I think the main reason they wanted to keep the personalities of the soldiers is due to mobius wanting entertainment, it's hard to make something entertaining if the people you are watching have no personalities.

On the topic of reading, I recall Lanz explaining how learning to read was basically hell for them and they were all basically forced to read by basically drill Sargents from the way he talks about it. So they don't come out of the cradle knowing how to read.

In regards to the romantic attraction thing, it's entirely possible that it was "left in" because a soldier with a deeper connection to their fellow soldiers (be it friendship or more) is going to fight harder to protect them, and potentially go down killing as much as possible in a fit of rage/sadness should that person/those people die. I'd compare it to the old concept of Roman soldiers having sexual relations with their fellow soldiers (and I'd be lying if I said it didn't come to mind) but I've seen so much back and forth in regards to that whole idea that I don't even know if it was actually true or not. However, I think the logic of it makes enough sense theoretically.

Extending a minute of discussion into twenty five minutes is such a Luxin thing to do

There is also the further conditioning done in Colony Zero where even their Name is erased.

Honestly "cringy hentai situations" is not something I expected to hear form a video discussing indoctrination and brainwashing.

“Why is there gender in keves and agnus” and rex appearing at the same time is hilarious

i feel like a bit part of what you talked about with all the personality stuff despite the conditioning can be chocked up to moebius not actually having full control over aionios. there's no real concrete evidence about this, but i feel that we're led to believe that if moebius had their hands on nia, their goal would be complete and they'd be able to rule over and control aionios much more freely. i'm guessing there's some part of aionios that pulls a person's personality from origin when they're reborn so a lot of their individuality and gender and preferences and such come from that and without nia, moebius can't sever that link. it at least helps to answer why they didn't get more intense about some of their conditioning

Yeah i was under the impression that everyone in the term system are replicas of their pre-aionios selves but with memories and bunch of information erased or suppressed.

Honestly, I think Miyabi was actually died and reborn, it is mentioned and implied in a side quest that Miyabi went through the same process as Cammuravi, Mwamba and Hackt. She probably got her memories back, because of Lucky seven and Feelings of the music, similar to how for a moment Mwamba and Hackt remembered Noah and Mio.

21:20 remember, in Xenoblade 1, even when Egil wiped Gadolt’s mind completely, he still remembered who Sharla was and became lucid again before dying. Seems like consciousness in the Xeno series is very difficult or impossible to completely erase.

Regarding soldiers not being able to make the connection regarding the natural cycle of human life, I think the answer is actually rather simple: While other plants and animals simply exist, the Queens are essentially Gods, with the Consuls serving as their Agents, just like what is told directly in the beginning of the game. Most soldiers aren't "born" in a way akin to other animals, as far as they know, and are consistently occupied by the day-to-day struggle of both their natural needs to survive (food, water, shelter), but now also a literal ticking clock that, unless they devote themselves to their war, they will be snuffed out, and the only ones who can reliably get them their needs is the Consuls by order of the Queens... again, as far as they know. Only 10 years to live, especially with most of it taking place during arguably the most important stage of any human's life, while being forced into literal child warfare, is enough to make most not figure out what the hell is going on simply because they have more pressing issues. The rest are either naturally shunned, get taken out by Moebius, or (best case-scenario) end up with the City. If anything, I feel like this is part of how the City actually started, with enough people eventually coming together to realize what they knew was wrong, and make a new world for themselves. Of course, they likely had help from the real Queens and the Liberators (very much included the rest of the XC1/2 cast in there just in case, not to mention this is literally the plot of Future Redeemed), but the odds are they probably would've formed the City eventually. I find it a very nice allegory to our world and where we're headed, and I like to think of Shulk, Rex, The Queens, and the people of the City as allegories for the people before our time trying their best to combat our worst desires, taken shape by those who rule the world, but at this point, its pretty obvious XC3 is bashing you over the head with those comparisons.

the part where you started to talk about gender in aionios and put the clip of rex explaining the gender expression of ontos to shulk made me laugh so hard that my head hurt

I think its even simpler than picking and choosing what to put in. I think "conditioning" is merely suppressing memories and ideas of the original person stored in Origin. We see conditioning being imperfect even as early as the beginning of the game. Noah, before becoming Oroboros, keeps having feelings of de ja vu. And after they are free, Eunie straight up remembers her death from a past life. Kind of like a more faulty version of Amalthus' core crystal "cleansing"

Omg, the live action bit was incredible. I can't wait for the husk video. This one definitely goes along with my thinking about how the conditioning worked, but i never realized that it was never elaborated on in game

i fully expect the riku video to only consist of shouting "what the heck?" for 40 full minutes

So it's a weird theory/tangent, but I think I recall that it's actual lore in Star Wars that some Clone Troopers were created as being "born" sterile, but it weakened their combat performance, so the concept of sterilizing Clones was scrapped. Maybe there's a similar thing in this game? Also, I've done some wiki reading about the Irises to fact check myself, and apparently not everyone in Aionios is born with them, such as Nimue. Also, Irises are not exclusive to those born into Keves or Agnus, as seen in characters like Monica and Masha, who are born and raised in the City.

Moebius doesn't rewrite the people of Keves and Agnes completely because that contradicts their function in Aionios. They exist to extend the lives of the people of Alrest and Bionis/Mechonis indefinitely.

I think the mobious suppression is limited in some ways and that could explain why some things like mental attraction still exists We see how flawed the memory erasure is multiple times throughout the game

The reason why they keep emotions and stuff like that (besides the "they would be uninteresting copy pasted characters so not the best for a story" fact) could be explained by K, I believe, saying they're basically waiting for the best moment to collect their life energy, or whatever he said exactly. That's why the homecoming ceremony and gold golonies are a thing in the first place. To me "life energy" or whatever it is in english sounds a lot like something tied to emotions. You strived to destroy the enemey, you made freinds along the way, lost some of them, avenged them, ... that may be the whole reason why moebius let people have emotions, to make them grow into way more energy. That sounds reasonable xeno logic to me.

For what it's worth, I've found another in-game use of the word "conditioning": In Fort O'Virbus, after a few sidequests (I imagine the training with the baby lieutenants in particular), one of the passer-by textboxes on the west side will talk about the education system for children. The wording might not be exact, but they say something along the lines of "why not keep it as is for the first three terms? They'll need that conditioning to survive no matter what, after all". (Reposted as general comment: first time commenting on mobile, the interface screwed me up)

I'm very curious about Noah's conditioning. He very clearly has it, because after becoming Ouroboros he has the realization about Armus and doesn't want to change clothes in front of the girls. Despite that, he was still a critical thinker and realized the truth of the world "fighting in order to live, and living to fight." He also didn't want to fight because of fearing what he would become. I also don't think this was a thing unique to our Noah, I think his past lives/N had this as well because of how often they escaped the flame clock and found the City. That means this wasn't a byproduct of Origin glitching, but something Noah has every time. Speaking of which, Miyabi had the exact same thoughts as Noah, coming to the same realizations and having the same opinion of fighting/killing. The only connection Miyabi and Noah have is Mio and the red thread in all of their hair. Did Noah and Miyabi have some sort of failure with conditioning? Were their personalities before Aionios such critical thinkers that they managed to keep some of it after conditioning? Is there another thing special about Noah that allowed him to hold on to his humanity, curiosity, and some critical thinking? I followed in Luxins footsteps and made a comment to match his analysis video lengths.

yet another case of xenoblade 3 not explaining anything there's a moment where you can do way too much of show don't tell and this game really is proof this can happen

Everytime I see Y I make jokes about his English VA's (Colin McFarlane) TV roles.

Today's episode of "Thinking about things in far greater detail than the writers did"

How much conditioner does Z use?

The little clip at 21:10 is fantastic. I really enjoy this kind of dry humor, and the flying purple Pikmin is just icing on the cake, especially with the sound effect.

I think Ainos soldier’s brains are like school computers: they’re fully like they’re original versions of themselves and Moebius just installed a blocker on some things.

the banana peel pregnancy plotline would go kinda crazy

20:20 Having this clip pop up never gets old

I'm going to Moeb!

Y got really excited about the idea of implementing conditioning and then after barely doing work on it got burnt out and moved onto the next project. mood

This should be fun to watch while I’m stuck in the car

I remember the claims by the worst of the fandom that Juniper couldn’t be non-binary because because the world building doesn’t allude to any kind of heightened sexual education being possible. But clearly every other character came into Aionios with their gender identity and maintained it through their reincarnations. So Juniper also almost certainly was a non binary person in Alrest, told their compatriots they were a “they”, and nobody probably questioned it. Moebius certainly had nothing to gain by trying to standardize them, so they didn’t bother trying. So, yeah, I’d say odds are good everyone just brought those parts of their personalities and sense of self in with them.

"Why is there gender in Keves and Agnus?" *immediately cutsto the FR beach scene* Nice

I have to commend the commitment to the bit of playing the Rex clip whenever Gender is brought up. At this point I'll be disappointed if I DON'T see it, lol

Great vid 👍✨

I find this very fascinating

OMG RIKU VIDEO INCOMING ❗️❗️❗️

“I’m going to split it into two shorter videos” …looks at the length of this video

I really dont get your gender part. Mobius only conditions thought, not biology, so gender will mostly be the same as in the old world with the only difference being expectations based on gender not being there. And the game shows that this exactly.

I spaced out for a bit and then heard the word hentai what

Honestly, the reason they didn’t do away with gender, or made their ideal soldier, is simply because they couldn’t. The best they could do was clone people from the old worlds because that was the original purpose of origin, it wan’t to create NEW life, just print copies of old life

Yeah, that bath scene at the start was a powerful bit of writing in retrospect. In XC1, it just wouldn't have happened. In XC2, well we know how that game is. It would've ended with Rex having a slap-mark on his face and Tora going airborne. In XC3 it just...was. It would've been the same scene if they were all guys; there was very clearly just nothing going on between the chars on that level.

I feel that, if anything, Z is extremely Nintendo. But I mean in the figurative sense. Nintendo's motto is "Leave luck to heaven". Z just... doesn't exactly care if the world goes away, as much as he tries to talk about the endless now. He definitely is much more laid back in his (their?) way of confronting humans, and it might make sense because Moebius do feed from the strife and the human growth, but that by itself stems from Z being the collective conscience of humankind. Z just did watch how life unfolded, and while the conditioning to make sure strife does become the status quo, the way people live is much more entertaining for them.

Moebuus = Corporations

I like that you brought up the Gendered part, but I am not sure if that is conditioning vs nurture. Gendered roles do not occur naturally widespread throughout nature (yes there is the mother/child role typically but that is not always a given, depending on survivability for one, as well class, but we don't have that role existing in their asexual society) I have said since launch, that juniper being non binary does not make sense in the context of their society, because there is no gender at all in keves or agnes. We actually dont even have any indication that in the six months or so the party travels together that in this simulated (they all exist in a computer program) world that someone we would consider traditionally born female even shed their uterine lining on a monthly basis. which would blur the differences between anatomy even further, in an asexual society. (Reading back side note: Yes I know this is not something typically depicted, and no I wouldnt expect it to be, however in the context of how they could be molded as both being computer programs, but also being "genetically" modified by Y to be perfect soldiers, it does make sense in my mind to just banish aunt flo altogether from this world) In short I believe the whole society is agendered and by extension of that thesis not one person can exist as nonbinary outside of this agendered society without actually creating a new binary in and of itself. Which is why there is no social use for classifying Juniper as non binary. PS before i get any hate let me address both sides: 1. You found this obscure channel on this little side of the internet well enough, that you can learn in ten minutes of your own time the difference between Sex and Gender. 2. Stating non binary people should not exist within the Keves or Agnes societal structure is not stating that Non binary people dont exist within our world, and is no way an attack on your identity or meant to erase representation. In contrast I believe it further shows that yes a non binary world could exist in some capacity, and that the entire game is representation for you not just the person who abandon's pronouns that seem to have no use in the first place outside a relic of their language.

7:30 i though iris were born in, since city folk all have them yet need to patch cover them. If they installed their own they might have made self blocking iris.

Hi Luxin

Xenoblade Chronicles: FC (Fairly Connected)

21:13 poor pikmin

The reason I thought why the team got flustered at changing clothes wasn't because "girls and boys", since we have the bath scene to prove that's not the case but because they are kevesi and agnus. Imagine say that the world has two genders and those are kevesi and agnus.

I guess Moebius (the og ones, anyway) aren't human, so they don't understand the basics of being human... like the angels in NGE, kinda...?

ah yes the xenosex

Don’t you hate it when someone hides social commentary in you silly anime war game

I wish Xenoblade 3 explained things, it's the first time I ever got frustrated with any of these games withholding information, especially before Future Redeemed