Headscratchers / Mega Man X8

Unmarked spoilers below. You have been warned.

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• Did they ever explain how Vile came back? He just kinda shows up in the intro, no questions asked.
  • There's a theory that he's not really Vile, but rather a new generation Reploid copying a blueprint for a potential upgraded design. This is supported by the fact that he refers to himself as if he is a new generation Reploid, even though he was first created way before the new gens.
    • But when Vile dies he doesn't revert into a new gen Reploid before exploding. It's more likely that his new body was built with a Copy Chip too, so he considers himself one of them.
  • Another theory is that Vile has been around for a while between X7 and X8. This explains why X and Zero aren't very surprised to see him, and also why he is called Vile V when his last appearance was Vile MK.II, leaving out two potential Vile forms in between.
• So Lumine claims to have used Sigma to further his own plans, right? But... how could his actions even be remotely seen as manipulating Sigma? What did Sigma do that helped Lumine's plan? Better question, what was Lumine's plan? It seemed like he waited for the Maverick Hunters to kill Sigma, then suddenly announced the supremacy of the new generation Reploids.
  • Lumine's plan was just getting the new generation Reploids to surpass the "old" world. Who's good at rebellions? Sigma. By organizing the new gens into a rebellion, Sigma spearheaded this cause and got Jakob out of the hands of the humans. It's not that Lumine manipulated Sigma into doing so, he just knew that he would (cause that's what he always does) and let him do his thing. Once the Hunters killed Sigma, Lumine took over, with his goal now many steps closer. Sigma was his Godzilla Threshold. Burn Rooster put it best:
    X: What does [Sigma] plan to do? You know, he's just using you. Nothing more.
    Burn Rooster: Using me? If that's the price I have to pay to bring about the new world, so be it!
  • "Manipulate" is the wrong word. Sigma refers to the new gen Reploids as his children; think about it literally. If a father built up a business and then passed it on to his child when he died, you wouldn't say that his child "manipulated" him for that business. The father "served his purpose" to grant something to his child. It's more like Lumine was benefiting from Sigma's work, "inheriting" his kingdom.
    • This lines up thematically with Lumine's parallels to Lucifer, as he too was a "son" of sorts who sought to inherit his father's kingdom (in most tales). The difference is that Lumine succeeded, albeit only briefly.
  • Something important to remember when discussing Lumine is what he symbolizes. Lumine himself is really not much of a character, but more like the personification of the new generation Reploids as a whole. His role in the story is to act as their mouthpiece. He represents the ever-changing future of Reploids, and he is compelled by a natural will to evolve. What he is saying is not that he manipulated Sigma, but that the new generation Reploids (including himself) collectively chose to follow Sigma and take advantage of his power. Forming this alliance would help their cause. Once Sigma is out of the picture, the new generation Reploids continue to follow their cause, relatively unhindered by Sigma's demise.
• Why did it matter that new generation Reploids could go Maverick at will? The only games where the Sigma Virus was directly to blame for Maverick conflicts were X3, X5, and X7: the ones in X1 and X2 joined the rebellion (mostly) of their own accord, the ones in X4 were members of Repliforce or servants of Sigma, and the ones in X6 were working for Gate. It's also been shown many times that quite a few of the Mavericks the Hunters kill off are acting Maverick on their own free will (as criminals, dissidents, or simply exhibiting independent tendencies that the humans feel threatened by). What's so cool about going Maverick of your own will if you're already a Reploid, robots which are literally defined by free will!?
  • This is easy to explain if you don't think about it too hard: petty criminals that were not Maverick Virus-created rarely went out of their way to commit genocide against humanity. The true Mavericks, the ones that chose to ignore the Three Laws, were virus-created. The new-generation Reploids could do whatever they wanted, including killing humans, essentially going Maverick at will.
    • It might be more of a philosophical declaration than anything to do with viruses; lots of non-viral Mavericks claim that they were 'forced' to act (Repliforce, Magma Dragoon, the Rebellion Army, etc). Lumine, though, is saying that he and the new-gens are consciously waging war on the old world and therefore making the unrepentant choice to become Mavericks.
  • Lumine's final speech indicates that new generation Reploids have moved beyond the black-and-white justice of Mavericks. He's arguing that this is the natural progression of the future, not a moral issue, and that the term Maverick doesn't even really apply to them anymore.
  • Note that in those examples, such as X4 and X6, very few of those Mavericks chose to ally themselves with Sigma specifically (Magma Dragoon is the only one that immediately comes to mind). They were Maverick for other reasons. Lumine is saying that the new gen Reploids deliberately chose to follow Sigma despite his status as The Dreaded, something that is rarely done by other Reploids (usually they are manipulated or unaware of him). Lumine is saying: "we weren't victimized by this guy, we're just ballsy enough to team up with an infamous maniac to achieve our goals."
• Is Sigma really dead after X8? Lumine said so, but come on, is he really gone?
  • Until Capcom needs him to be alive again, yes.
  • Sigmas can still exist via Copy Chips. The personality of Sigma is dead, but a lot of new generation Reploids pretending to be him will be running around.
    • Except that new generation Reploids must have been decommissioned before Command Mission. They're exceedingly rare in Command Mission, and it appears there's only certain secret facilities that produce them. By the time of the Mega Man Zero series, they're non-existent.
    • Isn't Command Mission a non-canon Gaiden Game? It shouldn't have a place in this discussion.
    • Even if it is canon, the credits of X8 claim that new generation Reploids were inevitably put back into production after being decommissioned. It's possible that Command Mission simply occurs in the time period where new gen Reploids were temporarily out of mass production.
    • Furthermore, not every new generation Reploid can literally become Sigma. Just see the Elite Mooks in the Sigma Palace, which are new gen Reploids emulating a weaker Sigma. It's allegedly a 1 in 10,000 chance for a new gen Reploid to be able to replicate Sigma at full-strength, such as the Copy Sigma boss from Gateway.
• Why is Sigma gone for good after his defeat in X8? So he died on the moon with nothing to jump into, in X4 he was left without a body in the middle of space and he survived that. How would doing the same thing again be any different?
  • In X4, Sigma's final bodies were seemingly made on the fly for the final battle, so he probably had backup vessels too. Another thing to consider is distance; Sigma being beamed to earth from an orbiting station after the battle is nothing compared to being on a moon base that was jamming communications.
  • Sigma just couldn't keep up anymore, and he knew it. Sigma is clearly on his last legs in X8 - his body is unfinished and he doesn't even have a One-Winged Angel form like he usually does. One might argue that he wasn't in much better shape in X6, but back then he was driven by a feverish rage to defeat X and Zero. He wasn't ready to die yet. But in X8 he is ready to die: his goal is to establish a world for his "children" and ensure that his dreams of Reploid evolution will overtake the future. He's come to the end of his rope, and he knows it. When he finally perishes, he screams in agony and rage, rather than laughing and promising to return as usual.
• Just what the heck were those tentacles that shot out of Lumine's body? Nanites? Some sort of alien organism? A last-ditch attack? What was it supposed to do? It did something to Axl, but we're not sure what.
  • A popular theory is that those tentacles stored the Sigma Virus that all New-Generation Reploids come pre-programmed with. By hitting Axl in the forehead with these tentacles, it transferred some of the Sigma Virus into Axl, which may cause him to get Maverick tendencies and become more like Sigma. Notice the tiny jewel in his forehead during the secret ending scene.
  • Another popular idea is that it stored Lumine's mind. This is supported by the White Axl armor, which looks a lot like Lumine, implying that he made some sort of malevolent connection with Axl after the attack.
• The Old Save Bonus feature in the PlayStation 2 version. If players have a game save of Mega Man X: Command Mission in their memory card, they can fight Cut Man near the end of Optic Sunflower's stage. But wouldn't this bonus boss fight make more sense if it was a Mega Man: Anniversary Collection game save instead?
  • You know, Cut Man and the original Mega Man were supposed to appear in Command Mission, but they were left out. X8 just made a subtle reference to this....
  • Do keep in mind that the Anniversary Collection was never released in Japan or Europe, at least as far as I'm aware. So the developers probably didn't account for the Anniversary collection in any region.
  • The reason for this is because X8 and Command Mission were developed in the same time frame, so the save unlock feature was put in as an Easter Egg. Command Mission has a demo for X8 as an endgame bonus.
• Who was in charge of new generation Reploid production and decided to put Sigma in their Copy Chips? Yes it's revealed that Sigma being in their Copy Chips doesn't really matter, since they can go Maverick on their own, but after the past decades of the Maverick Wars, who thought it would be tasteful to include an infamous war criminal in the databases? Why even risk it?
  • The new gen Reploids display in the very first cutscene that Sigma's body is so durable and powerful that it can survive nearly any accident. Since the Copy Chips give them immunity to viruses, there was no reason to worry about them going Maverick. That is, except for the free will, which ends up being the big problem. Short answer: hubris.
    • Alternatively, the data that was supposed to be used was from Sigma's original body before he turned Maverick. If anyone objected, the New Gens would bring up their immunity to diffuse panic. But Sigma altered the data somehow to add his personality traits into the New Gens.

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