Updated: 2021.05.24 – 7:33pm — 19 Questions
※ Please be aware of spoilers on this page. Read at your own discretion.
With the release of NieR Replicant Ver.1.22474487139… and its inclusion of the so-called “Ending E” which was originally told in the novella “The Lost World” that was published within the Grimoire NIER book back in 2010, many people have voiced their questions regarding its content. Let me be very clear about one important point on this topic:
The main plot points and beats in NieR Replicant Ver.1.22474487139… are exactly the same as in the original novella from 2010. The only thing that’s different are the small tweaks that were made in retrospect to better connect with NieR:Automata.
That being said, let’s take a look at some of the more frequently asked questions:
Q1: Why was Kaine crying when she wakes up?
She’s crying because she just had a nightmare of losing something precious, namely the MC whom she cannot remember any longer due to the actions that took place in Ending D. This is a recurring nightmare that has tormented her nearly every night for the past 3 years since.
Q2: Why did Emil have 4 arms?
A: He was messing around with his magic while attempting to augment his body and it happened on accident.
Q3: Are you able to go back to any other locations as Kaine?
A: No. You cannot go back to the village or the Junk Heep.
Q4: What are the Administrators?
A: As the twin administrators say in their dialogue, the tree (Sleeping Beauty), is the result of studying the combination of maso with plant life; it is one of many Gestalt terminals that house the precious Gestalt data that is created when a human was Gestaltified, separating a human soul from its body. The twins are merely a representation of the terminal itself, a construct much like the Red Girls (N2) were for the machine network.
From what we know of the twin administrators, their way of talking and overall demeanour, it may be safe to therefore associate them with the later N2 network entities. We have never been told outright that the aliens took over already existing technology that existed on the planet in order to create their machines, but I believe there is enough evidence to conclude that this is exactly what happened. We know that everything related to the tree, or rather the Gestalt terminal, is a mix of plants and mechanical parts merged together with maso. Through Kaine’s ordeal within the tree, we witness it summoning and constructing machines for her to fight. Even the twins themselves are fashioned out of mechanical bits and pieces that the tree brings to life. It is possible that the aliens discovered this and used it as the basis for their machine lifeforms. The internal structure of machine cores are said to resemble the cell of a plant may be a clue that their origins lie with the tree.
Throughout the conversation with the twins, we learn that they–or rather the Gestalt terminal–have access to all of human history in addition to the data on every human being that had been Gestaltified. The terminal is where that precious Gestalt data resides, and it is this very data that is necessary to construct Replicants. Without it, there is no feasible way to construct a Replicant, and the human will never be able to be “reborn” at the end of Project Gestalt that fashioned the eventual convergence of Gestalt with their corresponding Replicant to restore humanity.
What’s interesting is that the twins eventually realize that Kaine shows signs of being a Singularity. Generally speaking, Accord was the one traveling through time, examining timelines in which Singularities appeared. It could be possible that these terminal entities we see in the form of a twin boy and girl are somehow related to the origins of Accord.
Q5: Why do the Administrators look like 2B and 9S?
A: There is no official word on this, but it’s a clear connection to Automata in retrospect. In the original novella “The Lost World”, there was only one terminal entity, the form of a human boy that materialized out of the many hoses and tubes from the Gestalt terminal. What we need to realize here is that… the Gestalt terminal is basically an old-gen version of the machine network. It includes all the data on humanity’s past including all of the Gestalt data that’s needed in order to create Replicants. So, the fact that the terminal entities look like characters from Automata is a complete red herring. Given this information, it’s more plausible that the later androids 2B and 9S were designed from old data from the original Gestalt terminals that were likely taken over by the aliens during the invasion and repurposed for their machines.
Q6: What is the white area within the tree that seems to resemble the Tower in Automata?
A: First of all, we have to remember that the Tower in Automata was the product of the machines, built from the stored memory of human civilization. This is no different. The tree–Gestalt terminal–houses all data relating to humanity, not just the data copies of their souls and bodies. This is why the inner area resembles a grand city scape, likely Shinjuku, where the NieR story all began.
The last area within this area appears to be modeled after the Shadowlord’s castle, with a sort of seed quietly growing where his thrown once stood. The twins state that this is a very special place, not only for Kaine but also for the world. It is here where a massive amount of maso has been gathering, possibly in order to reconstruct a new Replicant body from stored data.
The twins state that this is the forest’s core frame or mainframe, where all data is stored, all data of the world and even Kaine’s lost memory. They state that it may be more appropriate to call this memory “the world”.
As Kaine continues to hear the voice of the one she’s lost, the twins ask her if she’s suffering or in pain. This style of questioning parallels the Red Girls in the original YoRHa stage play.
The final area within the tree is meant to resemble hacking space from Automata, representing the fact that Kaine is now very deep within the central core of the Gestalt terminal. As the twins state, this space is actually within her own stored memory or record–her world (as the twins mentioned earlier, that it’s better to call memory “the world”).
At the end of the path, appears a black memory cube in which the twins call it not only a “sweet memory” but also a “painful memory” sealed deep within herself. After battling Kalil and either Hansel or Gretel once more, the twins reappear to state that she’s reached the furthest depths of the area… to her closed-off memory– her worst memory, the memory of Hook, the Shade that was said to have killed her grandmother. During the battle with Hook, it replicates the bodies of the villagers to further torment her.
The rest is a text segment because that’s all that’s left of her world at that point–she is that far deep into the tree that she exists only as pure data, which is why the scenery shifts to her village, the Aerie, and memories of her grandmother. It’s this whole text segment that Kaine’s actually drowning in her own memory, forgetting what it is she came there to do… Until she hears Weiss’ voice. He appears and offers his assistance in battle.
Lastly, the twins witness the endless possibilities of Replicants, how the possibilities of the future is merging with the time of the present. “I can see the light / hear a song.”
Q7: If the older MC had been to the Forest of Myth, why was he reconstructed as his 16-year-old self?
A: There is no official answer regarding this. Much of this deals with the mechanisms of maso that has never been explained in any great detail, so the majority of this will have to be left to interpretation.
However, this might be caused by the complete use of energy or corruption of the Gestalt data from whatever magical connection the MC had with Tyrann in order to save Kaine. Whatever magic they were able to activate likely fused Tyrann’s Gestalt energy along with the MC’s Replicant body and/or Gestalt data in order to “cure” her, using up whatever energy they both had to essentially nullify their very existence. The only uncorrupted data of the MC’s Replicant would have been an older save, when he first entered the Forest of Myth. The strong memories and feelings of Kaine, Emil, and also Weiss but have been all that was necessary to “jump start” the old save into materializing.
Q8: Why did a huge flower blossom when the MC was reconstructed?
A: We never actually see the reconstruction of the Replicants. For all we know, this is the normal process to reconstruct a Replicant from the stored Gestalt data from within the Gestalt terminals. Although there is no official word on this, the appearance of a flower during this process may designate the fact that maso is involved, and we all know that the origin of maso came from the Mother Angel aka the Grotesquerie Queen.
Q9: Are Lunar Tears related to the Black Flower aka the Flower entity from DOD3?
A: According to Yoko Taro during the live event at STORIA on May 3, 2017, there is no connection between these two, so the flower that appears while a Replicant is being reconstructed is likely NOT a Lunar Tear but rather something else…
Q10: What happens to Kaine & the MC after this point?
It seems like they will live happily ever after, together… but humanity is still doomed. We don’t know exactly what becomes of them, but we do know that they are still only Replicants, who will eventually perish along with their respective Gestalts. And the MC is unique in that he was recreated from the strong memory and emotions of his friends rather than the Gestalt data, which was deleted. Still, he’s only a Replicant who will eventually perish. Everything will eventually return to nothing.
Q11: Will completing Ending E restore my Ending D save?
Q: No, but it will restore your last save prior to D.
Q12: Can you replay Ending E?
A: No. You need to trigger Ending D again, including all of its prerequisites, before you can access Ending E again.
The following questions are not directly related to Ending E but have been frequently asked in tandem.
Q13: How did the Shadowlord, the MC’s Gestalt, become so strong?
A: This is because he had been “alive” for over 1,000 years prior to the main start game. Please note that the prologue depicts the MC while he’s still human. He is Gestaltified the moment he touches the Grimoire Noir copy. During the many years of waiting for the Replicants to dispose of maso from across the world in hope that Gestalts could soon be reunited with their respective Replicants, he continually had to give his own maso to the other Gestalts to keep them from relapsing; however, over time, even this was not enough to stop them from relapsing. This was around when he started to think that the Hamelin Organization fed him a bunch of lies just to get him to cooperate.
Q14: Do Replicants age?
A: Yes, they do, but they are incapable of living out normal human lives. They are unable to procreate and typically don’t live that long before they are recreated and are essentially reset again. You have to remember the purpose of the Replicants was to originally gather maso and send it into “another world” through a sort of ritual called the Festival. As nothing more than empty bags of flesh, they possessed no soul and thus no cognition or sentience… until a certain point. It is suggested (and I entirely forget WHERE this comes from; I think it was from one of the more recent livestreams) that a member of the early Project Gestalt development team saw the harm humanity posed the world and thus devised a plan that would entirely sabotage humanity’s survival.
Q15: Could there be multiple active Replicants corresponding to a singular Gestalt?
A: I don’t believe there is any official statement on this, but I don’t believe there can be multiple active Replicants at the same time. I think that would overload the old Replicant system too much and for little reason.
Q16: How was Replicant Yonah able to overcome the Black Scrawl? What happened to her Gestalt?
A: The Black Scrawl is only a malady that affects the Replicants. When Gestalts begin to relapse, this causes the Black Scrawl on their corresponding Replicant.
The Shadowlord was attempting to force Yonah’s Gestalt to fuse with her Replicant, but since the Replicants had malfunctioned to give them sentience, Gestalt Yonah didn’t want to effectively kill Replicant Yonah so that she could live. Gestalt Yonah actively chose to vacate the Replicant body… and therefore died. She choose death for herself over murdering an innocent.
Q17: What is Grimoire Noir?
A: We are told more about the Grimoire Project in the novella “The Black and the Red”. The project was basically about trying to figure out how to place a Gestalt into a tome vessel. Prior to this, the Hamelin Organization gathered many children from across the globe to participate in a sort of Battle Royale fight to the death competition. This is where we witness the human Weiss as he is reunited with a former friend, who later becomes Grimoire Rubrum. The two fo them are the only Japanese participants. As other children in the project lose to the boy who would later become Grimoire Noir, only Weiss is the second to last standing in the end.
After this battle, all of the children are placed into tomes, implying that they were already Gestaltified prior to the tournament since they were able to utilize magic throughout the battle. Since Noir was the last one standing, he was copied multiple times over and those copies were given to other hopefuls in order to locate an individual who could retain complete control over his psyche after the Gestaltification process. This is how the Original Gestalt, aka the MC of the game, was discovered.
At the end of the Project Grimoire, the two tomes Noir and Weiss were supposed to join, which would fuse all Gestalts with their corresponding Replicants on a global scale, thus reviving humanity.
Q18: Why is it that Devola and Popola don’t appear to have aged at all?
A: This is because they are androids. They don’t age.
Q19: How did Tyrann & the MC save Kaine in Ending D?
A: It’s never explained in any great detail, so you’re free to imagine whatever.
Many fans like to think that this may be an example of a contract or “pact” between two characters such as those we’ve seen in Drakengard. Typically speaking, a contract is a sort of joining of two separate SOULS (two become one sort of construct), but that is not the case with Tyrann, a Gestalt, and the MC, a Replicant. They are essentially two halves of a single whole, not the usual 2 whole souls joining into one.
I’ve always viewed it as a sort of “final wish” type of thing that both Tyrann (Gestalt) and Bro (Replicant) activate by joining together and wishing for the same outcome: to save Kaine. And as any other Final Wish, that would basically use up whatever life energy they have to grant it, it’s a one-time thing… so nothing of them would remain.
But even given their erasure, it’s the strong feelings that linger in the minds/hearts of those left behind that eventually break through and somehow restores an old backup of Bro even though the data should have been deleted.