This post contains spoilers and speculation. Please read with caution.
This is a thought that I had last night that’s delving a little deeper into the realm of speculation. Things may or may not fit well with the new idea connecting everything, but let’s just have a little fun and suspend disbelief for a little while and let me indulge in this thought.
Firstly, let’s review the theory about Emil & the machine lifeforms that I’ve been contemplating for a long time:
- Emil was originally known as No7 as a subject in the National Weapons Laboratory that was performing experiments on Maso during the early days of the post-6.12 world of NieR. After losing his “human” form and merging with his sister Halua aka No6, he gains not only her body but also her Maso based magical ability.
- When the aliens invade in 5012, Emil fights them off with many copies of himself. Within the 100 years after the invasion, Emil has created over 84 million copies of himself, effectively also spreading more Maso into an otherwise Maso-free world, assuming that the Replicants succeeded in cleansing the world as they were originally intended to do. At least during the time of Automata, we know Maso still exists in the form of the YoRHa and Pod attacks.
- 12 years after the beginning of the alien invasion, the aliens began constructing machine lifeforms, the majority of which all have a round head that resembles Emil. The question remains why the aliens designed their machines in the image of Emil.
- Perhaps the aliens commandeered many of Emil’s copies, reprogrammed and stripped them of their individual thought to accentuate his original programming (as acquired when he merged with his sister, Halua): Destroy the enemy.
So, in this theory, it’s plausible that:
Now, moving on to what Yoko said in the Game Informer interview:
“Emil actually holds a great secret of the part of the Nier world and it’s not all revealed with the games I’ve created so far. I’m not sure if I’ll have an opportunity to disclose that secret, but if I do, I might one day create a game that delves more into why it’s Emil and why I continue to wear Emil’s mask.”
Game Informer
According to this statement, Emil seems to hold a secret that we haven’t heard about yet, but what if this secret is exactly this theory? That essentially all of the machine lifeforms are Emil copies? And this is also why Yoko continues to wear an Emil mask; basically because everyone is Emil, or rather “a child of Emil”.
Okay, hold on to that for a moment. Following the Maso “crumbs”, Yoko had stated that Maso does, in fact, still exist in the time of Automata. This is what he says in the 50 Q&A segment from the NieR:Automata Strategy Guide:
Q38. It appears as though “Maso” also exists in the world of NieR:Automata, but how is it used in battle?Yoko: There isn’t a lot of Maso, but it still exists (in Emil’s attacks and such). Additionally, Maso is converted into the skills of the YoRHa androids among other things.
50 Questions asked to yoko taro, nier:automata strategy guide, as translated by rekka alexiel
EDIT: It was suggested that perhaps the secret about Emil has something to do with his original self, aka, something that occurred during the National Weapons Laboratory time when he was made into a weapon to combat the Legion. But I’m a little skeptical about that because Yoko also mentioned that whatever secret Emil is hiding is directly related to why Yoko continues to wear the Emil head mask. My thought behind that is that there are still multiple Emils around, that… almost everyone is “Emil” at this point.
So, if you followed my train of thought in the post above, I think it might still be closer than speculating what could have happened to the original human Emil when he was made into a weapon.