How Young Albedo ended up at the bottom of the Nephilim

Hey guys. I originally had a long essay I was working on concerning Albedo's character. Now, due to a lot of factors, I'm not sure I will ever be able to fully write it out, so I'm thinking of just posting some of the ideas that I started developing way back when.

Anyhow, to get this off the ground - I want to get some feedback from what remaining Saga fans there are - how do you think young Albedo wound up at the bottom of the Song of Nephilim towards the end of the Miltian Conflict, based on the information provided in-game, the guides, etc.? This was never explicitly stated, but there are a lot of clues and I want to know what conclusions people have arrived at before posting my own.

Hi Neosmith,

I guess the info here will help you :

http://xeno-underground.net/wiki/doku.php?id=wiki:xenosaga:ds:kirschwasser_subscenario_meeting_albedo

http://www.zohar-project.com/jeuxderives/undeux/kirsch.php

And probably if you check the word "Albedo" here :
http://xeno-underground.net/wiki/doku.php?id=wiki:xenosaga_episode_iii_perfect_guide_translation

P.S. : Woah... 5 months without any news. <sigh>

... I guess I can say "No news, good news":
http://aerie.wingdreams.net/

Oh, thanks, Valkyrie.

I've actually read all these sources already - I'm really curious as to what people think happened - namely, what was the precise series of events that lead to Albedo ending up at the point where he meets the Kirschwasser for the first time.

Ah yeah now that you mention it, this a point that is not very clear in my mind. Just after Rubedo cut the link of the URTV.

It's a bit confusing :

-if I remember correctly, in PS2 games and The Animation, it is said/shown that Albedo was touched by U-DO and then litteraly disappeared. And then... well ... we don't really know until Canaan and chaos arrived to rescue Rubedo and Nigredo.

But if we refer to the DS game, Rubedo somehow fainted, and then Nigredo and Albedo fight each other.

On top of that there is also this PS2 cutscene where Nigredo is strike down by Albedo at the [Song of Nephilim/Protoh Merkabah (since those 2 devices are not separated yet] .

I need to make more investigation about this, but surely the complete translation of the DS story would be welcomed for this.

Valkyrie wrote:Ah yeah now that you mention it, this a point that is not very clear in my mind. Just after Rubedo cut the link of the URTV.

It's a bit confusing :

-if I remember correctly, in PS2 games and The Animation, it is said/shown that Albedo was touched by U-DO and then litteraly disappeared. And then... well ... we don't really know until Canaan and chaos arrived to rescue Rubedo and Nigredo.

But if we refer to the DS game, Rubedo somehow fainted, and then Nigredo and Albedo fight each other.

On top of that there is also this PS2 cutscene where Nigredo is strike down by Albedo at the [Song of Nephilim/Protoh Merkabah (since those 2 devices are not separated yet] .

I need to make more investigation about this, but surely the complete translation of the DS story would be welcomed for this.

Thanks for your input, Valkyrie.

There haven't been any other replies, so I think I'll go ahead and add some details regarding this point.

If you look at Episode I and its supporting materials (OE1C), then put the pieces of disparate info together, it's actually pretty obvious what went down in the Nephilim. The original sequence of events is like this:

1. URTV enter the Nephilim to eliminate U-DO

2. Rubedo closes his mind out of fear of U-DO's fury/going out of control

3. Albedo is infected/URTV go insane due to U-DO and/or Nephilim

4. Some time after Albedo's infection, the URTV are separated.

5. Gaignun eliminates the rogue URTV (though apparently via a rifle, rather than any special ability) while looking for Rubedo.

6. Gaignun returns to Nephilim chamber, possibly to look for Albedo or Rubedo

7. Albedo, now empowered by U-DO waves, attacks from Gaignun from behind

8. Rubedo enters Nephilim, finds Gaignun wounded, Albedo emerges and claims to be "perfect chain" (as depicted in Jr.'s dream)

9. Albedo and Rubedo duel, with Rubedo pushing his power to its limits

10. Albedo loses duel and, critically wounded, falls to bottom of Nephilim

11. Rubedo, having overextended himself, suppresses his powers to survive and stops his aging process.

12. Rubedo carries wounded Gaignun out of Nephilim;

they leave Miltia by means unknown

13. Albedo presumably ends up with U-TIC/meets the Kirchwasser

To be completely honest with you, I don't have a foggiest idea.

I didn't see all of the additional material, mind you, so I'm going to write what I can remember off the top of my head from the official game trilogy without looking into youtube or booting the games up:

EP I shows a trippy sequence of 'how URTV went to the crapper pretty much wholesale' from Rubedo's perspective via an Encephalon dive that really didn't do what the party thought it would. I say 'trippy' here because I seem to remeber a bunch of short scenes crammed one after enother into a cutscene montage without much of an explanation; the dead body of their pet cat seems especially out of place there to me. I assume the surreal feel I got from it was intentional.

From what I remember of database entries and offhandedly mentioned details in EP II and III, Rubedo was supposed to perform what looked helluva lot like a magical ritual with everybody else helping him in some capacity. Except Nigredo, who was supposedly on standby to kill everybody present in case of something (or maybe regardless of the outcome?). The snag was that after some time it has all started Rubedo came to the conclusion that performing the procedure successfully would cause an unacceptable to him amount of collaterial (knowing Xenosaga, I think we can safely assume the planet would've been blown up to kingdom come). Thus he decided to interrupt the process, which resulted in lotsa dead bodies, flashing ominous red lights and Miltia getting declared as unsalvageable.

Maybe. I'm not sure about the last one since Dr. Yuriev's words seemed to imply that the planet would've been a write-off no matter the outcome at this point.

Oh, and Nigredo catches their daddy dearest somewhere he can shoot him dead and promptly does so at some unspecified point in time after that.

Also, I'm not too clear on whether he couldn't finish Albedo off properly or didn't do it intentionally. And there is absolutely no showing of his special powers he supposedly has and I have no idea how he was supposed to kill all of those superpowered crazy maniac children.

EDIT:
Oh, looks like you've got a nice and neat explanation here posted up already while I was going into the editor for some italics emphasis.

I have to note that I'm having problems with trying to understand things from 2 to 11. The list itself is clear enough (kudos to you for writing it up in clear and concise manner, by the way), but when I try to summon up some kind of more detailed explanation on either of them, my mind comes up with a blank.

For example, let's take number 2.

Rubedo seemed to do fine in mental faculty department in the face U-DO/Song of Nephilim/whatever influence before that scene - the biggest trouble I remember him having is everybody else suddenly wanting to riddle him with bullets. Did the mental contact required to proceed invalidate whatever protection he had from the effects? Did the mental contact with other URTV more vulnerable to the effects required for the procedure put him at risk of losing his mind? Why was he in risk in the first place, if he is not a realian? Or is he? In that case why he didn't go mental with the rest of them?

Why the hell URTV were even sent there if even a minute contact with an emulator of the thing (if Ep. II is to be believed) turned more than half of them into frothing-mad fast zombies? Yes, the good doctor didn't consider losing the whole lot of them an unacceptable trade-off if they succeeded, but from how easily and how massively all of the nameless mooks got subverted, I don't think the success was even remotely possible even in the case Rubedo decided not to back out at the last moment. Well, I guess that's sending an expidition inside of an anomaly for ya.

Why Albedo got additional (him blowing his head off with a power blast instead of a gun during that flashback is a result of censorship, if I remember right) superpowers at the cost of high-functioniong craziness when everybody else got saddled with just frothing-at-the-mouth crazy? (The correct answer would be "because he is a named character and they are not", of course.) Maybe his functional indestructibility 'helped'?

The impression I've got is that your run of the mill unnamed URTV have something of a hive mind going - what's with some random comments about how they find their 'variant' brothers and sisters abhorrent because they have individual names. (I think later episodes said something about that being a realian shtick; would that make URTV based off that?) I don't remember it ever being stated why they were designed that way, but I assume it was needed for the purpose Dr. Yuriev made them.

My personal headcanon derived from the above is that them not having a strong, clearly defined ego was the reason URTV turned out to be so massively vulnerable to mental contamination.

And number 11 is just... urgh. Yes, thematically appropriate, nice naked bishounen look already designed, etc, etc. But I still cringe from just reading that line.

I'm going to posting my sources for this sequence pretty soon. Basically, this is what was intended in the Original Episode I, but it became really different following all the changes of the revised Episodes 2 and 3.

Rubedo's decision to cut off the link has very different reasoning, depending on the context. I'm going to clarify this as best as I can moving forward.

And number 11 is just... urgh. Yes, thematically appropriate, nice naked bishounen look already designed, etc, etc. But I still cringe from just reading that line.

I'm not sure what you mean. I can pretty much tell you that this was supposed to happen, explaining explicitly why Jr. doesn't age, but was then tossed out the window for a variety of reasons.

Don't mind me, I have nothing logical to back the dislike of number 11 up. Just pet issues, nothing to see here.

So, here's where I expand on this original sequence;



1. URTV enter the Nephilim to eliminate U-DO
2. Rubedo closes his mind out of fear of U-DO's fury/going out of control

ODM:

Furthermore, Jr. closed his heart out of fear of U-DO's running out of control and cut the mental link with the other U.R.T.V.s. Because of this the channel that connected the U.R.T.V.s together was opened and left defenseless and due
to that they became able to be tainted by U-DO.

The URTVs, who were produced for the sake of searching for the possibility of eliminating U-Do, will eliminate their own personal reason for existence when the time comes that U-Do is eliminated.

3. Albedo is infected/URTV go insane due to U-DO

ODM:

When the unleashing of U-Do occurred on Miltia 14 years ago, Albedo received a surge of U-Do, which caused a severe change in his emotional state.

In-game dialogue:

Jr.: (furious) Shut up! I don't need some freak contaminated by U-DO to
tell me…

Shion: Jr.…?!

Albedo: Contaminated? Not quite. More like…evolved. I experienced but a fragment of my true power that day. The waves that inundated my body are now a part of me! I've reached a higher stage of existence compared to you incomplete mortals.

4. Some time after Albedo's infection, the URTV are separated.

Encephalon Flashbacks - Gaginun is searching for Rubedo in Miltia City

5. Gaignun eliminates the rogue URTV (though apparently via a rifle, rather than any special ability) while looking for Rubedo.

Encephalon Flashbacks - URTV are shown bearing rifles;

Gaignun shoots the rogues down

6. Gaignun returns to Nephilim chamber, possibly to look for Albedo or Rubedo

7. Albedo, now empowered by U-DO waves, attacks from Gaignun from behind

Encephalon Flashbacks - Albedo strikes Gaignun from behind

8. Rubedo enters Nephilim, finds Gaignun wounded, Albedo emerges and claims to be "perfect chain" (as depicted in Jr.'s dream)

Jr.'s dream - Jr. finds a wounded Gaignun in the Nephilim, Albedo's waves emanate from behind

Encephalon Flashbacks - Albedo's mirror-mirror speech

9. Albedo and Rubedo duel, with Rubedo pushing his power to its limits

Never explicitly shown, but strongly implied.

Flashbacks show:

-Albedo is seen to rise from behind Jr. with Gaignun wounded in Nephilim

-Jr. is shown to be carrying wounded Gaignun outside in his dream/flashback outside the Nephilim

Evidently, a confrontation between Jr. and Albedo must've taken place in-between.

In-game dialogue corroborates this:

As Albedo and Jr. duel in present day:

Ah, Rubedo. You're getting closer to your old self. But you're still not quite there yet. You were much stronger than this back then, weren't you?

Indicates the two have dueled before.

Albedo: Please spare me from any trite lines like, "You're still alive?"

Evinces Jr. believed Albedo to be dead.

10. Albedo loses duel and, critically wounded, falls to bottom of Nephilim

-Can be inferred from the DS meeting with Kirschwasser, that this was to take place in OE1C.

11. Rubedo, having overextended himself, suppresses his powers to survive and stops his aging process.

Leaked Notes:

During the final anti-U-DO operations (14 years before the story begins), Jr. had to face off against Albedo… Dealing with him required Jr. to use all of his abilities to their utmost limits, consuming the majority of his life expectancy in the process. As a result, he has suspended the growth of his body indefinitely.

ODM:

#666, Jr, is performing the suppression of physical growth and can even be said to suspend time with his own will. Also, Jr is considered to be playing the
role of central connecter that psychically ties together his other fellow
URTVs. The reasoning for this is that, on Miltia 14 years ago, because Jr became terrified by U-Do's fury and rejected the mental link, which caused the other URTVs to become completely chaotic.

In-game dialogue:

Mary: It's a shame… Little Master doesn't have any choice in the matter but to stay that size…

-Suggestion that Jr. has no choice, but to stay ageless. Fits with the " life expectancy" explanation.

12. Rubedo carries wounded Gaignun out of Nephilim; they leave Miltia by means unknown, though Helmer rescues them:
See point 9, in addition:

ODM:

The person who was commanding the Galaxy Federation Army is the person who has currently seized the real power in the Second Miltian government, Helmer. He rescued Jr. and Gaignun who had been seriously injured in the Conflict and
after that he was also the person who entrusted the Kukai Foundation to Jr. and Gaignun.

13. Albedo presumably ends up with U-TIC/meets the Kirchwasser
-See point 10