Xenogears Episode 6: What could it have been?

[Armagon]

So i recently finished a reading of Xenogears Perfect Works, which has a ton of content, especially a timeline detailing the events of Xenogears Episodes 1 through 4 (as these never became games and probably never will), as well as more expanded details on Episode 5, which is the game itself. But despite all the new things i learned regarding Xenogears lore (and i'm gonna have to give it a second read because even though i understand it better, Xenogears lore is really complex no matter how you look at it), there's one thing that i didn't find any answers for: what is Xenogears Episode 6? The only bit of info that Perfect Works has about Episode 6 is that it's the last Episode of the Xenogears timeline. I'm having a hard time imagining what Episode 6 would be like, given that Episode 5 had a pretty natural ending. I can kinda come up with some scenarios but only one of them seems plausible.

Scenario 1

Spoiler

With the Zohar gone, all of the Gears on the planet, as well as the Ether abilities that the people of the Xenogears planet use, stop working. Gears and Ether were key aspects of life on the planet. With these two things gone, Episode 6 could've likely focused on the people adapting to a new way of life after the things they've used for the past 10,000 years have been taken away from them. This probably gives rise to one or several conflicts.

Scenario 2

Spoiler

Some part of Deus or Miang (or both) survived. I find this extremely unlikely, or straight-up impossible.

Scenario 3

Spoiler

The Galactic Federation, which has a presence in Episode 1, makes contact with the Xenogears planet, though i don't really know what would've come out of that.

I also wonder if Fei and Elly would've played a part in Episode 6.

Spoiler

The Zohar disappears in Episode 5, meaning Fei and Elly will no longer reincarnate. Of course, if Episode 6 takes place shortly after Episode 5, then the reincarnation wouldn't really be an issue.

Any ideas?

[Slumber]

Is it weird that I've loved Xenogears for close to 20 years now and have never thought about what the follow up would be?

[Armagon]

9 minutes ago, Slumber said:

Is it weird that I've loved Xenogears for close to 20 years now and have never thought about what the follow up would be?

I don't blame you tbh. In fact, i think that a lot of people haven't really thought of what the follow up would be, since as i mentioned before, Xenogears had a pretty natural ending so it is rather hard to imagine what would come after. Even i didn't really think what Episode 6 would before because i assumed that Perfect Works would have details on it. But reading Perfect Works really made me curious and i feel that Episode 6 was probably gonna be the second Xenogears game that Takahashi was gonna work on before Square Enix said no.

[AJS923]

First off: I know this is old, but eh I wanted to say this. It's also to note I haven't read Perfect Works myself, only heard summaries of it, so there may be some misinformation in here. Where the Perfect Works story was going after Episode 5 is a bit hard to tell just because, as you said, Xenogears ended at a very natural point, and it would definitely be the climax if nothing else, but I still think the game set up to some future events a decent amount. I'm going to start with the theming, because I feel like that kind of leads into everything else. The theme of Episode 5 at least was becoming whole, I don't think I really need to explain this the game was fairly obvious about it, but towards the end it started having more themes of breaking a cycle, the most obvious being how Uroburas was the final boss instead of Deus, the Uroburas obviously being a symbol of a cycle, which to me feels like that would be the theme of Episode 6, the breaking of the cycle. Starting with that, I don't think there'd be much room for the protagonist to be another incarnation of Abel. This would obviously fit with the theme, but also, with the Zohar gone Abel has no real relevance since his powers of the contact would be gone, though I suppose Xenogears would play a part in the plot still, but it definitely couldn't be a re-incarnation. With the Zohar gone, all the memories of past lives Fei has would be gone once he died and got re-incarnated again, and Fei being the protagonist again doesn't feel likely. HIs character arc was very well wrapped up in episode 5. Really most of the plotpoints of the series going forward were wrapped up, so for who would be the protagonist of episode 6 I think the ones with room still left would be the best place to look. There are some that didn't get full cloture like Rico and Maria's stories, but I think I'd credit that more to the limited resources than intentionally writing it that way. The obvious one that still has room for a character arc would be Krelian, a large chunk of the ending was dedicated to Fei telling him that he still had time to make up for all he did. Granted there needs to be an explanation for this since Krelian kinda hitch hiked with the wave existence in the end, but there is actually 1 hint the game does have that Krelian could come back, and it's in the final shot. You can see feathers falling on Kadamony, which could just be from Xenogears, but that placement feels a bit too plot relevant to just kinda, throw it in. I'd say those were the feathers from Kelian in the ending, I'd say the plot explanation is just that the wave existence in its last moments in the Gears universe transfered Krelian to some kind of data bank within Kadamony to be revived. This could also have symbolic meaning because Kadamony could revive Krelian as a normal person, getting rid of the nanomachines, which would fit into the idea of him ridding himself of his past. I don't think anything beyond that can confidently be said, but I do feel that is the most likely outcome given what information we have. This is actually even supported by Xenoblade. Xenoblade 2 was a telling of part 5 of perfect works as well, and the game set up a very similar plotpoint to this as well, though I won't go into too much detail in case you haven't played it. So yeah, imo the most likely outcome for part 6's story would've been Krelian coming back and making up for his past sins. Part 5 would still be the natural climax, but one final more calm episode could provide good cloture to the story.

[Original Alear]

Well there's a fanfic for everything it seems.

EDIT-Well apparently it'snot a secure connection, but an old site called bobbincranbud.com has a fanfic that covers this topic called Xenogears: After the Fall.

Edited March 22, 2021 by Original Johan Liebert