Fanfic / Tower of Babel

Warning! Due to the nature of this work, major spoilers for NieR are unmarked. Tread carefully.

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Popola: So you will keep searching for a solution that doesn’t exist until the world ends? Why?!
Shadowlord: Because we are human, and it’s human to hope. Because no matter how many times we fail, we refuse to give up.

Tower of Babel is a completed canon divergence Fix Fic by Acidwing, taking place in NieR (specifically, the Gestalt version of the game). It can be found on Archive of Our Own and FanFiction.net.

The Shadowlord waited and waited and waited for his daughter to be healed, but all he got was empty platitudes. Fed up with the inaction of the android overseers, he decides to strike out on his own. A chance meeting with his daughter’s Replicant leads to surprising revelations, dramatic realizations, unexpected team-ups, and a quest to save the world.

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Tower of Babel provides examples of:

• Adaptation Distillation: Some canon events that remained unchanged (the first meeting with Kainé, saving the king of Facade, etc.) are glossed over.

• Adaptation Expansion:
  • Several characters have more screentime, with the Shadowlord being the main example. He had only a few scenes in canon, but here he's one of the main characters.
  • There is a lot more information about Project Gestalt/Replicant than in the game proper.

• Adaptation Personality Change: Unlike his mustache-twirling, card-carrying canon incarnation, Grimoire Noir is a very subdued Well-Intentioned Extremist who hates the responsibility placed on him but genuinely doesn’t see a better option.

• Adaptation Relationship Overhaul: With the Shadowlord pulling a Heel–Face Turn, the overseers and Noir are now his enemies, while Nier, Weiss, Kainé, and Emil are his friends and teammates.

• Adaptational Heroism: Nier and Kainé's Blood Knight tendencies are majorly toned down, and the characters are generally more willing to talk and try to resolve things peacufully rather than immediately attack.

• Battle in the Center of the Mind: Kainé and Tyrann eventually end up fighting inside their Mental World. Kainé wins by doing nothing.

• Blood Magic: Subverted. Shadowlord uses his own blood to boost his teleportation spell and get through the dimensional barrier. However, it's specifically the maso inside it that has power, not the blood itself.

• Brainwashed and Crazy: Weiss ends up being brainwashed. When Nier and his team attempt to stop him from fusing with Noir, Weiss attacks them.

• Cannibalism Superpower: Weiss already had the ability to absorb blood, but during the fight with Rubrum he unlocks the power to consume other Grimoires, which gives him their powers and knowledge.

• Cast from Stamina: Using magic is tiring and can even knock the user out, but sleep and rest can replenish the lost energy without an issue.

• Dangerous Forbidden Technique: Possession can grant a lot of power, but it can lead to relapsing, especially if the host fights back.

• Dark Is Not Evil: There are many peaceful interactions with Gestalts and the Shadowlord himself becomes one of the main heroes.

• Distant Finale: The main story takes place over the course of several weeks, but there is a five-year timeskip before the epilogue.

• Dramatic Irony: Shadowlord knows what the overseers look like, but he doesn’t know their names and assumes that they are staying behind the dimensional barrier. Nier has no idea that Devola and Popola are more than they seem, and Weiss has amnesia. Figuring out that they are one and the same takes a while.

• Dying as Yourself: Weiss and Noir are the only Grimoires who retain their personality and self-awareness. The others are mad monsters, but after consuming them, for a few moments Weiss can speak to the people they used to be.

• Fix Fic: The original game is full of tragedies, leading eventually to The End of the World as We Know It, in large part due to lack of communication. This fic is built entirely on the characters' attempts to prevent it.

• Flat "What": Shadowlord's most common reaction to the sheer weirdness happening around him.

• For Want Of A Nail: It all begins when the Shadowlord, who doesn't trust the overseers, starts digging for more information on Gestalts and Replicants. Meeting Replicant Yonah leads him down a much different path than in canon.

• Fusion Dance: Comes in a variety of types.
  • Regular possession between Gestalts and Replicants involves Sharing a Body, though whether the personalities coexist or fight for dominance depends entirely on the people in question. Later, a way to make a fusion complete is found.
  • Weiss has the ability to absorb other Grimoires, but it's strictly one-sided: Weiss gets their knowledge and abilities, but their personalities are gone.

• "I Know You're in There Somewhere" Fight: After Weiss falls victim to Mind Control, his friends have to fight him. Unfortunately, appealing to his better nature doesn't work.

• Instant A.I.: Just Add Water!: Well, add magic, that is. True AI can only be created with magic, and if they have sufficiently complex minds, they can even gain a soul.

• Internal Reveal: There is a lot of Awful Truth to go around in this setting: the true nature of Gestalts and Replicants, the identity of the overseers, etc. Several chapters are devoted to one revelation or another.

• Ironic Echo: The Overseers justify their plan as The Needs of the Many, saying two lives (Shadowlord and his Yonah) against millions is simple math. Later, when post-fusion Nier and the others prepare to storm the shrine, rescue Weiss, and enact their plan to save both the Gestalts and the Replicants, he repeats Popola's line when asked what will he do if she and Devola won't listen to reason.

• "It" Is Dehumanizing: Nier and the others start off calling Gestalts "it". After realizing that they are sapient beings, both he and his team switch to he/she/they. Grimoires are treated similarly.

• Mental Fusion: After attempting possession, Gestalt and Replicant Nier fuse both physically and mentally. Afterwards, Weiss finds a way to replicate the effect for any Gestalt and Replicant pair.

• Mental World: There are two different versions: Gestalts and their Replicants who attempt fusion see a world based on their memories, everyone else sees only white nothingness.

• Mind Control: Noir used a mind control spell on Weiss to force him into activation.

• Multiform Balance: In human form Emil is physically just a child, but he's not affected by magic attacks and has Deadly Gaze. In Halua's form he's huge and cannot be hurt by physical attacks, but he is vulnerable to magic. In his mixed skeletal form he can fly and use magic himself.

• Mundane Solution: When Shadowlord realizes that Replicants don't understand his speech, he writes on the ground.

• Mundane Utility: One of the most useful spells? Magic pockets!

• My God, What Have I Done?: Nier is horrified when he realizes that Shades are intelligent beings and there is a very high chance he has killed innocent people before.

• Named by the Adaptation: Kalil's mom, two people from the Aerie, and three Grimoires mentioned in the supplemental material are given names and a slightly larger part to play, though they are still side characters at best.

• The Needs of the Many: The overseers were perfectly content to keep Gestalt Yonah in stasis so they could have leverage against Shadowlord. As Popola puts it, two lives against millions is just math.

• "No. Just… No" Reaction: Emil suggests that if Gestalt Nier is the Shadowlord, Replicant Nier should be called the Lightlord. No one is impressed with this idea.

• Original Character: Several background characters are introduced, though none of them have a very big role.
  • Yaegiri, Yama, and Kintaro are a trio of Gestalts who provide exposition to the Shadowlord soon after he escapes the overseers.
  • Eric is a boy from Seafront whom the Shadowlord saves from a relapsed Gestalt.

• Poor Communication Kills: Mostly averted (unlike the original), but if Nier, Weiss, and Shadowlord bothered to compare notes, they would've found out the identities of the overseers much earlier.

• The Power of Blood: All magic and technology uses maso as an energy source. Since Shadowlord's blood is the main (and only) source of stable maso, he can use it to boost his spells and power up ancient technology.

• Our Souls Are Different: As Weiss has put it, "if the mind is complex enough, magic is the seed from which a soul can grow". And since all AI are made with magic, any sufficiently complex robot or artificial being can eventually gain a soul.

• Quantum Mechanics Can Do Anything: According to Weiss, magic is based on quantum physics.

• Seinfeldian Conversation: After the fight in the Aerie, deliriously tired Weiss and Shadowlord go on a rambling tangent about quantum physics and half-dead, half-alive cats to the confusion of their friends.

• Sharing a Body: Gestalts that attempt to possess their Replicants are usually stuck in one body with a fairly equal control over it. Cooperating with each other is the only way they can stave off relapsing and remain sane. That is, until fusion is discovered.

• Sheathe Your Sword: Tyrann fights Kainé in a Mental World, so he can't actually harm her. Once Kainé realizes this, she stops fighting.

• Shout-Out: The chapters have titles like "Shadow of the Colossus", "Promised Neverland", "All That Is Gold", and "Despite Everything".

• Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism: Both the heroes and the villains are trying to save the world, their conflict stems from how they're going about it. The overseers are firmly on the cynical side, trying to save Gestalts at the cost of Replicant lives, while Nier and his team are on the idealistic side, searching for a way to save everyone. Idealism wins.

• Spared by the Adaptation: Turns out, being able to talk to each does wonders to the characters' ability to resolve things peacefully. And considering that canon leads to eventual The End of the World as We Know It, this trope applies to almost everyone.

• Sufficiently Analyzed Magic: Weiss calls quantum physics a "theoretical underbelly of magic" and creating new spells requires a lot of research.

• The Stations of the Canon: A lot of events, such as meeting Weiss, Kainé, and Emil, or the battles with Hook, Rubrum, and Halua are fairly similar to canon.

• Take a Third Option: The entire premise of this fic is the characters trying to find a way to save everyone, when the only choices presented to them are genocide and extinction.

• Team Member in the Adaptation: Shadowlord, the Big Bad of the original game, joins the main team.

• Teleport Interdiction: The overseers have some kind of technology that can block teleportation.

• Theme Naming:
  • Just like Weiss, Noir, and Rubrum, the new Grimoires are named after colors.
  • The named Gestalt and Replicant characters follow the conventions of the game: the characters in the Aerie reference Peter Pan, those in the Seafront reference Little Mermaid, etc.

• Transmutation: Grimoire Zlato specializes in transformation magic. She transformed an entire research lab into a cavern full of golden pillars and turned herself from a book into some kind of insectoid monster.

• Translator Buddy: When Weiss gains the ability to understand Gestalts, he becomes the main translator for the Shadowlord or any other Gestalt the team encounters. Kainé can understand Gestalts too, but she usually doesn't bother with translations unless it's really important and Weiss is otherwise occupied (or if it can annoy him).

• Voluntary Shapeshifting:
  • Emil eventually gains the ability to freely shapeshift between his original human self, Halua's giant form, and their skeletal mix.
  • Grimoire Zlato has the ability to transform herself and her surroundings into different shapes, which Weiss steals from her.
  • After the fusion, Nier can switch between Gestalt and Replicant form at will. So can Yonah, and it's implied to be an ability all Amalgamates share.

• What Is One Man's Life In Comparison?: When the Shadowlord calls out the overseers on the way they held his daughter's life over his head to keep him compliant, they retort that two lives against millions is just math.

• What Measure Is a Non-Human?:
  • After learning the truth about their origins (and going through some Character Development), Nier considers both Gestalts and Replicants to be human. However, there is a difference between sane Gestalts, relapsed ones, and the fused monsters. Relapsed Gestalts cannot be helped, and while some of them are docile, most are Ax-Crazy. Fusions of multiple relapsed Gestalts like Hook or Wendy are mindless monsters that must be taken down, because they can and will kill everyone in their path.
  • Weiss has no problem killing and eating other Grimoires, but it's considered more of a Mercy Kill, since those Grimoires were already dead when they had been transformed. Weiss himself and Noir are treated as people.
  • No one cares about the robots destroyed in the Junk Heap, but Shadowlord is willing to talk to P-33 because it's an AI, implying that the others are just mindless drones.

• What the Hell, Hero?: During their confrontation, the main characters and the overseers condemn each other's choices, with overseers choosing The Needs of the Many and Nier and his team trying to find a different solution.

• A World Half Full: Sure, the world is recovering from a near-apocalypse, but it is recovering. The epilogue probably puts it the best:
  It wasn’t perfect, not by any means. The world had suffered greatly, but despite everything, humanity had survived and could finally start healing. Life went on and even in this imperfect world there was a place for happiness.

• You Have GOT to Be Kidding Me!: Shadowlord is disturbed when he found out that Tyrann, the malicious Shade possessing Kaine, was allowed to become a Gestalt.

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