Zone of the Enders (series)

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Zone of the Enders, commonly referred to by the acronym Z.O.E., is a franchise created by Hideo Kojima, owned by the video game publisher Konami, and expanded on by the animation studio Sunrise. The original Zone of the Enders is a game created for the launch of the Sony Playstation 2, which has so far spawned a single PS2 sequel, a Game Boy Advance side-story, an OVA movie and a twenty-six episode television anime series.

Contents

[edit] Setting

The Zone of the Enders series is set in the late 22nd century. Humankind has colonized Mars, and space colonies are also set up in orbit around Jupiter. Fueling this expansion are two scientific advances: the development of the Laborious Extra-Orbital Vehicle, or LEV, a mecha used for labor and military use, and the discovery of Metatron, a high-energy ore found on Callisto.

However, those in power on Earth begin to take a dim view of the colonists of Mars and Jupiter, calling them "Enders", and imposing harsh and exploitive laws and taxes against them. Eventually, different groups on Mars begin to rise up in opposition to Earth. A new weapon given to these rebels is the Orbital Frame, a mecha making extensive use of Metatron-based technology, These Orbital Frames come to shape the destiny of Earth and its colonies, for both good and evil.

[edit] Common Themes

Throughout the Zone of the Enders series', a number of themes and dramatic devices show up prominently, in every series except IDOLO:

  • The story usually revolves around two specific Orbital Frames, created as part of the same project. Each frame ends up on opposite sides of the conflict, and the final confrontation is between the two and their pilots.
  • The two main Orbital Frames in each series(such as Jehuty and Anubis) are named after Egyptian gods. Also, many of the bosses and enemies in the series (like the Mummyhead), are linked to ancient Egyptian culture and myth.
  • The main character of the story usually comes across the Orbital Frame by accident. Dolores, is an ironic exception to this, as while James Links does come across Dolores by chance, it was being sent to him in the first place.
  • The main character's Orbital Frame comes with an advanced, intelligent (and always female) A.I. which becomes a major character in her own right. A subplot throughout the series is the growth and development of the AI, as well as her attachment to her runner. However, IDOLO reverses this concept; the frame was a prototype model with no A.I. installed, but instead had an illegitimate mind of its own (as well as a conscience that is, oddly enough, depicted as female). Instead of the runner and the frame forming a friendship, the latter takes control of the pilot completely.
  • There is often a clear distinction between protagonists and antagonists that is determined by their respect or lack-thereof of human life. The "heroes" are typically the ones who attempt to save other people and spare lives when possible including the lives of their enemies, while the "villains" can be identified by a disregard for human life and a willingness to sacrifice innocent people to further their cause. This creates an interesting ethical divide, as a character's goals can often be noble, but it comes down to the means that the characters use to achieve those goals that mark them "hero" or "villain." For example, both protagonist and antagonist characters may have an ultimate goal of ending Earth's exploitation of Mars, but the lengths that the characters go to make that a reality will mark them as "good" or "evil."

[edit] Z.O.E. Games

[edit] Zone of the Enders

Main article: Zone of the Enders

Zone of the Enders is the first game in the series, detailing the story of a boy named Leo Stenbuck, a colonist from Jupiter who finds himself piloting the Orbital Frame Jehuty.

[edit] Zone of the Enders: The 2nd Runner

Main article: Zone of the Enders: The 2nd Runner

Zone of the Enders: the 2nd Runner, known as Anubis: Zone of the Enders in Japan, is also for the PS2. It features a new pilot, Dingo Egret, who finds Jehuty on the Moon of Callisto two years after the events of the first game.

[edit] Zone of the Enders: The Fist of Mars

Main article: Zone of the Enders: The Fist of Mars

Zone of the Enders: the Fist of Mars (known as Zone of the Enders: 2173 Testament in Japan) is a side-story released for the Game Boy Advance, about a conspiracy involving the construction of Orbital Frames for Earth. The protagonist, a young man named Cage Midwell, finds himself getting involved with a resistance organization known as BIS.

[edit] ZOE Anime

[edit] Zone of the Enders: 2167 IDOLO

Main article: ZOE: 2167 IDOLO

IDOLO is a prequel for the entire series, telling the story of Radium Lavans, the pilot of the first Orbital Frame.

[edit] Zone of the Enders: Dolores, i

Main article: ZOE: Dolores, i

Dolores, i is a followup to IDOLO, about James Links, a trucker who, while trying to reunite with his estranged family, discovers that a container he was supposed to transfer contains an Orbital Frame, calling itself Dolores, who seems to consider James her uncle.

[edit] Metatron ore

 This video game-related article or section describes an aspect of the game in a primarily in-universe style.
Please rewrite this article or section to explain the fiction more clearly and provide non-fictional perspective.

In the series, a large attention is placed on an ore called Metatron, which was discovered on Jupiter's moon Callisto in the early twenty-first century and was found to have unique space warping properties that could be exploited. Though metatron in the series is not fully developed as to its characteristics, it supposedly became the basis of many new technologies, including locomotion, power generation, extradimensional storage, weaponry, shielding, and artificial intelligence.

[edit] Space Compression

Metatron's most basic ability is creating compressed space. Nothing can penetrate a compressed space barrier because it can turn around anything that hits it due to the nature of the space compression. The only thing capable of breaking through a space compression field is a Vector Cannon, which is also based around the principle of space compression. The space compression generated by the Vector Cannon can cancel out the space compression created by a barrier, thus neutralizing it. Metatron is inevitably surrounded with a small, harmless, and almost insignificant space compression field even while dormant, making it easier to find if using special sensors. Even orbital frames are constantly surrounded by a relatively small field of space compression, especially while active. This field can even push against the Metatron's surroundings, causing orbital frames to hover in the air even when their boosters are in standby. A useful coincidence about this small field is that it cuts through the air, sending the particles around a circular field in front of the frame while it is moving at a high velocity, thus reducing air resistance. This can be useful if one is trying to achieve high air speeds in an orbital frame or other Metatron based vehicle. It has the added benefit of making atmospheric entry easy for orbital frames, as this effect greatly reduces friction and thus reduces the heat generation characteristic of dropping into an atmosphere, eliminating the need for bulky heat-shielding.

[edit] Locomotion

Metatron's ability to compress space allowed new forms of locomotion to be utilized. The most common use of metatron for locomotion is space travel using a device known as a Urenbeck Catapult. This device launches a belt of compressed space that an interplanetary ship rides in. Due to the space compression, the effective distance between the ship and its destination is reduced considerably from the reference frame of the ship. This reduces travel between planets in the solar system to the scale of a few weeks rather than many months that would be required to traverse astronomical distances using purely conventional space drives. Other metatron locomotion is smaller scale, compressing space in certain directions near a vehicle in order to move the vehicle without the need for a bulky propulsion system. One of metatron's most impressive qualities is to create a corridor of compressed space between a vehicle and a destination, reducing the distance between the two points to zero and thus making travel between them almost instant. This is known as a zero shift, but only very few metatron machines have been able to successfully use this feature, and even then it functions only on a relatively small distance and requires a clear line of sight between the origin and the destination.

[edit] Power Generation

Metatron is also used to build power generators that are immensely more effective than conventional means of power generation. A metatron power plant is known as an antiproton reactor,[1]. The name suggests that it generates energy through antiparticles. It is unclear if this power generation is an inherent quality of metatron, or if metatron's space compression allows conventional energy generation in unconventional ways (possibly in maintaining antiparticles). Regardless of the theory behind an antiproton reactor, it is clear that such a device is relatively small and can generate power in excess of several nuclear reactors. Antiproton reactors appear to require no external fuel and appear to generate no waste, drawing out only pure energy.

[edit] Storage

The space compression made possible by metatron can also be used to create an extradimensional "pocket" known as a vector trap. The vector trap compresses space and folds it back in on itself, creating an area of space that does not occupy any volume relative to the rest of the universe but does have an internal volume of its own. A seemingly limitless volume of objects can be stored in a vector trap, but mass is still a consideration and any object generating a vector trap must still make allowances for the mass of the objects inside the vector trap. [2]

[edit] Weaponry

Metatron's great power generation abilities allow the construction of effective energy-based weaponry, most of which would be impossible without metatron's space bending properties. Examples of these energy weapons include basic energy bolts that can be fired at targets, lasers that can be guided to targets by bending space, powerful beams with adjustable limited range and width, fields that can disable power-plants, and an energy bubble that can be launched at a target to devastating effect called a Burst shot. The most powerful of all metatron based weapons is known as a Vector Cannon. A Vector Cannon makes a linear compression of space in front of it, which can literally crush anything it touches into almost nothing.

[edit] Shielding

Metatron also has defensive uses. Metatron's space compression capabilities allow it to generate a wall of compressed space around the frame using a specialized vector trap usually located on the left arm or other various locations. This field, like all space compression fields, forces incoming projectiles around or away from it. Energy weapons will usually go around this field, while ballistic weaponry will usually be destroyed on impact. Such fields are effectively invulnerable to most weapons. However certain high-powered energy weapons can over come an energy shield's ability to deflect it. As well, strong kinetic impacts may not necessarily penetrate the shield, but they can knock back the object generating the shield, damaging it by causing it to collide with other solid objects. Metatron can also be used to create self-repairing machines. Self-Supporting Armor, or SSA, is capable of using metatron to seal any damage it sustains, even to the point of "regrowing" damaged segments. However, this consumes a great amount of metatron ore to operate and thus a self-repairing metatron-based machine must be given additional supplies of metatron ore to use this function. In place of consuming metatron ore an SSA system can also regenerate itself using electricity from an external source. However, doing so can cause a huge drain on an electric power grid, and a rapid repair job can cause large blackouts even for a power grid supported by several city-scale reactors.[3]

[edit] Computer Science

Another of metatron's most visible uses is computer science. The space compression of metatron allows computers to operate in many more dimensions of space than conventional computers can. This allows the creation of metatron-based quantum computers which can possess genuine artificial intelligence. A metatron A.I. can reason, think independently, and even feel emotions. The detached backup battle unit aboard orbital frame Jehuty known as ADA is an example of a metatron based computer. It is commonly rational and logical, but it had also been shown to be capable of a degree of emotion.[4] The A.I. of Dolores is similar to that of a young girl, and has been demonstrated to be capable of very strong emotions and loyalty.[5]

[edit] Human Interface & Cybernetics

One of metatron's more outlandish yet stunning uses is when it is used to interface directly with human controllers. Many metatron vehicles are controlled by the will of the human piloting it. The exact method of how this is accomplished is unknown, as is why the process seems to require metatron. It is mentioned in the anime ZOE: 2167 IDOLO that metatron "bonds to our life-force" but only in the English voice-over and not in the Japanese original, so that is not necessarily canon. As a result of this, most metatron based control systems can be operated with little to no training. One of the interesting effects of a metatron interface is how glowing lines can appear on the pilot, similar to the glowing lines that appear on many metatron-based machines (these are considered to be the metatron energy passageways). This may indicate some kind of feedback to the pilot, probably indicating a high degree of synchronization between pilot and machine. These lines are only likely to appear when the pilot is undergoing a high degree of stress or effort, or when their will to control the machine is otherwise heightened. Metatron has also been used in prosthesis as replacements for human components. For example, eyes and limbs can be replaced by metatron-based substitutes. The advantage of this over more conventional prosthesis is probably due to the ease that the human will can control a metatron-interface, while conventional prosthesis would have to use crude electronic wiring instead.[6] More drastically, metatron can be used as a means of direct life-support. When implanting certain devices and infusing human circulation with a metatron solution, a metatron machine can directly provide for a human body, using space compression to substitute for the movement of a heart and lungs. Given the nature of a metatron interface, this does not require a direct physical connection between the person being provided for and the machine doing the providing. However, if the person in care were to attempt to move out of range of the machine's ability to provide him or her with energy for the space-compression, the life-support systems would cease to function, and the person would die unless quickly returned to the machine.[7]

[edit] Orbital Frames

A combat vehicle that uses great amounts of metatron in its power-plant, armor, weaponry, drive systems, and pilot interface is known as an orbital frame. Orbital frames are controlled by reading and responding to the will of the pilot, and thus to accommodate human pilots they are conventionally humanoid shaped, but other forms of orbital frames do exist.

[edit] Sentience

Although many orbital frames are equipped with highly advanced computers, some even capable of emotion, it should also be noted that metatron ore itself has been suggested to possess sentience. Idolo, the first orbital frame ever built, had no artificially intelligent control computer installed, yet it modified its own energy release frequency to that of the alpha brainwave patterns of its test pilot, Radium Lavans. This gave the pilot and frame a sort of symbiotic relationship. This was described as being similar to "muscle memory" in animals. It has been speculated that the Idolo was controlling Radium's mind to carry out its own will, while in return Radium could manipulate the frame like a puppet while not even in the cockpit. On top of that, the Frame's controls would reject pilot input if anyone else but Radium attempted to pilot it. While under its control, he also showed signs of insanity, a very violent temper, sadism, and a loss of almost all rationality. Such signs include beating a man almost to the point of killing him out of spite and vengeance, a lust for death and destruction, and even hallucination.

A similar phenomena was demonstrated by BAHRAM Colonel Nohman while in possession of the Orbital Frame Anubis. Before coming into extended use of Anubis, Nohman, although cruel and cold-hearted, was a relatively sane, arrogant young man. However, after two years of piloting the frame, Nohman demonstrates similar actions to those of Radium Lavans. He often shows similar signs of insanity and irrationality, some including spontaneously shooting former comrade Dingo Egret in the chest roughly four or five times consecutively, and even a homosexual obsession with Dingo (in the Japanese version of the game)[citation needed]. He even shows signs of cosmetic deterioration. He used to be a healthy looking young man with oddly colorful hair. But his hair have greyed and his skin has become deformed around the center of his face, and his eyes appear to be almost completely white, with pupils resembling that of a cat's eyes. He speaks of how Anubis and Auuman, a massive fortress that uses great amounts of Metatron, "chose him" and how the Metatron's "will" is to destroy everything. At one point in the game, he even directly states that he is "just a pawn; all is Metatron's will". If this is true, it also means that Metatron is capable of evil intent and free will.

A similar effect to that seen in Nohman was in UNSF Commander Bolozov, who had spent years testing experimental metatron-based LEVs such as Bizac, and eventually using Orbital Frames (even Iblis, which utilized an exceptionally dangerous control system that linked the pilot intensely closely to the machine). This eventually resulted in the whites of his eyes turning red when he was force-fed commands through the control system of a Grafficane, and left him permanently deranged. He did not reach the point of claiming metatron to be sentient, but he became fiercely violent and enraged on a constant basis. However, it seemed in his last moments that Bolozov's rage was calmed by the soothings of the AI Pharsti, who noted that his body and mind alike had been badly injured by such prolonged exposure to metatron.

Extreme concentrations of metatron over shorter periods of time can accomplish the same effect, as seen with Dezeele Zephyrs. As the pilot of HarutMarut II, he, like Nohman, claims that metatron chose him and that it has a will. He even goes so far as to at one point say that metatron was created by God for this purpose, and that it carries out God's own will. The AI Pharsti says after Zephyr's demise that he had become a ghost, that what Cage had spoken to had no longer been a man at all but rather just an empty husk of one. Cage expresses worry that this might happen to him too, but is soon assured by Pharsti that this would not happen, raising the question of whether metatron's will can be averted.

[edit] See also

v • d • e
Zone of the Enders video games
Games
Animated titles
Mecha
Related

[edit] References

  1. ^ Zone of the Enders: The Fist of Mars
  2. ^ Zone of the Enders: Delores, i (episode 14)
  3. ^ Zone of the Enders: Delores, i (episode 6)
  4. ^ Zone of the Enders and Zone of the Enders: The 2nd Runner
  5. ^ Zone of the Enders: Delores, i (entire series)
  6. ^ Zone of the Enders: Delores, i (episode 13)
  7. ^ Zone of the Enders: The 2nd Runner