Post by osumatthew on Aug 15, 2018 9:43:39 GMT -8
I just recently completed Sunrider: Liberation Day, and since the next installment hasn't been announced yet, I though I'd give some discussion and express some concerns that I'm hoping are avoided moving forward. Specifically, I'm hoping that LiS avoids creating any inconsistencies in their handling of Chigara's story in the next installment.
I'll preface this by admitting that I rather like Chigara as a character and didn't mind the mandatory romance path that she had in Liberation Day (obviously I hope that they'll have fully fleshed out character routes in the next and/or final installment, but if there was going to be a forced route I'm glad it was Chigara). Her storyline is actually really compelling, particularly in conjunction with Asaga's. However, the REturn DLC routes have me quite worried that, in an effort to appease the community, LiS is going to create inconsistencies in the story regarding Chigara.
It is indisputable that Chigara is a prototype. Claude's records and her susceptibility to Alice's brainjacking are proof of this. However, it is logically impossible to believe that Chigara was an active double agent during her time on the Sunrider, even in an unwilling role. It's even more unbelievable to believe, as some of the characters (Asaga in particular) do, that Chigara was a traitor who actively manipulated Kayto. First of all, from what we've heard from some of the prototypes, particularly Alpha, the apparent plan was to have Chigara develop a relationship with Kayto so that they could manipulate him and thus control humanity. However, Chigara even meeting Kayto was complete coincidence, and not even an explainable "coincidence" where the prototypes happened to have the two cross paths. Asaga was the one who introduced Chigara to the crew of the Sunrider, and she had known and worked with Chigara for 5 years prior to the events of Mask of Arcadius. If the plan was for Chigara to manipulate Kayto, it doesn't make sense that Alpha would have let Chigara run around randomly for more than 5 years.
This could be justified by arguing that the original plan was for Chigara to use her friendship with Asaga, the Princess of Ryuvia, to control humanity. But, this also makes little to no sense. First, Asaga was the one who intervened to help Chigara when the two first met, and it's difficult to believe that even the prototypes would have known how that scenario would have unfolded. The bigger problem is that another prototype, the one masquerading as Arcadius, was intent on marrying Asaga and securing control over Ryuvia. If Chigara really was an agent of the prototypes, she had 5 years that she could have delivered her into their hands, especially since Chigara built the Blackjack and surely could have sabotaged it in a way that could have delivered Asage into the hands of "Arcadius". Therefore, we have a potential quandary if the assumption is that the Mindstream was always influencing Chigara: either Chigara was always aware of Asaga's identity and for some inexplicable reason not only failed to deliver her to the prototypes, and indeed actively worked against that objective in her role aboard the Sunrider, or she remained unaware that Asaga was the Ryuvian princess and the Mindstream simply had Chigara in the middle of nowhere operating a bakery for 5 years. Either way, something doesn't add up here.
The second major issue indicating that Chigara was not linked to the Mindstream is her complete unawareness of its existence prior to Liberation Day. All of the prototypes that we've seen have been aware of the existence of the multitude of other clones connected to them, which is why they often refer to themselves with plural pronouns and discuss how killing one will not affect the prototypes' plans. However, not only is Chigara unaware of the Mindstream, but she's genuinely shocked at the discovery of their existence at the end of Mask of Arcadius. We see the incident from Chigara's point of view, and there's no reason for her to feign surprise given the circumstances. This establishes another piece of evidence that Chigara was not linked to the Mindstream at all during most of the series.
Third is the matter of information leakage to the prototypes. Some of the prototypes state or imply that Chigara gave them information about the crew and the ship during her time aboard the Sunrider, and this was actually what made Ava so suspicious of Chigara during the first half of Liberation Day. But, if this were actually the case, the prototypes would have had no need for Claude's assistance, beyond covering for Chigara's status as a prototype. Claude was the one who sent regular reports on the Sunrider and its activities, and these would have been completely superfluous if the prototypes could simply tap into Chigara's consciousness at any moment. Moreover, it actually would have been unnecessarily risky to rely on Claude's reports if they had other options, as these transmissions could be detected in a way that Mindstream communication could not.
Lastly, we have one of my most pressing concerns at the moment. As should be indicated by my prior points, it is difficult to believe that Chigara was anything more than a completely independent prototype, completely separated from the Mindstream and without any knowledge, memories, or connection with the other prototypes. In fact, she only commits her treachery at the very end of Liberation Day, and only because Alice brainjacked her in order to carry out her plan. The REturn story indicates that this was due to Chigara's entry into the Mindstream to combat the Trojan virus implanted within the PACT fleet, and supports a conclusion that, until this point, Chigara was a completely free and independent person. However, in other places throughout the REturn story, Alice or another prototype is able to control Chigara to sabotage the reactor, cause a rampage in the Blackjack, and stab Kayto. The fact that this happens apparently without Chigara ever entering the Mindstream goes against every other piece of evidence that the game has provided, and even against the premise of the DLC itself. If Chigara could be controlled at will, there would be no need to keep her out of the Mindstream in the first place, because preventing her from entering would change nothing. Now, I'm willing to treat the REturn DLC as non-canon because it was created in order to appease the fanbase (and Kayto's own portrayal is rather ridiculous as well), but this immediately raised red flags for me. Hopefully Love in Space won't create any additional inconsistencies regarding Chigara moving onward, and I still have high hopes for the as yet unannounced sequel.
My conclusion is that Chigara was an experimental prototype of some kind, created with free will and sent into the galaxy with a set of false memories, though I don't know what the purpose was. She neither purposefully nor unintentionally betrayed the Sunrider or its crew at any time, and in fact made their success against PACT and the prototypes possible. Her treachery and subsequent "death" only occurred after she made first contact with the Mindstream in Liberation Day, and her force of will is strong enough to now contend with Alice and Alpha, two of the most powerful of the prototypes. Hopefully, she'll be able to overcome them and regain her freedom and life, because she definitely deserves a happy ending that's not simply confined to the timeline of Sunrider Academy. But, those are just my thoughts on the matter; I'd be curious to hear what other people think.
I'll preface this by admitting that I rather like Chigara as a character and didn't mind the mandatory romance path that she had in Liberation Day (obviously I hope that they'll have fully fleshed out character routes in the next and/or final installment, but if there was going to be a forced route I'm glad it was Chigara). Her storyline is actually really compelling, particularly in conjunction with Asaga's. However, the REturn DLC routes have me quite worried that, in an effort to appease the community, LiS is going to create inconsistencies in the story regarding Chigara.
It is indisputable that Chigara is a prototype. Claude's records and her susceptibility to Alice's brainjacking are proof of this. However, it is logically impossible to believe that Chigara was an active double agent during her time on the Sunrider, even in an unwilling role. It's even more unbelievable to believe, as some of the characters (Asaga in particular) do, that Chigara was a traitor who actively manipulated Kayto. First of all, from what we've heard from some of the prototypes, particularly Alpha, the apparent plan was to have Chigara develop a relationship with Kayto so that they could manipulate him and thus control humanity. However, Chigara even meeting Kayto was complete coincidence, and not even an explainable "coincidence" where the prototypes happened to have the two cross paths. Asaga was the one who introduced Chigara to the crew of the Sunrider, and she had known and worked with Chigara for 5 years prior to the events of Mask of Arcadius. If the plan was for Chigara to manipulate Kayto, it doesn't make sense that Alpha would have let Chigara run around randomly for more than 5 years.
This could be justified by arguing that the original plan was for Chigara to use her friendship with Asaga, the Princess of Ryuvia, to control humanity. But, this also makes little to no sense. First, Asaga was the one who intervened to help Chigara when the two first met, and it's difficult to believe that even the prototypes would have known how that scenario would have unfolded. The bigger problem is that another prototype, the one masquerading as Arcadius, was intent on marrying Asaga and securing control over Ryuvia. If Chigara really was an agent of the prototypes, she had 5 years that she could have delivered her into their hands, especially since Chigara built the Blackjack and surely could have sabotaged it in a way that could have delivered Asage into the hands of "Arcadius". Therefore, we have a potential quandary if the assumption is that the Mindstream was always influencing Chigara: either Chigara was always aware of Asaga's identity and for some inexplicable reason not only failed to deliver her to the prototypes, and indeed actively worked against that objective in her role aboard the Sunrider, or she remained unaware that Asaga was the Ryuvian princess and the Mindstream simply had Chigara in the middle of nowhere operating a bakery for 5 years. Either way, something doesn't add up here.
The second major issue indicating that Chigara was not linked to the Mindstream is her complete unawareness of its existence prior to Liberation Day. All of the prototypes that we've seen have been aware of the existence of the multitude of other clones connected to them, which is why they often refer to themselves with plural pronouns and discuss how killing one will not affect the prototypes' plans. However, not only is Chigara unaware of the Mindstream, but she's genuinely shocked at the discovery of their existence at the end of Mask of Arcadius. We see the incident from Chigara's point of view, and there's no reason for her to feign surprise given the circumstances. This establishes another piece of evidence that Chigara was not linked to the Mindstream at all during most of the series.
Third is the matter of information leakage to the prototypes. Some of the prototypes state or imply that Chigara gave them information about the crew and the ship during her time aboard the Sunrider, and this was actually what made Ava so suspicious of Chigara during the first half of Liberation Day. But, if this were actually the case, the prototypes would have had no need for Claude's assistance, beyond covering for Chigara's status as a prototype. Claude was the one who sent regular reports on the Sunrider and its activities, and these would have been completely superfluous if the prototypes could simply tap into Chigara's consciousness at any moment. Moreover, it actually would have been unnecessarily risky to rely on Claude's reports if they had other options, as these transmissions could be detected in a way that Mindstream communication could not.
Lastly, we have one of my most pressing concerns at the moment. As should be indicated by my prior points, it is difficult to believe that Chigara was anything more than a completely independent prototype, completely separated from the Mindstream and without any knowledge, memories, or connection with the other prototypes. In fact, she only commits her treachery at the very end of Liberation Day, and only because Alice brainjacked her in order to carry out her plan. The REturn story indicates that this was due to Chigara's entry into the Mindstream to combat the Trojan virus implanted within the PACT fleet, and supports a conclusion that, until this point, Chigara was a completely free and independent person. However, in other places throughout the REturn story, Alice or another prototype is able to control Chigara to sabotage the reactor, cause a rampage in the Blackjack, and stab Kayto. The fact that this happens apparently without Chigara ever entering the Mindstream goes against every other piece of evidence that the game has provided, and even against the premise of the DLC itself. If Chigara could be controlled at will, there would be no need to keep her out of the Mindstream in the first place, because preventing her from entering would change nothing. Now, I'm willing to treat the REturn DLC as non-canon because it was created in order to appease the fanbase (and Kayto's own portrayal is rather ridiculous as well), but this immediately raised red flags for me. Hopefully Love in Space won't create any additional inconsistencies regarding Chigara moving onward, and I still have high hopes for the as yet unannounced sequel.
My conclusion is that Chigara was an experimental prototype of some kind, created with free will and sent into the galaxy with a set of false memories, though I don't know what the purpose was. She neither purposefully nor unintentionally betrayed the Sunrider or its crew at any time, and in fact made their success against PACT and the prototypes possible. Her treachery and subsequent "death" only occurred after she made first contact with the Mindstream in Liberation Day, and her force of will is strong enough to now contend with Alice and Alpha, two of the most powerful of the prototypes. Hopefully, she'll be able to overcome them and regain her freedom and life, because she definitely deserves a happy ending that's not simply confined to the timeline of Sunrider Academy. But, those are just my thoughts on the matter; I'd be curious to hear what other people think.