Fridge / Fuga: Melodies of Steel 2

Spoilers Off for Fridge pages. You Have Been Warned.

Regarding this game and the rest of the Fuga series

Fridge Brilliance

• When the first game's Secret Movie mentioned "the death of loved ones" as something to happen in this game, it paused on a shot of Hanna— the foreshadowing for her Plotline Death was deliberate from the start.
  • Likewise, the lyrics to "Flower on the Trails" and "Elegy of Winds" make loose references to flower petals being representative of the children's lost comrades— while "Flower on the Trails" is meant to give the message that the singer will always be with the person they're singing to even in spirit, "Elegy of Winds" is more explicit in how the children are petals carried away by the "black winds" representing death. The Japanese word for flower is hana. Do the math.

• The Central Theme of this game (and arguably the Fuga trilogy in general) is that fixating on revenge brings out the worst in people, causes them to lose track of what they care about, and makes them miserable along with it. The longer Jihl continues on his path of retaliation against the world, the more the Belenos begins to steal his sanity and memories from him, leaving him with nothing but a lust for destruction.
  • Likewise, a major theme of the Little Tail Bronx series in general is the importance of recognizing the pains of the past but to continue to move forward in spite of it— Red and Elh's opposing character arcs in Solatorobo: Red the Hunter are proof positive of this. Hence, the Belenos' purpose of resurrecting objects and living things that were lost— and completely and utterly failing in the case of the latter— can be symbolic of how Jihl's desire for revenge or to "settle the score" is effectively keeping him trapped in the past.

• The first two scripted losses aren't just meant to introduce the Managarm and the Soul Cannon as gameplay functions, but to also show the negative consequences of Malt (and by extension, the player) relying too much on either Empathy or Resolution:
  • When Malt and his friends first catch up to the rogue Taranis, Malt refuses to retaliate against it due to worrying that their captured comrades inside will be hurt as a result, and thus everyone on the Tarascus is thus unable to do anything aside from defending. As a result of having no resolution and too much empathy in the heat of the moment, Malt is unable to act decisively until it's too late. Said empathy ends up completely going to waste— Mei loses her life to the Soul Cannon, Malt and the children on the Tarascus are obliterated, and the other children on the rogue Taranis are still trapped.
  • When Malt and his friends first catch up to the Belenos following its initial escape, Malt instead insists upon retaliating against it due to his concern that Jihl will escape justice for his crimes, despite how a powerful Berman Geist will end up destroying an innocent town if they choose to ignore it and continue their pursuit. As a result of having no empathy and too much resolution in the heat of the moment, Malt is unable to consider the viewpoints of his teammates until it's too late. Said resolution similarly ends up going to waste— Malt squanders so much time arguing with his friends that the Belenos is able to escape anyways, and Hax tosses Malt into the Soul Cannon to ensure the rest of the crew's survival against the aforementioned Berman Geist.

• Possibly unintentional on the part of the writers, but Baum and Stollen are named for desserts just like most of the children are.

• As has been stated on the first game's Fridge page, the Gasco children's and adults' Edible Theme Naming schemes are extensions of one another's, as both sweets and alcohol are indulgent substances for kids and adults respectively. Vanilla, however, has a last name related to alcohol compared to the rest of the children. While this is due to her being a relative to a previously established adult character (Lieutenant Cannelle Muscat), it also highlights her role as the Lonely Rich Kid of the crew, combined with the pressure put upon her to be mature and her own desire to be a worthy leader someday.

• Malt's last name is Marzipan. Marzipan is a confectionary made out of almond paste. After Hanna dies, Malt goes into a Heroic BSoD and also undergoes a degree of Sanity Slippage. In other words, Malt's psyche starts to get a little nutty.

• Why is Jihl wearing restraints — a straitjacket, arm braces and a chain attached to his legs — at the start of the game? Because he probably already tried to go on a rampage against Crusade back when they were still using him as a test subject for the Soul Cannon. Given how it took the Belenos linking with one of its auxiliary generators for Jihl to unlock his restraints personally, the Female Engineer was probably unable to do so herself in time for the last stand against the Vanargand.

• Regarding the control mechanisms and/or power sources for the tanks:
  • Per Jeanne's archives in the first Fuga, the Taranis and the Belenos were originally designed to have interfaces akin to Titano-Machina that Crusade's pseudo-hybrids would have used to pilot these tanks. This is consistent with what was shown in Solatorobo: Red the Hunter, where the two antagonistic hybrids from that game used the interfaces on their respective mechas to reawaken and control two Titano-Machina. However, as revealed in this game, Crusade's hybrids constantly perished from the strain of their attempts to pilot the Belenos, and complications arose in the production of hybrids in general. As a result, the Belenos Project was frozen, and the Taranis was redesigned to use Jeanne and whatever energy source was fueling her as a control system that didn't need a hybrid pilot— but the original interface meant for the hybrids was evidently never completely removed.
  • From the Taranis' redesign up until the first game, the Taranis was powered by the "life force" that allowed Jeanne to function as an AI for thousands of years. Similarly, the Tarascus used the excavated heart of the Vanargand as its own power source. At the end of the game, the Taranis' energy source (along with what's heavily implied to have been some of Jihl's bio-energy) was used up in order to fuel the Soul Cannon and defeat Hax. As a result, Jeanne went offline permanently and the Taranis was no longer able to move or function by itself.
  • With Jeanne effectively being dead by the start of the second game, Jihl instead activates and controls the Taranis by using the hybrid-specific interfaces that are still in place, essentially acting as a "turbine" or "generator" moving it forward, as opposed to how the Tarascus still has a "battery" in the form of its core (which has assimilated the original Hax and produced an AI version of him as its control mechanism). Following the boss fight at the Crusade Temple, it's shown that the Taranis has stopped moving after hastily slamming into the Tarascus, to signify that Jihl has escaped and jumped ship to the Belenos. Jihl begins piloting the Belenos using the same method that he did the Taranis, while the Taranis and the Tarascus' remains fuse into the Exo-Taranis, again powered by the Vanargand's former heart. At the end of this game, the Exo-Taranis' core is used up to fuel the Soul Cannon against Cayenne, which terminates AI Hax's existence just like Jeanne before him, and results in the Taranis reverting to its original state with no power source once again.

• The Belenos has the same weapon types as the Taranis: a cannon (the Cunomaglus, which blasts once red-colored energy), a machine gun (the Atepomarus, which fires three times with blue-colored energy), and two grenade launchers (the Vindonnus and Moritagus, which each shoot once with yellow-colored energy).
  • Each of the auxiliary generators have special attacks that reflect certain abilities from the children— the Cunomagulus can injure the children (cannons are the biggest damage-dealers, Boron and Jin have abilities to boost injury resistance or defense respectively), the Atepomarus can delay the children (machine guns are the fastest, Hack has an ability to delay enemies longer), the Vindonnus heals the Belenos' HP (Chick and Wappa have skills to heal and relieve the party of negative status effects), and the Moritagus can inflict fear upon the children (Socks' specialty is in inflicting negative status effects on enemies, like how smoke causes enemies to miss their shots).

• The original Japanese version of the game refers to Jihl by the term of jinzōningen (人造人間), a term which has the literal translation of "artificial human" but is a generally vague term which can refer to any unnaturally-existing humanoid, and is often translated into other languages as "android" or "cyborg" (just ask Dragon Ball Z fans how often they have discussions on this topic). While the French translation also refers to Jihl as a "synthetic being", the initial release of the game had the English version refer to him as a "cyborg" while the European Spanish version referred to him as an "android". Some Fuga fans actually discussed this with one of the localizers of the game, who then stated that "android" was closer to what they had intended as a descriptor for "hybrid"— hence, the English translation was later patched to replace all mentions of "cyborg" with "android". I found this odd at first given how Jihl had previously shown aspects of an organic being that go beyond that of a Meat-Sack Robot^note the end card for Chapter 9 portrays him eating, the Soul Cannon requires Bio-Energy to power it, and Cayenne says that Jihl is assimilated into the Belenos' "bio-organic" makeup despite clearly having cybernetics integrated into him, but after a bit more thought I came to realize something— "android" may instead be a reference to how Jihl was created as opposed to his actual physical makeup.^note I actually asked the same localizer about said makeup was, his response was "good question" Unlike how your run-of-the-mill Artificial Human is usually grown in a vat of some kind, Crusade's hybrids were probably cobbled together like a doll before being given life, like biomechanical golems of sorts (think Adam Frankenstein or the Replicants) just like the Belenos itself.
  • Crusade's hybrids being constructed rather than born would certainly explain why their initial batch would be emotionally unresponsive before their redesign, as well as explain Jihl's one line about whether he has the capability to have dreams.
  • Likewise, from a more thematic standpoint, the main difference between "cyborg" and "android" is that cyborgs always start out as organic humans, whereas androids are described as being humanlike robots that could never have started out as organic. "Cyborg" refers to a person, "android" refers to an object. Jihl being labeled as an "android" rather than a "cyborg" serves to emphasize his detachment from his humanity, along with how Crusade treated him like a thing rather than a person.

• The reasoning behind why Crusade chose Jihl to be a reusable energy source for the Soul Cannon can be clarified by a small detail mentioned in the Solatorobo art books.^note For context, it was used to explain why Red could survive the Rite of Forfeit. This detail states that hybrids that are strong enough to activate and control machines like Titano-Machina do so through transferring their own bio-energy to them. Jihl was the only test pilot of the Belenos that didn't die of strain in his attempts to control it, and the Soul Cannon also works through extracting the bio-energy of its chosen sacrifice, hence why Crusade surmised that Jihl could survive being used to power it. Of course, the Soul Cannon still needs to extract a lot of bio-energy for it to work, for more than what would be used to control the Taranis or the Belenos, so it doesn't change the fact that Jihl had to experience the pain of death over and over again.

• The second-to-last Jeanne Archive had Jihl described as a "counterpart" to Jeanne, which led players to think of him as a Living Battery for the Taranis after the first game came out, while in this game proper it's stated that he was merely exploited by Crusade as renewable Soul Cannon ammunition. However, this game also reveals that the Female Engineer was a major player in both Jeanne and Jihl's lives— she created the former using herself as a physical template, and she acted as the primary caretaker and "Mama" to the latter. In a rather heartwarming turn of events, Jeanne calling Jihl her counterpart was less her alluding to their purposes as literal "components" of the Taranis, and more in her viewing him as a sort of "brother" to her. It's appropriate that she expressed hopefulness towards reuniting with him in the afterlife.

• The Belenos' hidden programming to assimilate its hybrid pilot into its organic makeup seems like an out-of-left-field reveal at first, but it's probable that it was intended to be a Godzilla Threshold for the machine. There's a number of details indicating that the Belenos was never tested with all its auxiliary generators integrated at once— just one is enough for Jihl to experience aches and pains on the level of the experimentation he was subjected to in the past, and getting more results in Jihl starting to undergo Sanity Slippage that he probably didn't experience back when they were using him as a guinea pig. The narration states outright that the production of hybrids began experiencing issues during the Belenos' testing as opposed to just the weapon itself, meaning that Crusade was left with too few resources to continue their full testing. If the last survivor Jihl were to die from using a more completed Belenos, that would be it for any testing. It can be inferred that Crusade aimed for the Belenos to successfully resurrect the dead using as few auxiliary generators as possible, but it's also possible that they added the hidden assimilation program in the event that even all four generators weren't enough, so that they could make use of the hybrid subject as a "fifth generator" of sorts.

Fridge Horror

• How Crusade treated their hybrids is probably even worse than what the game would lead you to think at first glance:
  • Jeanne's archives in the first game note that the first test firing of the Soul Cannon was done in the wastelands, and that it was never recorded who was sacrificed. She never said that it was the only firing of the Soul Cannon done before it was used to stop the Vanargand, and Jihl outright confirms midway into Chapter 8 that many of his hybrid brethren also died in combat as opposed to just from experimentation. It's probable that any hybrids that managed to survive their attempts to control the Belenos (or were created to be Taranis pilots) were promptly used by Crusade as shells for the Soul Cannon and did not survive due to not being as refined as Jihl, with Jihl himself merely being the last in line for such.
  • The Taranis suddenly having a teleportation function may seem like a case of New Powers as the Plot Demands at first glance, until you realize that Crusade most likely implemented said function as a way of forcing any uncooperative hybrid children into becoming Soul Cannon fuel, in the same way that Jihl and AI Hax use it in the game proper. It shows that Jeanne's vengeful half, despite her insistence on using the Soul Cannon when it unsealed, at least had the restraint and common decency to not force the children into becoming sacrifices for it (after the tutorial, at least).
  • On that note, Jihl may not be using his inherent powers to control the captive kids. In the Soul Cannon tutorial for the first game, the selected child talks as if they hear a voice coming from the Taranis (not Jeanne, the Taranis itself) telling them to enter the chamber. For example, while Hanna and Kyle are told to enter it to save everyone, Mei is instead told to enter it as she "won't be afraid anymore", thinking that Malt will come to find her afterwards. Hence, the Taranis may already be equipped with an additional function that allows it to brainwash its crew into subservience so that they can stop complaining and continue fighting, or so that they can bypass how the Soul Cannon can otherwise only be powered by a willing sacrifice. While Jeanne may have only ever used a mild form of it, Jihl used it at its maximum settings and was probably already subjected to it himself at some point.
  • Let's take note of the tiny tidbit of lore which confirms word-for-word that the Soul Cannon can only be powered by a child, seemingly on purpose per how the Female Engineer was still able to give it a temporary adjustment so that it could sacrifice an adult like herself. Why is that? Well, aside from how the Taranis itself was designed to be operated by hybrid children, it may have been built that way so that it couldn't be used against the adults at Crusade, either due to more foresight on their behalf or because a hybrid may have openly wished to do that to one of the adults in the past. Another disciplinary measure, to put it simply.
  • The Crusade Archives for this game note that the Female Engineer didn't know every single thing Crusade was doing— for instance, while she was a major player in the creation of their pseudo-hybrids, it was them who told her that Jihl could survive the Soul Cannon, and she only joined the Belenos' development team after it started killing its pilots. Her records also showed that she wished that the Belenos would be "the wings on which [Jihl] flew" as a way for him to finally see the outside world… and yet, when the Belenos is completed in the game, it assimilates Jihl into becoming a mindless node of it. It's dead obvious that the Female Engineer wouldn't have approved of this, implying that she either disabled it during testing of the Belenos, or that Crusade deliberately hid knowledge of it from her so that she wouldn't try and stop it if it were to happen.

Connections to the rest of the Little Tail Bronx universe

Fridge Brilliance

• This isn't the first time we've seen a Titano-Machina assimilate someone. It is the first time that a Titano-Machina's core determined to create an AI from their victim's data, however.

• It's very likely that Socks took notes about Crusade and their creations, which carries a lot of implications regarding Merveille and Baion's experiments:
  • First of all, Socks having explicit knowledge of the "Old World" means that Merveille likely would have known about it before meeting Baion as well. Hence, her decision to work with Baion wasn't just one of pure morbid curiosity, but because she felt it would give her the chance to finally solve mysteries that had driven her family line for centuries. It also gives an explanation as to why Baion took an interest in Merveille: he needed her knowledge of Old World technology as opposed to just her skills as a good engineer or sidekick. He'd likely already spent centuries trying and failing to realize his plans to summon Tartaros and execute CODA without any outside help.
  • It's heavily implied in the first Fuga game that Socks' research on the Taranis laid the foundation for Merveille developing the Dahak centuries later. However, the Dahak was also able to store the bio-data and consciousnesses of Nero and Blanck following their deaths at the hand of a Brainwashed and Crazy Red… except that storing bio-data is something that the Belenos was designed to do to allow it to resurrect deceased organisms in the first place, and Hanna's soul also spends a chunk of the game being assimilated with its systems following the destruction of her physical form. Who's to say Merveille didn't take inspiration from both of Crusade's biggest projects?
  • Per the "Ragdoll Elegy" novel and the Japanese art books, Baion's first plan would have been to find the original Nero and Blanck and use their powers to summon Tartaros, which never went through due to them being lost to another plane of existence like Tartaros itself was. If Socks' notes on Jihl and Crusade's experiments with pseudo-hybrids survived, it's likely that Merveille and Baion used them as proof that they could successfully create their own pseudo-hybrids. The two likely also realized that proper Titano-Machina would probably be far harder machines to control compared to the Taranis or the Belenos— and Jihl was never able to completely master the latter— and so they gave their hybrids the power of Trance so that they could to avoid such issue. It seems that not all of humanity's scientific progress was lost to the Reset after all!

• While it's an easy read to say that Jihl is this game's equivalent to Nero and Blanck given his appearance and personality, he may actually have the most in common with Red himself as a character:
  • Both were more successful than most other hybrids created from the operations that birthed them, but still ultimately failed in their initial purposes (Jihl came closest to controlling the Belenos but was unable to use its resurrection powers properly, Red was neck-and-neck with Nero and Blanck but failed to activate a Titano-Machina).
  • Both are indicated to be capable of adapting and growing (the Female Engineer describes Jihl as having "limitless potential", Merveille designed Red to be able to grow beyond expected parameters unlike the tailor-made Nero and Black).
  • Both desire personal freedom and to rebel against their original purposes (Jihl's anger towards the experiments he endured leads him to want to take the Belenos for himself and go on a rampage, Red tries hard to fight off his original programming as a force of destruction).
  • Both are extremely prideful and typically refuse to show any emotional vulnerability (Jihl's confident streak is heavily implied to be a coping facade, Red is apprehensive towards confronting any feelings of grief or sadness).
  • Both were created to use their bio-energy to operate a machine (Jihl was meant to pilot the Belenos, Red was meant to control Lares or Lemures) with this also allowing them to be used as a living battery for something via an extremely painful process that would kill anyone else (Jihl was used as a constant energy source for the Soul Cannon, Red's life energy was used to awaken Lares via the Rite of Forfeit).
  • Both had a mother figure who wished to atone in an attempt to keep them safe (the Female Engineer sealed Jihl away and took his place as a sacrifice for the Soul Cannon, Merveille entrusted Red with the Dahak and later joined the Kurvaz in her aims to destroy Lares).
  • Unfortunately, Jihl may also be a showcase of how Red's power to "see things through to the end" can horribly backfire, as while Red uses this power to save the day, Jihl's stubborn inability to let go of things constantly bites him in the ass.

Fridge Horror

• Despite the map of Gasco in this game mostly lining up with Shepherd's geography in Solatorobo, there is still some disparity in landmass between the two— by Solatorobo, the Lhassa Apso landmass will have been split into two, Airdale will have been reduced from a single landmass to a cluster of islands, and the southern penninsula of the Dale Kurilia landmass will have split off to become Viszla. Is another country-wide sundering in the works for Gasco/Shepherd down the line?
  • A slightly less chilling possibility is that, in the wake of everything, there will be the equivalent of tectonic shifts, with some landmasses splitting due to the initial sundering essentially leaving them with fault lines running through them.