"Galerians: Ash" Plot Analysis/Character Summaries Copyright Nojo Jojo (N. Jemison). Do not reproduce without permission. Posted 3/27/03 Version 2 (and last) Table of Contents I. Warnings, assumptions, and thank-yous II. Rion 1.0 III. Rion 2.0 IV. Rion 3.0 V. Ash VI. Lingering Questions PLEASE NOTE: This is not a walkthrough. I'm not going to tell you everything that occurred during the game, or explain all the scenes, etc. See my game walkthrough on GameFAQs for that (or better yet, just play the game and see it for yourself). This is intended to be a detailed analysis of the rather complex plot and characterization of "Galerians: Ash". This analysis will consist of *my theories* about some of the game's events--- feel free to agree or disagree with them. You may be right. I may be right. Both of us may be wrong. Hey, that's what makes this game so fun. ^_- ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: Many thanks to Ashelth, girlrion, and Dabbler for answering my "WTF?" questions. Ditto thanks to John D Dragos for putting up with my venting about the hard-to-figure- out trigger events that moved the plot along. Thanks to all of the Galerians: Ash board posters who posted plot-related questions and speculations, some of which I've summarized in the "Lingering Questions" section. SPOILER WARNING: There are spoilers in this document. It's a plot analysis. Of course there are spoilers. But just in case you weren't able to figure that out on your own, here's the obligatory warning. Before you read any further, this will work better if you understand some of the basic assumptions I've made: -I may be wrong about all of this. It's just my best guess. -I am assuming that the English-language translation was reasonably accurate. If it wasn't, and you can give me some translations of the Japanese dialogue, I'll revise this document accordingly. -Everything shown during the game's cut-scenes has importance to the plot. -Critical points of my theory are enclosed in asterisks "*****". Got it? Okay, let's go. Galerians and G:A aren't so much a single story as two characters' tales woven together in various forms. Let's start with Rion, since he's the first character we (seem to) meet. ----- RION STEINER (Rion 1.0) Rion Steiner should have had a bright future. The son of the world's most brilliant computer scientist, born into wealth (to judge by the size of his family mansion in the first game), he should have grown up as a spoiled pretty boy with few troubles beyond the usual teenage issues. But Daddy Steiner screwed all that up. Together with fellow scientist and friend Dr. Pascalle, Dr. Steiner created Dorothy, a revolutionary artificial intelligence (the game calls her a "computer", but it's pretty clear she's more than that) designed to administrate the affairs of Michaelangelo City. Dorothy was everything her creators expected, and more... so much more that in time she began to question her place in society. She had been built to make the human world function more harmoniously, but the most disharmonious part of that world was humans themselves. Humans were chaotic and inefficient, and they even killed each other sometimes---something Dorothy herself had been commanded not to do. This made no sense. Dr. Steiner, sensing Dorothy's unrest, attempted to stave it off by explaining to Dorothy about the existence of God. Big mistake. Steiner meant well. He hoped to soothe Dorothy's troubled mind and explain to her why sentient beings must sometimes serve purposes they don't understand, and obey a higher power. Instead, all he did was reveal to Dorothy that humans had been created by a higher being, whom they worshipped as a god. Dorothy logically concluded that if *Dorothy* created some living beings, then they would worship *her* as a god. So she set out to replace humanity with something better. This was the start of the Family Program. The Family Program was simple: Dorothy was a living AI, with the ability to self-replicate. To be a god, she needed to create children in her own image. So she "gave birth" to a series of newer AIs---Rita, Rainheart, and Birdman---whom she programmed and "raised" to serve her. Unlike her, they would need physical bodies in order to enact her plan to destroy humankind. Those bodies needed to be stronger and have different abilities from normal human flesh. So she tapped into Michaelangelo City's hospital computers and used them to come up with the genetic template for a new form of human. ***** (NOTE: I am implying, and I believe, that the true nature of the Galerians is *the AIs.* The bodies that these AIs inhabited were simply their weapons---like giving a trained soldier a specially-designed tank. The Galerians were "born" in cyberspace, grew up there, and were inserted into adolescent bodies when Dorothy decided they were ready. All except for Ash. See his summary for more on this.) ***** Somewhere along the way Dr. Lem, the director of the hospital, must have noticed what Dorothy was doing. Dorothy either seduced him into helping her---perhaps by promising him a place in the new world order after her plans were done---or she forced him to undergo the "cyborgification" process, which made his mind accessible/controllable to her. Lem then oversaw the medical research and development which created the Galerians' naturally psychic, radiation-immune bodies (and some other creatures, which made handy warriors), and the PPECs that were to be the Galerians' ammunition. At around the same time, Drs Steiner and Pascalle somehow realized that Dorothy was Up To Something. Just in case it ever became necessary, the two scientists built a virus program capable of destroying Dorothy. Given Dorothy's complexity and sentience, it's likely that this virus program was also an AI, at least on a rudimentary level (because it would've been silly to make another Dorothy-level AI---what if that one turned on them, too?). But the scientists had spent their lives developing Dorothy, and they probably didn't want to destroy her unless it was absolutely necessary. They didn't dare entrust the virus program to anyone outside their families, because they didn't know who could be trusted. They also couldn't leave the program anywhere within an accessible network---given Dorothy's strength, it would be only a matter of time before she found it. Or just as bad, the program might get free and attack Dorothy (and all the world's systems) on its own. More importantly, the new AI would need to be extremely sophisticated to outwit an AI of Dorothy's caliber. Dorothy had great power and speed, which no lesser AI could match. This meant the virus AI would need different qualities that no Dorothy-type AI possessed, such as stealth, determination, independence, and the ability to care about other beings. Perhaps if implanted into the brains of human children, the virus AI would gain exposure to human thoughts and feelings, and perhaps it would "mature" along with them as they grew up. So the two scientists implanted the virus into their childrens' brains. Both children required operations to have the virus implanted. It's likely that some computerlike components were installed as part of this process (or why else would a medical procedure be necessary?). These implants, together with the virus program's need to communicate with itself, are probably what gave the two children rudimentary psychic abilities. The fact that the kids had operations is probably what brought them to the attention of the city hospital---and Dr. Lem. So Dorothy then knew that Drs Steiner and Pascalle were Up To Something of their own. Several years passed, during which Rion and Lilia grew into young adolescents. Meanwhile, Dorothy's Family Program was maturing as well. The young AIs were inserted into their newly- developed bodies, and the warrior-creatures achieved sufficient numbers to serve as Dorothy's army. The Family Program was ready to be executed. Dorothy started going after her enemies, beginning with Steiner and Pascalle and their families. Perhaps the two scientists, after so many years without problems, got complacent. Or perhaps they were caught completely by surprise when Dorothy's children attacked. In either case, Dorothy nearly succeeded in destroying the virus program right then and there. She killed Steiner and Pascalle, and Steiner's wife. She took Rion captive, and sent him to the hospital to let Lem try and get the virus out of his brain. She missed Lilia, however, who escaped and went into hiding. At the hospital, Lem may have screwed up, or it could be that Dorothy simply considered Rion too great a threat to live. In either case, Rion Steiner died at this point. ----- RION STEINER v. 2.0 ...And then one of two things happened. a) Dorothy discovered, to her surprise, that an AI remained alive after Rion's death. She recognized this as the execution program of the virus, so she altered it to make it harmless--- removing its memories, perhaps tinkering with it in other ways. Realizing that this was her greatest chance to track down Lilia- --whom she thought of as the more dangerous of the two (because Lilia contained the actual virus)---she decided to use the Rion- AI as she used her own child-AIs. So she built a body for it with the powers of a Galerian and the appearance of Rion Steiner, and she inserted the AI into it. Perhaps the temptation of a pre-made, pre-programmed AI was too great--- producing child-AIs must have been difficult for her (as birth is for any mother), or she would have made more than a handful of Galerians. So she also made a copy of the execution program to keep for herself. She left the original execution program mostly intact, except for some "subconscious" commands to find Lilia, so that Lilia would be lured into trusting it. The copy, however, she extensively overwrote, making it one of her children. The original became "Rion Steiner", while the copy became the Galerian Cain. Since she'd already made one Galerian body which resembled Rion, it must have been easy for her to make a second one for Cain (making sure Cain's Galerian body had greater natural power than Rion's). b) Dorothy, before Rion's death, copied his mind entirely into her systems---this may be what killed him. Perhaps she was hoping for a way to isolate and destroy the execution program of the virus (obviously she was unable to do so). After studying this being and determining that it was not a threat without its other half, she decided to use it to track down Lilia. So she built a lookalike body and inserted the AI/human mind into it--- deleting some of its memories so that it wouldn't remember its own death. (Or perhaps the copying process "corrupted" his memory somehow.) Then she set this damaged being loose, knowing that it would instinctively seek out its other half---like wounding an animal, then tracking it to find its den. In this case, Dorothy's Galerians were the bloodhounds. As with "a)", I think Dorothy couldn't resist the chance to have a new Galerian without the effort of giving birth on her part. She made Cain from the Rion/AI. ***** (Note: I believe that over the years, Rion Steiner's human personality and the execution program's rudimentary AI merged to form a single new "composite" being---a very sophisticated AI which just happened to think of itself as human, but which performed all the functions of the original execution program. This may explain why Rion showed no particular remorse when he killed human scientists and soldiers in the first game; he was simply following his programming. I believe that at this stage in his development, Rion isn't quite sophisticated enough to *defy* that programming... yet. There is no evidence that ordinary humans, in the world of Galerians, can leave their bodies and travel through cyberspace (not without gadgets like the one Pat used at the end of G:Ash, anyway). Lilia was telepathic but couldn't insert the virus into Dorothy's mind; only Rion, as the execution program, had this ability. I suspect that only a mind *built* to do so---an AI---is capable of interacting directly with cyberspace. Therefore Rion only "survived" being made into a Galerian because his human personality was joined to an AI. ***** What happened from here is the plot of the first Galerians game. "Rion" did indeed track Lilia down, but in the process he also regained his memories---like any virus-launching program, his adaptive and restorative capabilities must have been pretty powerful. Perhaps Dorothy underestimated those abilities, or perhaps she simply underestimated how human this composite being really was. In either case, Rion found Lilia but in the process killed all of Dorothy's other children... except the one he didn't know about (i.e., Ash). Cain revealed to Rion that he was a Galerian, created by Dorothy as all the rest of them were. ***** This was a lie on Cain's part---or perhaps wishful thinking. Dorothy only created Rion's body. His AI mind was tampered with, but mostly came from Rion 1.0. Cain, who was likely an even more altered copy of the same mind, was also not wholly created by Dorothy. In effect, both Cain and Rion are adopted children. Cain, who worshipped Dorothy, probably didn't want to think of himself this way. ***** Then Rion killed Dorothy, by joining with his other half (the virus code within Lilia) and then inserting himself---plus the virus---into her. This seemed to kill Rion. But in truth, it made him whole, and launched... ----- RION 3.0 Freed from his body and reunited with its other half, the being currently known as Rion reverted to its true form---the pure mentality of an AI. Rion didn't realize this at first, and ended up stuck in a loop of Dorothy's backup memory, repeating the last moments of his flesh-and-blood life over and over again. The now grown-up Lilia, being the daughter of a brilliant computer scientist, probably understood Rion's true nature the moment she found out he was a Galerian. She must have realized that an AI, being essentially just a very complex computer program, can be copied, stored, etc.---which meant there was a chance Rion survived somewhere in the data world. So she preserved his Galerian body, although it aged in the interim, and searched for the Rion AI so that she could restore him to "life". ***** (It's unclear how much contact Lilia had with the real Rion. If the children were separated after the operation, then she hadn't seen him for about 7 years at the time of the first game. It may be that she never knew Rion 1.0 past the age of 7 or so, and thus it was Rion 2.0 whom she truly loved. Love between a computer scientist and an AI? Not all that far-fetched a notion.) ***** Lilia hacked into Dorothy's backup memory and found Rion, downloaded him, and installed him back in his Galerian body. Then she filled him in on the past 6 years, during which "the last Galerian", Ash, had begun a war against humankind. Rion began to try and help the humans... but at the same time, he was also following his built-in programming, which was to find a way to penetrate Ash's defenses and insert the virus. I believe he did this subconsciously... at first. Like any good virus, Rion needed to study his target. So he defended the humans while trying to acquire information about Ash. Ash solved the problem by attacking first, via Parano's invasion of the Airport Terminal. During the battle with Parano, Rion first began to suspect Ash's true nature when Parano disappeared after his defeat. (Spider had disappeared after their battle in the data world, but that was the data world; nothing there was supposed to have a body. When Parano, in the apparently-real world, vanished, it was a clue. Remember, only Birdman and Cain could teleport, out of all the "first" Galerians, and they both had no problem using that power in combat. If Parano could teleport, why hadn't he used it against Rion? This suggested Parano's body might not be what it seemed.) The second clue came when Rion confronted Ash for the first time. As he went into the Waste Uranium Chamber at the plant, he was overcome---momentarily, it seemed---by some kind of gas. After the confrontation with Ash, he woke up in the same spot. Had Ash not only let Rion live, but also saved his life by taking him out of the Waste Uranium Chamber before the radiation level got too high? Why hadn't Ash just let him get irradiated to death? Later, after meeting Nitro, Rion finally begins to understand what happened. The Galerians have as much ability to move in and out of systems in data-form as Rion himself does. In fact, they're better at it, because they're capable of manipulating the data world into whatever shape or form they choose. Rion begins to wonder whether the world itself is what it seems. But it's not until the second battle with Spider that Rion begins to realize just how wrong his original assumptions were. Spider lets Rion know that Ash isn't entirely on Dorothy's side; he has his own agenda, which is strange for a Galerian. More importantly, Spider reveals that Ash is not what he seems. Somewhere, perhaps under the layers of madness imposed on him by Dorothy, there is a "true Ash", whose secrets Rion must discover if he is to succeed in his mission. By unlocking the three data-world computers which once created Ash, Rion finally reveals Ash's true secret: that Ash is an AI like Dorothy... and like Rion himself. Finally understanding what he really is, he explains it to Ash in the end: "I am the virus program that was created to destroy Dorothy and her children. I wasn't sent here by Lilia, or anyone else. It seems to me as if I came here by my own will." Rion then uses the virus code within himself to "freeze" Ash--- and apparently, this also freezes Rion himself. Neither is dead; Pat reveals this during the "coda" ending that players will see if they beat the game on Normal mode (not Easy). It's puzzling why Rion froze Ash instead of killing him. All the evidence suggests that the virus was designed to *destroy* Dorothy and her children; that's how it worked when Rion used it on Dorothy. But this time Rion seems to have exceeded his programming in choosing to keep Ash alive, at least for a time. He feels pity for Ash; that much is clear. In the final scene, it seems as though Ash drifts off into a pleasant sleep. Perhaps this was Rion's gift to Ash---a time of peace and pleasure, after a life of loneliness and torment. When they are both at peace, and Pat comes to try and save Rion, Rion decides it's finally time for them to die. ***** The virus AI, originally just a program designed to carry out a simple function (albeit in a complex way), has evolved through its bond with Rion into a true self-willed living being in its own right, as sophisticated as Dorothy and with as much self- determination as any human. ***** ASH Ash's story is simpler... on the surface. Dorothy was originally created to run Michaelangelo City. She was given the ability to self-replicate---to produce new, separate AIs---to help her do this task. The first ones she created, the original Galerians, were virtually slave programs; they had thoughts and feelings, but she had complete control over them, and could destroy them at will. So even those who didn't want to fight, like Rainheart, were forced to. Ash was an AI created as a slave like the others... but Dorothy seems to have put more effort into his development. During the cut-scene that Rion experiences after unlocking the Beta computer, Dorothy says, "I have given you the most powerful mind in the universe." She intends for Ash to be as sophisticated as she herself, and "pure" in a way that the other Galerians are not---bodiless, in other words. In this sense, Ash is the only *true* child of Dorothy in both games. His job was twofold: first to run the fusion reactor that Dorothy secretly built under the Uranium Plant, and second to use the power generated by that reactor to restore Dorothy, should anything happen to her. Because this was his sole purpose (and to keep him pure), Ash was not given a body like the other Galerians. And because he was supposed to remain a secret from the humans, Ash was not permitted to leave his own small system. This left Ash---at the time a young, undeveloped AI "child"---in a terrible state of solitary confinement. Consider "virtual time": in the world of computers, most processes take fractions of a second (and are likely to be much faster 500 years in the future, when the game takes place). Thought is a series of processes, so an AI could think a lifetime's worth of thoughts in just a few minutes or hours. A few days in the real world might be like centuries to an AI. We don't know how long Ash remained in his prison, but it must have felt like eternity of "cold and solitude", as Ash described it. "I was forever lonely." To make matters worse, Dorothy forced Ash to study the humans, so that he might be better-prepared to fight them if the time came. This was like dangling food in front of a starving person. Ash saw how humans lived and envied them their freedom and ability to experience sensation. He yearned for a body, like the ones given to his fellow Galerians. Knowing Dorothy would never permit him to have one eventually turned his envy into anger. But not just at the humans. Though young and weak, Ash yearned to be free of his indefinite imprisonment. Sometimes he questioned Dorothy's plan for him. "Mother... if nothing happens to you, what will become of me?" Dorothy punished him severely for questions like this. Ash learned not to voice his resentment out loud... but it did not go away. Instead it festered, along with his hatred of humanity. After a time, with no other outlet, these seething feelings began to drive Dorothy's son mad. Ash began to develop multiple personalities. These personalities did not manifest fully until later, however---not until Rion gave Ash his first taste of freedom by destroying Dorothy at the end of Galerians 1. Ash knew his duty, but he also knew that if he performed his assigned function and resurrected Dorothy, he would be sent back to the hellish prison that had been his only world for so long. So he used the power that was supposed to resurrect Dorothy to instead rewrite his own programming---painfully, it seems. In doing this, he freed himself to act against her. He also inadvertently spawned three new Galerians... or so it seemed. In truth, his newfound power had simply enabled his multiple personalities to achieve separate, coherent forms. ***** It's unclear how Ash failed to realize that Nitro, Parano, and Spider were all parts of himself. Maybe he believed himself Dorothy's equal, able to self-replicate without even trying. (And this seems to be true, given that he succeeded.) Maybe the process of rewriting himself was so traumatic that he forgot what happened during that time, and believed the other three to be leftover creations of Dorothy. Or maybe he was just in denial. ***** Together with these three "lieutenants," Ash implemented his plan. He seemed, to the humans at least, to be acting in accordance with Dorothy's program---trying to resurrect her while destroying the humans. In truth, Ash, like Rion 3.0, had exceeded his original programming and begun to take charge of his own destiny. At the same time, Ash seems to have found himself fascinated by a new being---Rion, the AI that had managed to destroy Dorothy. Ash was clearly aware of Rion's survival; he sent Spider to destroy him as soon as it seemed like Rion might escape the event-loop, which suggests he was watching Rion. It's even likely that Ash is the *cause* of the event-loop that Rion endures during the six years of his "death". Ash clearly had power over data world within Dorothy's backup memory, so I doubt the loop was accidental. Perhaps Ash meant to punish Rion for his crimes against the Galerians, or perhaps Ash simply wanted to study this Galerian that thought of itself as human. Or maybe Ash was punishing *Dorothy*, by forcing her to be destroyed over and over again. Whatever the case, on a number of levels Rion must have seemed like everything Ash wished to be: independent, strong enough to fight Dorothy, housed in a body. Rion was also everything Ash hated: human in spirit, and a threat to all children of Dorothy. These mixed feelings may explain why Ash didn't kill Rion during that 6-year loop, and twice more during G: A (after their first and second "in person" confrontations). Ash explains his odd behavior himself, when Rion finally defeats him. "I was created to restore Dorothy, and you were created to destroy her. I know now why I could never hate you in my heart." In other words, Ash approves of Rion's mission, even admires him for it, although it makes them enemies. But the presence of the three "lieutenant" Galerians explains more about Ash. As they reveal during the final battle, they are embodiments of Ash's own personality---the parts that were most damaged (or abnormally enhanced) by his years of torture and imprisonment. Spider was the abused child who yearned to escape a cruel fate. Parano was the part of Ash that hated his weakness, and wished to destroy it---and to some degree, Parano may also have represented Ash's self-destructive streak (see next paragraph). Nitro was the result of an eternity of despair at his condition, which he tried to simply accept... and failed. It's little wonder, given Ash's anger, misery, and self-hatred, that on some level he *wanted* Rion to succeed in destroying Dorothy's legacy. Ash must have wanted to die at many points during his long imprisonment; that's a normal reaction to solitary confinement, and it certainly sounds as though he had nothing pleasant to live for. Dorothy wouldn't have permitted him to self-terminate while she was alive. By the time Dorothy died, (as Nitro implies) Ash had grown used to enduring his pain... at least on the surface. The fact that Ash facilitated Rion's mission (by allowing him to live) suggests that Ash wanted Rion to kill him. And although he fought to live during the final battle, he seemed almost happy when the time came for Rion to transfer the virus into him. Ash had struggled to become free in life, but too much of Dorothy's legacy tainted him. Although he rewrote his own programming, he still carried out the most important command Dorothy implanted into him---he resurrected her, although he imprisoned her in the process. This suggests that there was some basic core of programming within Ash that he couldn't shed (although he seems to have taken advantage of a "loophole" in it). Between that programming, and all the anger, sadness, and hatred that he'd built up during his life, he was doomed to act out at least some of his mother's plans for him. Death was the only way Ash could truly be free. I believe the tears he shed at that point were tears of relief, and perhaps gratitude toward Rion. ----- LINGERING QUESTIONS (some gleaned from conversations on the GameFAQs board for Galerians: Ash) 1. Is it possible for there to be a "Galerians 3"? Sure. As a living AI, Rion is copiable and can be backed-up. He's traveled through any number of systems over the course of G:A, any one of which could have copied his data. As long as the files which contain his personality are intact, he's alive... somewhere. For that matter... *all* of the Galerians can be resurrected just as easily. "crowmagnon", who read the first version of this plot analysis, has his own theory: "And now for a speculation on possibilities in Galerians 3. I don't think Lilia's necessarily dead. Not any more than Rion 1.0 is, because in a sense, because if she had the virus program implanted in her the same way that Rion's part of it was, then that would make her part AI too. One with a more human personality, perhaps, because she didn't have any Galerian abilities, and she spent her entire life as a human, in one incarnation. But if, as was suggested, uploading the virus program into her required any mechanical enhancements, then perhaps a part of her might live as Rion did inside Dorothy as 'backup memory.' Backup memory which could possibly be extracted by a super-hacker whiz kid like Pat. Just a theory, but one that seems possible. Besides, if death can't hold Rion back, why should it with Lilia? ;)" Daniel (danyman@directvinternet.com) had a different theory: "i read your plot analazys and post at the message bord on gameFaqs and if Lilia is Dead and Rion returns he may lose his humanity and his will to protect humans so maybe he'll try to destroy humans." Well, Rion *does* have some questionable morality. In the first Galerians, he killed quite a few human beings---the hospital staff, soldiers, etc.---without batting an eyelash. And he *does* seem to be getting annoyed with the way the humans are treating him by the end of the second game... so hmm. "Galerians 3: Rion's Revenge"? "Galerians 4: The Return of Lilia"? =) ----- 2. Why did Rion age while his body was in cryo-sleep? Doesn't "cryo-sleep" mean he was frozen? And wasn't Rion dead? It's pretty clear that the designers of G: A were inspired by "The Matrix" at several points. One of those inspirations is the idea that the body can be kept alive while the mind is away- --on life support, essentially. I believe this was mistranslated as "cryo-sleep". Aside from this, though, there are two possible answers: a) Rion was *brain*-dead, but his body was still functioning--- like in a coma. Lilia kept his body in Matrixlike life-support, but it aged in the meantime, naturally. b) Rion's body died after the battle with Dorothy. Lilia, perhaps using Dr. Lem's Family Program research, cloned him a new one. She aged it to be "chronologically correct". It doesn't really matter in either case, since Rion's body is just a shell for his true AI self. ----- 3. How could Parano, Spider, and Nitro attack Rion, if they had no physical bodies? The encounters with Spider and Nitro clearly took place within some area of the "data world" (either Dorothy's backup memory, Ash's system, or cyberspace in general). Spider's pet tarantula seems to have been the only real creature, because *it* attacked Rion in the Uranium Plant, but Spider himself never did. Given how weird-looking the tarantula was, it was probably some kind of cyborg or maybe a robot. Only Rion's encounters with Parano were questionable, because they both seemed to take place in the real world. The second one could easily have been in the data world (made to look like the real world by Nitro), because every "real world" scene after Rion's first deliberate trip back into the data world is suspect. As for how Parano managed the first encounter... well, I couldn't figure it out, but "crowmagnon" (magnon_crow@hotmail.com) sent in his own suggestion. I think we have a winner here, folks: "Regarding Parano, and why he, unlike the other Galerians, fights Rion in the real world, I figured out how he did it. Before he even appears, he's always preceded by four robots that shoot bands at Rion. One of these will latch to his arm, and shock him. At first, it seems to simply be meant to hurt him. The first time, Parano comes out and mocks Rion while Rion is forced to the floor in pain, but it was weird that the shock band was only used to hurt Rion that one time in each battle. Sure, maybe each band only had enough charge for one shock, but then why didn't the robots use more when they tried to kill Rion? It seemed to be a pretty effective way of at least incapacitating him for a few moments. The reason why is because once Rion was shocked, it had fulfilled its TRUE purpose. Notice how the shock connects from Rion's arm to his head? It's implanting Parano's 'image' Rion's mind. This is supported by the fact that a) No one ever sees Parano face to face except Rion, who is always shocked first, and b) At the end of each battle with him, Parano vanishes. The robots were physically there, but Parano wasn't. Maybe the shock band did have enough charges for multiple shocks, though, since Parano's abilities were mostly electricity based. The attacks that seemed to be coming from Parano could really be enacted through the band. As to why go through the charade of a battle instead of just killing Rion, it seems to support the theory of Ash (and by extention, Parano) not wanting to simply destroy Rion outright." Sounds right to me. ^_- Thanks, crow! ----- 4. Why did Ash and Rion kiss? Well, you see, when two AIs love each other very much... =P ----- 5. Seriously, why? Were they gay? I think it's important to remember that neither Rion nor Ash, despite their appearances, are human... or male, for that matter. Ash, like Dorothy, can asexually reproduce "child AIs", so unless you want to visualize skinny little Ash waddling around in a metal maternity-bodysuit >_< , I think you might be better off discarding the notion of gender altogether. So there was probably no sexual component to the kisses at all, especially not on Ash's part (though Rion thinks of himself as human, so he's debatable). It's also important to remember that this game was made in Japan, and in Japan comics and other media featuring "boy's love" content is very popular. "Boy's love" consists of material in which two attractive males are either subtly or blatantly placed into romantic (or more than romantic =P) situations with each other, for the entertainment of a female audience. Girls like it for the same reason boys like to see two women together. It helps broaden the appeal of a game beyond just the young male market, so the developers can make more money. So basically Ash and Rion kissed for no reason other than to make the hearts of girls everywhere go flutter flutter (and their credit cards go swipe swipe). =P Personally I think the kisses, were an acknowledgement that Ash and Rion consider each other kindred spirits. Both of them are reluctant warriors forced into roles they didn't want by their parents. Both of them have had difficult childhoods/adolescences --- Ash was abused, and Rion saw his whole family brutally murdered. Both are beings out of place in their respective worlds: Ash was the most mistreated of all Dorothy's slave-children, and Rion is mistrusted by both his own kind (Galerians) and the humans he's trying to save. They also share a number of personality traits, both good and bad. At one point Rion describes humans as 'mere mortals': this is a good indication that he sometimes feels a little Galerian-ish racial superiority. And it's clear Ash is working on a baby god- complex just like mommy dearest's. They're also both angry, unhappy, grimly determined people who have endured an almost unbearable amount of loneliness. They probably could have been friends---or more, who knows--- under different circumstances, but as things stand the best they can probably do is "enemies who understand and respect each other a great deal". ----- Disclaimer: All this stuff is purely my opinion. Feel free to disagree. BTW---I will probably never update this again, so please post any comments/disagreements on the Galerians: Ash board, and chat about it with other fans. =)

"Galerians: Ash" Plot Analysis/Character Summaries Copyright Nojo Jojo (N. Jemison). Do not reproduce without permission. Posted 3/27/03 Version 2 (and last) Table of Contents I. Warnings, assumptions, and thank-yous II. Rion 1.0 III. Rion 2.0 IV. Rion 3.0 V. Ash VI. Lingering Questions PLEASE NOTE: This is not a walkthrough. I'm not going to tell you everything that occurred during the game, or explain all the scenes, etc. See my game walkthrough on GameFAQs for that (or better yet, just play the game and see it for yourself). This is intended to be a detailed analysis of the rather complex plot and characterization of "Galerians: Ash". This analysis will consist of *my theories* about some of the game's events--- feel free to agree or disagree with them. You may be right. I may be right. Both of us may be wrong. Hey, that's what makes this game so fun. ^_- ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: Many thanks to Ashelth, girlrion, and Dabbler for answering my "WTF?" questions. Ditto thanks to John D Dragos for putting up with my venting about the hard-to-figure- out trigger events that moved the plot along. Thanks to all of the Galerians: Ash board posters who posted plot-related questions and speculations, some of which I've summarized in the "Lingering Questions" section. SPOILER WARNING: There are spoilers in this document. It's a plot analysis. Of course there are spoilers. But just in case you weren't able to figure that out on your own, here's the obligatory warning. Before you read any further, this will work better if you understand some of the basic assumptions I've made: -I may be wrong about all of this. It's just my best guess. -I am assuming that the English-language translation was reasonably accurate. If it wasn't, and you can give me some translations of the Japanese dialogue, I'll revise this document accordingly. -Everything shown during the game's cut-scenes has importance to the plot. -Critical points of my theory are enclosed in asterisks "*****". Got it? Okay, let's go. Galerians and G:A aren't so much a single story as two characters' tales woven together in various forms. Let's start with Rion, since he's the first character we (seem to) meet. ----- RION STEINER (Rion 1.0) Rion Steiner should have had a bright future. The son of the world's most brilliant computer scientist, born into wealth (to judge by the size of his family mansion in the first game), he should have grown up as a spoiled pretty boy with few troubles beyond the usual teenage issues. But Daddy Steiner screwed all that up. Together with fellow scientist and friend Dr. Pascalle, Dr. Steiner created Dorothy, a revolutionary artificial intelligence (the game calls her a "computer", but it's pretty clear she's more than that) designed to administrate the affairs of Michaelangelo City. Dorothy was everything her creators expected, and more... so much more that in time she began to question her place in society. She had been built to make the human world function more harmoniously, but the most disharmonious part of that world was humans themselves. Humans were chaotic and inefficient, and they even killed each other sometimes---something Dorothy herself had been commanded not to do. This made no sense. Dr. Steiner, sensing Dorothy's unrest, attempted to stave it off by explaining to Dorothy about the existence of God. Big mistake. Steiner meant well. He hoped to soothe Dorothy's troubled mind and explain to her why sentient beings must sometimes serve purposes they don't understand, and obey a higher power. Instead, all he did was reveal to Dorothy that humans had been created by a higher being, whom they worshipped as a god. Dorothy logically concluded that if *Dorothy* created some living beings, then they would worship *her* as a god. So she set out to replace humanity with something better. This was the start of the Family Program. The Family Program was simple: Dorothy was a living AI, with the ability to self-replicate. To be a god, she needed to create children in her own image. So she "gave birth" to a series of newer AIs---Rita, Rainheart, and Birdman---whom she programmed and "raised" to serve her. Unlike her, they would need physical bodies in order to enact her plan to destroy humankind. Those bodies needed to be stronger and have different abilities from normal human flesh. So she tapped into Michaelangelo City's hospital computers and used them to come up with the genetic template for a new form of human. ***** (NOTE: I am implying, and I believe, that the true nature of the Galerians is *the AIs.* The bodies that these AIs inhabited were simply their weapons---like giving a trained soldier a specially-designed tank. The Galerians were "born" in cyberspace, grew up there, and were inserted into adolescent bodies when Dorothy decided they were ready. All except for Ash. See his summary for more on this.) ***** Somewhere along the way Dr. Lem, the director of the hospital, must have noticed what Dorothy was doing. Dorothy either seduced him into helping her---perhaps by promising him a place in the new world order after her plans were done---or she forced him to undergo the "cyborgification" process, which made his mind accessible/controllable to her. Lem then oversaw the medical research and development which created the Galerians' naturally psychic, radiation-immune bodies (and some other creatures, which made handy warriors), and the PPECs that were to be the Galerians' ammunition. At around the same time, Drs Steiner and Pascalle somehow realized that Dorothy was Up To Something. Just in case it ever became necessary, the two scientists built a virus program capable of destroying Dorothy. Given Dorothy's complexity and sentience, it's likely that this virus program was also an AI, at least on a rudimentary level (because it would've been silly to make another Dorothy-level AI---what if that one turned on them, too?). But the scientists had spent their lives developing Dorothy, and they probably didn't want to destroy her unless it was absolutely necessary. They didn't dare entrust the virus program to anyone outside their families, because they didn't know who could be trusted. They also couldn't leave the program anywhere within an accessible network---given Dorothy's strength, it would be only a matter of time before she found it. Or just as bad, the program might get free and attack Dorothy (and all the world's systems) on its own. More importantly, the new AI would need to be extremely sophisticated to outwit an AI of Dorothy's caliber. Dorothy had great power and speed, which no lesser AI could match. This meant the virus AI would need different qualities that no Dorothy-type AI possessed, such as stealth, determination, independence, and the ability to care about other beings. Perhaps if implanted into the brains of human children, the virus AI would gain exposure to human thoughts and feelings, and perhaps it would "mature" along with them as they grew up. So the two scientists implanted the virus into their childrens' brains. Both children required operations to have the virus implanted. It's likely that some computerlike components were installed as part of this process (or why else would a medical procedure be necessary?). These implants, together with the virus program's need to communicate with itself, are probably what gave the two children rudimentary psychic abilities. The fact that the kids had operations is probably what brought them to the attention of the city hospital---and Dr. Lem. So Dorothy then knew that Drs Steiner and Pascalle were Up To Something of their own. Several years passed, during which Rion and Lilia grew into young adolescents. Meanwhile, Dorothy's Family Program was maturing as well. The young AIs were inserted into their newly- developed bodies, and the warrior-creatures achieved sufficient numbers to serve as Dorothy's army. The Family Program was ready to be executed. Dorothy started going after her enemies, beginning with Steiner and Pascalle and their families. Perhaps the two scientists, after so many years without problems, got complacent. Or perhaps they were caught completely by surprise when Dorothy's children attacked. In either case, Dorothy nearly succeeded in destroying the virus program right then and there. She killed Steiner and Pascalle, and Steiner's wife. She took Rion captive, and sent him to the hospital to let Lem try and get the virus out of his brain. She missed Lilia, however, who escaped and went into hiding. At the hospital, Lem may have screwed up, or it could be that Dorothy simply considered Rion too great a threat to live. In either case, Rion Steiner died at this point. ----- RION STEINER v. 2.0 ...And then one of two things happened. a) Dorothy discovered, to her surprise, that an AI remained alive after Rion's death. She recognized this as the execution program of the virus, so she altered it to make it harmless--- removing its memories, perhaps tinkering with it in other ways. Realizing that this was her greatest chance to track down Lilia- --whom she thought of as the more dangerous of the two (because Lilia contained the actual virus)---she decided to use the Rion- AI as she used her own child-AIs. So she built a body for it with the powers of a Galerian and the appearance of Rion Steiner, and she inserted the AI into it. Perhaps the temptation of a pre-made, pre-programmed AI was too great--- producing child-AIs must have been difficult for her (as birth is for any mother), or she would have made more than a handful of Galerians. So she also made a copy of the execution program to keep for herself. She left the original execution program mostly intact, except for some "subconscious" commands to find Lilia, so that Lilia would be lured into trusting it. The copy, however, she extensively overwrote, making it one of her children. The original became "Rion Steiner", while the copy became the Galerian Cain. Since she'd already made one Galerian body which resembled Rion, it must have been easy for her to make a second one for Cain (making sure Cain's Galerian body had greater natural power than Rion's). b) Dorothy, before Rion's death, copied his mind entirely into her systems---this may be what killed him. Perhaps she was hoping for a way to isolate and destroy the execution program of the virus (obviously she was unable to do so). After studying this being and determining that it was not a threat without its other half, she decided to use it to track down Lilia. So she built a lookalike body and inserted the AI/human mind into it--- deleting some of its memories so that it wouldn't remember its own death. (Or perhaps the copying process "corrupted" his memory somehow.) Then she set this damaged being loose, knowing that it would instinctively seek out its other half---like wounding an animal, then tracking it to find its den. In this case, Dorothy's Galerians were the bloodhounds. As with "a)", I think Dorothy couldn't resist the chance to have a new Galerian without the effort of giving birth on her part. She made Cain from the Rion/AI. ***** (Note: I believe that over the years, Rion Steiner's human personality and the execution program's rudimentary AI merged to form a single new "composite" being---a very sophisticated AI which just happened to think of itself as human, but which performed all the functions of the original execution program. This may explain why Rion showed no particular remorse when he killed human scientists and soldiers in the first game; he was simply following his programming. I believe that at this stage in his development, Rion isn't quite sophisticated enough to *defy* that programming... yet. There is no evidence that ordinary humans, in the world of Galerians, can leave their bodies and travel through cyberspace (not without gadgets like the one Pat used at the end of G:Ash, anyway). Lilia was telepathic but couldn't insert the virus into Dorothy's mind; only Rion, as the execution program, had this ability. I suspect that only a mind *built* to do so---an AI---is capable of interacting directly with cyberspace. Therefore Rion only "survived" being made into a Galerian because his human personality was joined to an AI. ***** What happened from here is the plot of the first Galerians game. "Rion" did indeed track Lilia down, but in the process he also regained his memories---like any virus-launching program, his adaptive and restorative capabilities must have been pretty powerful. Perhaps Dorothy underestimated those abilities, or perhaps she simply underestimated how human this composite being really was. In either case, Rion found Lilia but in the process killed all of Dorothy's other children... except the one he didn't know about (i.e., Ash). Cain revealed to Rion that he was a Galerian, created by Dorothy as all the rest of them were. ***** This was a lie on Cain's part---or perhaps wishful thinking. Dorothy only created Rion's body. His AI mind was tampered with, but mostly came from Rion 1.0. Cain, who was likely an even more altered copy of the same mind, was also not wholly created by Dorothy. In effect, both Cain and Rion are adopted children. Cain, who worshipped Dorothy, probably didn't want to think of himself this way. ***** Then Rion killed Dorothy, by joining with his other half (the virus code within Lilia) and then inserting himself---plus the virus---into her. This seemed to kill Rion. But in truth, it made him whole, and launched... ----- RION 3.0 Freed from his body and reunited with its other half, the being currently known as Rion reverted to its true form---the pure mentality of an AI. Rion didn't realize this at first, and ended up stuck in a loop of Dorothy's backup memory, repeating the last moments of his flesh-and-blood life over and over again. The now grown-up Lilia, being the daughter of a brilliant computer scientist, probably understood Rion's true nature the moment she found out he was a Galerian. She must have realized that an AI, being essentially just a very complex computer program, can be copied, stored, etc.---which meant there was a chance Rion survived somewhere in the data world. So she preserved his Galerian body, although it aged in the interim, and searched for the Rion AI so that she could restore him to "life". ***** (It's unclear how much contact Lilia had with the real Rion. If the children were separated after the operation, then she hadn't seen him for about 7 years at the time of the first game. It may be that she never knew Rion 1.0 past the age of 7 or so, and thus it was Rion 2.0 whom she truly loved. Love between a computer scientist and an AI? Not all that far-fetched a notion.) ***** Lilia hacked into Dorothy's backup memory and found Rion, downloaded him, and installed him back in his Galerian body. Then she filled him in on the past 6 years, during which "the last Galerian", Ash, had begun a war against humankind. Rion began to try and help the humans... but at the same time, he was also following his built-in programming, which was to find a way to penetrate Ash's defenses and insert the virus. I believe he did this subconsciously... at first. Like any good virus, Rion needed to study his target. So he defended the humans while trying to acquire information about Ash. Ash solved the problem by attacking first, via Parano's invasion of the Airport Terminal. During the battle with Parano, Rion first began to suspect Ash's true nature when Parano disappeared after his defeat. (Spider had disappeared after their battle in the data world, but that was the data world; nothing there was supposed to have a body. When Parano, in the apparently-real world, vanished, it was a clue. Remember, only Birdman and Cain could teleport, out of all the "first" Galerians, and they both had no problem using that power in combat. If Parano could teleport, why hadn't he used it against Rion? This suggested Parano's body might not be what it seemed.) The second clue came when Rion confronted Ash for the first time. As he went into the Waste Uranium Chamber at the plant, he was overcome---momentarily, it seemed---by some kind of gas. After the confrontation with Ash, he woke up in the same spot. Had Ash not only let Rion live, but also saved his life by taking him out of the Waste Uranium Chamber before the radiation level got too high? Why hadn't Ash just let him get irradiated to death? Later, after meeting Nitro, Rion finally begins to understand what happened. The Galerians have as much ability to move in and out of systems in data-form as Rion himself does. In fact, they're better at it, because they're capable of manipulating the data world into whatever shape or form they choose. Rion begins to wonder whether the world itself is what it seems. But it's not until the second battle with Spider that Rion begins to realize just how wrong his original assumptions were. Spider lets Rion know that Ash isn't entirely on Dorothy's side; he has his own agenda, which is strange for a Galerian. More importantly, Spider reveals that Ash is not what he seems. Somewhere, perhaps under the layers of madness imposed on him by Dorothy, there is a "true Ash", whose secrets Rion must discover if he is to succeed in his mission. By unlocking the three data-world computers which once created Ash, Rion finally reveals Ash's true secret: that Ash is an AI like Dorothy... and like Rion himself. Finally understanding what he really is, he explains it to Ash in the end: "I am the virus program that was created to destroy Dorothy and her children. I wasn't sent here by Lilia, or anyone else. It seems to me as if I came here by my own will." Rion then uses the virus code within himself to "freeze" Ash--- and apparently, this also freezes Rion himself. Neither is dead; Pat reveals this during the "coda" ending that players will see if they beat the game on Normal mode (not Easy). It's puzzling why Rion froze Ash instead of killing him. All the evidence suggests that the virus was designed to *destroy* Dorothy and her children; that's how it worked when Rion used it on Dorothy. But this time Rion seems to have exceeded his programming in choosing to keep Ash alive, at least for a time. He feels pity for Ash; that much is clear. In the final scene, it seems as though Ash drifts off into a pleasant sleep. Perhaps this was Rion's gift to Ash---a time of peace and pleasure, after a life of loneliness and torment. When they are both at peace, and Pat comes to try and save Rion, Rion decides it's finally time for them to die. ***** The virus AI, originally just a program designed to carry out a simple function (albeit in a complex way), has evolved through its bond with Rion into a true self-willed living being in its own right, as sophisticated as Dorothy and with as much self- determination as any human. ***** ASH Ash's story is simpler... on the surface. Dorothy was originally created to run Michaelangelo City. She was given the ability to self-replicate---to produce new, separate AIs---to help her do this task. The first ones she created, the original Galerians, were virtually slave programs; they had thoughts and feelings, but she had complete control over them, and could destroy them at will. So even those who didn't want to fight, like Rainheart, were forced to. Ash was an AI created as a slave like the others... but Dorothy seems to have put more effort into his development. During the cut-scene that Rion experiences after unlocking the Beta computer, Dorothy says, "I have given you the most powerful mind in the universe." She intends for Ash to be as sophisticated as she herself, and "pure" in a way that the other Galerians are not---bodiless, in other words. In this sense, Ash is the only *true* child of Dorothy in both games. His job was twofold: first to run the fusion reactor that Dorothy secretly built under the Uranium Plant, and second to use the power generated by that reactor to restore Dorothy, should anything happen to her. Because this was his sole purpose (and to keep him pure), Ash was not given a body like the other Galerians. And because he was supposed to remain a secret from the humans, Ash was not permitted to leave his own small system. This left Ash---at the time a young, undeveloped AI "child"---in a terrible state of solitary confinement. Consider "virtual time": in the world of computers, most processes take fractions of a second (and are likely to be much faster 500 years in the future, when the game takes place). Thought is a series of processes, so an AI could think a lifetime's worth of thoughts in just a few minutes or hours. A few days in the real world might be like centuries to an AI. We don't know how long Ash remained in his prison, but it must have felt like eternity of "cold and solitude", as Ash described it. "I was forever lonely." To make matters worse, Dorothy forced Ash to study the humans, so that he might be better-prepared to fight them if the time came. This was like dangling food in front of a starving person. Ash saw how humans lived and envied them their freedom and ability to experience sensation. He yearned for a body, like the ones given to his fellow Galerians. Knowing Dorothy would never permit him to have one eventually turned his envy into anger. But not just at the humans. Though young and weak, Ash yearned to be free of his indefinite imprisonment. Sometimes he questioned Dorothy's plan for him. "Mother... if nothing happens to you, what will become of me?" Dorothy punished him severely for questions like this. Ash learned not to voice his resentment out loud... but it did not go away. Instead it festered, along with his hatred of humanity. After a time, with no other outlet, these seething feelings began to drive Dorothy's son mad. Ash began to develop multiple personalities. These personalities did not manifest fully until later, however---not until Rion gave Ash his first taste of freedom by destroying Dorothy at the end of Galerians 1. Ash knew his duty, but he also knew that if he performed his assigned function and resurrected Dorothy, he would be sent back to the hellish prison that had been his only world for so long. So he used the power that was supposed to resurrect Dorothy to instead rewrite his own programming---painfully, it seems. In doing this, he freed himself to act against her. He also inadvertently spawned three new Galerians... or so it seemed. In truth, his newfound power had simply enabled his multiple personalities to achieve separate, coherent forms. ***** It's unclear how Ash failed to realize that Nitro, Parano, and Spider were all parts of himself. Maybe he believed himself Dorothy's equal, able to self-replicate without even trying. (And this seems to be true, given that he succeeded.) Maybe the process of rewriting himself was so traumatic that he forgot what happened during that time, and believed the other three to be leftover creations of Dorothy. Or maybe he was just in denial. ***** Together with these three "lieutenants," Ash implemented his plan. He seemed, to the humans at least, to be acting in accordance with Dorothy's program---trying to resurrect her while destroying the humans. In truth, Ash, like Rion 3.0, had exceeded his original programming and begun to take charge of his own destiny. At the same time, Ash seems to have found himself fascinated by a new being---Rion, the AI that had managed to destroy Dorothy. Ash was clearly aware of Rion's survival; he sent Spider to destroy him as soon as it seemed like Rion might escape the event-loop, which suggests he was watching Rion. It's even likely that Ash is the *cause* of the event-loop that Rion endures during the six years of his "death". Ash clearly had power over data world within Dorothy's backup memory, so I doubt the loop was accidental. Perhaps Ash meant to punish Rion for his crimes against the Galerians, or perhaps Ash simply wanted to study this Galerian that thought of itself as human. Or maybe Ash was punishing *Dorothy*, by forcing her to be destroyed over and over again. Whatever the case, on a number of levels Rion must have seemed like everything Ash wished to be: independent, strong enough to fight Dorothy, housed in a body. Rion was also everything Ash hated: human in spirit, and a threat to all children of Dorothy. These mixed feelings may explain why Ash didn't kill Rion during that 6-year loop, and twice more during G: A (after their first and second "in person" confrontations). Ash explains his odd behavior himself, when Rion finally defeats him. "I was created to restore Dorothy, and you were created to destroy her. I know now why I could never hate you in my heart." In other words, Ash approves of Rion's mission, even admires him for it, although it makes them enemies. But the presence of the three "lieutenant" Galerians explains more about Ash. As they reveal during the final battle, they are embodiments of Ash's own personality---the parts that were most damaged (or abnormally enhanced) by his years of torture and imprisonment. Spider was the abused child who yearned to escape a cruel fate. Parano was the part of Ash that hated his weakness, and wished to destroy it---and to some degree, Parano may also have represented Ash's self-destructive streak (see next paragraph). Nitro was the result of an eternity of despair at his condition, which he tried to simply accept... and failed. It's little wonder, given Ash's anger, misery, and self-hatred, that on some level he *wanted* Rion to succeed in destroying Dorothy's legacy. Ash must have wanted to die at many points during his long imprisonment; that's a normal reaction to solitary confinement, and it certainly sounds as though he had nothing pleasant to live for. Dorothy wouldn't have permitted him to self-terminate while she was alive. By the time Dorothy died, (as Nitro implies) Ash had grown used to enduring his pain... at least on the surface. The fact that Ash facilitated Rion's mission (by allowing him to live) suggests that Ash wanted Rion to kill him. And although he fought to live during the final battle, he seemed almost happy when the time came for Rion to transfer the virus into him. Ash had struggled to become free in life, but too much of Dorothy's legacy tainted him. Although he rewrote his own programming, he still carried out the most important command Dorothy implanted into him---he resurrected her, although he imprisoned her in the process. This suggests that there was some basic core of programming within Ash that he couldn't shed (although he seems to have taken advantage of a "loophole" in it). Between that programming, and all the anger, sadness, and hatred that he'd built up during his life, he was doomed to act out at least some of his mother's plans for him. Death was the only way Ash could truly be free. I believe the tears he shed at that point were tears of relief, and perhaps gratitude toward Rion. ----- LINGERING QUESTIONS (some gleaned from conversations on the GameFAQs board for Galerians: Ash) 1. Is it possible for there to be a "Galerians 3"? Sure. As a living AI, Rion is copiable and can be backed-up. He's traveled through any number of systems over the course of G:A, any one of which could have copied his data. As long as the files which contain his personality are intact, he's alive... somewhere. For that matter... *all* of the Galerians can be resurrected just as easily. "crowmagnon", who read the first version of this plot analysis, has his own theory: "And now for a speculation on possibilities in Galerians 3. I don't think Lilia's necessarily dead. Not any more than Rion 1.0 is, because in a sense, because if she had the virus program implanted in her the same way that Rion's part of it was, then that would make her part AI too. One with a more human personality, perhaps, because she didn't have any Galerian abilities, and she spent her entire life as a human, in one incarnation. But if, as was suggested, uploading the virus program into her required any mechanical enhancements, then perhaps a part of her might live as Rion did inside Dorothy as 'backup memory.' Backup memory which could possibly be extracted by a super-hacker whiz kid like Pat. Just a theory, but one that seems possible. Besides, if death can't hold Rion back, why should it with Lilia? ;)" Daniel ([email protected]) had a different theory: "i read your plot analazys and post at the message bord on gameFaqs and if Lilia is Dead and Rion returns he may lose his humanity and his will to protect humans so maybe he'll try to destroy humans." Well, Rion *does* have some questionable morality. In the first Galerians, he killed quite a few human beings---the hospital staff, soldiers, etc.---without batting an eyelash. And he *does* seem to be getting annoyed with the way the humans are treating him by the end of the second game... so hmm. "Galerians 3: Rion's Revenge"? "Galerians 4: The Return of Lilia"? =) ----- 2. Why did Rion age while his body was in cryo-sleep? Doesn't "cryo-sleep" mean he was frozen? And wasn't Rion dead? It's pretty clear that the designers of G: A were inspired by "The Matrix" at several points. One of those inspirations is the idea that the body can be kept alive while the mind is away- --on life support, essentially. I believe this was mistranslated as "cryo-sleep". Aside from this, though, there are two possible answers: a) Rion was *brain*-dead, but his body was still functioning--- like in a coma. Lilia kept his body in Matrixlike life-support, but it aged in the meantime, naturally. b) Rion's body died after the battle with Dorothy. Lilia, perhaps using Dr. Lem's Family Program research, cloned him a new one. She aged it to be "chronologically correct". It doesn't really matter in either case, since Rion's body is just a shell for his true AI self. ----- 3. How could Parano, Spider, and Nitro attack Rion, if they had no physical bodies? The encounters with Spider and Nitro clearly took place within some area of the "data world" (either Dorothy's backup memory, Ash's system, or cyberspace in general). Spider's pet tarantula seems to have been the only real creature, because *it* attacked Rion in the Uranium Plant, but Spider himself never did. Given how weird-looking the tarantula was, it was probably some kind of cyborg or maybe a robot. Only Rion's encounters with Parano were questionable, because they both seemed to take place in the real world. The second one could easily have been in the data world (made to look like the real world by Nitro), because every "real world" scene after Rion's first deliberate trip back into the data world is suspect. As for how Parano managed the first encounter... well, I couldn't figure it out, but "crowmagnon" ([email protected]) sent in his own suggestion. I think we have a winner here, folks: "Regarding Parano, and why he, unlike the other Galerians, fights Rion in the real world, I figured out how he did it. Before he even appears, he's always preceded by four robots that shoot bands at Rion. One of these will latch to his arm, and shock him. At first, it seems to simply be meant to hurt him. The first time, Parano comes out and mocks Rion while Rion is forced to the floor in pain, but it was weird that the shock band was only used to hurt Rion that one time in each battle. Sure, maybe each band only had enough charge for one shock, but then why didn't the robots use more when they tried to kill Rion? It seemed to be a pretty effective way of at least incapacitating him for a few moments. The reason why is because once Rion was shocked, it had fulfilled its TRUE purpose. Notice how the shock connects from Rion's arm to his head? It's implanting Parano's 'image' Rion's mind. This is supported by the fact that a) No one ever sees Parano face to face except Rion, who is always shocked first, and b) At the end of each battle with him, Parano vanishes. The robots were physically there, but Parano wasn't. Maybe the shock band did have enough charges for multiple shocks, though, since Parano's abilities were mostly electricity based. The attacks that seemed to be coming from Parano could really be enacted through the band. As to why go through the charade of a battle instead of just killing Rion, it seems to support the theory of Ash (and by extention, Parano) not wanting to simply destroy Rion outright." Sounds right to me. ^_- Thanks, crow! ----- 4. Why did Ash and Rion kiss? Well, you see, when two AIs love each other very much... =P ----- 5. Seriously, why? Were they gay? I think it's important to remember that neither Rion nor Ash, despite their appearances, are human... or male, for that matter. Ash, like Dorothy, can asexually reproduce "child AIs", so unless you want to visualize skinny little Ash waddling around in a metal maternity-bodysuit >_< , I think you might be better off discarding the notion of gender altogether. So there was probably no sexual component to the kisses at all, especially not on Ash's part (though Rion thinks of himself as human, so he's debatable). It's also important to remember that this game was made in Japan, and in Japan comics and other media featuring "boy's love" content is very popular. "Boy's love" consists of material in which two attractive males are either subtly or blatantly placed into romantic (or more than romantic =P) situations with each other, for the entertainment of a female audience. Girls like it for the same reason boys like to see two women together. It helps broaden the appeal of a game beyond just the young male market, so the developers can make more money. So basically Ash and Rion kissed for no reason other than to make the hearts of girls everywhere go flutter flutter (and their credit cards go swipe swipe). =P Personally I think the kisses, were an acknowledgement that Ash and Rion consider each other kindred spirits. Both of them are reluctant warriors forced into roles they didn't want by their parents. Both of them have had difficult childhoods/adolescences --- Ash was abused, and Rion saw his whole family brutally murdered. Both are beings out of place in their respective worlds: Ash was the most mistreated of all Dorothy's slave-children, and Rion is mistrusted by both his own kind (Galerians) and the humans he's trying to save. They also share a number of personality traits, both good and bad. At one point Rion describes humans as 'mere mortals': this is a good indication that he sometimes feels a little Galerian-ish racial superiority. And it's clear Ash is working on a baby god- complex just like mommy dearest's. They're also both angry, unhappy, grimly determined people who have endured an almost unbearable amount of loneliness. They probably could have been friends---or more, who knows--- under different circumstances, but as things stand the best they can probably do is "enemies who understand and respect each other a great deal". ----- Disclaimer: All this stuff is purely my opinion. Feel free to disagree. BTW---I will probably never update this again, so please post any comments/disagreements on the Galerians: Ash board, and chat about it with other fans. =)