Headscratchers / Xenosaga

Headscratchers for Xenosaga.

• If Kevin wanted he and Shion to be together, why in the world did he build KOS-MOS to draw off her lifespan? And why didn't he just charm her and have her consent to becoming a testament like him? Since testaments are seemingly immortal in the physical sense, then they COULD have been together.
  • Well, KOS-MOS doesn't directly draw off her lifespan, in the physical sense. Contact with U-DO seems to be a mental assault instead, thus why its victims fall into a coma instead of outright dying. As for why KOS-MOS must tap into U-DO, it's because it's the only completely limitless energy source available, which would be necessary to guarantee 100% protection until T-elos could be fully researched and built. Finally, I don't really have an answer for not charming her, except her friends are around a lot of the time, and killing them off isn't exactly a glowing endorsement.
    • And trying to convince them to join is blown by Ziggy and Voyager.
• Why doesn't Shion realize that KOS-MOS is an unemotional, soulless killing machine 90% of the time? She programmed KOS-MOS, so she really should know better and not freak out when KOS-MOS acts in a ruthless or callous manner.
  • Simple, Shion is either in denial or she's too lacking in basic common sense to see the obvious. This isn't helped by how childish she acts.
  • Given the bombshell dropped on her in game #3 it seems evident that while Shion may be an engineering genius she was completely passed over in the common sense department.
    • So in other words, she's a moron?
    • I wouldn't say she is a moron so much as she is extremely immature.
  • Because that part was in Kevin's black box programming.
    • Speaking of, it's not like she can extrapolate the entirety of the personality just because she wrote it-in the same way that instead of having programmers, realians have psychologists. Even if it is "a computer program" any artificial intelligence is sufficiently advanced that it can't simply be fully understood by programming it. Imagine a bunch of guys in a labcoat trying to figure out the entirety of a person's personality and guiding it-then imagine that Shion doesn't have them. Still, I'll stick with the Black Box aspect too.
  • The Black box theory makes the most sense. In the first game, Shion says a few times that KOS-MOS has been repeatedly ignoring orders and bypassing her (Shion's) programming.
    • So she wasn't shocked at KOS-MOS acting ruthlessly, ect; she was just stunned that KOS-MOS appeared to be acting of her own volition, when Shion and crew (except apparently not Kevin) had programmed her to follow authorized instructions.
• Why did Vector put a sentimental moron like Shion in charge of a weapons project?
  • She was the only person who knew what Kevin was doing when he died.
  • Not to mention Wilhelm's greater project regarding how Shion and Kos-Mos relate to one another.
    • And you don't argue with the CEO of the company, especially since he has, apparently, been the ONLY CEO for a company that's 4000 years old.
• Why does the Federation military and its hardware suck so much? Superweapons seem a dime a dozen in the Xenosaga universe...
  • They're fighting Lovecraftian horrors, and the Secret Masters keep stealing the good stuff.
  • It looks like %90 of their stuff was based on preliminarily research done by Mizrahi before he hit batshit level insane and blinked himself and all his notes into a pocket dimension. You know taping into the sum total of all consciousness can REALLY raise your productivity level but you know With Great Power Comes Great Insanity .
  • I don't know if the Federation's military sucks that badly-the only real times you see them actually facing the gnosis is when they don't have the bare minimum resources to do so-ala, when they don't have the 100-series units, and at the end when they're just completely and utterly overwhelmed. They're capable of posing a serious threat to the Dammerung in Ep 1, for instance.
    • If by threat you mean a stained hull, then yes - otherwise the Dämmerung wipes the floor with the federation ships in those scenes. That thing is as huge as a frigging moon and has millions of photon torpedo tubes. It's really hilarious when the federation parliament considers the Durandal to be too much firepower in the hands of a corporation yet is perfectly fine with Vector having their headquarters on a Death Star.
    • Not really, it's explicitly stated by several characters in the game that Vector is a full blown Megacorp. Meaning it has more than enough cash on hand to purchase the complacency and outright support of government officials and politicians.
    • Well, they may not be perfectly fine with it; however, Vector has its headquarters on a Death Star, so what are they going to do about it?
  • It's rather obvious. The Federation military is designed to fight a conventional war against conventional enemies, not Gnosis. Their fleets hold their own against those deployed by Ormus in episode III, and probably would have won had Abel's Ark not arrived. Had it not been for the presence of the Song of Nephilim, among so may other things, they could have simply overwhelmed Miltia's defenses with legions of combat realians, robots, and A.M.W.S. In short, when they're in their element they are a formidable fighting force, it's just that intangible monsters are not their element.
    • Prior to the battle of Miltia the Gnosis, while undoubtedly a threat, appeared only rarely, leaving them stumped as to how to combat them. Post Miltia, while they now know how to fight them, they have to contend with the massive logistical issues a military their size poses, even with 14 years to do it, they never quite got there. Among other challenges they had to finalize the design of and produce hundreds of thousands of 100 series realians, design, test, produce, create combat tactics and doctrines around, and form units to operate A.G.W.S., and retrofit tens to hundreds of thousands of warships, many presumably older than 14 years, with Hilbert amplifiers among what can be assumed to be between dozens and hundreds of false leads, failed projects and the like. And all of that while dealing with spies in their midst, limited budgets, and bureaucrats at their throats. Frankly, it's a miracle they're as competent as they are against the Gnosis.
• Why does Wilhelm only hire screwed up, self destructive idiots to be Testaments? Virgil is about the last person I would pick, and as for Albedo... seriously, despite being unbeatable in combat not a man among them manages to survive episode three, not exactly a glowing endorsement of his hiring standards.

  • This actually has a completely simple, logical answer endorsed by the series: Only screwed up, morally corrupt or at least morally injured, somewhat evil and/or crazy, machiavellian or easily manipulated people AGREE to his offer and to aid his plans once they know of them. Most sane, intelligent, morally sound people would be horrified. Also keep in mind the sort of life shattering plans within plans Wilhelm usually conducts to purposefully destroy the lives of the people he's trying to recruit. Also, keep in mind you have to DIE first to be a Testament (to the 'why didn't he ask Shion' person below). Case in point ot this whole paragraph, a HUGE part of the endgame of Pied Piper was that, among a half-a-dozen other things, part of Wilhelm and company's huge conspiracy was to ^&%$ up Jan Sauer's (Ziggy's) life SO badly he join Wilhelm as the Black Testament. Ziggy refused his flat out, and Wilhelm was stuck with Erik (Voyager) instead, despite wanting the far superior Jan.

  • On a related note, why the hell didn’t he ever bother asking Shion.
  • In a more serious note, why did Wilhelm have to do ANY of that shit? I mean, c'mon! He had to, what, awaken the ES's or. .. something? What were the Testaments even for? Clearly, it was all part of his plan to have them get offed-that was the point.
  • He also had to retrieve the Zohar and the emulators, make sure Shion and KOS-MOS turned up at the right place at the right time, awaken Abel's Ark, make sure Abel remained in his possession and do all this while people like Dimitri, Sergius, Helmer and the player characters messed with his plan. Kevin was also extremely useful for his skills as a scientist. You are right though, in that none of them really had any further use when it came to the endgame. Perhaps why he wasn't really shedding tears for them.
  • Okay, so why did he have to Awaken Abel's Ark? They never really covered anything about what Abel meant-there's just a bunch of extrapolation based on what we assume given the pseudo-rrelationship to Xenogears... I guess it's just the downside of cutting the series in half.
    • From what this troper could figure out from the games and all the supplemental database articles, Wilhelm had to awaken, and then seal, Abel's Ark and Abel because it made it easier to gather all the Gnosis into Zarathustra and re-start time. Human wills (Gnosis) go out of control when in contact with UDO; sealing away the Ark and Abel, UDO's "observation terminals" for the lower dimension, was supposed to make it easier to gather together all those gnosis into Zarathustra
    • Abel and Abel's Ark are U-DO's observational terminals. Wilhelm needed them distracted, or unable to observe the realm of real numbers in order for Zarathustra to properly function.
• Why didn’t Dimitri have Canaan killed during “thatâ€� event during Episode 3? The others were arguably more useful alive but Canaan is no more important than the other corpses lying around the place.
• what is Shion actually a Doctor of exactly? The game is extremely vague with what part of KOS-MOS she actually designed, and when KOS-MOS is damaged in the third game Shion plays no part in her repair.
  • Judging from her knowledge of Realian maintenance, I'd guess she had a certain level in developing the Artificial Intelligence. Which got totally overrided by Kevin's Black Box programming. Go figure.
    • It's established that Shion's super-innocent, in that she continues to treat Realians like humans despite the fact that most consider them 'things' (despite massive evidence to the contrary, apparently). Kevin, even as a kid, was a) a genius and b) a little Nietzsche Wannabe. Probably, if Shion had known about Kevin's Black Box, she could have altered or worked around it, but since she trusted Kevin wholeheartedly (and he was a genius presumably capable of hiding said Box unless you knew where to look for it) Shion had no reason to suspect that anything was up until... Well, until it was. And while I'm at it, I'd have to say that with the first game's references to Shion's knowledge of Realian Psychology, I'd guess she also built KOS-MOS' AI, although I'm not sure she even realized just what was being made. (Because, again, Kevin.)
  • In Episode I, Shion is shown doing some talk therapy for several Realians on the Woglinde before the shit hits the fan. It's mainly morale boosting, but the Realians seem to appreciate it.

• Okay, about the protagonists' "trip" at the end of Episode III. They will not get anywhere for hundreds of years. They will probably never even reach an inhabited planet, ever. So, it would be understandable that they would want a Generation Ship thing going on... except the only woman they bring along is Shion... who is already Allen's girlfriend. There's going to be a lot of tension aboard the ship.
  • Except that Word of God states that people live for hundreds of years in the Xeno universe. It would be even more ridiculous if in an age of nanotechnology people had modern lifespans.
  • Still, a sausagefest of a voyage lasting hundreds of years with only one woman around, and she is taken, at that. No good can come from that.
  • Actually, three. Mary and Shelley are also on the ship. There would still be tension, just a little less.
  • Doesn't the team return to the Dammerung? If so, then it shouldn't be that big of an issue as the Dammerung would certainly have more than enough members of either gender.
• Why did Dimitri Yuriev only create 669 URTVs? I mean, I get that 666-669 had to be the variants because 666 equaling the devil and everything, but he could have made more AFTER the variants. Also, the Episode III mentions that there were other female URTVs made, but Citrine was one of the only ones that worked properly. This shows that he originally created MORE, but was apparently too lazy to make new ones., which is bad when you're going up against the entire URTV force that was established on Militia. It's no wonder that All the vanilla URTVs got infected and/or killed, leaving the four variants left alive! A 669 man insurgence group would obviously fail against the government and it's army! It's amazing that the four variants miraciously survived that invasion too.
  • You'd have a point if the URTVs had been created to be an army or combat force. They weren't. Military training was part of their overall training, but presumably this was for discipline and secondary skills. The primary purpose they were created for was to combat and destroy U-DO, not to combat human or realian forces. Yuriev was scared shitless of U-DO, and seeking a way to destroy the source of that fear. At some point, he realized this was impossible, so shifted his research to ways of making himself a god so he wouldn't have to fear anything ever again. The URTVs' battle with U-DO was to serve two purposes: 1) data for his research and 2) create a disaster on Miltia (we're talking class 4 Apocalypse How, here), which he would use to further his political power (cold bastard, ain't he?). Additionally, the URTVs themselves were a threat to Dmitri. Since he had U-DO wave forms as part of his being, the URTVs could more easily be a weapon against him than against U-DO. Particularly Rubedo, whose anti-U-DO waveforms were designed to be the strongest. This is why Nigredo and Citrine were created - to kill Rubedo once his usefulness was finished. In fact, he ordered Nigredo to stay behind to kill any URTVs who survived the Miltia mission, which is what led to Nigredo killing him. Looked at that way, it would be stupid of him to create more URTVs then he felt he needed.
  • Probably just to add more symbolism. After all, it gives an in-universe justification for Jr. to have the number 666 on him.
  • I don't remember well but was there an indication that he *didn't* create more than 669? He may have created more and they all just died off during the Miltian conflict.
• Alright, so why were Nigredo and Rubedo being so secretive about themselves to the point they were changing their names? I mean, I get that it was probably so it wouldn't dredge up too many bad memories, but they're running a Foundation with the express purpose of helping people with special powers flourish; powers that they themselves had. It just seems like a massive case of hypocricy on their part. And why the hell did they hide their exact relationship to the Foundation? They could have easily just said that they were brothers and that Rubedo couldn't grow. There was no point in hiding that, because just about everyone could tell that they were related by some fashion because they looked alike (especially with those illegitimate son rumors). It's not like they needed to change it for the Galaxy Federation, who would be just as willing to let the former wife of a mad scientist into their comittees; two people created by Dimiri Yuriev would hardly be something to bat an eye about.
  • It was originally done so that Gaignun could be legally the son of the (already created, fictional) mogul Soze Kukai and Jr could legally be his heir. I would imagine changing it later would be legally embaressing for Second Miltia, since they would first have to admit that they fabricated the persona of Kukai in order to pool special ops funds and that they forged legal documents for two individuals. Another possible reason was that, even though Dimitri was dead, there were still many scientists around who worked on the URTV project who might want the only two known living results back.
  • Also the fact that they are URTVs (created by Yuriev, bioweapons, military force during the Miltian conflict) probably wouldn't have sit well with the citizens.
• The Brick Joke involving ES Asher's cannon from Xenosaga II that plays out in Xenosaga III. The problem is, the A.M.W.S. it was impaled into and the cannon itself quite visibly blow up in Xenosaga II.
  • It probably blew up but didn't break into a thousand pieces. (Look for vids of cars exploding, they stay intact).

• What was with the T-ELOS v KOS-MOS competitive test at the beginning of Xenosage III? T-ELOS proves herself by wiping out a horde of Gnosis. KOS-MOS fails to prove herself when going up against an AMWS more than ten times her size. These are not comparable tests. If they were looking for an anti-Gnosis system, both gynoids should have been sent against Gnosis. If they were looking for an anti-AMWS system, both should have been set up against comparable AMWS machines. Proving that T-ELOS is better at task A than KOS-MOS is at unrelated task B proves nothing about the relative worth of the two systems. Any weapons developer who lost a contract on the grounds of a poorly designed trial demonstration like that would challenge the decision - and have a good chance of winning that challenge.
  • It wasn't meant to be a competitive test between T-elos and KOS-MOS, it was just a demonstration of both T-elos and Omega Res Novae for the federation's brass. KOS-MOS was just cannon fodder for Omega at that point and her fate already decided. Remember that it wasn't Yuriev who wanted KOS-MOS out of the picture but Wilhelm, i.e. her actual developer and owner.
  • To make it worse, KOS-MOS didn't even really do that badly against Omega either; she only took one blow from it before it went out of control and seemed fine enough afterwards. It's a little unclear, but it seems she was Taking the Bullet when she get hit by Omega's blast at the end; it DID nearly hit the demo box a few times, and she had been dodging its blasts prior to that point well enough. KOS-MOS' problem was that she lacked the firepower to hurt the thing outside of possibly her Tertiary Weapons System, which would have left her a sitting duck. If anything, it was a bad show for Omega, given it flipped the fuck out and nearly got all the suits and scientists present killed.
• Why did the Y data contain a picture of Shion naked? It makes even less sense when you consider that the picture is of adult Shion, and the Y data was created before Shion hit puberty.
  • It's bcause Y data is telling you the future and what Shion really is.
• Even though Word of God states that thanks to nanotechnology, the people in the Xenosaga-verse have lifespans that last for hundreds of years, why do the people you meet in Episode II during GS Campaigning all have their ages listed as something average? As in, they wouldn't be out of place with our life spans right now (such as 16, 42, 8, etc. etc.). Surely one of those people should have thier age listed as something like "367"? Or did all the people Shion and Co. help while GS Campaigning just very luckily be under the age of 90?
  • True, the only person who seems to have it is that Mace Windu looking guy (forgot his name).
  • Well, that Word of God is Tetsuya Takahashi's word, and his word meant almost nothing to the developers of Episode II.
• How did Virgil manage to survive the Miltian Conflict in the actual timeline? In Xenosaga III he's pretty surrounded by the berserker Realians until the party saves him.
  • The influence of the player characters likely had an impact on how everything actually panned out. Plus we don't actually know what would have happened had the scene continued. Not a great answer, but it may help us sleep at night.
• What's up with how casually the military decides to toss KOS-MOS away in Xenosaga III? Yes, T-elos was more advanced than KOS-MOS at the time, but that hardly makes KOS-MOS scrap and garbage.
  • Especially odd since it was actually possible to make a "production" version of KOS-MOS, since T-elos was made from an utterly unique artifact, while aside from Maria's black box KOS-MOS was a product of human science.
  • Wilhelm and Roth Mantel (or his alter ego) had likely planned for that to happen so KOS-MOS could be put back in the hands of the party so that their plan could continue. Furthermore KOS-MOS can't be mass-produced because the only people capable of designing KOS-MOS or T-elos were Kevin and Shion, and Shion could only do it after reverse-engineering the prototype KOS-MOS, so in-universe it's far beyond the capabilities of the others. The headscratcher there is: why?
• Are Albedo's "wings" actually wings or just a cape or some other accessory?
  • Probably just a cape, though Xenosaga II does show he can at least glide, so who knows?
• In Xenosaga 3, when Albedo and Dimitri are in their first scene togther, Albedo says something about Dimitri being controlled by this "power"... Like he once was. What's the power and what did Albedo mean by "like he once was"? Was he repenting or was he just messing with our heads?
  • He means U-DO. Both Dimitri and Albedo came in contact with U-DO, and it drove them mad.
• Why do people say that Xenosaga ended the planned multiple-games epic that Xenogears was setting up? Or rather, why is it impossible for them to be canon with each other? Whenever I play through the games, it really does seem like it can play out well, with Blade at the start of the timeline, followed by Saga, with Gears at the end. There are certainly no contradictions, and even the trailers for Xenoblade X look like they'll be covering the evacuation of earth- an important plot point in all three- so why is it impossible?
  • I keep hearing two different things: Xenogears is part 5, or that the series is a reimagination of Xenogears. What I think it is is that Xenogears is part 5, but because it is owned by Square (and Saga is under Namco), Harada technically cannot promote or have the series associated with another company's game. (This is mere speculation!)
    • Xenogears was Episode 5 in a 6 series plan. According to Perfect Works, Episode 1 was about an intergalactic war, Episode II was the Eldridge crash / creation of first humans, III was Zeboim and IV was the Shevat/Solaris War. VI was left a mystery but it sounds like it would be about Lost Jerusalem.
• Not so much a complaint as an observation- why do people complain so much about the second game? I've seen many people talking about it, and whenever they discuss a certain scene, level, or feature, they mock how said scene/level/feature is probably the only good part of the game. The thing is, they say this about every single scene/level/feature in the game. If every level, scene, and feature in the game is the "only good part," isn't it possible- just possible- that it's actually a good game?
  • I liked the game. The battle system required strategy, it seems RPG gamers are just too lazy to do that and just want to hit x to attack and didn't bother to understand the system. What was annoying for sure, is MOMO's subconscous. Too many enemies and they did not give you enough dungeons/enemies prior to the area to be strong enough against them. Also the GS Path was long and tedious.
  • While this troper can't talk for others, the complaints I have against this game mostly involve the voice acting and the very drastic changes in character models. Coming straight off Xenosaga 1, 2 not only changed a lot of the voice actors, but they also didn't emote very well. Even KOS-MOS, with her normally emotionless voice, sounded completely off. The characters themselves almost drifted into Unintentional Uncanny Valley territoy with the sudden change from anime-esque style to "Waaaayyy too real looking". That being said, the gameplay WAS solid. But as mentioned they dumped you right into a dungeon and the atmosphere just felt off.
  • Arguably the biggest issues with the game are that the Battle system is very slow, and the game is full of Padding. After the initial two dungeons you pretty much HAVE to stock and break combo every enemy to do decent damage, which leads to nearly every battle lasting a very long time as you sit there stocking over and over. All the main dungeons are also very long, full of backtracking and long corridors of walking, the Ormus stronghold dungeon is arguably complete filler (and was removed from the Xenosaga I&II version of the story), and the GS side quests are full of constant backtracking as well. Also, every character has access to the exact same spells and abilities in the skill tree, so they end up being less differentiated than the other games, or most RPGs.
• Two Questions: One, If Wilhelm has literally played through the universe millions of times, what made this cycle stand out? Like, I can imagine millions of Shion's and KOS-MOS' and etc. going on and on, so what made this cycle different? I mean, if it was one or a few, this would just seem like something minor. But literally millions or possibly billions of attempts?! Even the basic laws of averages would suggest that the events of the games have played out more then once. Second question, how exactly does stopping Wilhelm in anyway solve the original problem of the Collective Unconsciousness being in danger? It still seems like that and the Universe will be destroyed still. Only now there's no way to reset anymore!
  • To answer the first question; history does not play out exactly the same after each reset, there’s always a small difference in the way events unfold. With that being the case it makes sense that there would eventually be a history where eternal recurrence was stopped. To answer your second question; it doesn’t. The universe is still going to be destroyed unless they somehow find a way to stop it which is why they’re searching for Lost Jerusalem.
• To what extent is the party aware of chaos' abilities, and to what extent are his in-battle abilities canonical to the story? There's a scene where Shion (a scientist) inexplicably handwaves chaos' ability to kill demon ghosts, and when the party is arrested and disarmed at the end of Episode 1 they have chaos fight their captors, presumably because he can use his powers without a weapon. Yet for the rest of the series it's never really addressed that chaos is uniquely capable of generating vasts and varied amounts of energy and performs feats that can only be described as supernatural, despite the potential applications these abilities might have.
• What's up with the ending where Nephilim ages up out of nowhere? Is there more to it than a reference to Xenogears?

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