Headscratchers / Iji

As a Headscratchers subpage, all spoilers are unmarked as per policy. You Have Been Warned.

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• Why the hell did the Tasen attack Earth in the first place? For one thing, their Alpha-Striking of the surface pretty much made the planet unlivable. For another, did it never occur to them that maybe they could negotiate with humans? I'm sure there are many countries that would have been okay with taking in a million alien refugees in exchange for their technology. Granted, if the Tasen said, "By the way, there's a galactic empire that's out to destroy us and will be more than willing to go through you to get to us," we might think twice. On the other hand, a whole planet with dozens (if not hundreds) of those planetary shield generators along with millions of humans armed with Tasen weapons would stand a much better chance of holding off the Komato (assuming they even came looking for them here) than one million Tasen by themselves.
  • It's stated that that was largely Krotera's fault. If anyone else was in charge, things might have gone differently, but they were stuck with a General Ripper.
    • Another log states there wasn't enough time to study how dangerous humans are. It's a lousy excuse though, since with one glance on the population you can safely determine that humans are way less technologically advanced than the Tasen or the Komato.
    • Well, there's the fact that to be close enough to do a scan, you have to be close enough to be shot by planetary defences (which humanity didn't have, but Komato, and probably many other races, including Tasen themselves at the beginning of the "war", did employ), and you have a reason for why did they prefer to strike us to oblivion instead of risking their lives with scouting actions. And considering that they had to run away, and thus hide their presence from everything, for a pretty long time, it's probable that lack of presence of advanced technology on Earth wouldn't convince them that humanity was not a threat to them.
    • Are we talking about the same humans that after already getting Alpha Striked, created an Anomaly so powerful the only thing her enemies know about her is she's COMPLETELY UNSTOPPABLE regardless of whether or not she's even using a weapon?

• Why has no one killed Iosa before Iji? There's all this hype about how she's Nigh-Invulnerable because of her awesome nanofield, then you kill her by kicking her in the face a few times? What? Tasen commanders and elites both have melee attacks and probably know that shield doors can be destroyed by physical force; is it really that much of a stretch that someone would think to try and hit her if their weapons are ineffective? Admittedly, if she's in her annihilator exoskeleton, there isn't really much the Tasen can do, but it is stated that she likes to fight unarmed, and she's been hunting Tasen for quite a while. Surely someone would get lucky and land a hit on her at least once during that timeframe? (It's possible that the Tasen are too slow; the researchers did say that Iji has greater mobility than them)
  • Because you don't kill Iosa by kicking her a few times. You crack her nanofield, then shoot her in the face. Yes, you kick her to stun her, but that's not what kills her.
    • Many Tasen are skilled crackers though, especially high ranking ones. After someone eventually scored a lucky strike on her and stunned her, a skilled cracker that was present might think "Oh hey, I wonder what happens if we crack her". Iji figured it out within the span of a few seconds in the heat of battle, what's to say an elite couldn't?
    • Because Iosa is usually in an Annihilator, which can shrug off incredible amounts of small arms fire and reduce infantry to paste with ease, and chances are nobody's gone about making any heavily armored platforms that can facilitate hacking. Not to mention she's taken all that time being invincible to most weapons to get very good at killing things. On top of that, it's likely that those Tasen that are skilled crackers aren't the ones that could get close enough to put their skill to use. It would require someone with impressive combat power and physical strength coupled with agility, with weaponry capable of destroying what seems to be the last word in armor while permitting for the close contact hacking requires, and it's all still a dangerous proposition unless you're armored enough to withstand the punishment said Annihilator can dish out, and got it alone instead of being backed by a large military force in a full-scale assault. It's not too hard to think that Iji was the first one to be in that position.
    • Yukabacera?
    • Yuka strikes me as rather pacifistic; he probably wouldn't be on the front lines or in a position where he'd be fighting Iosa. If he was though, he would be the Tasen's best (and possibly only) bet.
    • Keep in mind that the first step for killing Iosa, you have to duck one of her attacks. None of the Tasen have shown any ability to duck.
    • Tasen soldiers can, and Yukabacera in particular has literally perfect reflexes when you fight him.
    • Soldiers don't have melee attacks. Commanders and Elites do, but they can't jump or duck.
    • Unlike Iji, though, the Tasen have an entire army at their disposal, and there could be multiple Tasen fighting Iosa at once. She performs a vertical swipe on a soldier, she ducts, one of the many elites nearby thinks "Oh hey, I wonder what happens if I kick her in the face" and does so. Someone in the platoon that's fighting her might be a cracker, at which point they try to crack her nanofield, and suddenly she's defenseless. The Iosa battle is difficult because Iji's alone; with an entire army fighting together, they would be able to execute a coordinated attack and overwhelm her if someone got a lucky hit. If Iosa had only been hunting Tasen for a short time, I suppose that no one would have gotten that opportunity, but it's stated that she's been fighting for years.
    • You're all wrong. The reason nobody has killed Iosa before Iji is because anyone coming near her special shield suffers heavy neural damage. Apparently, she and Iji are immune, her by canon, Iji by, well, she could touch it and crack it.
    • It's probably not even correct to call Iosa invincible though. She might be invincible for the Tasen, but any Komato General can disintegrate her with one Phantom Hammer shot (Iosa's nanofield is made from the same tech as the Alpha Strike blocking Planetary Field Generators, and only Phantom Hammers can break through those. Phantom Hammers are the only weapons that utterly destroy Nanofields to boot). Of course, since Iosa is on the Komato's side she doesn't need to worry about this.
    • Iosa is capable of surviving a Phantom Hammer shot - it's just one weapon out of many such used in an Alpha Strike, and she was called "the Invincible" because of her ability to survive it. For all they knew, her nanofield was indestructible, and thus there was no point in even trying to engage her in combat. And as to the "why did nobody hack her?" question - first, they would have to be strong enough to destroy her annihilator suit, and then they would have to think about cracking her (and thus abandon the brute force approach, which would have worked pretty well up to this point) before she overwhelmed them, so there is a very low chance of that happening. And even lesser one if they were panicking, which they most probably did since they knew very well that they stand no chance against her, whilst Iji was at least minimally prepared for this fight. Add to that the utmost probability that Yukabacera was the only Tasen hacker with enough skill to hack Iosa's nanofield (the cracking minigame is just a simplified version, and I'm pretty sure that for in-universe characters it was much more difficult than for us), and you have an answer to that question. And even then, Yukabacera was weaker than Iji before her (Iji's) meeting with Iosa, so it's unknown whether she (Yukabacera) would be able to win.
    • The Phantom Hammer and the Alpha Strike are not the same: The first needs to be shot near the planet surface (that's why you can destroy it the first time) and the latter can't destroy Planetary Shields (That's why the Phantom Hammer is there in the first place). Iosa is capable to survive an Alpha Strike, but chances are the Phantom Hammer is actually capable to disintegrate her.
  • This is all pointless anyways. Even if it were theoretically possible for the Tasen to kill her it wouldn't be a plot hole that they hadn't done so yet—you could say the same about just about any named character in anything. Iosa is a fierce combatant with a suped-up annihilator exoskeleton (the normal version of which can devastate armies with a little backup) which she can survive the destruction of (and still be ready to fight!) and is immune to conventional weaponry while on foot. She also has more experience than pretty much anyone. The fact that she has survived for X amount of time, for ANY X, is not surprising.
    • Even behind the huge armored Annihilator armor, Iosa is a fast clawed physical combatant who did often teared throught squads unarmed. So probably, if she's not in her armor, she'd be so fast you couldn't kick her before he tears your entrails apart. Iji just happens to have a golden arrow showing her what to do to avoid her

• The advertisement logbook for the Plasma Cannon states that it was "tested on various cute animals". Why? The Komato don't show any other signs of being Card Carrying Villains anywhere else - Proud Warrior Race Guys, yes, but not ones who go out of their way to be evil and know it. Secondly, it contradicts another logbook, stating that Blit-Away-Spray hasn't been tested on anything due to the threat of heavily-armed animal rights activists. And even so, wouldn't a Komato's definition of "cute" be more akin to what we would call "ferocious"?
  • While the Komato aren't presented as Card Carrying Villains, their corporations/research industries are presented pretty badly; the game sides with the heroic hackers instead.
  • Perhaps that's how they found out about the heavily-armed animal rights activists.
  • You're kidding, right? Have you SEEN their games? They are villains.
    • The games aren't so much evil as coming from a culture-wide glorification of violence, which fits for a warrior race. If they, say, forced prisoners to play those games, that might make them evil, but it seems like people willingly sign up for these things because their culture glorifies combat. Besides, making any race in this game a Card-Carrying Villain turns it into a Broken Aesop.

• According to Remar on the forums, the sole sprite that was Dummied Out was a blue smear that was going to be put behind Iosa's corpse, but it was removed because it was "too violent". But Asha's death is left as it is, and it's even gorier! How come bloody headshots are too much, but explosive decapitation is a-okay?
  • It would make a bit more sense if it wasn't just blood but detailed "painting the walls with her brains". Meanwhile Asha's explosive decapitation left only his helmet pretty much.
    • Iosa was just doing her job, and died for what she believed in. Asha specifically wanted revenge, and was possibly the one who killed Iji's brother. That's a pretty good reason for showing gory bits of Asha, but not Iosa.
  • The Iosa smear stain has been un-Dummied Out as of 1.7.

• The Komato are a highly advanced race. They have interstellar travel, teleportation, nanotechnology, combat enhancing drugs, laser weaponry, beam swords, force fields, mecha, robots, cyborgs, power armor, planet scale weapons of mass destruction, have countless of colonies (some of which are dedicated entirely to technological research) and much, much more. Why, despite all of this extremely advanced technology, can't Asha get a robotic arm to replace his telefragged one?
  • This is the man who thinks dodging shotguns is a sign of weakness. It's doubtful he would get a prosthetic, because that would imply that he isn't strong enough as he already is.
  • Probably it's some pride thing. Like maybe he keeps his severed arm as a constant reminder of what happens when he's not good enough.
  • It's Asha we're talking about. Do you think he'd think he needs a replacement?
  • Most probably a combination of pride, and the fact that anything robotic would be a little slower than his natural body, and for an assassin who acts on lightning-quick reflexes, that would be an unnecessary handicap. Besides, if he did have both arms, it would be impossible to defeat him.
    • Actually if you look at the game mechanics having only one arm barely slows him down at all—his only attack that's any worse off is the "shoot both plasma canons to make Iji jump" attack, in which he can only shoot one (but still forces Iji to jump). Otherwise, he didn't even need that arm. Which makes the pride a little more plausible.
• Dan (Iji's younger brother) managed to decipher the Tasen/Komato language to the point of being capable of communicating with them. Seeing as Iji completely sucks at negotiation wouldn't it be better to "let Dan do the talking"? He certainly seems to be more adept in this field. Maybe not with Krotera, who is a self-centered jerk. But Tor is far more reasonable and there's a fair chance that Dan might be able to offer some fresh views on Komato's political issues.
  • Being good with languages and tech doesn't make him a diplomat, and the more people know about Dan the more danger he's in.

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