Consider those more abstract representations of N and M. Just as Noah and Mio represent the parts of N and M that regretted the way things turned out, N and M represent the parts of Noah and Mio that are afraid of the future and want to keep things the same, which Noah and Mio had to let go of to defeat Z. When Noah incorporated N, that wasn't a matter of forgiving N for the genocide, it was a matter of accepting that N's attitudes and beliefs were a part of him that he had to deal with instead of denying.
I don't care what metaphors there are, N committed genocide and is functionally a clone of Noah, not the same person. You can't just abstract away reality. They physically exist in 2 separate places doing separate things.
adjl posted...
Unfortunately, you can't really design a world in which everyone has the freedom to choose how to live their lives around the fundamental requirement that a handful of people have nuclear artillery that you just have to trust they won't misuse or lose control of. The Annihilator also doesn't really redirect annihilation events that would otherwise happen so much as it induces new, controlled ones, so I don't think it could really solve the issue.
Um, we do that now in the real world. They mention in some info discussions but the black fog converter is used for more than just the cannon and is the reason agnes castle can exist in the black fog area and not be annihilated. Shoot it into space if you have to.
adjl posted...
That's only *because* we give them that freedom, though. It's a recurring theme with every single colony that they want to live differently but can't because filling up the Clock takes all of their time and energy. If the Clocks are a requirement for the world to exist (as they seem to be, since Moebius needs to maintain the world and the Clocks maintain Moebius), then the world prevents people from living their lives freely.
Yeah but ouroboros is just as much a part of Aionios as Moebius. The world continues to exist just fine despite our destroying of the clocks and the world does not immediately destabilize after we beat moebius. It's not until we restart origin that that happens.
However, this brings up maybe the most frustrating thing about the whole setup. Everything we do is pointless. Freeing the colonies doesn't mean anything if we just obliterate them in a few weeks. Helping colony 9 become self sufficient by dealing potatos for 5 hours was a complete waste because colony 9 doesn't exist anymore. Helping the people in the city? Pointless, they don't exist anymore, There's over 150 side quests and all of that is just deleted with the ending of the game. Why the hell would make a game like that? How many of the lost numbers would have helped us in the fight if we told them they and everyone they care about will be destroyed if we succeed? As far as I'm concerned, Z was right, Ouroboros were traitors who did bring ruin to the world, and their reward for doing so is oblivion with everyone else. They are convinced they will meet again in the ending but they won't, because even their originals will die in the collision. What a shit world and a shit story, that wasted 150 hours of my time.