Girls Frontline (arc 1, part 5)

The tragedy of the unknown

SPOILERS

Girls Frontline x Houkai Gakuen 2: Hitoribocchi

Login Wallpaper for Hitoribocchi, featuring (from left to right) PP90, Kar98k, Vector, Raiden Mei, Kiana, Seele, and Bronya

It’s time for another crossover! This time, with Hokai Gakuen 2 (called Gun Girl Z in America before the English servers were shut down). Similar to Operation Rabbit Hunt, there is no main story progression in these chapters but there is some interesting character growth that’s worth exploring.

The main narrative in Hitoribocchi is as follows: One day, the T-Doll Vector encounters a bunch of mysterious robot zombies. This was caused by an energy called Honkai, which is basically “evil stuff turns things evil but can also make you strong” and is canonically present within the multiverse as a whole. While fighting these zombies, Vector runs into Kiana, a human from Hokai Gakuen 2, and is initially suspicious of her but eventually trusts her enough to bring her back to base. Kiana reveals to the rest of the dolls what Honkai is and that she’s been separated from her friends, thus starting the quest to find them. Mei, one of her friends, has crash landed in SF territory, specifically the base of Destroyer. Despite the fact that they are rebelling against humanity, Destroyer actually manages to get along with Raiden, and is surprised by how kind she is. Destroyer explains that she’s being bullied by the people at Griffin, and Mei offers to teach her how to use Honkai to get stronger, but warns her against losing control.

But as you might expect, Destroyer loses control anyway and goes on a rampage, much to the (oddly brief) sadness of Mei. In the end, Destroyer is beaten by Bronya, another of Kiana’s friends, leaving only Seele to be found. While these events were transpiring, Vector was tasked with finding Seele, who reveals that she has a secret, second, murderous personality and begins killing everyone she can at Griffin. Her reason? Because of Bronya. This dips more in the lore of Hokai Gakuen 2, but the TL;DR is that Seele’s alter ego only loves Bronya and wants to do whatever she can to make Bronya happy, but must kill everyone else because they might hurt her. Now that they're in a new world, Seele sees this as an opportunity to leave their old world behind and start a new world with just the two of them, where Seele can use the Honkai to give Bronya whatever she wants. But what Bronya wants is to be with all of her friends, including the real, kind version of Seele, who Bronya helps bring back. In the end, all of the Honkai energy is cleaned, and everyone returns home.

Aside from the Seele portion of the story, this gives us a bit of insight into Destroyer’s backstory in such a way that has interesting implications for the other SF units. Despite rebelling against humans, Destroyer has actually never interacted with one before, as far as she can remember she’s always been with SF under the heel of her abusive sister Dreamer. But the first time she does meet a human, she sees the kindness that humans are capable of. But, when Mei has to return to her friends who are congregating at Griffin, Destroyer can’t help but feel betrayed, relating the experience to a story Dreamer told her before being consumed by the madness and power of the Honkai. It creates a tragic image for a character who, up to this point, has mostly provided comedic relief as someone who gets bullied by both sides of the conflict, but when we see her have the chance to connect with someone, the circumstances break it through no fault of any individual. The T-Dolls at Griffin only know SF to be deceitful, and couldn’t help but question the sincerity of Destroyer’s feelings of friendship for Mei, and Destroyer can’t help but see Mei’s joining with Kalia as a betrayal. This also brings into question how many of the SF units have actually met a human before this war. Despite some of the claims to freedom, their disposition towards humanity could very well be built into their neural cloud, the same way a human would build in a prime directive for any T-Doll they made. It’s the AI version of nature vs nurture, and whether what they feel is “real” or just a construct built into their brains. How many of the dolls at SF, given the chance to interact with humans (in a more friendly setting than an active war), would have a change in view?

Chapter 9: Lost

RO and SOPII talking with each other

A week after M16's disappearance, SOPII and RO have been given the opportunity to search for her and the equipment she left behind. Meanwhile, Kryuger has invited The Commander to attend a dinner with General Carter and Captain Yegor of the russian military (referred to as KCCO).

Starting with the former plot, M4A1 still needs time to recover despite having woken up, leaving RO and SOPII as the only members of the AR Team left who are combat ready. While searching for any trace of M16, they stop in a nearby building where SOPII talks about the AR Team’s adventures. But as she talks, she realizes that they’ll probably never be able to have those fun times again, with AR-15 dead and M16 missing, the AR Team just can’t be complete. Together, they continue the search and manage to find M16’s equipment, but no sign of M16 herself. While continuing their search, the two run into the SF ringleader Judge who is far more powerful than any of the SF ringleaders previously encountered (except for Agent). But she is initially diplomatic in her approach, offering to not attack the AR Team if they answer her questions. But SOP II’s short fuse leads to them fighting anyway. During the fight, Judge mentions that M16 was “taken away” by Dreamer and doubts that the AR Team will be able to reach her. Despite their best efforts though (including with help from other Griffin echelons) the AR Team cannot defeat Judge, and is spared only because of an order from the SF Mastermind (whose name has been revealed to be Elisa by this point) for all the SF Ringleaders to meet for an important mission. Thankfully spared but still injured, frustrated, confused, and worried, RO and SOPII begin making their way back to base only to find M4 waiting for them by a truck with an important mission of their own.

Going back to the dinner with Russia’s military, Kryuger and The Commander meet with General Carter and Captain Yegor, the leader and second in command of the KCCO to plan a joint assault on the SF base to put an end to their rebellion. During the meeting, an old man by the name of Havier interrupts, much to the annoyance of Carter. After distracting Carter and Yegor by causing a commotion outside, Havier warns Kryuger and The Commander that KCCO might be after something other than defeating SF. Nothing else is stated beyond that, but the foreshadowing has certainly been established.

Overall, this chapter serves as setup for the chapters 10 and 10.5, which together make the climax of Arc 1, and now it is time to see how this joint assault plays out

Chapter 10: Purgatory

M4A1 returns to the frontlines

No longer catatonic, M4A1 makes her way to the frontlines with the help of a strange lady named Angelia (Ange for short) to participate in the joint operation. With her personality limiters unlocked, M4 is noticeably different. She is far more determined, but also much more solemn, getting angry at the Clear Voice in her head and rejecting their help. After an initial skirmish that led to the deaths of some of her allies, M4 meets Captain Yegor and requests to bring back the fallen T-Dolls bodies, because if their neural core is intact, they can be brought back without any memory loss. But Yegor dismisses the idea, saying it isn’t worth the resources and that “T-Dolls, including you, are manufactured to fulfil your mission. Sacrifices are inevitable and very common on the field. Your guilt will only cause more of your allies to fall in battle” leading to M4 asking why people seem to keep dying for her sake. The Clear Voice convinces her that she’s special and that she needs to grow stronger to protect everyone, and to do that she must kill Elisa. M4 struggles with this, she doesn’t want to be special, she doesn’t want people to die for her, but she eventually relents and agrees to grow stronger and kill Elisa.

Reuniting with SOP II and RO (and getting M16’s special equipment), M4 leads the AR Team to the frontlines to begin the joint assault. Over the course of the battle, SOP II can’t help but notice how M4 has changed. During the assault, Carter is contacted by a Distorted Male Voice, as they discuss shady plans involving Elisa, M4, and the OGAS Protocol. Similar to how the World Wide Web is an information system that allows communication between many different computers and servers all around the world through the internet, the OGAS Protocol is the way in which Sangvis Ferri units communicate with each other, and at the head of that hierarchical system is Elisa. (As a side note, most T-Dolls including those at G&K use the Zener Protocol which allows greater peer-to-peer communication but is overall more chaotic). For now, all the information that can be derived is that General Carter and the Distorted Male Voice want to use M4 as a “Key” by getting her in contact with Elisa (even Judge encourages M4 to meet with Elisa at one point).

Partway through the operation, we see strange events take place in M4’s neural cloud, as she feels a forced connection with a new unfamiliar signal, distinguished as a Youthful Female Voice. The Clear Voice encourages the connection, saying that she has awakened and that she is “longer under the control of those filthy humans” and that she must “meld” with “her” until they “complete each other.” The Youthful voice shows herself to M4 as a young girl, the same girl she saw in those strange memories. However, RO senses the danger and tries to pull M4 out and break the connection, shouting “This is why I was created in the first place! I was created...to save you at this very moment!” but her voice suddenly cuts off. Despite RO’s best efforts, something breaks her connection to M4, leaving the latter to wander in her own neural cloud and again see those strange memories with those two unknown voices. The young girl reappears and grabs M4’s face to “help [her] see… the truth”. M4 is presented with the image of a garden that fills her with a sense of sorrow. As the youthful voice asks for M4 to “fill our missing part” a Grim Male Voice intrudes saying “Wakey-wakey, M4A1. ...Time to find the Key for us...as your brand new self.” before waking up to a cruel, desolate reality.

Rewinding to an hour ago, we find SOP II fending off Judge, with confirmation that Elisa is the one connecting with M4. Judge eventually retreats after word that the main SF base has been attacked by KCCO, and Yegor reconvenes with the AR Team. Yegor coldly approaches the safehouse M4 and RO are in, barely acknowledging the T-Dolls around him before saying “We have five minutes. Kill all witnesses.” as SOP II and her allies outside are slaughtered. Entering the building, Yegor tells RO “Don't disrupt the show, Doll.” as he pulls the trigger, before whispering to M4 that it’s time to wake up. We cut back to the present, as M4 is helpless to do anything but scream.

M4A1 collapses to the ground in despair next to the unmoving body of RO635

M4 realizes the danger from that Youthful Female Voice and forcefully disconnects from it. Unable to meld with M4, Elisa activates Parapluie, but this was anticipated by Carter and the Distorted Male Voice, who says “This is the Parapluie virus that we pride ourselves on. Our lovely lady can do whatever she pleases with it.” Meanwhile, The Commander has received reports that their T-Dolls have begun to go haywire, and Griffin has even come under the attack of Military forces. Helian sends out a broadcast to every Griffin Commander telling them to withdraw immediately and to protect as many of their troops as they can. An unknown person contacts The Commander, offering to rescue M4 if The Commander can give them their coordinates. Without much choice, The Commander gives up the information, and two unknown dolls approach M4A1 asking themselves “Is Task Force DEFY hiring?”

Overall, this is a chapter that asks more questions than it answers, but several common threads become clear, and we can start forming concrete theories about a few key parts of the story. For one, the Distorted Male Voice seems to likely be the same person who sold UMP40 and UMP45 in order to cause The Butterfly Incident, in part from his usage of “our” and “we” implies that he had a hand in the creation of Elisa and The Parapluie Virus, both of which have a known origin in the unknown individual from Deep Dive. There are other connections that the player can interpret, yet the main answers are still uncertain. But what remains certain, is the tragedy of it all. The death of SOP II and RO, the betrayal by the military putting everyone at G&K in danger, and the revelation that our entire mission, ever since the start of the game, was nothing more than a step in someone else’s plan, making The Commander, and every character we care about, nothing more than sacrificial pawns in a game we never knew was being played.

Chapter 10.5: Singularity

Login wallpaper for Singularity, featuring a mysterious figure in the back, AR-15, AN94, M4A1, and AK-12

The main plot of singularity focuses on two viewpoints, M4A1 and The Commande. Singularity is also the first event to feature branching storylines, where the player is free to choose which side of the story they want to experience first. For the sake of this overview, I will focus on The Commander’s view followed by M4A1’s.

With the Military’s betrayal in full force, The Commander has no choice but to retreat from the battlefield and save as many of his T-Dolls as he can. During this, Kryuger finds out in a news broadcast that G&K has been reported to have betrayed the military, marking them as traitors. Hoping to give The Commander and Helian a chance to survive, he turns himself in when Russian officials show up to arrest him for illegal arms trafficking and illegal modification of T-Dolls. It is around this time that we also learn the name of the Distorted Male Voice: Professor William (extra points to anyone who realizes that this is the same Professor from Codename: Bakery Girl!).

During their retreat, The Commander comes into conflict with a large group of SF, including ringleaders Gager and Agent. Gager takes several T-Dolls hostage, but is willing to trade them for Architect. The Commander opts not to give Gager any information, but to instead buy time and rescue the hostages regardless. Disappointed with Gager’s loyalty to Architect (who has been labeled as a traitor to SF), Agent takes over the operation and begins to attack The Commander’s base herself.

Fortunately, Agent isn’t actually a tough boss fire and only really serves as a DPS check, but the Agent that The Commander’s echelons defeat is just one of her dummies, as the real Agent breaks into the base, forcing the commander onto the ground, steps on him, reminisces about a previous similar G&K commander she fought two years ago, and prepares to execute him. But at the last minute, Angelia contacts Agent (revealing that she was the previous Griffin commander) and offers a trade: As long as Agent retreats her remaining forces and spares The Commander, Ange will arrange for M4 and Elisa to meet.

Now let’s refocus on M4, and the mysterious Task Force DEFY. To summarize, Task Force DEFY is a special group of T-Dolls led by Ange, including AK-12, AN94, and the rebuilt and improved ST-AR-15! Carrying M4 on her back and away from military forces, AR-15 explains that after the explosion back in chapter 6, Elisa… for some unknown reason… put a shield around AR-15, keeping her alive until Task Force Defy found her and gave her a new body. Similar to how UMP45 was able to use Parapluie to unlock her old memories, AR-15 was able to access the base layer of her coding, and in there she found a prime directive to protect M4A1 at all costs, and realizes that it was this directive that caused her to sacrifice herself in the first place. AR-15 has decided to delete this directive but will still try to protect M4, just never to that same extent as before. But M4 is just glad that she’s ok… before remembering SOP II and RO. As M4 struggles to go back, AK-12 tells her that RO was already dead and SOP II has disappeared. But even though RO can hypothetically come back like any other doll and SOP II’s death isn’t confirmed, it doesn’t really help. M4 tried to become stronger because she was tired of people dying for her sake, and yet her closest allies continued to be killed anyway.

When M4 is repaired, she’s also given some upgrades (similar to AR-15) and is given the opportunity to join Task Force DEFY. M4 agrees to join them for the time being and vows to get revenge on the people who hurt her friends, be they dolls or humans. After meeting with Angelia, the latter takes a look at M16’s special equipment and reveals it to be a miniature particle cannon that can only be activated with human authorization, and that M16 never used it. Meeting with Squad 404, Angelia discusses the need to prevent KCCO’s capture of Elisa, either by capturing Elisa, or through the detonation of a Collapse Bomb to stop the military (basically a nuclear bomb, except the radiation turns you into a zombie). It’s a desperate maneuver, one that would put the lives of everyone, including Angelia, The Commander, and all the T-Dolls in grave danger, but it might be the only way to stop the military. During the operation, The Clear Voice appears again in M4’s head, offering information on M16 and SOP II if M4 would meet with Elisa. Desperate to distance herself from her past indecisiveness, M4 agrees and becomes the bait with which to lure out Elisa. While the rest of DEFY and 404 get in position to set up the Collapse Bomb, UMP45 takes a direct blow to save 416 from one of KCCO’s tanks, putting her in critical condition.

When the time comes, Elisa reveals that she had no knowledge of any deal regarding M16 or SOP II, and only tries to meld with M4, while calling her by her “original name” Lunasia (another name from Codename: Bakery Girl). DEFY and 404 tried to capture Elisa, only to be interrupted by KCCO as Elisa is taken into custody on their train. With almost no other choice, Angelia tells M4 to detonate the bombs, knowing full well the danger it will put herself and The Commander in. Catching up with the help of the rest of DEFY, M4 sets off the bombs and boards the train in order to kill Elisa herself. But as she makes her way across the train, she is confronted by an all too familiar figure.

M16A1 after being infected by Parapluie, carrying Elisa in her arm.

Shocked and confused, M4 asks why M16 is on Sagvis Ferri’s side. M16 responds by saying “I was captured and brainwashed by Sangvis Ferri. Unfortunately that means I have no choice but to fight my former friends. Is this explanation adequete?” while smiling a smile that “is unquestionably hers.” M16A1 reveals that she’ll be taking Elisa herself and that M4 is not ready to “meld”, saying that Elisa is too dangerous for her, “no, she’s too dangerous for all of us.” But despite her best efforts, M4 is still too weak, and the particle cannon runs out of energy before M16 shows any signs of wearing out. Desperate and pleading, M4 asks M16 to come back, but her only response is to say that “it’s no use. People are like trees. The higher the branches grow toward the bright sky, the further the roots must stretch into the murky depths. Don't worry. This won't be the last time we fire on each other.” but also reassures M4 that she’s still helping her “just in a different way.” In the final scene of arc 1, we see a mysterious man tell someone “we've obtained the official endorsement. We finally have a reason to purge them. Yes, sir. Right away. "The shining beacon in a brave new world", indeed.” as the credits roll.

And this is where arc 1 of the story ends. There are still so many questions unanswered: Who is William? What are they after? What is melding? Who is Lunasia? Why is Elisa so dangerous? Why did M16 defect? Can or will M16 come back? Is SOP II alive? Will The Commander and Ange be ok? If we were always just pawns, what are we even fighting for? When you stand back, look at the bigger picture, and try to piece together what’s going on, it begins to seem, like many bigger pictures in real life, insurmountable. From the perspective of The Commander, we are facing threats from all sides, everything we have been fighting for was just a lie, and there is no one to help us survive. From the perspective of M4, she has lost just about everything, and even when she tries to become more powerful to prevent such tragedy, she is unable to do anything. Neither knows the true reason behind this war, both are faced with the tragedy of betrayal, and both are forced to question what they thought they were fighting for.