Spoiler: Much wank about story and world
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The first thing he shows us is a recording of the Z Syndicate Leader, who very explicitly and immediately is made clear to be our dad. Turns out he was part of the government research team dedicated to stopping Rahu, but as the years went on the knowledge tore away at him more and more, until he eventually decided there had to be another way to stop this thing than leaving everyone as sheep trapped into a gilded cage. Thus he founded the Z Syndicate, an organization dedicated to studying and exploring the outside world so that they could find a way to deal with Rahu for good. The only real solution they ended up with was using the memory erasure device we used to defeat Rahu the first time, which he hid on Gyro as a watch. Unfortunately, our dad got sick and died before he could do anything, and upon his death Oboro and Eliza set about their schism, because they were corrupted by the allure of power.
Now this is a LOT to take in, obviously. Adding to this; Rahu is some sort of invisible natural creature dedicated to the eradication of humanity and the constant improvement of itself, like some sort of psychic death spirit, and the only reason we're able to even SEE it is that for some reason it ended up diving into a custom robo and ended up stuck there, becoming a mixture of machine and meat, likely torturing it with the uncomfortable feeling of having physical form, driving whatever being this WAS even more crazy than it already IS. It was only due to punching it in the brain with the memory erasure device and then curb stomping it while it had zero knowledge that the humans of the past were able to defeat it... and even then, it was more like they fed it bodies until it ran out of things to learn and fell asleep.
It's pretty clear that whatever plan our dad has... is a stopgap if anything. Rahu is an existence beyond our own reckoning and it only has a body due to being stuck in one, I don't think we can kill it in a way that matters so even if we do use the erasure watch on it and end up being able to beat it down into submission, it still might wake up again someday. It's a pretty bad plan, and to his credit Dad says as much in his message... and also more or less says he was a terrible father and he's sorry for placing this burden on us. What I find interesting is taht he doesn't even make attempts to apologize OR justify is behavior, and Gyro seems to not even really care THAT much either. He's come to terms with the fact that the only adult he really had in his life was Lucy, which is a fun contrast to Marcia learning that uh... sometimes being selfish and bad is a form of love as well. Oof.
Speaking of Marcia lets think a little about what Sergei has to say. He always kind of intended to vanish into the outside because he felt like Marcia relied on him too much, and he hoped that'd help her grow as a person. To his credit he does say this idea is ****ty, and Marcia agrees even though it did eventually work. But ultimately, he didn't actually leave for Marcia, because he met our Dad. And our Dad talked to him about some stuff and, after pretty clearly hitting it off with him, says that if he ever notices an inconsistency in the world, come and see him again. This is a pretty loaded thing to say given Sergei's ALREADY learned about the outside. What could be left to see that is "wrong"?
Then it hits him; his sister. For her entire life she's been forced to go through studies and tests at the lab to find out what her deal is as an empath- seemingly for no real reason or result. Their parents are dead and yet she's important, she's special. She can't really make friends because her powers make it too hard to function around others, and her brother is the only person who she can even stand to be around. If their world is so perfect- the perfect orderly dome that the government wants it to be, where everyone has basically what they need and can survive and stuff- then why is his sister going through such trauma? In the words of Sergei himself... the world is meant to be equal. But Marcia's powers stole equality from her. This is an unavoidable inconsistency with the world- someone is suffering due to a circumstance of their birth.
There is... a lot, to think about on that. It speaks to this idea that Custom Robo's world, the inner dome of humanity, is way more screwed up than it seems. Hell, Sergei goes on to explain that every single one of the people who first went into the dome, beyond the heads of state, were mind wiped so that they thought this was reality. The dome was made from Custom Robo tech, so it's like the world is one big holosseum in a sense. All just to serve a particular function. The function in this case being to present a perfect world were everyone can be content. But perfection can be an enemy to an idle mind, and so we get stuff like goofy criminals doing crimes because it's not like they'll get in much trouble, as long as they don't hurt anyone. It's fine, let them act out. We get bounty hunters who make a big show of how cool and impressive they choose to be, and that's fine. We get incompetent cops who serve as a sort of glue; look at how useless they are, if only someone who is special and cool like you could stop the criminals. Let the docile masses have their play while the real commanders do the work to save humanity.
It's extremely messed up and I kinda love it, and wish the game could have been a bit longer so we could see more of this, to really hammer it home that this is a world where things are "perfect", perfect enough that realizing his sister has a natural advantage over others- an advantage the government makes very clear they will go to any lengths to learn about, up to and including ruining her life- is enough to make Sergei flip the script and go join a clandestine, quasi-terrorist organization. And now he's told us all of this, and the game gives us maybe like three seconds to reflect on it before we march off to the destroyed remnants of an amusement park, bombards us with goofy ninja fights, and STILL has us n cutscene mode even as we finish out the video. Metal Gear Solid eat your heart out.
Re: Zodi Plays: Custom Robo (Redesign Your Robo, We Know What We're Doing)
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