an article by Neosmith
The very first problem with the narrative of Episode I arrives within the first minutes of the story proper. The scene in particular: the retrieval of the Zohar, or rather the Zohar Emulator (referred to henceforth as ZE). As the story in the game’s ‘present’ opens, we see the ZE floating freely in Outer Space. Now, at first glance there doesn’t appear to be anything wrong with this scenario. We don‘t know yet, as to what it is or why it is there. As the chapter establishes later on, Gnosis are drawn to the waves of the ZE. That’s what ultimately attracts them to the Woglinde, leading to its ‘destruction’ and KOS-MOS’ activation.
However, retrospectively, it raises the question of why the Gnosis haven’t seized the ZE already by the time the Federation gets there. It’s just floating out there, in the vacuum of space, radiating energy without an ‘inhibitor’ to suppress it, free for the taking and judging from the characters’ various comments, it should’ve taken them at least 10 days to get there and 10 to get back ‘home’.
So, if the Emulator has been out in space for at least 10 days, why is it that none of the Gnosis have picked up its trail? This is a large plot hole and the first sign that something in Episode I’s narrative is amiss. Next on, we have the issue of how much people actually know about the ZE and the rather idiotic manner in which the Federation Fleet actually approaches it.
First off, consider the fact that the retrieval scene initially features a man in a space suit land on the Zohar and vanish in a flash of bright light. This apparently establishes the mysterious, seemingly otherworldly quality of the Zohar(s) and implies that the Federation, whom the man apparently represents, has no clue as to what the Floating Monolith is, or what it’s capable of.
Seemingly confirming this is the dialogue between Captain Moriyama and his subordinate Pollyanna on the bridge. [ Polyanna: “What exactly is that thing anyway?” Moriyama: “Who knows? I haven’t heard a word from the research team” ] This means, that apparently this is the first time that the Federation Fleet has encountered the Zohar. However, this directly contradicts the later revelation that there are actually 12 Zohar ZEs, an Original Zohar and the fact that the Zohar has been the subject of countless wars between the Federation and the Immigrant Fleet. It has been a subject of political debate, as we have seen in the Parliament scenes. Added to which, this is an era where people have connection to the UMN, an extension of the internet that allows one to contact someone else on the other side of the galaxy and transfer material objects across vast distances.
After all the time that has passed since the Zohar’s discovery, it should obviously have become public domain knowledge, probably written about and theorized in numerous books, web databases, journals, newspapers, historical chronicles, etc. With all that in mind, to have no idea of what the Zohar is or at least what it’s capable of in the time that the story takes place in would be equivalent to not knowing in our time about the atomic bomb. So then the notion that nobody on the Woglinde has any idea of what exactly it is that they’ve picked up really makes no sense.
Second, right after the man vanishes, a team of pseudo-pod like robots retrieves the Zohar by encasing it in special protective rings. When Jr. later explores the Woglinde’s remains, he identifies them as “Zohar Security Rings”. This again contradicts the earlier plot development that the Woglinde Personnel had no idea that they actually picked up a Zohar ZE. Plus, what exactly was the purpose of the Zohar Security Rings? From the description, you’d suppose they somehow ‘Secure’ the Zohar. Yet, the Gnosis later steal the Zohar without any difficulty. In fact, I really think the makers of the TV series realized these inconsistencies, which is why the first episode of that series establishes that Moriyama and Co. do know what the Zohar ZE is.
In any case, this still remains the mother of all plot holes in the first chapter of The Will to Power. If the Woglinde Crew knew that the Monolith is a destructive ZE that attracts Gnosis, they probably wouldn’t have picked it up in the first place or at least not without taking actual precautions. A possible counter-argument of course is that had they not picked it up, we wouldn’t have a plot.
Even as the game stands, however, I’m still having a problem understanding why they retrieve it, given the fact that the Monolith is found where planet Ariadne had been some time earlier. Is it really that hard to guess that since Ariadne vanished and the Mysterious Monolith is all that’s left floating in its place, that the Monolith is the cause of the disappearance? Especially when a person vanishes after touching it? And if you knew that, would you really want to pick up in an unsecured fashion the very object that just annihilated an entire planet?
Well, one might argue that the Woglinde crew has to follow orders. Moriyama does state that they should retrieve ‘anything salvageable’. But this really flies in the face of logic and common sense. Why couldn’t the Woglinde crew at least contact home base to find out what to actually do about the ZE? I highly doubt the people in charge of this operation would advise them to pick it up in such a manner.
The rather bizarre inconsistencies between the attitudes towards the ZE thus suggest that the concept of the 12 ZEs and their roles in politics, wars, etc. was heavily rewritten as the game was in development and/or production. It seems that Takahashi initially wanted to present the Zohar and its brethren as something unknown and mysterious, but then went in a different direction and neglected to patch up this idea with the earlier information.
Notice also that the ZE seems to be of actually little concern to Shion and KOS-MOS, the first chapter’s central characters, having little to do in the overall scheme of their storyline in Episode I as a whole. At the end of the Woglinde chapter, KOS-MOS fires a tracer at the Gnosis that steals the Emulator, suggesting that she will pursue it at a later time. But the game completely drops this storyline, which again implies that the direction of Episode I as a whole changed over the course of development and production. The DS I-II version confirms this theory by cutting the ‘tracer’ scene out altogether. But let’s continue by discussing where and why the Woglinde crew place the ZE after retrieving it. They are aware by now that the device is dangerous by virtue of the fact that ‘three people have already vanished’ when coming in contact with it, as Lt. Vanderkam clearly states. So, why would anyone in their right mind leave the Zohar out in the open, where pretty much anyone, such as Shion, can approach it? This device is apparently of utmost importance to the Federation and it’s proven to be dangerous, so wouldn’t it make more sense to place it in a special isolated area, away from any non-military personnel with armed guards ready to protect it and keep anyone from approaching it?
What exactly was going through the minds of the military or navy higher-ups that organized this mission in the first place? It is true that Lt. Vanderkam states that only “Authorized Personnel” are allowed up on the Bridge where Shion approaches the Zohar, but the fact that there are no actual guards, or security blockades or anything of the sort to hide/isolate the ZE again goes against common sense. It seems like the whole situation was contrived simply so that Shion could approach the Zohar and touch it. But why exactly?
It doesn’t ever seem in the game that we see a logical continuation or side effect of this action. Arguably, one could pinpoint this as the beginning of ‘Shion’s spiritual awakening’. Namely, that the Emulator had triggered her dormant superhuman powers, which would awaken when she faced her past towards the end of Old Miltia storyline, as depicted in Episode 3. But Episode 1 has never really shown much apparent consequence of Shion’s touching the Zohar. The game play process, for instance, equips her with the tech of MWS, as opposed to allowing her to perform actual superhuman feats that one might associate with the ZE. There are cutscenes that hint throughout that she is more than she seems, possibly as a result of her interaction with the Zohar.
Examples include her ability to see Nephilim, her visions of the past, her surviving an explosion via FTE and her avoiding death by Gnosis crystallization, etc. But the fact that the game never does grant her a gradually growing spiritual power that is akin to that of Chaos raises the question of the necessity for Shion to come in contact with the Zohar in the first place. In no apparent way does this affect the narrative of the story, nor does it seem to influence Shion’s development as a character, something I will discuss in the subsequent chapter.
Since we’re on the topic of the ZEs, it would make sense to discuss U-TIC’s role in the Woglinde affair. To summarize, Cherenkov’s mission as a U-TIC agent was ostensibly to ensure the ZE would return to U-TIC, because according to Margulis, they “…can’t let the Zohar fall into the government’s hands.” There are a few problems here.
First of all, how exactly was Cherenkov supposed to ensure this? Now, according to the Episode 3 database, somehow U-TIC planned to recover it using the 474th Spec Ops Fleet, as it “…was mobilized to retrieve the Zohar emulator stored on the Woglinde, but failed to arrive before the emulator had been taken by the Gnosis”. So did Cherenkov’s role in ‘securing the ZE’ include leading the Woglinde and the Fleet into a trap of some sort?
I wonder how exactly he would’ve brought about this as it doesn’t seem that he actually performs any action to achieve this objective until the Gnosis attack. Even barring that, the Woglinde was apparently one column away from home, wherever that was, at the time the Gnosis attacked. So why wasn’t U-TIC’s fleet already lying in wait somewhere nearby? This really suggests that the concept of Cherenkov’s ‘securing’ the ZE aboard the Woglinde was never specifically worked out. Second, the Ariadne story makes little to no sense. Ostensibly, U-TIC conducted a Zohar Link Experiment, presumably to gain direct access to U-DO via the ZE, possibly creating a full, perfect Emulation of the Original Zohar (at least that’s how I interpreted it). They conducted it on Planet Ariadne, which then was warped by the ZE into imaginary space and emerged as a giant Gnosis. U-TIC decides to recover the ZE and cover its traces. So this begs the question of why would U-TIC conduct the experiment on Ariadne in the first place? After all, this is a densely populated planet with over 3 billion people and it belongs to the Federation. Wouldn’t experimenting there with a ZE guarantee that it would attract the attention of the Federation government?
U-TIC knows the Zohar’s destructive capabilities, so why not instead conduct the experiment on a remote empty moon or another asteroid? I’d understand if they wanted the Planet to vanish and send a message to the Federation that way, but Cherenkov’s mission to secure the ZE goes against this possibility. Plus, why didn’t U-TIC just recover the ZE right after the planet vanished? They have recorded footage of the vanishing, which means they must’ve had ships or some sort of outpost nearby.
Why not just wait at a safe distance for the experiment to finish, then instantly recover the ZE? Why would they wait for the Federation to pick it up first? In other words, U-TIC’s actions in regards to the Emulator seem to go against their motivation. From all we know in the early chapters of the story, it is something akin to a terrorist organization operating in secret. So undertaking such a large-scale action that could jeopardize everything they’ve worked for constitutes another massive hole in the story.
Third, it is baffling as to how the rest of the galaxy actually reacts to the planet’s disappearance. This is after all a world, where the UMN provides constant communication across many. If the planet vanished, then all the people of Ariadne communicating at the time with other people would realize this in an instant. In the greater scheme of things, this event would’ve had a major ripple effect on galaxy-wide politics and economics. It would be discussed, debated and contested all throughout the known universe, spreading panic, fear and confusion across the galaxy. The media would be on this in a nano-second, with the space around Ariadne then should be clouded with ships from other planets, news reporters, etc. Instead, it seems that Ariadne’s vanishing never really registers with a good deal of the galaxy.
Never once do we see a realistic indication of the wider world reacting to such a tragedy with the exception of the Mute Girl Luty on the Dock Colony. In other words, the magnitude of such an event is downplayed to the point of ludicrousness and makes it seem that precious few people actually know or care about the planet’s vanishing. One could argue that the Federation had already dealt with this tragedy off-screen or perhaps that it is of little consequence, given that there are approximately 500,000 planets in the Federation alone. Nonetheless, when the disappearance of an entire planet is a rare thing, one would logically expect it to have more far-reaching consequences and attention than it does. Even assuming that a lot of people in the galaxy do know that the planet had indeed vanished by this point, but simply do not mention it, why is it that nobody had spotted the ZE floating there in its place earlier?
So the fact that the Woglinde and the Fleet in the beginning appear to be the only ones even remotely interested in Ariadne’s vanishing (until Jr. and the Durandal decide to pick up this mission) is rather unrealistic and confusing in the game’s greater context. Adding to the confusion is the narrative’s lack of focus on Ariadne as a whole. When the game begins in the present, all we see is the ZE floating in Outer Space. But the notion of Ariadne having been there before doesn’t really arise for the duration of the entire Woglinde chapter, except for a brief offhand remark by Pollyanna in the first scenes we see on the Woglinde’s bridge.
According to her, they were supposed to “Investigate the vanished planet and assist the researchers.” By the time the game actually returns to it much later in the Pleroma chapter and actually shows the disappearance to the player/viewer, it really comes off as confusing and out-of-the-blue, as there has been little to no build-up to it earlier. With everything else that happens in the Woglinde chapter, such as the Gnosis attack and KOS-MOS’ awakening, the lack of any focus on the Ariadne mystery, despite it being the ostensible reason for the Woglinde being there, consequently renders it an easy-to-forget plot point. So once the whole Cathedral Ship chapter starts, the relation of this plotline to what has come before will likely only further bewilder the audience.
Had the game actually shown the Planet’s disappearance in the beginning and displayed how the ZE is the only thing that is left in its place would’ve arguably made it far more memorable and easier to keep in mind. Yet the treatment of the thread of Ariadne (pun intended) also raises questions regarding the Woglinde’s ostensible mission, such as what qualifies the Woglinde to be the only major ship investigating the planet’s disappearance, and what they are supposed to accomplish there by assisting the researchers. The only thing we see them do is collect the ZE.
Never once does the story depict the Woglinde personnel actually investigating Ariadne or assisting anyone with research. The question is then: why is the Woglinde ‘investiga-ting’ Ariadne? Was it located in closest proximity to the planet? Was it the most capable ship in the fleet available at the time? After all, per Commander Cherenkov and other crew members, the fleet was assembled under major time constraints. Added to which, it implies they knew the planet had vanished before they got there. After retrieving it, they are apparently taking it back ‘home’. But where exactly is home? And why are they taking it there? By avoiding tackling these questions, the game dances around the exact motives of the Woglinde coming there in the first place, which is likely to a cause major confusion on the part of anyone watching.
Similarly, it neglects to establish the actual nature of the relationship between the Navy and Vector, giving viewers a poor understanding of just who is in charge of the Woglinde mission and what the details of the arrangement for KOS-MOS being on board are. This is exemplified in the whole concept of Shion’s submitting data reports on KOS-MOS to the Navy. The fact that Moriyama and co. require info on KOS-MOS indicates that the Navy is or soon will be in charge of KOS-MOS. For example, here is a crucial conversation from the Woglinde Bridge between a Lieutenant and Moriyama:
-They’re scheduled to turn in the A-7 reports today. -A-7 eh… Only one step away from fully operational. It’s about time I suppose. Lieutenant, please ask Chief Uzuki to come to the bridge once her data’s ready.
Polyanna subsequently gossips with a couple of guys on the bridge about KOS-MOS, referring to it is a ‘Vector experiment’. She herself remarks that apparently KOS-MOS will have a commercial model, suggesting that Vector will be releasing KOS-MOS en masse in the future. This suggests the Navy has a contract with Vector and is looking for a new supply of fighting robots in the future to aid in anti-Gnosis conflict. So I guess it would sort of make sense that Vector would provide the Navy with an early KOS-MOS model. But the game never elaborates on this information. What we later learn is that KOS-MOS is supposed to take part in Project Zohar and never does there appear to be any intention of creating multiple KOS-MOS models.
Cherenkov demands a data report from Shion, but the game never elaborates on what exactly this report is for and why anyone would want it. Are the Navy supposed to keep track of its progress and report it to Vector or the higher-ups? What’s the point? After all, it’s not like KOS-MOS is going to be working with the 117th Marine Division anyway. And KOS-MOS progress’ is something that Vector is actively monitoring all the time. She even later turns out to have the capability of sending reports to Vector HQ herself. Added to which, KOS-MOS turns out to be an asset to the Zohar Project, which apparently is the most important thing to the Galaxy Federation Government at the moment. So, the question then is: “Why is KOS-MOS, a key element of Project Zohar, aboard the Woglinde? Where are they taking it and what were they supposed to do with it later?”
Per Commander Cherenkov:
[“This fleet may be newly outfitted, but it was assembled under major time constraints.” ]
It also really strains credulity that The Navy would ever agree to take a barely functional ship with no 100-Series Realians and an untested, deactivated weapon for such a mission. I would understand if they had been fully equipped and still failed to survive the Gnosis attack, but this is ludicrous. Why is it that the Navy would take such a low-quality ship like the Woglinde for this mission in the first place? Why rely on Vector anyway? Shouldn’t the Navy have any Warships of its own by now? While the ODM claims that Wilhelm somehow arranged that the Woglinde not have any 100-Series Realians, so as to bring about KOS-MOS’ awakening, this whole scenario again seems to be fairly and obviously contrived.
Wilhelm then must have some sort of major pull with the Navy in order to arrange for all this. What all of these observations evince so far is that Episode I’s initial premise is chock-full of holes and inconsistencies, that it is fundamentally faulty and painfully contrived.
I honestly think one of the true causes of this is the UMN. The idea of the one world network is a cool one, I believe. Various sci-fi writers have tackled the idea of a future network that could allow space travel and universe-wide communication. Dan Simmons, for instance, explores it well in the Hyperion series, with the concept of the “Farcaster Network”. However, the problem of including such a device is that it really limits the amount of information you can withhold at any given moment. The internet already allows us to share information at a moment’s notice with one another, so in the space age, how do you actually control the flow of it?