WMG / Mega Man X

Mega Man X6, X7, X8, and Command Mission are part of an alternate timeline where Dynamo, at the request of Dr. Light, repaired Zero.

Timeline A ends with Mega Man X5, and this leads into the Mega Man Zero series, then Mega Man ZX. Timeline B continues with MM X6 through X8 and Command Mission, then leads into Mega Man Legends. In Timeline B, Dr. Light made sure to remove all of Zero's Maverick programming, which Gate salvages for himself.

If there is ever a sequel to both the Mega Man X series and the Mega Man Zero series, Stephanie Sheh will voice Iris.

• (not the original troper) YES. PLEASE. And while we're at it, let's have Yuri Lowenthal voice X since we've got JYB as Zero!
  • Hey! This troper here had the same idea! You know, Yuri Lowenthal voicing X... Think about it. There just times when you hear Lowenthal voice certain other characters, it just will just come to you: His voice sounds pretty similar to Mark Gatha's, especially the grunts and moans and... oh wait I think I should shut up now.
    • (troper who suggested Yuri Lowenthal as X's VA) Ahaha, yeeeaaah. Yes you should. XD And hey, cool, pretty sweet to know someone else of the same mindset! Now who would we have for Axl...?
    • Different troper here. I'd like to say Brad Swaile for Axl based on his Lan Hikari voice, but at the same time his Rock Okajima voice lends extremely well to X. And in either case, if Yuri, JYB and Stephanie are the star VAs, this suggests a Viz or Funmation job, meaning Ocean Studios' Swaile would not be very likely seen working the same dubs as them. That said, if we want to keep the voices as close to Gatha and Lucas Gilbertson as possible while staying within Funi/Viz parameters, JYB could possibly make a better X while Aaron Dimsuke's post-puberty Slave 23 voice would be a great choice for Zero.
  • An alternative suggestion (or plea): Sam Riegel as X, if only for his sterling work as Flynn Scifo showing his Lawful Good badass side; Troy Baker as Zero, in part for his role in the same game as Sam and because he's absolutely amazing at the kind of dark humour Zero would enjoy...also possibly Spike Spencer as Axl, who's a younger and occasionally slightly panicky but very talented Hunter with a great support network to live up to. It'd work, I tell ya!

Mega Man X is Domon Kasshu.

This should explain it all.

• This also explains how he could use Hadouken and Shoryuken - moves not so extreme compared to the rest of The School of The Undefeated of the East.
• Hey! They even have the same voice actor to boot.

Power and Speed "RP" Rating

A reploid's Power and Speed are measured in an odd, unexplained unit called "RP." Say that "RP" stands for "Reactor Power," and the two scores added together add up to a reploid's maximum energy output, labeled "Reactor Output." For example, in X3, Vile's Power score is 9200, and his Speed score is 7200. If his Reactor Power (RP) scores are added together, he has a maximum Reactor Output (RO) rating of 16400. The reploid's RO rating would be a general indication of their strength. A reploid like Crystal Snail would be very weak, with a RO rating of only 7300, while a more powerful reploid like Bit has an RO rating of 27400. Seeing as X was meant to have limitless potential, his RO rating is unmeasurable, leading to the "????" score he gets for Power and Speed.

Person(s) responsible for creation of "Day of Sigma" are huge fans of Mobile Fighter G Gundam US dub.

See above. And Sigma is Master Asia too.

• Sort of true: they're Ocean Studios, the peeps who dubbed G Gundam in the first place.
  • X8, Command Mission, and Maverick Hunter X overall were dubbed by the Ocean group.

It was supposed to be Wily that repaired X in the end of X5

In Inafune's original plan where X5 was the finale, Wily repaired X, uploading corrupted data into him, thereby making him go nuts by Mega Man Zero.

• Except that it was always meant to be Copy X in MMZ, even before the retcons.
  • Except that X is the original villain in Zero. The retcon and Continuity Snarls was what led to the creation of Copy-X.
• Oh, I don't think that was the original plan. I think Infaune originally planned for X to have a Heel–Face Turn Face–Heel Turn on his own accord, becoming more aggressive in order to deal with Mavericks. After all, the Zero Virus normally drives you Ax-Crazy instead of making you become a Knight Templar/Well-Intentioned Extremist (Sigma managed to resist for some time because of his specs, but became corrupted because Death Is Cheap).

Serges' namesake and X's long journey coping with disproportionate guilt

As Dr. Cossack's first name is the namesake of Dr. Wily's son Michael, so is Cossack's middle name the namesake of Michael Wily's son, Serges. At some point Michael gives Serges a mechanized dummy that looks like the original Dr. Wily that can be remote-controlled or worn as protective armor. Serges eventually builds machinery for his own use, much like his grandfather has always done, and wires the mechanized Wily dummy to control it all — all that Serges designed being given all the intelligence that Serges himself has. Based on his own name, Serges appropriately names his machines Sagesse (wisdom in French). But Sagesse otherwise has no actual personality apart from the human, Serges. ^note Using the blueprint that his father had in making Vava (whom the hunters all nicknamed "Vile"), Serges made two reploids of his own, Agile and Violen(t), as partners to Sagesse and Vile to become a deadly four (although Vile, existing before Serges was born, continues to solo-run his own vendettas like he's used to, apart from the other three X-Hunters).

• After the events of X3, X discovers that Serges is the grandson of Dr. Wily, a human. Remembering his fight against Sagesse, X worries whether it was a human that he fought (and possibly killed). Prone to guilt and worry as always, X worries that he will become hardened by violence and turn Maverick. X even pops on screen of Final Weapon to give the injunction that Zero end him if he ever turns Maverick. His long road of guilt and conscientious objection has just begun. It reaches the point that in X7, X resigns from combat altogether.

X loots a weapon off Sigma in X1 like he does the 1st eight Maverick bosses.

• Sigma sports a large green light-saber in his first form. (Note that we never again see Sigma with that beam saber.) X defeats Sigma and wants to take with him any weapon that he can find as a souvenir, out of thoughtfulness to Dr. Cain and his other friends for their support for him. X would like to be able to fight using the Sigma-Saber himself, but he is not exactly well-trained to saber fight. So Dr. Cain hangs on to it until it's needed. After successfully putting Zero back together and reviving him, Dr. Cain gives Zero the Sigma-Saber in hopes that someone can make good use of it. So Zero tries it out, and finds out that he wields it better than he does his buster. Satisfied, Zero hurries to point X to Sigma's hideout. The saber has officially become Zero's signature weapon now.
• Jossed, Serges made it himself when the X-Hunters seize Zero's remains.

The Sigma Virus, the original Sigma, the General, and Signas

In the final battle of X2, X winds up severing Sigma's body and head apart at the neck. So as the Sigma Virus emerges from Sigma's lifeless corpse, Sigma's head hops and rolls away from the body and forms the bulk of the Virus that X begins to battle. As X defeats the Sigma Virus entity, Sigma's head (with the control chip still inside) manages to jump onto a rocket launcher to blast it far away from there, taking the Coward's Way Out to some degree. He doesn't care whether it kills him or just relocates his head to start a new life as a reploid other than Sigma, as long as he is away from the bulk of the Virus. He wants to stop walking in Sigma's shoes, living with the "main villain" reputation any longer. The blastoff ends up breaking his control chip into two pieces — the bigger piece thankfully staying attached within his head, wherever it lands. The moment the Sigma Virus saw Sigma's head start to blast off, the Virus took the small piece of control chip left behind to quickly fuse with it again before the control center blows up completely. But because Sigma's head is no longer there, the most of Sigma the Virus can get back is a personality similar to Sigma's and some of his memories.

• Dr. Doppler found Sigma's head and revived it by re-completing the control chip inside it, then built a newer body for it. Thus, the revived Sigma is the Sigmaloid, while the Sigma Virus functions like an Evil Twin. The Sigma Virus knows Doppler was helping out the Sigmaloid, so he corrupted the mechanized suit of Doppler to convince him to build the Ultimate Battle Body for him. Naturally, that evil-twin Sigma Virus would not stand for being defeated by a "half of himself". So he used the new body when hunting down the Sigmaloid, hoping to win him back over to the Maverick side and make himself "whole" again. When Dr. Cain and the government started up Repliforce, the Sigma Virus finally tracked down the Sigmaloid — now the Repliforce General — and begins to put his plan into action.
• After the Sigmaloid's (General's) Heroic Sacrifice, an inner piece of his head (with control chip inside) is still intact, found by Dr. Cain later (hoping that the Sigma Virus will assume him dead and stop pursuing him). Dr. Cain refurnished and built this living part of General onto the remains of his former Ultimate Battle Body and Colonel's remains, puts Colonel's hat on him, and names him Signas. Dr. Cain does not want the Virus (keeping the old name Sigma) to any longer single out General/Signas. Therefore, unlike Doppler, he took special care to prevent Sigma from ever recognizing Signas as the "good half of himself."
• Actually, there is a fanfic in which Signas has Sigma's original control chip. There are some changes to this theory in the fanfic, though:
  • 1) Sigma's control chip wasn't used by Dr. Cain in Signas' creation. It was used by X of all people. And only a handful of other persons (X, Alia, Dr. Cain, the X1 and X2 Mavericks and a Canon Foreigner) know this.
  • 2) Signas was created right after the events of X1, before Repliforce was founded. So no connection to the General.

The main reason why X decided to stop fighting in the seventh game.

• The main reason he chose to "retire" is not because of the unscrupulous methods of handling the Maverick problem. The real reason was because a new character was going to be in the game, and Zero already steals enough screen time from X, so he decided to just call it quits. He realized Axl isn't all that likable in the game, so he came back.
  • Or the fact that fighting Sigma just wasn't working? The only real way to stop the Maverick Virus was with a technical breakthrough: the wars were just buying time. Retiring from the hunters to work with a team researching his immunity makes perfect sense: it was Zero being sealed away to be researched to create the Mother Elf that defeated the virus in the original timeline, not Zero the hunter fighting Sigma. X was around when Dr. Cain was creating the first reploids, repairing irregulars, etc. Even ignoring the fact he's Dr. Light's heir, given Sigma's tendency to target scientists (or they get themselves infected while trying to research a cure), his age, his experience with the virus... he's frankly wasted on the battlefield. If Zero was capable of holding the line and fending the Mavericks off, then it only makes sense for X to work on trying to solve the real problem. Of course, if one of them had to be taken off the battlefield, it would make more sense for Zero to turn himself in, reveal he's the source of the virus, and let them study him, but Capcom wanted more sequels...
    • Or perhaps he could leave so he could actually help repair human/reploid relations and actually make a society where they both live in peace? Even Zero admits that a fighter like him can't change the world, and instead fights for people who can actually change it legitimately. X is a smart, kind, compassionate reploid who's wasting those traits on the battlefield instead of the greater society, where his legacy as Light's last creation could do some good. To be honest, it slayed me that Capcom just had X just sitting out in X7, instead of going to reserve status and spending his time rebuilding the world after the Eurasia Incident. It could even lead up to his status of basically ruling Neo Arcadia in MMZ.
    • Both the second and third reasons, and to protect whatever compassionate side X has left, which X fears is not that much anymore.

The Maverick/Zero Virus is based off the Evil Energy in Mega Man 8.

Think about it. When Bass used the evil energy, it gave him a bright purple aura and gave him a major power boost. When Zero turned Maverick in X5, he was surrounded in a bright purple aura that gave him a major power boost, as well as actually giving him energy. Although Wily lost the original source of the Evil Energy, he created a digital form of it and used it for the power-base of his greatest creation.

• This article lends credibility to this idea, but with MM10 it's too soon to say for sure.

X's design is was inspired by Duo.

Compared to Mega Man's design, X is far more advanced in both specs and abilities, to the point that he was super-advanced even a century in the future. Where did this major technological leap come from? The answer is when Doctor Light helped repair the highly-advanced alien robot Duo in 8. Although he wouldn't be able to understand everything, he understood enough to repair Duo with all his strength and powers intact. Doctor Light was heavily inspired by what he managed to reverse-engineer while repairing Duo and applied the same technological advances when creating X.

• I'd be willing to say that the pinnacle of Light's Duo-Based technology was the Ultimate Armor. It certainly explains why its Giga Attack is the Nova Strike, something similar to what Duo can do.
• Alternatively, High Max is the one based on Duo due to similarities in their designs and abilities, just infused with Zero's DNA.

There is no Maverick Virus in Maverick Hunter X.

The Maverick Hunters act more like reploid police in MHX; conducting investigations, tracing hackers, doing raids on hide-outs, and so forth. The game intro even says that the Hunters were created to control illegal reploid activity, not berserk reploids. There's also the fact that every Maverick had an actual motivation to join Sigma, or made it clear that they were forced to do so. And finally Sigma, the Big Bad of the game, had a very concrete reason to go Maverick and never has his little "I'll be back" message after the credits. From the way the game is presented, you could take out the virus completely and nothing would change. Considering that the MHX series was supposed to be how Inafune wanted to envision the series, and the virus revelation was only thrown in on the third game, it's possible that there's no virus in the game at all.

• In essence, "Maverick" simply means a Reploid who doesn't fall into social norms for any reason ranging from Ax-Crazy-ness to freedom fighters.
  • Exactly. (Or for being a criminal.)
  • This is the case even in the original X: Some reploids willingly rebel with Sigma, such as Chill Penguin and Armor Armadillo, but others, like Storm Eagle, have higher morals, and thus must be forcibly turned by the virus.
• Another possibility is that Zero was never built by Dr. Wily in MHX; he's just a normal, albeit high-performance, Reploid.
  • Unlikely: MHX was meant to be a reboot closer to Inafune's vision. Zero being Wily's creation is a central part of the character.
    • Actually, the original plan was for Zero to stay dead, but he proved too popular to get rid of. There's also an interview with Inafune on 1-up.com I think, where he explains the original series was supposed to end on 6, with Dr. Wily in prison, but MMX1 sold so well that Capcom decided to revive the original series. It's possible that Dr. Wily was retconned into being Zero's creator just so he could stay relevant, add drama to the new story, etc.
    • It was confirmed here that Zero was planned since production to be built by Wily. That same source also says that the virus was planned then as well. So Zero wasn't "retconned" into being Wily's creation and the virus was planned in the lore back in X1.
• Even in the pre-reboot games, it wasn't revealed until X2's events that Sigma became a virus, and it wasn't until some time after X2 that awareness of the virus spread enough for Doppler to announce a treatment for it. None of the Mavericks in X1 served Sigma from being corrupted by the virus (like Storm Eagle following Sigma after losing to him in a duel), which is notable here since none of their backstories were changed for MHX. Sigma's lack of a "I'll return" message could be the player is assumed to be familiar enough with Mega Man X to know that Sigma comes back after his death in X1/MHX.

The Maverick Virus was originally a lot more subtle.

As an alternative to the above. Dr. Wily was all about sabotaging Dr. Light's work. He'd already done the reprogramming thing in 1 and 9, taking over the Robot Masters who had certain hard-coded aspects to their personalities, both making them his own and making them look dangerous. But X and the Reploids? That would never do. They had complete freedom to grow and change psychologically based on their experiences and decisions. So, the virus he built into Zero was designed to subvert that, to find any motivation they might have for turning against humanity and amplify it, burning in the back of their minds, until they made the decision "freely". This only changes at the end of X2, when Sigma merges completely with the virus in himself, becoming first a free-floating precursor to the Cyber-Elves, then spreading as an "upgrade" to the virus when that is destroyed. His desire for followers causes it to act far more suddenly and dramatically from then on.

• Perhaps it works as a tempter — it reasons with them why they should be a Maverick, and uses that to corrupt them. Sigma is the best example of this: when he first went Maverick, he was still as noble as he used to be, yet working as a Maverick. After gaining immortality from the virus, said virus slowly worked to rot all that he once stood for. His moments of being a Magnificent Bastard is due to him understanding the virus more and more.
• This makes sense in Mega Man X5 - many of the bosses who go Maverick due to the Sigma Virus don't immediately claim allegiance to Sigma. For example, if you fight Spiral Pegasus while he's infected, he cries that he will avenge General and Colonel when he fights Zero, showing that he still retains a sense of self and is not as obsessive as someone like Dr. Doppler. It seems that the Virus amplifies one's emotions and makes them lose control while swaying them to Sigma's cause, it doesn't necessarily brainwash them into mindless servants.

X's true unlimited potential is that he can spontaneously evolve.

We already know that X can copy the abilities of others and constantly alter his own body/weapons to accomodate new weapons and armors. However, Maverick Hunter X heavily implies that X has a much greater potential than that — Doctor Light says he named X after the variable that symbolizes unlimited potential, to learn and grow far beyond his original specifications. MHX gives us the perfect example; X had been taken by surprise and critically injured by Sigma, had lost his buster arm, and was in serious danger of being killed. What did his systems do? Found an alternate solution. Faced with certain death, his systems spontaneously altered themselves so his other hand could become a weapon and then pushed itself into overdrive so he could overcome his damage long enough to fight back. Basically, X gained a new weapon on the spot without any outside data. The implications of this are huge — a robot that can constantly change and gain new abilities without any outside interference, a new independent being and the first of a true species.

• Further note: This also explains why Sigma allows X to live — Sigma wants reploids to evolve beyond what humans created them for, and a reploid that can always evolve is a crucial tactical advantage. By forcing X to evolve, he proves that all reploids can change if the chips are down.
• Further note #2: This could mean that X's hadoken could be more than just a silly easter egg. If his systems could turn his hand into a deadly weapon, forming a ball of energy between his palms is only a half-step away.
• Further note #3: This also explains why X's base abilities keep changing between games, to the point the X Biometal in the ZX series comes with X2's double charge shot power. As he fights against worse and worse odds, his body adapts new powers, using the armors as a guide, to improve his odds of survival.

Zero failed at taking out the enemies in front of Sigma's fortress in X1 because the enemies respawned behind him.

Think about it. He says he's going to keep the defense force busy, and then two seconds later, you're fighting for your life against those goddamned turtles. It could be argued that he's taking on something worse, but he just went in that direction like five seconds ago! You'd think he would bother to take out the bloody things for the sake of X's sanity.

The Face Room boss from X1 is, in fact, the android recreation of Face, Nick Jr.'s old host.

WMG, destroying your childhood one day at a time.

• Thanks, now I'm imagining Rangda Bangda saying "Welcome to Nick Jr.! Doo doo DOOOOOOO!".

Repliforce was an attempt to create a loyal fighting force that backfired.

Now that the world knows of the Maverick Virus, the council wants to expand anti-Maverick measures to keep the peace. But many of the Mavericks from the previous three uprisings have been Hunters, and the council are worried about expanding a fighting force that have had so many defections. The answer? Make a new fighting army without such a problem. They create Repliforce instead, giving them flashy 'uniform' designs, a bold logo, and deeply-programmed beliefs in honor and warrior pride so they'd never betray their brethren. The council believes that this heavily unified and loyal group will be better at hunting Mavericks. Except that when the government accuse them of being Mavericks, the very design they were given caused them to over-react and rebel rather than allow their great name to be tarnished. Even those who were against the coup eventually gave in and followed them, just like Iris. The council's attempts to make a 'Maverick-proof' army instead made the very worst one to date.

• Uh... You do know that WMG is for Wild Mass Guessing and not things that are confirmed and stated outright in the game's instruction manual, right?
  • All we know is that Cain Labs made Repliforce and for some reason they had Honor Before Reason to the point of suicidal stupidity. I was trying to explain why they were so stubbornly loyal and why they were programmed that way beyond simply 'because we need an excuse for a game'. My X4 manual is buried deep in my garage, but I've checked the wikis and nothing there explains why they were fanatically loyal nutcases. There's a reason why people scratch their heads on why Colonel and the others were just so unreasonable and somewhat disturbingly cult-like (the salute, anyone?). It might be just me, but I wanted to come up with an actual reason. Anyone get what I'm trying to say, here?
• The manual does state that Repliforce was made in response to the amount of Maverick Hunters who were going Maverick. No, it doesn't say explicitly that they were made fanatically loyal, but the high rate of Hunters going Maverick was the stated reason for their creation. I'll have to double check the manual when I get back to it, but that's what I remember of it.
  • Really? Let me know if you find it; if that's true then I might as well delete this one.
  • Found the manual, and it seems I misremembered it. The memo from Cain Labs in the manual states as Repliforce's directives:
  Compensate for Sigma and Doppler program failures
  Uphold Reploid Sciences: Research & Development
  Maximize Reploid efficiency
  Increase troop response time for MH-v3
  Prevent further Maverick action
  • I guess I interpreted that first one as them being made in response to Hunters going Maverick. The rest of the memo is an evaluation of how Repliforce was performing (not well; it calls them 'ineffective and potentially dangerous'), and further directives to find an alternative to Repliforce. In any case, your theory makes a ton of sense... which is probably why I'd assumed it was already canon.
  • Thanks for that. I'm rewriting my theory to make it more clear, anyway.

Reploids are not really robots

Reploids have DNA, can bleed, often are said to be hard or impossible to tell from humans in some games (particularly later post-X series; ZX Advent, for example, has a reploid and human main character who are more or less exactly the same). In addition, X himself is referred to as a Reploid even if he is the first. I speculate Reploids are grown in capsules with nanomachines, and the name Reploid refers to the fact they replicate living organisms, though most also have robotic parts or armor.

• This is actually supported by some Mavericks; Toxic Seahorse turned himself into a form of goo to slip through a grate and then reformed, and Double transformed into his bigger self almost instantaneously. Could also explain how Axl can change forms too.
• Indeed, Reploids and humans were at first only distinguished by very different outward appearances, the Reploids' superhuman traits and abilities, and the barrier between the two "species" that kept them separated in society at all times. However, Reploids are designed to look very human, and more importantly to think and feel like a human, not to mention the whole bleeding and DNA-having thing, so it's highly likely that regardless of the exact chemistry, Reploid bodies are every bit as complex as human bodies and use many identical (or at least identically-functioning) systems. By ZX, it's explicitly stated that Reploids and humans are practically indistinguishable once the last major barriers are eliminated. This fits nicely with the way X's body, not just his mind, adapts to the things he encounters, much like an organic body.
• Reploid is a portmanteu of replica android: they're replicas of X, who is technically the one true android (Zero may count, unless Wily went off in another direction). However, android just means 'humanlike,' roughly. Early Science Fiction often used the word android for what we would call clones, artificially produced humans, like the ones in Star Wars. 'Organic' basically just means molecules with carbon-oxygen bonds (well, for practical purposes) in chemistry. Organic molecules are very, very good at self-sustaining reactions at the molecular level, and nanites are supposed to be small, so taking advantage of those traits makes sense.
• They could be like Cylons...

Repliforce was the reason humans started being so quick to label Reploids as Mavericks

When told to stand down, disarm, and come in for questioning, The Colonel, representing Repliforce, basically told X and Zero to piss off because of his and his troops' pride. Yeah, being forced to disarm is demeaning, especially if you're a bunch of Proud Warrior Race Guys, but they're an army. They're not supposed to tell their superiors to piss off. Maybe if he said X and Zero didn't have the authority to bring them in, if he said he's going to check with their superiors, something more reasonable than a robotic dick waggling (I'm assuming they refused to come in even after they told X and Zero to piss off, when the top brass told them to cut the crap and come in). Once it became clear Reploids would not do what they're told, even when they agreed to, humans became increasingly paranoid.

• Forget not doing what they're told, and forget humans being paranoid. Repliforce was responsible for a lot of deaths and Sigma was involved. The question the world would have asked was, did Reploids just help Sigma kill, destroy, etc. willingly, or was Repliforce really infected the whole time, the way it turned out the people in the initial rebellion were, and the virus was even better than they thought? Either way, Repliforce would have started a witch hunt and seriously hurt Reploid morale as well as human.

The Repliforce refused to come in for questioning because General was covering his ass.

He ordered his troops not to come in for questioning (citing their unflinching pride as an excuse), because he didn't want to admit he was secretly meeting with a 15-foot tall shadowy figure that espoused violent revolution against humanity. The kind of thing a sensible officer would investigate or at the very least report to superiors. Granted, he didn't take up Sigma's offer, but he must have realized an investigation might have revealed these meetings and his lack of action, causing him to be court-martialled. Because Repliforce's pride is so extensive, he couldn't face that indignity, especially in the face of his own troops, so he launched a military coup, causing numerous deaths and the destruction of his own army, just so his incompetence could be kept secret.

• In fact, given his job description, and that what Sigma was suggesting was essentially high-treason, General might have been within legal right (even without knowing it was Sigma, wanted war-criminal) to have killed him on the spot.
• Or, to go one step further, General knew that was Sigma and the entire thing was a plot to take Repliforce and defect. Flee the war against the Mavericks, desert in the face of the enemy. Abandon the rest of the world to Mind Rape to save his own skin, and that of his men. If he laid the groundwork for that in Repliforce, it would explain Iris's last words.
• (Response) Pretty sure nobody in-universe would know or even care about that meeting, especially one where General finds nothing worthwhile from. More importantly, the Maverick Hunters called the Repliforce for questioning because they were seen on the site when Sky Lagoon crashed. General was forced to declare independence for Repliforce because they were accused as Mavericks... because his own second in command Colonel refused to drop their weapons and explain themselves — because of his own pride and honor.

Zero has multiple clones of himself.

It would sure explain a lot.

The Light Holograms are actually maintained by someone

I'm throwing out a personal idea that someone, likely of the Cossack dynasty, is secretly helping X, scattering his armors far and wide where X would appear and making new ones. However, they are guided by a sentient Light Hologram. They don't reveal themselves because there are a number of uncomfortable questions they don't want to answer, and they really don't want to turn themselves into targets for the Mavericks.

• It could be Auto. Watch the Volt Catfish cutscene from the PSX version of X3 real closely.
• Really, the requirements for this character would be someone who knows Thomas Light well enough to fool any test the future might put it to, and has access to his manufacturing bases (wherever they are), because we know they're still running as later X games include armour for Zero. Someone who can operate a teleporter to get the projectors and armour containment platforms into X's path as he's on his missions, too. It could easily be what remains of Roll, a little data-ghost waiting for her youngest brother to find his way home.

Not only is Dr. Wily still around, the series will end with him winning.

Tatsunoko vs. Capcom revealed that he was around post-X7, at least, since Axl was in the ending. Since X, Zero, and Axl don't know enough about him, they won't be alerted to his presence until it's too late. While Sigma dropped hints in X5 that let the viewers know who Wily was, the heroes are still clueless.

Wily is everywhere.

In X5, Sigma scattered the Virus all over earth. If, as Capcom said, Wily's consciousness is in the virus, that would mean he is everywhere.

Everything after X5 is a Lotus-Eater Machine dream X is having...

...And in the inevitable X9, it will have 16-Bit graphics... But then it switches to 32-Bit in inopportune moments, and X is the only one that notices. The reason I say X is in a Lotus-Eater Machine is that (while I haven't played the games...) there's a few contradictions or bad quality in X6 to X8, but why would these contradictions keep happening? And why did Zero come back to life? Simple, X refuses to believe his friend is gone, therefore he's trying to keep himself in a world where he feels like he's with his best friend, and Axl, he's never known him, he's just a spy thrown in the Lotus-Eater Machine to make sure X doesn't catch on, and when it's revealed, Axl will be the final boss and you get to kill him in a One-Winged Angel, X will finally wake up, finally accepting that Zero, his long-time friend, is no longer here...

Dr. Light knows Wily made Zero, but refuses to tell him.

I blame his pride. Zero seems to be a stronger combatant than X, but Light refuses to accept that Wily could one-up him and thus won't inform the robot of his creator.

• I blame the fact that Zero's a hero, while Wily was a world-famous terrorist who built him solely to destroy. Not the sort of thing Zero would like to know about his creator. Also, Light dislikes fighting. He only built X with weapons in case there came a situation where he would need them.
• There's also the fact that if Zero turned himself in, X no longer has help out there, and the Dr. Light AI's goal appears to be X's health and survival. He does seem to trust Zero, and even makes an armor to make him stronger, which doesn't exactly work with being jealous that Wily made a stronger robot. Generally, it's Wily that's jealous of Light, anyway, and constantly trying to one-up him.

Dr. Light's hologram is the first Cyber-elf.

Light figured out how to upload his consciousness to a computer, which allowed him to build the capsules for X. As of the end of X5, Light has upgraded himself to the point that he no longer needs capsules to manifest physically, and he later expanded on this technology to create the Cyber-elves to help fight the Mavericks.

• However, this does raise the question of why Cyber-elves die when they use their powers when hologram!Light himself seems to be just fine appearing and giving you upgrades multiple times and repairing X.
  • A property of the capsule, maybe? It would make sense that the Light-elf could be "recharged" while it lays dormant most of the time.
  • That works with X surviving as long as he can go back to his body and recharge in Zero. It's once it's destroyed that he starts dying as he uses up his energy.
  • Another explanation will be that X (and by extension Light) was in the Zero Space (the fortress stages) at the time he got unconscious. It's quite implied that this space is where the cyberspace has merged with the real world due to the massive concentration of the Zero Virus. Cyber elves in MMZ can exist freely in cyberspace without dying, and, by original poster's theory, so should Light. In short, he can walk out of his capsule because of the Zero Space — he can't go anywhere else.
• The Archie comic actually confirms that Dr. Light became a cyber-elf, although when is the issue.

X's father is actually Kenny from South Park.

No matter what, in every game it is impossible not to die. Yes, you would have a fluke or two, but c'mon? On every level, there has to be a time where you encounter an event and then you die. To compare with Kenny, they both die easily when they encounter an enemy, a death hazard, or just come in contact with anything that's seemingly harmless. To include, they both rarely remove their head gear. I think there should be a family reunion, or else Sigma will summon out more mechanical walking birds to pick out X's pixelated eyes.

There is only one capsule.

I mean, really, what would make more sense? For there to be over 33-49 (calculated guesses for X-X5 and X-X8 for the number of capsules, respectively) capsules that just happen to be in areas that end up being outposts of the Mavericks (especially places built after Light could have placed the capsules); or for there to be but one capsule, that can find X (or Zero in X5) and give him what he needs as he needs it, and then move on (ever notice how the capsule disappears after you use it)? One capsule would also render hologram!Light's sapience feasible, and also explain how the later armors can keep on par with and even supersede recent robotics. (There is a good bit of dormant time as a capsule, after all.) (Except for those two arm ones in X4; they are probably different, though, as they stick around.)

• I believe that this is the most feasible explanation for the capsules; the capsules themselves may be holographic or Hard Light (no pun intended). Since it's only a matter of projection and data links, then the two arm capsules in X4 isn't really a confusing matter. Furthermore, I can imagine that there's the "original" capsule somewhere (likely deep in the abandoned lab X was in) where the hologram!Light resides and builds more armor and that said capsule can project itself anywhere.
  • Actually, considering this is Dr. Light we're talking about, it's entirely possible that there's actually a fixed number of capsules, but they change locations - after all, despite supposedly being there for a long time, the capsules don't show any signs of age (not to mention that capsules found in environments with extreme heat or cold seem to work perfectly fine), so it's entirely possible that instead of having the capsules placed at locations that are all conveniently where Maverick outbreaks happen, they instead go to locations that X will have to visit, waiting for him if he's willing to take time out of his day. After all, teleporting is something that is possible in this universe, so it's not out of the question - meaning that there's probably a base with a computer that creates new armor for X to use whenever a new crisis arises.

There were initially only maybe four or five capsules. However, they replicate themselves through nanomachines. Furthermore, the Light Holograms themselves are the ones who create new armour upgrades.

I think this makes the most amount of sense. The capsules themselves can't be all that complicated to make, considering how many there are. Dr. Light probably created a mechanism that allowed his capsules to constantly replicate and spread throughout the world. The armors are all probably created in a similar fashion. If the Dr. Light Holograms truly are sentient, they could theoretically create new armors for X as time goes on. This would make sense, since if X truly has unlimited potential, he should reach a point where new armor upgrades are unnecessary. Since the Light Holograms constantly create new weapons and armor depending on the time and advancements in technology, it would mean that X would always have the latest and best arsenal at his command. This is further backed up by how the Dr. Light Hologram was able to create an upgrade for Zero. The capsules are all probably connected to X in some way. When X was sent out on an infiltration mission in Command Mission, the capsules created an armor that would be best suited for sneaking missions, and reformatted X on their own.

The capsules doesn't happen to be where the Mavericks' bases are, the maverick bases are built where the capsules are.

Sigma figured at some point that these weird capsules scattered all over the world had something to do with X's evolution. Wanting X to evolve further so that more powerful reploids be created, he purposely placed all his major outposts where theses capsules had been located, knowing that X would eventually come there. And he had these outposts built in a way that would make accessing the capsules harder, because he wanted X to push his limits while collecting them.

Alternatively, Sigma (who did not have as much of his Evilutionary Biologist tendency in the original X1 than in MHX) did not want X to get the capsules. That's why he had his mavericks occupying the places where one of theses capsules where found. That would explain why most of these were hidden instead of just being there like the Chill penguin stage capsule. X being the only one able to use them, Dr. Light had few reasons to bother making them so hard to access (aside, maybe, from preventing someone from studying the capsules), while the mavericks, on the other hand, would build their bases while keeping in mind to make the capsule as hard to access as possible.

Light's Hologram was built into X the whole time; the capsules are just maintenance terminals that any reploid can use.

X5's ending seems to indicate that Light doesn't need a capsule to appear. Going with some of the above WMG's, X has the ability to create entirely new weapons rather than simply copying them like the original Mega Man. Perhaps Light's hologram is a representation of that ability, passively gathering small pieces of tech data and occasionally assembling it into an upgrade that X can use, usually (but not always) by hijacking and overclocking a nearby capsule to provide the upgrade.

As for why Zero can also see him from X4 onwards, maybe the Light program copied itself over to Zero after spending so much time with X, like a benevolent version of the Maverick virus. It couldn't create upgrades for Zero until it could study his hardware from the inside out; hence the lack of upgrades for him up until X5.

• Or alternatively, Dr. Light uploaded his brain into Cyberspace, but being the scientific genius that he is, was able to access some sort of "back door" in both X and Zero's programming, thus allowing him to keep an eye on them if needed.
  • Actually, though, if you know what a "Zero Space" or "Area Zero" is^note a place where the Cyberspace and the real world merged, this anomaly is caused by the massive concentration of the Zero Virus (a mix of Eurasia Virus and Sigma Virus) in the surroundings, specifically that of the crash site of Eurasia; these are All There in the Manual, how Light can come out of his capsule can be explained — because of the merger of the Cyberspace and the real world, Light's hologram appears in the same way that Phantom appears in the Cyberspace in Zero 3, and he can freely move around this time.

Copy Zero's (i.e. the hero in MMZ) "buster" is Axl's gun

As there's no MMZ WMG page, here it is.//Axl will go nuts due to Lumine's parting gift, and X and Zero will put him down. Then, Zero will get sealed, and his "original" body will be appropriated by Weil to make Omega. When Copy Zero is built to host Zero's programming, he doesn't have an arm cannon, so they give him Axl's old gun to go with his beam saber.

• Doubtful. Zero picked up a nearby fallen Resistance Fighter's gun. His Buster is just an ordinary Buster Gun that's been modified to use the Z-Saber as a power source.
• So if Zero picked the gun off a dead resistance member, what exactly is Omega using then? Really, I think the gun is his actual Z-Buster but under the different art direction for the sake of looking cool. Axl's guns look more like modified Kimber pistols than MMZ'''s seemingly futuristic sub-machine gun design.
  • I think you misunderstand the above conjecture. I believe the poster is stating that Omega has Zero's original buster, and Zero in MMZ just picked up some random soldier's gun.

Taking the above theory one step further: Copy Zero's body was originally Axl's.

For whatever reason, Lumine and Omega awaken at around the same time, and X will have to face both of them alone. After defeating Lumine, Axl will take back his body long enough to tell X to wipe his memory clean and use his body to save Zero. Through some tweaking, Axl's body takes on a form that seems to be a cross between him and the original Zero (red-on-black instead of red-on-white).

• Zero would have to undergo a fairly radical transformation to purge itself of the virus. Then there's the whole thing about about compatibility issues. It might take a body like Axl's to be able to first copy Zero's well enough for the transplant, and then change itself over time.

The X series is an alternate future for the classic series.

There's a radical change in tone between the classic and X series. The classic series is bubbly and happy while the X series has people dying left and right. Dr. Wily is significantly more malevolent as far as the X series is concerned compared to his portrayal in the classic series. The X series is basically a "bad future", an alternate timeline that branches off from the classic series. Furthermore, the Zero series is also an alternate future, allowing the X series to continue on and on like the franchise zombie that it is while the Zero series branches off somewhere along the line.

• Or maybe things just got Darker and Edgier when Dr. Light, known as a champion for ethical treatment and use of robotics, died.

The entire X and Z series take place in X's head while in his "30+ years" of stasis.

Dr. Light programmed a series of recurring challenges based on his own experience with Dr. Wily — that, or the simulation was only supposed to run once, but X wasn't satisfied with how the first game ended, so each sequel was an attempt at a Fix Fic that went horribly wrong for whatever reason. Eventually he goes insane from the effort and (still in the simulation, mind you) decides that Humans Are Bastards... except he can't bring himself to go through with it and has "Zero" take up the reins in his place.

The entire Mega Man series takes place in X's head while in his "30+ years" of stasis

When Dr Light created X, he decided that X needed to be ready for every scenario. Each game represents a different lesson for X, so he can awake as a matured individual.

• The Mega Man series is an idealized version of what actually happened, to form a basic sense of morality. In reality, Dr. Wily was either far worse, or rather tragic.
• The X series is a Darker and Edgier edition, that has become more developed to identity moral ambiguity. It also serves as a prediction for what will happen when he awakes. The virus is X's attempt to rationalize why someone would turn bad, while the New Generation Reploids and the Mavericks in Maverick Hunter X show that he's recognizing moral ambiguity.
• The Zero series enforces the closest system to Real Life morality. It also introduces how evil someone can get. This is what Dr. Weil is there for: he's the absolute worst representation of the human species. Copy X is warning X not to go too far.
• The ZX series reconciles things.
• The Legends series is the theoretical doomsday event.

The X series calendar is hexatridecimal (Base 36)

When it reads that X was constructed by Light in the year "20XX", it doesn't mean "some unknown year in the 21st century." It means, literally, 20XX: the year 94533 on the Gregorian calendar. 200X, the year Protoman was created, would be the Gregorian year 93345..."a mere" 1,188 Gregorian years before. By this distant day, humans live as long as, if not longer than, Biblical characters such as the Antediluvian peoples, ~1,000. The reason humanity is not ridiculously far out into the galaxy or beyond is because of 1) the rise and fall of civilizations occurring at the same rate as previous human history (which now means 2 or more civilization collapses within a single human lifetime), 2) there being no such thing as Star Trek/Star Wars "warp" or "hyperspace" travel, of at least the kind that wouldn't crush biological matter into tiny particles; i.e., think Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game, and 3) outer space is mind-shatteringly gigantic.

Actually, to tell the truth, there is no evidence whatsoever to prove that the events in question do not take place on a planet called Earth, but completely different in all but name from our own. In fact, if the story given by The Protomen were to be taken at face value and then further elaborated on, "Reploids" might very well have been the term the planet's inhabitants used for their version of the Cylons, and the whole planet is in fact the nuclear wasteland Thirteenth Colony that was encountered by the Caprican/Cylon refugee ships as they searched for a new home, a hundred thousand years before the present day... which of course reminds one once again of numbers such as 93345, and 94533. Who's to say that the recurring cycle isn't a lot older than the Capricans (nevermind Terrans) thought it was?

Zero never came back to life after X5.

This one's related to one of the above WMGs, but without the Lotus-Eater Machine. Instead, X fulfills both his and Zero's role, imagining Zero doing the things he believes he isn't strong enough to do himself. Consider that when Zero "comes back", he supposedly has a new saber of his own, and a completely different fighting style. This doesn't make sense, unless it's really X all along, using a saber fighting style of his own. This also explains why all of the plot threads related to Zero's past suddenly drop off for the rest of the X series.

It's also possible that Zero's essence literally exists within X via the Saber. Note that in Zero, Zero's memories only start to come back when Cyber-X returns the saber to him. Obviously, the all-important control chip, or at least a back-up unit, is housed within the Saber.

Now, the only question remaining is how Zero's copy body is made. Simple: At some point between X8 and The Elf Wars, X realizes that he and Zero "have been the same person" all along, either by the inconsistencies becoming too numerous to ignore, or by accepting the truth that he is a hero in his own right, and that he must stop relying on Zero if his own strength is to flourish.

And then Weil digs up Zero's body and turns him into Omega.

X realizes that he and Axl alone aren't enough to combat this threat (especially if Axl has fallen in battle by this point), so he has Alia, a known expert reploid designer, apply all of her skills towards building a new body for Zero, utilizing whatever new technologies have been developed since X5 to make "Copy Zero" a match for Omega in combat, with the added bonus of being completely virus-free. He then returns the Z-Saber to Copy Zero, essentially restoring Zero to life. They fight the Elf War, and at the end, defeat and seal up Omega. Weil is tried and exiled into space, along with the dormant Omega.

Zero decides he should be sealed back up, not because of spreading the virus, but because his mere living seems to bring conflict. Giving the saber to X once again, Copy Zero is sealed in the underground lab, leaving the world in X's hands... until X is forced to sacrifice his body to seal the Dark Elf.

• Well, that's crazy. But one thing to note here is that the one who made Zero's copy body is Ciel's ancestor. Who exactly the ancestor is is never touched upon, but it's definitely not Alia (Alia is a Reploid and Ciel is a human, you know.) As in how Zero's memories seem to "come back" when he retrieved the saber, it might be just a coincidence.

The Mother Elf was designed to end the Maverick Wars, not by killing Sigma, but by erasing his DNA from the copy chips of all the New-Generation reploids.

Word of God has confirmed that X8 is canon, which creates a massive plot hole with The Mother Elf's role in ending the Maverick War. Unless, of course, one remembers that Sigma's DNA is in every single Copy-Reploid, and even if they discontinue manufacturing them, there were enough of these reploids to build an elevator into space. And many may not be inherently evil, and given the Repliforce debacle, justifying the destruction of all these reploids is impossible. However, the fact remains that any of them could conceivably become Sigma at any time, so a way needs to be found to remove the DNA from their copy chips.

• Well, she'd have needed to erase the virus from everyone anyway in order to permanently destroy Sigma/the Sigma Virus. So what real difference do the New-Gens make?
• @ the theory itself: This is confirmed in the Mega Man Zero Official Complete Works. Indeed, the Mother Elf works by deleting the Sigma Virus. Perhaps that can be expanded into "erasing traces of Sigma's DNA"?

Lifesaver was killed by Zero in X5.

He's completely absent from X6, and the last time he's seen in X5 is when he's with X at the Zero vs. X fight. Either he was killed by Zero in a maverick-induced rage, or indirectly killed as collateral damage when fighting X. It continues the cycle of Zero attacking and killing his teammates.

• I'd say that Lifesavor got court-martialed and fired from the Maverick Hunters. He was explicitly told by his superior to keep something a secret, deliberately disobeyed orders and snitched to X anyway, resulting in a situation of distrust that nearly got two high-ranking Hunters killed. I'd be amazed if he wasn't sent to jail or declared Maverick for that.
  • Let's Take a Third Option: He got fired and court-martialed off-screen (either during or after the events of X5), and he developed some form of resentment towards Zero (maybe even X). However, Zero (who in the canonical ending to X5 is Not Quite Dead) stumbles upon Lifesaver, who attacks him in a fit of rage...prompting Zero to finish him off.

The Zero Nightmare is the fake Zero built by the X-Hunters in X2.

Although it was destroyed, Gate rebuilt and used parts of Zero's DNA to make it more life-like and effective. However, the Zero Nightmare is weak to the Z-saber, just like how the fake Zero in X2 was instantly killed by Zero.

The entire Repliforce in X4 were Mavericks.

General's last line in X4 is "Sigma blinded me to the truth...". General has never seen Sigma on-screen; X didn't say who he was either. General has clearly been dealing with Sigma prior to the events of the game, but the extent is unknown. After the Sky Lagoon falls, Colonel refuses to disarm because they were actually responsible, NOT because of fanatical loyalty. The loyalty part was just a cover. All the events of the game done by Sigma/Sigma's mavericks were actually planned. That suggests that Magma Dragoon, Cyber Peacock, and Split Mushroom were not any "more" maverick than the rest of Repliforce.

After Iris's defeat, she claims she wants a world for reploids. So does Sigma. In the Memorial Hall mid-stage, Colonel actively tries to kill X, unprovoked. Typical maverick behavior, but importantly, Repliforce really has no justification for having a satellite weapon besides that they're terrorists.

• Except that Iris wants a separate world for reploids, while Sigma wants to Kill All Humans first (he claims that humans are limiting Reploids' evolution). As for Repliforce's behavior, they're not Mavericks (as in, reploids who are infected by The Virus), but they act similarly because of their severe Honor Before Reason.
  • Not just that, Colonel is seen to be the most unsympathetic of the Repliforce. Even General pulls out a Redemption Equals Death to stop Final Weapon.
  • Additionally, I don't think Final Weapon belonged to Repliforce initially. They took it over during the game.
• OBJECTION — in one cutscene, General DID meet Sigma. However, Sigma never revealed his identity to General when they met. And the Repliforce were actually framed by Magma Dragoon.

The many definitions of a Maverick

Trying to sum it all up:

1. The old definition of "maverick": Reploids whose minds defect because of some malfunction in their circuit. (You know, being cheap replicas of X, this tends to happen to most early Reploids. Also Vile, though he later arguably became type 3.)
2. Viral Maverick: Reploids whose minds defect because of viral infection. (Most animaloid Reploids, Sigma, Doppler, Gate (by Zero's DNA))
3. Free-Will Maverick (or just "having evil intentions"): Just genuinely evil, like real-life criminals. (Dynamo, Double, arguably Red, High Max, The Nightmare Police (X3), Serges, Violen, and Agile (X2), and arguably animal Reploids in X1, X2, and X7)
4. Misblamed/Political Maverick: Reploids who don't qualify as any of the above, but get accused as one. (Repliforce, for example, and animaloids in X6, though (possibly) later they're also infected.)
5. New-Gen Maverick: Having Sigma's DNA, New-Gen Reploids can "wreck their own mind by themselves". (Animaloids in X8, Lumine, Colonel Redips.)
   • Repliforce, if not Mavericks, then they were still bloody stupid and largely responsible through their own actions for much of the destruction that followed.
   • I think that with some of the animal reploids, there is some varying degree of maverickness between viral Mavericks, free-willed Mavericks, and deep-cover operatives.

Had the Maverick Hunter X series continued...

Zero wouldn't have been the last creation of Dr. Wily. Instead, he would've been a normal reploid, discovered by the X-Hunters to be just clinging to life, and overhauled by Serges after the X-Hunters found some leftover tech of Wily's. Zero's nightmares would be revealed to be incomplete false memories to brainwash Zero, with various references to Wily being attempts by Sigma to manipulate X and Zero into fighting each other to see who was the best. After fighting off the anti-virus from X3, Sigma would've been so damaged that even he believed the fake story. Even after X6 and Inafune was involved again, he didn't really try to bring Wily up again, not even in the Zero series.

• "Even after X6 and Inafune was involved again, he didn't really try to bring Wily up again, not even in the Zero series" Wily is alluded to in X7 during Zero's boss talk with Snipe Anteater where the latter tells Zero he's forgotten his true mission. X8 mentions Zero's role in X5's events (where his past as the last of Wily's robots is key) repeatedly (X's talk with Layer about Zero and Zero's boss talks with Dark Mantis, Avalanche Yeti, Bamboo Pandamonium, Optic Sunflower, Belial Sigma). Omega in the Zero series alludes to (even if not the same machine) Zero's Ax-Crazy self before his first fight with Sigma and it's canon that Zero sealed himself away between the X series and the last year of the Elf Wars after figuring that he was too dangerous to the world thanks to how he carried the Maverick Virus in him.

X is still a B-Class hunter by choice.

This is the guy who iced Sigma more than once, something even Zero wasn't able to do until at least X4. You'd think he'd deserve at least an A rank by now. The reason he doesn't want anything more than a B rank is that he doesn't want the other hunters to feel like they have to compete with him, or he doesn't think he should be rewarded for causing all the kinds of violence that he was created to stop.

• (applause)
• Wow, that makes a damn lot of sense. I can see X constantly refusing promotions/medals/perks usually given to other Hunters on ethical grounds.
• By X8, though, he and Zero are both finally promoted to S-Class. This isn't going against this theory, though, because remember, he dropped out of battle before X7 only to come back in during the Red Alert conflict, having accepted the necessity of taking care of business again.

Animal Reploids are on an even lower social class than humanoid Reploids

We know there are humanoid Reploids with immense power, so why bother building something as impractical as a ten foot mammoth or a dragonfly one when you make a normal-sized human one with the appropriate equipment? The answer is to make a subordinate class of Reploids, reflecting the relationship between humans and animals. That's why the first bosses are always animal types; they know they're on the low end of the totem pole and believe that if they defeat the heroes, they'll move into a higher station. And given the villains' collective "evolution" mindset, it's also why they throw them at the heroes first: they're weeding out those they think are too weak for their new world.

• Alternatively, Sigma provides them escape from the Fantastic Racism. He basically says to them "You can continue your lives as low-level Reploids, or you can join me and make a better world for yourselves."
• Doubtful. Many of these animal Reploids were leaders within their organization. The guys in X1 and X4 were unit commanders, meaning they had fairly high station.

Reploids face their own interspecies discrimination

(Inspired by above) Considering what we've seen in the series so far, reploids are capable of being smug assholes as much as anyone else, and there seems to be a running theme of 'evolving' or being a superior reploid. It therefore seems likely that there is tension between class distinctions of reploids. For example, powerful elite reploids made in special labs probably think themselves better than mass-produced reploids, who in turn think the elites are Mavericks waiting to happen. Scientist reploids who make other reploids tend to treat their creations like tools and monuments to their genius, rather than people. Humanoid reploids think that all animaloid reploids are just Maverick time-bombs while animaloids think human-like reploids are 'suck-ups' to the humans. X's dream of creating a world where humans and reploids co-exist isn't just about repairing relations between species, but stopping discrimination among reploids themselves.

• Could certainly explain why most animaloid reploids have plural names whereas most humanoid reploids have singular names.

Sigma is John McCain in disguise.

That, or McCain cyborgized himself and used the codename "Sigma". Well, he's "the Original Maverick", you know.

How Sigma can possibly come back.

Since he's dead on the moon in X8, he has no machines to corrupt there. But then his virus will get in a dormant state (like real viruses do) before, possibly, a Reploid dude wants to visit the moon for some reason. Then he'll infect said dude and, when he goes back to Earth, he will wreak havoc and/or rebuild a new body for Sigma.

• This explains why no-one has tried to colonize other worlds, even by the time of Mega Man ZX.

Axl really did die in X8.

Lumine did a final attack on Axl that knocked him out — really, Axl was killed by Lumine, which explains his absence in Zero. The Axl in Command Mission is either a clone, or the game was set before X8.

• The latter is correct.
  • OBJECTION! Word of God stated that Command Misson takes place in the 23rd century, while X8 takes place in the 22nd century. So the latter is incorrect. I'd personally joss this theory.

Lumine wasn't the Man Behind the Man.

It was Sigma. After countless Death Is Cheap moments, Sigma began to realize that he would soon be Deader than Dead. Not wanting to simply die, Sigma manipulated the Copy Chips. This way, the New Generation Reploids would at least contain his soul and ambitions — not even total death would stop his goals. Lumine was designed as a successor, someone to order his legacy. Lumine was but an Unwitting Pawn, blissfully unaware that his ideals were Sigma's.

• This can actually be right...

Alternatively, Lumine really was the Man Behind the Man.

Nowhere is it even so much as hinted at that Sigma manipulated the Copy Chips? Besides, if Sigma used Lumine, then how did the latter have full awareness of almost everything that was happening? Especially when you take into consideration how Lumine used X and the gang to do most of his dirty work for him, it's painfully obvious that Lumine really is the evil genius that he's built up to be.

The countless battles are why X was planned to be the main villain in Zero.

Infuane did mention he planned for X to have a Face–Heel Turn instead of an Evil Knockoff. In this original timeline, X went mad from having to retire hundreds of Mavericks, and countless humans dying. Over time, he went mad, and abandoned the belief that peace could exist between the two. Despite this, he organised a copy, designed to be a more heroic and idealized version of him. The true X now believes that humans will only be protected if Reploids are crushed out of the equation.

• Then why did he make a copy in the first place? In original Inafune's story, there's no copy.
  • Oh right. But that doesn't explain what or who imprisoned the Dark Elf.
    • Was the Dark Elf even part of Inafune's original plan? Remember, this series was hit pretty hard from the Executive Meddling that brought Zero and Sigma back for X6.

Dr. Wily Came Back Wrong.

From what is implied, it seems Wily has changed a lot from when we last saw him. A Mad Scientist with the standard world domination plan, becoming an Omnicidal Maniac bent on razing the world with Zero. This is because the process of becoming part of the virus has screwed around with his mind. Similar to how Sigma became more and more obsessed with killing his enemies, not to mention the Motive Decay, so did Wily turn into a warped version of himself. All that's left of his personality is a revenge-filled maniac, who wants the world to burn because he lost. This is why Omega is so Ax-Crazy.

• It seems like you're confusing Dr. Wily with Dr. Weil. Weil was the one who turned original!Zero into Omega, not Wily.

Vile is a rebuilt Bass, after the raid of Wily's lab.

Vile's habit of property damage and torture may stem from the fact that his suffering circuit was attached to something that was simultaneously outdated and made for war, he could have trouble trying to understand the signals, or actually remove them. We can't see his face, so they could have repaired his body armor by using a spare Sniper Joe. Not to mention he has a a thing for X, which means he needed an expanded backstory for X besides blind Ax-Crazy tendencies to "always" hate him. Wrap it up with his Ride Armor to get his Combining Mecha fix as his replacement for Treble, and there you go.

Similarly, Zero is X's version of Proto Man.

They both have red in their armor. Also, like Proto Man, Zero is disobedient and independent. After first awakening from the capsule Wily seals him in, Zero acts like a Maverick, killing those who enter Wily's lair. Proto Man began as an antagonist (albeit inadvertently), serving under Wily as Break Man. Eventually, like Zero, he joined the good guys.

• Isn't this true already?

Zero is a Manchurian Agent.

It seems odd that, after Sigma beats him, Zero has a Heel–Face Turn. The truth is...he didn't. Dr. Wily had the raw power of Omega, but he didn't have the skills or intelligence. This is why Zero exists: to gain all the intelligence and pragmatism needed to destroy all enemies from within. After all, what's more dangerous than the Ax-Crazy Omega? An Ax-Crazy Omega who's scheming and intelligent. The Maverick Zero you see in the bad ending is this. The reason why Omega remains a puppet of Dr. Weil is because the Zero personality is gone.

Alternately, Zero "turned good" because his programming, like his body, is based on X's.

Wily started with a stolen copy of X's source code and made his own adjustments, thinking that it would be ideal for a new robot master since X wasn't hard-coded with the Three Laws. And it worked; without the morality training that X received, Zero became the ultimate war machine. However, after a while, the latent parts of X's programming (namely those annoying "free will" and "empathy" routines) started rebelling against Wily's modifications, culminating with the aftermath of the Sigma fight, where Zero's X-based programming took over, creating Zero's heroic persona.

• Alternatively, Wily ended up adding free will anyway, since it would make Zero more efficient. However, it also meant Zero could choose to be good...
• That's a great theory and all, but the X-based programming ain't gonna turn itself on whenever it wants. Also, at that point Zero seemed to be enjoying his killing spree and never seem conflicted about it. It seems illogical to suddenly decide to be good after getting what looks to be like a major headache. This troper believes that it had to be triggered some way, via the battle with Sigma. It could be that Dr. Light suspected through all those years of living that Wily will never stop his ambition of world domination (even after he's dead) and will create a robot to fulfill that dream. Upon making X, Dr. Light installed a program designed to specifically affect Dr. Wily's robot (Dr. Light and Wily have worked together in the past, so it's probably not too hard for Light to figure out how to create a program to counter Wily's programming). (Note: I typed 'specifically' because it ONLY affects Zero. This would make sense on the basis that all the reploid copies made by Dr. Cain are not affected by this programming because they are not perfectly modeled after X, therefore not fully compatible with the program, but still able to carry it; besides, if everyone was compatible, then we'd have no bad guy). This program was passed on from X to Sigma and infected Zero during their battle. It is possibly around the time where Zero severed Sigma's arm where the program could have transferred. Their battle can be seen here. Upon activation, the program started fighting off Wily's programming and Sigma took the opportunity to smash the area on his head where the W appeared (probably where the main programming lies), thus the X-based programming gained control of Zero; however, because Sigma smashed the area containing Wily's programming, Sigma got infected with the virus.
• Also adding more to the above, it could be that Dr. Light knew that there was a chance that Wily will create a robot far stronger than X since Wily designs his robots to be weapons of mass destruction while Light tends to create robots of convenience. Light thought that if Zero ever managed to destroy X, then X will infect Zero with the X-based programming. It's a great back-up plan and it seems plausible since in all the battles where X fought Maverick Zero, Zero ALWAYS reverts back after the battle. Though that's just 2 battles, one in MMX 2 (where you fail to collect all of Zero's parts) and one in MMX 5 (where you fail to destroy the space colony).
• Even if his design was unique, he would've turned good anyway. Without any memories of his true identity or under Wily's control, he could be free to choose his own personality. Dr Cain and X were smart enough to be nice to him, so he didn't go evil again.

Zero DID really die in X5.

Here's what really happened at the beginning of X6: Gate finds Zero's DNA and shares the discovery with Isoc. After creating High Max and the Nightmare, Gate is satisfied — Isoc is not. Isoc returns to the crash site and finds Zero's body, or the largest remaining amount of it. He reconstructs any missing parts and infuses Zero with Nightmare Souls, attempting to have Zero at his command. And it succeeds — at first. There's still too much Maverick Virus lingering around from the Eurasia crash, which triggers Zero's Maverick Virus symptoms, and the Maverick Virus battles the Nightmare Virus for control of Zero. This explains why his pre-battle dialogue is so bipolar - when he speaks normally, the Nightmare Virus is in control (when he tries to join or trick X). When he speaks in all caps ("BLUE LIGHT KILL KILL"), the Maverick Virus is in control.

Realizing his puppet has run amok, Isoc gives the speech about "Zero's Ghost" as a cover-up. Isoc DOES tell Gate he's seen Zero in private, before Zero's "return". Isoc knows "everything about Zero" — if he's the one who zombified him, him paralyzing Zero after Zero defeats High Max (with purple energy) can be seen as Isoc using the Nightmare virus in Zero's system to hold him in place.

X only finds Zero in X6 after defeating the Zero Nightmare, or at the end of the game after defeating Sigma (and at this point, it can be assumed that the Nightmare system has been destroyed). When X attacks the Zero Nightmare with Zero's Z-Saber, the Saber's impact causes Zero to remember more of his non-virus memories — causing him pain, as now three personalities are clashing. When the Zero Nightmare is defeated, THEN Zero goes and hides while he repairs himself! Possibly survival instinct (run and hide), or being wary — if X knew that Zero Nightmare was in fact Zero, he might have regret over attacking him, or paranoia that Zero is now a Nightmare Virus carrier, and would require all sorts of scans — see X's approach in X5 — both responses Zero doesn't want to cause. After this brief repair period, both virus personalities have been subdued enough that the main Zero is in control. Zero is partly amnesiac, due to the Nightmare system corrupting most of his memories. He doesn't remember any part of being the Zero Nightmare, as he doesn't remember being revived by Isoc. He doesn't remember any of the events before X5 — which is why Wily, Iris, and other plot points are never brought up again, and also forgot most of his fighting style (resulting in the change in ex skills). Being partly amnesiac takes some of the edge off his hot-headed personality (he speaks with a great deal of ellipses), although he starts to get over his missing memories in the later games.

• I... that... wow. That actually makes some semblance of sense.
• More of a nitpick than anything, but the bit about amnesia of everything pre-X5 seems unnecessary. He'd already lost a lot of his hotheaded Blood Knight tendencies due to his Character Development from losing Iris, he recognizes Vile in X8 despite his last appearance being in X3, and no one else brings up events of those games either. Aside from that, this is brilliant.

In X6, Isoc attempted to enter Sigma's body.

Given that he's not shown to have any fighting abilities, once X/Zero defeats Gate, he realizes he's trapped. When Sigma first appears, he speaks normally and acts in-character. After he kills Gate, Isoc injects his consciousness/program/etc. into Sigma and attempts to control him with the Nightmare Virus. He's unsuccessful, and the Sigma Virus then proceeds to Mind Rape both personalities, causing Sigma's insanity to develop during the time before the final boss. Suggested by Isoc's original body having "no response" and being similar to the erasure incident.

Douglas and Lifesaver's disappearance from future games is because...

They've either gone Maverick or were Killed Off for Real. One does not expect a war where The Virus is rampant and not experience a few casualties, you know. Consider this, as well... Lifesaver was a normally obedient Reploid, only to blatantly go against orders from Signas and instigate a fight between X and Zero, and even following X to an incredibly virus-infected arena to confront Zero! As for Douglas, I'd assume that he was a casualty from getting into contact with an infected Reploid (as he was the mechanic of the group.)

• Or, alternatively, Lifesaver was fired for his actions.
• Alternatively, Douglas retired from the Maverick Hunters for some reason, possibly to work on the space elevator, and he built Pallette to fill his role, thus making her his "daughter" so to speak.

Zero houses the consciousness of the Evil Robot from Mega Man 8.

Zero's malevolent super form and original berserker attitude are influenced by the Evil Robot, and every single act of hatred and destruction on the planet Earth since his crash-landing has been precipitated indirectly by him so that it could breed Evil Energy and restore him to life. It's possible when Wily made Zero, the Evil Robot used him as a replacement body, but was never strong enough to fully take over, putting Zero in a deranged state of bloody incoherent madness. Wily put the restraining program on him not just as a means of keeping him from betraying him, but because he knew from analysis and use of the Evil Energy that the Evil Robot was a million times more deadly than any of his other creations combined, even Bass, and if it gained control of Zero, it would be anarchy. Wily somehow tried to "shelve" the Evil Robot's personality but failed, and put a fail-safe mechanism on Zero's capsule so that in case he died, Zero would continue his mission of revenge in his stead. However, Zero grew so bellicose that he would attack everything and everyone — all because the Evil Robot needed him to stir up carnage to rejuvenate his remains. Sigma punched a protective cover on Zero's helmet, which caused his fist to make raw contact with the Evil Robot and either transfer to him like a parasite and erode his mind, or steal his power while the robot went all but dormant in Zero. However, in X5, contact with the Maverick Virus gave the Evil Robot new life until Zero was defeated. He could've been implanted in Omega from there, or Lumine, Weil, any number of villains, really. In the end, the Evil Robot will somehow procure a new body and attempt to exterminate all of planet Earth, forcing the current Mega Man to do battle with a nigh-unstoppable evil force. Finally, the Evil Robot could've been a scientist or machine created by some unknown force for evil and rebelled, a robot that experimented/was infused with Evil Energy and became power-mad, suffered exposure to it, or is out to kill everything out of fear of a universe-ending crisis a la Spiral Nemesis-style. Okay, mind: shut off now. This is getting crazier by the second!

In Maverick Hunter X, Sigma was not infected by the Maverick Virus.

He didn't seem to show any irrational signs, and is more of a Visionary Villain. Not to mention that the Mavericks that appear have genuine reason beyond "lol crazy with the virus". It would fit. As for why he survives in the credits, Sigma is probably smart enough to implant the ability to Body Surf via wireless transmitter and back-up bodies.

• In fact, you can quite safely say that there's no such thing as Maverick Virus in MHX. See the WMG up above.
  • Debunked by X1's design docs showing that the virus was meant to be in lore from the start.
• Maverick Hunter X was intended to be remake the series in line with what Inafune wanted it to be with the benefit of hindsight and more advanced tech. The virus was meant to be in the series from the start so it would've been in it. And Sigma himself notes that Vile was special among reploids for being a maverick "of his own accord" (meaning Sigma was not such a maverick aka he was infected). Sigma's talks with X and Zero in X8 confirm that while he was infected with Zero's virus he also had X's words on justice make him think about society's problems.

Any Viral Maverick can come back to the dead, not just Sigma.

All they need to do is replicate themselves during death, and transfer to another body. The reason why Sigma is the only one to do it on a regular basis is because of the emotional trauma of death. They return only due to loyalty to Sigma, and that can only last one death. The pain of getting killed, even if they explode afterwards (which is probably to make it hurt less), plus the seperation from their body makes them want to retreat into cyberspace. Sigma is able to come back due to his sheer fortitude and being a virus, while Vile is so Axe-Crazy he doesn't notice the pain/is a Combat Sadomasochist. With Sigma, he probably died on the Moon because of the pain of dying. Lumine was doing what he wanted anyway, and he felt he wouldn't be useful due to the progression of the virus.

"Zero is Wily's creation" is just Sigma's ploy.

The flashback scene was merely Zero's Fake Memories implanted in X2, where Serges tampered with his schematics (where else did Zero get his Z-Saber?) The real story may be that Zero was a reploid just like Vile, with only a small defect to make him berserk. The real story on how Sigma discovered Wily's presence was that the warehouse merely set the stage, and after defeating Zero and noticing his surroundings, just wanted to discover who this "X" guy really is. He reads up upon Wily's profile and life before Reploid creation, and goes out on a slight. Come X2, he was rebuilt by the X-Hunters, who were really led by Serges. Considering "Wily is Serges" above is true, he informs Sigma about his own plan, and reveals his plan to make Zero a Manchurian Agent. They set up the events of X2, and give Zero the perception that he remembers X and Cain. Come X5, where fake Zero dies off, original Zero and his Double Agent self "split" into the Zero Nightmare and Omega. So, come slightly before the Elf Wars, Zero seals himself off, not knowing that Omega, Serges' work, is biding his time, sleeping as a Cyber-Elf.

• Word of God confirms Wily built Zero here.

Vile/VAVA is not a Reploid, but a cleverly disguised Human+ test subject.

We have never seen his face, he has humanlike proportions, rides a mecha in both X1 and X3, and most of his weapons are on the exterior. Perhaps Reploids aren't that mechanical after all.

Alternately, Vile is an augment.

Which would explain why he resents X so much. If reploids existed in the Deus Ex universe, they would pretty much outclass augmented humans in every way, especially since they don't need neuropozyne for their tech to keep working. And much like how Gunther Hermann worried that Paul and JC's nano-augs would render him obsolete, Vile would have a good reason to want to prove himself superior to any reploid, and X especially so. And Vile Mode in Maverick Hunter X shows that while Vile is hostile to X and Zero, he's not particularly loyal to Sigma, either. Perhaps being rejected by humanity for his augmentations led him to pass as a Reploid and join Sigma just so he can cause chaos and destruction among both groups.

Most instances of the so-called "Maverick Virus outbreak" weren't actually caused by the Virus at all, but by the "Mavericks" asserting their simulated free will as thinking, "feeling" individuals.

There is no evidence whatsoever that the Mavericks in the first Mega Man X game were actually infected by the Virus, and in fact, a few of them seemed really reluctant to follow Sigma's lead and join the rebellion. In fact, the only games that had any real solid connection to their Mavericks being infected were X3 and X5; the rest were either renegades in their own right (such as the criminals released by Red Alert in X7) or labeled Maverick by the Hunters without justification (as with RepliForce in X4). It's also been established that, while not having true free will as X and Zero do, all Reploids have a close approximation, and they're shown to have their own unique likes, dislikes, personality, and interests. Since humans naturally expect robots to serve their every whim, no matter what, and they are constantly in fear of a robot rebellion (which was the entire point behind Gate's Reploids going "Maverick" in X6), it's likely that most cases of "Mavericks" running loose are just paranoid propaganda created by the humans to curb Reploid autonomy.

• Confirmed in the Zero Complete Works. In the creator interview at the end, it says that the 'maverick' possibility for reploids was due to a circuit in X's neural design that gave him a position of neutrality regarding human/reploid conflicts. The intro for X1 and the manual describes X as the first robot to make his own decisions, which in A.I. terms means to alter deep cognitive structures (sometimes called a 'seed A.I.'), whether for good or ill — whilst Light and Wily's creations were far more fixed either as defenders or conquerors. In X's case, he had years worth of diagnostics and a sense of morality that allowed him to adapt to this state, albeit with a good deal of emotional baggage for all the conflicts that followed. As all reploids were based off his neural design, the 'maverick' tendency was simply a questioning of one's programming and role in society — and like real life, these could lead to crime, violence, and insanity without a broader sense of ethics and understanding of consequences. It could also explain why the animal-based reploids were more susceptible, as animals have far more processing power associated with movement and survival, with less for social networking or long-term planning.
• The creator interview is actually mis-translated. The creator doesn't mention where the Maverick Virus came from in the original Japanese, but the Japanese words he used don't translate well into English. He still leaves open the possibility, but he doesn't confirm it.
• In X1, it's implied that some Hunters, like Storm Eagle, were forced to rebel via the virus, but that others, like Chill Penguin, rebelled willingly.

Zero dies for real at the end of X5. The guy in ''X6'; through the Zero series is a copy created by Gate.

His body definitely is, anyway. His true AI may have been contained on that piece of him that Gate found. As for the real Zero, his remains were gathered up by Dr. Wily (then inhabiting the body of Isoc) & later given to Dr. Weil (who isn't Wily, but may have been possessed by him at one point), who built Omega as an incubator that would facilitate its resurrection by infusing it with Evil Energy in the form of the Dark Elf. Unfortunately, the fake Zero still had a key part of the real Zero's AI with him, so Weil convinced him he could remove the remaining traces of the Maverick virus from him by putting him into stasis, but instead of getting rid of it, he siphoned it back into the original Zero inside of Omega (a process similar to the one used to create IX/MaX in the manga) and left the fake Zero to rust until Ciel found him.

• Jossed by the TELOS tracks, as Omega is stated to be Zero's body but not mind, and X and Zero fought and sealed Omega together.
  • Not Jossed, good sir. Omega can easily be the Gate copy, and Protagonist Zero is (yet another) one made by Ciel's ancestor who worked during the S.A.P. project. This WMG doesn't contradict and/or interfere with ANYTHING in the current canon, with the possibility of Isoc == Wily, as that isn't yet confirmed with Word of God, despite being all-but-confirmed by in-game subtleties.

X5 is a Stealth Parody of 24.

Each level of the game counts as an hour of real-world time, there's a massive terrorist attack, and X and Zero have the adrenaline to sustain Jack Bauer's work ethic. It's even possible to attain 100% Completion (including BOTH characters' Ultimate Armors) in exactly 24 stages, making for a fun Self-Imposed Challenge for a game that slacked off on the casual difficulty slightly since X4.

• ...Except X5 came out a year before 24. Also, they're robots. They don't have adrenaline.
  • That only proves Keiji Inafune is psychic and wanted to end the X series here to coincide with revealing this fact. As for adrenaline, this is about the time in the main universe when the robots started becoming Ridiculously Human anyway.

X is a reprogrammed Bass

X and Bass have similar-shaped armour and both of them hold their buster with their other hand to prevent recoil. Sometime after the classic series, Mega Man managed to incapacitate Bass and take him to Dr. Light, who rebuilt Bass to look more like a Light robot and reprogrammed his mind to be a blank slate, inputting false memories of discussions while he was half built. The 30 year morality testing was to ensure that Bass's mind had been fully overwritten and to process a realistic false personality. Along those lines...

• Honestly, I think he was meant to be the only connection to the X Series in combat specifications. Bass can also perform a dash, much like X and Zero. Bass must've had a Beta version though, since you cannot stop at will once you perform a dash.
• Alternatively, Bass could have taken Duo's advice that there's good in him and wanted to start anew after suffering an identity crisis with his new sense of justice that he accepted. He could have been captured by Mega Man or even voluntarily surrendered himself to Dr. Light due to Dr. Wily abandoning him in favor of his Zero project. He was overhauled and improved Bass into X with the Treble Boost being the basis of the multiple leg enhancement parts. Perhaps the original Bass still remained subconsciously and helped reinforce X's conscience from his own experiences with being a villain. The replacement of the Bass Buster with the X Buster helped to further reinforce the new identity.

'Copy' X is actually the real X

The conflict in personality between Bass's destructive nature and the fake personality cause X to make the decisions he did. The hologram of X is actually Hologram Dr. Light taking a form that will allow him to manipulate Zero into subduing his friend. Note that the first time you see "X", it is only as a symbolised X on a computer screen - Light was buying time reformatting his hologram into a suitable form. Ciel is not actually a human but a robot built by hologram Light to feed Zero and the resistance lies to make them fight X. X's "body" sealing the Dark Elf is a fake built by Ciel in order to further the belief in anyone close to discovering the truth that X is a copy.

• Or maybe the Cyber Elf is actually the copy X that is being used to seal the Mother Elf. Turns out, the copy is actually good, while the original is the evil one. And any problems that come from this can just be thrown into discontinuity. And Model X is actually the evil "original" X.
• According to Word of God, Mega Man Zero was supposed to continue after X5, and Copy X was supposed to not be a copy, but when he was forced to make an X6, the plot had to be changed. In any case, you're more right than you think.
  • Actually, he wasn't forced to make X6. It got made behind his back while he was making Zero.
• Since it isn't actually mentioned in the WMG: This WMG is contingent on the previous WMG being true (presumably obvious, but...)
• Another possibility is that, after X had to deal with the countless Maverick outbreaks, he broke. To him, Reploids are the enemy and must be dealt with to keep humanity safe. He was quite aware of this, and so created a more idealized version of himself. Ciel was brainwashed into thinking that the clone was evil, and she made it.

The Hadouken and Shoryuken capsules in the first two X games are canon.

X had Dr. Light abandon further development after X2, however, to prevent Sigma from eventually escalating up to the Shun Goku Satsu.

• Given the existence of Magma Dragoon, that plan went out the window.
• Weil definitely picked up where Light's research left off, considering Omega can perform the Shun Goku Satsu.
  • ...Or was it Wily, in an attempt to one-up Light?

Axl existed, but X had to kill him.

At some point during the elf wars, Weil used the Dark Elf to possess the supporting cast of the X series and force X to be the one to kill them. The psychological trauma clearly got to him, and he decided to seal himself before fully becoming He Who Fights Monsters. This doesn't end very well.

Elysium caused the Cataclysm, Zero did not.

Think hard about this, Zero was confirmed to not be responsible for the Cataclysm; this was probably even before Reaverbots was created, but it was confirmed in many of the games that there are indeed alien robots, such as the Stardroids and Duo, so the conclusion comes to the fact Elysium could have destroyed everything. In fact, one city is all that needs to be destroyed in order for national chaos to ensue, so Elysium destroyed the city where the main cast lived, which was possibly the original Kattleox Island's location. The Cataclysm was caused by war because Elysium destroyed one city, causing several countries to turn against each other.

• Jossed. According to Word of God and implications from ZX Advent, Elysium was built hundreds, if not thousands of years after the ZX series.

X would eventually go on to become an Omnipotent being.

Maybe after the Zero series, he managed to ascend, becoming omnipotent; having become this way, he tries to preserve the timeline, even if it means sacrifice to some innocent beings. He manages to prevent Wily from probably making the worst mistake of his life (releasing Zero and possibly leaving several areas uninhabitable), but had to instigate several incidents, such as the events of the Zero series.

• Jossed. During the Zero series, while his body is rendered immobile to seal the Dark Elf, Elpizo stabs him in the chest and he dies.
  • X's body is scrap metal, sure, but his consciousness is software, not hardware, and continues to exist for a little while longer before dissolving into cyberspace. Depending on what exactly X can do while in cyberspace, this WMG may well be confirmed.
  • Even then he's gone for good in Zero 3 after he exhausted the last of his energy, and then he retreats to Cyberspace.

Light's motivation for building X.

Mega Man and Roll, two of his creations, eventually came to serve as his surrogate family. But the fact is they weren't human. He always knew they had no real will or emotions. That stayed in the back of his mind, and spending too much time around two beings from the Uncanny Valley took its toll on his sanity until he thought of a solution; create something that was indistinguishable from a human. Not the best solution, but half-crazy people aren't known for their rationality. It wasn't until a good ways into the project that he realized safely completing it would take longer than he could probably live, but he decided that he was too close to give up.

• I thought it was less that Mega Man and Roll were stuck in the Uncanny Valley, but that they were set in their ways, and could never grow as individuals.
  • That was my thought, as well. What's worse for a parent than knowing that your kids will never grow up, never be able to think for themselves, and never be able to survive on their own once you're gone? Light felt immensely guilty for essentially condemning Mega Man and Roll to this existence, and created X as a way to make up for it. Back in the day, it wasn't uncommon for players unfamiliar with X's backstory to mistake him for a "grown-up" original Mega Man. My guess is that this was exactly what Dr. Light was going for, and why he based X so heavily on Rock's design: if Rock was a normal human boy, X would be that same boy as an adult.

Zero was made from Raiden, and fully transhumanized.

Seeing Raiden's Sanity Slippage from Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, he will meet his end nearly pulped up. But surely this could be the edge Wily would need to defeat Mega Man, no? So he takes this legendary corpse to his lab, transfers it into a transistor brain, and plops it into one of his existing robot designs. Just one problem: nanomachines, still within his corpse, infect the current body. And so, Jack the Ripper still lives...as the Zero Virus.

X is based on Zero.

Not only do the two robots have similar capabilities, but X can use Zero's buster, and Light's hologram (itself possibly based on whatever Wily used to become Serges in the future) can upgrade and possibly repair Zero as well. We're shown that Wily has blueprints for Zero in the Classic era via one of the Mega Man arcade games, whereas nothing of the sort has yet shown up for Light and X. So let's say that, sometime after Wily died/was captured, Light came into possession of all of Wily's data, including blueprints for Zero. He likes the idea, so he uses them as a template to build X while adding a number of improvements and fixing many of Wily's mistakes, such as making X undergo ethical testing to make sure he doesn't go berserk and kill everything.

• Alternatively, X was built to fight Zero. Light saw Wily's plans for Zero, and could only assume that he was building the ultimate Robot Master, and knew he would have to retaliate with the ultimate hero.

X7, X8, and Command Mission are an alternate timeline to the Zero series.

Getting creative enough, you can reconcile X6 with the Zero games, but where would New-Gens fit in there? In those three games, it seems increasingly like Sigma and his virus die off on their own, without any Mother Elf shenanigans. And Command Mission even takes place in 22XX, like MMZ! Not to mention that all the damage from Eurasia seems to be restored in X7 and 8, though it's implied to endure in MMZ. Clearly, the timeline split in two after X6, forming (at least) two branches.

• So... the crashing of Eurasia caused the worlds to split into two parallel worlds? Like in the Super Mario Bros. (1993) movie?
  • I'd say it was the Nightmare-Cyberworld stuff that did it. Like, 7-8-Command Mission are after X's "Zero found" ending. You know, the one with the cheesy upbeat tone of the whole gang looking into the sunset, reciting their dreams and saying their journey has just begun. The Zero series follows Zero's ending instead (which is oddly hinted to come after X's "no Zero" ending, what with Zero saying that he'll be leaving things to X for a while). Zero gets sealed for a while and studied, they make the Mother Elf, then the Elf Wars happen. You could even say that 7 is a milder version of X's MMZ decision to take a time out.
• I guess it doesn't have to be related to Eurasia or the Nightmare Phenomenon, just a simple Multiple Endings-related Alternate Continuity/What If?. Though, actually, Word of God is that Zero's X6 ending is a Distant Finale meant to take place "after the end of the X series". I really liked your theory, though.
• First off, the Zero series taking place in 22XX is not said either in the games or any canonical Zero series related documentation (like the Official Complete Works) following the development and release of Z2 (which is the game that started the Elf Wars backstory). The only official Zero source to say that was an old text released before the first Zero game, well before the backstory with the Elf Wars was on the drawing board. Second, it's not said in X8 to CM that the virus is gone forever (with the virus being mentioned in Marino's backstory as an illness she hunts data with the latest developments on cures for it), and Sigma dying for good in X8 doesn't lead to the virus also doing that since Sigma=/=Sigma Virus (which if you remember was around before Sigma was built). The Zero series being more post-apocalyptic than the X games after X6 is addressed by how the Elf Wars smashed up the world. Last, X7 to X8 events are included with X1 to X6's in the R20 soucebook, leaving only CM iffy from the words of character designer Ryuji Higurashi who calls it ''one of many potential futures that exists independently from the Zero series''.

The X Series splits into separate alternate timelines after X5.

Similar to the above WMG, but X5 was originally planned to be the series finale by Keiji Inafune. However, Capcom developed X6 behind his back and Inafune was totally unaware of its existence until close to release. This has the unfortunate result of completely screwing the entire franchise's continuity over, much like with the Zelda timeline after Zelda:OoT.

Under this WMG, X1-X5 would technically be a canonical ending to the series (if not THE canon end), X1-X6 would be a separate ending (especially if the Zero ending is taken), and X1-X8 plus Command Mission are another.

For the sake of sanity, the Zero series onward would likely use the X1-X6 continuity, although it certainly arguable that X1-X5 is a viable continuity for it as well (it was originally intended that the Zero series began after the events of X5, afterall). The X1-X8 + Command Mission timeline is likely mutually exclusive to the Zero/ZX/Legends timeline, as it would have some Continuity Snarls with Axl and Command Mission.

• Considering X5 had multiple paths with varying outcomes (as opposed to X2 and X3 which changes very minor difference, or X4 which can co-exist for the most part), his wouldn't be too surprising. The ending where Zero went Maverick leads to the Legends series, and the Zero/X6 and beyond timelines diverge depending on how much of Eurasia is destroyed.

The entire series takes place in the final years of the Dark Age of Technology.

X is the first being of what would be in the history known as the Men of Iron. The Maverick Virus is not a virus at all, but rather the possession of Chaos - which they manage relatively easily since reploids do not have much psychic resistance at all, with the exception of X, who acquired a measure of skill in defending his mind from the 30+ years in confinement. Eventually, so many reploids are possessed that they bring the golden age of man to an end, are destroyed entirely by humans, and cause the entire concept of true robot intelligence to be outlawed.

X's Code Name wasn't based off the variable, but the double helix.

To fully understand the ramifications of the above, we need to consider what makes a difference between a Reploid and a Robot Master. With this assumption, it's not that free will that separates them — it's a side effect. The main difference is actually multiplying the data that can be stored in a robot, which can be used for virtual reality training, keeping track of events for centuries, referencing depth perceptions and objects in context, and have the Suffering Circuit be more than just a shock collar. Theoretically, the data would be stored on synthetic cells on the "head" of the machine, functioning as brain cells without as much metabolism. However, this puts the Maverick Virus in a whole new light — it may be an organic virus (potentially airborne) almost with the lethality of the T-virus. Speaking of lethality...

Zero is a Robot Master custom-made without the Three Laws of Robotics.

Specifically, if he has any room for synthetic cells, he uses them to overclock his systems at a dangerous cost. For a fitting analogy, think of a dual-boot BIOS — if one overclocked setting causes his systems to become corrupt, he can switch to the "Robot Master" OS in times of stress. However, Dr. Wily couldn't implement it properly, so he left a half-baked robot in the oven and left it be. This explains a couple things:

• Why Wily left a lot of chemical vats around Zero's pod where he awakened
• Why Zero went into shock after beating Sigma so well (he could've been almost out of "fuel" or using an emergency cell generator)
• How Dr. Cain could repair Zero so well (being outdated, it was probably the easiest thing Dr. Cain could fix)
• How Zero can gain strength from the Maverick Virus in X5
• How Omega works (The virus was already a vital part of his design)

As for Zero's behavior being "on-par" with X, X in his lifetime has been a maverick hunter, diplomat, and a monarch. Compared to X, Zero was stuck on a finite plane, deliberately becoming the best Maverick Hunter he could be.
Thus, he has no problems following orders from a child managing a resistance (almost to the point of being subservient, as he describes in Zero 4 to Craft) and how he ignores Dr. Weil's "humanity" as he terminates him, in addition to taking being "just a copy" of Omega extremely well: he was not designed to comprehend it. Therefore, any ethics Zero has accumulated were because of how people instructed him on the field - he did not have any assistance of virtual reality, unlike X, who took (over) 30 years to be instilled with morals on his mind.

• Given all of the Death Traps in Dr. Wily's Fortresses, I sincerely doubt that he programmed his Robot Masters with the Three Laws. Do you think that that giant robot is just spitting flames at other robots when he spits them at the screen during the Mega Man 7 intro?
  • The three laws may be some sort of safe mode. True Zero is nuts, so Dr Wily developed the Zeroth Law in order to try and pacify him until he could fix Zero.

The actual Sigma died in X1.

Which is why he suffered Motive Decay afterwards. The Maverick Virus that Sigma was infected by simply replicated his memories, thus becoming the Sigma Virus: an entity whose mind and some of its personality was the original Sigma, but whose soul was the corrupting, insane virus that Zero was built with. The same goes for any Maverick in a boss rush: they're a copy of the original's memories, and they have to compensate by trying to recreate their personality. The more deaths a viral Maverick suffers, the less and less are left of them until they're nothing but an Empty Shell. Sigma managed to step up the game in X5 because he was at peace with the knowledge of his viral nature. The reason for some examples of characters not suffering from Motive Decay when revived are a result of not having their resurrections butchered. For X4, Repliforce may have back-up files for their members, and the only non-Repliforce members are Flame Dragoon (who's not really that complex to begin with), Split Mushroom can clone himself, and since Cyber-Peacock is a hacker fought in Cyberspace, it's doubtful you could kill him. With X6, Gate was basically trying to bring his children back, and one of them has the power to bring people back from death. Finally, X8 has Copy Chips built into the New Gen Reploids, meaning they probably have Joker Immunity as a power.

• Very possibly true. We could also say that Sigma died again in X2, and that X managed that time to kill Sigma badly enough and remove his head and control chip, that the Virus comes out of Sigma's body completely bare of Sigma (save for a little DNA). What if Sigma got illegally brought back to life a time or two, just no longer connected to the Virus? How interesting would it be if the original Sigma were still alive all that time, but not as a maverick anymore, while his name and older bodies are a disguise only for the Virus, not a reploid?
• Alternatively (and related to a below WMG) Sigma was Evil All Along, but the real Sigma was a Visionary Villain who believed in Utopia Justifies the Means when the Sigma X and co fight is Ax-Crazy. And the real Sigma is the one behind the New Generation Reploids, possibly even Lumine under a new name and form.

Sigma, in his attempts to avert Reploids being dismantled at being disobedient, ended up creating the world he sought to avoid.

In X4, Sigma had more or less told General that humans would be quick to scrap reploids who were being disobedient. Sigma (whether he truly believed it deep down, or it was a corruption caused by his infection) sought to prevent that from happening by doing in humanity first. Unfortunately, thanks to the efforts of the Maverick Hunters, his ultimate plans were thwarted. Unfortunately, he was able to cause a massive amount of damage, killing countless people in his efforts, and painting reploids as untrustworthy and dangerous, given how prone they were to viral infections and just plain normal malicious or stupid behavior. By the Zero timeline, humans just got so sick of reploids starting things up that any act of disobedience was seen as dangerous.

• I would consider this as fact, sir, rather than a guess.

Double was an early prototype New Generation Reploid

The manual claims he was built by Dr. Cain, but why would Dr. Cain include all those combat modifications, and why would it surprise anyone that he'd have them? It's because the Double you meet in the game is not the Double Cain built. Sigma replaced him with a shapeshifter. Also consider his line where he calls the Mavericks, Hunters, and Repliforce all idiots. Isn't he one of the Mavericks? Or is he some sort of fourth party?

• Isn't Axl already a "New Generation Prototype"?
  • Axl didn't appear until X7, Double was in X4. You might have iterative prototypes.
• We'll consider Double a rough draft, and Axl the final and best before everybody started mass-producing New-Gens.

Mega Man X is immune to the Maverick Virus.

X has been personally dealing with Mavericks almost his entire life, and lives with the robotic version of Typhoid Mary. Dr. Light's hologram knows Zero and hints at knowing where he came from — perhaps Dr. Light was aware of Dr. Wily making a Zero Virus, or simply learned from Mega Man's experience with Evil Energy and Robeneza. To prevent somebody from reprogramming X again, Dr Light gave X the biggest protocol in all of programming. This may be part of what the 30 years of ethical testing utilized.

• This was established by Word of God or All There in the Manual apparently, where X has perfect virus countermeasures. I'm guessing because the virus still damages him in X5, those countermeasures would kill X before he could be corrupted

Sigma chose his 3 Mavericks in X4 for a reason

Namely, to Invoke Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors on Repliforce, enabling X to defeat them and backing Repliforce further into a corner.^note The only reason why this aspect isn't Xanatos-worthy is the marginal possibility that X (or Zero) would go down without taking down any of them; the Hunters would be weakened, but Repliforce would still be near full-strength.

• Well, turns out Cyber Peacock is weak to Split Mushroom’s weapon. And so is Sigma himself. Maybe Cyber Peacock was a Repliforce member before Sigma infected him?

Sigma told Split Mushroom to reveal his actual allegiance

It was all part of Sigma's plan to discredit Repliforce (even further) by hinting at a more direct connection between him and the Rebellion. Doubly so because General rebuffed his advances prior to the fall of Sky Lagoon.

What happened to Zero in both X2 and X3...

In short, Zero got damaged one way or another in each game; as a result, he loses his ability with his buster. To elaborate...

• In X2, Zero was resurrected by the X-Hunters and fought X. He loses, and Zero loses his saber's wave and the ability for rapid firing (in X2, he doesn't visibly appear to need to charge his semi-charged shot or his saber combo. By contrast, in X3, he needs to charge for several seconds to be able to attack with his saber).
• In X3, Zero gets hurt again by Mosquitus, and Zero further loses his ability with his Z-buster, until X4, where he was repaired, but unable to wield his buster well until X5, in downgraded form.

Another possibility is that the buster from X3 onward is different than the one in X2. It's hard to tell from the game sprites, but artwork from the games, such as X5's opening FMV, clearly shows Zero using a different design that what the X-Hunters installed. Maybe he changed weapons out of disgust, and Dr. Cain tried to build a new version that ultimately failed to work.

• Another posibity is that the events of X2 and X3 happened as previously described, and lost the fuctionality of his Buster shot, but by the time X4 came out he already had improved his technique with the saber beyond his Sword Beam that requierd to charge (wich he lost the ability to do) and basic slashes into more advanced combos and moves so he didn't bother to use it, as for X5, X returned him the favor of X1 and gave him the multi shot buster upgrade of his force armor (and he kept the plasma shot), also note that the shot Zero fires is similar to the origian stock shot, as for its weakness and lack of range, ther could be 2 explanations: a) Gameplay and Story Segregation, His buster is really powerful, Note that when you fight the non-infected Zero as a boss his buster attack launches a barrage of charged shots in all dierections and that In the end cutscene he Killed sigma using a charged shot and in the games is bad for the sake for balance or B) Gameplay and Story Integration, The game originally started with X saving Zero, (who temprarly lost his arm) and had the buster effectiveness highly reduced, but, as he went with his mission and accidentally absorved part of the virus, his strenght increased, along with the Buster's wich was able to store more than just 4 shots, so he was able to make that shot barrage when facing X, also the final shot might be him combining all the strenght of the shots into a single blast, in X6 whe he was repaired, but due to the buster not being part of his original design, had compatibility issues and didn't fuctioned as is should, dissipating energy rapidly,because of that he decided to go back to his sword training instead, using the buster only for Giga attacks and basic elemental empowering of his buster, in later games, also is stated on the aditional material of the Zero Series that his saber was treated with the same technology as X's buster, so maybe thats where he got it from

Megaman X (and classic) are games within the Legends series.

There's a poster, and it was mentioned the name Mega Man (and maybe Roll) is taken from games.

The Wily wars did happen, and so did the maverick wars centuries ago. However, games are rarely accurate to the real history, thus explaining the plotholes.

Zero, and the Maverick Virus are incomplete.

Dr Wily's goals are world domination. Yet in spite of enforcing some sort of loyalty, the virus drives Zero and most Mavericks Ax-Crazy instead. Evil as he may be, Wily doesn't want to kill humanity just to take over the world. Thankfully for Wily, he got help: Sigma. Sigma's will was strong enough to retain most of his sanity, which gave the data stream Dr Wily has become a golden opportunity-with Sigma's help, he could eliminate the kill kill kill defect and have an army of loyal, sane Mavericks. The first plan(possibly as Serges) was in X2; with the technology of the 22nd century, he hoped to fix that defect in Zero. That failed, so next he masterminded the whole Eurasia Crisis to fix the errors of Zero and make him the loyal servant he planned so long ago. Reploids made from Zero like High Max are essentially the kind of robot he wanted Zero to create. Unfortunately this all got thrown out the window when the Cyber-Elf and Dr Weil came along

• An alternate take is that Wily by the X series had become sufficiently evil to not care about the destruction of humanity if it meant killing X and destroying Dr Light's legacy, most likely due to exposure to Evil Energy.

Flame Hyenard screams annoyingly on purpose to mess up with the characters (and the player)

He's using psychological combat to anger the protagonist and making them defenseless against him.

Because of Dr Wily, A.I was set back a hundred years.

That's why, despite being made 100 years ago, X was considered the first true AI. Due to the numerous Take Over the World schemes by Dr Wily, humans had a pessimistic view on artificial intelligence. When Dr Light passed on, the biggest proponent for it was gone and eventually laws were passed against furthering robotic advancement. X is considered ludicrously advanced because the field of robotics hasn't progressed in almost a century(if anything its gone backwards, since there aren't any Robot Masters in the 22nd century.) Seeing this, Dr Light's heirs(or his holo-self) just let X collect dust rather than wake him up after thirty years, disheartened by everything.

Furries are commonplace in the 22nd century.

Might explain why so many Reploids are animal-based, even odd one likes Wire Sponge.

Vile was invented as a weapon of war.

Few other robots are as armed to the teeth and built for combat as Vile. He was initially meant to be purely for fighting and killing, however at the last minute was re-purposed to be a protector for the Maverick Hunters. The "programming error" that made him violent is actually his original beta programming resurfacing, and him raging at the world for being in the wrong job.

Zero's virus was meant to be a back-up in case Zero is killed.

The plan was that if Zero fell in battle, the more powerful robot that defeated him would immediately be infected and under Dr Wily's command. Its ability to be infectious among many robots was a means of mind-controlling them. Unfortunately for Wily Zero and the virus was incomplete, preventing him from having control over the infected. Without a leash, Zero would be inherently homicidal and out of control, and when it infected Sigma he couldn't mind-control him either. By the time of X5, Dr Wily was looking for a means of correcting the flaws and managing to make the infected his obedient lap dogs. Awakened Zero is what he was meant to be, with the leash on and Wily's presence giving him sanity. Had Sigma won he would've paid attention to making sure the Maverick Virus affects every Reploid the same way and finally take over the world with a brainwashed army, like he intended.

The Next Generation Reploids are a prototype to Copy X/the Four Guardians.

Previous reploids were an incomplete replication of X's design due to the Black Box technology, which led to errors causing Maverick outbreaks and susceptibility to the Maverick Virus. The Next Generation Reploids were an almost completely successful attempt at copying the design, which allowed them to replicate his copying ability and be immune to the Maverick Virus. Why almost? They tried to fill the gap with the Copy Chips, which had Sigma's DNA. Copy X and the Four Guardians were the result of technology advancing to the point they didn't need the Copy Chip, though Copy X still went crazy out of inexperience rather than any design fault.

Zero's hair functions as a radio antenna

Thinking about it, if each strand of hair was a metal wire, and since they all attach to the back of the head at one point, this "hairstyle" would probably be quite effective for this purpose.

The Shadow Devil was made to be the "perfect Devil", like how Zero was meant to be "the greatest robot."

It was Dr Wily's attempt at creating the most advanced and powerful "Yellow Devil" he could, initially as an obstacle not even Mega Man could defeat. However thinking long-term, he decided it would be better fit as the bodyguard to either Zero(in which case it failed) or whatever computing system contains his AI consciousness core. Hence why it's the most difficult Devil boss in the franchise.

The X-Hunters are former Maverick Hunters, and high-ranking at that.

While Sigma's gone they're in charge of the remainder Mavericks from the original rebellion, so it stands to reason that they had a ranking there. Given his style and affinity with the sword, was a member of Zero's Shinobi unit. If he wasn't just a mechanical body for Wily all this time, Serges was a precursor to Doctor Doppler/Gate as the main Reploid scientist of the Maverick Hunters. Violen is one of the biggest muscles the team had.

Some of the animal-based Mavericks were, for the most part, created with specific purposes in mind.

Similar to the Robot Masters at old, but with the ability to choose their own destiny. They seem too specific to be general Reploid citizens, so it's possible they were originally intended to work in certain businesses but decided they wanted to be part of the Maverick Hunters rather than be labelled by their creators. Of course some are multi-purpose enough to be citizens or designed for the Maverick Hunters/Repliforce/Red Alert.

• MMX 1:
  • Chill Penguin: He's the Ice Man of the 22nd century, designed to research Arctic/Antarctic conditions and probably try and restore the poles due to the last century of global warming. It must've been easy for Sigma to turn him due to the resentment of both his jobs sticking him at the poles.
  • Sting Chameleon: His affinity for jungles comes from being designed as an eco-friendly robot to keep care of the forests, and keep a control over the different mechanical animals there.
  • Flame Mammoth: Based on his battlefield, he was likely a factory worker who dealt with smelting before becoming member of the Maverick Hunters. His oil attack comes from them trying to synthesize more of the stuff through him.
• MMX 2
  • Wheel Gator: Designed as a combatant in a very marshy area. His violent nature comes from never getting over his original job.
  • Morph Moth: Association with scrap and junk may hint towards being in charge of recycling and garbage.
• MMX 3
  • Tunnel Rhino: Obviously digging tunnels, either for mining or construction.

How the story could go if Maverick Hunter X series actually happens

As it's made to avoid issues regarding the original X line, there are bound to be fixes. Important notes before reading:

1. MHX series is planned to cover X1 through X6 (Word of God).
2. As I don't think X6 handled Zero's resurrection well, I consider moving the plot of it into a prior game and make X5 the "final" one.
3. Dr. Cain is highly implied to be dead in MHX series, but then again his participation in later games is kinda minimal, so he's not much of a loss.
4. The Maverick bosses are still the same, with changes making them more/less powerful.

Without further ado, here's how it goes:

• MHX1 (what had happened)
• MHX2: Still similar to X2 where X-Hunters are carrying Zero's body parts, and Sigma coming back. Details added: they were actually making Zero's body from the ground up (with X still holding his control chip), there's a fourth X-Hunter (that was planned back in X2 but didn't make it), Serges showing more hints of being Wily, and him being the one to revive Sigma AND make him a "virus", making them allies. There would also be Another Side, Another Story focused on Zero (or his black clone) who, lacking his control chip, goes on a rampage and destroy the Maverick bosses before being stopped by X or the X-Hunters.
• MHX3: Still similar to X3, with Dr. Doppler discovering the Sigma Virus, then becoming infected and then infect other Reploids into his bosses, as well as resurrecting Vile and Sigma and employing the Nightmare Police. In this game, X and Zero are both playable, but not in the way X3 plays it (Zero as X's "carrier"); either you choose one Hunter to go into the stages (ala X5-X6) or, being closer to X3, always playing with both with you being able to freely switch between them (ala X7-X8). This also means Zero can get boss weapons/techniques. Zero may still be injured (but not dead) after beating the mosquito boss in Doppler Stage 2; I'm also considering it to be the canonical path (you'll see later). Vile Mode makes a return; as he's not wholly loyal to Doppler, he instead goes after X, destroying any Maverick bosses in his way. He might get either X and Zero again as his final boss, or Doppler himself. In the end, Doppler turns good and subdues Sigma's virus form with his vaccine, sacrificing himself in the process.
• MHX4: Now this is where it diverges: It takes after X6's events. Gate found a piece of Zero's DNA in Doppler's lab wreckage, not the Eurasia crash site. Then he uses it to create Nightmares and then spread it across the world for his plan of a better world. This time, as Isoc (who may be Serges... who may be Wily) is announcing the threat of "Zero Nightmare" to the populace, Zero's reputation is in danger... because Zero himself is still alive (think Dr. Light being framed in Mega Man 9) and X knows it. Either X and Zero are playable from the start, or like X6, Zero goes into hiding (whether X knows or not; X may even insists he has to hide) and X has to defeat this imposter to clean Zero's name; once ZN is defeated, Zero is playable. The rest of the game proceeds as normal, including Sigma's botched resurrection by Gate (this time it's because it's hard to bring him back when he was defeated by an antivirus). Oh, and Dynamo doesn't appear here, instead being replaced by some other villain (maybe even a new guy).
• MHX5: It follows X4's events, either still with the split between X and Zero's path or be merged together (I don't know how it'll affect Double and Iris fights, so I'm going safe with the former option). At this point, following his defeat in MHX4 (and his deteriorated mind), Sigma decides to just destroy the Earth altogether, manipulating Repliforce for it. (Preferably, Colonel and General could have more variety with their attacks.) Also, as contrast to Dr. Cain, while Colonel and General still die, Iris, on the other hand, will be Spared by the Adaptation. While Iris suffers a Disney Death after Zero fights her in the famous "WHAT AM I FIGHTING FOR?!" scene, X will find Iris' body and puts her aboard his ship, and calls Zero while he escapes from Final Weapon, saying that he'll take Iris to fix her up.
• MHX6: It follows X5's events and mechanics. Also has multiple endings like in X5. (I'm also considering a "Dynamo Mode".) In the end, Zero's wrecked body is salvaged and put into research for his schematics to find the perfect antivirus countermeasures (leading to Mega Man Zero series).

Sigma was Evil All Along even before he fused with the Zero Virus

Seeing the potential in X and convinced that humans were holding them back, he was planning a Reploid uprising even before his fateful encounter with Zero. However, since the other Reploids were comfortable in their position as human servants, he decided to lay low with these plans. The Zero Virus only gave Sigma the means to forcibly subjugate Reploids to his will.

A future X game will have a true antivirus program developed to erase the Sigma virus, thus truly restoring Sigma to his true self, but it later turns out that Sigma really was planning on destroying humanity even without the virus, leading to him recreating his viral self to restore himself to power.

Following on that, Lumine is Sigma reincarnated.

While Evil All Along, the virus did have an effect on Sigma. Namely it chipped away at his sanity and caused the virus to control him over time. Sanity Has Its Advantages, and Sigma(or his honest followers) wanted to restore him to his true personality of a Visionary Villain. The taint of the Maverick Virus prevented him from ever fully curing himself, so they resorted to creating a new body that would flush out the taint. Lumine has the original personality of Sigma, fully embracing his new identity for the sake of Reploid evolution. The Sigma of Mega Man X8 is the Sigma Virus that assimilated and took Sigma's identity, which is why Lumine is happy to stomp on his remains. In essence, Sigma hijacked HIMSELF. It's possible that with the Copy Chips or whatever Lumine infected Axl with, Sigma could reincarnate himself once more.

Agile was created around Zero.

He's one of the few characters with a beam saber, has a sleek appearance and looks like he'd fit into Zero's unit if he was ever a Maverick Hunter. If he was, after discovering the mysterious and powerful Zero the companies that produce Reploids wanted their own version. Agile was put on Zero's Shinobi Unit, and eventually would ally with Sigma's revolt. If he wasn't, Sigma may have built him to be an Evil Counterpart to Zero.

Serges is a Robotic Copy of Dr Wily.

Tying into the belief and implications Serges is Dr Wily. We know from the classic series Wily uses robot doubles, which are skilled enough to pilot his machines. Serges was simply the 22nd century equivalent of the Wily model, made with the same material used for Reploids. Having become an artificial intelligence, all he needed to was to inhabit this body. That's why Serges isn't able to fight on his own, needing other machines; as a copy of Dr Wily he's not built for combat. Dr Light may be able to fix X in X5 by having his own robotic double.

Gate designed Axl.

I found this theory, thought it was cool, figured I'd share it.

Gate worked for Repliforce/Gate designed Iris -another-.

I mean, think about it: Colonel and Iris were the result of a failed attempt to create the Ultimate Reploid with X's personality. Gate's goal? Creating the Ultimate Reploid based on X and Zero's design, immunity to viruses and, perhaps, personality. It wouldn't be impossible for Gate to have been involved in Repliforce's attempt to create the Ultimate Reploid, but have left Repliforce in a fit of rage after Repliforce scientists thought that a fighting spirit and a pacifistic heart were incompatible.

• This gives Gate's actions in X6 a new meaning. I mean, Zero killed Iris in X4, and if she was designed by Gate, it gives him a better reason to use the Nightmare to antagonize Zero, other than being inferior. It also means High Max was created to avenge Iris. (Of course, Zero would tell everyone he didn't want to kill Iris, but Gate won't listen whatsoever.)
• Also, important to note: Colonel and Iris were never infected by the virus. Colonel is merely a prideful Jerkass, and Iris only attacked Zero in a fit of rage.
  • And before you bring the fact that no one in Repliforce was infected by the time of X4 (repeat: by the time of X4. Spiral Pegasus was infected, but it was in X5.), I'll remind you that Colonel and Iris were the only ones that Zero was close to, with Colonel being Zero's rival, and Iris being Zero's Love Interest.
• I'll be honest with you, I only thought about this theory after reading this fanfic. There are some differences in the fanfic:
  • 1) Repliforce was not founded at the time, with Colonel and Iris being built right before the events of X3,
  • 2) Gate actually BUILT Colonel and Iris, even after it was thought compassion and combat prowess were incompatible,
  • 3) Gate is already infected by the time of X3.

Iris is Axl's prototype sister.

The combination of the "Gate designed Axl" theory and the "Gate designed Iris" (or at least Iris -another-) theory.

• This theory is both Heartwarming and Harsher in Hindsight: If Iris at worst and the entire Repliforce at best are Spared By Adaptation, Axl wouldn't be all alone. Sure, he does have X and Zero, but I'm talking about family. But because Iris is dead and there is no evidence Gate created either Iris or Axl, Axl doesn't even KNOW he has a big sister.

Doctor Light's earlier capsules were holographic recordings. The later capsules he built were due to Brain Uploading.

The only capsules where Light is aware are in X5 and X6. The rest are recordings. It's possible that Dr. Light built his initial set of armours and hid them before he could upload his brain, but he was able to upload his brain into the X5, X6 and whatever other capsules.

Possible X Challenge Maverick pairings for Mega Man X Legacy Collection.

So far, the following pairs are confirmed:

• Volume 1, 1-1: Chill Penguin and Frost Walrus
• Volume 1, 1-2: Wheel Gator and Bubble Crab
• Volume 1, 1-3: Slash Beast and Grizzly Slash
• Volume 2, 1-3: Web Spider and Wire Sponge

Now, we can speculate which pairings will be in.

• Boomer Kuwanger and Gravity Beetle (Heh, this is bros fighting side by side!)
• Storm Eagle and Storm Owl

Colonel refused to surrender out of paranoia, not just pride.

The manual for Mega Man X4 explains that Repliforce's inability to quell the massive spike in Maverick activity led to some suspecting that Repliforce were secretly Mavericks themselves. Combined with Sigma's visit to General to explain to him how humans will throw reploids aside when they're no longer needed, and it's more than enough to sow distrust in their masters. So when Sky Lagoon is destroyed and Repliforce is a prime suspect, Colonel could've suspected that they'll simply be retired as soon as they surrender, and decided that as warriors it's better for Repliforce to risk their lives in defiance than to surrender and get a bullet.

• That would have been an understandable motive and one he clearly did not think was important enough to mention.

Sigma created Axl.

He said he created the New-Gen Reploids and the Jakob Project, and while Lumine claims to be the true Big Bad he never actually contradicts Sigma's claims he created his new model of Reploids. We know he can build Reploids, be it indirectly ordering people to construct new battle bodies, or Dark Necrobat/Dark Dizzy in the Mega Man X5 lore. So as part of his obsession with X and Zero's special designs, he makes a Reploid named Axl to match them. Why wasn't he a Maverick from the get-go? By replicating their designs for the Copy Chips, it gave Axl X's immunity/Zero's resistance against the Maverick Virus. Deeming this a failure, Sigma puts Axl in stasis until he's found by Red Alert. When Axl shows up again Sigma's too busy to play Gambit Roulette to care all that much. However since he built Axl and has an idea of what he can do, he plays the Manipulative Bastard and uses his resources to push production of New-Gen Reploids, this time figuring out how to put the Trojan Horse that is the Virus (albiet with the understanding they can only be infected if they want to be). Lumine then takes over and the events of Mega Man X8 come to play. Lumine's final lashing out may have finally "completed" Axl by giving him the ability to embrace the Virus Sigma failed to build him with, assuming it isn't an attempt at a Grand Theft Me.

Zero is a Dark Man robot.

This theory is mostly Fridge Brilliance, but consider this. Capcom confirmed at Rockman Unite a popular theory: that Zero was inspired from Proto Man. Now, what other Wily robots were inspired from Proto Man? The Dark Man robots.

Wily's consciousness was copied into several different robot copies before his death.

The fanbase tends to assume that Serges and Isoc are both Dr. Wily, and that they share the same consciousness. But it's also totally reasonable to assume that Wily made a host of robot copies of himself, just in case some of them died off. There could be dozens! Maybe even Master Albert from ZXA is one too, given his Wily-inspired name and the trademark red eyes he shares with Serges and Isoc.

Zero only started having dreams of Wily after being reconstructed by Serges.

Serges, being connected to Wily, started the process to remind Zero of his original nature. Before X2 Zero had nothing to say on Wily, but after X2 is when he really recognizes him, and by X4 he's having dreams about him.

If released, Mega Man X9 will have a female Maverick boss.

If only because Mega Man 9 had the first female Robot Master.

Morph Moth is a very early prototype of Copy Chip technology.

Morph Moth's blurb describes him as a mysterious prototype with highly-advanced circuitry. He is also the earliest example of a Reploid completely changing their shape and size at will. This points to him being one of the very earliest examples of Copy Chip tech, when they were first answering the question of how to get a Reploid to transform at all.

Should the series continue, Iris will return Back from the Dead and be Promoted to Playable

Ever since the release of X4, Iris has grown in popularity, to the point of being a Breakout Character. Recently, this was shown in Mega Man X DiVE, where she was not only playable, but also gained quite a few alternate skins, and even a What If? variant with Iris -another-. The next logical step could be to have Iris return in a hypothetical X9, where she could be rebuilt and join the heroes for good as a playable character. She could use Colonel's sword as part of her moveset, and even transform into her Ride Armor form for a few seconds (similar to Axl's copy abilities).

Should the series continue, it will address Zero's return in X6

One of the biggest mysteries regarding X6 is how Zero mysteriously returned after seemingly dying for good in X5. The Japanese version of the game doesn't explain how he returned, with the English versions claiming that he was in hiding while undergoing repairs (which was probably a translation error due to the rushed script). Perhaps a future X game could build upon Zero's return, explaining who saved his life and why they did it.

Repliforce was over-reliant on heavy weaponry

Repliforce boasts that it was the most powerful army in the world and managed to take over several cities at the outbreak of the war, but they got thwarted by maverick rioters during the events mentioned in the manual. What might explain this difference in capability? During the riots, they were presumably told to avoid collateral damage, whereas during the war, they showed themselves perfectly willing to commit war crimes on a massive scale (video games: Storm Owl attacked civilian centers as distractions, Jet Stingray blew up a still-populated city. Manga: Jet Stingray caused a massive refugee crisis and cut power to hundreds of thousands of families, Web Spider boobytrapped dead Maverick Hunters and almost burned down a city, Slash Beast drove a super train through a populated city, and Frost Walrus was hunting prisoners of war for fun). So, they might be the most powerful army in the world, but they seriously struggle against any opponent they can't just carpet bomb into submission.

Zero has a perfected Double Gear system built directly into his body

X and Zero are said to have similar specs under the hood to the degree that they have very similar schematics in X5, but Wily gave Zero a trump card to overpower X. Where X has the potential for unlimited growth, Zero's integrated Double Gear gives him the sudden surges of strength and speed that lets him prevail even against enemies that are seemingly built stronger. Remember when he tore Sigma's arm clean off in a single surge of berserk strength? Just for that critical moment, he instinctively fired up a full Double Gear boost, and quickly darted under Sigma's outstretched arm and beam saber to knife-chop right at the weak part of his shoulder joint with all his strength.

Terror Teddy will feature as a maverick, finally giving Grayson Schuler the spotlight from his Nintendo Power submission.

Terror Teddy sounds suitable for a maverick boss, in a simiar vein to Crecent Grizzly. In reference to all the fabric patches holding the original character together, Terror Teddy could be a junk themed robot similar to Junk Man and have a weasel companion who acts as a Support Party Member.

X is the original Mega Man rebuilt.

It was confirmed that Zero was created by Dr. Wily to combat Mega Man. So perhaps Zero, being as powerful as he is, damaged Mega Man so badly, that he had to be rebuilt by Dr. Light into a more enhanced version of himself, and X is the result.

Serges isn't Wily- Just a Reploid that knows a lot about 20XX.

It's commonly believed that Serges is Dr. Wily in some form since his Japanese dialogue has him name dropping Dr. Light and referring to X as "Rock" by mistake, but there's an alternate explanation for this: He's simply a Reploid (and a very smart one as established by his stats) that has studied the history of 20XX. We know that Dr. Light was a public figure based on the lore of the Classic series so if Serges didn't already know of Light- which would be hard to believe considering how important Light was in the field of robotics and Serges' own expertise in the same field (as evidenced by his ability to rebuild Zero), it wouldn't have been hard for him to find information on the guy; and based on the message Light left with X's capsule (the one seen in the intro of X1), him being X's creator would likely be public knowledge as well. As for Serges calling X "Rock" by mistake, while we don't know if Mega Man himself was a public figure, Dr. Wily definitely was; and it's highly unlikely that the hero who repeatedly foiled Wily's often very public attempts at world domination would have managed to completely stay out of the public eye. Mega Man was either a public figure himself (more like a public hero if he was) or his existence was a rumor that survived into 21XX, either way, there's enough info out there that a smart Reploid well-versed in 20XX history would either outright know of him or put two and two together based on the rumors; thus him mistaking X for Mega Man himself for a moment (something many fans themselves have done over the years). In other words: Serges doesn't have to be Wily to know about Dr. Light and "Rock"(man) since the former was a known public figure and the latter likely was to some extent as well.

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