Suzaku

According to the 10th Memorial Book, Raven is genetically immortal, which is to say he was naturally immortal from birth. His immortality activated the first time he died, and when it did he also stopped aging. The cylindrical space is still a mystery. And no, Raven has no connection to Axl or timeslipping at all. The assumption that he was Axl's parallel existence is incorrect, and Axl's parallel existence is someone completely different and unexpected. That's straight from Ishiwatari. Anyway, the first part of the story obviously happens before Lightning the Argent (since it explains how he got the forehead needle), and probably before or around the time he met That Man (since his life has no purpose). The rest of the story details his life and "first death" as a young German soldier in the middle ages, and though nothing is really concretely defined, about a thousand years before 2181 would probably put it around the time of the First, Second, or Northern Crusades.

I always had the feeling that the PWAB was behind Valentine. Making copies certainly fits their M.O., anyway. Plus, That Man's relationship with the PWAB is described as an antagonistic one in the 10th Memorial book. Anyway, I finished translating Raven's short story:

Well, more accurately, he defines "Apocalypse" as a third party which interferes in God's plan, which he believes to be more likely as a culprit than an error in God's "method". Which is to say, "Apocalypse" is an outside force that influences evolution by forcing species to jump directly from A to C, or simply by disabling B. This creates missing links, and examination has shown that species with missing links tend to go extinct. As a result, it isn't neccesarily good to influence evolution, because if the proper (righteous, just, correct) evolution is interrupted, a species could evolve incorrectly and walk the path to extinction. At any rate, the real question is, given his theory of "Apocalypse," why does he ultimately make the Gears? I think it has something to do with term "Merciless Apocalypse." If a "Merciless Apocalypse" is leading the world to ruin, could it be that he was trying to combat it by guiding the evolution of species himself, fighting fire with fire? It's really hard to figure out... Assuming that Guilty Gear: The Missing Link really ties into the theory literally, I think, though I'm not sure, that Sol may be "The Missing Link", being the prototype Gear. That would make him the Missing Link between humans and Gear, and would also make That Man "Apocalypse". Though, that's really just grasping at straws.... I think the implication is that That Man's longevity comes from a (treatment) program whereby his body is made young again. A seemingly unavoidable side effect of the program is that his memories may be damaged and lost. He and Raven are apparantly trying to find a solution -- they use an insect hormone which, as an example, would cause a caterpillar to keep growing without turning into a butterfly, but because it's not a human hormone, his body rejected it -- so until they find one, they manually back up his memories to a server so he can recover them if they're lost. It's similar to a concept in the manga Blame!, in which a human is kept alive and young by a machine that repairs his body, but every time his body is rebuilt, his memories and mental faculties degrade. Oh, and "karasu" (烏) is Japanese for "raven" or "crow". That kanji is written on the back of Raven's mantle.

Ashercroix: It's Raven. Raven's mantle in GG2 has the kanji "Karasu" written on it. I'll go ahead and summarize just to make sure everything is clear. Without the characters' unique speech styles or first person pronouns, I think it might be a bit difficult to tell who's talking sometimes. This is set shortly after the theory of magic was completed, in a time of rampant scientific growth. Aria got her PhD in intelligence engineering, basically AI programming, as a teenager. Frederick's degree was in particle physics, and he's a leader in the new field of magical energy physics. That Man is a prodigy who completed his study of biology as a youngster and worked on the theory of magic, and now specializes in bioinformatics, which is the study of biological data (like the human genome). That Man is the chief of this American-run research laboratory and the three are friends/coworkers. Basically, Aria comes into the lab having just gotten a pretty dramatic haircut, judging from That Man's comment (probably went from really long to shoulder length). Frederick either doesn't notice or pretends not to notice, but after That Man compliments her, he says she doesn't look like a student anymore and curses. That Man gives Fred a cup of coffee. Aria asks the two if they pulled an all-nighter, and That Man says they sort of did, because they got into a discussion about controversial phenomena. That Man begins to tell Aria about the discussion, trying to explain that he thinks there are some unexplained phenomena which are only unexplained due to a lack of understanding, and others which are simply beyond human perception. He uses God as an example, which prompts a sarcastic remark from Frederick, so he instead talks about DNA and how it's only recently been understood. That Man continues by saying they understand what man is made of, but not who made man or how. Aria explains it's just natural selection, but That Man uses her as an example to say that the probability of everything in the universe being created by random chance is extremely low. That Man illustrates a hypothesis in which a being beyond human perception, which he'll call "God" for the sake of argument, controls and directs every event towards a single purpose. He explains that, for example, "God" defines the outcome of evolution, but states that "God's" control is imperfect and there are sometimes mistakes. He attributes these mistakes in evolution, like missing links, to a third party which he calls "Apocalypse", and notes that species that have missing links in their geneology tend to go extinct. He says that if the natural pursuit by the human species to reach a righteous evolution were interrupted by "Apocalypse", they could evolve incorrectly and would be doomed to extinction. Aria is worried by this dire prediction, but Frederick says That Man's full of shit and she shouldn't believe him. That Man laughs and says Frederick is cruel and it's just a hypothesis. Aria asks if that's what Fred really thinks, and Fred explains that you have to make up your own mind, and try to endure when people try to persuade you otherwise. That Man agrees. In the "epilogue", this is revealed to be a memory which That Man experiences during a memory restoring procedure that Raven is managing. That Man undergoes a program whereby his body is restored to a youthful state (he is presumably de-aged), but due to a defect in the program, there's a risk that his memories will be damaged or lost. To combat this, he backs up his memories as data in an HPC server, and restores his memories after undergoing the procedure. Raven mentions that his body rejected the juvenile hormones, which are insect hormones that allow larva to keep growing without undergoing metamorphosis. It closes by That Man mentioning the memory, and that it must have made him nostalgiac.

Okay, all done. I also corrected some typos I made in the transcription as I went through, so the first post is updated. Here it is:

I wasn't planning on jumping in, but I hate to see you guys suffering. I could probably have it translated inside of a few days. Ashercroix: Could you please post Raven's as well? Or any/all of the other ones. I could at least help transcribe them. Edit: After parsing it out properly, it's really quite a bit shorter than I initially thought. Might be able to translate it quicker than I first estimated. Edit 2: Minor typo fix. Edit 3: All of the typos corrected.

http://www.physics.ucla.edu/~grosenth/jwpce.html JWPce is a godsend. A friend of mine who works as a translater over at Nintendo pointed it out to me a few years ago. It's a Japanese word processor with a built-in kanji dictionary (with English translations) and a bunch of different lookup methods (strokes and radicals and whatnot).

I've begun working on (slowly) translating stuff. Mostly stuff that's of interest to me. A lot of the information isn't really new, and I don't want to spend a ton of time translating minor things like move details for all the characters, but still, I'm working on stuff. I fully translated Raven's pages, except for the voice data, as I'd prefer to use the official English translations. The other two pages I've done so far are partial. Chapter 1: History Chapter 2: Character "GUILTY GEAR" CHARACTER RELATIONSHIPS CHART (Pages 28-29) AXL (Pages 53-56) RAVEN (Pages 138-139) OTHER (Page 140) Chapter 3: Material Organization Explanation (Pages 146-147) Chapter 4: Gallery Chapter 5: Special

Yeah, those romanizations aren't correct. I got ahold of the official German romanizations, which were apparantly confirmed by Arcsy and Ishiwatari. The English translations are my own with a little help from a German fluent friend. Skills: Soko ja nai (Not there) Fesseln Wimper [binding Lash] Ledig Blick [One Glance] Schwarz Wolken [black Clouds] Special Moves: Traurig Zeiger [Woeful Needle] Schmerz Berg [Painful Mountain] Kreisen Weh [Circling Hurt] Gebrechlich Licht [Fragile Light] Verzweifelt [Desperation] Of those, Wimper actually means lash as in eyelash, which I assume to be the German equivalent of Engrish. Gelman? And I've seen Schmerz Berg both ways, but Schmerz makes more sense than Schmelz considering the character.

Not a sprite, but eh.

I haven't really done any pixel art in a while, but yesterday I happened upon an unfinished edit of GG2 Sol that a friend of mine had started, and gave up on after doing some of his shirt and some outlines for his pants and boots. I took over, redid bits of the shirt, added his collar(s), the RIOT emblem on his chest, and his hands, fixed up and shaded the pants/boots, added the flap things that hang behind his legs, laces to the boots, and zippers to the pants. The latter two were a real bitch, and I suddenly realized that none of the 2D GG characters have zippers or laces on their costumes, and understood why... Lastly, the pièce de résistance, I from-scratched his new sword, as well as a completely new hairstyle based on his GG2 design materials. And here he is, in a new pallete as well as one using his Order-Sol colors, with his original look for comparison: Old Stuff - Here's some old stuff I've done, both finished and unfinished. Raven, original look. From-scratch. Raven, GG2 look, incomplete. From-scratch. Tyr, incomplete. From-scratch. Gear Sol from the GG1 ending. Edit. GG2 Balls:

In the description of the "Axl" keyword in Raven's section of the 10th Memorial Book, it says, "Mr. Ishiwatari says the theory that Raven and Axl are parallel existences is unfounded," and that Raven's immortality has nothing to do with time jumping. According to the "Perpetual Youth and Longevity" keyword, it's revealed in his short story that Raven's a natural, genetic immortal, and that at the moment his immortality manifested, he ceased aging. It also mentions a "Cylindrical Space", but states that the details are unclear. Raven's "Axl" keyword refers to Axl's section, specifically to his "Timeslip" keyword. It states that, according to Mr. Ishiwatari, the identity of Axl's "parallel existence" is completely different from the theory amongst fans, and will be an unexpected character. It states that he has eternal youth until the Timeslipping ends -- though I'm not sure if that means Axl or the parallel existence. So, there you have it -- not Raven. Could it perhaps be... That Man, or someone related to him, like the other associate? Who knows... They've also got the same voice actor. There's definitely some sort of connection, but damned if I know what it is. I haven't found anything interesting about him in the GG10th book yet, beyond him probably being the scientist that manufactured the Robo-Kys and being a branch chief / division head within the Post-War Administration Bureau.

Got a little bored.

Anyone mind posting the official English movelist for Raven? I'm still iffy on some of the German transliterations, and I'd like to see what Aksys came up with, but they don't seem to have a .pdf or anything for him online.

Pretty much all that, yeah, and some other minor details; Aria looks like Valentine, Testament should be part of the Sacred Order group, Ky should probably have a connection with I-No, as should Testament, Kliff, and Crow with Justice. And that's not even including minor characters, or even those who at least have character art (Tsuyoshi, Volf, Tyr, Geena, etc). I think the intention might be less to create a completely inclusive chart, and more to give the reader an idea of where things more-or-less stand up to the most recent titles, without actually spoiling GGXXAC+ or GG2. That, or they just didn't want to clutter it up too much. The bit about Testament being remodeled / converted into a Gear by "That Man" was the only thing that really stuck out to me, apart from the inclusion of Gig, Leopaldon, Fanny, and Raymond/Judgment as canon characters. Was there any indication of that connection between the two beforehand? If so, would that mean "That Man" was involved with the PWAB, or that Testament was remodeled/altered after joining Justice? Or maybe just a mistake?

http://www.sendspace.com/file/du3eml Please feel free to mirror it. I kinda rushed through it, but there's not really much "new" information in it. I tried to use the official English terminology, but if I made any mistakes... oh well. Enjoy!

Hopefully nobody else has already started, because I've fully translated the first page of the character relationship chart. I'll finish up the second page and post it tommorow.

I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of shippers suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced. Ahaha, who am I kidding? "Silenced." They'll probably just come up with some heart transplant story. Anything to justify their pairings. On another note, does this mean we're now allowed to say that the Maiden of the Grove is Dizzy? Or are we still in Faust / Baldhead feign ignorance territory?

Magic is sort of a pure, green, energy source. After magic became scientific fact, all old world technology (including conventional modern weaponry like guns, bombs, and tanks) was outlawed as Blacktech because it harmed the environment; Blacktech is rare, and, when discovered, is often destroyed by authorities. The only nation that doesn't comply with the laws against Blacktech is Zepp, though neutral organizations (like the Assassin's Guild) seem to use it if they can get ahold of it. People are capable of using magic without the Outrage; the Outrage only help to focus and enhance magical energy and make it more easy to control. Jam, Kliff, and Chipp can all use Ki magic, for example, while Axl can use fire. Some types of magic are easier to control than others. There were entire divisions of the Sacred Order of Holy Knights that specialized in magic.

Heh, nice. Even character designs from the original beta version. I'll look forward to scans.

Considering that Ishiwatari considers Soul Calibur to be, "frankly, trash", I wouldn't count on it. Unless you mean something like character customization, which could be awesome. Not many 2D games pull that off. The only one I can think of is the Korean MMORPG, Dungeon & Fighter, which actually has pretty Guilty Gear-esque graphics and plenty of different ways to customize the characters. I think the main thing to consider is that Ishiwatari and co. seem to want to try and keep Guilty Gear as a competetive franchise, so straight up RPGs or singleplayer games probably aren't very likely. Maybe a full RTS game, or something more like Warcraft 3? GG2 was based on a WC3 mod, after all. I'd guess it's most likely that we'll just see a followup to GG2 with various upgrades and fixes to make it better. A straight up fighting game mode (1 on 1 arena battle) would certainly be welcome, though, if the engine could support it.

You are in luck, sir. I did this, like, years ago: http://img168.imageshack.us/img168/9581/kysolenhancedbi7.jpg

Whoa, whoa. Just hold on a minute, Blade. I'm pretty positive that picture isn't from the novel. You're maybe mixing it up with the other one where he's covered in flames, but Sol definitely wasn't dressed like that in the novel.

Justice wasn't able to control him, since he predates the other Gears as the Prototype Gear, so I don't really think that's likely. It's more likely that he just recognized her or understand he didn't need to kill her, for whatever reason.

Okay, I reread the GGXX story mode stuff on Axl and Raven, and assuming it's still canon, I really think that everyone kind of misinterpreted the "parallel existence" stuff. Most people seemed to jump up and assume it meant that Raven was Axl from the future... But what is a "parallel existence", exactly? Based on their blood types, birthdays, voice actors, memories, etc., it can't be as simple as them being the same person. Maybe it simply means that they are supposed to exist in tandem, at parallel points? That Man does say something which I think is probably important: when they enter the same space, one of them cannot remain in a fixed point and the other cannot disappear. Well, we can pretty much assume that the first point means Raven's presence causes Axl to timeslip, and we know that Raven has at least been alive since the Dark Ages, so if Axl appeared at any point in time between then and the present (and presumably into the future and potentially into the past), he'd likely timeslip due to Raven existing within the same space. Now, the second point? Does it just mean that one timeslips and the other remains stationary? Or maybe, just maybe, could it means that Raven's immortality is a result of Axl's presence, and he is thus unable to "disappear"? Now, we know that I-No proved that the law of causality can be broken (which is to say that the future isn't a fixed destiny), but could it be possible that Raven is immortal because his death would cause a time paradox? And once again, there's the matter of Crow, who shares both Raven's voice actor and, more or less, name, which would be one hell of a coincidence. Maybe Raven is Axl's ancestor? Or, somehow, descendant? Maybe he's related to Megumi, somehow? Too many questions, not enough answers. Ishiwatari's reponse might indicate they'll never be answered because it might not really be a canon plot element to begin with.