she does is cut his bindings, and he immediately scurries back to the safety of his friends, gasping that he thought he was a goner.
Having returned Daichi, Miyako asks us one final time if we’ll see the wisdom in her plan but Yamato growls that their first answer should’ve been sufficient and Io continues to insist that they’ll find a way to save the world without any sacrifice. They’re right of course, but these arguments would have a bit more punch if they actually had some concrete plans to counter Miyako’s at this point, or point out any of its other myriad flaws. You know, just sayin’. Anyway, Miyako announces her attention to force us into cooperation and fires a goddamn Dragon Stream Kamehameha blast at our heroes and Yamato retaliates with one of his own so the Hotsuins have a goddamn Dragon Ball Z Kamehameha Beam-O-War until the two powers cancel each other out. Yamato notes that the device Al Saiduq is imprisoned in is likely powered by the Dragon Stream as well, so if he can get up there he can probably free him. Miyako exclaims that she won’t let us reach him and readies the agents for battle. Yamato tells Hibiki that however we decide to go about this is up to him and the party takes out their phones. The battle is finally joined.
Mission 19: Being Human
- The mission ends when either:
- Miyako is defeated
- Al Saiduq is freed
- The whole party cannot die
Of the two options, fighting Miyako is undoubtedly the easier of the two. Freeing Al Saiduq requires fielding Yamato and getting him up to the device’s control level/stick/whatever up two sets of stairs and past the main body of the agents’, who have Girimehkalas and Abaddons to slow him down with. Then once he reaches the devices and starts operating it it’ll take three turns, during which Miyako will order the agents to prioritize him as a target, so those Abaddons will start attacking him while he’s helpless to fight back. So yeah, I don’t have the patience to go through with that.
This is also our last opportunity to obtain Auto Skills in the Triangulum Arc outside of maybe snagging one or two extra from free battle memory cards. This sadly means that some of the really useful ones, like Pierce +, Endure +, and Magic Yang are unavailable. This mission has Magic Yin, Rejuvenate, Revive, and a couple of the Ban Elements but still, I really wish there were more available. The agents, interestingly enough, will move to surround Miyako in the exact same manner that the demons Yamato summoned for the Tsuutenkaku battle did and they will throw healing on each other as appropriate. This was always the first time I’ve seen an enemy use the Fallen Racial Skill Fallen’s Mark to steal MP from me, so there’s that too.
Miyako (Lv. 55)
HP/MP
- ???/???
- Resists Fire, Ice, Elec, and Force; Reflects Physical; Nulls Curse
- Megido - Deals moderate Almighty damage to entire enemy party.
- Beheadal - Deals moderate Physical damage to entire enemy party; heavy if enemy has high HP.
- Piercing Hit - Deals moderate Physical damage to one target while ignoring Physical resistance, absorption, and nullification
- Physical Repel - Grants reflection of Physical attacks.
- Anti-Most - Grants resistance to all elements other than Physical and Almighty.
- Physical Amp - Physical attacks powered up by 50%.
- Dual Shadow EX - Entire team has a 25% chance of repeating last action.
- Zouchouten, Osiris
Miyako does not have Yamato’s Ludicrous Speed gimmick or, as far as I can tell, his hidden resistance to Almighty her set up and strategy is actually almost exactly the same one he used in the battle on the Kingmaker route. Megido is her most dangerous attack, for not only will you get hit with it multiple times (I know the Dual Shadow effect is supposed to be 25%, but if really feels like it activates much more often than that for her), but she will not hesitate to activate her Osiris’s Enlightenment to greatly buff its damage, and it knows Megido too. Beheadal is a little less dangerous, but only because as a Physical attack it can be blocked; as its damage is tied to the user’s HP like Deathbound is and Miyako’s a boss, well...Health/Damage Asymmetry rears its ugly head. The result will be very similar to the Tsuutenkaku version of Yamato in that she can decimate parties very easily.
At the very least we can fight back more effectively since she doesn’t have an Abaddon, Arioch, or other Vile like he had back then. Her Zouchouten and Osiris still have a lot of HP though, and Osiris has Makarakarn and Mediarahan on top of that. Osiris really, really needs to go, or at least deplete most of its MP. My strategy’s basically just copious amounts of Almighty and hope for the best. If nothing else, Miyako does live up to Yamato’s reputation for providing some of the most tense battle moments of the game. When we finally defeat her she gasps that she must maintain her control over the Dragon Stream but it’s too late. Al Saiduq regains consciousness as the energy leaves his containment tank and he thanks us for saving him and standing against Miyako’s plan before he blasts his way through the glass to freedom.
Completing the mission earns us 9000 EXP and 16500 macca.
If there are any JP’s agents left over from the battle just now at this point Miyako will tell them to stand down and retreat. However, she has still not given up. As the party stands before her she gets back up to her feet and Yamato exclaims that her aura has changed. Indeed, the room starts shaking and Miyako flares up with the same kind of blue aura we’ve seen Al Saiduq with a few times. She declares that it’ll take more than what we have to disrupt her plan and begins to shine with a bright, golden light, and when it fades we witness a transformation that’s both familiar and not: a being that Al Saiduq says is Miyako Hotsuin’s true form, that of one of the four corners of the sky, Cor Caroli.
Now you may once again be asking yourselves “Wait, how can there be four Triangulum when there are only three stars in the Spring Triangle?” Once again it’s a bit of a loophole. While the Spring Triangle asterism is indeed formed by Denebola, Spica, and Arcturus, they can actually form a second asterism known as the Great Diamond, and the fourth point of that one is the star Cor Caroli. Well, I can’t say this turn of events is too surprising given what happened the last time Atlus added a new, mysterious female character to a Megami Tensei Updated Re-release. Also, the interesting thing about Cor Caroli is that while all the other Septentrione and Triangulum have had rather abstract, yet still simple and straightforward designs, she looks like something you’d see in one of the early Devil Summoner games. Instead of looking like food or something, Cor Caroli I can best describe as looking like a mannequin wearing a JP’s uniform, around which Miyako’s naked body is draped. Also, giant disembodied hands. I suppose we can now check the “Rei Ayanami Expy” box on the list of Evangelion parallels.
Anyway, Yamato demands she explain what she hopes to accomplish by creating a new Administrator now that she’s shown herself to not be human and Cor Caroli, who retains the power of human speech in this new form as Al Saiduq did, answers that while she is indeed Cor Caroli, she is also still Miyako Hotsuin, and even now still fully intends to save mankind. As a human, and as the head of the Hotsuin family she swears to see her plan fulfilled and summons the requisite horde of demons to the battlefield before beginning to emit an aurora-like light. The chamber’s light reddens, and Al Saiduq warps over to our side of the field and exclaims that we must summon our own demons immediately.
Mission 20: Being Human (Part 2)
- Cor Caroli must be defeated
- The whole party cannot die
- Al Saiduq cannot die
The aurora, reddish light, and chaff-like particles floating around owe to a powerful magnetic field that Cor Caroli is emitting. One of its functions is that it’ll prevent us from summoning new demons like Benetnasch’s jamming did, as well as some other functions I’ll get to in just a sec. Al Saiduq’s role in this battle is that he’ll transform into his Septentrione hypercube form and as Alcor he’ll draw in the field each turn to cancel it out. This, however, comes at the cost of him suffering about 185 damage per turn, and when his HP falls into the red he’ll revert back to his humanoid form, and the magnetic field will return. After a turn he’ll heal himself and transform again. He lacks all the fancy stuff he had during our battle with him as he has no means of taking the offensive this time and only has Diarahan, Anti-Physical, and Endure to defend himself with. Fortunately though most of the demons start up near Cor Caroli, so they generally won’t make it past the party as long as they keep moving up.
Cor Caroli A (Lv. 55)
HP/MP
- ???/???
- Resists Fire; Reflects Physical, Elec, and Force; Nulls Curse
- Hassohappa - Deals heavy Physical damage to entire enemy party.
- Zandyne - Deals heavy Force damage to one target.
- Physical Repel - Grants reflection of Physical attacks.
- Attack All - Normal Physical attacks hit entire enemy party.
- Cor Caroli Sign - Prevents enemies from summoning new demons and raises team’s defense by 40%; has an infinite attack range.
- Asterion - Deals heavy Almighty damage to enemy parties at the start of their turns.
- Cor Caroli B x2
Cor Caroli by herself doesn’t have much out of the ordinary aside from the infinite attack range and the magnetic field. She is special though in that Cor Caroli Sign’s defense buff takes the form of what is an Auto Skill in all but name called Asterion’s Barrier. A 40% buff is not an insignificant amount, and Asterion by itself is very deadly due to how damaging it is. That’s why it’s very important to try ending the mission before Al Saiduq gets too damaged and has to temporarily stop blocking the field, or at least have a way to heal him from afar, like Goddess Grace or even Fairy Dust to a lesser extent. “Asterion”, by the way, in this case is referring to a star that’s part of the same constellation that contains Cor Caroli.
It’s Cor Caroli’s two disembodied giant hands that really ratchet up the difficulty of this battle. They both have a unique Passive Skill called Hound Eyes, and it’s effect makes it cousin to the classic Beast Eye and Dragon Eye abilities. Like those two, Hound Eyes allows the user to act more often in battle, only this time how many additional turns it gets depends on how close the defender is. Basically this means that by the time our party members are actually close enough to engage Cor Caroli, her arms will have the Dragon Eye effect, so in total we’ll be getting attacked at least seven times per battle. Yeah. And what do they specialize in? Multi-Strike and Mighty Hit of course (along with one having Mabufu and the other having Mazan in case they feel like giving you a breather)! So basically, we need to have some Physical protection available, because otherwise we’ll just keep getting hit again and again and again... I ended up kicking myself for not cracking Ban Physical from one of the agents in the previous mission, since I’m pretty sure that would’ve stopped Cor Caroli’s assault cold in the same way I used Ban Curse to gimp Nebiros. Both hands also come with Life Lift for longevity, as despite all of their fancy elemental affinities they don’t actually have a whole lot of HP.
Thus the MVP demon of the mission was Mithra. It naturally reflects Physical gimping most of Cor Caroli’s assault right there, and its Magic is high enough that it only took two Megidos to destroy both of the hands, and you can buff them further with its Enlightenment. Just getting to Cor Caroli and weathering her assault is the tough part, copious amounts of Almighty once you get there will be plenty of payback, and as I said Cor Caroli’s main body alone is not a very tough customer.
I actually redid this mission a couple times since there’s a lot of Boss Banter and I was curious to see it all. Despite their opposition to it, a number of the characters actually don’t dismiss Cor Caroli’s sacrificial plan out of hand, revealing that yeah, they can see and agree to the logic behind it, they just don’t want to die, which is certainly a very human desire. Cor Caroli’s repartee with Io strongly implies that she actually thinks that we’re right deep down, but that she just can’t back down since she’s already gone so far down the rabbit hole. And Fumi mocks her for not being good with people.
Completing the mission earns us 15000 EXP and 17000 macca.
The aftermath of the battle leaves Miyako lying defeated on the floor, finally admitting her defeat. Now that her plan has failed she sits upright in the classic seppuku stance with her sword lying next to her and tells us to finish this. Naturally we have only one option, telling her to live instead. Her reaction is one of confusion as to why we’d show mercy one someone who’s failed, someone who isn’t even human, while Io and Hinako try to convince her that they both want the same thing, to protect humanity, and because of that they should be allies and friends rather than adversaries. Daichi makes a crack that they’re already friends with Al Saiduq, so they’re all about the non-humans. Though far from reassuring her, this instead makes Miyako doubt whether her feelings for mankind are genuine, are they the true thoughts of Miyako Hotsuin, or are they simply the way that Cor Caroli was programmed by her creator, Canopus.
That namedrop causes the party to go “wait a minute”, and Al Saiduq explains that while he did not know of Canopus’s existence until he met Miyako, Canopus is essentially a control system, a being above even the Administrators that oversees the entirety of the Akashic Record, correcting errors, or paradoxes, as they arise. For example, he says that the reason for Miyako’s existence was to fill the hole left in the world by Yamato’s absence. Yamato says that Canopus then must be responsible for the continued spread of the void and the shutdown of the Astrolabe, and Miyako confirms his suspicions, leading Hibiki to take the Luffy route of declaring that they’ll just kick Canopus’s ass too. Miyako however, doesn’t think that we’re any match for it, as Canopus was what she was referring to whenever she mentioned the “Divine Order of the Universe.” For what it’s worth though, Al Saiduq says that he will lend us our aid should we choose to fight Canopus, and while they may have been at odds, tells Miyako that they should join forces. Hibiki adds that we need her help, and she finally agrees to join up with us, for the sake of saving the world in such a way that requires no one to be sacrificed. Makoto hands her sword back to her, and the scene ends on a double whammy as both she and Al Saiduq join the party at Lv. 55 and achieve Fate Stage 2.
Though Miyako is something of an 11th-Hour Ranger she’s a pretty good one. Like her brother she’s a Magic Knight, though she puts a bit more of her points into Magic and Agility than he does, making her a rather well-rounded character who can effectively wield a pretty large range of spells and abilities. Her HP/MP values are also noticeably above-average, though not to the same extent that Al Saiduq’s are. Overall she’s a very good unit to have, which is only to be expected since the developers would no doubt want to provide the player with some incentive to use her. Also, now that we have all fifteen characters playable, we can finally form Joe’s rugby team!
Now then, given that we’ve reached a turning point in the story and just discovered that there’s another pseudo alien-god out there to fight, one that’s even further up the power scale than Polaris was, there’s only a single event currently available entitled simply “Canopus”. Now that everyone’s come to an understanding and hostilities with JP’s have ceased we return to the Tokyo branch’s command center for a pow-wow over what we’ve learned. Question time starts, and Miyako opens by explaining Canopus in further depth, explaining that as the control system for the Administrator System it activates only when it perceives an error too far-reaching for an Administrator to control, making it more like a machine or program than an actual sentient entity like Polaris. Airi wonders what would’ve caused it to wake up this time, and Al Saiduq admits that it was likely because of him manipulating the Akashic Record as he lacked the qualifications to be a true Administrator. As soon as he began to regress the world Canopus activated and tried to have him erased as an error, but it failed when Hibiki defended him. Thus bought time for Al Saiduq to complete the regression, but Hibiki’s data was too badly damaged, thus he was absent from the second world.
Since Al Saiduq then ceased manipulating the Akashic Record Canopus ignored his continued existence and moved on to address the lack of an Administrator upon the Heavenly Throne by creating Arcturus and the other Triangulum, and we know how that went for the second world already. When Al Saiduq and Yamato hatched their plan to regress the world once more and to restore Hibiki they still had no idea of Canopus’s existence, or that Canopus would once again create the Triangulum and then take the further measure of shutting down the Astrolabe aside from the small section that Yamato was forcibly keeping online. Finally, in order to amend the final “error” of Yamato being “missing” from the third world it created Miyako, a Triangulum/human construct to take his place.
That brings us up to the present, where Miyako says that Canopus has once again become active. Because we’ve technically killed three Administrators now, it has come to the conclusion that humanity itself is an error that threatens the very universe itself, and thus the void continues to consume the land. Al Saiduq estimates that the void will completely envelop the world by tonight, so they need to plan their response right away. Yamato says that their two main problems are Canopus and the remaining Administrators, and Miyako again says that there are countless others waiting in the wings along with their Swords, and they too will likely attempt to purge humanity since we’ve been knocking off their fellows. Defeating Canopus and reactivating the Astrolabe is the more immediate concern though, but Miyako remains pessimistic, claiming that Canopus is an immortal, eternal entity that can never be defeated. That statement causes Fumi to remember the creates they fought in the Akasha Stratum and asks if they have something to do with Canopus, and Miyako responds that those were likely shards of his being. Canopus itself is apparently embodied by the four prime factors that govern the physical universe: time, space, heat, and gravity, and so that the others can understand what she means Al Saiduq compares fighting him to the futility of fighting fire with fire, or water with water.
At least reaching Canopus, in its home realm beyond even the Akasha Stratum, is possible, or so Miyako claims. She and Al Saiduq can apparently modify the Terminal beneath the Skytree to do so, though it will take them the rest of the day. So, Yamato dismisses everyone with the reminder to think about how to deal with their new enemy, but since I saw the earlier events where he was lecturing Hibiki on all the new lore he asks him and Miyako to stay behind for a moment. His sister asks what the matter is and he replies that he’s been giving the matter of the Astrolabe and the Administrative Authority some thought and he’d like us to brainstorm a bit with him when we have a chance. We’re then let loose.
We’re in the home stretch now!
Compendium
- Cor Caroli
◊
- Cor Caroli is the brightest star of the Canes Venatici (Latin for "hunting dogs") constellation and is one of the vertices of the Great Diamond asterism. Like many stars Cor Caroli is a binary, and like Mizar and Alcor its companion is far enough away from it that the two can be individually discerned, albeit only with a telescope. Cor Caroli is also categorized as a "peculiar star", the actual scientific term for a star thought to have an unusual abundance of metallic elements in its atmosphere. As a result Cor Caroli has an incredibly powerful magnetic field thought to produce massive sunspots on its surface. Cor caroli is Latin for "Heart of Charles", referencing the English King Charles I who was beheaded in 1649 after being deposed by the Parliament at the end of the English Civil War.
