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[[foldercontrol]]
[[folder:Form of Alvis]]
* The last time we see Alvis before the final battle, he is retreating along with Dickson. However, the next time he is encountered, before and after the final battle, he is little more than a disembodied voice. What happened to his physical form?
** He's essentially {{God}}. He can probably fit any form he desires. His Homs form is merely an illusion.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:The world and the sun]]
* The Bionis and Mechonis are standing in an infinitely large ocean. The sun still rises and sets. Where does the sun go at night?
** Looking at the sunset from an open area, like the Bionis Leg, reveals that the sun doesn't go down the horizon, it ''vanishes'' before reaching it. One of the heart-to-hearts reveals that the "stars" in the night sky are actually just ether; who's to say the Sun and the Moon aren't just ether that looks like the real deal too? This would especially make sense when the true nature of Zanza and Meyneth is taken into account. They made it so day and night looked like what it was back on Earth, but without the "other celestial bodies out there" part.
** While it is true that the sun vanishes before reaching the horizon, it needs to be said that it isn't visible in the sky during daytime to begin with: it just appears out of nowhere a couple minutes past 5 p.m., then vanishes around 8 p.m. So, even though a Defence Force Soldier does indeed say that "the big light source in the sky during daytime is ether" and that it "has a light-dark cycle which makes night and day", that big light source isn't even there in the sky during daytime in the first place. That being said, my guess is that the game developers simply couldn't be bothered to animate a full day-night cycle.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Machina mammaries]]
* Why do the Machina have breasts? And [[{{Gainaxing}} why do they]] ''[[JigglePhysics bounce]]''? What sort of metal does that?
** Because they're beings made in the image of a human, and humans have breasts.
** That does explain the existence of the breasts, but doesn't explain the JigglePhysics. My theory is that they are made of a metal with a relatively low melting point mixed with whatever the Machina use for skin. How? Why? Who cares! It's FanService!
** It is possible that this was made in Meyneth's image.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Shooting]]
* Why did Dickson shoot Shulk? I understand all the god stuff but why did he do this? Was it necessary to trigger the transformation? Or was it purely an asshole move based on the decision Shulk was coming to?
** Both it seems. Then again, Dickson would not betray Zanza and the passage of fate presented at that time.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Testaments]]
* Not so much a complaint as an observation- does anyone else see the symbol of [[VideoGame/XenoSaga the Testaments]] on the back of Alvis's jacket? I can't shake the feeling that it's the exact same symbol, but heck if I can make any connection between Alvis and the Testaments- even speaking as someone who believes all the Xeno games are on the same timeline.
** If you notice, it's the same symbol as on Meynth's Monado when it's embedded in Fiora's chest. It's likely her symbol.
** Its seems like it's the symbol of Monado in general. It's recreated in the final boss battle, when lines of light connect Meyneth's, Zanza's, and Shulk's Monados in a triangle.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Running out of power]]
* After the Mechonis Core, there is a very real concern about Fiora running out of power and dying before the quest's end, as her cardiopulmonary systems were being provided power by Meyneth's Monado. The first thing we see after Junks lands at Colony 6 is Fiora presenting the first Replica Monado to a comatose Shulk. Would it have been so unreasonable to say to Vanea, "Hey, think you could make me one of those? Sorta triangular, about, say, this size?" I know that the problem is solved by the epilogue, but as a quick fix to take some of the stress off of Fiora's, Dunban's, Melia's and... well, everyone else who spotted the issue with her body straight away's mind. Additionally, as the issue at hand would have been her machina body running out of power, couldn't you conceivably have used one of the two potential solutions to extend Neonik's life for Fiora?
** It's possible that none of these would have worked. The Replica Monados might not have been able to supply the same energy that the genuine ones can, and Fiora's condition, and possibly her architecture, are considerably different from Neonik's.
** (Original Poster) I can accept that the replicas weren't as powerful as the real deals, but at their base they at least had to have some means of either storing or converting ether energy out of the air to provide the energy blade the weapon used. As to Fiora's architecture, take this into account - on first meeting her, Linada, the machina doctor, mistook this strange robotic woman for one of her people, not realizing that she was a Face unit until the party actually mentions it. While their problems weren't identical (Neonik was dying from being damn near 10000 years old, Fiora is dying because Meyneth isn't powering her heart and lungs anymore), they boiled down to something very similar - their power systems were failing, and a shot of energy from an old Machina unit was enough to repower Neonik for another 20 years. Of course, if Fiora's power really couldn't be restored, it makes the usage of Final Cross REALLY irresponsible post-Mechonis Core, since the whole thing shakes out to "Massive blast of Monado power hits stuff".
** Sure, but given that no other Machina have Monados powering them, it's quite possible that Fiora's power system is a unique technology and incompatible with other power sources.
** (Original Poster) Fair point. That said, since Vanea was the one who originally put together the Fiora/Meyneth/Face Nemesis combo platter, she would probably have been the one most qualified to put together a stopgap system to keep the one remaining piece (Fiora) from terminally powering down. Also, while Gadolt doesn't survive long enough for this to matter, would all pilots of Face units, separated from their respective mecha, eventually succumb to cardiovascular failure, or is Fiora's problem entirely unique? I seem to recall that even with Meyneth on board, early on you still needed to scavenge parts from a wrecked Mechon (piezoelectrical unit, if memory serves) to prevent a complete system failure of Fiora immediately following your arrival at Junks. Then again, Fiora '''did''' suffer some rather critical... system damage in the process of getting taken in the first place (ImpaledWithExtremePrejudice - not good for one's internal organs), and Linada did express some surprise to find that most of Fiora's innards simply weren't there anymore. So it could well be that her imminent shutdown (and lack of necessity to eat) was more a function of "Metal Face stabbed me with claws as long as I am tall" than "Meyneth isn't providing me limitless free energy". I know that Vanea eventually points out that some modification has to be done to a Homs to make a Face unit work, but maybe Fiora's modifications were a bit more extreme out of necessity, rather than simply to make her invincible to standard Monado damage.
** As far as we know, even though the game doesn't flat out confirm this, the pulsating red lights that only Faced Mechon have (Shulk notes this in the first encounter with Metal Face after they find out the Monado can't damage him) are transparent artificial arteries/veins through which the blood of the pilot flows. This is what makes Zanza's Monado confused about the nature of the "thing" that it's hitting, not being able to distinguish Homs from Mechon, and therefore causes it to deal no damage (until Zanza lifts the restriction). So with that said, we can assume a Faced Mechon's pilot's body is surgically modified to have ports which connect his/her Homs blood vessels with those of the Mechon. When the pilot voluntarily exits the Mechon (for example, Mumkhar on Valak Mountain and Galahad Fortress), some software on the Mechon that manages its circulatory system makes sure to shut those ports and keep enough blood inside the pilot's body so that he/she doesn't faint or die from anemia (lack of blood). However, both Fiora and Gadolt were ejected from their critically damaged Mechon's wreckage, so it's safe to assume that control software wasn't working anymore and that's why they were so weak afterwards: a large portion of their blood was left inside the wreckage of their respective Mechons. This is only speculation, but seems plausible.
** Fiora's circulation problems were solved by getting the piezoelectric unit on the Fallen Arm just after the party is reunited. Even after that, she still occasionally has issues adjusting to her new body thanks to some pretty hefty dysphoria. We don't get any details on what's happening to Fiora's body after she loses Meyneth's Monado other than she's running on reserve energy. Also, the Replica Monado was made based off Zanza's Monado, not Meyneth's. It's entirely possible that the energies are simply not interchangeable.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:High Entia and the Homs]]
* If some High Entia have been interbreeding with Homs up to the present day, but most Homs speak of them as though they were long extinct or a fairy tale, is there an explanation for this that doesn't involve kidnapping?
** Well, it's established that there used to be more Homs settlements before the war with the Mechon. Could be that some of the old colonies that were destroyed were closer to High Entia lands.
** There are probably Homs living in Alcamoth, just not in the section we see. Which makes perfect sense--there's a fair amount of anti-Homs racism among High Entians, as seen by people having low opinion of half-High Entians, plus the section of the city we see is connected to the palace. It's unlikely that Homs would be living in the much-coveted Palace District of the capitol city.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Deceiving Shulk]]
* So in Satorl Marsh, Dickson has a line about how he feels bad about deceiving Shulk and co. Yet as soon as he makes his treachery known, he immediately switches to his true persona of a smug, unrepentant JerkAss of near CardCarryingVillain levels who flat-out gloats about deceiving the heroes, making that line seem rather out of character in hindsight. So... What was the point? Was it just a narrative cheat to make Dickson seem like he might not be that bad despite obviously being up to something? Or an attempt at HiddenDepths that was ultimately left unexplored?
** Chances are any kind of attachment he had to Shulk meant jack to him once Shulk started to go against the plans of his powerful long-standing master. After all, he's only known Shulk for what is essentially a passing second compared to his who knows how many years of immortality.
** My assumption was always that he wasn't serious about feeling bad, but was simply saying it jokingly.
** It might of been a line of mocking pity. Like "these idiots don't even stand a chance, this is like stealing candy from a baby. A really dumb baby."
** Narratively speaking, the purpose of that line was to show Dickson shouldn't be fully trusted so from the player's perspective his betrayal doesn't come completely out of nowhere. In universe I reckon it is hidden depths. His jerkass tendencies are really over played but when it comes down to it he let's the characters go on to fight Zanza saying he's not prepared to die for his god, even though he does so immediately afterwards. In truth he didn't want them to see him die, possibly out of shame or possibly because he doesn't want it affecting Shulk's psyche for the upcoming battle. I reckon the character is conflicted between caring for Shulk, his devotion to Zanza and his Nihilistic/blood knight tendencies that makes him not want to care about anything, born from being a creature older than recorded history.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Planets still existing]]
* At the end of the game,we see how the Bionis and Mechonis are created. Klaus wanted to turn all humans into gods but then did a Apocalypse Universal Class 4 which just left Zanza and Meyneth as Gods (along with Alvis) and forms the Titans in the endless ocean where the game takes place. I find some problems with that back story. First, how does the party still see an Earth-like planet before fighting Zanza when the reformation was clearly on Earth? Second, who decided on Klaus's, Meyneth's, and Alvis's fate in this world? Is there a greater god in all of this? Finally, what in the world happened with the ending? The Titans are now destroyed but how is Colony 9 still present and how did the other races make it to Colony 9 when there it is usually a dangerous and long path?
** 1. It's possible that Zanza keeps an illusion of Earth and its nearby planets out there because, on some level, he misses it.
** 2. We're talking about an event that turned two humans and a supercomputer into gods and destroyed the previous universe, so who knows how the mechanics behind something like that would work.
** 3. After Shulk recreated the universe, there were once again planets and land outside the Bionis, so everybody got off the Bionis and built a new Colony away from it.
** This is WMG territory: Klaus' "phase" experiment didn't destroy the universe, it simply sent him, Meyneth, and Alvis into a new universe, or an empty space where they created a new universe. This explains some of the bizarreness--the sun fading in and out, the endless flat plane of an ocean, altitude having no effect on people's bodies, etc. While they were scientists and gods, recreating the old world would have been daunting, so they went for something simple. A universe with such off-kilter physics required gods to keeps it functioning. When Shulk created a new universe "with no need for gods," that changed the universe into one with workable physics, a.k.a. real world physics, with stars and planets. Then for pure convenience's sake, they were placed on a life-supporting planet with a compatible ecosystem and no pre-existing sentient life. Colony 9 (and, I assume, 6, plus maybe Frontier Village, Alcamoth, and the Machina village) and all the people were moved to solid ground on the shore. I figure that their new planet is in the same position that Earth was in the original universe, probably with all the same continents. It just lacks humans, and maybe the flora and fauna are more akin to Bionis/ Mechonis lifeforms than Earth ones.
** I interpreted this one as "Shulk took the stuff that was Bionis and Mechonis and incorporated that into the new planet". Hence why Colony 9 appears almost identical to how it appeared on Bionis, and perhaps more importantly, allowing the people living on Bionis to keep their homes and scientific materials, which helps with the whole "Explore this vast new universe!" idea.
** VideoGame/XenobladeChronicles2 reveals that the Architect is none other than Klaus' good half, while Zanza is his bad half. The earth-like image is just an illusion of the events before the story began. It is also possible that the Architect may have indirectly helped Shulk and his party, alongside Alvis (assumed to be Ontos in XC2) because Shulk's nature is a parallel reflection of the Architect.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Colonies]]
* So there's Colony 9 and Colony 6, where are all the other colonies then? (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, ect...)
** Destroyed in previous Mechon attacks presumably.
** More or less confirmed by a Heart-to-Heart between Melia and Dunban on the Fallen Arm. One of the options while talking about Mumkhar says that he originally came from a colony that had been destroyed.
** Some bonus material says there were originally 10 Colonies.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Shulk surviving]]
* It's established that at Ose Tower, Zanza killed Shulk and the only reason Shulk appeared to be alive was because Zanza acted as his life force. Why is Shulk still alive and able to move on his own completely fine after separating from Zanza? If Shulk depended entirely on Zanza to live, shouldn't he have returned to being a corpse the moment Dickson shot him? Did Alvis do something to revive Shulk? I feel like the game addressed legitimate concerns with Fiora's split from Meyneth but didn't really explore the Shulk/Zanza aftereffects that well.
** The game reveals that Meyneth used the last of her power to give life back to Shulk just before she died. Alvis was then able to bring his consciousness out of the coma.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:New arm]]
* Egil would need a lot of raw materials to build his Mechon army. That's fine; the Mechonis is pretty big, so even if they only mined bits of the Mechonis' interior here and there, that would probably provide enough metal and such for a whole bunch of Mechon. But that doesn't excuse the ''giant freakin' replacement arm'' that Egil was also responsible for building. Seriously, how the heck did he get enough material for a new arm without turning the Mechonis' insides into swiss cheese?
** Well the inside of the Mechois Field is very open. Compareing it to the Bionis' knee too, the fallen arm looks somewhat small to me. It's possible the arm used to be meater but Egil mined it down to the bare bones, in a somewhat literal sense. What we see is just the interior skeleton design with the muscle and flesh parts being used to make the new arm.
** He could have mined it from the ocean floor...
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Arglas]]
* About Arglas and Zanza: it was stated that Arglas was the soul of the Bionis and was possessed by Zanza. But it was also stated that Zanza created the Bionis, just like Lady Meynet created the Mechonis. So did Zanza create the Bionis with a mind of his own, made a sword for his body, waited for thousands of years for Arglas to pick him up, then destroyed and replaced Arglas's mind?
** No, ''Zanza'' was the soul of the Bionis. Arglas was just a dude who found the Monado, picked it up, and got possessed by Zanza. When Zanza first shows up at Prison Island, the body he's inhabiting was originally Arglas's.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Zanza and the Monado]]
* It was stated that Zanza and the Bionis Monado are one-and-the-same. However, Meyneth **has** a Monado, rather than **being** the Mechonis Monado. Was something messed up in the translation?
** I don't know what exactly the game said, but wasn't it Alvis who was one and the same with the Bionis' Monado? I don't know about the Mechonis' Monado, but I think Zanza and Meyneth are on similar standings in regards to their blade.
** Alvis is both Monados: he was the source of power for all of them.
** I think a Monado is a ''part'' of a god--their willpower made manifest. So they're connected, and Zanza could, in a limited way, act through his Monado even while sealed. Meyneth was never separated from her Monado--Zanza took it after she died.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Egil talking]]
* MAJOR endgame spoilers, but seriously, couldn't SO MUCH have been avoided if Egil told Shulk and Co. what was going on? Egil offers to do this at one point... by offering to turn them into Face-Mechon and THEN explaining. Why bother doing that when you could just drop in, and say "Hey, let's have a chat about what we're fighting for." Obviously, Shulk was too mad to listen on Valak Mountain or the fortress, but by the time they reached the Fallen Arm and met with Miqol they would've listened. Who knows? Maybe they could've made a decision like, I don't know, chuck the Monado in the ocean? Blow up Prison Island? ([[VideoGame/SonicAdventure2 Which has been done before, mind you.) PoorCommunicationKills and all that, but I still feel like so much could've been avoided by just telling the party about Zanza.]]
** If memory serves me correctly, Egil did not see Shulk after the Fallen Arm until literally right before Mechonis Core, where he did finally explain all this. After that... I think Shulk and Egil's conflict had come too far to just stop.
** OP here. While you're right in that they don't meet Egil again until the fight at the Meyneth statue, my main question is why didn't Egil try to talk to them before that? [[SarcasmMode It's not like, you know, they were storming the Mechonis or anything. Overall, Egil's actions after Galahad Fortress seem kind of questionable. He sees an immense power that he (likely) considers to be Meyneth's Monado, and... does nothing? Even if he thought Shulk and co. died from the fall (Likely, since later he shows surprise that they met with the Machina. "Even my own people have turned against me," Or something like that), does he really have no knowledge that the Face Unit he JUST FINISHED MAKING had an encounter with a group of Homs, Nopon, High Entia and Robot Girl? Or that Vanea went to meet them? What was he so focused on? Anyways, rambling aside, I don't get why he didn't just hop in Yaldabaoth, fly down maybe 10 stories and meet with them again. I mean, what better person to talk to about the situation than the wielder of the Monado? (You are right in that after the battle with Egil there was no turning back, but ''still...'')]]
** Yeah, that seems a bit odd. The best explanation I can come up with is that Vanea had shown Shulk and Co the history of the Mechonis (you know, Zanza attacked Mechonis for no good reason history). I think, just maybe, Egil appreciated that Shulk wouldn't have accepted the whole "Monado is evil" point of view until he saw this history. Were it not for the second encounter with Jade Face between 'history of Mechonis' and 'finally explain all of this', there would be a logical explanation for this plot point.
** Given what happened to Arglas, instant possession, it seems quite possible Egil assumed there was no use talking to them. That Shulk was his actual enemy. He even calls Shulk Zanza in the capital. Honestly given the guys backstory and how big a pain in the ass Shulk and co have been, the fact that he was willing to talk to them at all in the capital is pretty big of him.
** The above answer is most likely correct. Egil seemed to assume that Shulk was possessed by Zanza. He only realized that Shulk "retained his sense of self" when he spared his life after the battle.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Short run]]
* So... for all the brouhaha it took to get Xenoblade released in North America, why ''oh WHY'' did it get such a short run? At first I assumed the game was never for sale in our stores because I live in FlyoverCountry (Many of our stores only get one shipment of games every quarter - and we didn't even have ''Amiibos'' until February. This area has several million people living here, ''OI!'') but then I found out it was the same everywhere else - even if For a game that was in such high demand in North America, ''why'' only release a short number of copies? Good thing we're getting a New 3DS version - which I ''hope'' has a longer run. (It'll actually be cheaper than the wii version - plus the system.)
** Pretty sure NOA severely underestimated how popular the game would turn out to be in North America. And the NA release happened pretty late in the Wii's lifetime. We're very lucky to have gotten it at all.
* How is Zanza's soul in two places at once? Meyneth said that Zanza's body was trapped in Prison Island and Zanza's soul (the Monado) was confined to Ose Tower in Valak Mountain. However, his "body" belonged to Arglas. What was the point in separating the body and soul if the body is not actually Zanza's? How is Zanza able to remain in Arglas and Shulk at the same time?
** Because he's a god.
** I think of it this way. Zanza is broken into three parts. His sentient mind is trapped within Arglas, that's how he was able to be imprisoned on Prison Island. His soul is further broken into two parts. One is within the Monado and attempts to bend anyone who uses it to his will (however it isn't sentient). The other half is within Shulk. When Arglas is freed and then killed, Zanza's mind is released and rejoins with either the half of his soul in the Monado or Shulk (which doesn't matter, since both are together). When Shulk dies all three pieces reunite.
** Because Klaus' good side, the Architect revealed in XenobladeChronicles2, revealed alternate possibilities. Klaus' soul was fragmented, though the Architect side seems to be whole, albeit a dimensional portal on his left hemisphere. It is possible that Zanza's soul was further fragmented.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Prison island]]
* What is Prison Island? It's established the High Entia ancestors didn't build it, only used it, and at the end of the game Zanza goes there in order to enact his genocide/travel to a realm beyond scheme implying it has a connection to the original experiment. To further this (something I forgot about until replaying it) at the entrance there is text no one can translate but is similar to the symbols on the Monado which I assume are Japanese, I know the final symbol means God anyway. So what does this inscription say and what importance does Prison Island have in the overall existence of their world? Is their a corresponding structure in Mechonis that can be picked out?
** I believe Prison Island may have been built by Giants, considering the size of its furniture.
** Prison Island may have been the home of Arglas, and Zanza started using it when he possessed Arglas, because why not? Or maybe it was Dickson's place that he let Zanza use as an HQ. Of course, the fact that the Bionis control center is on the Terrace (we see Zanza-in-Arglas there when fighting Meyneth, it's where he was imprisoned) suggests that the island is as old as the Bionis itself. So either the Giants built a home around the Bionis control center, or Zanza remodeled the place after taking over Arglas and installed the control center on the Terrace.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Recognizing Dickson]]
* If Egil was aware of Dickson being Zanza's disciple and was able to recognize him at first sight, isn't it incredibly odd that none of the Machina we meet remember anything strange about him? Egil's father Miqol witnessed the Bionis/Mechonis fight firsthand. He clearly knows about Zanza. Why does he say "I scratch his back and he scratches mine" in regards to Dickson when Zanza is the reason Machina were nearly driven to extinction? Why do all the Machina welcome him into the village with open arms? If Miqol is six thousand years old, and Egil is younger than him, and Machina such as Eiz and Neonik were alive when Zanza attacked Meyneth, why does nobody find the presence of Zanza's disciple extremely suspicious?
** When Egil recognised Dickson, he had just done something despicable, and Egil could connect the dots from there. Miqol and the rest of the Fallen Arm residents see only a genial Homs, and have no reason to suspect that Dickson may be the Giant that served Zanza.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Mining metal]]
* Where is the metal for the Mechon and the Machina coming from? Were Meyneth and Egil just hollowing out Mechonis?
** Yes. In all probability at least. Most of what you explore of the Mechonis is very open interior while the Bionis is mostly the outside surface.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Secretary]]
* After the Bionis Interior, we see Vanea finishing up a new face Mechon, Fiora. Some pretty cool villain foreshadowing, right? But then, a voice on the speaker says "Lady Vanea, Master Egil wishes to see you." Umm... Who was that? Wasn't the whole thing about Egil that only Vanea agreed to follow him? Where did he get a secretary?
** Computer with an automated voice.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Climates]]
* I'm having a hard time conceptualizing the different climates and environments on Bionis. Valak Mountain, for example. It's apparently so cold thanks to being "as high up on the Bionis as you can go," but it's pretty clear that spoiler Eryth Sea and Prison Island are higher--and they're pretty tropical. So how is Valak Mountain, the right arm of the Bionis, so cold? In the same vein, how are Satorl Marsh and Makna Forest even able to stay on the Bionis? They're both relatively flat, but they're on the waist and back, respectively. It doesn't make sense.
** Due to its position, the right arm of the Bionis is constantly under the shadow of the rest of the body of Bionis, which gives Valak Mountain its cold climate. Satorl Marsh is located on an indentation found along the waist of the Bionis and visible from Bionis Leg, which is why it has its "C" shape; and Makna Forest is on an horizontal "plate" that comes out of the titan's back found beneath the floating Eryth Sea. [[http://turtwig163.tumblr.com/post/106287813232 Here are some pictures with the different locations of Bionis]] for reference.
** There's also the fact that physics is just kind of wonky in this world. Even though they're both scientists, Meyneth and Zanza would have had a hard time recreating the universe after becoming gods, so it looks like they kept things really simple--a flat endless plain, a sun that fades in and out instead of rising and setting, etc. That would explain why the world needed gods--without them, the weird physics would collapse and the world would stagnate into nothingness.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Shulk and Klaus appearance]]
* If Shulk being Zanza's vessel was just a coincidence, why are they identical in looks and sound? Zanza looked the same before he became a god too. Did he happen to get the one guy on Bionis who was pretty much his doppelganger?
** 2 possibilities, either Alvis merely depicted Zanza in his Shulk avatar in order to make it clear to Shulk (and the player) that Klaus is Zanza, or yes, Shulk really is Zanza;s doppelganger. Which isn't all that far fetched when you consider he had a vision of Shulk, his perfect vessel, and spent several thousand years waiting for him to be born.
** Considering the [[ScrewDestiny themes of the game, it's doubtful that Shulk was ''actually'' his doppleganger. It's possible that Shulk was considered a good vessel because he happened to look and sound like Zanza/ Klaus did. After all, Zanza does note that his imprisonment was really not a big deal at all, so he would have been A-OK with being picky about appearances.]]
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Nopon Sage]]
* How in the actual heck is the Nopon Sage 9,999 years old? Nopons live longer than Homs, but shorter thank High Entia, apparently, because it's stated in a quest that there's a Nopon's grammypon who's celebrating his 160th birthday, but 9,999 is much longer than any Homs, Nopon, High Entia, or hell, even most Machina. HOW? Was he the first Nopon ever created? Are all Nopon descended from him and a deceased partner? Is he just lying? Who knows.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Making Machina]]
* So... how exactly are Machina made? I find it hard to believe that a race who are essentially really advanced robotics are anatomically correct, and the fact that juvenile Machina look so different to adults that make me hesitant to believe it's by viviparous birth.
** I don't know if we ever learn the details of how they reproduce, but we have reason to think that the Machina are more like biological life than like machines. While they are called machine people at one point, they are also repeatedly referred to as life born from the Mechonis. They seem closer to inorganic life than purely mechanical life. One NPC also notes that while they live for an exceedingly long time, they do eventually die and when they do said death is not all that different from that of organic life. Likewise they normally grow and mature just like other living things (one side quest involves helping a Machina whose growth was stunted somehow), so they may well reproduce in a human-like manner, even if the details might be very different.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Tyrea]]
* I'm not sure how well I understood something that Dunban said, at the end of one of the Surprise Quests: "Melancholy Tyrea" saw the eponymous assassin part ways with Melia and the others. After she left, Dunban said, "We and Tyrea share the same goal. Our paths are sure to meet again." I get that at the very least, Tyrea won't be trying to kill them, but she was trying to fulfill her mission to MercyKill her transformed mother, while Shulk and co. are getting ready to stop Zanza. I don't think "killing the god of the Bionis" is the goal Dunban was referring to, so my question is: what goal ''do'' these two parties have in common? Is it fighting for their people?
** Stopping Zanza is not the only goal. Mercy killing the transformed High Entia is among the goals Dunban's group has in the game. He's referring to that.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Unique Face units]]
* How come Mumkhar, Fiora, and Gadolt get unique face units? What's so special about them compared to Xord and the other mass-produced faces?
** Presumably it's a skill or power thing. Give the more skilled homs more advanced units to take advantage of their abilities. Gadolt was the best of the Colony 6 defense force, and Mumkhar was part of Dunban's honor guard. Fiora, while skilled on her own, was given a unique unit because she was Meyneath's host, and that was only because she happened to be close to Shulk.
** Metal Face in particular also seems to have been an early face unit, a prototype of sorts. It's also possible there are more designs than we see in the game, but we mostly see the Xord design due to the LawOfConservationOfDetail.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:On the way to Sword Valley]]
* Dunban mentions that he thought the High Entia were but folklore. But... just a year ago you had to go to Sword Valley. How'd the Homs get to Sword Valley without passing by the lands held by the high Entia?
** You don't have to go to Eryth Sea to get to Sword Valley. Only Valak Mountain. Going to Eryth Sea was only because of Prison Island and unlocking the power to hurt Faced Mechon.
** What makes it strange however is that Otharon is clearly well aware of their existence, and asked them for help in the battle. How did Dunban never even know they existed?
** I don't think Otharon was necessarily claiming he knew they existed and actually asked the High Entia for help, rather that its now clear to him the High Entia were aware of what was going on and that the Homs needed help yet they did nothing.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Colony 6 last defense]]
* In the Battle of Sword Valley, why would the plan be to set up the last line of defense at Colony 6? 6 is pretty far from Sword Valley (having to go through Valak Mountain, Makna Forest, and Satorl Marsh to get there from Sword Valley), thus making it seem like a lost cause, plus the fact that Frontier Village in in Makna.
** Recall that the group only went to Satorl Marsh, Makna Forest, etc. because of Shulk's vision showing they needed to get to the head of the Bionis (before this they planned to go straight to Sword Valley). Apparently there is a more direct/shorter route between Colony 6 and Sword Valley, we just don't get to use it. Sharla does seem to allude to it though when she mentions how if Colony 6 were in better shape they could just take pods from there to Sword Valley.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Alvis and Shulk]]
* Why does Alvis need Shulk or to pretend to be a mortal at all? He seems to be more powerful than even Zanza, is sapient, and clearly isn't satisfied with the universe Zanza created. So why not just remake the universe himself? It doesn't seem like Zanza could do anything to stop him, and Alvis doesn't seem to need his permission to act either. If he did, Zanza could have just told him to kill Shulk at the end.
** Alvis may simply not be able to take that kind of direct action. He refers to the events that defeat Zanza as "the providence of the world" (i.e. the collective will of the world) rather than his own power, that he is merely "proclaiming" the end rather than causing it. Further, he notes that without its own god the world Zanza and Meyneth made is rapidly falling apart and the new god, Shulk, has to decide what to do about it. That he outright creates an illusion to push Shulk forward in deciding suggests Alvis needed Shulk to be the one to do it and that Alvis couldn't stop the world coming apart without this. Hence Alvis needed to wait until Zanza's activities caused the conditions needed for a new god to be born before he could move forward with his own plans. Alvis' methods also tie into his original nature as a computer, he has developed his own will and wants for the universe but he is still limited by his need for "input" from others and his original purpose of being a monitor and overseer of a system rather than a direct manipulator of it. Xenoblade Chronicles 2 explores more about what sort of being Alvis is and what it takes for one to gain human-like levels of initiative and free will.
** Specifically, XB2 explains that Blades normally work by channeling power into their Drivers, which is far more efficient than just fighting on their own. Blades are weaker the farther they are from their Drivers, even though the Aegis (which Alvis is) is much stronger and has an unlimited range. Even the BigBad of that game just has a motivation copied off the man who initially Awakened him. So in short, Alvis can't really act unless his Driver is directing him. In the end, his only choice was picking Shulk over Zanza.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Purpose of the Mechon]]
* Where did the Mechon come from, and what is their purpose? It's stated all throughout the game that the Mechon hail from Mechonis, but that seems pretty closed-minded when considering that Meyneth, the Goddess of Mechonis, wanted Gods and living creatures to exist in harmony. Why then would her home Titan house creatures meant to wipe out all life forms? In fact, doesn't it seem unnecessary for Mechon to want to eradicate all life, given that not only do the Telethia serve the same exact purpose, but they were specifically designed to do so by Zanza, the one who ''actually'' wants to destroy all life and reincarnate it in an endless cycle? The only Mechon who seem to make sense from a purpose standpoint would be the Faced Mechon, given that they don't have "minds" of their own, and they're piloted by corrupt Homs.
** That's because they were not initially meant to be killing machines. Rather they were an automated work and defense force, doing things the Machina found too difficult or dangerous. It was Egil who redesigned/reprogrammed them and directed them to slaughter the peoples of Bionis.
** Egil explained why he was attacking the people of Bionis: They are Zanza's food source, so attacking them (or better yet, repurposing them for his own use) is good strategy. He doesn't care about killing them, it's just a means to an end. Letting Zanza eat them is the ''last'' thing he wants.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Empty shell]]
* So, we can infer that Shulk became his own person once he got in contact with Alvis postmortem, given that Zanza literally said that Shulk was nothing but an empty shell for his whole life. ...But that just begs the question. Why did Shulk have so many unanswered questions about the feud between the Bionis and Mechonis, as well as his own motives, feelings, and relationships? Was it all an insanely complex ruse by Zanza to lead to his resurrection? Because if so, Zanza was being ''way'' too convoluted in putting up a disguised personality for 18 years, especially given that age rates for Gods stretch out ''far'' longer than someone like a Homs, or even a High Entia.
** That's one interpretation, but I would say the game's story supports the idea that Shulk was always his own person, hence why Zanza did things like send him dreams saying "you aren't here, not anymore." Him claiming Shulk was an empty shell was likely just a way to disregard him or otherwise make everyone doubt themselves. Note that they all seem very focused on breaking the spirits of Shulk and company. We see this too when Dickson refers to Fiora as a "corpse" and mocks the idea that they think she is their old friend, whereas we know that even though she is being kept alive via a god's energy, she is still Fiora just the same. Zanza became Shulk's life force, and this meant Shulk himself was still alive alongside Zanza, and after Zanza left him, Fiora states Meyneth used the last of her power to fix his body. What specifically Alvis did is unclear, but perhaps he helped awaken Shulk's developing godhood.
[[/folder]]
----
[[foldercontrol]]
[[folder:Form of Alvis]]
* The last time we see Alvis before the final battle, he is retreating along with Dickson. However, the next time he is encountered, before and after the final battle, he is little more than a disembodied voice. What happened to his physical form?
** He's essentially {{God}}. He can probably fit any form he desires. His Homs form is merely an illusion.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:The world and the sun]]
* The Bionis and Mechonis are standing in an infinitely large ocean. The sun still rises and sets. Where does the sun go at night?
** Looking at the sunset from an open area, like the Bionis Leg, reveals that the sun doesn't go down the horizon, it ''vanishes'' before reaching it. One of the heart-to-hearts reveals that the "stars" in the night sky are actually just ether; who's to say the Sun and the Moon aren't just ether that looks like the real deal too? This would especially make sense when the true nature of Zanza and Meyneth is taken into account. They made it so day and night looked like what it was back on Earth, but without the "other celestial bodies out there" part.
** While it is true that the sun vanishes before reaching the horizon, it needs to be said that it isn't visible in the sky during daytime to begin with: it just appears out of nowhere a couple minutes past 5 p.m., then vanishes around 8 p.m. So, even though a Defence Force Soldier does indeed say that "the big light source in the sky during daytime is ether" and that it "has a light-dark cycle which makes night and day", that big light source isn't even there in the sky during daytime in the first place. That being said, my guess is that the game developers simply couldn't be bothered to animate a full day-night cycle.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Machina mammaries]]
* Why do the Machina have breasts? And [[{{Gainaxing}} why do they]] ''[[JigglePhysics bounce]]''? What sort of metal does that?
** Because they're beings made in the image of a human, and humans have breasts.
** That does explain the existence of the breasts, but doesn't explain the JigglePhysics. My theory is that they are made of a metal with a relatively low melting point mixed with whatever the Machina use for skin. How? Why? Who cares! It's FanService!
** It is possible that this was made in Meyneth's image.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Shooting]]
* Why did Dickson shoot Shulk? I understand all the god stuff but why did he do this? Was it necessary to trigger the transformation? Or was it purely an asshole move based on the decision Shulk was coming to?
** Both it seems. Then again, Dickson would not betray Zanza and the passage of fate presented at that time.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Testaments]]
* Not so much a complaint as an observation- does anyone else see the symbol of [[VideoGame/XenoSaga the Testaments]] on the back of Alvis's jacket? I can't shake the feeling that it's the exact same symbol, but heck if I can make any connection between Alvis and the Testaments- even speaking as someone who believes all the Xeno games are on the same timeline.
** If you notice, it's the same symbol as on Meynth's Monado when it's embedded in Fiora's chest. It's likely her symbol.
** Its seems like it's the symbol of Monado in general. It's recreated in the final boss battle, when lines of light connect Meyneth's, Zanza's, and Shulk's Monados in a triangle.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Running out of power]]
* After the Mechonis Core, there is a very real concern about Fiora running out of power and dying before the quest's end, as her cardiopulmonary systems were being provided power by Meyneth's Monado. The first thing we see after Junks lands at Colony 6 is Fiora presenting the first Replica Monado to a comatose Shulk. Would it have been so unreasonable to say to Vanea, "Hey, think you could make me one of those? Sorta triangular, about, say, this size?" I know that the problem is solved by the epilogue, but as a quick fix to take some of the stress off of Fiora's, Dunban's, Melia's and... well, everyone else who spotted the issue with her body straight away's mind. Additionally, as the issue at hand would have been her machina body running out of power, couldn't you conceivably have used one of the two potential solutions to extend Neonik's life for Fiora?
** It's possible that none of these would have worked. The Replica Monados might not have been able to supply the same energy that the genuine ones can, and Fiora's condition, and possibly her architecture, are considerably different from Neonik's.
** (Original Poster) I can accept that the replicas weren't as powerful as the real deals, but at their base they at least had to have some means of either storing or converting ether energy out of the air to provide the energy blade the weapon used. As to Fiora's architecture, take this into account - on first meeting her, Linada, the machina doctor, mistook this strange robotic woman for one of her people, not realizing that she was a Face unit until the party actually mentions it. While their problems weren't identical (Neonik was dying from being damn near 10000 years old, Fiora is dying because Meyneth isn't powering her heart and lungs anymore), they boiled down to something very similar - their power systems were failing, and a shot of energy from an old Machina unit was enough to repower Neonik for another 20 years. Of course, if Fiora's power really couldn't be restored, it makes the usage of Final Cross REALLY irresponsible post-Mechonis Core, since the whole thing shakes out to "Massive blast of Monado power hits stuff".
** Sure, but given that no other Machina have Monados powering them, it's quite possible that Fiora's power system is a unique technology and incompatible with other power sources.
** (Original Poster) Fair point. That said, since Vanea was the one who originally put together the Fiora/Meyneth/Face Nemesis combo platter, she would probably have been the one most qualified to put together a stopgap system to keep the one remaining piece (Fiora) from terminally powering down. Also, while Gadolt doesn't survive long enough for this to matter, would all pilots of Face units, separated from their respective mecha, eventually succumb to cardiovascular failure, or is Fiora's problem entirely unique? I seem to recall that even with Meyneth on board, early on you still needed to scavenge parts from a wrecked Mechon (piezoelectrical unit, if memory serves) to prevent a complete system failure of Fiora immediately following your arrival at Junks. Then again, Fiora '''did''' suffer some rather critical... system damage in the process of getting taken in the first place (ImpaledWithExtremePrejudice - not good for one's internal organs), and Linada did express some surprise to find that most of Fiora's innards simply weren't there anymore. So it could well be that her imminent shutdown (and lack of necessity to eat) was more a function of "Metal Face stabbed me with claws as long as I am tall" than "Meyneth isn't providing me limitless free energy". I know that Vanea eventually points out that some modification has to be done to a Homs to make a Face unit work, but maybe Fiora's modifications were a bit more extreme out of necessity, rather than simply to make her invincible to standard Monado damage.
** As far as we know, even though the game doesn't flat out confirm this, the pulsating red lights that only Faced Mechon have (Shulk notes this in the first encounter with Metal Face after they find out the Monado can't damage him) are transparent artificial arteries/veins through which the blood of the pilot flows. This is what makes Zanza's Monado confused about the nature of the "thing" that it's hitting, not being able to distinguish Homs from Mechon, and therefore causes it to deal no damage (until Zanza lifts the restriction). So with that said, we can assume a Faced Mechon's pilot's body is surgically modified to have ports which connect his/her Homs blood vessels with those of the Mechon. When the pilot voluntarily exits the Mechon (for example, Mumkhar on Valak Mountain and Galahad Fortress), some software on the Mechon that manages its circulatory system makes sure to shut those ports and keep enough blood inside the pilot's body so that he/she doesn't faint or die from anemia (lack of blood). However, both Fiora and Gadolt were ejected from their critically damaged Mechon's wreckage, so it's safe to assume that control software wasn't working anymore and that's why they were so weak afterwards: a large portion of their blood was left inside the wreckage of their respective Mechons. This is only speculation, but seems plausible.
** Fiora's circulation problems were solved by getting the piezoelectric unit on the Fallen Arm just after the party is reunited. Even after that, she still occasionally has issues adjusting to her new body thanks to some pretty hefty dysphoria. We don't get any details on what's happening to Fiora's body after she loses Meyneth's Monado other than she's running on reserve energy. Also, the Replica Monado was made based off Zanza's Monado, not Meyneth's. It's entirely possible that the energies are simply not interchangeable.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:High Entia and the Homs]]
* If some High Entia have been interbreeding with Homs up to the present day, but most Homs speak of them as though they were long extinct or a fairy tale, is there an explanation for this that doesn't involve kidnapping?
** Well, it's established that there used to be more Homs settlements before the war with the Mechon. Could be that some of the old colonies that were destroyed were closer to High Entia lands.
** There are probably Homs living in Alcamoth, just not in the section we see. Which makes perfect sense--there's a fair amount of anti-Homs racism among High Entians, as seen by people having low opinion of half-High Entians, plus the section of the city we see is connected to the palace. It's unlikely that Homs would be living in the much-coveted Palace District of the capitol city.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Deceiving Shulk]]
* So in Satorl Marsh, Dickson has a line about how he feels bad about deceiving Shulk and co. Yet as soon as he makes his treachery known, he immediately switches to his true persona of a smug, unrepentant JerkAss of near CardCarryingVillain levels who flat-out gloats about deceiving the heroes, making that line seem rather out of character in hindsight. So... What was the point? Was it just a narrative cheat to make Dickson seem like he might not be that bad despite obviously being up to something? Or an attempt at HiddenDepths that was ultimately left unexplored?
** Chances are any kind of attachment he had to Shulk meant jack to him once Shulk started to go against the plans of his powerful long-standing master. After all, he's only known Shulk for what is essentially a passing second compared to his who knows how many years of immortality.
** My assumption was always that he wasn't serious about feeling bad, but was simply saying it jokingly.
** It might of been a line of mocking pity. Like "these idiots don't even stand a chance, this is like stealing candy from a baby. A really dumb baby."
** Narratively speaking, the purpose of that line was to show Dickson shouldn't be fully trusted so from the player's perspective his betrayal doesn't come completely out of nowhere. In universe I reckon it is hidden depths. His jerkass tendencies are really over played but when it comes down to it he let's the characters go on to fight Zanza saying he's not prepared to die for his god, even though he does so immediately afterwards. In truth he didn't want them to see him die, possibly out of shame or possibly because he doesn't want it affecting Shulk's psyche for the upcoming battle. I reckon the character is conflicted between caring for Shulk, his devotion to Zanza and his Nihilistic/blood knight tendencies that makes him not want to care about anything, born from being a creature older than recorded history.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Planets still existing]]
* At the end of the game,we see how the Bionis and Mechonis are created. Klaus wanted to turn all humans into gods but then did a Apocalypse Universal Class 4 which just left Zanza and Meyneth as Gods (along with Alvis) and forms the Titans in the endless ocean where the game takes place. I find some problems with that back story. First, how does the party still see an Earth-like planet before fighting Zanza when the reformation was clearly on Earth? Second, who decided on Klaus's, Meyneth's, and Alvis's fate in this world? Is there a greater god in all of this? Finally, what in the world happened with the ending? The Titans are now destroyed but how is Colony 9 still present and how did the other races make it to Colony 9 when there it is usually a dangerous and long path?
** 1. It's possible that Zanza keeps an illusion of Earth and its nearby planets out there because, on some level, he misses it.
** 2. We're talking about an event that turned two humans and a supercomputer into gods and destroyed the previous universe, so who knows how the mechanics behind something like that would work.
** 3. After Shulk recreated the universe, there were once again planets and land outside the Bionis, so everybody got off the Bionis and built a new Colony away from it.
** This is WMG territory: Klaus' "phase" experiment didn't destroy the universe, it simply sent him, Meyneth, and Alvis into a new universe, or an empty space where they created a new universe. This explains some of the bizarreness--the sun fading in and out, the endless flat plane of an ocean, altitude having no effect on people's bodies, etc. While they were scientists and gods, recreating the old world would have been daunting, so they went for something simple. A universe with such off-kilter physics required gods to keeps it functioning. When Shulk created a new universe "with no need for gods," that changed the universe into one with workable physics, a.k.a. real world physics, with stars and planets. Then for pure convenience's sake, they were placed on a life-supporting planet with a compatible ecosystem and no pre-existing sentient life. Colony 9 (and, I assume, 6, plus maybe Frontier Village, Alcamoth, and the Machina village) and all the people were moved to solid ground on the shore. I figure that their new planet is in the same position that Earth was in the original universe, probably with all the same continents. It just lacks humans, and maybe the flora and fauna are more akin to Bionis/ Mechonis lifeforms than Earth ones.
** I interpreted this one as "Shulk took the stuff that was Bionis and Mechonis and incorporated that into the new planet". Hence why Colony 9 appears almost identical to how it appeared on Bionis, and perhaps more importantly, allowing the people living on Bionis to keep their homes and scientific materials, which helps with the whole "Explore this vast new universe!" idea.
** VideoGame/XenobladeChronicles2 reveals that the Architect is none other than Klaus' good half, while Zanza is his bad half. The earth-like image is just an illusion of the events before the story began. It is also possible that the Architect may have indirectly helped Shulk and his party, alongside Alvis (assumed to be Ontos in XC2) because Shulk's nature is a parallel reflection of the Architect.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Colonies]]
* So there's Colony 9 and Colony 6, where are all the other colonies then? (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, ect...)
** Destroyed in previous Mechon attacks presumably.
** More or less confirmed by a Heart-to-Heart between Melia and Dunban on the Fallen Arm. One of the options while talking about Mumkhar says that he originally came from a colony that had been destroyed.
** Some bonus material says there were originally 10 Colonies.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Shulk surviving]]
* It's established that at Ose Tower, Zanza killed Shulk and the only reason Shulk appeared to be alive was because Zanza acted as his life force. Why is Shulk still alive and able to move on his own completely fine after separating from Zanza? If Shulk depended entirely on Zanza to live, shouldn't he have returned to being a corpse the moment Dickson shot him? Did Alvis do something to revive Shulk? I feel like the game addressed legitimate concerns with Fiora's split from Meyneth but didn't really explore the Shulk/Zanza aftereffects that well.
** The game reveals that Meyneth used the last of her power to give life back to Shulk just before she died. Alvis was then able to bring his consciousness out of the coma.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:New arm]]
* Egil would need a lot of raw materials to build his Mechon army. That's fine; the Mechonis is pretty big, so even if they only mined bits of the Mechonis' interior here and there, that would probably provide enough metal and such for a whole bunch of Mechon. But that doesn't excuse the ''giant freakin' replacement arm'' that Egil was also responsible for building. Seriously, how the heck did he get enough material for a new arm without turning the Mechonis' insides into swiss cheese?
** Well the inside of the Mechois Field is very open. Compareing it to the Bionis' knee too, the fallen arm looks somewhat small to me. It's possible the arm used to be meater but Egil mined it down to the bare bones, in a somewhat literal sense. What we see is just the interior skeleton design with the muscle and flesh parts being used to make the new arm.
** He could have mined it from the ocean floor...
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Arglas]]
* About Arglas and Zanza: it was stated that Arglas was the soul of the Bionis and was possessed by Zanza. But it was also stated that Zanza created the Bionis, just like Lady Meynet created the Mechonis. So did Zanza create the Bionis with a mind of his own, made a sword for his body, waited for thousands of years for Arglas to pick him up, then destroyed and replaced Arglas's mind?
** No, ''Zanza'' was the soul of the Bionis. Arglas was just a dude who found the Monado, picked it up, and got possessed by Zanza. When Zanza first shows up at Prison Island, the body he's inhabiting was originally Arglas's.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Zanza and the Monado]]
* It was stated that Zanza and the Bionis Monado are one-and-the-same. However, Meyneth **has** a Monado, rather than **being** the Mechonis Monado. Was something messed up in the translation?
** I don't know what exactly the game said, but wasn't it Alvis who was one and the same with the Bionis' Monado? I don't know about the Mechonis' Monado, but I think Zanza and Meyneth are on similar standings in regards to their blade.
** Alvis is both Monados: he was the source of power for all of them.
** I think a Monado is a ''part'' of a god--their willpower made manifest. So they're connected, and Zanza could, in a limited way, act through his Monado even while sealed. Meyneth was never separated from her Monado--Zanza took it after she died.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Egil talking]]
* MAJOR endgame spoilers, but seriously, couldn't SO MUCH have been avoided if Egil told Shulk and Co. what was going on? Egil offers to do this at one point... by offering to turn them into Face-Mechon and THEN explaining. Why bother doing that when you could just drop in, and say "Hey, let's have a chat about what we're fighting for." Obviously, Shulk was too mad to listen on Valak Mountain or the fortress, but by the time they reached the Fallen Arm and met with Miqol they would've listened. Who knows? Maybe they could've made a decision like, I don't know, chuck the Monado in the ocean? Blow up Prison Island? ([[VideoGame/SonicAdventure2 Which has been done before, mind you.) PoorCommunicationKills and all that, but I still feel like so much could've been avoided by just telling the party about Zanza.]]
** If memory serves me correctly, Egil did not see Shulk after the Fallen Arm until literally right before Mechonis Core, where he did finally explain all this. After that... I think Shulk and Egil's conflict had come too far to just stop.
** OP here. While you're right in that they don't meet Egil again until the fight at the Meyneth statue, my main question is why didn't Egil try to talk to them before that? [[SarcasmMode It's not like, you know, they were storming the Mechonis or anything. Overall, Egil's actions after Galahad Fortress seem kind of questionable. He sees an immense power that he (likely) considers to be Meyneth's Monado, and... does nothing? Even if he thought Shulk and co. died from the fall (Likely, since later he shows surprise that they met with the Machina. "Even my own people have turned against me," Or something like that), does he really have no knowledge that the Face Unit he JUST FINISHED MAKING had an encounter with a group of Homs, Nopon, High Entia and Robot Girl? Or that Vanea went to meet them? What was he so focused on? Anyways, rambling aside, I don't get why he didn't just hop in Yaldabaoth, fly down maybe 10 stories and meet with them again. I mean, what better person to talk to about the situation than the wielder of the Monado? (You are right in that after the battle with Egil there was no turning back, but ''still...'')]]
** Yeah, that seems a bit odd. The best explanation I can come up with is that Vanea had shown Shulk and Co the history of the Mechonis (you know, Zanza attacked Mechonis for no good reason history). I think, just maybe, Egil appreciated that Shulk wouldn't have accepted the whole "Monado is evil" point of view until he saw this history. Were it not for the second encounter with Jade Face between 'history of Mechonis' and 'finally explain all of this', there would be a logical explanation for this plot point.
** Given what happened to Arglas, instant possession, it seems quite possible Egil assumed there was no use talking to them. That Shulk was his actual enemy. He even calls Shulk Zanza in the capital. Honestly given the guys backstory and how big a pain in the ass Shulk and co have been, the fact that he was willing to talk to them at all in the capital is pretty big of him.
** The above answer is most likely correct. Egil seemed to assume that Shulk was possessed by Zanza. He only realized that Shulk "retained his sense of self" when he spared his life after the battle.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Short run]]
* So... for all the brouhaha it took to get Xenoblade released in North America, why ''oh WHY'' did it get such a short run? At first I assumed the game was never for sale in our stores because I live in FlyoverCountry (Many of our stores only get one shipment of games every quarter - and we didn't even have ''Amiibos'' until February. This area has several million people living here, ''OI!'') but then I found out it was the same everywhere else - even if For a game that was in such high demand in North America, ''why'' only release a short number of copies? Good thing we're getting a New 3DS version - which I ''hope'' has a longer run. (It'll actually be cheaper than the wii version - plus the system.)
** Pretty sure NOA severely underestimated how popular the game would turn out to be in North America. And the NA release happened pretty late in the Wii's lifetime. We're very lucky to have gotten it at all.
* How is Zanza's soul in two places at once? Meyneth said that Zanza's body was trapped in Prison Island and Zanza's soul (the Monado) was confined to Ose Tower in Valak Mountain. However, his "body" belonged to Arglas. What was the point in separating the body and soul if the body is not actually Zanza's? How is Zanza able to remain in Arglas and Shulk at the same time?
** Because he's a god.
** I think of it this way. Zanza is broken into three parts. His sentient mind is trapped within Arglas, that's how he was able to be imprisoned on Prison Island. His soul is further broken into two parts. One is within the Monado and attempts to bend anyone who uses it to his will (however it isn't sentient). The other half is within Shulk. When Arglas is freed and then killed, Zanza's mind is released and rejoins with either the half of his soul in the Monado or Shulk (which doesn't matter, since both are together). When Shulk dies all three pieces reunite.
** Because Klaus' good side, the Architect revealed in XenobladeChronicles2, revealed alternate possibilities. Klaus' soul was fragmented, though the Architect side seems to be whole, albeit a dimensional portal on his left hemisphere. It is possible that Zanza's soul was further fragmented.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Prison island]]
* What is Prison Island? It's established the High Entia ancestors didn't build it, only used it, and at the end of the game Zanza goes there in order to enact his genocide/travel to a realm beyond scheme implying it has a connection to the original experiment. To further this (something I forgot about until replaying it) at the entrance there is text no one can translate but is similar to the symbols on the Monado which I assume are Japanese, I know the final symbol means God anyway. So what does this inscription say and what importance does Prison Island have in the overall existence of their world? Is their a corresponding structure in Mechonis that can be picked out?
** I believe Prison Island may have been built by Giants, considering the size of its furniture.
** Prison Island may have been the home of Arglas, and Zanza started using it when he possessed Arglas, because why not? Or maybe it was Dickson's place that he let Zanza use as an HQ. Of course, the fact that the Bionis control center is on the Terrace (we see Zanza-in-Arglas there when fighting Meyneth, it's where he was imprisoned) suggests that the island is as old as the Bionis itself. So either the Giants built a home around the Bionis control center, or Zanza remodeled the place after taking over Arglas and installed the control center on the Terrace.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Recognizing Dickson]]
* If Egil was aware of Dickson being Zanza's disciple and was able to recognize him at first sight, isn't it incredibly odd that none of the Machina we meet remember anything strange about him? Egil's father Miqol witnessed the Bionis/Mechonis fight firsthand. He clearly knows about Zanza. Why does he say "I scratch his back and he scratches mine" in regards to Dickson when Zanza is the reason Machina were nearly driven to extinction? Why do all the Machina welcome him into the village with open arms? If Miqol is six thousand years old, and Egil is younger than him, and Machina such as Eiz and Neonik were alive when Zanza attacked Meyneth, why does nobody find the presence of Zanza's disciple extremely suspicious?
** When Egil recognised Dickson, he had just done something despicable, and Egil could connect the dots from there. Miqol and the rest of the Fallen Arm residents see only a genial Homs, and have no reason to suspect that Dickson may be the Giant that served Zanza.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Mining metal]]
* Where is the metal for the Mechon and the Machina coming from? Were Meyneth and Egil just hollowing out Mechonis?
** Yes. In all probability at least. Most of what you explore of the Mechonis is very open interior while the Bionis is mostly the outside surface.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Secretary]]
* After the Bionis Interior, we see Vanea finishing up a new face Mechon, Fiora. Some pretty cool villain foreshadowing, right? But then, a voice on the speaker says "Lady Vanea, Master Egil wishes to see you." Umm... Who was that? Wasn't the whole thing about Egil that only Vanea agreed to follow him? Where did he get a secretary?
** Computer with an automated voice.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Climates]]
* I'm having a hard time conceptualizing the different climates and environments on Bionis. Valak Mountain, for example. It's apparently so cold thanks to being "as high up on the Bionis as you can go," but it's pretty clear that spoiler Eryth Sea and Prison Island are higher--and they're pretty tropical. So how is Valak Mountain, the right arm of the Bionis, so cold? In the same vein, how are Satorl Marsh and Makna Forest even able to stay on the Bionis? They're both relatively flat, but they're on the waist and back, respectively. It doesn't make sense.
** Due to its position, the right arm of the Bionis is constantly under the shadow of the rest of the body of Bionis, which gives Valak Mountain its cold climate. Satorl Marsh is located on an indentation found along the waist of the Bionis and visible from Bionis Leg, which is why it has its "C" shape; and Makna Forest is on an horizontal "plate" that comes out of the titan's back found beneath the floating Eryth Sea. [[http://turtwig163.tumblr.com/post/106287813232 Here are some pictures with the different locations of Bionis]] for reference.
** There's also the fact that physics is just kind of wonky in this world. Even though they're both scientists, Meyneth and Zanza would have had a hard time recreating the universe after becoming gods, so it looks like they kept things really simple--a flat endless plain, a sun that fades in and out instead of rising and setting, etc. That would explain why the world needed gods--without them, the weird physics would collapse and the world would stagnate into nothingness.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Shulk and Klaus appearance]]
* If Shulk being Zanza's vessel was just a coincidence, why are they identical in looks and sound? Zanza looked the same before he became a god too. Did he happen to get the one guy on Bionis who was pretty much his doppelganger?
** 2 possibilities, either Alvis merely depicted Zanza in his Shulk avatar in order to make it clear to Shulk (and the player) that Klaus is Zanza, or yes, Shulk really is Zanza;s doppelganger. Which isn't all that far fetched when you consider he had a vision of Shulk, his perfect vessel, and spent several thousand years waiting for him to be born.
** Considering the [[ScrewDestiny themes of the game, it's doubtful that Shulk was ''actually'' his doppleganger. It's possible that Shulk was considered a good vessel because he happened to look and sound like Zanza/ Klaus did. After all, Zanza does note that his imprisonment was really not a big deal at all, so he would have been A-OK with being picky about appearances.]]
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Nopon Sage]]
* How in the actual heck is the Nopon Sage 9,999 years old? Nopons live longer than Homs, but shorter thank High Entia, apparently, because it's stated in a quest that there's a Nopon's grammypon who's celebrating his 160th birthday, but 9,999 is much longer than any Homs, Nopon, High Entia, or hell, even most Machina. HOW? Was he the first Nopon ever created? Are all Nopon descended from him and a deceased partner? Is he just lying? Who knows.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Making Machina]]
* So... how exactly are Machina made? I find it hard to believe that a race who are essentially really advanced robotics are anatomically correct, and the fact that juvenile Machina look so different to adults that make me hesitant to believe it's by viviparous birth.
** I don't know if we ever learn the details of how they reproduce, but we have reason to think that the Machina are more like biological life than like machines. While they are called machine people at one point, they are also repeatedly referred to as life born from the Mechonis. They seem closer to inorganic life than purely mechanical life. One NPC also notes that while they live for an exceedingly long time, they do eventually die and when they do said death is not all that different from that of organic life. Likewise they normally grow and mature just like other living things (one side quest involves helping a Machina whose growth was stunted somehow), so they may well reproduce in a human-like manner, even if the details might be very different.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Tyrea]]
* I'm not sure how well I understood something that Dunban said, at the end of one of the Surprise Quests: "Melancholy Tyrea" saw the eponymous assassin part ways with Melia and the others. After she left, Dunban said, "We and Tyrea share the same goal. Our paths are sure to meet again." I get that at the very least, Tyrea won't be trying to kill them, but she was trying to fulfill her mission to MercyKill her transformed mother, while Shulk and co. are getting ready to stop Zanza. I don't think "killing the god of the Bionis" is the goal Dunban was referring to, so my question is: what goal ''do'' these two parties have in common? Is it fighting for their people?
** Stopping Zanza is not the only goal. Mercy killing the transformed High Entia is among the goals Dunban's group has in the game. He's referring to that.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Unique Face units]]
* How come Mumkhar, Fiora, and Gadolt get unique face units? What's so special about them compared to Xord and the other mass-produced faces?
** Presumably it's a skill or power thing. Give the more skilled homs more advanced units to take advantage of their abilities. Gadolt was the best of the Colony 6 defense force, and Mumkhar was part of Dunban's honor guard. Fiora, while skilled on her own, was given a unique unit because she was Meyneath's host, and that was only because she happened to be close to Shulk.
** Metal Face in particular also seems to have been an early face unit, a prototype of sorts. It's also possible there are more designs than we see in the game, but we mostly see the Xord design due to the LawOfConservationOfDetail.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:On the way to Sword Valley]]
* Dunban mentions that he thought the High Entia were but folklore. But... just a year ago you had to go to Sword Valley. How'd the Homs get to Sword Valley without passing by the lands held by the high Entia?
** You don't have to go to Eryth Sea to get to Sword Valley. Only Valak Mountain. Going to Eryth Sea was only because of Prison Island and unlocking the power to hurt Faced Mechon.
** What makes it strange however is that Otharon is clearly well aware of their existence, and asked them for help in the battle. How did Dunban never even know they existed?
** I don't think Otharon was necessarily claiming he knew they existed and actually asked the High Entia for help, rather that its now clear to him the High Entia were aware of what was going on and that the Homs needed help yet they did nothing.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Colony 6 last defense]]
* In the Battle of Sword Valley, why would the plan be to set up the last line of defense at Colony 6? 6 is pretty far from Sword Valley (having to go through Valak Mountain, Makna Forest, and Satorl Marsh to get there from Sword Valley), thus making it seem like a lost cause, plus the fact that Frontier Village in in Makna.
** Recall that the group only went to Satorl Marsh, Makna Forest, etc. because of Shulk's vision showing they needed to get to the head of the Bionis (before this they planned to go straight to Sword Valley). Apparently there is a more direct/shorter route between Colony 6 and Sword Valley, we just don't get to use it. Sharla does seem to allude to it though when she mentions how if Colony 6 were in better shape they could just take pods from there to Sword Valley.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Alvis and Shulk]]
* Why does Alvis need Shulk or to pretend to be a mortal at all? He seems to be more powerful than even Zanza, is sapient, and clearly isn't satisfied with the universe Zanza created. So why not just remake the universe himself? It doesn't seem like Zanza could do anything to stop him, and Alvis doesn't seem to need his permission to act either. If he did, Zanza could have just told him to kill Shulk at the end.
** Alvis may simply not be able to take that kind of direct action. He refers to the events that defeat Zanza as "the providence of the world" (i.e. the collective will of the world) rather than his own power, that he is merely "proclaiming" the end rather than causing it. Further, he notes that without its own god the world Zanza and Meyneth made is rapidly falling apart and the new god, Shulk, has to decide what to do about it. That he outright creates an illusion to push Shulk forward in deciding suggests Alvis needed Shulk to be the one to do it and that Alvis couldn't stop the world coming apart without this. Hence Alvis needed to wait until Zanza's activities caused the conditions needed for a new god to be born before he could move forward with his own plans. Alvis' methods also tie into his original nature as a computer, he has developed his own will and wants for the universe but he is still limited by his need for "input" from others and his original purpose of being a monitor and overseer of a system rather than a direct manipulator of it. Xenoblade Chronicles 2 explores more about what sort of being Alvis is and what it takes for one to gain human-like levels of initiative and free will.
** Specifically, XB2 explains that Blades normally work by channeling power into their Drivers, which is far more efficient than just fighting on their own. Blades are weaker the farther they are from their Drivers, even though the Aegis (which Alvis is) is much stronger and has an unlimited range. Even the BigBad of that game just has a motivation copied off the man who initially Awakened him. So in short, Alvis can't really act unless his Driver is directing him. In the end, his only choice was picking Shulk over Zanza.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Purpose of the Mechon]]
* Where did the Mechon come from, and what is their purpose? It's stated all throughout the game that the Mechon hail from Mechonis, but that seems pretty closed-minded when considering that Meyneth, the Goddess of Mechonis, wanted Gods and living creatures to exist in harmony. Why then would her home Titan house creatures meant to wipe out all life forms? In fact, doesn't it seem unnecessary for Mechon to want to eradicate all life, given that not only do the Telethia serve the same exact purpose, but they were specifically designed to do so by Zanza, the one who ''actually'' wants to destroy all life and reincarnate it in an endless cycle? The only Mechon who seem to make sense from a purpose standpoint would be the Faced Mechon, given that they don't have "minds" of their own, and they're piloted by corrupt Homs.
** That's because they were not initially meant to be killing machines. Rather they were an automated work and defense force, doing things the Machina found too difficult or dangerous. It was Egil who redesigned/reprogrammed them and directed them to slaughter the peoples of Bionis.
** Egil explained why he was attacking the people of Bionis: They are Zanza's food source, so attacking them (or better yet, repurposing them for his own use) is good strategy. He doesn't care about killing them, it's just a means to an end. Letting Zanza eat them is the ''last'' thing he wants.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Empty shell]]
* So, we can infer that Shulk became his own person once he got in contact with Alvis postmortem, given that Zanza literally said that Shulk was nothing but an empty shell for his whole life. ...But that just begs the question. Why did Shulk have so many unanswered questions about the feud between the Bionis and Mechonis, as well as his own motives, feelings, and relationships? Was it all an insanely complex ruse by Zanza to lead to his resurrection? Because if so, Zanza was being ''way'' too convoluted in putting up a disguised personality for 18 years, especially given that age rates for Gods stretch out ''far'' longer than someone like a Homs, or even a High Entia.
** That's one interpretation, but I would say the game's story supports the idea that Shulk was always his own person, hence why Zanza did things like send him dreams saying "you aren't here, not anymore." Him claiming Shulk was an empty shell was likely just a way to disregard him or otherwise make everyone doubt themselves. Note that they all seem very focused on breaking the spirits of Shulk and company. We see this too when Dickson refers to Fiora as a "corpse" and mocks the idea that they think she is their old friend, whereas we know that even though she is being kept alive via a god's energy, she is still Fiora just the same. Zanza became Shulk's life force, and this meant Shulk himself was still alive alongside Zanza, and after Zanza left him, Fiora states Meyneth used the last of her power to fix his body. What specifically Alvis did is unclear, but perhaps he helped awaken Shulk's developing godhood.
[[/folder]]
----
to:
[[foldercontrol]]
[[folder:Form of Alvis]]
* The last time we see Alvis before the final battle, he is retreating along with Dickson. However, the next time he is encountered, before and after the final battle, he is little more than a disembodied voice. What happened to his physical form?
** He's essentially {{God}}. He can probably fit any form he desires. His Homs form is merely an illusion.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:The world and the sun]]
* The Bionis and Mechonis are standing in an infinitely large ocean. The sun still rises and sets. Where does the sun go at night?
** Looking at the sunset from an open area, like the Bionis Leg, reveals that the sun doesn't go down the horizon, it ''vanishes'' before reaching it. One of the heart-to-hearts reveals that the "stars" in the night sky are actually just ether; who's to say the Sun and the Moon aren't just ether that looks like the real deal too? This would especially make sense when the true nature of Zanza and Meyneth is taken into account. They made it so day and night looked like what it was back on Earth, but without the "other celestial bodies out there" part.
** While it is true that the sun vanishes before reaching the horizon, it needs to be said that it isn't visible in the sky during daytime to begin with: it just appears out of nowhere a couple minutes past 5 p.m., then vanishes around 8 p.m. So, even though a Defence Force Soldier does indeed say that "the big light source in the sky during daytime is ether" and that it "has a light-dark cycle which makes night and day", that big light source isn't even there in the sky during daytime in the first place. That being said, my guess is that the game developers simply couldn't be bothered to animate a full day-night cycle.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Machina mammaries]]
* Why do the Machina have breasts? And [[{{Gainaxing}} why do they]] ''[[JigglePhysics bounce]]''? What sort of metal does that?
** Because they're beings made in the image of a human, and humans have breasts.
** That does explain the existence of the breasts, but doesn't explain the JigglePhysics. My theory is that they are made of a metal with a relatively low melting point mixed with whatever the Machina use for skin. How? Why? Who cares! It's FanService!
** It is possible that this was made in Meyneth's image.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Shooting]]
* Why did Dickson shoot Shulk? I understand all the god stuff but why did he do this? Was it necessary to trigger the transformation? Or was it purely an asshole move based on the decision Shulk was coming to?
** Both it seems. Then again, Dickson would not betray Zanza and the passage of fate presented at that time.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Testaments]]
* Not so much a complaint as an observation- does anyone else see the symbol of [[VideoGame/XenoSaga the Testaments]] on the back of Alvis's jacket? I can't shake the feeling that it's the exact same symbol, but heck if I can make any connection between Alvis and the Testaments- even speaking as someone who believes all the Xeno games are on the same timeline.
** If you notice, it's the same symbol as on Meynth's Monado when it's embedded in Fiora's chest. It's likely her symbol.
** Its seems like it's the symbol of Monado in general. It's recreated in the final boss battle, when lines of light connect Meyneth's, Zanza's, and Shulk's Monados in a triangle.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Running out of power]]
* After the Mechonis Core, there is a very real concern about Fiora running out of power and dying before the quest's end, as her cardiopulmonary systems were being provided power by Meyneth's Monado. The first thing we see after Junks lands at Colony 6 is Fiora presenting the first Replica Monado to a comatose Shulk. Would it have been so unreasonable to say to Vanea, "Hey, think you could make me one of those? Sorta triangular, about, say, this size?" I know that the problem is solved by the epilogue, but as a quick fix to take some of the stress off of Fiora's, Dunban's, Melia's and... well, everyone else who spotted the issue with her body straight away's mind. Additionally, as the issue at hand would have been her machina body running out of power, couldn't you conceivably have used one of the two potential solutions to extend Neonik's life for Fiora?
** It's possible that none of these would have worked. The Replica Monados might not have been able to supply the same energy that the genuine ones can, and Fiora's condition, and possibly her architecture, are considerably different from Neonik's.
** (Original Poster) I can accept that the replicas weren't as powerful as the real deals, but at their base they at least had to have some means of either storing or converting ether energy out of the air to provide the energy blade the weapon used. As to Fiora's architecture, take this into account - on first meeting her, Linada, the machina doctor, mistook this strange robotic woman for one of her people, not realizing that she was a Face unit until the party actually mentions it. While their problems weren't identical (Neonik was dying from being damn near 10000 years old, Fiora is dying because Meyneth isn't powering her heart and lungs anymore), they boiled down to something very similar - their power systems were failing, and a shot of energy from an old Machina unit was enough to repower Neonik for another 20 years. Of course, if Fiora's power really couldn't be restored, it makes the usage of Final Cross REALLY irresponsible post-Mechonis Core, since the whole thing shakes out to "Massive blast of Monado power hits stuff".
** Sure, but given that no other Machina have Monados powering them, it's quite possible that Fiora's power system is a unique technology and incompatible with other power sources.
** (Original Poster) Fair point. That said, since Vanea was the one who originally put together the Fiora/Meyneth/Face Nemesis combo platter, she would probably have been the one most qualified to put together a stopgap system to keep the one remaining piece (Fiora) from terminally powering down. Also, while Gadolt doesn't survive long enough for this to matter, would all pilots of Face units, separated from their respective mecha, eventually succumb to cardiovascular failure, or is Fiora's problem entirely unique? I seem to recall that even with Meyneth on board, early on you still needed to scavenge parts from a wrecked Mechon (piezoelectrical unit, if memory serves) to prevent a complete system failure of Fiora immediately following your arrival at Junks. Then again, Fiora '''did''' suffer some rather critical... system damage in the process of getting taken in the first place (ImpaledWithExtremePrejudice - not good for one's internal organs), and Linada did express some surprise to find that most of Fiora's innards simply weren't there anymore. So it could well be that her imminent shutdown (and lack of necessity to eat) was more a function of "Metal Face stabbed me with claws as long as I am tall" than "Meyneth isn't providing me limitless free energy". I know that Vanea eventually points out that some modification has to be done to a Homs to make a Face unit work, but maybe Fiora's modifications were a bit more extreme out of necessity, rather than simply to make her invincible to standard Monado damage.
** As far as we know, even though the game doesn't flat out confirm this, the pulsating red lights that only Faced Mechon have (Shulk notes this in the first encounter with Metal Face after they find out the Monado can't damage him) are transparent artificial arteries/veins through which the blood of the pilot flows. This is what makes Zanza's Monado confused about the nature of the "thing" that it's hitting, not being able to distinguish Homs from Mechon, and therefore causes it to deal no damage (until Zanza lifts the restriction). So with that said, we can assume a Faced Mechon's pilot's body is surgically modified to have ports which connect his/her Homs blood vessels with those of the Mechon. When the pilot voluntarily exits the Mechon (for example, Mumkhar on Valak Mountain and Galahad Fortress), some software on the Mechon that manages its circulatory system makes sure to shut those ports and keep enough blood inside the pilot's body so that he/she doesn't faint or die from anemia (lack of blood). However, both Fiora and Gadolt were ejected from their critically damaged Mechon's wreckage, so it's safe to assume that control software wasn't working anymore and that's why they were so weak afterwards: a large portion of their blood was left inside the wreckage of their respective Mechons. This is only speculation, but seems plausible.
** Fiora's circulation problems were solved by getting the piezoelectric unit on the Fallen Arm just after the party is reunited. Even after that, she still occasionally has issues adjusting to her new body thanks to some pretty hefty dysphoria. We don't get any details on what's happening to Fiora's body after she loses Meyneth's Monado other than she's running on reserve energy. Also, the Replica Monado was made based off Zanza's Monado, not Meyneth's. It's entirely possible that the energies are simply not interchangeable.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:High Entia and the Homs]]
* If some High Entia have been interbreeding with Homs up to the present day, but most Homs speak of them as though they were long extinct or a fairy tale, is there an explanation for this that doesn't involve kidnapping?
** Well, it's established that there used to be more Homs settlements before the war with the Mechon. Could be that some of the old colonies that were destroyed were closer to High Entia lands.
** There are probably Homs living in Alcamoth, just not in the section we see. Which makes perfect sense--there's a fair amount of anti-Homs racism among High Entians, as seen by people having low opinion of half-High Entians, plus the section of the city we see is connected to the palace. It's unlikely that Homs would be living in the much-coveted Palace District of the capitol city.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Deceiving Shulk]]
* So in Satorl Marsh, Dickson has a line about how he feels bad about deceiving Shulk and co. Yet as soon as he makes his treachery known, he immediately switches to his true persona of a smug, unrepentant JerkAss of near CardCarryingVillain levels who flat-out gloats about deceiving the heroes, making that line seem rather out of character in hindsight. So... What was the point? Was it just a narrative cheat to make Dickson seem like he might not be that bad despite obviously being up to something? Or an attempt at HiddenDepths that was ultimately left unexplored?
** Chances are any kind of attachment he had to Shulk meant jack to him once Shulk started to go against the plans of his powerful long-standing master. After all, he's only known Shulk for what is essentially a passing second compared to his who knows how many years of immortality.
** My assumption was always that he wasn't serious about feeling bad, but was simply saying it jokingly.
** It might of been a line of mocking pity. Like "these idiots don't even stand a chance, this is like stealing candy from a baby. A really dumb baby."
** Narratively speaking, the purpose of that line was to show Dickson shouldn't be fully trusted so from the player's perspective his betrayal doesn't come completely out of nowhere. In universe I reckon it is hidden depths. His jerkass tendencies are really over played but when it comes down to it he let's the characters go on to fight Zanza saying he's not prepared to die for his god, even though he does so immediately afterwards. In truth he didn't want them to see him die, possibly out of shame or possibly because he doesn't want it affecting Shulk's psyche for the upcoming battle. I reckon the character is conflicted between caring for Shulk, his devotion to Zanza and his Nihilistic/blood knight tendencies that makes him not want to care about anything, born from being a creature older than recorded history.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Planets still existing]]
* At the end of the game,we see how the Bionis and Mechonis are created. Klaus wanted to turn all humans into gods but then did a Apocalypse Universal Class 4 which just left Zanza and Meyneth as Gods (along with Alvis) and forms the Titans in the endless ocean where the game takes place. I find some problems with that back story. First, how does the party still see an Earth-like planet before fighting Zanza when the reformation was clearly on Earth? Second, who decided on Klaus's, Meyneth's, and Alvis's fate in this world? Is there a greater god in all of this? Finally, what in the world happened with the ending? The Titans are now destroyed but how is Colony 9 still present and how did the other races make it to Colony 9 when there it is usually a dangerous and long path?
** 1. It's possible that Zanza keeps an illusion of Earth and its nearby planets out there because, on some level, he misses it.
** 2. We're talking about an event that turned two humans and a supercomputer into gods and destroyed the previous universe, so who knows how the mechanics behind something like that would work.
** 3. After Shulk recreated the universe, there were once again planets and land outside the Bionis, so everybody got off the Bionis and built a new Colony away from it.
** This is WMG territory: Klaus' "phase" experiment didn't destroy the universe, it simply sent him, Meyneth, and Alvis into a new universe, or an empty space where they created a new universe. This explains some of the bizarreness--the sun fading in and out, the endless flat plane of an ocean, altitude having no effect on people's bodies, etc. While they were scientists and gods, recreating the old world would have been daunting, so they went for something simple. A universe with such off-kilter physics required gods to keeps it functioning. When Shulk created a new universe "with no need for gods," that changed the universe into one with workable physics, a.k.a. real world physics, with stars and planets. Then for pure convenience's sake, they were placed on a life-supporting planet with a compatible ecosystem and no pre-existing sentient life. Colony 9 (and, I assume, 6, plus maybe Frontier Village, Alcamoth, and the Machina village) and all the people were moved to solid ground on the shore. I figure that their new planet is in the same position that Earth was in the original universe, probably with all the same continents. It just lacks humans, and maybe the flora and fauna are more akin to Bionis/ Mechonis lifeforms than Earth ones.
** I interpreted this one as "Shulk took the stuff that was Bionis and Mechonis and incorporated that into the new planet". Hence why Colony 9 appears almost identical to how it appeared on Bionis, and perhaps more importantly, allowing the people living on Bionis to keep their homes and scientific materials, which helps with the whole "Explore this vast new universe!" idea.
** VideoGame/XenobladeChronicles2 reveals that the Architect is none other than Klaus' good half, while Zanza is his bad half. The earth-like image is just an illusion of the events before the story began. It is also possible that the Architect may have indirectly helped Shulk and his party, alongside Alvis (assumed to be Ontos in XC2) because Shulk's nature is a parallel reflection of the Architect.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Colonies]]
* So there's Colony 9 and Colony 6, where are all the other colonies then? (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, ect...)
** Destroyed in previous Mechon attacks presumably.
** More or less confirmed by a Heart-to-Heart between Melia and Dunban on the Fallen Arm. One of the options while talking about Mumkhar says that he originally came from a colony that had been destroyed.
** Some bonus material says there were originally 10 Colonies.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Shulk surviving]]
* It's established that at Ose Tower, Zanza killed Shulk and the only reason Shulk appeared to be alive was because Zanza acted as his life force. Why is Shulk still alive and able to move on his own completely fine after separating from Zanza? If Shulk depended entirely on Zanza to live, shouldn't he have returned to being a corpse the moment Dickson shot him? Did Alvis do something to revive Shulk? I feel like the game addressed legitimate concerns with Fiora's split from Meyneth but didn't really explore the Shulk/Zanza aftereffects that well.
** The game reveals that Meyneth used the last of her power to give life back to Shulk just before she died. Alvis was then able to bring his consciousness out of the coma.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:New arm]]
* Egil would need a lot of raw materials to build his Mechon army. That's fine; the Mechonis is pretty big, so even if they only mined bits of the Mechonis' interior here and there, that would probably provide enough metal and such for a whole bunch of Mechon. But that doesn't excuse the ''giant freakin' replacement arm'' that Egil was also responsible for building. Seriously, how the heck did he get enough material for a new arm without turning the Mechonis' insides into swiss cheese?
** Well the inside of the Mechois Field is very open. Compareing it to the Bionis' knee too, the fallen arm looks somewhat small to me. It's possible the arm used to be meater but Egil mined it down to the bare bones, in a somewhat literal sense. What we see is just the interior skeleton design with the muscle and flesh parts being used to make the new arm.
** He could have mined it from the ocean floor...
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Arglas]]
* About Arglas and Zanza: it was stated that Arglas was the soul of the Bionis and was possessed by Zanza. But it was also stated that Zanza created the Bionis, just like Lady Meynet created the Mechonis. So did Zanza create the Bionis with a mind of his own, made a sword for his body, waited for thousands of years for Arglas to pick him up, then destroyed and replaced Arglas's mind?
** No, ''Zanza'' was the soul of the Bionis. Arglas was just a dude who found the Monado, picked it up, and got possessed by Zanza. When Zanza first shows up at Prison Island, the body he's inhabiting was originally Arglas's.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Zanza and the Monado]]
* It was stated that Zanza and the Bionis Monado are one-and-the-same. However, Meyneth **has** a Monado, rather than **being** the Mechonis Monado. Was something messed up in the translation?
** I don't know what exactly the game said, but wasn't it Alvis who was one and the same with the Bionis' Monado? I don't know about the Mechonis' Monado, but I think Zanza and Meyneth are on similar standings in regards to their blade.
** Alvis is both Monados: he was the source of power for all of them.
** I think a Monado is a ''part'' of a god--their willpower made manifest. So they're connected, and Zanza could, in a limited way, act through his Monado even while sealed. Meyneth was never separated from her Monado--Zanza took it after she died.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Egil talking]]
* MAJOR endgame spoilers, but seriously, couldn't SO MUCH have been avoided if Egil told Shulk and Co. what was going on? Egil offers to do this at one point... by offering to turn them into Face-Mechon and THEN explaining. Why bother doing that when you could just drop in, and say "Hey, let's have a chat about what we're fighting for." Obviously, Shulk was too mad to listen on Valak Mountain or the fortress, but by the time they reached the Fallen Arm and met with Miqol they would've listened. Who knows? Maybe they could've made a decision like, I don't know, chuck the Monado in the ocean? Blow up Prison Island? ([[VideoGame/SonicAdventure2 Which has been done before, mind you.) PoorCommunicationKills and all that, but I still feel like so much could've been avoided by just telling the party about Zanza.]]
** If memory serves me correctly, Egil did not see Shulk after the Fallen Arm until literally right before Mechonis Core, where he did finally explain all this. After that... I think Shulk and Egil's conflict had come too far to just stop.
** OP here. While you're right in that they don't meet Egil again until the fight at the Meyneth statue, my main question is why didn't Egil try to talk to them before that? [[SarcasmMode It's not like, you know, they were storming the Mechonis or anything. Overall, Egil's actions after Galahad Fortress seem kind of questionable. He sees an immense power that he (likely) considers to be Meyneth's Monado, and... does nothing? Even if he thought Shulk and co. died from the fall (Likely, since later he shows surprise that they met with the Machina. "Even my own people have turned against me," Or something like that), does he really have no knowledge that the Face Unit he JUST FINISHED MAKING had an encounter with a group of Homs, Nopon, High Entia and Robot Girl? Or that Vanea went to meet them? What was he so focused on? Anyways, rambling aside, I don't get why he didn't just hop in Yaldabaoth, fly down maybe 10 stories and meet with them again. I mean, what better person to talk to about the situation than the wielder of the Monado? (You are right in that after the battle with Egil there was no turning back, but ''still...'')]]
** Yeah, that seems a bit odd. The best explanation I can come up with is that Vanea had shown Shulk and Co the history of the Mechonis (you know, Zanza attacked Mechonis for no good reason history). I think, just maybe, Egil appreciated that Shulk wouldn't have accepted the whole "Monado is evil" point of view until he saw this history. Were it not for the second encounter with Jade Face between 'history of Mechonis' and 'finally explain all of this', there would be a logical explanation for this plot point.
** Given what happened to Arglas, instant possession, it seems quite possible Egil assumed there was no use talking to them. That Shulk was his actual enemy. He even calls Shulk Zanza in the capital. Honestly given the guys backstory and how big a pain in the ass Shulk and co have been, the fact that he was willing to talk to them at all in the capital is pretty big of him.
** The above answer is most likely correct. Egil seemed to assume that Shulk was possessed by Zanza. He only realized that Shulk "retained his sense of self" when he spared his life after the battle.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Short run]]
* So... for all the brouhaha it took to get Xenoblade released in North America, why ''oh WHY'' did it get such a short run? At first I assumed the game was never for sale in our stores because I live in FlyoverCountry (Many of our stores only get one shipment of games every quarter - and we didn't even have ''Amiibos'' until February. This area has several million people living here, ''OI!'') but then I found out it was the same everywhere else - even if For a game that was in such high demand in North America, ''why'' only release a short number of copies? Good thing we're getting a New 3DS version - which I ''hope'' has a longer run. (It'll actually be cheaper than the wii version - plus the system.)
** Pretty sure NOA severely underestimated how popular the game would turn out to be in North America. And the NA release happened pretty late in the Wii's lifetime. We're very lucky to have gotten it at all.
* How is Zanza's soul in two places at once? Meyneth said that Zanza's body was trapped in Prison Island and Zanza's soul (the Monado) was confined to Ose Tower in Valak Mountain. However, his "body" belonged to Arglas. What was the point in separating the body and soul if the body is not actually Zanza's? How is Zanza able to remain in Arglas and Shulk at the same time?
** Because he's a god.
** I think of it this way. Zanza is broken into three parts. His sentient mind is trapped within Arglas, that's how he was able to be imprisoned on Prison Island. His soul is further broken into two parts. One is within the Monado and attempts to bend anyone who uses it to his will (however it isn't sentient). The other half is within Shulk. When Arglas is freed and then killed, Zanza's mind is released and rejoins with either the half of his soul in the Monado or Shulk (which doesn't matter, since both are together). When Shulk dies all three pieces reunite.
** Because Klaus' good side, the Architect revealed in XenobladeChronicles2, revealed alternate possibilities. Klaus' soul was fragmented, though the Architect side seems to be whole, albeit a dimensional portal on his left hemisphere. It is possible that Zanza's soul was further fragmented.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Prison island]]
* What is Prison Island? It's established the High Entia ancestors didn't build it, only used it, and at the end of the game Zanza goes there in order to enact his genocide/travel to a realm beyond scheme implying it has a connection to the original experiment. To further this (something I forgot about until replaying it) at the entrance there is text no one can translate but is similar to the symbols on the Monado which I assume are Japanese, I know the final symbol means God anyway. So what does this inscription say and what importance does Prison Island have in the overall existence of their world? Is their a corresponding structure in Mechonis that can be picked out?
** I believe Prison Island may have been built by Giants, considering the size of its furniture.
** Prison Island may have been the home of Arglas, and Zanza started using it when he possessed Arglas, because why not? Or maybe it was Dickson's place that he let Zanza use as an HQ. Of course, the fact that the Bionis control center is on the Terrace (we see Zanza-in-Arglas there when fighting Meyneth, it's where he was imprisoned) suggests that the island is as old as the Bionis itself. So either the Giants built a home around the Bionis control center, or Zanza remodeled the place after taking over Arglas and installed the control center on the Terrace.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Recognizing Dickson]]
* If Egil was aware of Dickson being Zanza's disciple and was able to recognize him at first sight, isn't it incredibly odd that none of the Machina we meet remember anything strange about him? Egil's father Miqol witnessed the Bionis/Mechonis fight firsthand. He clearly knows about Zanza. Why does he say "I scratch his back and he scratches mine" in regards to Dickson when Zanza is the reason Machina were nearly driven to extinction? Why do all the Machina welcome him into the village with open arms? If Miqol is six thousand years old, and Egil is younger than him, and Machina such as Eiz and Neonik were alive when Zanza attacked Meyneth, why does nobody find the presence of Zanza's disciple extremely suspicious?
** When Egil recognised Dickson, he had just done something despicable, and Egil could connect the dots from there. Miqol and the rest of the Fallen Arm residents see only a genial Homs, and have no reason to suspect that Dickson may be the Giant that served Zanza.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Mining metal]]
* Where is the metal for the Mechon and the Machina coming from? Were Meyneth and Egil just hollowing out Mechonis?
** Yes. In all probability at least. Most of what you explore of the Mechonis is very open interior while the Bionis is mostly the outside surface.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Secretary]]
* After the Bionis Interior, we see Vanea finishing up a new face Mechon, Fiora. Some pretty cool villain foreshadowing, right? But then, a voice on the speaker says "Lady Vanea, Master Egil wishes to see you." Umm... Who was that? Wasn't the whole thing about Egil that only Vanea agreed to follow him? Where did he get a secretary?
** Computer with an automated voice.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Climates]]
* I'm having a hard time conceptualizing the different climates and environments on Bionis. Valak Mountain, for example. It's apparently so cold thanks to being "as high up on the Bionis as you can go," but it's pretty clear that spoiler Eryth Sea and Prison Island are higher--and they're pretty tropical. So how is Valak Mountain, the right arm of the Bionis, so cold? In the same vein, how are Satorl Marsh and Makna Forest even able to stay on the Bionis? They're both relatively flat, but they're on the waist and back, respectively. It doesn't make sense.
** Due to its position, the right arm of the Bionis is constantly under the shadow of the rest of the body of Bionis, which gives Valak Mountain its cold climate. Satorl Marsh is located on an indentation found along the waist of the Bionis and visible from Bionis Leg, which is why it has its "C" shape; and Makna Forest is on an horizontal "plate" that comes out of the titan's back found beneath the floating Eryth Sea. [[http://turtwig163.tumblr.com/post/106287813232 Here are some pictures with the different locations of Bionis]] for reference.
** There's also the fact that physics is just kind of wonky in this world. Even though they're both scientists, Meyneth and Zanza would have had a hard time recreating the universe after becoming gods, so it looks like they kept things really simple--a flat endless plain, a sun that fades in and out instead of rising and setting, etc. That would explain why the world needed gods--without them, the weird physics would collapse and the world would stagnate into nothingness.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Shulk and Klaus appearance]]
* If Shulk being Zanza's vessel was just a coincidence, why are they identical in looks and sound? Zanza looked the same before he became a god too. Did he happen to get the one guy on Bionis who was pretty much his doppelganger?
** 2 possibilities, either Alvis merely depicted Zanza in his Shulk avatar in order to make it clear to Shulk (and the player) that Klaus is Zanza, or yes, Shulk really is Zanza;s doppelganger. Which isn't all that far fetched when you consider he had a vision of Shulk, his perfect vessel, and spent several thousand years waiting for him to be born.
** Considering the [[ScrewDestiny themes of the game, it's doubtful that Shulk was ''actually'' his doppleganger. It's possible that Shulk was considered a good vessel because he happened to look and sound like Zanza/ Klaus did. After all, Zanza does note that his imprisonment was really not a big deal at all, so he would have been A-OK with being picky about appearances.]]
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Nopon Sage]]
* How in the actual heck is the Nopon Sage 9,999 years old? Nopons live longer than Homs, but shorter thank High Entia, apparently, because it's stated in a quest that there's a Nopon's grammypon who's celebrating his 160th birthday, but 9,999 is much longer than any Homs, Nopon, High Entia, or hell, even most Machina. HOW? Was he the first Nopon ever created? Are all Nopon descended from him and a deceased partner? Is he just lying? Who knows.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Making Machina]]
* So... how exactly are Machina made? I find it hard to believe that a race who are essentially really advanced robotics are anatomically correct, and the fact that juvenile Machina look so different to adults that make me hesitant to believe it's by viviparous birth.
** I don't know if we ever learn the details of how they reproduce, but we have reason to think that the Machina are more like biological life than like machines. While they are called machine people at one point, they are also repeatedly referred to as life born from the Mechonis. They seem closer to inorganic life than purely mechanical life. One NPC also notes that while they live for an exceedingly long time, they do eventually die and when they do said death is not all that different from that of organic life. Likewise they normally grow and mature just like other living things (one side quest involves helping a Machina whose growth was stunted somehow), so they may well reproduce in a human-like manner, even if the details might be very different.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Tyrea]]
* I'm not sure how well I understood something that Dunban said, at the end of one of the Surprise Quests: "Melancholy Tyrea" saw the eponymous assassin part ways with Melia and the others. After she left, Dunban said, "We and Tyrea share the same goal. Our paths are sure to meet again." I get that at the very least, Tyrea won't be trying to kill them, but she was trying to fulfill her mission to MercyKill her transformed mother, while Shulk and co. are getting ready to stop Zanza. I don't think "killing the god of the Bionis" is the goal Dunban was referring to, so my question is: what goal ''do'' these two parties have in common? Is it fighting for their people?
** Stopping Zanza is not the only goal. Mercy killing the transformed High Entia is among the goals Dunban's group has in the game. He's referring to that.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Unique Face units]]
* How come Mumkhar, Fiora, and Gadolt get unique face units? What's so special about them compared to Xord and the other mass-produced faces?
** Presumably it's a skill or power thing. Give the more skilled homs more advanced units to take advantage of their abilities. Gadolt was the best of the Colony 6 defense force, and Mumkhar was part of Dunban's honor guard. Fiora, while skilled on her own, was given a unique unit because she was Meyneath's host, and that was only because she happened to be close to Shulk.
** Metal Face in particular also seems to have been an early face unit, a prototype of sorts. It's also possible there are more designs than we see in the game, but we mostly see the Xord design due to the LawOfConservationOfDetail.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:On the way to Sword Valley]]
* Dunban mentions that he thought the High Entia were but folklore. But... just a year ago you had to go to Sword Valley. How'd the Homs get to Sword Valley without passing by the lands held by the high Entia?
** You don't have to go to Eryth Sea to get to Sword Valley. Only Valak Mountain. Going to Eryth Sea was only because of Prison Island and unlocking the power to hurt Faced Mechon.
** What makes it strange however is that Otharon is clearly well aware of their existence, and asked them for help in the battle. How did Dunban never even know they existed?
** I don't think Otharon was necessarily claiming he knew they existed and actually asked the High Entia for help, rather that its now clear to him the High Entia were aware of what was going on and that the Homs needed help yet they did nothing.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Colony 6 last defense]]
* In the Battle of Sword Valley, why would the plan be to set up the last line of defense at Colony 6? 6 is pretty far from Sword Valley (having to go through Valak Mountain, Makna Forest, and Satorl Marsh to get there from Sword Valley), thus making it seem like a lost cause, plus the fact that Frontier Village in in Makna.
** Recall that the group only went to Satorl Marsh, Makna Forest, etc. because of Shulk's vision showing they needed to get to the head of the Bionis (before this they planned to go straight to Sword Valley). Apparently there is a more direct/shorter route between Colony 6 and Sword Valley, we just don't get to use it. Sharla does seem to allude to it though when she mentions how if Colony 6 were in better shape they could just take pods from there to Sword Valley.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Alvis and Shulk]]
* Why does Alvis need Shulk or to pretend to be a mortal at all? He seems to be more powerful than even Zanza, is sapient, and clearly isn't satisfied with the universe Zanza created. So why not just remake the universe himself? It doesn't seem like Zanza could do anything to stop him, and Alvis doesn't seem to need his permission to act either. If he did, Zanza could have just told him to kill Shulk at the end.
** Alvis may simply not be able to take that kind of direct action. He refers to the events that defeat Zanza as "the providence of the world" (i.e. the collective will of the world) rather than his own power, that he is merely "proclaiming" the end rather than causing it. Further, he notes that without its own god the world Zanza and Meyneth made is rapidly falling apart and the new god, Shulk, has to decide what to do about it. That he outright creates an illusion to push Shulk forward in deciding suggests Alvis needed Shulk to be the one to do it and that Alvis couldn't stop the world coming apart without this. Hence Alvis needed to wait until Zanza's activities caused the conditions needed for a new god to be born before he could move forward with his own plans. Alvis' methods also tie into his original nature as a computer, he has developed his own will and wants for the universe but he is still limited by his need for "input" from others and his original purpose of being a monitor and overseer of a system rather than a direct manipulator of it. Xenoblade Chronicles 2 explores more about what sort of being Alvis is and what it takes for one to gain human-like levels of initiative and free will.
** Specifically, XB2 explains that Blades normally work by channeling power into their Drivers, which is far more efficient than just fighting on their own. Blades are weaker the farther they are from their Drivers, even though the Aegis (which Alvis is) is much stronger and has an unlimited range. Even the BigBad of that game just has a motivation copied off the man who initially Awakened him. So in short, Alvis can't really act unless his Driver is directing him. In the end, his only choice was picking Shulk over Zanza.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Purpose of the Mechon]]
* Where did the Mechon come from, and what is their purpose? It's stated all throughout the game that the Mechon hail from Mechonis, but that seems pretty closed-minded when considering that Meyneth, the Goddess of Mechonis, wanted Gods and living creatures to exist in harmony. Why then would her home Titan house creatures meant to wipe out all life forms? In fact, doesn't it seem unnecessary for Mechon to want to eradicate all life, given that not only do the Telethia serve the same exact purpose, but they were specifically designed to do so by Zanza, the one who ''actually'' wants to destroy all life and reincarnate it in an endless cycle? The only Mechon who seem to make sense from a purpose standpoint would be the Faced Mechon, given that they don't have "minds" of their own, and they're piloted by corrupt Homs.
** That's because they were not initially meant to be killing machines. Rather they were an automated work and defense force, doing things the Machina found too difficult or dangerous. It was Egil who redesigned/reprogrammed them and directed them to slaughter the peoples of Bionis.
** Egil explained why he was attacking the people of Bionis: They are Zanza's food source, so attacking them (or better yet, repurposing them for his own use) is good strategy. He doesn't care about killing them, it's just a means to an end. Letting Zanza eat them is the ''last'' thing he wants.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Empty shell]]
* So, we can infer that Shulk became his own person once he got in contact with Alvis postmortem, given that Zanza literally said that Shulk was nothing but an empty shell for his whole life. ...But that just begs the question. Why did Shulk have so many unanswered questions about the feud between the Bionis and Mechonis, as well as his own motives, feelings, and relationships? Was it all an insanely complex ruse by Zanza to lead to his resurrection? Because if so, Zanza was being ''way'' too convoluted in putting up a disguised personality for 18 years, especially given that age rates for Gods stretch out ''far'' longer than someone like a Homs, or even a High Entia.
** That's one interpretation, but I would say the game's story supports the idea that Shulk was always his own person, hence why Zanza did things like send him dreams saying "you aren't here, not anymore." Him claiming Shulk was an empty shell was likely just a way to disregard him or otherwise make everyone doubt themselves. Note that they all seem very focused on breaking the spirits of Shulk and company. We see this too when Dickson refers to Fiora as a "corpse" and mocks the idea that they think she is their old friend, whereas we know that even though she is being kept alive via a god's energy, she is still Fiora just the same. Zanza became Shulk's life force, and this meant Shulk himself was still alive alongside Zanza, and after Zanza left him, Fiora states Meyneth used the last of her power to fix his body. What specifically Alvis did is unclear, but perhaps he helped awaken Shulk's developing godhood.
[[/folder]]
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** Metal Face in particular also seems to have been an early face unit, a prototype of sorts. It's also possible there are more designs than we see in the game, but we mostly see the Xord design due to the LawOfConservationOfDetail.
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** Presumably it's a skill or power thing. Give the more skilled homs more advanced units to take advantage of their abilities. Gadolt was the best of the Colony 6 defense force, and Mumkhar was part of Dunban's honor guard. Fiora, while skilled on her own, was given a unique unit because she was Meyneath's host, and that was only because she happened to be close to Shulk.
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** Specifically, XB2 explains that Blades normally work by channeling power into their Drivers, which is far more efficient than just fighting on their own. Blades are weaker the farther they are from their Drivers, even though the Aegis (which Alvis is) is much stronger and has an unlimited range. Even the BigBad of that game just has a motivation copied off the man who initially Awakened him. So in short, Alvis can't really act unless his Driver is directing him. In the end, his only choice was picking Shulk over Zanza.
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** Egil explained why he was attacking the people of Bionis: They are Zanza's food source, so attacking them (or better yet, repurposing them for his own use) is good strategy. He doesn't care about killing them, it's just a means to an end. Letting Zanza eat them is the ''last'' thing he wants.
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* The last time we see Alvis before the final battle, he is retreating along with Dickson. However, the next time he is encountered, before and after the final battle, he is [[spoiler: little more than a disembodied voice. What happened to his physical form?]]
** [[spoiler:He's essentially {{God}}. He can probably fit any form he desires. His Homs form is merely an illusion]].
** [[spoiler:He's essentially {{God}}. He can probably fit any form he desires. His Homs form is merely an illusion]].
to:
* The last time we see Alvis before the final battle, he is retreating along with Dickson. However, the next time he is encountered, before and after the final battle, he is [[spoiler: little more than a disembodied voice. What happened to his physical form?]]
form?
**[[spoiler:He's He's essentially {{God}}. He can probably fit any form he desires. His Homs form is merely an illusion]].
illusion.
**
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** Looking at the sunset from an open area, like the Bionis Leg, reveals that the sun doesn't go down the horizon, it ''vanishes'' before reaching it. One of the heart-to-hearts reveals that the "stars" in the night sky are actually just ether; who's to say the Sun and the Moon aren't just ether that looks like the real deal too? [[spoiler:This would especially make sense when the true nature of Zanza and Meyneth is taken into account. They made it so day and night looked like what it was back on Earth, but without the "other celestial bodies out there" part]].
to:
** Looking at the sunset from an open area, like the Bionis Leg, reveals that the sun doesn't go down the horizon, it ''vanishes'' before reaching it. One of the heart-to-hearts reveals that the "stars" in the night sky are actually just ether; who's to say the Sun and the Moon aren't just ether that looks like the real deal too? [[spoiler:This This would especially make sense when the true nature of Zanza and Meyneth is taken into account. They made it so day and night looked like what it was back on Earth, but without the "other celestial bodies out there" part]].part.
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* Why do the [[spoiler:Machina]] have breasts? And [[{{Gainaxing}} why do they]] ''[[JigglePhysics bounce]]''? What sort of metal does that?
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* Why do the [[spoiler:Machina]] Machina have breasts? And [[{{Gainaxing}} why do they]] ''[[JigglePhysics bounce]]''? What sort of metal does that?
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** That does explain the existence of the breasts, but doesn't explain the JigglePhysics. My theory is that they are made of a metal with a relatively low melting point mixed with whatever the [[spoiler:Machina]] use for skin. How? Why? Who cares! It's FanService!
to:
** That does explain the existence of the breasts, but doesn't explain the JigglePhysics. My theory is that they are made of a metal with a relatively low melting point mixed with whatever the [[spoiler:Machina]] Machina use for skin. How? Why? Who cares! It's FanService!
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* Why did [[spoiler: Dickson shoot Shulk?]] I understand all the god stuff but why did he do this? Was it necessary to trigger the transformation? Or was it purely an asshole move based on the decision Shulk was coming to?
** Both it seems. Then again, [[spoiler: Dickson would not betray Zanza and the passage of fate presented at that time.]]
** Both it seems. Then again, [[spoiler: Dickson would not betray Zanza and the passage of fate presented at that time.]]
to:
* Why did [[spoiler: Dickson shoot Shulk?]] Shulk? I understand all the god stuff but why did he do this? Was it necessary to trigger the transformation? Or was it purely an asshole move based on the decision Shulk was coming to?
** Both it seems. Then again,[[spoiler: Dickson would not betray Zanza and the passage of fate presented at that time.]]
time.
** Both it seems. Then again,
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** If you notice, it's the same symbol as on [[spoiler:Meynth's Monado when it's embedded in Fiora's chest. It's likely her symbol]].
** [[spoiler:Its seems like it's the symbol of Monado in general. It's recreated in the final boss battle, when lines of light connect Meyneth's, Zanza's, and Shulk's Monados in a triangle.]]
** [[spoiler:Its seems like it's the symbol of Monado in general. It's recreated in the final boss battle, when lines of light connect Meyneth's, Zanza's, and Shulk's Monados in a triangle.]]
to:
** If you notice, it's the same symbol as on [[spoiler:Meynth's Meynth's Monado when it's embedded in Fiora's chest. It's likely her symbol]].
symbol.
**[[spoiler:Its Its seems like it's the symbol of Monado in general. It's recreated in the final boss battle, when lines of light connect Meyneth's, Zanza's, and Shulk's Monados in a triangle.]]
triangle.
**
Changed line(s) 44,51 (click to see context) from:
* After the Mechonis Core, there is a very real concern about [[spoiler:Fiora running out of power and dying before the quest's end, as her cardiopulmonary systems were being provided power by Meyneth's Monado. The first thing we see after Junks lands at Colony 6 is Fiora presenting the first Replica Monado to a comatose Shulk. Would it have been so unreasonable to say to Vanea, "Hey, think you could make me one of those? Sorta triangular, about, say, this size?"]] I know that the problem is solved by the epilogue, but as a quick fix to take some of the stress off of [[spoiler:Fiora's,]] Dunban's, Melia's and... well, everyone else who spotted the issue with her body straight away's mind. Additionally, as the issue at hand would have been her machina body running out of power, couldn't you conceivably have used one of the two potential solutions to [[spoiler:extend Neonik's life for Fiora?]]
** It's possible that none of these would have worked. [[spoiler:The Replica Monados might not have been able to supply the same energy that the genuine ones can, and Fiora's condition, and possibly her architecture, are considerably different from Neonik's.]]
** (Original Poster) [[spoiler:I can accept that the replicas weren't as powerful as the real deals, but at their base they at least had to have some means of either storing or converting ether energy out of the air to provide the energy blade the weapon used. As to Fiora's architecture, take this into account - on first meeting her, Linada, the machina doctor, mistook this strange robotic woman for one of her people, not realizing that she was a Face unit until the party actually mentions it. While their problems weren't identical (Neonik was dying from being damn near 10000 years old, Fiora is dying because Meyneth isn't powering her heart and lungs anymore), they boiled down to something very similar - their power systems were failing, and a shot of energy from an old Machina unit was enough to repower Neonik for another 20 years. Of course, if Fiora's power really couldn't be restored, it makes the usage of Final Cross REALLY irresponsible post-Mechonis Core, since the whole thing shakes out to "Massive blast of Monado power hits stuff".]]
** [[spoiler:Sure, but given that no other Machina have Monados powering them, it's quite possible that Fiora's power system is a unique technology and incompatible with other power sources.]]
** (Original Poster) [[spoiler:Fair point. That said, since Vanea was the one who originally put together the Fiora/Meyneth/Face Nemesis combo platter, she would probably have been the one most qualified to put together a stopgap system to keep the one remaining piece (Fiora) from terminally powering down. Also, while Gadolt doesn't survive long enough for this to matter, would all pilots of Face units, separated from their respective mecha, eventually succumb to cardiovascular failure, or is Fiora's problem entirely unique? I seem to recall that even with Meyneth on board, early on you still needed to scavenge parts from a wrecked Mechon (piezoelectrical unit, if memory serves) to prevent a complete system failure of Fiora immediately following your arrival at Junks. Then again, Fiora '''did''' suffer some rather critical... system damage in the process of getting taken in the first place (ImpaledWithExtremePrejudice - not good for one's internal organs), and Linada did express some surprise to find that most of Fiora's innards simply weren't there anymore. So it could well be that her imminent shutdown (and lack of necessity to eat) was more a function of "Metal Face stabbed me with claws as long as I am tall" than "Meyneth isn't providing me limitless free energy". I know that Vanea eventually points out that some modification has to be done to a Homs to make a Face unit work, but maybe Fiora's modifications were a bit more extreme out of necessity, rather than simply to make her invincible to standard Monado damage.]]
** [[spoiler:As far as we know, even though the game doesn't flat out confirm this, the pulsating red lights that only Faced Mechon have (Shulk notes this in the first encounter with Metal Face after they find out the Monado can't damage him) are transparent artificial arteries/veins through which the blood of the pilot flows. This is what makes Zanza's Monado confused about the nature of the "thing" that it's hitting, not being able to distinguish Homs from Mechon, and therefore causes it to deal no damage (until Zanza lifts the restriction). So with that said, we can assume a Faced Mechon's pilot's body is surgically modified to have ports which connect his/her Homs blood vessels with those of the Mechon. When the pilot voluntarily exits the Mechon (for example, Mumkhar on Valak Mountain and Galahad Fortress), some software on the Mechon that manages its circulatory system makes sure to shut those ports and keep enough blood inside the pilot's body so that he/she doesn't faint or die from anemia (lack of blood). However, both Fiora and Gadolt were ejected from their critically damaged Mechon's wreckage, so it's safe to assume that control software wasn't working anymore and that's why they were so weak afterwards: a large portion of their blood was left inside the wreckage of their respective Mechons. This is only speculation, but seems plausible.]]
** [[spoiler: Fiora's circulation problems were solved by getting the piezoelectric unit on the Fallen Arm just after the party is reunited. Even after that, she still occasionally has issues adjusting to her new body thanks to some pretty hefty dysphoria. We don't get any details on what's happening to Fiora's body after she loses Meyneth's Monado other than she's running on reserve energy. Also, the Replica Monado was made based off Zanza's Monado, not Meyneth's. It's entirely possible that the energies are simply not interchangeable.]]
** It's possible that none of these would have worked. [[spoiler:The Replica Monados might not have been able to supply the same energy that the genuine ones can, and Fiora's condition, and possibly her architecture, are considerably different from Neonik's.]]
** (Original Poster) [[spoiler:I can accept that the replicas weren't as powerful as the real deals, but at their base they at least had to have some means of either storing or converting ether energy out of the air to provide the energy blade the weapon used. As to Fiora's architecture, take this into account - on first meeting her, Linada, the machina doctor, mistook this strange robotic woman for one of her people, not realizing that she was a Face unit until the party actually mentions it. While their problems weren't identical (Neonik was dying from being damn near 10000 years old, Fiora is dying because Meyneth isn't powering her heart and lungs anymore), they boiled down to something very similar - their power systems were failing, and a shot of energy from an old Machina unit was enough to repower Neonik for another 20 years. Of course, if Fiora's power really couldn't be restored, it makes the usage of Final Cross REALLY irresponsible post-Mechonis Core, since the whole thing shakes out to "Massive blast of Monado power hits stuff".]]
** [[spoiler:Sure, but given that no other Machina have Monados powering them, it's quite possible that Fiora's power system is a unique technology and incompatible with other power sources.]]
** (Original Poster) [[spoiler:Fair point. That said, since Vanea was the one who originally put together the Fiora/Meyneth/Face Nemesis combo platter, she would probably have been the one most qualified to put together a stopgap system to keep the one remaining piece (Fiora) from terminally powering down. Also, while Gadolt doesn't survive long enough for this to matter, would all pilots of Face units, separated from their respective mecha, eventually succumb to cardiovascular failure, or is Fiora's problem entirely unique? I seem to recall that even with Meyneth on board, early on you still needed to scavenge parts from a wrecked Mechon (piezoelectrical unit, if memory serves) to prevent a complete system failure of Fiora immediately following your arrival at Junks. Then again, Fiora '''did''' suffer some rather critical... system damage in the process of getting taken in the first place (ImpaledWithExtremePrejudice - not good for one's internal organs), and Linada did express some surprise to find that most of Fiora's innards simply weren't there anymore. So it could well be that her imminent shutdown (and lack of necessity to eat) was more a function of "Metal Face stabbed me with claws as long as I am tall" than "Meyneth isn't providing me limitless free energy". I know that Vanea eventually points out that some modification has to be done to a Homs to make a Face unit work, but maybe Fiora's modifications were a bit more extreme out of necessity, rather than simply to make her invincible to standard Monado damage.]]
** [[spoiler:As far as we know, even though the game doesn't flat out confirm this, the pulsating red lights that only Faced Mechon have (Shulk notes this in the first encounter with Metal Face after they find out the Monado can't damage him) are transparent artificial arteries/veins through which the blood of the pilot flows. This is what makes Zanza's Monado confused about the nature of the "thing" that it's hitting, not being able to distinguish Homs from Mechon, and therefore causes it to deal no damage (until Zanza lifts the restriction). So with that said, we can assume a Faced Mechon's pilot's body is surgically modified to have ports which connect his/her Homs blood vessels with those of the Mechon. When the pilot voluntarily exits the Mechon (for example, Mumkhar on Valak Mountain and Galahad Fortress), some software on the Mechon that manages its circulatory system makes sure to shut those ports and keep enough blood inside the pilot's body so that he/she doesn't faint or die from anemia (lack of blood). However, both Fiora and Gadolt were ejected from their critically damaged Mechon's wreckage, so it's safe to assume that control software wasn't working anymore and that's why they were so weak afterwards: a large portion of their blood was left inside the wreckage of their respective Mechons. This is only speculation, but seems plausible.]]
** [[spoiler: Fiora's circulation problems were solved by getting the piezoelectric unit on the Fallen Arm just after the party is reunited. Even after that, she still occasionally has issues adjusting to her new body thanks to some pretty hefty dysphoria. We don't get any details on what's happening to Fiora's body after she loses Meyneth's Monado other than she's running on reserve energy. Also, the Replica Monado was made based off Zanza's Monado, not Meyneth's. It's entirely possible that the energies are simply not interchangeable.]]
to:
* After the Mechonis Core, there is a very real concern about [[spoiler:Fiora Fiora running out of power and dying before the quest's end, as her cardiopulmonary systems were being provided power by Meyneth's Monado. The first thing we see after Junks lands at Colony 6 is Fiora presenting the first Replica Monado to a comatose Shulk. Would it have been so unreasonable to say to Vanea, "Hey, think you could make me one of those? Sorta triangular, about, say, this size?"]] size?" I know that the problem is solved by the epilogue, but as a quick fix to take some of the stress off of [[spoiler:Fiora's,]] Fiora's, Dunban's, Melia's and... well, everyone else who spotted the issue with her body straight away's mind. Additionally, as the issue at hand would have been her machina body running out of power, couldn't you conceivably have used one of the two potential solutions to [[spoiler:extend extend Neonik's life for Fiora?]]
Fiora?
** It's possible that none of these would have worked.[[spoiler:The The Replica Monados might not have been able to supply the same energy that the genuine ones can, and Fiora's condition, and possibly her architecture, are considerably different from Neonik's.]]
Neonik's.
** (Original Poster)[[spoiler:I I can accept that the replicas weren't as powerful as the real deals, but at their base they at least had to have some means of either storing or converting ether energy out of the air to provide the energy blade the weapon used. As to Fiora's architecture, take this into account - on first meeting her, Linada, the machina doctor, mistook this strange robotic woman for one of her people, not realizing that she was a Face unit until the party actually mentions it. While their problems weren't identical (Neonik was dying from being damn near 10000 years old, Fiora is dying because Meyneth isn't powering her heart and lungs anymore), they boiled down to something very similar - their power systems were failing, and a shot of energy from an old Machina unit was enough to repower Neonik for another 20 years. Of course, if Fiora's power really couldn't be restored, it makes the usage of Final Cross REALLY irresponsible post-Mechonis Core, since the whole thing shakes out to "Massive blast of Monado power hits stuff".]]
stuff".
**[[spoiler:Sure, Sure, but given that no other Machina have Monados powering them, it's quite possible that Fiora's power system is a unique technology and incompatible with other power sources.]]
sources.
** (Original Poster)[[spoiler:Fair Fair point. That said, since Vanea was the one who originally put together the Fiora/Meyneth/Face Nemesis combo platter, she would probably have been the one most qualified to put together a stopgap system to keep the one remaining piece (Fiora) from terminally powering down. Also, while Gadolt doesn't survive long enough for this to matter, would all pilots of Face units, separated from their respective mecha, eventually succumb to cardiovascular failure, or is Fiora's problem entirely unique? I seem to recall that even with Meyneth on board, early on you still needed to scavenge parts from a wrecked Mechon (piezoelectrical unit, if memory serves) to prevent a complete system failure of Fiora immediately following your arrival at Junks. Then again, Fiora '''did''' suffer some rather critical... system damage in the process of getting taken in the first place (ImpaledWithExtremePrejudice - not good for one's internal organs), and Linada did express some surprise to find that most of Fiora's innards simply weren't there anymore. So it could well be that her imminent shutdown (and lack of necessity to eat) was more a function of "Metal Face stabbed me with claws as long as I am tall" than "Meyneth isn't providing me limitless free energy". I know that Vanea eventually points out that some modification has to be done to a Homs to make a Face unit work, but maybe Fiora's modifications were a bit more extreme out of necessity, rather than simply to make her invincible to standard Monado damage.]]
damage.
**[[spoiler:As As far as we know, even though the game doesn't flat out confirm this, the pulsating red lights that only Faced Mechon have (Shulk notes this in the first encounter with Metal Face after they find out the Monado can't damage him) are transparent artificial arteries/veins through which the blood of the pilot flows. This is what makes Zanza's Monado confused about the nature of the "thing" that it's hitting, not being able to distinguish Homs from Mechon, and therefore causes it to deal no damage (until Zanza lifts the restriction). So with that said, we can assume a Faced Mechon's pilot's body is surgically modified to have ports which connect his/her Homs blood vessels with those of the Mechon. When the pilot voluntarily exits the Mechon (for example, Mumkhar on Valak Mountain and Galahad Fortress), some software on the Mechon that manages its circulatory system makes sure to shut those ports and keep enough blood inside the pilot's body so that he/she doesn't faint or die from anemia (lack of blood). However, both Fiora and Gadolt were ejected from their critically damaged Mechon's wreckage, so it's safe to assume that control software wasn't working anymore and that's why they were so weak afterwards: a large portion of their blood was left inside the wreckage of their respective Mechons. This is only speculation, but seems plausible.]]
plausible.
**[[spoiler: Fiora's circulation problems were solved by getting the piezoelectric unit on the Fallen Arm just after the party is reunited. Even after that, she still occasionally has issues adjusting to her new body thanks to some pretty hefty dysphoria. We don't get any details on what's happening to Fiora's body after she loses Meyneth's Monado other than she's running on reserve energy. Also, the Replica Monado was made based off Zanza's Monado, not Meyneth's. It's entirely possible that the energies are simply not interchangeable.]]
interchangeable.
** It's possible that none of these would have worked.
** (Original Poster)
**
** (Original Poster)
**
**
Changed line(s) 64,65 (click to see context) from:
* So in Satorl Marsh, Dickson has a line about how [[spoiler:he feels bad about deceiving Shulk and co. Yet as soon as he makes his treachery known, he immediately switches to his true persona of a smug, unrepentant JerkAss of near CardCarryingVillain levels who flat-out gloats about deceiving the heroes, making that line seem rather out of character in hindsight.]] So... What was the point? Was it just a narrative cheat to make [[spoiler:Dickson]] seem like he might not be that bad despite obviously being up to something? Or an attempt at HiddenDepths that was ultimately left unexplored?
** [[spoiler:Chances are any kind of attachment he had to Shulk meant jack to him once Shulk started to go against the plans of his powerful long-standing master. After all, he's only known Shulk for what is essentially a passing second compared to his who knows how many years of immortality.]]
** [[spoiler:Chances are any kind of attachment he had to Shulk meant jack to him once Shulk started to go against the plans of his powerful long-standing master. After all, he's only known Shulk for what is essentially a passing second compared to his who knows how many years of immortality.]]
to:
* So in Satorl Marsh, Dickson has a line about how [[spoiler:he he feels bad about deceiving Shulk and co. Yet as soon as he makes his treachery known, he immediately switches to his true persona of a smug, unrepentant JerkAss of near CardCarryingVillain levels who flat-out gloats about deceiving the heroes, making that line seem rather out of character in hindsight.]] So... What was the point? Was it just a narrative cheat to make [[spoiler:Dickson]] Dickson seem like he might not be that bad despite obviously being up to something? Or an attempt at HiddenDepths that was ultimately left unexplored?
**[[spoiler:Chances Chances are any kind of attachment he had to Shulk meant jack to him once Shulk started to go against the plans of his powerful long-standing master. After all, he's only known Shulk for what is essentially a passing second compared to his who knows how many years of immortality.]]
**
Changed line(s) 68,69 (click to see context) from:
** Narratively speaking, the purpose of that line was to show Dickson shouldn't be fully trusted [[spoiler: so from the player's perspective his betrayal doesn't come completely out of nowhere. In universe I reckon it is hidden depths. His jerkass tendencies are really over played but when it comes down to it he let's the characters go on to fight Zanza saying he's not prepared to die for his god, even though he does so immediately afterwards. In truth he didn't want them to see him die, possibly out of shame or possibly because he doesn't want it affecting Shulk's psyche for the upcoming battle. I reckon the character is conflicted between caring for Shulk, his devotion to Zanza and his Nihilistic/blood knight tendencies that makes him not want to care about anything, born from being a creature older than recorded history.]]
to:
** Narratively speaking, the purpose of that line was to show Dickson shouldn't be fully trusted [[spoiler: so from the player's perspective his betrayal doesn't come completely out of nowhere. In universe I reckon it is hidden depths. His jerkass tendencies are really over played but when it comes down to it he let's the characters go on to fight Zanza saying he's not prepared to die for his god, even though he does so immediately afterwards. In truth he didn't want them to see him die, possibly out of shame or possibly because he doesn't want it affecting Shulk's psyche for the upcoming battle. I reckon the character is conflicted between caring for Shulk, his devotion to Zanza and his Nihilistic/blood knight tendencies that makes him not want to care about anything, born from being a creature older than recorded history.]]
history.
Changed line(s) 74,81 (click to see context) from:
* At the end of the game,[[spoiler:we see how the Bionis and Mechonis are created. Klaus wanted to turn all humans into gods but then did a Apocalypse Universal Class 4 which just left Zanza and Meyneth as Gods (along with Alvis) and forms the Titans in the endless ocean where the game takes place. I find some problems with that back story. First, how does the party still see an Earth-like planet before fighting Zanza when the reformation was clearly on Earth? Second, who decided on Klaus's, Meyneth's, and Alvis's fate in this world? Is there a greater god in all of this? Finally, what in the world happened with the ending? The Titans are now destroyed but how is Colony 9 still present and how did the other races make it to Colony 9 when there it is usually a dangerous and long path?]]
** 1. It's possible that [[spoiler:Zanza keeps an illusion of Earth and its nearby planets out there because, on some level, he misses it.]]
** 2. We're talking about an event that [[spoiler:turned two humans and a supercomputer into gods and destroyed the previous universe]], so who knows how the mechanics behind something like that would work.
** 3. [[spoiler:After Shulk recreated the universe, there were once again planets and land outside the Bionis, so everybody got off the Bionis and built a new Colony away from it.]]
** [[spoiler: This is WMG territory: Klaus' "phase" experiment didn't destroy the universe, it simply sent him, Meyneth, and Alvis into a new universe, or an empty space where they created a new universe. This explains some of the bizarreness--the sun fading in and out, the endless flat plane of an ocean, altitude having no effect on people's bodies, etc. While they were scientists and gods, recreating the old world would have been daunting, so they went for something simple. A universe with such off-kilter physics required gods to keeps it functioning. When Shulk created a new universe "with no need for gods," that changed the universe into one with workable physics, a.k.a. real world physics, with stars and planets. Then for pure convenience's sake, they were placed on a life-supporting planet with a compatible ecosystem and no pre-existing sentient life. Colony 9 (and, I assume, 6, plus maybe Frontier Village, Alcamoth, and the Machina village) and all the people were moved to solid ground on the shore. I figure that their new planet is in the same position that Earth was in the original universe, probably with all the same continents. It just lacks humans, and maybe the flora and fauna are more akin to Bionis/ Mechonis lifeforms than Earth ones.]]
** I interpreted this one as [[spoiler:"Shulk took the stuff that was Bionis and Mechonis and incorporated that into the new planet". Hence why Colony 9 appears almost identical to how it appeared on Bionis, and perhaps more importantly, allowing the people living on Bionis to keep their homes and scientific materials, which helps with the whole "Explore this vast new universe!" idea.]]
** [[spoiler: VideoGame/XenobladeChronicles2 reveals that the Architect is none other than Klaus' good half, while Zanza is his bad half. The earth-like image is just an illusion of the events before the story began. It is also possible that the Architect may have indirectly helped Shulk and his party, alongside Alvis (assumed to be Ontos in XC2) because Shulk's nature is a parallel reflection of the Architect.]]
** 1. It's possible that [[spoiler:Zanza keeps an illusion of Earth and its nearby planets out there because, on some level, he misses it.]]
** 2. We're talking about an event that [[spoiler:turned two humans and a supercomputer into gods and destroyed the previous universe]], so who knows how the mechanics behind something like that would work.
** 3. [[spoiler:After Shulk recreated the universe, there were once again planets and land outside the Bionis, so everybody got off the Bionis and built a new Colony away from it.]]
** [[spoiler: This is WMG territory: Klaus' "phase" experiment didn't destroy the universe, it simply sent him, Meyneth, and Alvis into a new universe, or an empty space where they created a new universe. This explains some of the bizarreness--the sun fading in and out, the endless flat plane of an ocean, altitude having no effect on people's bodies, etc. While they were scientists and gods, recreating the old world would have been daunting, so they went for something simple. A universe with such off-kilter physics required gods to keeps it functioning. When Shulk created a new universe "with no need for gods," that changed the universe into one with workable physics, a.k.a. real world physics, with stars and planets. Then for pure convenience's sake, they were placed on a life-supporting planet with a compatible ecosystem and no pre-existing sentient life. Colony 9 (and, I assume, 6, plus maybe Frontier Village, Alcamoth, and the Machina village) and all the people were moved to solid ground on the shore. I figure that their new planet is in the same position that Earth was in the original universe, probably with all the same continents. It just lacks humans, and maybe the flora and fauna are more akin to Bionis/ Mechonis lifeforms than Earth ones.]]
** I interpreted this one as [[spoiler:"Shulk took the stuff that was Bionis and Mechonis and incorporated that into the new planet". Hence why Colony 9 appears almost identical to how it appeared on Bionis, and perhaps more importantly, allowing the people living on Bionis to keep their homes and scientific materials, which helps with the whole "Explore this vast new universe!" idea.]]
** [[spoiler: VideoGame/XenobladeChronicles2 reveals that the Architect is none other than Klaus' good half, while Zanza is his bad half. The earth-like image is just an illusion of the events before the story began. It is also possible that the Architect may have indirectly helped Shulk and his party, alongside Alvis (assumed to be Ontos in XC2) because Shulk's nature is a parallel reflection of the Architect.]]
to:
* At the end of the game,[[spoiler:we game,we see how the Bionis and Mechonis are created. Klaus wanted to turn all humans into gods but then did a Apocalypse Universal Class 4 which just left Zanza and Meyneth as Gods (along with Alvis) and forms the Titans in the endless ocean where the game takes place. I find some problems with that back story. First, how does the party still see an Earth-like planet before fighting Zanza when the reformation was clearly on Earth? Second, who decided on Klaus's, Meyneth's, and Alvis's fate in this world? Is there a greater god in all of this? Finally, what in the world happened with the ending? The Titans are now destroyed but how is Colony 9 still present and how did the other races make it to Colony 9 when there it is usually a dangerous and long path?]]
path?
** 1. It's possible that[[spoiler:Zanza Zanza keeps an illusion of Earth and its nearby planets out there because, on some level, he misses it.]]
it.
** 2. We're talking about an event that[[spoiler:turned turned two humans and a supercomputer into gods and destroyed the previous universe]], universe, so who knows how the mechanics behind something like that would work.
** 3.[[spoiler:After After Shulk recreated the universe, there were once again planets and land outside the Bionis, so everybody got off the Bionis and built a new Colony away from it.]]
it.
**[[spoiler: This is WMG territory: Klaus' "phase" experiment didn't destroy the universe, it simply sent him, Meyneth, and Alvis into a new universe, or an empty space where they created a new universe. This explains some of the bizarreness--the sun fading in and out, the endless flat plane of an ocean, altitude having no effect on people's bodies, etc. While they were scientists and gods, recreating the old world would have been daunting, so they went for something simple. A universe with such off-kilter physics required gods to keeps it functioning. When Shulk created a new universe "with no need for gods," that changed the universe into one with workable physics, a.k.a. real world physics, with stars and planets. Then for pure convenience's sake, they were placed on a life-supporting planet with a compatible ecosystem and no pre-existing sentient life. Colony 9 (and, I assume, 6, plus maybe Frontier Village, Alcamoth, and the Machina village) and all the people were moved to solid ground on the shore. I figure that their new planet is in the same position that Earth was in the original universe, probably with all the same continents. It just lacks humans, and maybe the flora and fauna are more akin to Bionis/ Mechonis lifeforms than Earth ones.]]
ones.
** I interpreted this one as[[spoiler:"Shulk "Shulk took the stuff that was Bionis and Mechonis and incorporated that into the new planet". Hence why Colony 9 appears almost identical to how it appeared on Bionis, and perhaps more importantly, allowing the people living on Bionis to keep their homes and scientific materials, which helps with the whole "Explore this vast new universe!" idea.]]
idea.
**[[spoiler: VideoGame/XenobladeChronicles2 reveals that the Architect is none other than Klaus' good half, while Zanza is his bad half. The earth-like image is just an illusion of the events before the story began. It is also possible that the Architect may have indirectly helped Shulk and his party, alongside Alvis (assumed to be Ontos in XC2) because Shulk's nature is a parallel reflection of the Architect.]]
Architect.
** 1. It's possible that
** 2. We're talking about an event that
** 3.
**
** I interpreted this one as
**
Changed line(s) 95,97 (click to see context) from:
* It's established that [[spoiler:at Ose Tower, Zanza killed Shulk and the only reason Shulk appeared to be alive was because Zanza acted as his life force. Why is Shulk still alive and able to move on his own completely fine after separating from Zanza? If Shulk depended entirely on Zanza to live, shouldn't he have returned to being a corpse the moment Dickson shot him? Did Alvis do something to revive Shulk? I feel like the game addressed legitimate concerns with Fiora's split from Meyneth but didn't really explore the Shulk/Zanza aftereffects that well.]]
** The game reveals that [[spoiler: Meyneth used the last of her power to give life back to Shulk just before she died. Alvis was then able to bring his consciousness out of the coma.]]
** The game reveals that [[spoiler: Meyneth used the last of her power to give life back to Shulk just before she died. Alvis was then able to bring his consciousness out of the coma.]]
to:
* It's established that [[spoiler:at at Ose Tower, Zanza killed Shulk and the only reason Shulk appeared to be alive was because Zanza acted as his life force. Why is Shulk still alive and able to move on his own completely fine after separating from Zanza? If Shulk depended entirely on Zanza to live, shouldn't he have returned to being a corpse the moment Dickson shot him? Did Alvis do something to revive Shulk? I feel like the game addressed legitimate concerns with Fiora's split from Meyneth but didn't really explore the Shulk/Zanza aftereffects that well.]]
well.
** The game reveals that[[spoiler: Meyneth used the last of her power to give life back to Shulk just before she died. Alvis was then able to bring his consciousness out of the coma.]]
coma.
** The game reveals that
Changed line(s) 110,112 (click to see context) from:
* About Arglas and Zanza: [[spoiler: it was stated that Arglas was the soul of the Bionis and was possessed by Zanza. But it was also stated that Zanza created the Bionis, just like Lady Meynet created the Mechonis. So did Zanza create the Bionis with a mind of his own, made a sword for his body, waited for thousands of years for Arglas to pick him up, then destroyed and replaced Arglas's mind?]]
** No, [[spoiler: ''Zanza'' was the soul of the Bionis. Arglas was just a dude who found the Monado, picked it up, and got possessed by Zanza. When Zanza first shows up at Prison Island, the body he's inhabiting was originally Arglas's.]]
** No, [[spoiler: ''Zanza'' was the soul of the Bionis. Arglas was just a dude who found the Monado, picked it up, and got possessed by Zanza. When Zanza first shows up at Prison Island, the body he's inhabiting was originally Arglas's.]]
to:
* About Arglas and Zanza: [[spoiler: it was stated that Arglas was the soul of the Bionis and was possessed by Zanza. But it was also stated that Zanza created the Bionis, just like Lady Meynet created the Mechonis. So did Zanza create the Bionis with a mind of his own, made a sword for his body, waited for thousands of years for Arglas to pick him up, then destroyed and replaced Arglas's mind?]]
mind?
** No,[[spoiler: ''Zanza'' was the soul of the Bionis. Arglas was just a dude who found the Monado, picked it up, and got possessed by Zanza. When Zanza first shows up at Prison Island, the body he's inhabiting was originally Arglas's.]]
Arglas's.
** No,
Changed line(s) 117,121 (click to see context) from:
* [[spoiler: It was stated that Zanza and the Bionis Monado are one-and-the-same. However, Meyneth **has** a Monado, rather than **being** the Mechonis Monado. Was something messed up in the translation?]]
** I don't know what exactly the game said, but wasn't it [[spoiler:Alvis who was one and the same with the Bionis' Monado? I don't know about the Mechonis' Monado, but I think Zanza and Meyneth are on similar standings in regards to their blade.]]
** [[spoiler: Alvis is both Monados: he was the source of power for all of them.]]
** [[spoiler: I think a Monado is a ''part'' of a god--their willpower made manifest. So they're connected, and Zanza could, in a limited way, act through his Monado even while sealed. Meyneth was never separated from her Monado--Zanza took it after she died.]]
** I don't know what exactly the game said, but wasn't it [[spoiler:Alvis who was one and the same with the Bionis' Monado? I don't know about the Mechonis' Monado, but I think Zanza and Meyneth are on similar standings in regards to their blade.]]
** [[spoiler: Alvis is both Monados: he was the source of power for all of them.]]
** [[spoiler: I think a Monado is a ''part'' of a god--their willpower made manifest. So they're connected, and Zanza could, in a limited way, act through his Monado even while sealed. Meyneth was never separated from her Monado--Zanza took it after she died.]]
to:
* [[spoiler: It was stated that Zanza and the Bionis Monado are one-and-the-same. However, Meyneth **has** a Monado, rather than **being** the Mechonis Monado. Was something messed up in the translation?]]
translation?
** I don't know what exactly the game said, but wasn't it[[spoiler:Alvis Alvis who was one and the same with the Bionis' Monado? I don't know about the Mechonis' Monado, but I think Zanza and Meyneth are on similar standings in regards to their blade.]]
blade.
**[[spoiler: Alvis is both Monados: he was the source of power for all of them.]]
them.
**[[spoiler: I think a Monado is a ''part'' of a god--their willpower made manifest. So they're connected, and Zanza could, in a limited way, act through his Monado even while sealed. Meyneth was never separated from her Monado--Zanza took it after she died.]]
died.
** I don't know what exactly the game said, but wasn't it
**
**
Changed line(s) 126,132 (click to see context) from:
* MAJOR endgame spoilers, but seriously, couldn't SO MUCH have been avoided if [[spoiler: Egil told Shulk and Co. what was going on? Egil offers to do this at one point... by offering to turn them into Face-Mechon and THEN explaining. Why bother doing that when you could just drop in, and say "Hey, let's have a chat about what we're fighting for." Obviously, Shulk was too mad to listen on Valak Mountain or the fortress, but by the time they reached the Fallen Arm and met with Miqol they would've listened. Who knows? Maybe they could've made a decision like, I don't know, chuck the Monado in the ocean? Blow up Prison Island? ([[VideoGame/SonicAdventure2 Which has been done before, mind you]].) PoorCommunicationKills and all that, but I still feel like so much could've been avoided by just telling the party about Zanza.]]
** If memory serves me correctly, [[spoiler: Egil did not see Shulk after the Fallen Arm until literally right before Mechonis Core, where he did finally explain all this. After that... I think Shulk and Egil's conflict had come too far to just stop.]]
** OP here. While you're right in that they don't meet [[spoiler: Egil again until the fight at the Meyneth statue, my main question is why didn't Egil try to talk to them before that? [[SarcasmMode It's not like, you know, they were storming the Mechonis or anything.]] Overall, Egil's actions after Galahad Fortress seem kind of questionable. He sees an immense power that he (likely) considers to be Meyneth's Monado, and... does nothing? Even if he thought Shulk and co. died from the fall (Likely, since later he shows surprise that they met with the Machina. "Even my own people have turned against me," Or something like that), does he really have no knowledge that the Face Unit he JUST FINISHED MAKING had an encounter with a group of Homs, Nopon, High Entia and Robot Girl? Or that Vanea went to meet them? What was he so focused on? Anyways, rambling aside, I don't get why he didn't just hop in Yaldabaoth, fly down maybe 10 stories and meet with them again. I mean, what better person to talk to about the situation than the wielder of the Monado? (You are right in that after the battle with Egil there was no turning back, but ''still...'')]]
** Yeah, that seems a bit odd. The best explanation I can come up with is [[spoiler: that Vanea had shown Shulk and Co the history of the Mechonis (you know, Zanza attacked Mechonis for no good reason history). I think, just maybe, Egil appreciated that Shulk wouldn't have accepted the whole "Monado is evil" point of view until he saw this history. Were it not for the second encounter with Jade Face between 'history of Mechonis' and 'finally explain all of this', there would be a logical explanation for this plot point.]]
** Given what happened to [[spoiler:Arglas, instant possession]], it seems quite possible Egil assumed there was no use talking to them. That Shulk was his actual enemy. He even calls Shulk [[spoiler:Zanza]] in the capital. Honestly given the guys backstory and how big a pain in the ass Shulk and co have been, the fact that he was willing to talk to them at all in the capital is pretty big of him.
** The above answer is most likely correct. Egil seemed to assume that Shulk [[spoiler:was possessed by Zanza. He only realized that Shulk "retained his sense of self" when he spared his life after the battle]].
** If memory serves me correctly, [[spoiler: Egil did not see Shulk after the Fallen Arm until literally right before Mechonis Core, where he did finally explain all this. After that... I think Shulk and Egil's conflict had come too far to just stop.]]
** OP here. While you're right in that they don't meet [[spoiler: Egil again until the fight at the Meyneth statue, my main question is why didn't Egil try to talk to them before that? [[SarcasmMode It's not like, you know, they were storming the Mechonis or anything.]] Overall, Egil's actions after Galahad Fortress seem kind of questionable. He sees an immense power that he (likely) considers to be Meyneth's Monado, and... does nothing? Even if he thought Shulk and co. died from the fall (Likely, since later he shows surprise that they met with the Machina. "Even my own people have turned against me," Or something like that), does he really have no knowledge that the Face Unit he JUST FINISHED MAKING had an encounter with a group of Homs, Nopon, High Entia and Robot Girl? Or that Vanea went to meet them? What was he so focused on? Anyways, rambling aside, I don't get why he didn't just hop in Yaldabaoth, fly down maybe 10 stories and meet with them again. I mean, what better person to talk to about the situation than the wielder of the Monado? (You are right in that after the battle with Egil there was no turning back, but ''still...'')]]
** Yeah, that seems a bit odd. The best explanation I can come up with is [[spoiler: that Vanea had shown Shulk and Co the history of the Mechonis (you know, Zanza attacked Mechonis for no good reason history). I think, just maybe, Egil appreciated that Shulk wouldn't have accepted the whole "Monado is evil" point of view until he saw this history. Were it not for the second encounter with Jade Face between 'history of Mechonis' and 'finally explain all of this', there would be a logical explanation for this plot point.]]
** Given what happened to [[spoiler:Arglas, instant possession]], it seems quite possible Egil assumed there was no use talking to them. That Shulk was his actual enemy. He even calls Shulk [[spoiler:Zanza]] in the capital. Honestly given the guys backstory and how big a pain in the ass Shulk and co have been, the fact that he was willing to talk to them at all in the capital is pretty big of him.
** The above answer is most likely correct. Egil seemed to assume that Shulk [[spoiler:was possessed by Zanza. He only realized that Shulk "retained his sense of self" when he spared his life after the battle]].
to:
* MAJOR endgame spoilers, but seriously, couldn't SO MUCH have been avoided if [[spoiler: Egil told Shulk and Co. what was going on? Egil offers to do this at one point... by offering to turn them into Face-Mechon and THEN explaining. Why bother doing that when you could just drop in, and say "Hey, let's have a chat about what we're fighting for." Obviously, Shulk was too mad to listen on Valak Mountain or the fortress, but by the time they reached the Fallen Arm and met with Miqol they would've listened. Who knows? Maybe they could've made a decision like, I don't know, chuck the Monado in the ocean? Blow up Prison Island? ([[VideoGame/SonicAdventure2 Which has been done before, mind you]].you.) PoorCommunicationKills and all that, but I still feel like so much could've been avoided by just telling the party about Zanza.]]
** If memory serves me correctly,[[spoiler: Egil did not see Shulk after the Fallen Arm until literally right before Mechonis Core, where he did finally explain all this. After that... I think Shulk and Egil's conflict had come too far to just stop.]]
stop.
** OP here. While you're right in that they don't meet[[spoiler: Egil again until the fight at the Meyneth statue, my main question is why didn't Egil try to talk to them before that? [[SarcasmMode It's not like, you know, they were storming the Mechonis or anything.]] anything. Overall, Egil's actions after Galahad Fortress seem kind of questionable. He sees an immense power that he (likely) considers to be Meyneth's Monado, and... does nothing? Even if he thought Shulk and co. died from the fall (Likely, since later he shows surprise that they met with the Machina. "Even my own people have turned against me," Or something like that), does he really have no knowledge that the Face Unit he JUST FINISHED MAKING had an encounter with a group of Homs, Nopon, High Entia and Robot Girl? Or that Vanea went to meet them? What was he so focused on? Anyways, rambling aside, I don't get why he didn't just hop in Yaldabaoth, fly down maybe 10 stories and meet with them again. I mean, what better person to talk to about the situation than the wielder of the Monado? (You are right in that after the battle with Egil there was no turning back, but ''still...'')]]
** Yeah, that seems a bit odd. The best explanation I can come up with is[[spoiler: that Vanea had shown Shulk and Co the history of the Mechonis (you know, Zanza attacked Mechonis for no good reason history). I think, just maybe, Egil appreciated that Shulk wouldn't have accepted the whole "Monado is evil" point of view until he saw this history. Were it not for the second encounter with Jade Face between 'history of Mechonis' and 'finally explain all of this', there would be a logical explanation for this plot point.]]
point.
** Given what happened to[[spoiler:Arglas, Arglas, instant possession]], possession, it seems quite possible Egil assumed there was no use talking to them. That Shulk was his actual enemy. He even calls Shulk [[spoiler:Zanza]] Zanza in the capital. Honestly given the guys backstory and how big a pain in the ass Shulk and co have been, the fact that he was willing to talk to them at all in the capital is pretty big of him.
** The above answer is most likely correct. Egil seemed to assume that Shulk[[spoiler:was was possessed by Zanza. He only realized that Shulk "retained his sense of self" when he spared his life after the battle]].
battle.
** If memory serves me correctly,
** OP here. While you're right in that they don't meet
** Yeah, that seems a bit odd. The best explanation I can come up with is
** Given what happened to
** The above answer is most likely correct. Egil seemed to assume that Shulk
Changed line(s) 139,143 (click to see context) from:
* How is [[spoiler:Zanza's soul in two places at once? Meyneth said that Zanza's body was trapped in Prison Island and Zanza's soul (the Monado) was confined to Ose Tower in Valak Mountain. However, his "body" belonged to Arglas. What was the point in separating the body and soul if the body is not actually Zanza's? How is Zanza able to remain in Arglas and Shulk at the same time?]]
** [[spoiler:Because he's a god.]]
** I think of it this way. [[spoiler:Zanza is broken into three parts. His sentient mind is trapped within Arglas, that's how he was able to be imprisoned on Prison Island. His soul is further broken into two parts. One is within the Monado and attempts to bend anyone who uses it to his will (however it isn't sentient). The other half is within Shulk. When Arglas is freed and then killed, Zanza's mind is released and rejoins with either the half of his soul in the Monado or Shulk (which doesn't matter, since both are together). When Shulk dies all three pieces reunite.]]
** Because [[spoiler: Klaus' good side, the Architect revealed in XenobladeChronicles2, revealed alternate possibilities. Klaus' soul was fragmented, though the Architect side seems to be whole, albeit a dimensional portal on his left hemisphere. It is possible that Zanza's soul was further fragmented.]]
** [[spoiler:Because he's a god.]]
** I think of it this way. [[spoiler:Zanza is broken into three parts. His sentient mind is trapped within Arglas, that's how he was able to be imprisoned on Prison Island. His soul is further broken into two parts. One is within the Monado and attempts to bend anyone who uses it to his will (however it isn't sentient). The other half is within Shulk. When Arglas is freed and then killed, Zanza's mind is released and rejoins with either the half of his soul in the Monado or Shulk (which doesn't matter, since both are together). When Shulk dies all three pieces reunite.]]
** Because [[spoiler: Klaus' good side, the Architect revealed in XenobladeChronicles2, revealed alternate possibilities. Klaus' soul was fragmented, though the Architect side seems to be whole, albeit a dimensional portal on his left hemisphere. It is possible that Zanza's soul was further fragmented.]]
to:
* How is [[spoiler:Zanza's Zanza's soul in two places at once? Meyneth said that Zanza's body was trapped in Prison Island and Zanza's soul (the Monado) was confined to Ose Tower in Valak Mountain. However, his "body" belonged to Arglas. What was the point in separating the body and soul if the body is not actually Zanza's? How is Zanza able to remain in Arglas and Shulk at the same time?]]
time?
**[[spoiler:Because Because he's a god.]]
god.
** I think of it this way.[[spoiler:Zanza Zanza is broken into three parts. His sentient mind is trapped within Arglas, that's how he was able to be imprisoned on Prison Island. His soul is further broken into two parts. One is within the Monado and attempts to bend anyone who uses it to his will (however it isn't sentient). The other half is within Shulk. When Arglas is freed and then killed, Zanza's mind is released and rejoins with either the half of his soul in the Monado or Shulk (which doesn't matter, since both are together). When Shulk dies all three pieces reunite.]]
reunite.
** Because[[spoiler: Klaus' good side, the Architect revealed in XenobladeChronicles2, revealed alternate possibilities. Klaus' soul was fragmented, though the Architect side seems to be whole, albeit a dimensional portal on his left hemisphere. It is possible that Zanza's soul was further fragmented.]]
fragmented.
**
** I think of it this way.
** Because
Changed line(s) 148,151 (click to see context) from:
* What is Prison Island? It's established the High Entia ancestors didn't build it, only used it, and at the end of the game [[spoiler: Zanza goes there in order to enact his genocide/travel to a realm beyond scheme implying it has a connection to the original experiment.]] To further this (something I forgot about until replaying it) at the entrance there is text no one can translate but is similar to the symbols on the Monado which I assume are Japanese, I know the final symbol means God anyway. So what does this inscription say and what importance does Prison Island have in the overall existence of their world? Is their a corresponding structure in Mechonis that can be picked out?
** I believe Prison Island may have been built by Giants, considering [[spoiler: the size of its furniture.]]
** Prison Island [[spoiler:may have been the home of Arglas, and Zanza started using it when he possessed Arglas, because why not? Or maybe it was Dickson's place that he let Zanza use as an HQ. Of course, the fact that the Bionis control center is on the Terrace (we see Zanza-in-Arglas there when fighting Meyneth, it's where he was imprisoned) suggests that the island is as old as the Bionis itself. So either the Giants built a home around the Bionis control center, or Zanza remodeled the place after taking over Arglas and installed the control center on the Terrace.]]
** I believe Prison Island may have been built by Giants, considering [[spoiler: the size of its furniture.]]
** Prison Island [[spoiler:may have been the home of Arglas, and Zanza started using it when he possessed Arglas, because why not? Or maybe it was Dickson's place that he let Zanza use as an HQ. Of course, the fact that the Bionis control center is on the Terrace (we see Zanza-in-Arglas there when fighting Meyneth, it's where he was imprisoned) suggests that the island is as old as the Bionis itself. So either the Giants built a home around the Bionis control center, or Zanza remodeled the place after taking over Arglas and installed the control center on the Terrace.]]
to:
* What is Prison Island? It's established the High Entia ancestors didn't build it, only used it, and at the end of the game [[spoiler: Zanza goes there in order to enact his genocide/travel to a realm beyond scheme implying it has a connection to the original experiment.]] experiment. To further this (something I forgot about until replaying it) at the entrance there is text no one can translate but is similar to the symbols on the Monado which I assume are Japanese, I know the final symbol means God anyway. So what does this inscription say and what importance does Prison Island have in the overall existence of their world? Is their a corresponding structure in Mechonis that can be picked out?
** I believe Prison Island may have been built by Giants, considering[[spoiler: the size of its furniture.]]
furniture.
** Prison Island[[spoiler:may may have been the home of Arglas, and Zanza started using it when he possessed Arglas, because why not? Or maybe it was Dickson's place that he let Zanza use as an HQ. Of course, the fact that the Bionis control center is on the Terrace (we see Zanza-in-Arglas there when fighting Meyneth, it's where he was imprisoned) suggests that the island is as old as the Bionis itself. So either the Giants built a home around the Bionis control center, or Zanza remodeled the place after taking over Arglas and installed the control center on the Terrace.]]
Terrace.
** I believe Prison Island may have been built by Giants, considering
** Prison Island
Changed line(s) 156,158 (click to see context) from:
* If Egil was aware of [[spoiler:Dickson being Zanza's disciple]] and was able to recognize him at first sight, isn't it incredibly odd that [[spoiler:none of the Machina we meet remember anything strange about him]]? [[spoiler:Egil's father Miqol witnessed the Bionis/Mechonis fight firsthand.]] He clearly knows about [[spoiler:Zanza]]. Why does he say [[spoiler:"I scratch his back and he scratches mine" in regards to Dickson when Zanza is the reason Machina were nearly driven to extinction? Why do all the Machina welcome him into the village with open arms? If Miqol is six thousand years old, and Egil is younger than him, and Machina such as Eiz and Neonik were alive when Zanza attacked Meyneth, why does nobody find the presence of Zanza's disciple extremely suspicious?]]
** When Egil recognised [[spoiler: Dickson]], he had just done something despicable, and Egil could connect the dots from there. Miqol and the rest of the Fallen Arm residents [[spoiler: see only a genial Homs, and have no reason to suspect that Dickson may be the Giant that served Zanza.]]
** When Egil recognised [[spoiler: Dickson]], he had just done something despicable, and Egil could connect the dots from there. Miqol and the rest of the Fallen Arm residents [[spoiler: see only a genial Homs, and have no reason to suspect that Dickson may be the Giant that served Zanza.]]
to:
* If Egil was aware of [[spoiler:Dickson Dickson being Zanza's disciple]] disciple and was able to recognize him at first sight, isn't it incredibly odd that [[spoiler:none none of the Machina we meet remember anything strange about him]]? [[spoiler:Egil's him? Egil's father Miqol witnessed the Bionis/Mechonis fight firsthand.]] firsthand. He clearly knows about [[spoiler:Zanza]]. Zanza. Why does he say [[spoiler:"I "I scratch his back and he scratches mine" in regards to Dickson when Zanza is the reason Machina were nearly driven to extinction? Why do all the Machina welcome him into the village with open arms? If Miqol is six thousand years old, and Egil is younger than him, and Machina such as Eiz and Neonik were alive when Zanza attacked Meyneth, why does nobody find the presence of Zanza's disciple extremely suspicious?]]
suspicious?
** When Egil recognised[[spoiler: Dickson]], Dickson, he had just done something despicable, and Egil could connect the dots from there. Miqol and the rest of the Fallen Arm residents [[spoiler: see only a genial Homs, and have no reason to suspect that Dickson may be the Giant that served Zanza.]]
Zanza.
** When Egil recognised
Changed line(s) 163 (click to see context) from:
* Where is the metal for the Mechon [[spoiler: and the Machina]] coming from? Were [[spoiler: Meyneth and Egil]] just hollowing out Mechonis?
to:
* Where is the metal for the Mechon [[spoiler: and the Machina]] Machina coming from? Were [[spoiler: Meyneth and Egil]] Egil just hollowing out Mechonis?
Changed line(s) 170 (click to see context) from:
* After the Bionis Interior, we see [[spoiler: Vanea]] finishing up a new face Mechon, [[spoiler: Fiora.]] Some pretty cool villain foreshadowing, right? But then, a voice on the speaker says [[spoiler: "Lady Vanea, Master Egil wishes to see you."]] Umm... Who was that? Wasn't the whole thing about [[spoiler: Egil that only Vanea agreed to follow him? Where did he get a secretary?]]
to:
* After the Bionis Interior, we see [[spoiler: Vanea]] Vanea finishing up a new face Mechon, [[spoiler: Fiora.]] Fiora. Some pretty cool villain foreshadowing, right? But then, a voice on the speaker says [[spoiler: "Lady Vanea, Master Egil wishes to see you."]] " Umm... Who was that? Wasn't the whole thing about [[spoiler: Egil that only Vanea agreed to follow him? Where did he get a secretary?]]secretary?
Changed line(s) 179,180 (click to see context) from:
** There's also the fact that physics is just kind of wonky in this world. [[spoiler:Even though they're both scientists, Meyneth and Zanza would have had a hard time recreating the universe after becoming gods, so it looks like they kept things really simple--a flat endless plain, a sun that fades in and out instead of rising and setting, etc. That would explain why the world needed gods--without them, the weird physics would collapse and the world would stagnate into nothingness.]]
to:
** There's also the fact that physics is just kind of wonky in this world. [[spoiler:Even Even though they're both scientists, Meyneth and Zanza would have had a hard time recreating the universe after becoming gods, so it looks like they kept things really simple--a flat endless plain, a sun that fades in and out instead of rising and setting, etc. That would explain why the world needed gods--without them, the weird physics would collapse and the world would stagnate into nothingness.]]
nothingness.
Changed line(s) 185,188 (click to see context) from:
* [[spoiler:If Shulk being Zanza's vessel was just a coincidence, why are they identical in looks and sound? Zanza looked the same before he became a god too. Did he happen to get the one guy on Bionis who was pretty much his doppelganger?]]
** 2 possibilities, either [[spoiler: Alvis merely depicted Zanza in his Shulk avatar in order to make it clear to Shulk (and the player) that Klaus is Zanza, or yes, Shulk really is Zanza;s doppelganger. Which isn't all that far fetched when you consider he had a vision of Shulk, his perfect vessel, and spent several thousand years waiting for him to be born.]]
** [[spoiler: Considering the [[ScrewDestiny themes of the game]], it's doubtful that Shulk was ''actually'' his doppleganger. It's possible that Shulk was considered a good vessel because he happened to look and sound like Zanza/ Klaus did. After all, Zanza does note that his imprisonment was really not a big deal at all, so he would have been A-OK with being picky about appearances.]]
** 2 possibilities, either [[spoiler: Alvis merely depicted Zanza in his Shulk avatar in order to make it clear to Shulk (and the player) that Klaus is Zanza, or yes, Shulk really is Zanza;s doppelganger. Which isn't all that far fetched when you consider he had a vision of Shulk, his perfect vessel, and spent several thousand years waiting for him to be born.]]
** [[spoiler: Considering the [[ScrewDestiny themes of the game]], it's doubtful that Shulk was ''actually'' his doppleganger. It's possible that Shulk was considered a good vessel because he happened to look and sound like Zanza/ Klaus did. After all, Zanza does note that his imprisonment was really not a big deal at all, so he would have been A-OK with being picky about appearances.]]
to:
* [[spoiler:If If Shulk being Zanza's vessel was just a coincidence, why are they identical in looks and sound? Zanza looked the same before he became a god too. Did he happen to get the one guy on Bionis who was pretty much his doppelganger?]]
doppelganger?
** 2 possibilities, either[[spoiler: Alvis merely depicted Zanza in his Shulk avatar in order to make it clear to Shulk (and the player) that Klaus is Zanza, or yes, Shulk really is Zanza;s doppelganger. Which isn't all that far fetched when you consider he had a vision of Shulk, his perfect vessel, and spent several thousand years waiting for him to be born.]]
born.
**[[spoiler: Considering the [[ScrewDestiny themes of the game]], game, it's doubtful that Shulk was ''actually'' his doppleganger. It's possible that Shulk was considered a good vessel because he happened to look and sound like Zanza/ Klaus did. After all, Zanza does note that his imprisonment was really not a big deal at all, so he would have been A-OK with being picky about appearances.]]
** 2 possibilities, either
**
Changed line(s) 193,194 (click to see context) from:
* How in the actual heck is the Nopon Sage 9,999 years old? Nopons live longer than Homs, but shorter thank High Entia, apparently, because it's stated in a quest that there's a Nopon's grammypon who's celebrating his 160th birthday, but 9,999 is much longer than any Homs, Nopon, High Entia, or hell, even [[spoiler: most Machina]]. HOW? Was he the first Nopon ever created? Are all Nopon descended from him and a deceased partner? Is he just lying? Who knows.
to:
* How in the actual heck is the Nopon Sage 9,999 years old? Nopons live longer than Homs, but shorter thank High Entia, apparently, because it's stated in a quest that there's a Nopon's grammypon who's celebrating his 160th birthday, but 9,999 is much longer than any Homs, Nopon, High Entia, or hell, even [[spoiler: most Machina]].Machina. HOW? Was he the first Nopon ever created? Are all Nopon descended from him and a deceased partner? Is he just lying? Who knows.
Changed line(s) 199 (click to see context) from:
* So... how exactly are [[spoiler:Machina]] made? I find it hard to believe that [[spoiler:a race who are essentially really advanced robotics are anatomically correct]], and the fact that juvenile [[spoiler:Machina]] look so different to adults that make me hesitant to believe it's by viviparous birth.
to:
* So... how exactly are [[spoiler:Machina]] Machina made? I find it hard to believe that [[spoiler:a a race who are essentially really advanced robotics are anatomically correct]], correct, and the fact that juvenile [[spoiler:Machina]] Machina look so different to adults that make me hesitant to believe it's by viviparous birth.
Changed line(s) 206 (click to see context) from:
* I'm not sure how well I understood something that Dunban said, at the end of one of the Surprise Quests: [[spoiler:"Melancholy Tyrea" saw the eponymous assassin part ways with Melia and the others. After she left, Dunban said, "We and Tyrea share the same goal. Our paths are sure to meet again." I get that at the very least, Tyrea won't be trying to kill them, but she was trying to fulfill her mission to MercyKill her transformed mother, while Shulk and co. are getting ready to stop Zanza. I don't think "killing the god of the Bionis" is the goal Dunban was referring to, so my question is: what goal ''do'' these two parties have in common? Is it fighting for their people?]]
to:
* I'm not sure how well I understood something that Dunban said, at the end of one of the Surprise Quests: [[spoiler:"Melancholy "Melancholy Tyrea" saw the eponymous assassin part ways with Melia and the others. After she left, Dunban said, "We and Tyrea share the same goal. Our paths are sure to meet again." I get that at the very least, Tyrea won't be trying to kill them, but she was trying to fulfill her mission to MercyKill her transformed mother, while Shulk and co. are getting ready to stop Zanza. I don't think "killing the god of the Bionis" is the goal Dunban was referring to, so my question is: what goal ''do'' these two parties have in common? Is it fighting for their people?]]people?
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* How come [[spoiler:Mumkhar, Fiora, and Gadolt get unique face units? What's so special about them compared to Xord and the other mass-produced faces?]]
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* How come [[spoiler:Mumkhar, Mumkhar, Fiora, and Gadolt get unique face units? What's so special about them compared to Xord and the other mass-produced faces?]]
faces?
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* Why does Alvis [[spoiler: need Shulk or to pretend to be a mortal at all? He seems to be more powerful than even Zanza, is sapient, and clearly isn't satisfied with the universe Zanza created. So why not just remake the universe himself? It doesn't seem like Zanza could do anything to stop him, and Alvis doesn't seem to need his permission to act either. If he did, Zanza could have just told him to kill Shulk at the end.]]
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* Why does Alvis [[spoiler: need Shulk or to pretend to be a mortal at all? He seems to be more powerful than even Zanza, is sapient, and clearly isn't satisfied with the universe Zanza created. So why not just remake the universe himself? It doesn't seem like Zanza could do anything to stop him, and Alvis doesn't seem to need his permission to act either. If he did, Zanza could have just told him to kill Shulk at the end.]]
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* Where did the Mechon come from, and what is their purpose? It's stated all throughout the game that the Mechon hail from Mechonis, but that seems pretty closed-minded when considering that [[spoiler:Meyneth, the Goddess of Mechonis, wanted Gods and living creatures to exist in harmony. Why then would her home Titan house creatures meant to wipe out all life forms?]] In fact, doesn't it seem unnecessary for Mechon to want to eradicate all life, given that [[spoiler:not only do the Telethia serve the same exact purpose, but they were specifically designed to do so by Zanza, the one who ''actually'' wants to destroy all life and reincarnate it in an endless cycle?]] The only Mechon who seem to make sense from a purpose standpoint would be the Faced Mechon, given that [[spoiler:they don't have "minds" of their own, and they're piloted by corrupt Homs.]]
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* Where did the Mechon come from, and what is their purpose? It's stated all throughout the game that the Mechon hail from Mechonis, but that seems pretty closed-minded when considering that [[spoiler:Meyneth, Meyneth, the Goddess of Mechonis, wanted Gods and living creatures to exist in harmony. Why then would her home Titan house creatures meant to wipe out all life forms?]] forms? In fact, doesn't it seem unnecessary for Mechon to want to eradicate all life, given that [[spoiler:not not only do the Telethia serve the same exact purpose, but they were specifically designed to do so by Zanza, the one who ''actually'' wants to destroy all life and reincarnate it in an endless cycle?]] cycle? The only Mechon who seem to make sense from a purpose standpoint would be the Faced Mechon, given that [[spoiler:they they don't have "minds" of their own, and they're piloted by corrupt Homs.]]
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* So, we can infer that [[spoiler:Shulk became his own person once he got in contact with Alvis postmortem, given that Zanza literally said that Shulk was nothing but an empty shell for his whole life]]. ...But that just begs the question. Why did Shulk have so many unanswered questions about the feud between the Bionis and Mechonis, as well as his own motives, feelings, and relationships? [[spoiler:Was it all an insanely complex ruse by Zanza to lead to his resurrection? Because if so, Zanza was being ''way'' too convoluted in putting up a disguised personality for 18 years, especially given that age rates for Gods stretch out ''far'' longer than someone like a Homs, or even a High Entia.]]
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* So, we can infer that [[spoiler:Shulk Shulk became his own person once he got in contact with Alvis postmortem, given that Zanza literally said that Shulk was nothing but an empty shell for his whole life]].life. ...But that just begs the question. Why did Shulk have so many unanswered questions about the feud between the Bionis and Mechonis, as well as his own motives, feelings, and relationships? [[spoiler:Was Was it all an insanely complex ruse by Zanza to lead to his resurrection? Because if so, Zanza was being ''way'' too convoluted in putting up a disguised personality for 18 years, especially given that age rates for Gods stretch out ''far'' longer than someone like a Homs, or even a High Entia.]]
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[[folder:Form of Alvis]]
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[[folder:The world and the sun]]
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*** While it is true that the sun vanishes before reaching the horizon, it needs to be said that it isn't visible in the sky during daytime to begin with: it just appears out of nowhere a couple minutes past 5 p.m., then vanishes around 8 p.m. So, even though a Defence Force Soldier does indeed say that "the big light source in the sky during daytime is ether" and that it "has a light-dark cycle which makes night and day", that big light source isn't even there in the sky during daytime in the first place. That being said, my guess is that the game developers simply couldn't be bothered to animate a full day-night cycle.
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*** That does explain the existence of the breasts, but doesn't explain the JigglePhysics. My theory is that they are made of a metal with a relatively low melting point mixed with whatever the [[spoiler:Machina]] use for skin. How? Why? Who cares! It's FanService!
*** It is possible that this was made in Meyneth's image.
*** It is possible that this was made in Meyneth's image.
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*** (Original Poster) [[spoiler:I can accept that the replicas weren't as powerful as the real deals, but at their base they at least had to have some means of either storing or converting ether energy out of the air to provide the energy blade the weapon used. As to Fiora's architecture, take this into account - on first meeting her, Linada, the machina doctor, mistook this strange robotic woman for one of her people, not realizing that she was a Face unit until the party actually mentions it. While their problems weren't identical (Neonik was dying from being damn near 10000 years old, Fiora is dying because Meyneth isn't powering her heart and lungs anymore), they boiled down to something very similar - their power systems were failing, and a shot of energy from an old Machina unit was enough to repower Neonik for another 20 years. Of course, if Fiora's power really couldn't be restored, it makes the usage of Final Cross REALLY irresponsible post-Mechonis Core, since the whole thing shakes out to "Massive blast of Monado power hits stuff".]]
*** [[spoiler:Sure, but given that no other Machina have Monados powering them, it's quite possible that Fiora's power system is a unique technology and incompatible with other power sources.]]
*** (Original Poster) [[spoiler:Fair point. That said, since Vanea was the one who originally put together the Fiora/Meyneth/Face Nemesis combo platter, she would probably have been the one most qualified to put together a stopgap system to keep the one remaining piece (Fiora) from terminally powering down. Also, while Gadolt doesn't survive long enough for this to matter, would all pilots of Face units, separated from their respective mecha, eventually succumb to cardiovascular failure, or is Fiora's problem entirely unique? I seem to recall that even with Meyneth on board, early on you still needed to scavenge parts from a wrecked Mechon (piezoelectrical unit, if memory serves) to prevent a complete system failure of Fiora immediately following your arrival at Junks. Then again, Fiora '''did''' suffer some rather critical... system damage in the process of getting taken in the first place (ImpaledWithExtremePrejudice - not good for one's internal organs), and Linada did express some surprise to find that most of Fiora's innards simply weren't there anymore. So it could well be that her imminent shutdown (and lack of necessity to eat) was more a function of "Metal Face stabbed me with claws as long as I am tall" than "Meyneth isn't providing me limitless free energy". I know that Vanea eventually points out that some modification has to be done to a Homs to make a Face unit work, but maybe Fiora's modifications were a bit more extreme out of necessity, rather than simply to make her invincible to standard Monado damage.]]
*** [[spoiler:As far as we know, even though the game doesn't flat out confirm this, the pulsating red lights that only Faced Mechon have (Shulk notes this in the first encounter with Metal Face after they find out the Monado can't damage him) are transparent artificial arteries/veins through which the blood of the pilot flows. This is what makes Zanza's Monado confused about the nature of the "thing" that it's hitting, not being able to distinguish Homs from Mechon, and therefore causes it to deal no damage (until Zanza lifts the restriction). So with that said, we can assume a Faced Mechon's pilot's body is surgically modified to have ports which connect his/her Homs blood vessels with those of the Mechon. When the pilot voluntarily exits the Mechon (for example, Mumkhar on Valak Mountain and Galahad Fortress), some software on the Mechon that manages its circulatory system makes sure to shut those ports and keep enough blood inside the pilot's body so that he/she doesn't faint or die from anemia (lack of blood). However, both Fiora and Gadolt were ejected from their critically damaged Mechon's wreckage, so it's safe to assume that control software wasn't working anymore and that's why they were so weak afterwards: a large portion of their blood was left inside the wreckage of their respective Mechons. This is only speculation, but seems plausible.]]
*** [[spoiler:Sure, but given that no other Machina have Monados powering them, it's quite possible that Fiora's power system is a unique technology and incompatible with other power sources.]]
*** (Original Poster) [[spoiler:Fair point. That said, since Vanea was the one who originally put together the Fiora/Meyneth/Face Nemesis combo platter, she would probably have been the one most qualified to put together a stopgap system to keep the one remaining piece (Fiora) from terminally powering down. Also, while Gadolt doesn't survive long enough for this to matter, would all pilots of Face units, separated from their respective mecha, eventually succumb to cardiovascular failure, or is Fiora's problem entirely unique? I seem to recall that even with Meyneth on board, early on you still needed to scavenge parts from a wrecked Mechon (piezoelectrical unit, if memory serves) to prevent a complete system failure of Fiora immediately following your arrival at Junks. Then again, Fiora '''did''' suffer some rather critical... system damage in the process of getting taken in the first place (ImpaledWithExtremePrejudice - not good for one's internal organs), and Linada did express some surprise to find that most of Fiora's innards simply weren't there anymore. So it could well be that her imminent shutdown (and lack of necessity to eat) was more a function of "Metal Face stabbed me with claws as long as I am tall" than "Meyneth isn't providing me limitless free energy". I know that Vanea eventually points out that some modification has to be done to a Homs to make a Face unit work, but maybe Fiora's modifications were a bit more extreme out of necessity, rather than simply to make her invincible to standard Monado damage.]]
*** [[spoiler:As far as we know, even though the game doesn't flat out confirm this, the pulsating red lights that only Faced Mechon have (Shulk notes this in the first encounter with Metal Face after they find out the Monado can't damage him) are transparent artificial arteries/veins through which the blood of the pilot flows. This is what makes Zanza's Monado confused about the nature of the "thing" that it's hitting, not being able to distinguish Homs from Mechon, and therefore causes it to deal no damage (until Zanza lifts the restriction). So with that said, we can assume a Faced Mechon's pilot's body is surgically modified to have ports which connect his/her Homs blood vessels with those of the Mechon. When the pilot voluntarily exits the Mechon (for example, Mumkhar on Valak Mountain and Galahad Fortress), some software on the Mechon that manages its circulatory system makes sure to shut those ports and keep enough blood inside the pilot's body so that he/she doesn't faint or die from anemia (lack of blood). However, both Fiora and Gadolt were ejected from their critically damaged Mechon's wreckage, so it's safe to assume that control software wasn't working anymore and that's why they were so weak afterwards: a large portion of their blood was left inside the wreckage of their respective Mechons. This is only speculation, but seems plausible.]]
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* At the end of the game,[[spoiler:we see how the Bionis and Mechonis are created. Klaus wanted to turn all humans into gods but then did a Apocalypse Unversial Class 4 which just left Zanza and Meyneth as Gods (along with Alvis) and forms the Titans in the endless ocean where the game takes place. I find some problems with that back story. First, how does the party still see an Earth-like planet before fighting Zanza when the reformation was clearly on Earth? Second, who decided on Klaus's, Meyneth's, and Alvis's fate in this world? Is there a greater god in all of this? Finally, what in the world happened with the ending? The Titans are now destroyed but how is Colony 9 still present and how did the other races make it to Colony 9 when there it is usually a dangerous and long path?]]
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* At the end of the game,[[spoiler:we see how the Bionis and Mechonis are created. Klaus wanted to turn all humans into gods but then did a Apocalypse
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*** I interpreted this one as [[spoiler:"Shulk took the stuff that was Bionis and Mechonis and incorporated that into the new planet". Hence why Colony 9 appears almost identical to how it appeared on Bionis, and perhaps more importantly, allowing the people living on Bionis to keep their homes and scientific materials, which helps with the whole "Explore this vast new universe!" idea.]]
** [[spoiler: XenobladeChronicles2 reveals that the Architect is none other than Klaus' good half, while Zanza is his bad half. The earth-like image is just an illusion of the events before the story began. It is also possible that the Architect may have indirectly helped Shulk and his party, alongside Alvis (assumed to be Ontos in XC2) because Shulk's nature is a parallel reflection of the Architect.]]
** [[spoiler: XenobladeChronicles2 reveals that the Architect is none other than Klaus' good half, while Zanza is his bad half. The earth-like image is just an illusion of the events before the story began. It is also possible that the Architect may have indirectly helped Shulk and his party, alongside Alvis (assumed to be Ontos in XC2) because Shulk's nature is a parallel reflection of the Architect.]]
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** [[spoiler:
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*** More or less confirmed by a Heart-to-Heart between Melia and Dunban on the Fallen Arm. One of the options while talking about Mumkhar says that he originally came from a colony that had been destroyed.
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* About Zanza and the Monado: [[spoiler: it was stated that Zanza and the Bionis Monado are one-and-the-same. However, Meyneth **has** a Monado, rather than **being** the Mechonis Monado. Was something messed up in the translation?]]
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* [[spoiler:
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* This is very minor, but bugs me to this day. After the Bionis Interior, we see [[spoiler: Vanea]] finishing up a new face Mechon, [[spoiler: Fiora.]] Some pretty cool villain foreshadowing, right? But then, a voice on the speaker says [[spoiler: "Lady Vanea, Master Egil wishes to see you."]] Umm... Who was that? Wasn't the whole thing about [[spoiler: Egil that only Vanea agreed to follow him? Where did he get a secretary?]]
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*
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*** I don't think Otharon was necessarily claiming he knew they existed and actually asked the High Entia for help, rather that its now clear to him the High Entia were aware of what was going on and that the Homs needed help yet they did nothing.
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* Why does Alvis[[spoiler: need Shulk or to pretend to be a mortal at all? He seems to be more powerful than even Zanza, is sapient, and clearly isn't satisfied with the universe Zanza created. So why not just remake the universe himself? It doesn't seem like Zanza could do anything to stop him, and Alvis doesn't seem to need his permission to act either. If he did, Zanza could have just told him to kill Shulk at the end.]]
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* Why does
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** That's one interpretation, but I would say the game's story supports the idea that Shulk was always his own person, hence why Zanza did things like send him dreams saying "you aren't here, not anymore." Him claiming Shulk was an empty shell was likely just a way to disregard him or otherwise make everyone doubt themselves. Note that they all seem very focused on breaking the spirits of Shulk and company. We see this too when Dickson refers to Fiora as a "corpse" and mocks the idea that they think she is their old friend, whereas we know that even though she is being kept alive via a god's energy, she is still Fiora just the same. Zanza became Shulk's life force, and this meant Shulk himself was still alive alongside Zanza, and after Zanza left him, Fiora states Meyneth used the last of her power to fix his body. What specifically Alvis did is unclear, but perhaps he helped awaken Shulk's developing godhood.
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* So, we can infer that [[spoiler:Shulk became his own person once he got in contact with Alvis postmortem, given that Zanza literally said that Shulk was nothing but an empty shell for his whole life]]. ...But that just begs the question. Why did Shulk have so many unanswered questions about the feud between the Bionis and Mechonis, as well as his own motives, feelings, and relationships? [[spoiler:Was it all an insanely complex ruse by Zanza to lead to his resurrection? Because if so, Zanza was being ''way'' too convoluted in putting up a disguised personality for 18 years, especially given that age rates for Gods stretch out ''far'' longer than someone like a Homs, or even a High Entia.]]
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** That's because they were not initially meant to be killing machines. Rather they were an automated work and defense force, doing things the Machina found too difficult or dangerous. It was Egil who redesigned/reprogrammed them and directed them to slaughter the peoples of Bionis.
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* Where did the Mechon come from, and what is their purpose? It's stated all throughout the game that the Mechon hail from Mechonis, but that seems pretty closed-minded when considering that [[spoiler:Meyneth, the Goddess of Mechonis, wanted Gods and living creatures to exist in harmony. Why then would her home Titan house creatures meant to wipe out all life forms?]] In fact, doesn't it seem unnecessary for Mechon to want to eradicate all life, given that [[spoiler:not only do the Telethia serve the same exact purpose, but they were specifically designed to do so by Zanza, the one who ''actually'' wants to destroy all life and reincarnate it in an endless cycle?]] The only Mechon who seem to make sense from a purpose standpoint would be the Faced Mechon, given that [[spoiler:they don't have "minds" of their own, and they're piloted by corrupt Homs.]]
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** What makes it strange however is that Otharon is clearly well aware of their existence, and asked them for help in the battle. How did Dunban never even know they existed?
*** I don't think Otharon was necessarily claiming he knew they existed and actually asked the High Entia for help, rather that its now clear to him the High Entia were aware of what was going on and that the Homs needed help yet they did nothing.
*** I don't think Otharon was necessarily claiming he knew they existed and actually asked the High Entia for help, rather that its now clear to him the High Entia were aware of what was going on and that the Homs needed help yet they did nothing.
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** What makes it strange however is that Otharon is clearly well aware of their existence, and asked them for help in the battle. How did Dunban never even know they existed?
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** Alvis may simply not be able to take that kind of direct action. He refers to the events that defeat Zanza as "the providence of the world" (i.e. the collective will of the world) rather than his own power, that he is merely "proclaiming" the end rather than causing it. Further, he notes that without its own god the world Zanza and Meyneth made is rapidly falling apart and the new god, Shulk, has to decide what to do about it. That he outright creates an illusion to push Shulk forward in deciding suggests Alvis needed Shulk to be the one to do it and that Alvis couldn't stop the world coming apart without this. Hence Alvis needed to wait until Zanza's activities caused the conditions needed for a new god to be born before he could move forward with his own plans. Alvis' methods also tie into his original nature as a computer, he has developed his own will and wants for the universe but he is still limited by his need for "input" from others and his original purpose of being a monitor and overseer of a system rather than a direct manipulator of it. Xenoblade Chronicles 2 explores more about what sort of being Alvis is and what it takes for one to gain human-like levels of initiative and free will.
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** What makes it strange however is that Otharon is clearly well aware of their existence, and asked them for help in the battle. How did Dunban never even know they existed?
* Why does Alvis[[spoiler: need Shulk or to pretend to be a mortal at all? He seems to be more powerful than even Zanza, is sapient, and clearly isn't satisfied with the universe Zanza created. So why not just remake the universe himself? It doesn't seem like Zanza could do anything to stop him, and Alvis doesn't seem to need his permission to act either. If he did, Zanza could have just told him to kill Shulk at the end.]]
* Why does Alvis[[spoiler: need Shulk or to pretend to be a mortal at all? He seems to be more powerful than even Zanza, is sapient, and clearly isn't satisfied with the universe Zanza created. So why not just remake the universe himself? It doesn't seem like Zanza could do anything to stop him, and Alvis doesn't seem to need his permission to act either. If he did, Zanza could have just told him to kill Shulk at the end.]]
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** Recall that the group only went to Satorl Marsh, Makna Forest, etc. because of Shulk's vision showing they needed to get to the head of the Bionis (before this they planned to go straight to Sword Valley). Apparently there is a more direct/shorter route between Colony 6 and Sword Valley, we just don't get to use it. Sharla does seem to allude to it though when she mentions how if Colony 6 were in better shape they could just take pods from there to Sword Valley.
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* In the Battle of Sword Valley, why would the plan be to set up the last line of defense at Colony 6? 6 is pretty far from Sword Valley (having to go through Valak Mountain, Makna Forest, and Satorl Marsh to get there from Sword Valley), thus making it seem like a lost cause, plus the fact that Frontier Village in in Makna.
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** I don't know if we ever learn the details of how they reproduce, but we have reason to think that the Machina are more like biological life than like machines. While they are called machine people at one point, they are also repeatedly referred to as life born from the Mechonis. They seem closer to inorganic life than purely mechanical life. One NPC also notes that while they live for an exceedingly long time, they do eventually die and when they do said death is not all that different from that of organic life. Likewise they normally grow and mature just like other living things (one side quest involves helping a Machina whose growth was stunted somehow), so they may well reproduce in a human-like manner, even if the details might be very different.
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** You don't have to go to Eryth Sea to get to Sword Valley. Only Valak Mountain. Going to Eryth Sea was only because of Prison Island and unlocking the power to hurt Faced Mechon.
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* Dunban mentions that he thought the High Entia were but folklore. But... just a year ago you had to go to Sword Valley. How'd the Homs get to Sword Valley without passing by the lands held by the high Entia?
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* How come [[spoiler:Mumkhar, Fiora, and Gadolt get unique face units? What's so special about them compared to Xord and the other mass-produced faces?]]
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** Stopping Zanza is not the only goal. Mercy killing the transformed High Entia is among the goals Dunban's group has in the game. He's referring to that.
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* So... how exactly are [[spoiler:Machina]] made? I find it hard to believe that [[spoiler:a race who are essentially really advanced robotics are anatomically correct]], and the fact that juvenile [[spoiler:Machina]] look so different to adults that make me hesitant to believe it's by viviparous birth.
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* So... how exactly are [[spoiler:Machina]] made? I find it hard to believe that [[spoiler:a race who are essentially really advanced robotics are anatomically correct]], and the fact that juvenile [[spoiler:Machina]] look so different to adults that make me hesitant to believe it's by viviparous birth.birth.
* I'm not sure how well I understood something that Dunban said, at the end of one of the Surprise Quests: [[spoiler:"Melancholy Tyrea" saw the eponymous assassin part ways with Melia and the others. After she left, Dunban said, "We and Tyrea share the same goal. Our paths are sure to meet again." I get that at the very least, Tyrea won't be trying to kill them, but she was trying to fulfill her mission to MercyKill her transformed mother, while Shulk and co. are getting ready to stop Zanza. I don't think "killing the god of the Bionis" is the goal Dunban was referring to, so my question is: what goal ''do'' these two parties have in common? Is it fighting for their people?]]
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* I'm not sure how well I understood something that Dunban said, at the end of one of the Surprise Quests: [[spoiler:"Melancholy Tyrea" saw the eponymous assassin part ways with Melia and the others. After she left, Dunban said, "We and Tyrea share the same goal. Our paths are sure to meet again." I get that at the very least, Tyrea won't be trying to kill them, but she was trying to fulfill her mission to MercyKill her transformed mother, while Shulk and co. are getting ready to stop Zanza. I don't think "killing the god of the Bionis" is the goal Dunban was referring to, so my question is: what goal ''do'' these two parties have in common? Is it fighting for their people?]]
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