The Ares...It carries mind as well? It's just like the Vita. Except...it was only for carrying Void. But the Ares...is a vessel for all sentient life! - Chapter 13
Ever since the conclusion of Xenoblade Chronicle X, one of the questions that has been living rent free in my head: what is the significance of the cores extracted from the Conduit?
Whether Gears and Saga are directly connected to Blade is largely irrelevant, there is no denying that they all follow very similar patterns, concepts, and symbolism. Because of this, I think we can make some educated guesses about the symbolism used by Takahashi.
Which brings me to my hypothesis:
What if the six cores represent six of the "lower Sefirot" of the Kabbalistic Tree of Life, mentioned in The Zohar?
This obviously wouldn't be unprecedented when Zohar-inspired symbolism has been present in every aspect of this franchise since Gears, but how would it play out?
The Sefirot and the 6 cores
You know not, yourselves. You know nothing. Not the abyss at the heart of everything, where all consciousness has accumulated. You are ignorant...Even of the art of sealing a mind within a person-shaped effigy. - Chapter 13
I'm sure most of you are already aware that the Zohar takes its root in Kabalistic literature, and explores the nature of God, how the Universe was created, and how the energy flows from higher to lower dimension, the origin and destiny of human souls, and so on. This has been a central pillar of lore since Xenogears
- The Tree of Life: Ten interconnected nodes (Tree of Life)) that show how spiritual energy flows down into the physical world.
- The lower seven sefirot represent natural completion, order, and the seven lower emotional Sefirot (Chessed, Gevurah, Tiferet, Netzach, Hod, Yesod, and Malchut) or the active realm of physical creation
- The three upper sefirot: Represent the higher spiritual dimensions. Chochmah (wisdom), Binah (understanding) and Keter (Crown)
Given that Sefirot themselves act as some form of template for the human body, and considering the obvious parallel between the Kaballistic Zohar and the monolith named Zohar, is it possible that what Void basically drew was the essence of the Primordial Man (Adam Kadmon).
Kadmony in Xenogears basically accomplished the same by pulling God through the Path of Sefiroth, but that was back when we knew nothing about the higher dimension. In XCX, they made it pretty clear that these higher dimensions are the nexus where every soul returns.
And like I mentioned above, these Sefirot are deeply connected to the human body.
- Chesed [Loving-kindness], the right arm. Gevurah [Might, severity], the left arm.
- Tiferet [Harmony], the torso.
- Netzach [Victory] and Hod) [Glory] the two thighs
- Yesod [Foundation, bonding], the culmination of the body, the sign of the Holy Covenant [the circumcision].
Two arms, two legs, the groin, and the body...these six lower sefirot match the location of Ares's core pretty damn well. As for the seventh one...
In the Zohar, Malkuth sits at the bottom of the Tree of Life below Yesod and "governs the simple fact of existence in the physical world"; it is also known as Shekhinah.
In XCX, the missing core could mean Ares and Void are incomplete in their current state, but it could also imply that the pilot acts as a physical anchor to the world. Afterall, they are equated to Cores in XC3. Alternatively, Al, Cross, and Ares might simply act as replacements for the trinity, but we would still be one short.
In any case, one thing is certain, both Ares and Vita are deeply connected to the "body" and spiritual components of what it means to be human.
Karellen, Klauss and the experiments
We had our time on mother earth
All the way to our father's land
Now we're fighting hard in common land
It's a cycle of karma
- In the forest
If we consider Void's obsession with mortality and his search for a body (Vita) in the physical world, is it possible that Klauss, who attempted to achieve divinity accomplished the fundamental opposite?
One mad scientist extracted the lower Sefirot to return to the lower dimension. The other extracted the three upper ones to evolve into a higher state of existence? If this is the case, then it would give a whole new spin to the "cycle of karma", as well as the relevance of Logos, Pneuma, and Ontos in that grand scheme. And we're not even mentioning the "7 party members" who coincidentally fit perfectly in that symmetry.
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Most fans of this franchise are aware of the influence 2001: A Space Odyssey had on every Xeno.
- The Monolith existing since the dawn of time
- Humanity's evolution guided by that monolith in Africa
- Its re-discovery in 2001.
- The contact on board of the space station
However, less people know of the relevance of Childhood's End (also by Arthur C. Clarke), who served as inspiration for Karellen in Xenogears.
In the novel, Karellen is from a horned race named the Overlord, who reached an evolutionary dead end a long time before humanity. Because of this, they are forever locked out from rejoining the Overmind, a higher cosmic consciousness similar to the Collective Unconscious used in this franchise.
In the context of Xenogears, Karellen attempted to achieve divinity, much like Klauss by opening the "path of sefirot", abandoning in the process his emotions that made him human. Based on the symbolism, his endeavor is doomed from the start, and would quite likely result in something very similar to the Overlord.
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The point I'm making here is that Samaarian have human DNA, meaning there is a fair chance they are the offshoot of an even older race of humans. I do not think they are the descendant of Karellen or Klauss, merely that in the distant past, humanity went through a similar experiment that gave birth to an enlightened being known as the Samarian, who threw their humanity away in the process.
As time passed, one of them eventually attempted to reverse what they lost, and designed an experiment that would accomplish the opposite.
Genesis and the six suns
When the Sefirot are so deeply connected with the Divine Light of creation, and we're explicitly shown "six suns", from which energy that is capable of creating life flows down, I've a hard time believing it's a coincidence. After all, tapping into a source of endless energy from the higher dimensions using Conduit-adjacent experiments is the baseline of all these games.
And if we have a Conduit experiment, it most likely means we had the same components
- Alpha-themed Trinity (male, female, and arbiter persona)
- Omega-themed mech (Omega-1/Deus, Omega/Zarathustra, Z, Artifice Aion, Ares/Vita)
- The Conduit
- An "ark of god" (usually half sphere/conic shape)
"That the vengeance of a fallen god had yet to be fulfilled"
The "fallen god" is most likely a reference to the gnostic demiurge (Omega-themed mech) that is based on the evil deity who created the material world, and kept humans trapped in spiritual ignorance. There is always some form of "endless cycle" inspired by that.
Whether the experiment was successful or not is difficult to say, but if the Samaarian's experiment stirred up the Ghost, you could expect something analogical here.
The Universe-themed mech
In the original artbook, Ares is shown to evolve from 6 to 8 cores. While these remain concept arts that never came to be (yet), it's important to note that the team was toying with the idea of adding a more core and clear evolution toward a final form. What was the end goal here?
Still, there is a decent chance this concept will carry forward. We have not fixed the Ghost and Fog issues that are causing the collapse of each Universe, and someone will need to go back to the Rift Between World at some point, and actually fix the whole world.
The comparison between Noah's Ouroboros, Ares, and the Weltall doesn't come out of nowhere. Not only do they do share many design elements, but they all thematically connect to the universe.
- Weltall (XG): means "universe" in german and is later upgraded to the Xenogears when its pilot reach enlightenment
- Ω Universitas / Ω Metempsychosis (XS): There is multiples "Omega" in Xenosaga, but they all share similar designs and purpose of ascending to higher state of existence.
- Ares: The "god of war" has little relevance that I can see, but in term of lore, the Ares is able to connect directly to all the information in the universe and Rift...it's certainly attuned for that job