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Tuesday, June 29, 2021

Love the Machines: An Analysis of Xenoblade Chronicles

 

In typical RPG fashion, Xenoblade Chronicles for the Nintendo Wii and 3DS (and now the Nintendo Switch) tells a lengthy, twisting tale.  What begins as a fight for the survival of some scrappy Homs (human) colonists on the world of Bionis against an invasion of Mechon from Mechonis, ends as some other role-playing games do, as a war of creatures against their creator. 

As usual, there are some esoteric elements along the way.  The ascent of the body of the Bionis by Shulk and his fellows, for example, recalls Dante’s climb out of hell using the devil himself as a ladder, which is a symbol of the rejection of Christian dogma (Drs Joseph Farrell and Scott de Hart, Transhumanism: a Grimoire of Alchemical Agendas, Feral House, Port Townsend, Wash., 2011, pgs. 214-6).

Also, the theme of spirit mediumship is strongly present.  Shulk and Fiora are revealed to be hosts for Zanza and Meyneth, respectively.  The development in men and women of the ability to be mediums for ‘interplanetary beings’ (i.e., demons) as part of the evolution of mankind to a higher stage of life is mentioned several times in the satanist Alice Bailey’s work The Externalization of the Hierarchy.

There is also an interesting play on the name of the character Gadolt.  In the context of this game, with its themes of accepting fate or working to change the future, his name recalls the modernist play Waiting for Godot, whose message is essentially that life has no meaning.  However, in sacrificing his life to save Sharla, Shulk, and the rest of his friends, he provokes Lady Meyneth to act to change the future rather than remaining passive.  Through his act, he shows his belief that life does have meaning, just the opposite of what his name suggests.

The gamers are being conditioned as well for the rollout of the real-world supersoldier with his machine exoskeleton through the Faced Mechon, a homs who has been integrated into a Mechon body:

https://www.defenseone.com/technology/2018/08/russia-us-are-military-exoskeleton-race/150939/

https://xenoblade.fandom.com/wiki/Metal_Face

This rollout has been ongoing.  Similar exoskeletons have appeared in games like Final Fantasy VI, Mega Man X, and Xenogears, and in one of the Alien movies and Iron Man.

But the larger issue we would like to deal with is the messaging of this game about technology in general.  As more of the story unravels, it is revealed that Mechon are not the aggressors but the Homs.  Long ages ago, the Machina (cyborg-like beings from Mechonis) are the ones who offered their advanced science and technology to the creatures of Bionis in a spirit of trust and friendship (for those wondering:  Yes, once again, the theme of ancient technology being more advanced than current technology arises in Xenoblade Chr.).  But later this overture of the Machina was spurned as the Bionis itself (a Titan controlled by the giant Zanza) attacked the Mechonis (a second Titan controlled by Lady Meyneth).

After more of the story unfolds, we learn that the world in which all this is taking place was the result of a science experiment.  Zanza, Meyneth, and others were humans in an orbiting space station who had developed the technology to create a new universe out of the existing one. 

https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/xenoblade/images/5/58/SpaceStation_Z_15_0005.png

--Image from https://xenoblade.fandom.com/wiki/Alvis .

Meyneth tried to stop Zanza from using it, but she failed.  In the new universe Zanza created and indwelt Bionis, and Meyneth the Mechonis.  Meyneth eventually gives her life to protect Shulk and his friends, asking them to create a world that doesn’t need gods like her and Zanza.

Zanza shows himself to be a psychopath, choosing to destroy and recreate the universe over and over again in order to keep himself alive.  The alliance of races from Bionis and Mechonis, having learned of this part of their history, rebel, deciding they want free will rather than a predetermined end that only serves Zanza.  Here is more of the subtle message to the gamer:  The existing God you know about in your own life is an evil tyrant.  You should not obey his commands, but live life just like you want to.  Heaven, the good life, is having friends, happy emotions, and so on (i.e., existentialism - https://www.philosophybasics.com/branch_existentialism.html).  Gods only get in the way of those things.

And what is it that gives the creatures the ability to defeat Zanza, their creator, in their final battle?  AI.  The computer program that helped initiate the recreation of the universe walks about the new world as a human-looking being called Alvis.  His voice and his role recall HAL from 2001:  A Space Odyssey (the one who helps mankind achieve deification; look up Jay Dyer’s review of that film for more on HAL).  The key that hangs around Alvis’s neck denotes precisely what he is:  The ‘key’ that enables creatures to destroy their creator.

https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/xenoblade/images/9/9e/Alvis_space.png

--Image of Alvis from https://xenoblade.fandom.com/wiki/Alvis .

But here a little bit of a philosophical problem enters in:  If a few imperfect but super-powerful beings were not able to direct the world in a good way, why should we suppose that millions of imperfect creatures, now freed from the directions of their gods, would not drive the world even further into madness?  The answer of Shulk and his friends is . . . evolution:  small improvements year after year.  The underlying assumption, the unstated teaching, is that man is capable of perfecting himself without any help at all from the divine.

What we are left with at the end of the game are the following ideas:

-Reject the authority of God;

-Live life according to your own will, follow your own inner light (the teachings of Aleister Crowley);

-Organic beings (mankind) are the destructive element in the universe; and

-Inorganic beings (machines, AI) are the constructive element in the universe.

In other words, embrace the post-Christian, synthetic biology, transhumanist, cyborg vision of the future preached by the likes of Google’s Ray Kurzweil:

https://futurism.com/kurzweil-claims-that-the-singularity-will-happen-by-2045

And by Dr Klaus Schwab, who has overshadowed Mr Kurzweil and the other prophets of their company lately.  For those who have not yet encountered any of Dr Schwab’s pronouncements, here are just a few:


 . . . “Fourth Industrial Revolution technologies will not stop at becoming part of the physical world around us—they will become part of us. Indeed, some of us already feel that our smartphones have become an extension of ourselves. Today’s external devices—from wearable computers to virtual reality headsets—will almost certainly become implantable in our bodies and brains. Exoskeletons and prosthetics will increase our physical power, while advances in neurotechnology enhance our cognitive abilities. We will become better able to manipulate our own genes, and those of our children. These developments raise profound questions: Where do we draw the line between human and machine? What does it mean to be human?” (37)


 . . .


No violation seems to go too far for Schwab, who dreams of “active implantable microchips that break the skin barrier of our bodies”, “smart tattoos”, “biological computing” and “custom-designed organisms”. (40)


 . . .


“Synthetic biology” is on the horizon in Schwab’s 4IR world, giving the technocratic capitalist rulers of the world “the ability to customize organisms by writing DNA”. (43)


 . . .


--https://winteroak.org.uk/2020/10/05/klaus-schwab-and-his-great-fascist-reset/amp/, via https://gizadeathstar.com/2020/12/tidbits-this-weeks-honorable-mentions-28/

Those who think this is simply globalist/technocrat dreaming need to take a look at what has already transpired in little more than a century with regard to mankind and the creation:


 . . . The mass of all the things made by humans — cities, roads, factories, houses, cars, trains, machines, bricks, concrete, steel, glass, tile, asphalt and so on — may have just overtaken the mass of all the living things on the planet.


Among those living things now being outweighed by buildings and roads are all seven billion-plus people on the planet and all their livestock, their cornfields and rice paddies, orchards and gardens.


This conclusion — open to challenge and difficult to establish with immediate certainty — is a fresh and startling measure of the scale of human change to the planet, and of the speed at which it has happened.


At the beginning of the 20th century, the mass of human-produced infrastructure probably added up to just 3% of the mass of the planet’s living tissue: its forests and savannas, wetlands and scrub, its mammals, fish, reptiles, amphibians, birds, insects and microbes.


But in the course of little more than a century, says a new study in the journal Nature, two things happened. The human population increased fourfold, and with those numbers so did human demand for manufactured things and built objects.


 . . .


--Tim Radford, https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/human-impact-environment/?itm_term=home

Never dismiss the depths of evil into which mankind is capable of dragging himself and the cosmos in which he lives.

--

Holy Ælfred the Great, King of England, South Patron, pray for us sinners at the Souð, unworthy though we are!

Anathema to the Union!

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