Hello and welcome to Wasted Plotential, where we
discuss the wasted potential of our favourite plotlines.
Just a quick one today.
Do you ever think about the fact that NieR
Automata has had collaborations with an actual dozen other games?
Not counting other NieR titles, we've seen 2B (or at least her costume) appear in
SINoALICE
SoulCalibur VI
Final Fantasy XIV
Final Fantasy Brave Exvius
War of the Visions: Final Fantasy Brave Exvius
Gravity Rush 2
Star Ocean: Anamnesis
Valkyrie Anatomia: The Origin
Servant of Thrones
Phantasy Star Online 2
Fall Guys
Shadowverse
and probably more that I'm not aware of.
Now tell me, if you're familiar with any of the collaborations that feature 2B herself:
how many of those setting feature humans?
For the unfamiliar, 2B is an android fighting in a war against machine lifeforms,
which are alien robots currently occupying the Earth in the year 11945.
The androids' goal is to wipe out the machines so that humanity can return from the moon.
However, as we learn in the game's second half, humanity actually died out in the 3000's,
so no android currently living has ever actually met a human.
So then, why have we never seen 2B have any
sort of reaction to meeting a real human in these crossovers?
In SoulCalibur VI, she's the only guest to not have her own story and she only
has a unique quote against one other character;
in FFXIV, she can team up with a raid party full of that setting's human equivalents
(even if it's not technically 2B, it's still based on her memories and personality);
and as far as my research suggests, her actual appearances in the other games
either keep her mostly isolated from the other characters or simply don't give her a story.
Imagine how many directions such a thing could go.
The obvious one is shock and amazement that she's met real humans.
Another is mild rejection, assuming she's malfunctioning or that these are androids
that think they're human, since humanity is obviously safely on the moon (or knowing
they've been wiped out, depending on her specific timeframe of origin).
Another is a more violent rejection, assuming it to be a machine trick and fighting against
the humans for a while, before eventually coming to accept the reality of this strange situation.
And of course, there's the subject of how androids are programmed to interact with humans.
They're designed to fight for them, but are they also programmed to serve them?
Would 2B have to do what a human says,
or at least feel inclined to do so, even if she doesn't want to?
Could that be abused and if so, how would that affect her will to fight for humanity?
And even though the FFXIV event and possibly some of the others are considered canonical by
Yoko Taro, you don't need to to worry about this story's canon implications because by
2B's nature as an android that fights, dies and gets replaced by another 2B with whatever
memories were backed up before the last one's death, this 2B can simply be the one we end the
first half of the game with and have this story occur before the second half, or an older model
than the one we start Automata with, and say her data can't be backed up before she dies here,
probably giving her life to save a real human, reflecting on that incredible fact and lamenting
that the other androids and even she herself in her next life will never know about it.
And I think probably the most interesting setting
2B could be transplanted into is the world of Drakengard after the events of Ending E.
After all, that timeline and world is where Caim and Angelus came from,
causing White Chlorination Syndrome, leading to Project Gestalt,
the original NieR, and then the total extinction of humanity in 2B's world.
It would add just that little bit more bite to the story if the real
humans she meets are the humans whose survival indirectly caused
the total extinction of the humanity of a totally innocent world - her world.
I mean, if you're going to make the dumb crossover canon, you may as well explore
some interesting themes while you're at it, instead of doing the crossover solely for the
sake of fanservice and making 2B's alternate colour scheme from SoulCalibur canonical.
It's such a huge opportunity that should have been capitalised on by now.
You know what else Taro and Square should have capitalised?
The first N in Reincarnation, seeing how the first four letters are NieR backwards.
Fools.
Foolish fools.
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Today, I'm recommending both RexRegale's video on the FFXIV event, which was more
helpful than the wikis were in researching this, and BrandoSp's NieR Lore playlist,
which covers the more obscure stuff like the events occurring between each title,
the origins of YorHa, and the new content from the Replicant remaster.