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A Scandal in Komra
-Something was discovered at a dwarven dig site. A machina graveyard.
-I meet the twin dwarves Anogg and Konogg. They seem fun and mischievous.
-OMG THIS IS NEAR THE “DUERGAR MOUNTAINS!” The dwarf mountain in FFI.
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On the Threshold
-Some dwarfy shenanigans laters, the twins and I sneak into the site to see what’s up.
(sneak = bomb blast through locked doors)
-So I know that this is a raid based on NieR Automata, but I’ve never played that game. There will likely be all kinds of references soaring over my head.
-Inside, a group of weird tonberry-like machina dig away. Their eyes turn red as they attack us.
-LOL I LOVE THESE DWARF TWINS AND THEIR LOONEY TUNES STYLE BOMBS
-A bit further in, we see a woman in white lying on the ground. Is this the “2B” I’ve heard about?
-Her eyes are milky white. She covers them up with a bandana.
“I am numbe- 2P. Call me 2P. The rest can wait.” Probably the XIV version of 2B.
-She’s set on stopping the “machine lifeforms.” The twins excitedly push on and I join. HERE WE GO!
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The Copied Factory
-Even knowing nothing about the NieR, this was a great raid. The mechanics were challenging (see also: ALL MY DEATHS) but learnable, the rusted factory environment was rich, the humor was on point.
My favorites were the second two, jokey murder robot bosses with a political philosophy theme.
Hobbes was a GLaDOS-esque robot arm testing our ability to withstand damage.
-But the third? Wheeeeeww. Engels was a titanic robot seemingly welded together from rusted oil derricks and old girders.
My favorite part was when he ducked under our platform and blasted up through the middle.
-The android controlling all of this was 9S, the final boss. He seemed to be a personal rival to 2P.
-Post-fight, 9S hopped out of his mech for a pretty frigging epic sword fight with 2P. It seemed like their swords could magically teleport into their hands.
BTW THE MUSIC FROM THE FINAL BOSS FIGHT AGAINST 9S WASSSZ SDH DJKFDH SFJKLDHSFL
-She knocks 9S off, but we don’t see him smash or anything. He’ll be back.
-Their swords have some kind of awesome warping tech thing, where they warp into their hands.
-We regroup outside the raid. Why did 9S attack?
-2P is in rough shape. Doesn’t think she’ll make it much longer, but I doubt that.
2P: “Deep within the ruins lies the key. Find it. With it, we can stop them. The machines, the androids… With it, you can restore…”
She powers off.
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An Academic Dispute
-Ooh, new log: “Collections.” I wonder what type of collectible it tracks.
-The twins and I head back into the factory. Maybe we can find parts to restore 2P.
-They disagree about how to proceed. Anogg wants to push ahead blindly. Konogg wants to be more cautious. I get to pick whose path to follow. (The game is clear that whoever I pick, the end result will be the same. No wrong choice.)
Anogg, of course.
-It’s so cool that we get to revisit the raid again! It’s an emptied-out version of the zone to explore.
-As we push through, we gather enough parts to reassemble a “pod,” a boxy little droid.
[Later edit: As I edited the raid video, I saw that these were the things that transported us from platform to platform.]
-I collect little lore nuggets as I go, telling me more about what’s up. For instance…
Memory of a Damage Machine: “Oh brother, where art thou? It’s dark. I’m alone. All alone and lonely. I want friends. Don’t stop me. I’ll kill you. I need friends…”
The robots have emotions, consciousness.
-oh god the machines have an “auto-evolution” system. They grew individualistic.
-Seeing the hulk of Engels’ body in the background is ominous as hell.
-We find 9s. He climbed back up. I wasn’t expecting him to return QUITE so soon.
-The twins debate whether to destroy 9S for good… and opt against it. “It’ll be our little secret.”
YEAH, UNTIL HE WAKES UP AND DESTROYS ALL HUMANS.
-So the pod will work on things for the moment, analyzing the data we found in the Copied Factory. And hopefully finding a way to fix 2P.
That’s where things will pick up whenever the next raid wing picks up.
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Random Stuff Around Eorzea
-The chaos of the first night a raid releases:
-Some great player names:
Thomas Raith (yay Dresden Files shout-out!)
Or Not
Momomomo Peach
Linky Thecat
Greed Demon
Keylime Pai
Tainted Melody
Little Miiaaaoooo
Squidles Ink
Frankie Valli
Kiss Mi
Oimate Wtf
-A paladin I met in a raid with a glowy sword and shield:
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Next time: Some other 5.1 content. Either the new dungeon or main story quest continuation, or both.
Logging you in...
Almaeron · 294 weeks ago
E3L · 294 weeks ago
bluemagedanny 57p · 294 weeks ago
In Nier Automata, the world has been taken over by machine lifeforms, which were created by aliens. The YorHa androids were dispatched by humans in order to take back the world by fighting and destroying the machine lifeforms, while all remaining humans retreated to the Moon in anticipation of the day that they could return to Earth. If I'm not mistaken, the androids worship the humans like gods, which made your comment about 9S a little funny to me.
2B is the main character of Nier Automata... sort of, with 9S, one of the few male androids, being her tagalong partner that also becomes playable later on. There's also another female android named A2, who is an AWOL YorHa android, that also becomes playable later. The character 2P is a recolor of 2B, having a white dress and brown skin, and first debuted in Soul Calibur. For whatever reason, Yoko Taro decided to use 2P instead of 2B in the Nier Raid. That said, one of the rooms that has the datalogs in it has a number of dead 2B clones in it...
Regarding the pods, they are support programs for the androids that carry additional weaponry or are also used for gliding or assisted jumps.
At any rate, the machine lifeforms are said to be mindless creatures, but they try and emulate humanity (much like the androids do, for that matter) in increasingly bizarre ways as the game goes on. A good number of the bosses are also named after philosophers, like Engels (who was actually the tutorial boss in Nier Automata). I believe Hobbes was newly created for XIV.
There are a number of parallels between Nier and XIV that I find interesting, like the humans retreating to the moon much in the same way that Elidibus, one of the Amaurotine that wants the world to go back to the way it was, does. There's also an NPC in Amaurot that suggests that connection might be intentional: https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/3613495231...