The last stage of Xenoblade, beyond the point of no return,
is Zanza’s bizarre world. The closest
entry to the world as Shulk knows it is a place with an invisible path, mostly
in a straight line, with a large planet surrounded by thick rings of loose rocks;
the waymarker is called Saturn. Entering
the portals along the way takes Shulk and his group to waymarkers named, in
this order, Jupiter, Mars, and the Moon, before leading the group to a very
large ball of water, whose waymarker is call Earth. This is the place of origin for Zansa, and as
Alvis explains, it isn’t around anymore.
A cut scene demonstrates Zansa and Meyneth’s experiments
from an orbiting space station above Earth, an experiment that wiped out not
only Earth but the entire “universe” (whatever Alvis means by that), replacing
it all with a vast endless sea. And from
that sea arose two titans of metal, who changed to conform to their masters
respective wishes. One became the
Bionis, and the other, the Mechonis. Life
emerged, shaped and molded by the two gods, until the world was teeming with
it.
The history of the world of Xenoblade is fairly vast; I’ve
heard longer histories, but much is padded out with long gaps called ages. History can be told, therefore, by referring to
two major events as ages: the Age of Binding, when Zansa was bound by his
creations and Meyneth was already wounded, and the Age of the Fall, when the
Bionis and Mechonis fell into the sea.
Before the Age of Binding, Zansa and Meyneth were both quite
active on their respective worlds; they knew of each other and don’t seem to
have desired contact. The peoples of the
Bionis led a trading mission with the Machina of the Mechonis; Meyneth gave her
blessing to some kind of trade deal and the Machina rather foolishly helped
create the Monado, a divine blade that channeled the power source of this
world, ether, into a weapon. Zansa took
the Monado, by inhabiting the Giant Arglas.
By some trick, replicated in the main plot line to kill Egil, Zansa
added the Monado to the Bionis, and the blade of light became sized for the
titan. He attacked the Mechonis, raining
death down on the Machina capital of Agniratha.
The Mechonis fights back and the world is made on the remains of their
two hulking corpses impaling each other.
Both Meyneth and Zansa are wounded, but Meyneth has the gratitude and
continual support of the Machina, while Zansa is bound (hence the Age of
Binding) together with Arglas in Prison Island, the Monado likewise locked
away.
The Age of the Fall is the main game, where the player’s
actions bring about the Bionis and the Mechonis moving again, the Bionis (and
Zansa) recovers the Monado, destroys the Mechonis, then proceeds to fall
without Zansa to restore it completely (because Shulk and the player kill him). There are long ages of myth between the Age
of Binding and the Age of the Fall, and this time, easily over a thousand years
(the Machina remember the former age and are said to live thousands – plural)
sets a nice stage for building an original adventure. We know mostly how things are in the Age of
the Fall, and are given some clues to the Age of Binding. We can stage the adventure however we like,
as long as the Monado stays locked up and the two gods are unseen.
The world is big, but not endless; surprises should be
around every corner, but they should not be endless. This game can be built around a group of four
players who want to delve into the dangerous conflicts born every minute on the
Bionis, looking into the rich history of the Giants, the Rise of the High Entia’s
empire or its entrenchment behind its seemingly invincible defenses, the
trading adventures of the Nopon, of Machina driven to quest for revenge or
merely answers, and the emergence of the Homs who are increasingly central to
the narrative.
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