Poking around the Varth storyline

[Skyknight]

I'll readily admit that I thought it odd that Capcom would outright refer to Duo not as an AI, but as an "evil spirit", as though it were something like KoF's Orochi and Mukai (even if you could viably argue that Orochi is more insane than evil). Then, in the Art section in CCC2, I noticed that apparently, Duo wants to extinguish humanity because they're detrimental to the planet (look at the flyers). This is where I begin wondering what's going on with Duo. Alien version of Orochi? Adamant anti-terraforming activist?

Suffice to say that I ended up dredging up a Japanese Wikipedia article on Varth. Apparently, if you beat the game without continuing, you get a timeline relating the history of Varth from initial colonization to after the destruction of Delta-7 and Duo. Anyway, it seems that Varth was NOT always peaceable; there really was a fair amount of war before the stretch of peace. More importantly, Duo isn't literally a spirit (too bad; I was imagining it before this as the maniacal ghost of an executed evil general), but some kind of "super temporal-spatial consciousness" (as BabelFish managed to extract) that manifested spontaneously in Delta-7.

Now, shortly before Duo went genocidal, Varth's colonists had relinquished practically all their machinery (certainly all their military machinery) to Delta-7. That meant it probably stored all the information on the previous wars--propaganda of both sides included--before Duo manifested. Being a machine, Duo might not have been in any position to understand where the exaggerations were (this might be where its name comes from, taking both sides at face value). End result--by assuming that there was no falsehood, Duo comes to the conclusion that BOTH sides (i.e. all the colonists) are loathsome and unworthy of existence. (And then it proceeds to use nuclear weapons...Who's being detrimental to the planet, again?)

What's interesting, by the way, is the full measure of the reason why Scimitar and Sabre couldn't be controlled by Delta-7 and conscripted into Duo's legions of doom. As CCC2 already mentioned, the two fighters are VERY old, indeed primitive. One of the hallmarks of being primitive?

They actually need to be piloted by humans.

Everything else is controllable ONLY BY DELTA-7 AND ITS ADJUNCTS. Even if Varth, pre-Duo, had to fight against something else, the colonists would have no way to fight directly. All they could do is program Delta-7 to assail the enemy, and stand back.

The theme of trusting everything to machine being a Bad Idea was always evident (especially in the storyline of the Scimitar's pilot), but it looks like it wasn't being extended just to military objects and their ilk. There was also the theme of even information needs to be understood with human eyes that know what error is...

On a side note, I gave all the songs names, since except for 9/13 ("Thor's Hammer") and 18/28 ("Can I Shoot Any Longer?"), they only have for names references to their associated stages. I just thought it interesting that I hit the madness theme head-on in several cases...

1/16: "Black Light"
Spider: "Secret Menace"
2: "The Hand of Tyr"
3: "Don't Lose Hope"
Satellite: "Unnatural Form" (q.v. how Duo came about)
5/10: "Name the Darkness"
6/26: "Feathers of a Weeping Angel"
Dragon Fly: "Transposition"
8: "Untrammelled Souls"
9/13: "Thor's Hammer" (official)
Clover Four: "Watery Grave"
12/17: "Silent Fury"
14: "Devilish Mysteries"
Steel Golem: "Tainted Blood" (your choice as to whether the reference should be to Duo itself, or what Duo sees everything else as)
18/28: "Can I Shoot Any Longer?" (official)
Bloody Hawk: "Eternal Madness" (which is more interesting when you consider that in the 1CC ending, you learn that no trace of Delta-7's main unit--where Duo existed--was. As though it managed to escape the rest of Delta-7's destruction...)
20: "Respite"
27: "Exorcism"
Cartridge Gunner: "Lifeless Law"
Duo: "Circular Logic" (originally, I named it "Once Flesh, Now Steel" because of how I interpreted the "evil spirit" phrase)

[PC Engine Fan X!]

Interesting background story of Varth and this pertains to the original Capcom produced CPS1 PCB, right? I recall that Varth is the only arcade Tate'd 'modern-day' shmup title to have 30 seperate stages for the player to master -- it did get a USA arcade release stateside..... ^_~

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~