History Headscratchers / MegaManX

* Is Sigma really dead after ''X8''?
** Until Capcom needs him to be alive again, yeah.
*** They'll bring him back via Copy Chip Reploids. The personality of Sigma is dead, but a lot of guys pretendng to be him will be running around.
*** Except that [[WordOfGod those New Generation Reploids are eradicated between X8 and Command Mission.]] And there's a secret factory in the latter game that secretly (and, most likely, illegally) builds them. Then again, they could only transform into Sigma without ''actually'' becoming Sigma. Just see the {{Elite Mook}}s in X8's final level, which are [[spoiler:all Copy Chip Reploids emulating Sigma.]] They're just {{Elite Mook}}s, nothing more.

** X had ''literally'' disarmed himself moments prior. Turning his non-Buster hand (we never see base X use two Busters) into an improvised weapon is exactly the kind of adaptational and evolutionary potential that got Sigma so interested in him. It was just meant to show how special X is.

** He had (literally) disarmed himself moments prior. Turning his non-Buster hand (we never see X use two Busters) into a weapon is exactly the kind of adaptational and evolutionary potential that got Sigma so interested in him. It was just meant to show how special X is compared to other Reploids.

** It's the "limitless potential" Sigma (Or was it Light?) was talking about moments before. Also doubles as a nice reference to ''Anime/MobileFighterGGundam'', intentional or otherwise; especially considering X was voiced by Domon in that movie.

* Lumine's statement in ''X8'' that the new-type Reploids can go Maverick at will thanks to having Sigma's DNA in them seems nonsensical. Let me explain; only two or three games specifically confirm that the Maverick Virus was the cause of the Reploid bosses going Maverick (X3 and X5, and maybe X1); the rest were either non-infected criminals (X7), rebels (X1 and X2), or labeled Maverick by the humans on a whim (X4 and X6). It's also been shown many times that quite a few of the Mavericks the Hunters kill off are acting Maverick on their own free will (as criminals, dissidents, or simply exhibiting independent tendencies that the humans feel threatened by). So, if Reploids were going "Maverick" on their own for long before the new-type ones were even conceived of, then why does Lumine claim that they are the first ones that can do so willingly?
** In defense of the "Humans labeled them Mavericks" during X6, they were actually ''[[ProperlyParanoid right]]''.
** "Whim"? Repliforce equipment ''and'' '''troops''' were seen trashing Sky Lagoon before it dropped and killed several million people. As far as anyone could tell, Repliforce was guilty, and their refusal to come in for questioning screamed red flag. Sure they were framed, but Repliforce did nothing to alleviate that perception and plenty to enforce it.
** This is easy to explain if you actually don't think about it too hard: The "mavericks" that were not maverick-virus created were forced to defend themselves, but still didn't go out of their way to destroy large swaths of humanity. The true mavericks, the ones that could circumvent their supposedly hard-coded anti human-killing programming, were virus-created. The new-generation reploids, with Sigma's DNA, could do whatever they wanted, including killing humans, essentially going maverick at will.
*** I don't think it's ever mentioned that reploids have 'anti human-killing programming' - reploids are supposed to have complete free will and not hamstrung by any programming (after all, Doctor Light fears that X will break the First Law). Not to mention that while no free-willed Mavericks went on killing sprees in the games, they were either pretty nasty or would have caused harm to humans as a result of their plans. Magma Dragoon, for example, was not infected but still dropped Sky Lagoon on a city and killed millions, thus proving a reploid can choose to kill humans if they really want to.
** It might be more of a philosophical declaration than anything to do with viruses; lots of free-willed Mavericks claim that they were 'forced' to act (Repliforce, Magma Dragoon, the Cadre, etc). Lumine, though, is saying that he and the new-gens are waging ''war'' on the 'Old World' and therefore are making the unrepentant choice to become Mavericks.
** I think it's that they can turn off their Conscience at will. Most people would have issues about killing someone because they cut them off in traffic. A New Generation Reploid might say "No, this is wrong...", turn off their conscience, then proceed to murder the guy that cut them off without a second thought. Humanity basically created a powerful race of sociopaths.
** The Mavericks in X7 were captured and released by Red Alert, the members of which were shown in a cutscene to have been infected with Sigma's version of the Maverick virus. Flame Hyenard was actually dying from it.

* Just what the heck ''were'' those tentacles that shot out of Lumine's body? Nanites? Some sort of alien organism? A last-shot attack? What was it supposed to do? It did ''something'' to Axl, but we're not sure what.
** The theory most fans have is that those tentacles stored the Sigma Virus that all New-Generation Reploids come pre-programmed with. By hitting Axl in the forehead with these tentacles, it transferred some of the Sigma Virus into Axl, which may cause him to get Maverick tendencies and become more like Sigma. Notice the tiny jewel in his forehead during the secret ending scene.

* Why was the Cadre's Maverick status deferred at the end of Command Mission? While it is true that Redips manipulated everybody and the Cadre might have been falsely accused Maverick at the start, the Cadre did ''more'' than enough to earn the label. They took over Giga City, ruthlessly oppressed its citizens (including the torture of the original Massimo), acted like general psychopaths, and then planned to launch a missile that would spread SFM over the area to make normal reploids 'evolve' whether they wanted to or not (but would most likely send most of them insane). Redips didn't manipulate them to do ''any'' of those things; they chose to do it. Just because it turns out Redips was behind it all and the Cadre ''thought'' that they were [[WellIntentionedExtremist Well Intentioned Extremists]] doesn't excuse any of their actions. (Even Scarface, noble as he was, didn't think twice of shooting that missile and dooming thousands to insanity.) They're Mavericks, plain and simple.
** I've pondered this as well, and I wonder if it is partially to do with "Choice vs. Programming". Redips chose to turn Maverick so he could rule over everyone else as a God. In so doing, any information he gave the others would likely have a very strong bias towards defeating Epsilon and the Cadre to further his ends. Epsilon, on the other hand, appears to have been subject to some sort of programming issue, if I read the error message back in Lagrano correctly. (If I did read it correctly, he was probably programmed by a distant cousin of the technician who programmed G0-T0 in ''VideoGame/KnightsOfTheOldRepublicIITheSithLords''.) It almost seems like he was programmed with some kind of order that caused him to go off the deep end (and likely take any connected Reploids with him), something that his programming would find impossible to achieve without causing a rebellion. If it was something as innate as programming, then the higher-ups could likely annotate the records associated with him in such a manner. As for the Supra-Force Missile, remember that the Rebellion knew quite a bit about the movements of the Resistance (as the trap in Giamala Mine can show). I wouldn't be surprised if Epsilon had plants/spies/sympathizers in relatively good positions in the government who could feed him useful information. Couple that with the damage the Hunters have been doing to the Rebellion Army's operations, and I wouldn't be surprised if Epsilon and Co. were getting a wee bit desperate. Not to excuse them, but you know what they say about desperate times...

*** It was something very easy to gloss over, as it wasn't anything terribly specific, but I recall the output saying that an "error" had occurred. Also, going back to the original question about Epsilon's Maverick status being deferred, I've been thinking on it more as I've been replaying the game. I noticed that, up until the SFM-missile comes into play, the core Cadre members (Epsilon, Scarface, Ferham, Botos to a degree) don't commict acts of the same nature as those committed by the earlier bosses (Wild Jango up through Incentas). It makes me wonder if Epsilon had given them specific orders that they at least partially disregarded, whether in the hopes of currying Epsilon's favor or because they felt it was necessary. As examples, seeing as how Chief R. and the original Steel Massimo were seen as symbols for the Resistance's cause, it wouldn't make sense (at least, not to me) to target them, asides from maybe imprisoning them in an attempt to get them to see the Rebellion's side. They would be seen as martyrs if they were killed, and that would likely strengthen the support for the Resistance. However, the fact that they were targeted, whether by imprisonment/bomb threat (R.) or by torture (Massimo), it makes me wonder how privy Epsilon was to the minutae of his underlings' missions, or how dense he was if he ordered them to be targeted.
** Was the entire Cadre's Maverick status revoked, or just Epsilon's core group? Because most of the evil that's done is due to JerkAss underlings like Silver Horn, whom the Cadre leaders probably just didn't have time to deal with.
* As I've played through Command Mission, this has kind of nagged at me. Are all of the bosses you face throughout the game the Cadre, or is that title reserved for Epsilon and his "Inner Circle" (Scarface, Ferham, Botos)? The prior bosses refer to themselves as being part of the "Rebellion Army", but Botos clearly states he is "a Cadre of the Rebellion Army". I know the Cadre is a subsect of the Rebellion Army, but what's the difference?
** Botos, Scarface, and Ferham are the Cadre, the special elite inner circle working closely with Epsilon. Wild Jango, Silver Horn, Dr. Psyche, Mach Jentra, Incentas, and Duckbill Mole are the top soldiers/scientists/commanders of the Rebellion, with all of the other Reploids and Mechaniloids as their minions. Note that Raffelsian, the Beladonnas, and Ninetails are not part of the Rebellion, and Depth Dragoon is one of Redips' underlings.

* How is Sigma gone for good after his defeat ''X8''? So he died on the moon with nothing to jump into, in ''X4'' he was left without a body in the middle of space. He already survived being stuck in the middle of nowhere before, so how would doing the same thing again being any different?
** In X4, Sigma built a battle body seemingly on the fly for the final battle, so he probably had something made just in case. Another thing to consider is distance; Sigma being beamed to earth from an orbiting station after the battle is over is nothing compared to being on a moon base that was jamming communications. That and fan speculation is that Sigma's viral form was too damaged from the events of X3-X6 for him to survive much longer.

* Did they ever explain how Vile came back in ''X8''? He just kinda shows up in the intro and no questions are asked. It almost sounds like he got resurrected prior to ''X8'' and has been showing up regularly for a while, by how casually X and Zero treat his appearance.
** There's a theory that he's not really Vile, but rather a New Generation Reploid copying a blueprint for a potential upgraded design for him. This is supported by the fact that he refers to himself as if he is a New Generation Reploid, even though he's been around for a long time.
** Another theory is that Vile has been around for a while between ''X7'' and ''X8''. This explains why X and Zero aren't very surprised to see him, and also why he is called Vile V when his last appearance was Vile MK.II, leaving out two potential Vile forms in between.

** Aside from Storm Eagle playing the double agent in some continuities, we see numerous once rescuing becomes a mechanic, specifically the [[http://megaman.wikia.com/wiki/Wolfloid Wolfloids]].
** Plus, in the manga series for X3, several animal Mavericks revert back to normal and help fight alongside X and Zero against Bit and Byte.
** And in Command Mission, there's a friendly doctor who's a platypus.
** The Zero series has non-Maverick animal reploids. They're still your enemies, though.

** It seems like rebuilding a Reploid's body requires their mind/AI to still be intact to work - remember Dr. Cain had Zero's control chip - and is therefore less sketchy and less illegal. But I think DNA resurrection completely reconstructs a Reploid's mind from the ground up, possibly from the moment the sample was collected, which makes it a bit more existential and freaky. It's like resuscitation of someone comatose versus complete resurrection from the dead.

*** In the face of all this evidence toward theory 1, no wiki can just say Capcom confirmed one of the others and not actively show where this was said for it to be accepted as WordOfGod.

** Iris and Gate's deaths are also quite different from Sigma's. Iris was beaten by Zero and had also overloaded her body by fusing with Colonel's chip - Iris and Colonel's backstory makes clear that the two being one being was too dangerous and unstable. Meanwhile, Gate got totally messed up by Sigma, and it's possible that he did him in so bad he couldn't be recovered. However, after Zero's defeat in ''X1'', they still had most of his essential circuitry left and he only died because he got his body torn in half (also in ''X5'' for that matter... dude gets torn in half a lot).

** What about mass-produced Reploids, such as the scores of identical Reploids seen in factions such as Repliforce and the Maverick Hunters? What would it be like to be part of an army of clones? Would they really have free will if they are constructed for a specific task? Would they be able to quit and alter their body to fit another job better?

* So, Reploids are defined by their complete free will and advanced thought processes. However, not all Reploids are created the same - while many of them are built like humans, there are also Reploids specifically built like animals or plants or what may have you. Because of their free will, do there exist procedures to transform one's mechanical body into another form, akin to gender transitioning? Was Chill Penguin a humanoid Reploid who decided to get his body converted into that of a penguin's? Or if he was "born" a penguin, would he be able to get converted into a humanoid? We see that characters have their bodies rebuilt and upgraded on various occasions, from Zero to Sigma to Vile. However, the similar technology of DNA resurrection is supposedly illegal. So would these body-creating procedures even be legal? What kind of impacts would this have on Reploid society? How far does their supposed free will go?

* After being a zombie in ''X6'', hy was Sigma in such good shape in ''X7''? Only to go back to being broken again in ''X8''?
** In ''X7'', the cutscenes where Sigma's meeting with Red show that he's hiding his body under a cloak. Sigma then makes power-ups from the DNA data Axl steals for Red Alert, and uses them to restore his body back to normal for a while. However, Sigma goes back to his messed-up zombie look at the end of ''X7'', showing that the DNA power-ups were only temporary and easily reverted by a solid fight with the Hunters.

* Why did Capcom think it was okay to give Signas such a similar name to Sigma? As a kid who played X1 and then jumped straight into X5, I was utterly baffled that the main antagonist was now a commander - until I realized he wasn't. Maybe they sound more different in Japanese, idk.

* Okay I'll bite: how does Sigma keep coming back so consistently? Why doesn't this happen to every other Reploid who's died, like Iris or Gate? They even still had both of their bodies intact. Can't they just rebuild bodies for their friends, like the Mavericks keep doing for Sigma?

** It seems like rebuilding a Reploid's body requires their mind/AI to still be intact to work - remember Dr. Cain had Zero's control chip - and is therefore less sketchy and less illegal. But I think DNA resurrection completely reconstructs a Reploid's mind from the ground up, possibly from the moment the sample was collected, which makes it a bit more existential and freaky. It's like resuscitation of someone comatose versus complete resurrection from the dead.

** It's possible that the reason Sigma is so easy to resurrect is because of his connection to the Sigma Virus. After Sigma's death in ''X1'', the X-Hunters spend most of ''X2'' working on reviving him out of loyalty to his cause. Then he dies in ''X2'', but his virus manages to infect Dr. Doppler in ''X3'', resulting in Doppler reviving him again. He dies again in ''X3'', even being neutralized by Doppler's vaccine... but yeah, his reappearance in ''X4'' is totally unexplained. You got me there. And it seems like after ''X4'' they don't bother trying to explain his reappearances at all, besides in ''X6'' and briefly in ''X8''.

* Okay I'll bite: how does Sigma keep coming back so consistently? Why doesn't this happen to every other Reploid who's died, like Iris or Gate? Can't they just rebuild bodies for their friends, like the Mavericks keep doing for Sigma?

** It seems like rebuilding a Reploid's body requires their mind/AI to still be intact to work, and is therefore less sketchy and illegal. I think DNA resurrection completely rebuilds a Reploid's mind from the ground up, possibly from the moment the sample was collected, which makes it a bit more existential and freaky.

** It's possible that the reason Sigma is so easy to resurrect is because of his connection to the Sigma Virus. After Sigma's death in ''X1'', the X-Hunters spend most of ''X2'' working on reviving him out of loyalty to his cause. Then he dies in ''X2'', but his virus manages to infect Dr. Doppler in ''X3'', resulting in Doppler reviving him again. He dies again in ''X3'', even being neutralized by Doppler's vaccine... but yeah, his reappearance in ''X4'' is totally unexplained. You got me there. And it seems like after ''X4'' they don't bother trying to explain his reappearances at all, besides in ''X6'' and briefly in ''X8''.