Jak and Daxter/Headscratchers


 * Just how old is Keira anyway? Certainly rather younger than Jak, barring adoption...which of course begs the question of how old Jak is. The Jakverse seems to rely upon the characters being essentially human except for the pointy ears ....
 * Ages are given in Jak X, and though I can't recall exactly what they were, I think Jak was a year or two older than Keira.
 * Two years, which makes things even more confusing. Only thing I could come up with is that Keira was with the Young Samos when he left Haven, and just was never shown, perhaps hidden out of fear of her being used to get to him? (Borrowed from a fanfic, but it makes sense)
 * Actually, she's only a year younger. Keira is 18 as of Jak X while Jak himself is 19. Also maybe she's just adopted (from Sandover Village) and the series never bothered to elaborate on it.
 * Speaking of Jak X, where the hell did Kras City come from? My memory isn't exactly what it used to be, but Jak said in the third game that there shouldn't be any cities outside of Haven. Admittedly, this was while he was in Spargus, a city outside of Haven, but the point I'm getting at is that Kras City shouldn't really have come into existence until recently. So how come Krew knew about the racing tournaments they held?
 * One theory is that for the most part, communication between cities was little to nonexistent, seeing as the Metal Head Army was besieging Haven since long before Praxis got in power. Kras could have easily existed, and Krew, being the Don of one of the larger crime organizations in the world, could have had some form of communication. Remember, he had a daughter that no one knew of until X anyway. Besides, Jak's knowledge of the world is rather slim, as he just arrived, so to speak, three years ago.
 * The random implied romance between Ashelin and Jak bugged me in the third game, not just because it comes out of nowhere but because it then proceeds to GO nowehere in Jak X. Speaking of which...
 * There was some tension between them in 2 and 3. It went nowhere in X because of fan outrage over the kiss at the end of 3.
 * I didn't take it as "romance" so much as they were just close friends by that point.
 * Jak X bugged me because it finally continued the storyline from the second and third games but required a genre switch to a racing game with a fairly steep difficulty curve.
 * Can't justify it in-universe, but as for the genre shift, Naughty Dog did the same thing for the Crash Bandicoot series with Crash Team Racing. Maybe they're starting up a tradition? Uncharted could be next...
 * The head Precursor ripped Tess off! She never got those pants she asked for!
 * So all Eco apparently contains the Precursor essence, their code. Eco is an abundant source of fuel throughout the universe, in fact, it's everywhere. People exposed to too much Eco will become Precursors. Yet the Precursors are basically extinct, most of the survivors in hiding from the Dark Makers. And no one knows of the ultimate effect of Eco, even though people use it for their purposes all the time? Is Daxter really the ONLY time someone has fallen into an Eco Silo? Why is this not a super-common occurrence?
 * Given that Jak falling into Dark Eco leads to death, not Ottselisation, I guess that Dark Eco doesn't always turn people into Precursors; just Daxter through chance/luck/fate/pixie dust.
 * Probably because so many people (compare populations betweeen the first and all other games) use so much Eco for fuel (and ammo?) that there's never really enough left for over-exposure. Plus, Daxter fell into Dark Eco, and that supply seems to be limited to genetic experimentation after the first game. Sure, there are occasional pools of it out in the wild, but how often do you think anyone leaves Haven City or Spargus if they don't absolutely have to?
 * Green Rocks: They do what the plot wants them to do. As for in-universe justification, well, maybe Daxter was special and one of the lucky few who could escape the Dark Eco alive? Doesn't explain why he vanishes along with Jak in-game, but of course that never really happened in Canon, so we can safely ignore that. See Anthropic Principle, specifically the fourth bullet point. If not, I invoke Gameplay and Story Segregation here.
 * On a related note, I also don't understand the existence of the Dark Makers in the first place. Eco, again, contains Precursor essence. So when Daxter is submerged in Dark Eco, he becomes a Precursor, as that's the only thing absorption of Eco can ultimately lead to. The Dark Makers are ex-Precursors who became twisted, changed by Dark Eco (you know, that very thing that also includes pure, untwisted Precursor DNA by its very nature and can turn people into normal Precursors?). Surely I don't have to explain the logical problems with this. Eco, even Dark Eco, can turn people into Precursors. But a Precursor exposed to their own essence becomes something different than their own essence?
 * WARNING: THE FOLLOWING PASSAGE A) EXPLAINS BOTH PREVIOUS JBMS AND B) CONTAINS MASSIVE QUANTITIES OF FANWANK. Possibly Daxter is unusually susceptible to the Precursor essence in the Dark Eco, meaning that when his system suffered massive Dark Eco shock it grabbed the special flashy Precursor code in the hope of surviving. The Dark Makers are exposed to smaller amounts over a longer period. Instead of undergoing a drastic change to avoid destruction, it slowly seeped into their systems and corrupted them.
 * The head precursor says that all eco contain their essence. He doesn't say anything about containing only their essance.
 * And of course, if it was only their essence it would only be one colour. It could just have easily turned Daxter into a full blown Dark maker monster when he fell in at the start, or vaporised him. He got RIDICULOUSLY lucky.
 * This troper always assumed that the "normal-->Precursor" thing was basically a kind of First Step. Anything after would be considered over-exposure, resulting into horrible mutations that ultimately turn one into a Dark Maker.
 * Of course, this has now been somewhat jossed by Dark Daxter.
 * Really? I thought that was more of a confirmation, since the Dark Eco did, in fact, mutate Daxter into monster. Of course, they then went on to do ABSOLUTELY NOTHING with it, but that's beside the point.
 * I agree with the above. Daxter's dark form was effectively a very chaotic, uncontrolled and unrefined temporary Dark maker form. Why it looks so different is Fridge brilliance: the Precursors were masters of using Eco. The Dark Makers clearly have a similar degree of intelligence despite their corruption. The Dark Makers of Jak three used dark eco to control their evolution, and made their soldier's bodies into perfect killing machines (very effectively, based on how the ground troopers performed...)
 * See, what I figured is that it's a combination of getting lucky to not die, and a theory of mine: Jak is going to be Samos' successor as the Green Sage in Jak 1 (i don't remember where it said this, I'm playing the HD collection and it doesn't seem to be in the game. maybe it was in the manual?) because of his talent for channeling Eco. Maybe DAXTER can also channel eco, and if not for the time loop, would have been the successor? WMG indeed
 * How about Jak's non-reaction to Daxter's Super-Powered Evil Side? Especially considering how pissed he was when he found out that Skyheed was doing to the Aeropans wht Praxis did to him, his calm acceptance just threw me for a loop.
 * There's actually a good reason for that. Remember when Jak and Dax first met Tym? The first thing Tym points out about Jak is that he's been tainted with dark eco. He could sense the eco inside of others. Maybe Jak can do the same. This would also explain why Jak stopped Daxter everytime he tried to bring his new powers up. If Daxter mentioned his powers in front of Skyheed they may have tried to experiment on Daxter. Sure, Jak didn't know that at the time, but what he did know was that Skyheed had an interest in him because of his powers. He protected Dax by keeping him out of Skyheed's interests. Then there was the time at the hangar when Jak found that kick ass jet(this troper's favorite plane). Jak was probably concerned about any survailance that was in the hangar and anyone who might report Dax's condition to Skyheed. This also explains how Jak knows exactly where to be when Daxter changes back and tumbles out of the elevators he comes back out of at the end of the Dark Daxter sequences. When Dax finally changes in front of him Jak was unsuprised because he knew from the get go and only offered his support with that "Chew before you swallow" line because he knew what Daxter was going through.
 * Confirmed, mostly. Jak can feel his own Dark Eco, and his body naturally attracts the stuff in low enough concentrations. and he imediately recognised Dark Maker relics as being Dark eco based (although that wasn't too difficult anyway so..). Him being aware of his best friend's dark side is not too hard to figure out
 * So if Jak is Mar, the person who supposedly built Haven City, when the hell is he supposed to have built it? Jak creates a Stable Time Loop where he is sent back in time as a child so that he can go find the Rift Gate and jump forward through time to end up in Haven City. So if Mar built Haven City, when is he supposed to have built it in the first place? The Rift Gate took him directly to Haven City AFTER it was already built, and so he could not have possibly built it since he wasn't present at the time of it's construction or to even design the thing. Any ideas?
 * He travels back in time again at some point in the future. Not that hard to believe when he's got the Precursors around to help him with that.
 * Didn't they leave to help other planets fight off the Dark Makers?
 * Yes, but Jak went with them and then reappeared out of nowhere not ten seconds later; more time travel, perhaps?
 * Jossed by the commentary, I'm afraid. This was probably a plot point they intended to address in later games, but never got around to doing.
 * Is Jak the original Mar, or just named after him? I don't recall any proof to the first, Ashlin only vaguely raised the possibility of it, and her remark was ignored.
 * Ashelin says that in response to a comment of the Ottsel Leader about... something traveling in the past, I don't remember it perfectly.
 * So, in Jak 2, walk past Dark Eco and Jak absorbs it, even from relatively far away. Take out your hoverboard and fly over a vat of it and... nothing happens. Worse, if you fall in, you still die. (Faster than it takes you to die from molten lava. Shouldn't Jak have some resistance to a substance he handles all the time and absorbs into his own body? If it's just too much... why doesn't he change into Dark Jak? Not that it would necessarily save him, but it seems logical to try it. Besides, it ought to be reflexive, anyway.
 * I don't know for sure, but it could be because the tiny globs Jak absorbs are just miniscule ammounts of less-concentrated Dark Eco. The giant pools are dense enough for a liquid/plasma-like state, so maybe the higher concentration of molecules is more dangerous to Jak when it comes to physical exposure? As for flying so close over it, same rule as lava.
 * Maybe there are different allotropes for Eco, in the same way that some Real Life substances can be different in their properties yet come from identical elements, like diamond and graphite from carbon. This would account for all the different types of Eco, especially Dark Eco (blobs, vents, vats, electric arcs, ammo etc.), but to be honest this is all speculation.
 * I always assumed that he only drew in ambient Dark Eco when he actually needed it. If you look, he only attracts it when he doesn't have enough to change. After that, he has to actually touch it to absorb it. Maybe he doesn't absorb from the vats because the danger of getting too much is too risky. Too much is deadly, as evidenced by his dying when he falls in vats. I mean, human beings can eat salt, but if you eat sixty pounds of salt in one sitting, you'll die.
 * Why is the color of eco (besides green, light and dark) completely ignored after the first game? I liked that mechanic. Why doesn't it matter what color eco Praxis was mining, or was it all dark, or... what?
 * Well, it was kind of carried on in the different types of ammo, which I assumed were made of eco. Blue eco (super speed) was rapid fire, yellow eco (the only ranged attack in the first game) was long-range, red eco (super strength) was the most powerful at close range, and dark/purple eco was the most destructive.
 * It's shown at the end of the first game that Light Eco is made of red, blue, yellow, and green combined. This follows the basic rules of colored light (all colors combined make white). And yet in The Lost Frontier, it's stated right after the training mission that Dark Eco can be split into the four colors. Did I miss something somewhere? Sure, it follows the rules of pigmental colors, but how can the two complete opposite forms of Eco be made of the exact same blend?
 * They said that Dark Eco can be converted into the other colors, not split into the other colors.
 * Okay, then explain this. If each form of colored Eco is a variation of refined Dark, why would mixing the four back together not produce more Dark Eco?
 * It's possible that Dark Eco is made up of more than just the four colored ones; Perhaps Light Eco is Dark Eco with some part (evilness?) removed.
 * Or that each colour is just a different flavour or the same thing (well that goes without saying..) and his effectively the same stuff, but with more of specific things than others? alternatively, white light is all the different kinds of light at once, but black is actually the mix of all the colours if you use paint or similar. Dark eco is Light eco, only charged negatively, which makes it more inclined to be bad for people somehow? and Light Eco is when it get's a positive spin on it instead? This raises the questions of what the heck Light Eco could do to people instead of dark, for instance? or for that matter, if there is a "colourless" eco...
 * So, with the "The Precursors are ottels" reveal from Jak 3 in mind...what was the deal with the Precursor Stone/Egg(?) from Jak 2? Do ottsels/precursors lay eggs? Was the "egg" thing just a (presumably incorrect) assumption that Metal Kor made, and the Stone was something else entirely? If so, what was it?
 * The most popular theory I've heard is that it was an artifact made to "fluff up the myth". What I don't get is how Kor didn't know what the Precursors actually were, considering that the Metal Heads all but wiped out their civilization.
 * Well, considering Metal Kor is responsible for killing the Precursors, it's fair to assume he'd know a Precursor egg when he saw one. Perhaps the egg hatched a second time, after Jak and company had left the nest, into a true Precursor - an Ottsel. It would explain why all the statues in Jak 3 are suddenly active.
 * Hold on, didn't Kor say it contained "the last Precursor life force"? How does that fit in with Jak 3? At least three Precursors were found to be still alive then, fighting a war against the Dark Makers. On their own, you have to ask? Ha, at least that explains why the Leader "needs heroes" like Jak; Kor probably reduced their numbers with his Metal Head armies. Anyway, that egg can't really be an egg. It's probably just a jewel the Precursors inhabited where they could lie dormant or otherwise hidden from Kor, "egg" being a figurative rather than a literal name. And what's with the spirit - is it a holographic projection, living Light Eco or a form the Precursors can transform into? At least Kor didn't live long enough to point out that it looked nothing like an Ottsel. Besides, it went through the rift gate back to the past, so it probably inhabited those statues Jak encountered in the first and second games and probably even the statues in the third game in which those three Precur...oh.
 * Near the end, just before The Reveal, The Precursors are about to give Jak the right to become "one of them", but what is the point of that in a time of extreme emergency, when a giant alien spaceship is about to destroy the planet? If Veger hadn't been there and if Jak had been transformed into an Ottsel, he probably wouldn't have been physically able to get to Errol and save the world.
 * It's possible the Precursors offered this gift knowing Veger was nearby and that he would be the one to take "the honor" instead. Note that Veger doesn't step into the light and "steal" it from Jak; the Precursors actually grant him the gift instead. By doing so, Veger gets his comeuppance; it's probably the worst thing that could happen to him and the ultimate "be careful what you wish for". So the Precursors never intended to actually turn Jak into one of them -- even though they could easily do so. This is underlined by the fact that Jak is never granted his "gift" later on, either, not even after he has defeated Erol. And Jak never asks for it again.
 * The  felt REALLY half-assed. Instead of justifying   entire existence and beating the snot out of   or at least letting the player get good ol' dark Jak back, we get to run around in circles. Which leads to my next beef.,
 * ...The mooks get  but Jak and the player don't. I was willing to tolerate the whole thing until the  . After that there just was no real in-story excuse.
 * Why was Ottsel Tess's design done to make her look more like a human with fur than an ottsel? The anatomy of those humanoid-looking legs just looks...weird and borderline deformed, compared to the other ottsels. Furry Fandom aside, I don't anyone would still consider her a Ms. Fanservice after she was turned into an animal - it seems like they could have ditched the long, shapely legs and overall humanoid shape and just made her look like an ottsel without trying to keep the fanservice-y flavor.
 * I, dear sir, happen to find that tappable.
 * And I do not...
 * Only Female Otsel. They're always like that normally? or maybe The precursor transformation was controlled to leave her as close to her original form as possible, to avoid causing trouble?
 * What's the timeline on the entire metal head invasion, anyway? The implication was that stuck his head through the rift gate from wherever he was in the future (as there wasn't any mention of metal heads in TPL) and ushered in the waves of metal heads that destroyed /Sandover Village, as he was aware of Jak then. Which should have created a Stable Time Loop: Kor enters the past along with bazillions of metal heads, goes through time the long way as Mar builds Haven City, goes back to the past again... but then where does Jak killing him play into this? He's been laying siege to Haven for a long long time too...
 * It could still be a Stable Time Loop as long as Kor himself never entered the past. He just peeked through the portal and sent a bunch of Metal Heads in. Kor himself was born/hatched sometime between then and the time Jak & friends arrive in Haven City, and rose to power in whatever way Metal heads do.
 * The rift gate isn't just a time machine. Assuming this is the case, it's fair to say Kor simply emerged from an alternative dimension where the Metal Heads had been contained - Sealed Evil in A Can, essentially - and then began their long assault on humanity for the next few centuries, Kor included. This is one way of interpreting Kor's "We've met before, remember?" just before his Reveal in Act Three. Unfortunately, this is all Wild Mass Guessing until Word of God clears it up, because I have no idea how the Metal Heads would have been 'contained' in the first place if they destroyed the Precursor civilisation, the only one powerful enough to resist them.
 * How do we know the Metal Heads were from the future? It seems more likely that the Metal Heads came from the past to the present. It explains why there are no Metal Heads in the first game; they disappeared about the time the Precursors would have. And while Kor said, "You cannot hide from me, boy!" he didn't have to be talking about Jak. He could be talking about the young Precursor next to Jak, Daxter! Assuming there is no age difference between Daxter the human and Daxter the Ottsel, he's still a young'n. When Jak & Co. reach the future, Kor knew who they were on sight (how many people have a Precursor on their shoulder?) but was too busy doing... something... with Young Jak to care about Old Jak.
 * When Jak and Daxter arrive in the future, Baron Praxis and Erol somehow seem to have known that they'd come judging by Erol's line: "The Baron wants him! We've been waiting for you.". This ends up never being explained. How did they know they were coming? Granted, there are a few throwaway lines that suggest Onin may have told them, but it's never elaborated on at all.
 * Well, in responce to the previous IJBM, here's something else to think about; Why did Kor seem so intent on getting Jak's attention once he busted out of prison? Because he knew Jak was coming. And the Rift Gate to the past was in the Metal Head nest in the room you fight Kor. It's possible he just poked his head through, then got knocked back into it when Jak hit the start button on the timeship thingie. It's also possible that, after that incident, he stuck his head through again to tell his past self WHEN Jak shows up, then he passes the info onto Praxis(or something) so as to set the events of the game into motion. Granted there's pretty much no way to know for sure if this is the case, but that's because we're dealing with freaking Time Travel. This crap never makes sence, even in a Stable Time Loop.
 * Keep in mind, Erol had just seen Jak fall from the sky in a spectacular light display. He's also probably been given instructions by Baron Praxis to look for any of Damas' relatives who show an unusual tendency to harness colourful Eco. Older Jak just happened to be the poor sap who'd fit the bill - it's not like the Baron was going to complain if it meant getting his Dark Warrior ready in two years. Here's some food for thought: when Praxis tells Erol to "find that CHILD" instead of "flirting with that mechanic girl", is he referring to Young Jak...or Older Jak? As for how Praxis could get their ages mixed up, well, perhaps he took no interest in Damas' family life? A bit of a stretch, but since Veger was the one who took Jak away, not Praxis, then perhaps Praxis never found out enough to clarify it. Or else this is just me Wild Mass Guessing.
 * If you'll remember though, he goes on to say "we would have pinned his royal ass to the wall long ago!" Since it's known that the kid is the heir, Praxis is most likely talking about him since Onin, Kor and possibly Samos are the only ones who know that . Plus since Vegar was an important figure (he was shown in the palace arguing with Errol in Daxter) it's likely that Praxis knew what Vegar had planned. Vegar's experiments if not included than probably led to the Dark Warrior program. Praxis probably decided after losing the kid that it was less trouble to just kill him than trying to capture and hold him again to train him as a dark warrior, especially since he had another one on hand that wasn't showing any promise and the Metal Heads were getting ready to move in for the kill soon.
 * So, at the beginning of the first game, Jak and Daxter set off on a quest to find Gol and ask him to turn Daxter back into a human... because Samos told them that he's the only person who can change him back. But in the second game, the past version of Samos sees Daxter still in his Ottsel form, and therefore knows that Daxter doesn't get changed back before they return to the future... so why did he send them off to find Gol if he knows that he won't change Daxter back? Does he figure out that there must be a reason that Gol never turned Daxter back and send them off just to check up on him? Did his future self tell him that he has to make sure they go and see Gol? Or has he just completely forgotten about meeting Daxter in his past/their future or doesn't realize what it means?
 * Presumably Samos Senior gave him hints. Not the whole script, but enough. He claimed he'd warned Gol about dark corruption in TPL, so he probably sent Jak and Daxter knowing full well they'd end up having to stop some insane scheme (and one comment he makes in Sandover about Life as we know it being at stake proves this!)
 * In the first game, Samos can fly/float (he seems to lose this ability later on, though). Why doesn't he just float across the Fire Canyon instead of sending Jak on a quest? Also, Samos's eyebrows aren't connected to his face and float around by themselves. Why doesn't he just send his disembodied eyebrows over the Fire Canyon instead?
 * Because the Fire Canyon is HOT! Consider that Jak had to go get several power cells which only protected him for up to five hundred degrees. Exactly, how is Samos supposed to float across 500+ degrees of heat? Especially with those wooden shoes. They'd probably have caught fire once he started crossing. Also, Samos is old. I doubt he would have the energy (or the desire) to float across when he can send an able-bodied boy and his ottsel to go across instead. So it's probably a combination of self-preservation and laziness.
 * It's not a major one, but how does Onin move her hut from the Bazaar to the back of the Fortress between, or possibly during, 3 with all her artifacts and such?
 * Maybe Samos or the Freedom League helped her. She was an important person and being right outside the fortress probably offered some degree of protection.
 * Why exactly didn't anyone think to explore the catacombs beneath the palace a little sooner after the attack?
 * The only way in was through a section of the city controlled by Metal Heads. None of the Freedom League knew or cared of the importance since there were Metal Heads and KG in other, more strategically important areas of the city.
 * plus, Samos's reaction reveals they never even knew they were there...
 * Forget all of the migraine-inducing time travel issues. This is what's really bothering me: aside from the dramatic Stab the Sky gesture, why the heck did Praxis bring a sword to confront the Metal Head Leader? Yes, it was very nice and glowy (which doesn't make sense, either) but... why? The guards all had guns (and a fat lot of good that did them), and they meant to . There was absolutely no reason for Praxis to have a melee weapon with him. And here's the kicker-- you only see it for one scene. Not an entire cutscene. Just part of one. The Baron doesn't have it when.
 * Mar's statue has a very similar looking sword. For all we know, it was an unstopable precursor weapon which would have utterly destroyed our metal-headed enemy if he'd managed to hit him with it. And the Barron never leaves the palace without the sword, as shown in the fortress right at the start of the game...
 * Here's a kicker: when you finally reach Freedom League HQ in 3, Veger shows up after you repel an assault from the KG bots. And after trying to make An Offer You Can't Refuse, which of course gets refused, Ashelin then steps up and tells Veger that she hereby disbands the council and strips him of his power. Two problems with this little development. 1) Why didn't she do it before the council banished Jak to the Wasteland? And 2) How does she even have such power anyway? At the end of II, she became the new leader of the Krimzon Guard, but we all know how that deal turned out by 3. I suppose she leads the Freedom League along with Torn now, but still, it's questionable how she can disband the council and why she didn't do it earlier.
 * Because enough of the other members just took a vote? Because Veger had let slip that he was responsible for the palace? Because he was mouthing off about the guy the whole town saw decimate a KG legion (five carriers single handedly mus count for something) and save the guard? He did swing from a particularly nasty obstructive Beureocrat into an outright big bad. That may be involved.