Central Fiction Arcade Plot Discussion (spoilers)

[BlackYakuzu94]

Is that how he bodies Jin?

[Zedar90]

Yeah, after the battle(gameplay) Relius hit Jin without Jin understanding what was happening, and Relius said that it was only that he had increased the speed.

[TekkamanArk]

I'm not sure if it belongs in a topic or not, but, this is a thought I felt like sharing. Jubei's sword is supposed to be able to cut anything or whatever, right? What if his role is going to be to cut through the Embryo itself? I'm not sure if CF ever specifically mentioned his fate, but, with Phantom trying to play all sides right now and her battle with Jubei being offscreen, I can't help but wonder if he may actually come into this thing in Act 2 or 3.

[NEJI12212]

I don't think they would have Jubei being the character to cut through the Embryo for the amount of screen time he gets across all games but at the same time I'm surprised how big of a role Bang had last game so you never know. But in the end it will probably be Ragna, Jin or Noel that will destroy the embryo.

[Tokkan]

Looking at both Tsubaki's and Izayoi's act 1 stories... they can't both be correct unless somehow Tsubaki and Izayoi became separate people. In both cases it seemed like its the first time they find out Phantom is Nine, though in Tsubaki's case she gets confused as to why she even knows Phantom.

[Volt]

7 hours ago, Tokkan said:

Looking at both Tsubaki's and Izayoi's act 1 stories... they can't both be correct unless somehow Tsubaki and Izayoi became separate people. In both cases it seemed like its the first time they find out Phantom is Nine, though in Tsubaki's case she gets confused as to why she even knows Phantom.

It's even worse. When Izayoi finds Jin inside of the embryo, She says that thanks to the Zero-Weave Izayoi she managed to avoid being affected by the embryo.

Tsubaki's fight with Nine can't possibly be canon. I think she actually activated the Izayoi after the fight with Kagura when she noticed something was off with her memories, but I might be missing something since I haven't seen Tsubaki's Act I Arcade Mode. (Or the end of Izayoi's.)

[Tokkan]

Oh no no. I'm pretty sure they're all canon, it's another Continuum Shift situation where everyone's experiencing their own personal "possible" reality.

At the very least Noel and Mu have definitely become separate people, if Mu's and Relius's win screen quotes versus Noel are to be believed.

[Volt]

1 minute ago, Tokkan said:

Oh no no. I'm pretty sure they're all canon, it's another Continuum Shift situation where everyone's experiencing their own personal "possible" reality.

At the very least Noel and Mu have definitely become separate people, if Mu's and Relius's win screen quotes versus Noel are to be believed.

Wait, what?

What do they say in those quotes?

 

[Tokkan]

Ah, I'm sorry, it's actually Relius's quote versus Mu, not Noel, that spells out the separation.

[Leiopelma]

By the way, I found it a nice touch that they included Mai and Kajun in the CG illustrating Makoto's wish. Shows that they haven't forgotten about those two characters. Here's hoping that they'll be in the console release of CF.

[Arc Raizen]

Ok, am I crazy or are Makoto's boobs constantly getting bigger in every single official artwork of her? That picture is just ridiculous.

[TekkamanArk]

14 hours ago, Leiopelma said:

By the way, I found it a nice touch that they included Mai and Kajun in the CG illustrating Makoto's wish. Shows that they haven't forgotten about those two characters. Here's hoping that they'll be in the console release of CF.

Huh, that's a nice picture.

[Volt]

9 hours ago, Arc Raizen said:

Ok, am I crazy or are Makoto's boobs constantly getting bigger in every single official artwork of her? That picture is just ridiculous.

She's trying to catch up with Litchi and Bullet. I think the bigger question is how long will it take for whoever illustrates them to follow suit.

 

[Leiopelma]

4 hours ago, Volt said:

She's trying to catch up with Litchi and Bullet. I think the bigger question is how long will it take for whoever illustrates them to follow suit.

Makoto is bigger than Bullet. In a recent interview Mori had said that the big-breasted girls are ranked as follows (and also said that he'll never introduce a girl with breasts that are bigger than Litchi's):
Litchi > Makoto > Bullet > Mai > Taokaka

That was before CF though. Since Tao had said that Nine was about as big as Litchi, and considering what Mori had said about not surpassing Litchi, we can concluded that Nine must be in second place.

[Toxin45]

On 12/1/2015 at 1:06 AM, BlackYakuzu94 said:

So, thanks to subtitles I think I can understand how Terumi survived getting time killed. He's basically observing himself at the moment, but can only maintain his existence for so long right?

Yeah he only has a week before he dies.

[Chaoschao222]

From plot to "PLOT" back to plot to some DBZ fusion shit or something. Let's try that again, guys. Maybe with less PLOT and no fusion.

[Luminos564]

So here's a thought, free of charge: besides serving as the visual indicator that you're fighting Lamb-chops and not Nu-13, does anyone else think there is a story related purpose to the spiraling tron mist that envelops her during combat? Actually speaking of that, in what kind of state is Lamb-chops even in? Alive? Dead? Pseudo-revived? Her CPEX arcade run suggest something akin to "between life and death" since she is slowly reformating but at the same time Noel and Rachel note she's not there just yet. And CF doesn't really establish on her status either beyond her wish: wanting to be with Ragna.

Now that I bring it up, units 11, 12 and 13 all have this unprecedented ability to just not stay dead, even when all signs point to an eternal grave...

[Volt]

11 hours ago, Luminos564 said:

So here's a thought, free of charge: besides serving as the visual indicator that you're fighting Lamb-chops and not Nu-13, does anyone else think there is a story related purpose to the spiraling tron mist that envelops her during combat? Actually speaking of that, in what kind of state is Lamb-chops even in? Alive? Dead? Pseudo-revived? Her CPEX arcade run suggest something akin to "between life and death" since she is slowly reformating but at the same time Noel and Rachel note she's not there just yet. And CF doesn't really establish on her status either beyond her wish: wanting to be with Ragna.

Now that I bring it up, units 11, 12 and 13 all have this unprecedented ability to just not stay dead, even when all signs point to an eternal grave...

I don't think I've noticed the same effect during cutscenes, so Lambda's Aura is probably a gameplay exclusive thing...

 

We're so close and yet so far to Act II that's getting hard to discuss things... So let's try one of our resident logic bombs.

Life-link. How come Rachel and Naoto have one before meeting each other for the first time? Did someone ever managed to explain that jank in the first place? What do we need to know about Bloodedge Experience before Ragna croaks for like, 5 minutes and shenanigans happen?

Just throwing some bait here so people don't derail the thread (Myself obviously included and on top of the list), it's not like we'll discuss this after Act II drops anyway...

[Axiomatic]

11 hours ago, Luminos564 said:

So here's a thought, free of charge: besides serving as the visual indicator that you're fighting Lamb-chops and not Nu-13, does anyone else think there is a story related purpose to the spiraling tron mist that envelops her during combat? Actually speaking of that, in what kind of state is Lamb-chops even in? Alive? Dead? Pseudo-revived? Her CPEX arcade run suggest something akin to "between life and death" since she is slowly reformating but at the same time Noel and Rachel note she's not there just yet. And CF doesn't really establish on her status either beyond her wish: wanting to be with Ragna.

Now that I bring it up, units 11, 12 and 13 all have this unprecedented ability to just not stay dead, even when all signs point to an eternal grave...

 

Shit loads of text below.

 

Honestly, I'm of the opinion that it is just a gameplay thing. But lets consider it isn't.

First of all, it can't be present because Lamb-chops is a murakumo since neither nu or mu have it when their murakumo is activated.

If I didn't know better, I would attribute it to her IDEA engine. However, if that was the case, why isn't Tager shown in his own sparkling glory? Not to mention Ragna when he absorbed it from her in CS.

So that leaves it up to "something" that only Mori knows at the moment.

One conjecture I have is that is has to do with something regarding how she is reforming herself like how Nu did during CS, hence why in CP she had it. Canonically though, Lambda has been in the Embryo since CP through to CF but she still has the aura. We know in CF that she somehow now has some amount of the azure. Mu already contained the azure in her in CS though, so why didn't she have it then? Perhaps it is resonance between the azure and her IDEA engine? 

 

 

I think I have a better conjecture for why the murakumo gank squad can't stay dead. Recall that the three girls are copies from the same template, i.e. Saya who had unprecedented aptitude for harnessing seither. Now you need to keep in mind what seither actually is: seither is programs in particle form (from one of Arakune's quotes). Now, Arakune is not the most reliable narrator, but I feel there is circumstantial evidence to believe him. Notice how Relius sees people only for their souls and how he constructs people from smelting with cauldrons or ass loads of seither (his main goal as stated in CS is to build the perfect human). My hypothesis is that when the girls "die" then when their souls return to the boundary (I'm pretty sure souls go to the Azure in the boundary when you die) they can reform themselves from just their souls using the abundance of seither.

 

How? Fuck if I know. I know that Nu did this on her own. Whats to stop Lambda? Nu did have an azure grimoire, but does that somehow affect her soul? If not, then of course Lambda could. If an azure grimoire was needed then, perhaps Lambda's IDEA engine was a suitable replacement for the process. Remember that an azure grimoire can act like a cauldron and an IDEA engine is just a mechanical replication of an azure grimoire (need a citation for this).  As Amaterasu recreates people and the world constantly and Mu is the successor to the azure, I think its easy to see how she could resurrect herself or others through observation or whatever the process is called. 

[Luminos564]

9 hours ago, Volt said:

Life-link. How come Rachel and Naoto have one before meeting each other for the first time? Did someone ever managed to explain that jank in the first place? What do we need to know about Bloodedge Experience before Ragna croaks for like, 5 minutes and shenanigans happen?

Zedar had an explanation that breaks the thing in more layman's terms. In a nutshell, it means that the 2 linked entities cannot "die" until they "observe" and therefore "recognise" each other as "dying". Naturally this franchise being a clusterfudge of terminology, this means there's a whole other metric ton of rules that apply to it but that is the barest premise behind what a Life Link does.

9 hours ago, Axiomatic said:

If I didn't know better, I would attribute it to her IDEA engine. However, if that was the case, why isn't Tager shown in his own sparkling glory? Not to mention Ragna when he absorbed it from her in CS.

So that leaves it up to "something" that only Mori knows at the moment.

Technically, Ragna absorbing the Idea Engine did give him a sort or "mist" like effect. Though this was only in his Unlimited form. In CT it merely represented itself as a permanent Blood Kain mode. In CS and CP however, Unlimited Ragna did have a black mist whenever he was invoking the Idea Engine. Tager however can be explained as to why he doesn't sparkle. Tager only has an "Artificial Causality Phenomenon Weapon". The Idea Engine is something based on them, but is an improved model.

However, your hypothesis on the 3 Murakumo ladies gave me my own theory. Now they are templates of Saya, Ragna and Jin's sickly little sis. That I will not dispute. But proceed to think, when was it that units 11, 12 and 13 were created? Before or after was possessed by a creature solely identified as "death incarnate"? I am of course talking about Izanami. After all, the gal took a Time Killer to the face and brushed it off as if it were a speck of dust on her shoulders. Perhaps making templates based on the Saya that got taken over by an otherwise unkillable entity brushed off that very trait to them?

But yeah, I'll also have to call in Mori and his method of conveying information about the series. Half the time it seems he's either making stuff up as it goes along or writes himself into a wall so he glosses over it with another massive info dump.

[Axiomatic]

5 hours ago, Volt said:

So let's try one of our resident logic bombs.

Life-link. How come Rachel and Naoto have one before meeting each other for the first time? Did someone ever managed to explain that jank in the first place? What do we need to know about Bloodedge Experience before Ragna croaks for like, 5 minutes and shenanigans happen?

 

If I'm not mistaken, Raquel and Naoto had a life-link in Bloodedge Experience.

Now, you might be asking: why is that relevant?

Well we know that Rachel calls herself a Chronophantasma (Phantom of Time) not a Chronophantasma (One Who Should Not Exist [Celica Type]). Now Phantoms of Time are by definition people who possess a different fate than what they should have. What I propose is that Rachel is a Phantom of Time for Raquel. Recall that Rachel was born on October 31 and Bloodedge Experience takes place in October; I'm thinking that whatever happens to Raquel that results in the "birth" of Rachel happens on the 31st of Bloodedge Experience's story. The date could also just be a coincidence though and I'm just talking out my ass.

I still hold that Raquel->Rachel is true though (probably has something to do with how Clavis began to "decay" and went from a suave, handsome, unstoppable character in the story to old-man wheel-chair tier in a few years). Bloodedge Experience Part 3 when? In CF? 

I'm thinking that Raquel's soul/life-link "transferred" to Rachel by the proposed Phantom of Time relationship. Basically your fate changed not your soul/life. I really have no idea if becoming a Chronophantasma while a life-link is active is even possible though; does having your fate changed violate rules of a life-link? 

Like Luminos said though, we don't really know how the fuck Life-Links work since Mori has used it only for plot contrivances (making it so Ragna could never beat Nu in CT, making it so Hazama could never lose in CS as long as Mu lived, and making it so Naoto could get bodied by anything so long as he shared Raquel's life in Bloodedge Experience). 

We need a life-link FAQ or something from Mori; sorry I don't know any concrete answers Volt, but I hope my speculation gives you new leads. Perhaps IM one of the resident lite-novel readers?

Edited January 11, 2016 by Axiomatic
typo

[Stryker115]

Isn't a Life-Link just souls bound in a quasi-reverse quantum entanglement?

[Axiomatic]

1 hour ago, Stryker115 said:

Isn't a Life-Link just souls bound in a quasi-reverse quantum entanglement?

Had to look that up since I'm not too familiar with Physics, but I definitely see parallels with the two concepts. I'm interpreting this as the "particle states" in this case apply only to the souls, but NOT the bodies? Like if Ragna got shanked, then Nu doesn't feel it since the entanglement is only on the souls? Am I interpreting that right? So its not quite like Dragonheart where the bodies have to die together, but each soul has to recognize the other is dead? I'm a little confused by this now....Is this like the Guilty Gear conundrum where Sol killed Order Sol but didn't get Back tot he Future fading away/ erased from existence because of not accepting that death as reality? Cause that shit blew my mind the first time I saw it.

 

 

My only reservation is that I think you might be giving Mori too much credit (the guy that wrote a character [read:Azrael] that tears the fabric of reality with his bare hands). I'd love to see what others have to say about it since I'm not an authority on Blazblue Physics/lore or anything.

 

Since you happened to have a great physics explanation for life-links, would you happen to have one for Kotowari Stryker? Like, people couldn't nuke the Black Beast because it was outside logic. I always interpreted it as basically this thing is bullshit so we cant hurt hit. Kind of like the whole werewolf and silver thing. I bring it up because it might be important in whatever the fuck the Central Fiction is in the next game.

[Zedar90]

I have only seen life-link as a OR gate since I read the entry in the library. 0=dead, 1=live. So as long as the value is 1 on either Ragna or Nu, the "System" sees them both as alive and thus they can't die.

As for things being outside of the Kotowari, I myself only sees it as it's not tied to the "rules" of the world, in other words fire doesn't equal as hot and thus won't burn it. Only things outside of the kotowari can hurt it.

[VermilionBird]

13 hours ago, Axiomatic said:

What I propose is that Rachel is a Phantom of Time for Raquel. Recall that Rachel was born on October 31 and Bloodedge Experience takes place in October; I'm thinking that whatever happens to Raquel that results in the "birth" of Rachel happens on the 31st of Bloodedge Experience's story. The date could also just be a coincidence though and I'm just talking out my ass.

It's looked like the most plausible theory for a while now. Relius also mentions something about Clavis and how he so quickly deteriorated, to paraphrase of course.

Whatever it is, we'll likely find out some clues later on this month if we're lucky.