The writing team is Superman, but the Commander is their Kryptonite The story in 3rd anniversary has been epic, but it disappointed me in one predictable way, even if it was great overall. Those of you familiar with my posts already know what I'm going to say: the Commander wasn't in it. Not so long ago, I criticized a post by Pun_Knee about this exact point. I'm very critical of Nikke CCs in general, because I think they play safe, and Gacha Grail has to go it alone, because not a single one of them is willing to grant us a point or question the story and community issues we point out. To paraphrase, the post I'm referencing went something like: “reminder: don't expect the Commander to be in the anniversary event - that's what the main story is for”. Sadly, he is right. We can't expect that. But why is that? I haven't seen anyone come up with a satisfactory answer. The first anniversaries: Red Ash, Overzone took place before the main story, and so having him involved wouldn't make any sense. As the timeline catches up, however, the writing team has gotten all too comfortable with keeping the two separate. The common objection at this point will probably be “omg - who cares?” because the events are good in their own right. Why risk including him when they have a working formula? After all, “never change a winning team” as the saying goes. The problem is that Nikke is one story - not two, and pretending it is two will cause problems that will only compound, dragging both main story and anniversary events down little by little. Last Kingdom, for all its faults, probably the weakest of the first four, acknowledged his existence but avoided fully including him, simply by having them try to call him and not manage to get in touch. This isn't entirely unbelievable. Alva particles and other factors can make Surface communications disrupt. BlaBla message correspondence with Snow White, for example, is characteristically broken up and unsteady. Despite this, she still does contact him at times. This communication difficulty doesn't completely keep her from trying. Unbreakable Sphere involves Mori completely forgetting that he's helped her in the past, only to suddenly re-remember it back in the main story when they meet again. I am still wondering how they're going to explain neither Mori, nor Mihara or Yuni thinking to contact him and ask for help, or inform him of the cataclysmic danger of Gluttony being on the loose, being able to swallow firepower and spit it out again to do massive damage. Instead they march straight back to the Ark, ask Jien for help, back again to Gluttony and not a single message or call was made, and yet, Mihara:BC bond has her reminiscing about him multiple times. Old Tales as a story is in the past like Red Ash and Overzone and thus irrelevant. In what seems like their final moments, Isabel and Harran’s thoughts go to him. Papillion is given permission by Eden to escape, and heads to a radio tower to call Dorothy and ask for help. She talks about how everyone in Eden is crazy to risk going to such lengths to try and take down the Queen. But the one thing Eden, and even Papillon will not do, the place where even the craziest of the crazy draw the line, is calling the Commander to ask for help. The Commander, at this point, is the, or one the Ark’s foremost commanders. Eden may not be up to date on this information, but Papillion knows he's a big shot. As for Johan, he's pushed Commander in the main story and made him prove himself capable. You could argue that Eden is a bit of an outlier here, given Johan’s pride and their hatred of the Ark. Calling an Ark Commander for help? And yet, they're willing to sacrifice everything, and everyone, for a fight they're not guaranteed to win. Chatterbox mentions having found out who the Vapaus is made from. Vapaus, the same substance Nihilister was planning on sneaking into the Queen by offering her Lilith’s body. Her devious plan for taking down the Queen by tricking her to ingest poison, a plan she even revealed to those in Eden, including Nayuta. Imagine if they called him to make just a few more rounds of Vapaus before the big fight, to perhaps disable the Queen’s regeneration, the thing that was giving Pioneer such a hard time. Hell, what if there's an odd chance he has some bullets left? They may not all know this, but one of the manufacturers was given what they needed to produce it. So Johan and Cecila are aware they can make Vapaus from him, and Nayuta is aware it's an ingredient that can be used to fight the Queen. Siren says the Queen is descending. Does she, Cinderella and Grave just intend to try and find Hansel & Gretel, ignoring the decisive battle at hand? If the Queen wins, it might be completely pointless to even find them. If the Queen wipes out a majority of the strongest Nikkes opposing her in a skirmish, is there even time to build a new army strong enough to hold her back? And Hansel and Gretel, as Siren says, are no longer fighting on humanity’s side. Even if they find them, they have the arduous task of making them switch sides. All this while the Queen is nuking the shit out of the Surface. What's the rush, right? I suspected the stalling with the Four Beasts was due to needing the main story not to line up with the event, because they had again planned for him not to be in it. If he finished that saga, stopped the Four Beasts queen and converted Liberalio to his cause too early, they would actually be able to act on it when Siren saw the Queen descending. The timeline isn't completely clear. Has she descended already? Has it not happened yet in the main story timeline? It doesn't really matter, in the end. If they wanted to line up the main story with the event, they could. Especially if they cut filler from the Four Beasts saga. If it's not lined up, the event, in that case, takes place in the future, another convenient way to disconnect it from the main story, but not as convenient as putting it in the past, because either way, the Commander is still around as the plot takes place. To use a LOTR analogy, it's clear they are going for a kind of Frodo role for the Commander, he is not meant to be a great fighter on his own, but rather an idealist who's the final puzzle piece that needs to be put into place to defeat the Great Evil and end the war. The raw power of strong Nikkes will be necessary, but not sufficient. Cinderella has fought her before. Yup. She has fought her before. Alone. And done some real damage, psychologically or otherwise. After all, the Queen wouldn't see her as a threat if she wasn't. Only the Queen would know for sure how hard she was hit. But this time, the situation is even more dire for the Queen. This time, Cinderella has another 2nd generation Grimms Model, Five Heretics, some of which can transform, a newborn Queen, a dual-core Nikke and the upgraded MATIS squad to join her in the fight. Not to mention the mysterious power the Commander has that makes Nikkes stronger when they're with him. But this can't happen. They can't just go over to the battle site and do things. They have to sit at Reclamation Site 01 twiddling their thumbs instead, because otherwise the writers have the difficult task of writing an anniversary event with the main story in mind. This is why they need to plan their timeline better. This is why they need to include the Commander in the anniversary events, or at least plan a better rationale for why he can't be present in any specific scenario. They've gotten too comfortable with their format, and the story suffers for it. Now, it's possible there are minor details I get mixed up at times, but I don't think any due diligence would defeat the central point: Nikke is one story - not two. Nikke takes place in one world - not two. Characters shouldn't be forced to pretend otherwise.
