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[Classic]

Trying to google what the fuck you were talking about did lead me to an image of protoman being drawn like a MegaManZero character though!
Don't know how I feel about it. I do know that I found it.

EDIT:

Protoman and Zero do have similar color schemes and roles in their core Mega Man lines. However, in the canon "story" Zero is distinct from Protoman and is created as the original Sigma Virus vector. Designed by Wily to incapacitate Mega Man.

[Thad]

oh

well

today I learned that zero is not supposed to be protoman

The games never definitively state whether X is the original Mega Man or not, but they do make it clear that Zero is not Protoman.  (What happened to Protoman, oddly, is explained in one of four different endings of an arcade game nobody played.)

The original Mega Man X is really a pretty great game and well worth playing.  2-5 aren't bad either, but you know, Mega Man recycling syndrome.

[Classic]

Given that Megaman and X are both robots, both with canonically different core design (X has... emotions? I don't even remember but it was bullshit), if X is Megaman, he's Megaman with such a dramatic overhaul that he's not really the same Megaman anymore.

[Thad]

Well, right, but Mega Man Zero is definitively Zero even though his memory's been wiped and he looks completely different.

[Classic]

Who? What?
Are you talking about the GBA series where they make reference to the fact that even though he's a legend he's an obsolete\weak design? Where at the end of the first game he defeats [spoiler]a mega man X clone[/spoiler], who's been giving him shit for his "obvious inferiority" and Zero quips something to the effect of, X was WAY stronger than you'll ever be.

Also, weird thing about the Mega Man X series/canon, because Mega Man X was the source design for all reploids, every reploid is referred to as a "Mega Man something something". I think Sigma is (once) called Mega Man Sigma.

Zero though, shouldn't be called Mega Man because he was made...before he was?
I stopped playing the X series at episode 3, and I can't remember the last time I read a synopsis of the plot.

[Classic]

he looks completely different.

I know we're dealing with a franchise where character consistency between games is pretty high through sprite re-use, but I guess I've never expected sprite or even character design consistency across consoles. It really never occurred to me that Zero might not be Zero just because he looked different.

[Bal]

Zero is a parallel design by Doctor Wily that wasn't awoken until after the Reploids became the dominant species.

[Classic]

Wait, so that's the GBA Zero? Or the "original" Mega Man X Zero, who is also the GBA Zero, and the source for the Sigma Virus?

[Bal]

There's only one Zero.

[Disposable Ninja]

Yeah, at a certain point the Megaman mythos just starts to sound like a cat coughing up a hairball.

[Bal]

Here's the scoop. Zero was designed by Doctor Wily parallel to Doctor Light's X project (He's named X, not Mega Man X), but neither was awoken in their own time periods. Some time later, after the original Mega Man series era, X is discovered, awoken, and copied, resulting in the Reploids becoming extremely widespread to the point of essentially being another species. None of them are as strong as X, because they're inferior copies of the original design. Sometime after this Zero is discovered and woken up, plays out the events of the X series, and is put into suspended animation again only to be awoken for the Zero series on the GBA, which takes place at some point in the future where Reploids have completely supplanted humans. He's considered by this point to be an inferior design (in the X era he was nearly as strong as X), but like X he's much more adaptable than your average Reploid, and has crazy amounts of combat experience, so he manages to kick ass in the future.

[Brentai]

The games never definitively state whether X is the original Mega Man or not

Wiki says Keiji Inafune word-of-Godded that X isn't Mega Man and that he was in fact already in the fridge a year before Mega Man 9 occurred.  There's also a citation needed note right next to it, though.

I think what makes the Reploids different from the Robot Masters, who seem to have no trouble thinking for themselves, is something that we're just meant to accept and ignore.  If anything I think they have less will than their originals - the Robot Masters in 9 only need a little talking to in order to come to the conclusion that scheduled euthanasia is complete bullshit, whereas the Reploids have been retconned to only ever go maverick if they've managed to catch Robo-AIDS.  I think when Light created a robot that "can think for itself" he meant a robot that "can be trusted to think for itself".  Judging by the timeline that would mean that the little rebellion in 9 was part of a growing trend, and might be why there were such seemingly draconian warranty policies ("destroy aging AIs as a precaution before they go berserk").

Or maybe I'm overthinking an intentionally loose canon as a way of putting off the inevitable thread split.

[Thad]

Who? What?
Are you talking about the GBA series where they make reference to the fact that even though he's a legend he's an obsolete\weak design? Where at the end of the first game he defeats [spoiler]a mega man X clone[/spoiler], who's been giving him shit for his "obvious inferiority" and Zero quips something to the effect of, X was WAY stronger than you'll ever be.

Yes.  When I said "Mega Man Zero", I was in fact referring to Mega Man Zero.

Also, weird thing about the Mega Man X series/canon, because Mega Man X was the source design for all reploids, every reploid is referred to as a "Mega Man something something". I think Sigma is (once) called Mega Man Sigma.

Not in any of the first 7 console games, but could be in there somewhere.

Zero though, shouldn't be called Mega Man because he was made...before he was?

I'm not sure I agree with the "every Reploid is called Mega Man Something" premise.  (Though that brings up the "Is Zero a Reploid?" question.  If you define "Reploid" as "replica of X's design", as it's given in the original X's manual, then no, Zero presumably wouldn't be one; if, however, you just use it as a synonym for "android" since it's quite clearly an homage to "replicant", then X and Zero would indeed both be Reploids.)  As far as the game, shrug, it's called Mega Man Zero because it's a Mega Man spinoff starring Zero.

I know we're dealing with a franchise where character consistency between games is pretty high through sprite re-use, but I guess I've never expected sprite or even character design consistency across consoles. It really never occurred to me that Zero might not be Zero just because he looked different.

It's not just that he looks different, it's that the artistic style is completely changed.  Big oblong face, no nose, giant eyeballs, no pupils, spindly limbs, and so forth.  Looks like something more at home in the Battle Network series than the X series.

Yeah, at a certain point the Megaman mythos just starts to sound like a cat coughing up a hairball.

It's actually pretty straightforward if you ignore every X game after 5 and ignore the hints that Legends is set in the distant future of the X series.  I mean, the whole story's pretty much told in SNES-sized cutscenes.  (And, okay, the hilariously Engrishy PS1 cutscenes, but those honestly aren't that much longer.)

(He's named X, not Mega Man X)

The series is extremely inconsistent on this point.

None of them are as strong as X, because they're inferior copies of the original design.

Depends on your definition of strength.  X is initially weak but upgradeable; see his first conversation with Zero after the fight with Vile.

[Bal]

I guess I should have said "well designed" or something. All the reploids derived from the X design are purpose built, whereas he can do anything they can do, probably better. Zero can achieve a measure of this as well.

[Brentai]

ADDENDUM TO EARLIER RANT: The timeline also suggests that Light decided to start building X shortly after the ending of Mega Man 7.

[Brentai]

Please tell me I'm not still writing Mega Man X fanfiction after all these years.

[Thad]

ADDENDUM TO EARLIER RANT: The timeline also suggests that Light decided to start building X shortly after the ending of Mega Man 7.

Well, per the aforementioned obscure-yet-bizarrely-important-to-continuity arcade game, Wily has drawn up blueprints for Zero somewhere after Mega Man 8.

(Of course, MM10 absolutely delights in completely ignoring all that foreboding shit and going in a completely different and altogether more cheerful direction.  Sorta like how the X series cranked out two more chronologically-impossible games after Zero stuck himself in that capsule.  Three, if for some reason you acknowledge the existence of Command Mission.)

Please tell me I'm not still writing Mega Man X fanfiction after all these years.

Ours was altogether more coherent than what actually ended up happening.

It even has this handy diagram.

[Classic]

Also, weird thing about the Mega Man X series/canon

I wrote "canon" there because I don't think it's in the games, I think it's something I read in one of the manuals. So maybe canon is exactly the wrong word to use here, given the guesswork localizers had to do to make a manual even remotely interesting.

... I was like, 8, and there was a car ride. Shut up.

I think Cain mentions in a manual-memoir thing that every reploid that exists is a Mega Man series reploid, because they all draw from his design. I thought that when the manual discusses other principal characters, they are referred to as "Mega Man Zero" and "Mega Man Sigma".

I'm going to see if I can find the manuals for 1 - 3 somewhere to see if I'm completely off my rocker on this.

It's not just that he looks different, it's that the artistic style is completely changed.  Big oblong face, no nose, giant eyeballs, no pupils, spindly limbs, and so forth.  Looks like something more at home in the Battle Network series than the X series.

If it were just Zero I might have found it jarring, but the entire cast is drawn in that style. So for me it was never, "Zero looks different," it was always, "This series is going to look different." And I decided I was OK with that.
I was not so much OK with it kicking my ass constantly.

At the end of that series isn't it revealed that X has a secret [spoiler]super power, which turns out to be an infinite power source which is being used by an architect of evil[/spoiler]?

[Brentai]

(Of course, MM10 absolutely delights in completely ignoring all that foreboding shit and going in a completely different and altogether more cheerful direction.

I haven't bothered to play it so I'll take your word for it that it's more cheerful, but uh... you don't think "a virus created by Wily that infects robots and turns them violent against humans" is a precursor to something?

[Norondor]

Sometime after this Zero is discovered and woken up, plays out the events of the X series, and is put into suspended animation again only to be awoken for the Zero series on the GBA, which takes place at some point in the future where Reploids have completely supplanted humans.

Humans and Reploids actually live side-by-side in the Zero/ZX games (ZX might not be canon/core universe? unsure). It's just that it's some super far-flung transhumanist future where there's no useful distinction to be made between the two, since humans are modified as much as their biology will allow, and robots can reproduce, age and die... though why they would be willing to do all that isn't really explored but whatever!

It's actually pretty straightforward if you ignore every X game after 5 and ignore the hints that Legends is set in the distant future of the X series.

Actually it's fine even with Legends! As it turned out, while Zero was sleeping before MMZ1, X went ahead with the plan to construct his reploids-only tree fort, Elysium. There are still shithead robots on earth, and fuck them, you need to cut them in half with your zetsaber and see their robot guts. "X" shows up in one of the later MMZ games, but as i recall it was an impostor, and the actual X is actually never seen again!

The Legends games are even farther in the future, to the point that there was some kind of ecological disaster that ruined everything and submerged most of the world (ice cap/polar landfill areas in ZXA finished melting?). Elysium's been running so long without any repairs from the reploids on the surface -- who i suspect have integrated/evolved so much that you actually can't tell them apart from humans, apart maybe from robot eyes/crotches -- that it's breaking down and can't manage the planetary subsystems, which, in the absence of orders from Elysium, are just ruins full of rampaging machines and delicious candy. In addition, X's creations, the Mega Men (seen in a different form in ZX/A? Originally created by Albert and integrated into Elysium's society/control system?), who were supposed to manage the state of the planet, are all either asleep (Juno), running amok (what's-her-face and Lugia from MML2), or have completely forgotten their purpose and origins (Trigger).

There is of course nothing that can be done for MMX6+.

FUN FACT: The original Mega Man series is set in an alternate-universe earth where DARPA spent all their time working on robotics research instead of telecommunications networks, so there's no internet, but there are robot bees! Also the original series games take place in Texas! I swear to God i am not joking!