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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