Oni2:Slaves of War/Polylectiloquy: Difference between revisions

:'''B. A few years -- long enough that the "new world" is shaping up. This will allow us to answer the questions left hanging at the end of Oni as to how society will turn out, or what the intermediate stage will be, anyway.'''

:C. So far after Oni that Konoko is gone and a new generation of characters can be introduced. It would be hard to pull people into a sequel without one familiar face (not that we couldn't work out something with clones or what-have-you), but this would free us from worrying about Konoko being too powerful for a sequel.

===What happened to the WCG?===

:C. It's been replaced by total chaos. This would be a bleak option to go with, not to mention that it takes us in the direction of another clichéd kind of story, the Post-Apocalyptic Road Warrior genre.

:'''D. It's fractured because the nations are starting to look out for themselves again. This would be a realistic mix between total anarchy and totalitarianism, and give us some kind of foundation for figuring out the politics of the situation. See the [[Oni2:Slaves_of_War/Factions|Factions]] page for details.'''

===What happened to the TCTF?===

:Naturally, if the WCG sticks around, they will make it the TCTF's primary mission to take down anyone trying to use or sell the Daodan technology. If the WCG falls, on the other hand, then there will be nothing holding the international law enforcement agencies together. Therefore, we can simply assume that the TCTF will fragment in whatever way the WCG fragments.

===What is Griffin up to?===

:I favor the notion of B2, because if Griffin is going to be Mai's enemy again, this will give him a solid motivation. He knows that humanity can benefit from the Chrysalis in the short run but also feels strongly that giving everyone the Chrysalis will be opening Pandora's Box as the things develop inside people, so he fights to keep them out of the public's hands. He might even end up in an anti-authority position -- even though the governments will probably refuse to give them to ordinary citizens because of the risks of having a revolt by an Imago-stage populace, they might give Chrysalises to key officials to guarantee their health if the situation is dire enough. In that case, we're indeed back to a situation where Griffin has to fight to keep the Chrysalises out of the hands of politicians.

===What happened to the Syndicate?===

:Absent Boss Muro, it seems inevitable that they would be broken into pieces by in-fighting and panic over the Cataclysm. See the [[Oni2:Slaves of War/Factions|Factions]] page for more details.

===How many [[ACC|ACCs]] were there, and how many broken?===

:As far as we can tell, there were [[Quotes/Consoles#STURMANDERUNG_:_Tertiary_Stage|417]]. How many were destroyed? Konoko makes it [[Quotes/Speech#Outro_7|sound like all of them]] blew up when she sent that <s>leet haxor</s> random key-mashing signal out from Muro's base. However, that quote doesn't explicitly say that it was all of them. A more interesting answer for Oni 2's purposes is to say that some ACCs are still working or were easily repaired (besides, this isn't a Michael Bay film, not <u>everything</u> has to blow up). If most of one country's ACCs go offline, and the neighbor country has more working ACCs, you have a recipe for a burgeoning World War III.

===What is the nature of the pollution?===

But to spice things up there was to be a much bigger problem: remember the phase technology that humanity has been developing? Well, it just so happens that the entities on the other side of the 'phase veil' had started to notice US. And since they feed on our lifeforce, they decide that the Earth looks a lot like a gigantic buffet. Think the Screaming Cannon entities were a bitch? Wait'll you saw their mother...}}

===What is on the other side of the "phase veil"? Where did the Wilderness come from?===

:D. The governments may be working on a biological weapon to kill the Wilderness.

:E. Send it back to where it came from. As mentioned above, if there is a plant in the Wilderness that allows transportation through the phase veil, then perhaps there is a way to re-train this plant to target its brethren and send them back through the veil.

===Does the general public get Chrysalises? How does society change?===

:The governments' main solution for the [[BioCrisis]] will be the building of new ACCs. And that process is not going to be quick, that's for darn sure. Inevitably large areas where nations are poorer will get neglected. Most of Africa would die for sure; they may have originally received support from the U.S. and Europe to build the first bunch of ACCs, but when each nation has to look out for itself, Africa will be on its own. The overpopulated nations like India and China would suffer the greatest losses in population, but then again, they're probably going to be seriously industrialized well before then, and will have plenty of labor to build new ACCs with. Smaller and less-developed nations will definitely take it on the chin, assuming they didn't already when the BioCrisis first started.

===What are the Daodan Chrysalises, really?===

::Pros: Preserves the mystery of the Daodan, especially if it's even more low-level than a virus. Cf. [[wikipedia:viroid|viroids]], [[wikipedia:plasmid|plasmids]] (rolling circles, electroporation and replicons, oh my!), [[wikipedia:prion|prions]], [[wikipedia:transposon|transposons]].

::Cons: It's complicated! Much easier to just say that the Daodan is a special plant. Also, if the Daodan is transferred on the genetic level, might it be contagious? That would run counter to Hasegawa's notion of the Daodan needing to be implanted, person by person. This would have story-changing implications.

===How did Hasegawa discover the power of the Daodan organism?===

:B. Or was it serving some significant role in the Wilderness that drew Hasegawa'a attention to it? If we just make the Daodan a regular plant in the Wilderness that has miraculous properties for humans, it seems to be missing the point. One could surmise that if the Daodan is that powerful, it must be a key part of the Wilderness. If the Wilderness is really composed of alien life, something that Oni is not clear on, then perhaps the Daodan is what allows this life to adapt to Earth. It could be that the Daodan has "infected" every one of the foreign plants in the Wilderness, and perhaps also the plants of Earth that it comes into contact with, making them dangerous for humans in the process. Since we're told that the level of pollutants continues to rise outside the reach of the ACCs, then the question is what's driving this increase in pollution. One answer is the expansion of the Wilderness. Any measures the WCG takes to destroy the Wilderness will not be effective as long as all the plants are Daodan super-powered. This gives us an all-or-nothing twist: either we get rid of the whole Wilderness before it over-runs us, or we yield to the power of the Daodan as the key to our own survival.

===Is the Daodan dangerous for humans? How is it being transplanted, exactly?===

:Considering how potent the Daodan is, and "user-friendly", it's quite convenient if our immune system can defeat the Daodan if coming into casual contact with it. One almost wonders if that was designed that way....

===What is the role of the Daodan organism if it was designed?===

To be exact, the word for the Daodan's type of symbiosis, whether harmful or helpful, is endosymbiosis, meaning it lives inside its host.

===Where does the Daodan gets its energy from?===

:One final thing to think about: if the Daodan replaces human cells with its own... and it draws its energy from the Wilderness, not food... and some people want to eradicate the Wilderness... what happens to the Daodan hosts if they find a way to destroy the Wilderness?

===Whatever happened to Dr. Hasegawa?===

:Naturally, he's continuing his research into the Daodan. After all, his work wasn't done when the Syndicate raided his lab and he was separated from Kerr and Konoko. What was left for him to do? Well, obviously he ended up implanting Muro with a Chrysalis (forced to by the Syndicate, or did he choose to?), so much of his time would have been spent studying the progress of the Chrysalis, the same kind of work that Kerr was doing on the TCTF side. Perhaps after seeing just how powerful and uncontrollable Muro became as an Imago, he realized that his technology needed some means of being controlled. His goal was to save people from the pollution, not to create a race of monsters.

:By the time of Oni 2, Prof. Hasegawa has escaped from the Syndicate and gone into hiding from the world. He's discovered that the best place to hide is in the middle of the Wilderness, where he uses his advanced understanding of the foreign plant life to survive where others could not. Perhaps he has a little blonde-haired "daughter" who looks strangely familiar… (I would love this angle, but I hope no one accuses me of ripping off [[Gendo Ikari]]). Part of the story of Oni 2 will involve finding him and learning what he knows about controlling his creation.

===How does one control the Daodan?===

:C. Rival implants. If the Daodan organism has enemies in the Wilderness, implant one of them alongside the Chrysalis to inhibit its growth. Obviously this interaction could lead to unforeseen results, which could also be a part of the plot if we so choose.

:D. Block energy reception. Per my idea above that the Daodan needs to draw outside energy for its more impressive feats, if something could be done to prevent the Daodan from receiving this energy, you could avoid mutant Imago rampages by the general populace. Since humanity is clearly learning how to harness phase technology, this should not be out of the question. But obviously it can't be something like requiring people to wear a wristband, because that is bound to go awry. It needs to be a method that people can't avoid... something that is an unavoidable part of living in the city, like [[wikipedia:Water fluoridation|treated water]] is today. ''Hmm....''

===What was up with that [[Quotes/Consoles#Picasso_Island|Bertram Navarre]] guy?===

:Could he be in league with Hasegawa for some reason? Or is he still working under the Syndicate on his own amoral human experiments? The more interesting choice would be if Navarre had some reason to work with Hasegawa (a fact that Hasegawa perhaps keeps from Mai when they meet), because Hasegawa already has a history of putting his science before strictly moral considerations (e.g., working for the Syndicate).

===Did Muro actually die?===

:Many players probably assume that Muro dies at the end of Oni, without really thinking about it. For one thing, Konoko experiences a Daodan surge upon his defeat. This issue is addressed as part of the next question below. But certainly there is no need to assume that, just because a person falls down and doesn't get up, he is dead.

:Another point which we have to consider is which branch to follow in Oni 1's story. Even though the plot turns out the same regardless of whether Griffin is spared, it might make a difference for Muro. In the scenario where Konoko killed Griffin and had to fight Imago Muro alone, she didn't necessarily have any way to turn him into the authorities after beating him. If she didn't kill him, then he probably just woke up later and escaped. Whereas in the scenario where Griffin is spared, then shows up and helps out in the fight, it's much more reasonable to assume that Griffin would take charge of the situation afterwards, either taking him prisoner or ordering him killed.

:But I don't think that Griffin would kill him in cold blood after Muro collapsed, when he had not even advanced to the Imago stage. If Griffin did take him into custody, then Muro would probably stay incarcerated forever, even in the midst of worldwide governmental turmoil, or disagreement over which political authority has jurisdiction over him. (We should give the TCTF at least a little credit and assume that they could find a way to keep an Imago caged up.)

:Therefore, if we build on the Griffin-lives ending of Oni 1, we can assume that Muro is still alive. It's just a matter of figuring out whether Muro should play a major or minor role in Oni 2. He doesn't seem like a well-rounded character or one that could be elaborated upon. Certainly making him the major villain seems much less interesting than introducing a new villain (or another form of antagonist entirely...). Perhaps Mai can go visit him in prison at some point and they can have a little brother-sister chat, but I don't see Muro's philosophy being interesting enough to fuel the whole plot of Oni 2.

:One possibility for a minor role is a sort of "side arc" where Muro breaks out of prison and goes on an Imago rampage, and Mai has to stop him. It doesn't require that we build a lot of story around him, and yet it gives him something to do in the sequel.

===Did Barabas or Mukade die? Either could simply have been KOed.===

:One question that needs to be answered here is whether Konoko's major [[Daodan#Daodan_spike|Daodan spikes]] only occur upon the death of an enemy Daodan host. We can immediately say that it is not necessary for the enemy to be a Daodan host because of the spike that occurs [[Quotes/Speech#Out_of_control|after defeating]] the room with the Fury and two Strikers in Chapter 7. It's harder to answer whether the spike requires an enemy to be killed, but if we're going to say that Muro lived (see above), then that means that a Daodan surge must not require the death of an opponent, merely victory over him. This answer also gives us the most flexibility in bringing back characters from Oni 1.

:We could bring back Barabas, although he's frankly a boring character, so I don't see much use for him. It would also be weird if <u>none</u> of Konoko's major enemies die, considering that Konoko is a fairly violent femme in the first game, so if we are going to avoid straining credulity, we should bring back only the most interesting enemies from Oni 1. I would rank them in the following order of priority: Mukade, Muro, Barabas. I can see Mukade adding the most depth to Oni 2, so let's focus on what we can do with him (see Mukade questions below).

===What exactly causes those Daodan super-surges? What do they tell us about Konoko?===

===Who really was/is Mukade?===

:Certain parts of this wiki have speculated that the armored master ninja was Konoko's dad, or a clone thereof. Questions have also been raised about whether he was a subordinate of Muro's, or BGI's, or his own agent. Doubts have even been raised as to whether the other ninjas were on Mukade's side or not, and whether Mukade might have actually wanted to be caught by, or to fight, Konoko. After considering all the options, I've decided to take the simplest approach which follows the facts, not for lack of imagination, but for where it will lead the story.

:What Mukade is not:

:*Konoko's father. The reason Konoko could sense him is that they are both Daodan symbiotes (Cf. Hardy). Also, Hasegawa would be too old to fight like that.

:*A robot. If robots could be built with such sophistication, there would be no need for SLDs. Plus, the Daodan thing.

:*An SLD. He has far too much self-awareness and personality for an artificial humanoid, and it deprives him of the ability to have an interesting background.

:No, Mukade is simply a ninja who rose through the ranks and was selected by Muro to be a Daodan host, as Barabas [[Quotes/Consoles#Barabas|rose through]] the Striker ranks to the same end. I can't argue with certainty that he couldn't possibly be an SLD based off Hasegawa's engrams and implanted with a Daodan, but it seems more interesting to make him a unique individual with his own back story and motivations that we can develop in Oni 2, rather than just a "Xerox copy" of an existing character.

:The manual [[Quotes/Manual#Ninja_-_Avenger_Class_.28Red.29|states]] that Mukade works for the Syndicate, which would mean Muro is his boss. However, I do want to tweak this particular aspect of the story. Since we know that BGI was originally supposed to play a role in Oni, I am going to make him a double agent; he reported to Muro, but his true allegiance was to BGI, and escaping with Konoko's data was part of BGI's agenda, not Muro's (to be elaborated on when I upload my BGI storyline).

===If still alive, what is Mukade doing?===

:After being broken at Konoko's hands, Mukade's body was retrieved by BGI and he recuperated in a well-hidden safe house, even as the WCG stormed the facilities they knew about. Now free of his masters, Mukade doesn't even hold a grudge against Konoko. He has given himself a new mission -- experimenting with [[Oni2:Slaves of War/Neo-Biology|new agricultural methods]] in order to figure out how to control the Wilderness or live alongside it. He is likely to want to avoid violence, so it doesn't bring back his 'bad tendencies'.

===What would Mai be doing as the Cataclysm happened?===

::She might also have issues about her choices at the end of Oni.

::She definitely won't go by the name "Konoko" anymore, I think everyone can agree on that.

===Does Mai end up going Imago, at least by the time of Oni 2?===

::I think any fan will reject the idea of Mai becoming hideous or scary, at least if it's her permanent form, so let's say that she's not that different-looking from before, and and can mask her transformation with sunglasses and a facial mask, like synthetic skin, that makes it look normal-colored.

:::This option, C2, sets us up for a traditional animé-style revelation. At first we're told that she never transformed, for some unknown reason. Then, somewhere (probably early) in the game, Mai meets an adversary who's too strong for her -- or so it seems. Maybe he smashes her in the face, hard, and she hits a wall, and slumps to the ground. Her sunglasses fall off, and clatter on the ground. Meanwhile, your health is getting critical. Then she slowly stands up, face lowered, and says, "That hurt." She reaches up to her face, which seems to have torn skin hanging from it, and pulls it all off, then looks up, and we see her true, transformed face, with its real skin and her altered eyes. Suddenly she starts to glow with a Daodan overpower aura, and her health is fully restored, and now the bad guy is no match for her. She then can use this form (perhaps sparingly) throughout the rest of the game, now that it's revealed that she transformed a while ago and normally holds back in a fight, to keep her secret.

===Even if not Imago yet, shouldn't Mai be rapidly recuperating from injuries?===

===If/when she does go Imago, isn't Mai going to be too powerful to make the game challenging?===

:B. She might not always be transformed or able to transform.

:C. There's the amnesia option proposed elsewhere, but amnesia wouldn't remove her strength, only her skill. Still, having to re-learn fighting would make the game more challenging. But I am not a fan of a contrived "restart" that wants to drag a character back to where they were.

===Is "Imago" really Imago?===