|
Different types of Artifices.
Artifices are a type of powerful machines that were created in the distant past of the Xenoblade series. They appear in Xenoblade Chronicles 2 where they are used as weapons by the Aegises. They were mostly used by Malos as weapons of mass destruction during the Aegis War. Mythra uses them more rarely.
Different types of Artifices exists but they always have some sort of humanoid element to their design. Even Artifice Ophion which has the body of a gigantic snake has a small humanoid upper half located on its head. Artifices can be technically be used by every Aegises but they are shown to have a set affiliation that must be overwritten to change their owner. Malos has Gargoyles, Colossi, and a Siren while Mythra has Ophion and her own Siren. Her personality split also splits her control over her Artifices. Pyra gets Ophion while Mythra keeps Siren. Malos eventually steals Ophion by overwritting its ownership.
History[]
A lot of details on the early backstory behind the Artifices was revealed by Monolith Soft on the box of the Siren model kit[1]. The Artifices are not man-made, they were created by the Trinity Processor itself during the Era of Humanity as part of the Rhadamanthus space station's spontaneous defense system. The three cores of the Trinity Processor were raised in virtual reality and develop their own identity. It is the coopêration between these three A.I. using the infinite power of the Conduit that gave birth to the Artifices as part of the space station's defence system. The Artifices have no engines, they use "Slave Generators" to be remotely powered by the Conduit's energy. This explains why the Aegises are the only ones who can control the Artifices since they are the only ones who can reliably use the Conduit's power.
Soon after the Conduit was discovered, it attracted the attention of groups that were against the newly unified government. Soon a global war for the control of the Conduit ravaged the Earth. In the year 20XX, the Saviorite rebels gained the upper hand in the conflict and began to attack Rhadamanthus. Their overwhellming force was enough to destroy a majority of the Artifices defending the station. As the situation was getting worse, the director of the space station authorized the use of Artifice Aion, the Artifice that can destroy the world with its power. The command was blocked by professor Klaus who hijacked the Trinity Processor to use it in a desperate experiment with the goal to create a new universe. The experiment created a parallel world where half of Klaus and Galea were sent. The rest of humanity was sent to random parallel worlds with the exception of the ones who lived in the Land of Morytha. The other half of Klaus was left behind with the Trinity Processor and the now useless Artifices.
At some point after Klaus began to recreate the world, one of the cores of the Trinity Processor, Ontos, vanished into another world using the power of the Conduit. The two remaining cores, Logos and Pneuma were left in charge of the Artifices. After Amalthus awakens Malos, he begins to reactivate the Artifices under his control and use them to ravage Alrest. Malos mainly uses his Siren to destroy Coecia, and Gargoyles are sent across the other Titans to destroy human settlement on a smaller scale. All of the Titans are affected by this during the first year of the Aegis War. Temperantia and Genbu were arguably hit the hardest as signs of the Aegis War are still present 500 years later. After these smaller scale conflicts between Malos' Artifices and Mythra, the first major shock of the war comes in the year 3564, during which Coecia is destroyed by Malos' Siren. Soon after, the game starts and Lora and Jin encounter one of malos' Gargoyle while arriving at the ruins of the village of Feltley. The Gargoyle is destroyed by Mythra using her Siren's particle canon. Artifices are not seen until near the end of Torna, when Malos attacks Auresco with a swarm of Gargoyles.
Malos plans on breaking the seal that keeps Torna in its inoffensive form and then overwhelm his core with his Gargoyle swarm, which would force the already dangerous Titan to release an explosion with enough force to destroy most of Alrest. Malos wanting to put on a good show to entertain himself waits for the party and Mythra to reach him at the core before unleashing his swrm on it and warns them that they hape ten minutes to defeat him before the world is destroyed. During the battle Malos uses two Artifice Colossus while the Gargoyle swarm blackens the sky. After he is pushed back, the Gargoyles begin to enter the core and charge it with energy. Mythra summons Ophion to destroy the swarm but Malos reveal that he hide most of them behind the clouds. A small number of Gargoyles manage to take out Ophion. The two Aegises then engage in a fight with their Sirens.
During the fight, Malos destroys Auresco and force Mythra to go into a blind rage after seemingly killing both Milton and Mikhail. Mythra briefly uses her full power and destroys the Gargoyle swrm and take Malos by surprise by randomly hitting everything with acrain of energy beams that destroy Malos' Siren, damage his core, and sends him straight into the Cloud Sea. The rain also destroy most of Torna and its core, which kills the Titan for good. Mikhail survives but Milton is mortally wounded in Malos' attack. It is when she sees milton's lifeless body that Mythra create a split personality to cope with her trauma. Pyra inherits Mythra's control over Ophion, while Mythra keeps her control over Siren.
After that fight, Malos is tought to be dead but he resurfaces in the shadows during the 500 years gap between Torna and the main game. Malos is no longer able to use Artifices or his Blade weapon due to the damage he recieved to his Core Crystal. He searches for Mythra to restore his data but Pyra has been sealed at the bottom of the sea by Addam Origo by then so Artifices become unused for this entire period and only appears in the iconography of the Aegis War as incomprehensible servants of the Aegises. Ophion is eventually repaired by the successor of the Kingdom of Torna, the Kingdom of Tantal, who uses the Omega Fetter to reprogram it. Amalthus then bullies them with his political power into using Ophion to create a large hole in the Cloud Sea around the World Tree to prevent anyone from meeting the Architect.
Ophion is the first Artifice seen in the story as it attacks the party when they depart for the World Tree from Gormott Province. Pyra is surprised that Ophion no longer listen to her. Siren is then briefly seen in flashbacks of the Aegis War through the game after Mythra is awakened. When the party go search for the Omega Fetter to take back control of Ophion, they are ambushed and defeated by Torna. Pyra threatens to kill herself with Siren and actually manages to control it despite being Mythra's Artifice through sheer will. Malos agrees to spare the group in exchange for her coming with them as he wants to use her alive to recover his own data and fix himself. Soon after recovering his powers, he uses the Omega Fetter they took alongside Pyra to reprogram Ophion and gain control of the Artifice.
When Pneuma finally awakens, Rex is show Aion for the first time. Soon after Malos explains that he plans on using Aion to burn the world for good. He then sends Ophion after the party and Mythra summons her own Siren to fight it. The fight is inconclusive as both Jin and the party fall to Morytha. Amalthus briefly gains control of Mythra's Siren by using Haze's powers on Mythra but she is able to resist it. Amalthus can also force it to activate during his boss fight. Not long after, Malos gains control of Rhadamanthus and starts to use all of its Artifices to attack Alrest. He uses Gargoyles once again to directly attack the Titans and has the Sirens attack from the space station. The party also encounters some Colossi while travelling to Aion's chamber. After the final fight against Aion, the Conduit disappears from the world and all Artifices are useless as a result. Pneuma uses the last remaining energy within Aion's Slave Generator to destroy Rhadamanthus, which was now falling appart. Most of the Artifices found in space are probably destroyed in the process, while most of the Gargoyles are shown to have become still on the Titans they were attacking.
List of Artifices[]
Normal Enemy[]
- Artifice Colossus
Bosses[]
- Gargoyle (Artifice)
- Nameless Sentinel
- Artifice Aion
Others[]