Oni2:Slaves of War/Polylectiloquy

polylectiloquy (n) RHETORIC 1. A collection of ideas from different sources, examined as a Socratic monologue. 2. A Q&A where I talk to myself.

How far after Oni should Oni 2 be?

A. Starting days after Oni ends would be interesting. There would be a lot more energy at this time period than any other point we could place the sequel at.

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?

A. It's taken advantage of the people's fears in order to strengthen its grip on the world and remove more freedoms in exchange for security. But let's face it, how many times have we seen this kind of Big Brother government in cautionary sci-fi already?

B. Business as usual. The most boring option. And how is the WCG going to maintain control without people having to huddle around their ACCs in the cities?

C. It's been replaced by total chaos.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 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?

First we have to consider the fact that the player made a choice in Oni 1 as to whether to spare Griffin or kill him. You can't make a sequel to a game with multiple endings unless you are prepared to write multiple plots and read the first game's save data to see which story to use. It's more practical from that perspective to just say that the player made the "right" call and preserved Griffin's life, because an Oni 2 with Griffin is more interesting than an Oni 2 without Griffin; also, Konoko killing Griffin in Oni 1 would not portend well for her when she reaches Imago, and we want her to ultimately be a good guy, not a monster, or oni.

A. He could be the head of his country's police (presumably his native country, not Japan, where Oni seems to take place).

B. He might have disliked the new nationalistic atmosphere and is heading his own "rogue" organization. What would it do?

1. Work on getting Chrysalises to people.

2. Work on keeping Chrysalises from people. Those things are dangerous! If Mai is promoting the use of Chrysalises, this would make them enemies again.

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 Factions page for more details.

How many ACCs were there, and how many broken?

As far as we can tell, there were 417. How many were destroyed? Konoko makes it sound like all of them blew up when she sent that leet haxor 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 everything 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?

A. Industrial pollution. It's made the life outside the reach of the ACCs toxic to us.

B. Pollution from the ACCs. Cleansing the air is bound to create some nasty by-products, at least with the kind of track record that humans have for creating solutions that create more problems.

C. Weaponized viruses. Perhaps someone recklessly created a bio-weapon that got out of control.

D. Mutated viruses. Perhaps existing viruses were accidentally altered by the pollution and became more virulent.

E. Extraterrestrial origins. Life from "another world" could be producing natural (to them) byproducts, which are inherently hostile to our life. This is strongly hinted at by the unusual nature of the Daodan as well as the Screaming Cells. The weapon page for the Screaming Cannon states: "This weapon fires capsules that release a mysterious entity known as a Screaming Cell. These creatures seem to exist out of Earth phase, but feed on human lifeforce and are drawn to it when freed". This doesn't mean that all of the Wilderness came from another planet or "dimension", but consider this post by Hardy LeBel on our old forum. Quoting it here for posterity:

“	Well, obviously I don't have much say over what happens next, but MY plan was to take Konoko and drop her into a "road warrior" setting, where small enclaves of society were huddling in atmospheric safe zones. Outside in the badlands Daodan warlords and enforcers ruled over the unfortunate masses. 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?

I daresay that most of us would have totally overlooked the "phase technology" that Hardy speaks of above, but since he's drawn our attention to it, we can find mention of it in the form of the Phase Cloak and the Phase Stream Projector. These items must have something in common that we should develop on in an Oni 2, but for now the main point we can draw from this is that, if the life in the Wilderness is extraterrestrial, it probably didn't land here in a meteor or UFO. It's probably coming through a "phase veil" from another time/place/universe.

• Another universe:

This would follow the science-fiction tradition of alternate planes of existence, following the many-worlds interpretation of quantum physics, and most famously explored (at least in American pop culture) by TV show Sliders.

• Another place:

Perhaps the Wilderness comes from another world in our galaxy or physical universe. This seems more or less synonymous with "another universe" for most intents and purposes, but with the added point that we might be able to travel there some day. This notion takes on more significance if we decide to "send back" the Wilderness to where it came from. If it's here to stay, then are we going to care about taking a vacation to WildernessWorld?

• Another time:

The end of the story reveals, Planet of the Apes-style, that the world of the Wilderness is our own world, after millennia of time has passed. The phase veil was a portal through time, whether intentional or not. The Wilderness is our unavoidable future.

Fictional scientists have been known to accidentally open gates to worlds with dangerous life forms, so this is possibly what Hardy was thinking when he introduced phase technology. The interesting question is, If a scientist one day opened a portal to another world, and bad stuff came through, wouldn't he have closed it? Wouldn't it have eventually ceased functioning if the lab got overrun by ET wildlife? If so, is life continuing to come through the phase veil on its own, and by what means? Or is the spreading Wilderness simply reflecting the success that this foreign life that came from a single point of introduction is having in invading our biosphere and reproducing quickly?

How bad is the pollution and how is the world dealing with it?

Well, the tragedy of Jamie Kerr tells us that it's going to be deadly to live anywhere near those plants, and even when the ACCs were protecting the cities, the area outside the cities was the location of a desperate, possibly losing, battle against the Wilderness. So the hostile flora are going to spread with a vengeance.

A. Some people may try to burn back the growth a la Nausicaa, and eke out an existence.

B. Many others will flee the areas that are no longer protected by ACCs. They would of course migrate to areas with working ACCs, and there would be a crush of immigrants; lots of fighting and ugliness.

C. A few may experiment with the Wilderness plants, performing Mendelian breeding and trying to get them to become compatible with Earth's life. See Oni2:Slaves of War/Neo-Biology.

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?

It seems unlikely, as noted above under "What is Griffin up to?", that the governments would be okay with the general public having alien lifeforms in them, especially since the best-known Daodan host would be the anarchist Muro. Probably only world leaders, Syndicate warlords who have access to Muro's data, and the unscrupulous rich will be able to obtain Chrysalises.

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?

This is the elephant in the room, isn't it? Oni never actually tells us what they are, or even where they are found. But one possible origin seems so likely that it blots out any other ideas in my mind: the Wilderness.

If we've gotten that settled, then the next question is the nature of the Daodan. What type of life is it?

A. Animal. It's true that most animals are quite mobile, but there are some that are perfectly content to find a home and stay there forever; e.g. coral and barnacles.

B. Plant. Flowering plants, in particular, benefit from outside help (from animals) to reproduce; some cannot reproduce at all without animals (Cf. the fig wasp).

C. Bacteria. Bacteria are the most symbiotic life forms. We typically assume that the Chrysalis is a single organism, but what if it's a colony?

D. Then there's the "mystery" domain of life, the organisms that are often not considered to be alive at all, but simply invasive or unusual genetic processes. In terms of complexity and independent existence, we have viruses at the high end, but as you go down the scale -- viroids, plasmids, prions, transposons -- you eventually end up with a continuous spectrum that reaches into the basic nature of genetic replication, inalienable from the actual process of life.

Animal

Pros: If it's an animal, it can be communicated with, mind-to-mind. Even if the Daodan is not quite on the same level as our minds, picture Spock floating alongside the whale in Star Trek IV; we can still learn what it wants and how it thinks.

Cons: Then again, depending on how alien the Daodan is to us, its mind could be totally inscrutable to us. Also, if the Daodan is animal, that tends to imply that there must be other Daodan-boosted animals out there, which is a possibility for later in the story of Oni, but could jumping the gun a bit if we reveal this early on. Also, the Daodan definitely behaves more like a plant or bacteria or virus, in changing another life form from the inside. The Daodan doesn't seem to have any organs of its own (although it could if we wanted it to, but that's not how it seems in Oni), so that makes it much more like one of the smaller, infective forms of life.

Plant

Pros: Plants are easier to deal with, from a story-telling perspective, than animals or bacteria. They're simpler than animals in terms of lifestyle, and they exist in a single body, so they can't spread in an untidy manner like bacteria or viruses.

Cons: If the Daodan were a plant, it probably would need to be able to survive on its own, being that plants are autotrophs -- unlike viruses, most bacteria, or animals. It's hard to picture the great Daodan organism living outside a host as a mere potted plant.

Bacteria

Pros: Being microscopic allows the Daodan to be more mysterious, and also more menacing and alien when eventually viewed through a microscope. Localizing it in the form of a simple green-celled flora or an insect or mouse-sized animal, could easily trivialize the Daodan organism that is so key to our story.

Cons: They're boring! Anything that we can do with bacteria, we can do with the "enigmata" below. Plus, the more mysterious we make the Daodan, the further outside known science it becomes, allowing us more story-telling freedom.

Enigmata

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

Assuming that the Daodan is anything but animal, then it does not possess any intelligence. It may simply be accustomed to infecting other lifeforms in order to reproduce. However, because the Daodan is foreign to our biosphere, it proves lethal to our life, as do many other plants in the Wilderness. Jamie was killed by a plant that either defended itself with substances harmful to other Wilderness life that might try to eat it, or else it was just minding its own business, but it was highly inimical to human bodies. Think of how some people have allergies to pollen, and you realize that a totally foreign "flowering shrub" could very well kill someone without "meaning to".

The only fact we have to go on with the Daodan is that it had to be grown along with human tissue in a controlled environment. Later, this Chrysalis was able to be implanted in Muro and Mai. So either Hasegawa and Kerr had to train the Daodan to get along with human DNA, or else there was no training needed and they were simply being cautious and ethical in trying to study the Daodan on tissue instead of real people.

One interesting question is how Hasegawa discovered the power of the Daodan organism.

A. Could it have been the plant that killed Jamie? Hasegawa was a man of science. Even in his grief, he would have thought to take a sample of the plant that killed Jamie back to a lab, where he could analyze it and find an antidote so no one else would have to die. He would have found that the plant resisted all hostile pathogens, developing immunity almost instantly. This would have started his Daodan Project. (Cf. this image of the infected Jamie, who is displaying colored veins similar to the Imago effect seen in Muro and Barabas.) Eventually, Hasegawa found a way to introduce the Chrysalis, wherever it came from, into Muro, but only after much study and in a controlled environment. So even if that "flowering shrub" (as described in this clipping) was the plant that yields the Chrysalis, it could be that the haphazard introduction into Jamie's body was too much for her to survive like Muro later would. Then again, she died by Hasegawa's gun, so we don't strictly know what would have become of her had that been the Daodan organism infecting her.

B. Or was it serving some significant purpose 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.

Where does the Daodan gets its energy from?

If all the Daodan did was re-tool the human body a little, we could assume that it was simply running off the normal fuels of the human body: food, water, and air. But in its advanced state, it allows a host to do some pretty amazing things, like throwing around energy balls and generating force fields. Either the Daodan is vastly superior to our bodies at energy generation, or else it's receiving energy from somewhere else.

A. The Daodan is tied to the "other side". In other words, there's a sort of phase portal inside the host that draws energy from there. This only displaces the question of where the energy comes from to "somewhere else, somehow".

B. The Daodan is tied to the rest of the Wilderness. Perhaps some of the plants in the Wilderness broadcast energy, either as conventional waves or through something more exotic like "phase transference" that only the plants of the Wilderness can use. Perhaps the energy that is drawn on by the Daodan is collected by lifeforms like the Screaming Cell. Does the Screaming Cell really need all that energy for itself? Perhaps the excess energy stolen from other life collects somewhere, then is broadcast, either by the Screaming Cell's "base station" or by a third plant that serves as a kind of phase-based Wardenclyffe Tower.

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?

Some or all of the following:

A. Freezing. Let's get the obvious one out of the way. It was pointed out in a console that a host could be frozen to prevent the Chrysalis from developing. However, this is not a solution for controlling a world full of people with Chrysalises, only for restraining Daodan criminals (like Muro?).

B. Suppression waves. If we choose to make this possible, we can allow energy waves to inhibit the growth of the organism so as to prevent the Imago stage. The waves could be broadcast from towers stationed throughout the cities. The only way to avoid their influence is, naturally, to live outside the cities. No ordinary citizen is going to be willing to do this, as the "outside" is likely to be a mix of Mad Max-style road wars and crazy killer plant life.

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 treated water is today. Hmm....

What was up with that 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. Certainly there is no need to assume that, just because a person falls down and doesn't get up, he is dead. Certainly that's not how it works in real life.

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 makes a difference for Muro. Think about it: in the scenario where Konoko killed Griffin and then beat Imago Muro, is it likely that Muro survived, and is it likely that, if he did, he went to prison? It's more likely that Konoko either had to kill him in order to beat him, or else he was KOed, then later he got up and escaped. Konoko is no longer an officer of the law who can turn a criminal in to the authorities, nor does she have a way of getting him to a police station. 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, if Muro was knocked out, Griffin would take him prisoner.

Again, if we're assuming Griffin lived in Oni 1, then we have a choice between saying that Muro died or that he was captured. As a Chrysalis host, he certainly ought to be resilient enough that he wouldn't die from a thorough beating, and 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 that's the case, and Griffin took 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 a little credit and assume that they could find a way to keep an Imago caged up.

Then 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 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 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 none 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?

Hardy LeBel, in a well-known OCF post, explained that Konoko and Mukade are like super-predators because of the Daodan Chrysalis inside them. He didn't explain what the Daodan surges meant; his post merely explained why Mukade and Konoko were attuned to each other. The superficial answer would be that a surge represents victory over an opponent, like a post-fight rush of ecstasy. That explanation falls flat, however, when you consider that Mukade's defeat did not trigger a surge in Konoko.

The deeper question here is whether the Daodan always makes someone into a violent superhuman. If it does, then it makes sense that violence should be rewarded with a rush of pleasure; alternately, the surge may represent a sort of "leveling up" after a successful kill. However, Kerr told Konoko that she would remain true to her nature, just that her final form would be a more resilient version of herself. Also, depending on the goal or "purpose" of the Daodan organism, violent behavior may not be a requisite development at all (see the Chrysalis section on the Oni2:Neo-Agriculture page). And since Oni 1 is clearly showing that Konoko is not a bad person (at least, if she spares Griffin), then that means that we shouldn't assume her Daodan surges come from a love for violence.

An alternate possibility is that the Daodan simply advances on its own in random surges. However, each of Konoko's surges occurs right after a fight, which is an unlikely coincidence. Is it possible that the occurrence of a major spike has more to do with Konoko's motivations for fighting? It could be pointed out that all three of the "triggers" for the major spikes are the defeat of someone who has something to do with harming Shinatama. Barabas has just kidnapped her when Konoko defeats him; the room of baddies at the end of Chapter 7 are guarding Shinatama; and Muro was the one who tortured Shinatama personally. Shinatama was the only person Konoko had grown close to in her entire life. Konoko even disobeyed direct orders from her superior to go find her. So it's not so far-fetched to suggest that Konoko is thriving, not on shed blood, but on the removal of threats to her friend.

So, to sum up, either Konoko was being rewarded by the Daodan for her violence, or else her power only advanced when she was fighting to save a friend. This stark dilemma could make for interesting elaboration in Oni 2. Perhaps Konoko is not certain herself whether she is a good person, after the things she's done. If she hasn't reached her Imago form yet, this could be a source of great concern to her, as she wonders how she will turn out when she 'emerges from the pupa'. She may not realize that, deep down, she has real compassion; especially after the events of Oni 1, where she mowed down countless enemies and had everyone out to get her, she might feel that she has no choice but to be a cold, untrusting person. More on this later.

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 clone of Konoko's father. There is no mention of the practice of cloning in Oni, and it seems a bit forced to try to explain his motivation for trying to keep the truth from her.
• 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 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 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 Neo-Agriculture 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 and Griffin are the only ones we know of with the knowledge to work with Chrysalises. Well, the Syndicate might have Muro's data. Anyway, if we assume her views remain the same from the ending of Oni, Mai would be helping people get them, but not in a Florence Nightingale way; she's no doting nurse. She'd be wherever there's a fight over collecting Daodans from the Wilderness or quelling international issues one hotspot at a time.

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?

A. Option 1 is that for some reason she doesn't. If Oni 2 is not set immediately after Oni 1, it seems unlikely that she would be un-transformed unless:

1. She hasn't done any fighting (also unlikely) so that the Daodan hasn't seen a need to take her to the next level.

2. She won't transform unless she intentionally draws on the power and gives in to it.

3. She was "on ice" for the intervening time.

4. Muro was just that far ahead of her, in terms of being the first symbiote and in pushing himself to advance as quickly as possible.

B. Option 2 is that she does, but she can un-transform too, so normally she resembles the Mai we knew. This is definitely the option that is most in line with animé tradition.

We then need to figure out how long she can transform for. What prevents her from being super-powered all the time? This is a concern from a gameplay standpoint. If we can't figure out why she wouldn't be transformed yet, and why she would be able to un-transform, then we have no choice but to make her all Imago, all the time and simply raise the level of her enemies accordingly (see next question).

C. Option 3 is that she is permanently transformed. So how does this affect her? It depends on what she looks like, right?

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?

This console states that Mai (presumably she is the one they are operating on, who else would it be?) can "[repair] skin and organ damage almost as it happens" when they attempt exploratory surgery. So why can't you just stand around in the game and regenerate health? And if Mai's Chrysalis has advanced even more in Oni 2, then it's even harder to see why the sequel wouldn't work this way. Some games these days do provide the player with regenerating health, with even less of a justification for it than Oni 2 would have. Unfortunately, this isn't the direction we want to go with Oni 2 because it encourages interrupting the flow of the game to hide from the enemy or stand in one spot.

This brings to mind an interesting suggestion made on OCF (see third post down), which is that hypos sedate the conscious mind somewhat as part of the healing process, which allows the Daodan Chrysalis to exert more control over the host. This was intended to explain the Daodan overpower mode that kicks in when you pass 100% health, but it could also explain why Mai can regenerate like a regular Wolverine when under the knife, even though she doesn't in-game -- she was almost certainly sedated at the time of the surgery! A suggestion made by guido in the Oni 2 Storyline thread was that the Daodan and the host have a sort of psychic war going on, a fight for control. If the human part of Mai is holding back the Daodan from taking over mentally (more on this later), then it could also be responsible for limiting the powers of the Daodan over her body.

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

A. Play ZOE 2 before you ask that question. You're massively more powerful at the end than you were at the start of ZOE, wasting dozens of enemies with each attack. But the game's still challenging. The key is just having tons of enemies or one very strong enemy.

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.

What would Oni 2 be about?

Various notions that could be combined to form a plot.

• Mai is trying to find her father. It should be for more than sentimental reasons, because those would seem trivial when the world is on fire, but certainly she wants some kind of answers or closure, similar to an adopted child seeking out his real parents. But likely Hasegawa will have data on the Daodan that could be instrumental to whatever is going on. When she finds him, we get to learn what he's been up to all this time. Maybe finding him is just the start of Act Two, as his information sets a new plot in motion.

• It could also be about a new development in the Wilderness... at first, it was just Daodan-enhanced plant life, polluting our air with the byproducts of its respiration, but now more advanced life is appearing, on higher trophic levels. The world, viewed as a "trophic map", shows the large masses of Wilderness plants around the world as one color, then a darker color within that mass, spreading out in all directions, representing level 2, then level 3 heterotrophs -- either coming through the veil, or else our animal life is now successfully being modified by the Daodan as well, or can now successfully live off the foreign flora. Earth as we know it will be swallowed up unless we can stop it -- or failing that, implant all humans with Chrysalises so they can survive the final cataclysm.

• Perhaps Man is trying to burn away the mutated Wilderness to re-establish a normal ecosphere and Mai feels this is not the right path. Or, alternately, Mai is simply traveling the world to see how the Wilderness is being coped with in different areas. Perhaps there's even a Utopian city that is successful keeping out the Daodan, but at some kind of horrible cost (human sacrifices?).

• The Neo-Syndicate is selling Chrysalises, and Mai and company are trying to prevent it.

• Someone has released a virus that can kill the Chrysalis. Particularly if the Chrysalises being sold are based on one set of genes to speed up production, this puts the entire implanted population at risk of death, or at least the removal of their protection from the Bio-Crisis.

• Or maybe, instead of killing the Chrysalis, it makes those implantees change somehow.
• Or perhaps the remaining Flatline zombies out there are still controllable by the Syndicate, even after Daodan implantation....