You Can't Thwart Stage One: Difference between revisions

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** The missions you undertake in the ''[[Mega Man Zero]]'' games fail a lot. For instance, in ''Zero 2'', you'll just about catch up with Elpizo several times before getting a chance to actually stop him.

** ''[[Mega Man Battle Network]]'' lives and breathes this trope. In all six games, Lan and Mega Man defeat lots of bosses but ''never'' stop them from getting what they're after, be it TetraCodes or Alpha or whatever. Only by beating the final boss can they score a decisive win.

*** In general, the original timeline in ''[[Mega Man (video game)|Mega Man]]'' (i.e. the one ''not'' involving ''Battle Network'' and ''[[Mega Man Star Force|Star Force]]'') suffers from this tremendously. Every robot created before X and Zero is [[Three Laws Compliant]]. In other words, Mega Man can only hope to lock up Dr. Wily for a few months ''at best''. The one time he actually ''did'' try to kill Wily (''7'') ends with Mega Man's A.I. going into a Three Laws loop, which allows Wily to escape. Years down the road, Wily finishes his greatest creation: Zero. When Zero is released is 21XX, he goes on a rampage. Sigma manages to put him down, but [[The Corruption|has his data comprised by the Zero Virus]], slowly driving him mad until he finally [[Face Heel Turn|snaps and declares war on humanity]], [[The Chessmaster|manipulating various parties in the process]], spreading the Sigma Virus over Earth, and (worst of all) [[Colony Drop|dropping the Eurasia onto the planet, turning it into a hellhole]]. Sometime after Sigma ''finally'' goes down circa ''X8'', Zero's anti-viral programming is examined, producing the Mother Elf as a way to eradicate the lingering effects of the Sigma Virus. {{spoiler|Then Weil enters the picture. For no reasons other than [[Fantastic Racism|his belief that humans are superior to Reploids]], he steals Zero's mindless body (reprogramming this blank slate into a psychopathic killing machine known as Omega) and corrupts the Mother Elf (turning her into the Dark Elf), starting the Elf Wars. Final count? 60% of all humans and 90% of all Reploids '''''have been wiped out.''''' [[Sealed Evil in a Can|In order to seal away the Dark Elf]], X gives up his body, forcing the creation of an unstable [[Knight Templar]] copycat of himself to rule Neo Arcadia in X's place. This... doesn't bode well.}} By the end of ''Zero 4'', {{spoiler|Weil has been defeated and the world is saved, but at the cost of [[Anti-Anti-Christ|Zero's]] [[Heroic Sacrifice|life]].}} In the following centuries, humans augment their bodies with cybernetics and Reploids are given lifespans akin to humans, merging into a single race (Humanoids). Then [[Artifact of Doom|Model W]] (heavily implied to be {{spoiler|Weil's soul merged with fragments of [[Kill Sat|Ragnarok]] from the finale of ''Zero 4''}}) rears its ugly head in ''[[Mega Man ZX|ZX]]''. [[Left Hanging|This threat is presumably dealt with]], but the world somehow is [[The Great Flood|sacked by a great flood]] and {{spoiler|humans all but disappear and are replaced by a race of [[Artificial Human|Artificial Humans]] known as Carbons}} in the next 4400 or so years (the time of ''[[Mega Man Legends]]''). And there are ''still'' problems in the world. And all of this can be indirectly traced back to one heroic robot being unable to kill one [[Mad Scientist]]. It is a vicious domino effect like no other.

*** In general, the original timeline in ''[[Mega Man (video game)|Mega Man]]'' (i.e. the one ''not'' involving ''Battle Network'' and ''[[Mega Man Star Force|Star Force]]'') suffers from this tremendously. Every robot created before X and Zero is [["Three Laws"-Compliant]]. In other words, Mega Man can only hope to lock up Dr. Wily for a few months ''at best''. The one time he actually ''did'' try to kill Wily (''7'') ends with Mega Man's A.I. going into a Three Laws loop, which allows Wily to escape. Years down the road, Wily finishes his greatest creation: Zero. When Zero is released is 21XX, he goes on a rampage. Sigma manages to put him down, but [[The Corruption|has his data comprised by the Zero Virus]], slowly driving him mad until he finally [[Face Heel Turn|snaps and declares war on humanity]], [[The Chessmaster|manipulating various parties in the process]], spreading the Sigma Virus over Earth, and (worst of all) [[Colony Drop|dropping the Eurasia onto the planet, turning it into a hellhole]]. Sometime after Sigma ''finally'' goes down circa ''X8'', Zero's anti-viral programming is examined, producing the Mother Elf as a way to eradicate the lingering effects of the Sigma Virus. {{spoiler|Then Weil enters the picture. For no reasons other than [[Fantastic Racism|his belief that humans are superior to Reploids]], he steals Zero's mindless body (reprogramming this blank slate into a psychopathic killing machine known as Omega) and corrupts the Mother Elf (turning her into the Dark Elf), starting the Elf Wars. Final count? 60% of all humans and 90% of all Reploids '''''have been wiped out.''''' [[Sealed Evil in a Can|In order to seal away the Dark Elf]], X gives up his body, forcing the creation of an unstable [[Knight Templar]] copycat of himself to rule Neo Arcadia in X's place. This... doesn't bode well.}} By the end of ''Zero 4'', {{spoiler|Weil has been defeated and the world is saved, but at the cost of [[Anti-Anti-Christ|Zero's]] [[Heroic Sacrifice|life]].}} In the following centuries, humans augment their bodies with cybernetics and Reploids are given lifespans akin to humans, merging into a single race (Humanoids). Then [[Artifact of Doom|Model W]] (heavily implied to be {{spoiler|Weil's soul merged with fragments of [[Kill Sat|Ragnarok]] from the finale of ''Zero 4''}}) rears its ugly head in ''[[Mega Man ZX|ZX]]''. [[Left Hanging|This threat is presumably dealt with]], but the world somehow is [[The Great Flood|sacked by a great flood]] and {{spoiler|humans all but disappear and are replaced by a race of [[Artificial Human|Artificial Humans]] known as Carbons}} in the next 4400 or so years (the time of ''[[Mega Man Legends]]''). And there are ''still'' problems in the world. And all of this can be indirectly traced back to one heroic robot being unable to kill one [[Mad Scientist]]. It is a vicious domino effect like no other.

* ''[[Shin Megami Tensei Nocturne]]'' is practically the poster-child for the trope. The {{spoiler|initial}} [[Big Bad]] succeeds in destroying the world within the first few minutes of gameplay, and, due to the structure of the plot, it only gets worse from there. {{spoiler|You can't stop your friends from turning into half-human monsters, heaven forbid talk them out of their [[Face Heel Turn|Face Heel Turns]], you can't stop Hijiri going insane, you can't stop Isamu sacrifing him, you can't stop Chiaki from slaughtering the Mannikins, you can't stop Hikawa from opening the Ark of the Covenant, you can't stop anyone from gathering enough Magatsuhi to summon their "God" and its only at [[The Very Definitely Final Dungeon]] where you're able to defeat anyone}}, and if you go for the True Demon ending {{spoiler|Metatron can't stop you, plot-wise, from teaming up with Lucifer to destroy all worlds and [[Rage Against the Heavens]]}}. That said, this is averted when {{spoiler|Hijiri announces he'll form his own Reason, then is promptly kidnapped and killed by Isamu}}, and if you decide not to pursue the True Demon path, {{spoiler|preventing Lucifer's plan from even really starting}}. It's also subverted if you go for one of the Reason endings, since there {{spoiler|you might not want to thwart stage one}}.

* Subverted in ''[[Metal Gear Solid]];'' turns out Snake could've stopped stage one easily {{spoiler|if he died. Ocelot ''accidentally'' killed one of the Hostages with the PAL codes (it's revealed later he had his reasons), so they couldn't launch Rex's nuke. Except that Armstech had created a special card key which would deactivate the nuke (if it was activated) or activate the nuke (if it was deactivated). All they had to do was convince Snake that they had the codes, and Snake [[Nice Job Breaking It, Hero|went along and completed stage one for the terrorists]] ("You found the key and even activated the warhead for us")}}.