LogFAQs > #972302302

As the professor always says, it can't hurt to be safe.

Tomi Kisaragi
Well, this Tomi has no connection to Ida at all. So much for that plan! We get through Tomi's whole scenario in one sitting, it's nice not to be left in the dark for once. After traveling back to 1985 (the specifics of which we don't get into here, I imagine it will come with Megumi's story), it's not long before Tomi, Ogata, and Miwako are zapped into the ruined sector 3, along with Ryoko. Huh, come to think of it it's never explained how this shift happened, we weren't at a shift gate or anything. Maybe that'll come with Ogata's story, or Iori's. Or Ei's >_>

I like that Miyako and Nenji are friends, that's a nice layer to add to his character. Though I don't think a single person in this game has an issue with Miyako. And why would they! Tomi and Ogata have some decent lightly antagonistic banter throughout their stay here. I like Tomi's personality a lot, she's snarky but not in an overly serious way and her demeanour is pretty relatable.

At some point we get confirmation that the Deimos are machines created by Shikishima for interstellar development, and that Ogata Sr is an executive on the company board. Guess that explains why he's in charge by 2188. Ryoko is her amnesiac self and at this point is on the same side as the Exterminators (great name), who Ei tells us are controlled by Ida. Hm, so are these killer androids the remnants of the failed AI pilots from the last run, or something separate that Ida built for this specific situation? Maybe they're empty husks. Ei and BJ take us to Universal Control itself, the supercomputer underneath the school. Here we briefly contact AI Tomi, before we all shift back to Sector 4.

Well, all of us except Miwako that is. Apparently we are all 'managed' by Universal Control, and as Miwako is not 'one of us' UC deems her knowledge a threat and seemingly wipes her memories of the past few days (or she dies in 2025 and a new Miwako is pulled from the data files for 1985). This is pretty chilling, UC is now seeming like more of a villain than anyone else. Though I'm not sure it has any desires itself or if it's just responding the way it's been programmed to. Again I wonder what the purpose of all of this is, how can any of this help with rebuilding humanity? If these are the people that are supposed to be saved, why erase their memories and force a pretense like this? I'm guessing that by 'one of us' Ryoko means Miwako is incompatible (or something like that), in which case the entirety of these populations outside of the 13 or so pilots are little more than dolls to be rearranged at the whims of the programmer. Very Ida-like!

Unhappy with how things have been left, Tomi breaks off the alliance with Ogata and takes it upon herself to head back to the future. Luckily for her she gets the chance to blackmail Okino into taking her there. We repeat Juro's first day from Tomi's POV (Shiba isn't there of course), and sadly I must dock Tomi points for insulting Okino choosing to present as a woman. You're from the 2020s Tomi, you should know better!

Tomi and Okino shift back to UC and wouldn't you know, Shu, Natsuno and BJ!Miura are here! Now we can continue past Shu's ending scenes, yay. Notably the men in black have gone. It's really cool to see the whole gang pooling their knowledge together to try to learn what's going on, this scene feels way more like a finale than Shu's. Okino uses their authorisation to override Ida's shutdown of #16 (I wonder why Shu couldn't have done that using his identical DNA), and we speak to Miyuki Inaba.

I've finally worked out the timeline of Inaba, a bit belatedly as I probably should've realised it already. Ida creates AI!Tomi, Izumi steals her body and leaves her in a computer, then after Ida hatches his reset plan I'm guessing he acquiesces to Tomi's desire to get in a sentinel. He then has Ryoko trigger the infection to try and stop Morimura from activating Aegis, and in the process Sentinels #16 and #17 are sent to the command ship in orbit. AI!Miura for some reason is removed from his sentinel before this shift (maybe he shifts directly to 1985), but AI!Tomi is not. Tomi then takes on the personality of Inaba to try and sneak past UC to reach out for help, and comes to Shu first as he has the same authorisation as Ida, who she knows. I think that brings us up to speed.

Inaba is now saved, and with Ida out of the picture another reset does not appear to be a threat right now. But she's still in orbit so will be absent most of the time (14 hours of the day, I believe!). Before moving on she remembers we're in Tomi's story and gives us a video recording of 2188 Kisaragi. This Tomi, the original, helped plan the terraforming of the planet we are presumably on right now. She says the simulated terraforming took 1800 years, and unless we're really far into the future (a sure possibility!) then maybe that's why we're limited to five 30km enclosures of a single city. Inaba deduces that the way forward is to alter Universal Control, and then Tomi is on to the final battle. Woo!

A question that is starting to nag at me: where exactly are the 2188 people now? I've been assuming everyone in these enclosures is an AI booted from the data stored in Sector 0, but perhaps they aren't. And if they are, where are the humans? Have they all died long ago? Did they transfer themselves in here somehow? The clones of these scientists all have special privileges the rest of the population in here do not. Why recreate these very specific moments in time? If the Deimos were an unplanned hindrance set in motion by Ryoko, what was the original plan and why did it involve UC being able to rewire the people in here? Well, we've got plenty of time to figure all this out!

Cleared:
Shu Amiguchi
Ryoko Shinonome
Tomi Kisaragi- CLEARED

Uncleared:
Yuki Takamiya- 85%
Keitaro Miura- 75%
Natsuno Minami- 62%
Juro Kurabe- 55%
Ei Sekigahara- 28%
Iori Fuyusaka- prologue done
Takatoshi Hijiyama- prologue done
Megumi Yakushiji- prologue done
Renya Gouto- prologue done
Nenji Ogata- prologue available

I plan to head to Natsuno next and hopefully fill in some gaps, maybe even continuing on after this last scene!