The Tragedy at the Concert Hall - Part 2: Below the stage
During Zwei Wing's live performance, in a specially created laboratory room, the Special Disaster Response Team Division 2 was conducting an experiment in an attempt to activate the Nehushtan armor.
It was called, Project: [N]
After analyzing the complete relic, the Nehushtan armor, its activation was attempted in the hopes of furthering the Sakurai theory and discovering a counter-measure to the sublimation caused by the Noise. The ultimate goal was to find a more effective means to fight them. However, immediately after Nehushtan had been activated a spike of energy overwhelmed the safety valves and caused the system to go out of control.
At the same time, inside the concert hall itself a large outbreak of Noise occurred. In the mayhem that followed, the chain of command broke down and the Nehushtan armor went missing.
The complete relic's unrestrained power and a violent assault by the Noise. In a situation where these seemingly unrelated events occurred at the same time, many people on the inside were left with a very strong impression that this wasn't an instance of something going "missing" but rather that someone had intentionally taken it.
There's nothing here that we didn't already know, but I think it's important to note that the Nehushtan armor is the first "complete relic" that Division 2 encountered. The reason why this is important is because it acts very differently from the actual Symphogear system itself. As you'll recall the Symphogear system uses fragments of relics and reforms them into armor through synthetic vibration, however the Nehushtan doesn't need any of that - you'll notice neither Chris nor Ryoko/Fine needed to sing in order to activate it. Simply put, as a complete relic one only needs to wear the armor in order to gain its power. It's more effective and more powerful than the Symphogear system in the fact that it's not only unrestrained but has regenerative properties. You'll remember when Tsubasa first fights Chris in episode 4 she makes a remark about the "full potential of a complete relic." This is also the reason why Durandal has such overwhelming power - it was also a complete relic after Hibiki activated it.
" the chain of command broke down and the Nehushtan armor went missing."
ReplyDeleteThis is something I always assumed happened but I don't remember them ever covering it in show (but of course it wouldn't really fit into narrative as we follow Hibiki from the concert battle to a year later).
About the complete Relics, I wonder if as a whole they were proved to be less effective after Phine is beaten by three gear holders. Would there be possible incentive to break the relics and create armies of Symphogear holders? Even without considering Phine getting beaten, just at a Quantity V Quality level?
Well you have to remember, successfully activating a relic fragment as a Symphogear requires a certain level of what Ryoko calls "phonic gain." This is why Division 2 had to search for compatible candidates like Tsubasa and Chris - their songs were able to resonate with the relics and create the Symphogear.
DeleteHowever, complete relics aren't like that. You need phonic gain to activate them (hence the experiment they conducted at the concert) but once they've been activated they should be able to be wielded by anyone. For example, I'm assuming that any regular person would be able to pick up Durandal (after it was activated) and use it to defeat the Noise. The reason why Division 2 was so interested in the complete relics was so that they could fight again the Noise more effectively, meaning they wouldn't be limited by the need for compatible candidates.
But I suppose if they had a higher number of candidates, it might prove more effective to break the relics apart. Since Noise are a worldwide thing I think quantity is probably more important than quality, but the question is how many people they can find that can actually use a Symphogear. I think this is something that they will explore more in season 2!