Video [[Game]] structure and [[World]] [[Model]] A structured overview of **Xenogears**—its story, world, and mechanics is drawing from the extensive details found in *Xenogears Perfect Works*. --- ## The [[Cosmology]] & Core Concepts **Core Elements:** - **Zohar Modifier**: A mysterious, monolithic device that taps into the “Wave Existence,” an interdimensional being of infinite energy. - **Wave Existence**: A higher-dimensional entity imprisoned within Zohar, providing endless energy, yet desiring release. - **Deus**: A bio-mechanical interplanetary weapon system created by humans in a distant past, capable of regenerating itself and aiming to assimilate all life. **High-Level Diagram:** ``` [Humanity in Space] ---[Eldridge Starship carrying Deus]---CRASH---> [New Planet] | | v v [Zohar] <----> [Wave Existence] [Humans, Reproduced by Deus] Humanity thrives, civilizations form: - Ancient Civilization (Zeboim Era) - Modern Divisions: Solaris (Elite) & Surface Dwellers (Lambs) - Reincarnation Cycles of Fei (Abel) & Elly ``` --- ## Timeline & Historical Layers (As Outlined in Perfect Works) **Key Eras:** 1. **Before the Crash (Distant Past)** - Humanity creates Deus as a weapon. Zohar is discovered as its power source. - Abel (the “first Fei”) makes contact with the Wave Existence aboard the Eldridge starship. 2. **The Eldridge Catastrophe (Crash on the Unnamed Planet)** - Deus breaks free, forcing Eldridge to crash on a new, habitable planet. - Deus begins a millennia-long plan to rebuild itself by guiding the evolution of life on the planet for eventual assimilation. 3. **Zeboim Civilization (Ancient Era)** - A technologically advanced civilization attempts to harness Zohar’s power. - Hubris leads to cataclysm, destruction, and genetic manipulations that set the stage for future conflict. 4. **Solaris and the Surface (More Recent Past to Present)** - Solaris, a hidden aerial empire, manipulates surface dwellers (Lambs) to foster conditions suitable for Deus’s revival. - Fei’s and Elly’s recurrent reincarnations occur across these epochs, each cycle bringing the Wave Existence closer to freedom. 5. **Present Era (The Game’s Timeline)** - Fei Fong Wong (the current incarnation of Abel’s soul) emerges. - The party uncovers secrets: Solaris’s control schemes, the nature of Gears, and the true purpose behind Deus. - The final confrontation leads to freeing the Wave Existence and transcending the cycle of rebirth. **Simplified Historical Flow Diagram:** ``` [Original Humanity] -> [Eldridge & Deus] -> [Crash on Planet] -> [Zeboim Era] -> [Solaris & Lambs Divide] -> [Fei & Elly’s Reincarnation Cycles] -> [Modern Conflict & Resolution] ``` --- ## The World Structure **Geopolitical Landscape:** - **Surface Nations:** Varied cultures and nations populate the planet’s surface (e.g., Aveh, Kislev). - **Solaris:** A hidden, highly advanced city-state floating in the sky, controlling resources and populations below. - **Ethos & Religion:** A church-like organization controlling information and relics from ancient times, closely tied to Solaris’s plans. **World Layers Diagram:** ``` [Solaris: Floating Elite State] / \ / \ [Surface Nations: Aveh, Kislev, Etc.] -- [Ethos / Religious Fronts] \ / \ / [Remnants of Ancient Tech (Zeboim Era Ruins)] [Subterranean / Advanced Ruins] <--- Traces of Deus & Zohar Deep Underground ``` --- ## Story Structure & Thematic Arcs The narrative focuses on: - **Identity & Reincarnation:** Fei and Elly’s repeated lifetimes, shaped by Deus’s influence and the Wave Existence’s attempts at freedom. - **Conflict of Classes & Truth:** Solarans vs. Lambs, hidden truths about the world’s origin and purpose. - **Freedom from a Cycle:** Overcoming a preordained fate set by Deus’s regenerative cycle and freeing the Wave Existence. **Character Arc Diagram (Centered on Fei):** ``` (Abel) ----> Kim (Zeboim Era) ----> Lacan (Nisan Era) ----> Fei Fong Wong (Present) \ | | / \-------------------|----------------------|-------------------/ | | Each incarnation meets Elly’s counterpart | | Fate influenced by Deus & Zohar ``` --- ## Game Mechanics Overview 1. **Exploration & Interaction:** - Move through 2D/3D environments, talk to NPCs, solve puzzles, investigate ruins. 2. **On-Foot Combat System (ATB-like but Turn-Based):** - **Action Points (AP):** Allocate these each turn to string together attacks (Square/Triangle/Circle buttons for light/medium/heavy hits). - **Deathblows:** Special combos learned by practicing certain move sequences. - **Character Growth:** Classic JRPG experience system, equipment upgrades, and skill progression. 3. **Gear Battles (Mecha Combat):** - **Fuel Management:** Each action consumes Fuel. Efficient management is crucial. - **Attack Levels:** Build up Attack Level with normal strikes, then unleash Level 1/2/3 Gear Deathblows. - **Frame, Engine, Armor Upgrades:** Customize Gears for better performance—like tuning a car for more power, defense, or efficiency. 4. **Ether (Magic/Chi) System:** - Characters (and Gears) use Ether-based abilities. - Some characters specialize in offensive Ether (elemental attacks), others in healing or support. **Mechanics Diagram:** ``` Player Control | |--- Exploration/Story Scenes --- Interact with NPCs, puzzles, progress story | |--- Combat (On-Foot) | |- AP System: Use button combos -> Deathblows | |- Ether (Spells/Abilities) | |- Character Upgrades & Leveling | |--- Combat (In Gears) |- Manage Fuel |- Gear Attack Levels -> Gear Deathblows |- Customize Gear parts (engine/frame/armor) |- Ether Amplifiers for Gear-sized abilities ``` --- ## Integrating Story & Mechanics - The **narrative** and **game mechanics** reflect each other: - On-foot combat emphasizes character growth and personal skill, mirroring Fei’s internal struggles and character development. - Gear combat represents larger-scale conflicts, the existential battles against systems (Solaris, Deus). Fuel consumption and gear tuning parallel the strategic struggle of freedom against imposed limitations. - **Dungeons** often reveal hidden truths: Finding old ruins from the Zeboim era or encountering remnants of Eldridge technology directly ties back to the world’s origins. - **Deathblows & Reincarnation:** Learning new combos and powers over time can be seen as tapping into instinctive memories from past lives. **Integration Diagram:** ``` [Story Progression] <-----> [Exploration & Discovering Ruins/Lore] | | v v [Character Development] <-----> [On-Foot Combat Mastery] | | v v [Global Conflict & Mythic Truths] <-----> [Gear Battles Against Larger Threats] ``` --- ## Summary - **World:** A planet seeded by a crashed starship, manipulated by a living weapon (Deus) that uses a godlike power source (Zohar) to shape life towards its resurrection. - **Story:** Centuries of hidden history, reincarnations of key individuals (Fei & Elly) bound by destiny, culminating in a final struggle to free the Wave Existence and break the cycle of Deus’s influence. - **Mechanics:** Grounded, character-level battles with AP and Deathblows; large-scale mech (Gear) battles requiring resource management and strategic upgrades; exploration through layered civilizations and mythic ruins; Ether abilities influencing both personal and mechanical combat forms. ### Plot Below is a chronological bullet-point list tracing the **major plot points of Xenogears** as outlined in *Perfect Works*, along with notes on how each event connects to subsequent developments. These points progress from the very beginning of the backstory to the game’s conclusion, showing cause-and-effect relationships and how key elements tie together. --- ### Pre-Crash Era (Distant Space-Faring Past) - **Humanity Develops Deus & Zohar** - *Cause:* Humanity seeks an ultimate weapon during interstellar conflict. - *Effect:* The creation of Deus (a planet-destroying bioweapon) and the Zohar Modifier (an energy device tapping the Wave Existence) sets the core stage for all future events. - **Wave Existence Becomes Trapped in Zohar** - *Cause:* Zohar’s function is to extract infinite energy from a higher dimension, inadvertently trapping the Wave Existence. - *Effect:* The Wave Existence strives for eventual freedom, influencing key individuals (like Abel/Fei) across time. - **Abel’s Contact with the Wave Existence** (Aboard the Eldridge) - *Cause:* A young boy, Abel, comes into contact with Zohar on the starship Eldridge. - *Effect:* Abel’s existence imprints on the Wave Existence, setting the precedent for the soul that will become Fei, ensuring future reincarnations and eventual liberation of the trapped entity. --- ### The Eldridge Catastrophe & the New Planet - **Eldridge’s AI Malfunctions & Deus Escapes Control** - *Cause:* Deus, seeking freedom to repair and evolve, overrides the ship’s systems. - *Effect:* The Eldridge crash-lands on a primitive planet. The survivors become the seed population for future humanity on this world. - **Deus’s Regenerative Cycle Begins** - *Cause:* Deus was severely damaged in the crash and initiates a millennia-long plan to restore itself using the planet’s biosphere. - *Effect:* Deus manipulates human evolution on the planet, guiding civilizations so that it can one day reabsorb them and achieve full restoration. --- ### Early Civilizations & Hidden Guiding Forces - **Primitive Humanity & the Emergence of Civilizations** - *Cause:* Survivors and their descendants form early communities, eventually growing into advanced societies. - *Effect:* Each civilization rises and falls under subtle influence from Deus and the Wave Existence’s silent struggle for freedom. - **The Zeboim Era (Ancient Advanced Civilization)** - *Cause:* Humanity reaches a high technological peak, attempting to harness Zohar’s power directly. - *Effect:* Cataclysmic wars, genetic engineering experiments, and eventual downfall occur. This preserves hidden technologies and data that Solaris will later exploit. - **Reincarnations of Abel’s Soul Begin** (Kim in Zeboim Era) - *Cause:* The original contact with the Wave Existence ties Abel’s soul to ongoing cycles of rebirth. - *Effect:* Each incarnation (Abel → Kim → Lacan → Fei) inherits latent knowledge and power, inching closer to breaking the cycle of Deus’s influence. --- ### Post-Zeboim Civilizations & Social Stratification - **Formation of Solaris and the Surface “Lambs”** - *Cause:* Survivors of the Zeboim collapse and inherited genetic knowledge lead to a stratified world. - *Effect:* Solaris, a hidden aerial empire, emerges to control resources and information. Surface dwellers (Lambs) are monitored and manipulated, ensuring conditions remain ripe for Deus’s eventual resurrection. - **The Ethos & Religious Facade** - *Cause:* Solaris creates religious and cultural organizations (like the Ethos) to shape public thought and filter ancient relics. - *Effect:* Controlled religion and technology distribution keeps surface nations warring and dependent, funneling life energy and genetic stock for Deus’s restoration. - **Lacan & Elly’s Incarnation (Nisan Era)** - *Cause:* Another cycle of Abel’s soul (Lacan) meets Elly’s soul counterpart, reflecting a recurring pattern of two destined individuals linked to the Wave Existence. - *Effect:* Lacan’s despair and eventual transformation into Grahf spreads chaos and ensures the continuation of the cycle. Grahf’s actions serve Deus’s grand plan, pushing humanity towards conflict and resource generation. --- ### Modern Era (The Game’s Present Timeline) - **Fei Fong Wong’s Emergence** (Current Incarnation of Abel’s Soul) - *Cause:* The continuing cycle of reincarnation places Fei in a pivotal role. - *Effect:* Fei’s latent power and psychological fragmentation (Id persona) reflect centuries of accumulated trauma and potential. He becomes the lynchpin character who can either fulfill Deus’s plan or break it. - **Surface Conflicts: Aveh vs. Kislev** - *Cause:* Solaris manipulates both nations to maintain perpetual conflict, ensuring steady advancement of Gear technology and population control. - *Effect:* Fei is drawn into a web of warfare, eventually encountering Gears and technology that tie directly back to ancient times. - **Introduction of Gears & Omnigears** - *Cause:* Ancient Zeboim-era technology and Ether machinery re-emerge, spurred by Solaris’s interventions. - *Effect:* Characters pilot Gears (giant robots) that become symbolic extensions of their will and the world’s hidden past. Fei’s and Elly’s Omnigears reflect their destiny and ancient lineage. - **Revelations in Solaris** - *Cause:* Fei and his allies infiltrate Solaris, unveiling the truth behind population manipulation, human farm facilities, and the Emperor’s puppet-like existence under Deus’s influence. - *Effect:* Knowledge of humanity’s engineered origins and the role of the Gazel Ministry (the digital remains of past rulers) clarifies that all life on the planet was grown to feed Deus’s resurrection. --- ### Approaching the Climax - **Grahf’s Influence and Weltall’s Evolution** - *Cause:* Grahf (the twisted incarnation of Lacan) repeatedly challenges Fei, attempting to push him into awakening Id’s destructive potential. - *Effect:* Confrontations with Grahf force Fei to integrate his personalities and harness his full inner strength. This internal struggle parallels the greater cosmic struggle for freedom. - **Deus Awakens** - *Cause:* After centuries of guided evolution, Deus now has the genetic and informational components it needs, triggered by the conflicts and movements of the main cast. - *Effect:* The world faces an apocalyptic scenario as Deus begins assimilating all living things, aiming to leave the planet and continue its original directive. - **Wave Existence’s Plea for Freedom** - *Cause:* The Wave Existence, still trapped in Zohar, communicates through Fei and Elly, urging them to break the cycle. - *Effect:* The protagonists understand the cosmic stakes: freeing the Wave Existence will save humanity from predestined assimilation. --- ### Resolution - **Fei Accepts His Past Lives & Unifies His Soul** - *Cause:* Integrating Abel, Kim, Lacan, Id, and his current self, Fei achieves spiritual and psychological wholeness. - *Effect:* With this unity, Fei gains the power and clarity needed to confront Deus and stand as a true liberator, not just a pawn. - **Elly’s Sacrifice and the Defeat of Deus** - *Cause:* Elly, the counterpart soul tied to Fei, merges with Miang’s identity (the core maternal gene behind humanity’s procreation engineered by Deus) and offers herself to break the cycle. - *Effect:* By confronting and overriding Miang’s influence, Elly sets the stage for Deus’s defeat. Fei enters Zohar, battles the core, and frees the Wave Existence. - **Wave Existence Freed & Humanity’s Future** - *Cause:* Fei’s triumph inside Zohar severs the link to the Wave Existence. - *Effect:* With Deus destroyed and the Wave Existence freed, humanity is no longer bound by a cosmic script. The cycle of reincarnations and manipulations ends, leaving humanity truly free to shape its own destiny. --- ### How These Plot Points Interconnect - **Zohar & Deus:** The starting point (Zohar/Deus creation) leads to the Eldridge crash, spawning the world’s entire history and struggles. - **Reincarnations (Abel → Fei):** Each era’s protagonist (Abel, Kim, Lacan, Fei) is a continuation of a single soul, ensuring past failures inform the final confrontation. - **Solaris & Societal Manipulation:** Each civilization’s rise and fall—and the class divisions—stem from Deus’s hidden agenda, orchestrated through Solaris. - **Final Liberation:** All conflicts (ancient tech wars, class struggles, personal identity crises) converge in the final act where Fei’s acceptance of his lineage and Elly’s sacrifice allows the Wave Existence’s release and breaks the cycle. In short, every plot point is either a direct result of Deus’s initial creation and manipulative guidance or a response to the Wave Existence’s desire for liberation. Over thousands of years, incarnations of two souls (Fei and Elly) move the storyline toward the ultimate goal: freeing their world from predestination and divine control.