Project Gestalt: What Happened? - NieR Lore

[@Hyaru12]

One other factor you didn't cover: Replicant Nier's violent method of waking up Weiss at the start of the game led to Weiss having amnesia regarding Project Gestalt. This allowed Weiss to form a close bond with Replicant Nier that eventually led him to abandon Project Gestalt even when his memories returned at the end of the game (and resisting Noir at the midgame). People (correctly) say that Replicant Nier chose to doom humanity, but many gloss over the fact that at the end of the game Weiss knew very well what the implications were of resisting the Shadowlord but he still sacrificed himself to help Replicant Nier do it.

[@deeku.4009]

Where is the fact that beating Weiss' dome into oblivion when waking him up caused him to have amnesia regarding Gestalts and the Project as a whole? I'd love to read it, or listen to it, or *__*

[@BlackRifleStudios]

I'm pretty sure it's a line of dialogue in Replicant, I think Weiss himself said it but I can't be sure.

[@azharhakim1930]

@@deeku.4009 If im not mistaken, Weiss did hint on it in Ending E, in the memory server with Kaine... Im not really sure so I could be wrong

[@daokoxd1145]

Late reply but according to Accords notes (The Android in Drakengard 3 and basically the assumed recorder and narrator of the whole Nier universe), project Gestalt was doomed to fail in the beginning because someone made a glitch in the Replicant system to make the Replicants gain self-awareness. And they cover up the fact that the Shadowlord was still a corrupt Gestalt and not a perfect one and his Maso is only temporary in halting the relapse of the shades. Sooner or later the Shades will relapse even with his Maso.

[@kingofstrangeness7014]

@@daokoxd1145 where?

[@ahmedsultani3028]

Devola and Popola could have woven a tricky plan where they convince Rep. NieR that the merge of Weiss and Noir is the key to cure Yonah's disease, (considering it has reached its critical stage) which eventually forces Gestalt NieR and his sis into Rep. NieR and his sis. Instead, they went rambling on about how the white book saves the day when he defeats the black book in their song. Also when Noir introduced himself in a devilish "manner" didn't really help the Project as well..

[@Jfk2Mr]

To be fair, plan was likely that Rep. Nier goes on the wild goose chase that simultaneously makes steps towards finalisation of Gestalt project. Thing that wasn't expected was Weiss loosing his memories and buying the story meant for Nier, as well as Shadowlord making his moves prematurely. Why Devola and Popola did not tell the truth? Unknown, I think it was a mix of information security and fact that they can play long game - this Nier will complete Weiss, while next iteration of siblings will be ones merged with Shadowlord and iced Yonah

[@citizenvulpes4562]

Isn't it straight out said that Devola and Popula didn't want to finish the project until another generation? That could be the reason they didn't tell replicant Nier, they just didn't expect him to get that far. Then when he did get that far it was kinda too late to tell him the truth.

[@Heroisback92192]

Yeah they fumbled the bag hard honestly.. They could have done so many things differently lmao.

[@cooltjh4]

ya they really dropped the ball on that shit. its like "yall told me to do this, wtf?"

[@jahkae]

We need to hype this man up. Under 10k subs and singlehandedly summarizing and translating dozens of media and wikis to give us the lore. You’re doing good work, my guy. Keep it up!

[@whatnottodo2699]

Project Gestalt is such an important part of Nier that I think it should have its own game tbh

[@lucalin2476]

Would be a cool DLC

[@hm02fly75]

I've thought it for years but the sheer amount of story and content in that period before the start of the game with the war against he Legion, WCS, project Gestalt, the crusades, etc. could easily make a full scale game and fill in some of the blanks that are still there.

[@Heroisback92192]

It's actually criminal. That they have not made them into games or an anime yet.

[@protocetus499]

​@@Heroisback92192 they dont have funding

[@Kirbio]

Not only does destroying Grimoire Noir at the end of the game destroy Project Gestalt, but killing the Shadowlord dooms what remains of humanity to a slow, painful extinction. Damn,

[@kingofstrangeness7014]

wouldnt there still be copies of noir lying around?

[@Kirbio]

That *is* true, but the death of the Shadow Lord still wound up dooming humanity in one fell swoop.

[@kingofstrangeness7014]

@@Kirbio true, killing the shadowlord was what Truly doomed the project sadly

[@Kirbio]

NieR is the best way of saying "The protagonist is the villain." Both with the Shadowlord being Nier's Gestalt, and Nier dooming humanity by essentially killing himself. No matter how you cut it, Nier is the antagonist.

[@kingofstrangeness7014]

@@Kirbio there isnt any clear evil, nier is the antagonist for humanity, he may not have bad intentions but his actions and later colder personality doomes everyone

[@bugs2814]

"Some of them must be pretty hype to be a human again!" Hahahahahaha goddamn that line!

[@Aisubun]

I find it interesting that either way this went, Nier essentially was the World Ender. Both were willing to sacrifice the world for Yonah and that's exactly how it went. Neither is a bad person, in fact replicant Nier is the biggest goody two shoes shounen peotag ever. And that's why I love him, because he isn't a villain, but history can't help but view him as such. Project Gestalt had all of its hopes riding on a teenager desperate to save his sister. Project Gestalt was doomed to fail from the word go. But nobody knows that because humanity was extincted and the Devola and Popola models were brainwashed and tortured. All the androids knew was that humanity ended, and someone was to blame. And I think that's the saddest part of all this.

[@mrreyes5004]

Honestly, Nier also reminds me of The Batter from the game OFF (by Mortis Ghost). SPOILERS for The Batter's story in OFF: Both NieR and OFF are almost the same deconstruction of "RPG where you play as a mysterious character on a vague quest to save a doomed world". Both Nier (the character) and The Batter had good intentions; Nier just wanted to save his sister, and The Batter wanted to purify the world of the dangerous Spectres. On the surface, these goals are justified and it makes perfect sense to hope that they succeed. Of course, it turns out that both of them end up _dooming the world_ in the process. Neither Nier nor The Batter are really villains. Both of them are out to do noble things, and both of them are outraged by the injustices they see in their worlds (Louise devouring Replicants, Dedan abusing his workers, etc). But both of them also embody the wrong side of usual heroic determination: they take the stereotypical hero ideal of "I will achieve my goal and I won't let anything get in my way" and they go way too far with it. In Nier's quest to save his sister, he never once truly wonders if the Shades are sentient beings instead of mindless monsters, and he only learns the truth after it's way too late to turn back. In The Batter's quest to purify the world, he never stops to question the fact that he's basically committing genocide by defeating the monstrous Guardians instead of wondering if there's another way to fix the world. Ultimately, both of them end up ruining all of creation: Nier causes the extinction of humanity and the Replicants, and The Batter erases his dying world and everything in it. And all because both of them were too stubbornly determined to achieve their goals, despite people around them begging and pleading for them to just stop and listen. Nier and The Batter embody the saying that anyone can do evil if they just think that they are in the right. Not by actually being evil or malicious, but literally just by never questioning if their views might be wrong. There probably were alternate ways to accomplish their goals without involving actual genocide, but they were simply too desperate and determined to even think about those possibilities before the horrible truths were revealed too late for them to stop.

[@roll3park143]

the way Devola&Popola sent(lured) Nier to places were one of reason for plan's failure. They sent Nier to the town where Gestalt and Replicants were peacefully living together (whether they know about the experiment or not, they are responsible for that area. they should have known about it, or at least look into it rather than sending most Vengeful Shadow(Gestalt) murderer. They lured Nier to shadowlord's castle, but they left the all those Gestalts behind on the way for Nier to meet Shadowlord. They re-appeared and tried to stop Nier only after Nier and his companion massacred all those Gestalts including babies

[@WithoutException]

I’m guessing it was all unintended or a loss they had to take. They needed Nier to get to the Shadowlord so they thought the people of The Aerie would help direct Nier (they might know because they are also Shades) but they ended up attacking him. When they reconfronted him in the castle, it was probably to neuter him before he could kill the Shadowlord but they died doing so. Also I imagine him killing Louise was unintended because they just needed him to find the ferryman.

[@hera761]

@@WithoutException if I can ask, why did they need Nier to get to the shadowlord? Really all they needed was weiss and noir to finish the project

[@mercury2157]

@@hera761 Shadowlord was proof the project could be successful since he was the perfect gestalt, and could've likely been put back into Nier's body with little issue (besides Replicant Nier's consciousness possibly still existing within the body, which is what happened with both Yonahs)

[@cheshyre3969]

@@hera761 the payable nier is the replicant version of gestalt nier, the shadow lord. So gestalt nier rightfully wanted his own body back

[@KonniWynn]

Gestaltisierung literally just means "making or becoming a Gestalt" Edit: What Google probably refers to is "gestalten" which means "to design" or "designing". A "Gestalt" is a figure. So Gestalt means Figure(or a silhouette), and Replicant just means we talkin about the replication of the person.

[@sekkuar]

I believe it might refer to this instead en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gestaltzerfall

[@timurkral3781]

Yeah I understand German. No need to explain something like we're idiots!

[@KonniWynn]

@@timurkral3781 Mädel was hast du?

[@KonniWynn]

@@sekkuar ...I guess?

[@janterri3539]

@@timurkral3781 And the people who don’t like me?

[@horrow4203]

Just finished ending e couple hours ago and finished watching the history of nier before the replicant and wondered where are the project gestalt vid? Right on time baby.

[@thxverymuch6962]

Dude your videos are absolute fire, have been binging them all this lazy Sunday. Subbing.

[@ThBrando]

Glad you like them!

[@domovoi_butler]

@@ThBrando I agree man, thanks for all the work. Not only making these videos, but researching and gathering and sorting out all that information scattered throughout the various media. I have two question though: In 09:48 you mention relapsing in the context of humans for the first time. Up to this point relapsing was only happening to Gestalts. So the relapse can happen to humans even before their gestalt is separated from their body? And it's something different from the WCS, it just bears a similar result? And what happens if your Gestalt is killed? Can the Replicant survive? It seems that way with Nier after he kills the Shadowlord. Doesn't killing a gestalt cause the black scrawl on their replicant just like the gestalt relapsing does? Why does it not happen to Nier? Once again thanks for your work, I'm going to go through all of the Lore stuff in the next days.

[@kasumiayanami4501]

Everyone working on Project Gestalt had one job, and they really effed it up… 🙄😭 R.I.P Humanity 😔

[@EE-jp5ev]

This really reads like Kasumi read the lore of Nier lmao

[@binglee8000]

Yep that they did effed up

[@AngraMainiiu]

TBH You can only really blame Nier and his gang since they should have been aware of what they're doing!

[@McSnezzly]

@@AngraMainiiu but which nier

[@davidsplooge14]

at the end of the day it's all really just weiss's fault

[@miragebarrage9748]

My question is, what’s up with the shade appearances? Why do some shades look like dark silhouettes of humans while others are giant beasts or tentacle monsters?

[@ragvald8835]

Because it's videogame. It needed some enemy variety.

[@miragebarrage9748]

@@ragvald8835 possibly, but that’s a bit of a reach. There has to be some sort of lore explanation for why shades look the way they do. Not just, “it’s just a video game lol”.

[@ragvald8835]

@@miragebarrage9748 No fictional story ever have 100% logicaly explained details. You shouldn't overthink something that is made possible trough magic, because there aren't any logic in magic. And this story in particular isn't perfectly told.

[@MrShawnmicheals]

I remember reading somewhere that the beasts are the results of a few relapsed Gestalts fusing together. How and why do they fuse is another question entirely. I have had the same question in my mind for a while now and there have been no satisfactory answers so far.

[@shadowguy321]

Shades can fuse to become more powerful. The bigger the are, however the more they lose their minds. Usually only already relapsed shades fuse together.

[@bait668]

I think Yoko Taro did an interview and said that it was way too late for Yonah either way. She was done no matter what.

[@Gotensan718]

Would love to see your source please.

[@bait668]

@@Gotensan718 Grimoire Nier fan translation. The relevant part is: "-So, let’s say Replicant Nier didn’t defeat the Shadowlord but gave up his body instead, and Grimoire Weiss fused with Grimoire Noir, will the world become peaceful with humans again? Yokoo: If the legions are exterminated and the WCS eradicated. However, Yonah’s black scrawl cannot be cured either way, so she won’t be saved. -Eh. Yokoo: Yes. No matter what, the path towards Nier and Yonah surviving has long been closed." docs.google.com/document/d/1vEP2iZ52P-DWhQBQ2Is6R8Wjao99AGi0YuWShTvA-tA/edit?usp=drivesdk

[@kingofstrangeness7014]

@@Gotensan718 never got That source

[@CRAgamer]

@@kingofstrangeness7014 a year and a half. Still sourceless.

[@kingofstrangeness7014]

@@CRAgamer damn😩

[@canariawing]

about what you said at 10:36 , not only is level 30 the recommended level to fight the shadowlord, but level 30 is the exact level that the shadowlord is set to when you fight him at the end of the game! its a fun bit of consistency and is pretty clever

[@katonryuka]

the man stopped leveling completely after the intro secuence jajajajajaj, didnt fought a single time after that

[@billyjohnson3674]

Huh, thats interesting. I beat Ending A with Level 27 on Hard. But maybe theres a difficulty difference between Nier/Gestalt and Replicant.

[@polarphy]

I feel like i'm more knowledgeable than ever coming out from this video, about the lore of nier ofc. Great stuff man, can't wait for the next upload.

[@ThBrando]

Much appreciated! Look forward to it!

[@timurkral3781]

You can even look backwards to it!

[@yassinefarah2423]

Strangely among all shades Hook looks alot like a legion, Kaine described it as a "lizard designed by an insane god" and it was implied that WCS might have also infected animals.

[@blackosprey2219]

Wasn't there a gestalt dog? I think that outright confirms that animals could be affected too.

[@dragonbornexpress5650]

@@blackosprey2219. A wolf, but yes.

[@SaintOfDegens]

I think since square enix has said they wanna make nier a franchise maybe we could get a version of nier where you play shadowlord niers story and actually complete project gestalt

[@fawaz16]

Watching this and resonant arcs podcast about NiER is amazing thank you!

[@LogitandProbit]

One day once you’ve gone through all the lore, plz make a single video chronologically going through it. Or a playlist. Would love to see that!

[@BisquitFarmer]

15:06 That does sort of get answered in Automata world guide vol 2 in the gestalt/replicant recap section (page 216). The narrator says there was a less than 0.0000005% chance of project gestalt succeeding even if devola and popola managed to control the situation with replicant and gestalt nier. so most likely yonah and everyone else we know still dies

[@ohyaization]

I thought it was because replicant's are sterile

[@zynclori]

Thank you for putting the lore in a concise, easy to follow timeline! It makes it so much easier to understand the emotional impact of the Shadowlord doing what he does cause I was way too confused during the last battle to fully grasp it.

[@PeachBobbler]

Wait so if Replicants can't reproduce, what was the plan once the Gestalts reunited? Do the Gestalts somehow make them fertile or something? Also, is it ever explained how the girls made babies for Replicants? Did they just pick a random Gestalt to model the baby after?

[@ThBrando]

That is an excellent questions and I genuinely have no idea!

[@sebay4654]

my guess is probably that the can reproduce but all attempts to failed for some reason (without the two parents possessing souls and being complete the resulting child is missing half itself and doesn't have the spark to begin life effectively effectively meaning replicants can only create stillborns

[@moonum4567]

Yeah. Replicants are infertile and are incapable of producing, thus they make clones of replicant to replace them. The idea of a father and mother in the eyes of a replicant are skewed, they don't know that they can't give birth despite because they don't have any concept of what childbirth looks like. Replicant parents are basically gifted a Replicant replacement of a once dead Replicant. Of course, if the cause of death was anything other then the Black Scrawl, this was the case. When a Gestalt relapses (basically becoming mindless shadows), the Replicant of that Shadow gets Black Scrawl. It becomes impossible to return to their Replicants, likely rendering the creation of further Replicants of that Gestalt pointless or impossible (dunno which)

[@CRAgamer]

I think once the gestalts reunited their next course of action would have been to work on enabling reproduction.

[@gama103]

@@CRAgamer Reproduction is probably related to their Soul or Gestalt data. After all, Replicants could only exist if their Gestalt data was still alive

[@woahhestolethatguyspizza8429]

Just finished Nier Replicant all ending and am now binge watching your videos so that my small brain can understand everything

[@capngeeoff]

On Ending B route it is revealed that the shades (humans) found a way to reproduce and that the little ball shades were babies that we were killing. One of the primary abilities of the shade that killed Kaine's grandma is firing off those little round shades. Was this shade capable of creating new humans and by killing it, was that another way that NieR doomed humanity?

[@mrreyes5004]

I don't think so. I'm pretty sure it was implied that Hook merely swallowed those baby Shades and then spat them back out as projectile weapons against the heroes. It was never really established that Hook could birth new Shades, especially because Hook was revealed to be a mindless hivemind of many Shades jammed together. And honestly, even if Hook could create new humans, it still needed to be killed. Unlike other Shades like Roc, who were capable of reasonable thinking, Hook really was just a sadistic monster who took pleasure in murdering Kaine's grandmother. It had no sympathetic/redeeming traits, and it proved a major threat to Replicants with its malicious rampaging. Shades like Roc, Kalil and Goose probably could have been spared and allowed to live, but Hook was a bloodthirsty monster who needed to be put down.

[@Darkgun231]

I really want a game set during the White Chlorination Syndrome outbreak. We know from lore and Yoko Taro himself that there was a medicine that slowed the progress, but it worked best with younger people, and that the world governments had basically formed child armies dedicated to killing something called the Legion, aka people mutated by WCS. That would be pretty neat I think.

[@starscorpia4005]

Things that could have helped project gestahlt work out having backups for replicants instead of using the 'hopefully' unrelapsed gestahlts as blueprints, having a few researchers be put in and out of new young replicant bodies (unsure if possible but still) to keep working on the project as it progressed finding a way to rejoin a relapsed gestahlt into a replicant hopefully having one overpower the other OR having the 2 sentiences merge

[@voice-less]

If a gestalt relapses, that's it for both the replicant and the gestalt, the soul basically becomes invalid, exactly like the legion. As for your idea to create backups for the replicants, it's not necessary, nor does it serve any purpose, those backups would have just gained sentience too, obviously you could just create another replicant afterwards, but if the gestalt and the replicant aren't merged together, that would be pointless also. The biggest problem wasn't the replicants gaining sentience, while yes, that prevented gestalts from reuniting with their replicants normally, as long as the two books were able to merge, that wouldn't have been a problem, it was the original gestalt Nier insubordination, and his replicant that also gained sentience ending up becoming a threat that were the biggest problems of this plan. It's mostly plot that enables this to happen, the androids in charge of the project were too stupid and arrogant for their own good, they thought they were above replicant Nier and they ended up dooming humanity because of it, had they killed replicant Nier before he got so strong, and negotiated with the gestalt Nier to fuse the two books together, humanity would have been saved, alongside Yonah possibly, but that was the only way that guaranteed her a chance of survival. Your idea of making immortal researchers should also have been feasible. Heck, they could have just created backup underground colonies far away from any maso and legion, would have needed to stay hidden for over a thousand years but it should have been there as a backup plan, but again, it's plot.

[@fg009letyrds8]

@@voice-less The thing is Replicant gaining sentience is intentional, so the Project was actually sabotaged by a high ranking insider.

[@voice-less]

@@fg009letyrds8 replicants gaining sentience was by no means intentional, and there is no "high ranking" individual in the gestalt project, the entire thing was managed by an AI, the same one that created the yorha project in automata. All hope for the project died when gestalt Nier got killes by his replicant, if you're talking about sabotage then you might as well blame the project's failure on Grimoire Weiss simce he chose to kill Gestalt Nier knowing full well that would lead to humanity's extinction.

[@fg009letyrds8]

@@voice-less ahahaha! no, Project Gestalt was fully created by Humans, not the Androids you dummy smoothbrain peedrinker, go read the lore materials in game and the additional materials outside the game first before coming back here, the Androids are just managing it and is there to stabilize it. And who said Weiss wasn't at fault? He's one of main reasons since he literally is part of the Party who killed the Shadowlord and is literally called a Traitor.

[@voice-less]

@@fg009letyrds8 ah yes, insults totally make you sound more credible and smart. Anyhow, i never said androids made project gestalt, what i said is that they managed it, after humanity turned itself into gestalts and replicants it was the androids, or more specifically the grand AI that overseered the project, and as i said, replicants gaining sentience and independence was a mistake, originally they were supposed to be hallow husks that the android manipulated to defeat legion, then they suddenly gained self awareness in an unpredictable turn of events, and started refusing to merge with their gestlats, this is what started the collapse of project gestlat, which inevitably lead to Nier alongside his party killing all hope for tye project by both killing gestlat nier, and by weiss refusing to forcibly fuse replicants with their gestlats.

[@TheCozypillow]

Tbh, I honestly think Devola and Popola could have convinced replicant Nier to accept gestalt Nier if they were just upfront and told him it would have save yonah from the black scrawl. Nier would do anything to save yonah. Devola and Popola really are to blame for the whole project going wrong, it could have easily been prevented. In Nier Automata the androids rightfully shamed Devola and Popola as they blamed the death of humanity on them.

[@duycao0521]

Yeah, but even if they did explain everything to the Replicant Nier, do you honestly think he would believe them? Do you think he would accept everything they just said? Would he really take it all in and accept it all for who he really is and all that? With how single-minded he really is, even as he got older, I seriously doubt that. I mean sure, Nier looks up to both Popola and Devola as parental figures, but that doesn't mean you can expect Nier to believe in almost every truth that they say to him. And besides, the Replicant Yonah was still sick at the time and Replicant Nier had to take care of her all the time, and Popola and Devola had to look after the village of Replicants, so there wasn't necessarily any available time for the two to explain everything to him.

[@fg009letyrds8]

lol you don't know anything do you? First thing first, the Automata Twins aren't the Replicant Twins, they just share the same model no different from A2 and 2B being the same model number. Second, only one Yonah can be saved, it's either the gestalt or the replicant, and there's no way the super siscon Niers would choose one over the other. Third, Gestalt Nier will still need to fuse with Replicant Nier so he can be with sister, so nope, what you posted is pure hockgarbage headcanon smoothbrain takes that shows your hollow understanding of the lore.

[@AnthonyKagegariVT]

@@duycao0521 I’m fairly sure he would of accepted it because while is single-mindedness did cost humanity it was because he wanted what was best for his sister…and if he could save his sister and no one else or his sister and humanity by giving himself up you think he wouldn’t do just that? Even after ending E where he gave his entire existence up for Kaine? You think he wouldn’t do that for his sister and Kaine and humanity? I mean heck even if he didn’t believe Devola and Popola you think he’d not believe Yonah’s Gestalt if she actually just told him what was really happening? I doubt that considering how selfless he was for everyone in the game. It’s quite literally the world being doomed by someone who was left in the dark only to be told he wasn’t actually human before trying to take his body from him in a fight he never wanted and asked for an explanation for in the first place…also Popola kind of went off script and almost killed “Nier” and Kaine’s Replicants when Devola died all because they couldn’t just explain it…the story just shows that all three groups in this game were flawed in their reasoning. The gestalts, replicants, and even the androids were human in a way.

[@nyosantemtant1684]

@@AnthonyKagegariVT unfortunately no matter how sentient devola or popola are they still follow the scripts that were programed to them which make them mostly unable to tell the trusth since their job are mostly as overseer, and again gestalt project were already a failure from the very beginning. and the blame arent mostly on devola and popola

[@souloftherisingsun8274]

@@duycao0521 yes, I would say that young R. Nier would have believed (and done whatever) Devola and Popola asked. It might be a shock, but R. Nier is about as tenacious as his soul, G. Nier aka Shadowlord. R. Nier prostituted himself just to support Yonah. G. Nier went through 1000 years of waiting (not to mention survival and a damn nuke+war before and after that). When he got older, R. Nier never stopped trying to look for Yonah by any means necessary. But even after everything that led up to the events of Shadowlord’s Castle, you know what would really seal the deal? Endings C and D. Namely D, because R. Nier gets the choice to give up his own life for the sake of something else. If Devola and Popola had been straight with him about Yonah, noir and himself, humanity could have lived. With this there is no doubt in my mind that R. Nier would not have fused back with G. Nier if it meant saving Yonah. They both want the same thing, and technically neither of them die. But due to the lack of communication and the black scrawl, we all know how that turned out.

[@FatToDaCat]

God man, thank you so much for putting these NieR/Drakengard lore videos out there. They're so damn interesting, and you add your own blend of entertainment in that makes these even better. Please keep it up and make more if you can

[@bruhwereinacarexhaust]

This is a very good video summarizing project gestalt, perhaps the best video I've come across for this topic Keep up the amazing work mang

[@VermilionRen]

Putting music from Drakengard 3 was a really nice touch. I got chills when 'Better End' started to play!

[@starhew2868]

Hi, I've been working my way through your videos and they're all great! Thanks for all the great time we'll spent

[@YoungYellowMusic]

Amazing video. Follow everything Nier related and I still learned something new. Great editing and engaging all the way through

[@loserprime4324]

Dont forget that this was thought up by a wacky japanese man that wears a helmet/mask of his own character Thank god for yokotaro

[@Alice-he2zh]

The very bad, no good yokotaro "my game is shit"

[@Gleamoz]

Is that helmet mask a moon 🌝?

[@averagesoul8256]

@@Gleamoz its emill's head from replicant and automata

[@Alice-he2zh]

@@Gleamoz no it's best boy emil

[@McSnezzly]

And that he was directly inspired by 9/11

[@EpicFailFiend]

This may have been explained in universe and I missed it, but could Louise possibly have been a second "original gestalt"? My reasoning is solely based on how human she looks, so I know there isnt much here, but could devola and popola have been planning on replacing original n nier if things went too far south? Maybe if we didnt kill Louise there would have been a back up? Just a thought with not much to back it, but I figured i'd throw it out there.

[@briansouthparkstudio1357]

yeah the Shadowlord was such a big deal because of how powerful and stable he was Louise didn't start that strong or stable but became that later by being feed Replicates and stable Maso from the Shadowlord

[@WithoutException]

@@briansouthparkstudio1357 thats a good point. Even if they didn’t have OG Nier’s gestalt to combine replicants, Louise’s gestalt was stable enough to be a substitute, EXCEPT REPLICANT NIER HAD TO GO KILL HER TOO

[@winstonbreadman]

Either way I'm pretty sure in the recent remake they mentioned she didn't have a replicant so she could never become human

[@mercury2157]

@@winstonbreadman Devola and Popola explicitly said Louise couldn't become a human so.... damn.

[@fg009letyrds8]

@@briansouthparkstudio1357 Nah she's just there to put Shadowlord to submission and get him back in track, we know Loiuse can't become human for some reason.

[@MorDreadful]

Nier doesn't just doom humankind, he dooms himself and his sister along with his new love Kaine (it's obvious). It's a suicide mission in the end,. thinking they can save the replicants, himself being one really seals his doom. This being no matter which ending you do, it all is doomed. The only one to be saved? Emil. Desperately trying to save his sister, he instead dooms her. Seeing has the replicants have no soul........while the original Gestalt is also trying to save his sister. His sister? she doesn't want to fuse due to the voice of her replicant. The only ones to live on in some way? the vanquished Gestalts, which is why we see them after their deaths, with each other, like passing on to another realm as you would when you die. To become what they were in appearance once more. Grimoire Weiss (White) seen as good because of the colour white? If Lucifer can appear as an angel of light.... while Grimoire Noir? (Black) must be bad then right? not so. The moral here is the old saying: NEVER JUDGE A BOOK BY IT'S COVER.

[@NinjaKuma]

Another good video, can't wait for the next one!

[@Z31Turbo]

Selfishness was the projects downfall. The project didn't seem to be about saving humanity, but rather a specific group of humans. Once the replicants started gaining their sentience, they simply should have allowed them and educated them on how to reproduce like normal humans. Because they insisted on going through with the unification instead of quitting while they were ahead doomed them.

[@blackjoker2345]

The replicants Can't reproduce like normal humans, no amount of education would change that. The gestalt need to merge with the replicants for either to be fertile, there is no way around that. Unification was the only outcome in which humanity survived.

[@RaineBarrage]

Nothing like eating handfuls of chocolate and peanut butter cheerios while watching NieR lore videos on a Sunday.

[@Murtaza2805]

I love your nier vids man. You deserve way more subs bro keep it up!

[@iStricer]

Great video as always! Been enjoying these a whole lot after beating NieR Replicant! My partner is planning on playing-streaming Replicant soon, and now I have a mountain of new information thanks to these videos, I'm also planning on rewatching all of them with her after she gets the final ending

[@gangganggang2219]

Incredible video. Very informative, well written, and a bit of well placed humor delivered in a monotone voice to reward people for paying attention. Love the Nier games, but am very frustrated that even to understand everything that is going on in them you have to know japanese and attend a bunch of stage plays and buy drama CDs. Especially the stuff like what was up with the prologue to Replicant. That's kinda crucial. Video answered all that very well

[@erickrodriguez7801]

i understand nier so much better now, great videos btw can’t wait to see more

[@MandyleePlays]

Great video! I kind wonder how things would of turned out if devola , popola , shadow neir and replicant nier had a dinner party together and everything got explained

[@Jatt2613]

I mean, they never could have agreed or come to a solution together because original/shadow Nier's whole desire was to save his sister, which meant putting her into her replicant, which would "kill" replicant Nier's Yonah. Either shadow Yonah dies or replicant Yonah dies, so in the end one of the Niers had to die too since both wouldn't stop trying to save their sister.

[@MandyleePlays]

@@Jatt2613 I just think that if the bigger picture was revealed a little more earlier we can see the whole group trying to understand what the repercussions of what there doing and even if they still end up killing the shadow lord it’s something more heavy because they know what would happen

[@kvnmcaleer]

I’m binging all of these videos! Thank you so much for these!!!!

[@PwnySlaystation01]

These videos are great! I'm a massive fan of replicant and automata, but I haven't been exposed to much of the side content other than story runthroughs of the Drakengard games.

[@JoJoZaka]

sawggin on a gestalt by thinning thumbing up your vid

[@sekkuar]

The "gestalt" probably doesn't come from "gestaltisierung" but from "Gestaltzerfall" (German for "shape decomposition"), which is a medical condition where a person start seeing complex objects not as a whole but as its individual parts. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gestaltzerfall

[@AngraMainiiu]

Gestalt just means whole. "Gestalterfall" I can only assume means failure to recognize parts as a whole.

[@Quinyel]

People. xD I am German. "Gestalt" is just our word for "form" or "being". It is used to describe the physical form of objects, animals, persons, everything.

[@sekkuar]

@@Quinyel yes but you gotta understand Yoko Taro isn't German, so the uses of the German terms aren't coming from the same perspective as you, a native German speaker. I think the gestalt decomposition thing makes sense with the whole separate body and soul thing, but unless we hear from Yoko Taro himself we can never now for sure.

[@Man-mc7ln]

Genuinely get excited everytime I see your videos in my sub box

[@SebaBraganca]

I can't thank you enough for this videos you make

[@Endlqss]

Very awesome series. Excited for the new vids, can't wait

[@panzerlion]

Your videos are top quality content, I hope you’ll stay around for a long while in here

[@BenkaiDebussy]

The question I've always had is exactly what "the gestalt-ization process" even consists of. I remember getting the impression that one death dream with the rich people who had their portraits painted and a feast and then sat on spiky chairs may have been a depiction of it (since it ends with shades appearing in the mansion and is generally consistent with the idea of "some rich people having a "last supper" before being separated from their bodies). But they may have just been a bizarre "artistic representation" or something.

[@shenrais4469]

Man the fact that all this story isn't actually explained in the games themselves kind of pisses me off. Thank you for the video.

[@asalz8810]

Bro the nostalgia that hit at 1:52

[@sven3413]

I never heard the word Gestaltisierung in my life but it sounds cool I guess XD. (Btw. usualy the word would be called Gestaltung. Idk how they came up with Gestaltisierung).

[@felipemindfreak]

They should've ask Arasaka for a little help with the soul thing.

[@Thabigman]

Brando killin it with the quality uploads

[@wdcain1]

Had someone took care of psycho Tyrann instead of turning him into a Shade then Project Gestalt would probably have succeeded. Tyrann would never had possessed Kaine and she would never had the power to join NieR in his quest so she wouldn't have interfered with Grimoire Noir convincing Weiss to joining him. I'm baffled why the other Shades, Devola or Popala didn't kill Tyrann long ago.

[@dtkach87]

Your videos are great! Thanks for untangling the narrative. You must have a Grimoire!

[@kevinmay9151]

Thank you! I really enjoyed the game and was so confused when I got online and people were making humanity is doomed jokes.

[@thomasbinder396]

Holy cow, this franchise is a lore rabbit hole! Guess I gotta buy and play through Replicant after all. Thanks for the vid, cannot wait for more! Cheers!

[@pyr0367]

Would Project Gestalt still have been successfull if the Grimoires fused not long after the Shadowlords death? Because if that's the case, Replicant NieRs killing of his Gestalt was only half of what lead to humanitys demise. Weiss sacrificing himself to kill Noir was the second thing that inevitably doomed humanity, right?

[@janterri3539]

Idk I think they would instantly relapse regardless and it wouldn’t work.

[@OctaviaLIVE]

Love your videos. Would really like to see what I've seen some people ask for which is the stuff in between Replicant and Automata, but one thing ive been wondering is how exactly the SINoALICE story fits in, along with that one FFXIV collaboration.

[@ThBrando]

Thanks! I'm working on the in between Rep and Aut video now. I'm gonna be real, the stuff in Sinoalice is meagre at best, there might be a lot of juice in FFXIV, but I haven't played it myself so I don't feel right making a video on something I'm not that familiar with.

[@zackeryparkerson]

Every video is better than the last. Top-notch work out here. Let me ask you a lore question you’re free to ignore: What is up with the Sealed Verses? I figure Dev and Pop put Yonah behind a Weiss prison to make sure Young Bro runs into him, but the amnesia was accidental. Is the whole Sealed Verse collection just a way for Dev and Pop to buy time as they figure out their next step? If Weiss’s power is just “borrowed” from DevPop, why does killing more giant Shades give him more power? This has been in my brain for about ten years. Always felt unclear as to A) How Weiss was put in Nier’s path via Yonah and B) Just how the Sealed Verses work. Anyway! Thanks again for the video!

[@solracstormhunter3023]

Is the reason why the shadowlord had *red* markings instead of the usual *gold*, because he has more/stronger red-dragon-particles than the rest of the shades? 🤔

[@kayskreed]

What I find odd is that the whole mind/body transfer process (Human Body + Consciousness/Gestalt to Replicant "Shells") was a last ditched countermeasure to a seemingly unstoppable plague, yet these new Replicant bodies were doomed to succumb to a different disease, i.e. the Black Scrawl. Without the Shadowlord and the Grimoires, that process was merely hastened, but it would have occurred even if the Shadowlord had succeeded in fusing himself and his sister with their Replicant alter egos, because Gestalts were still relapsing and Replicants could not reproduce on their own. Did I get that right? Maybe humanity could have held out a bit longer, but it's hard to imagine that it would have ended all that differently. The whole thing is like jumping out of one sinking ship and into another. Humans should simply have created more android bodies modelled after the technology behind the Twins and uploaded their consciousnesses into them. In a sense, the Androids (and Machines) from Automata were humanity's true successors, albeit not in a biological sense. I do feel bad for both pairs of Niers and Yonahs, they were lied to and misled. If they hadn't been manipulated and toyed with, they might not have taken such drastic actions.

[@peanutmuttplays104]

**glances at the bell notification.** absolutely.

[@ecthegamer]

Man great video!😁👍 I just wanted to say I recently finish the game on my channel & it was an amazing story, I started my journey with nier automata in 2017 & then recently in 2020 I played drakengard 3 followed by nier replicant, now I'm going to play automata again with the information of this game & look at it from a different perspective. I want to say humanity in my opinion was doom from the start the moment they only put the focus on saving their generation rather than finding a way of saving a new generation of humanity. What I love about this game is that for me the may idea here is about the soul, what is a soul? what is the soul made of? and what do we define the soul? For me the project was a success in the fact that in the process of trying to save themselves they created a new soul but decided to reject that. Project gestalt had to many variables to consider, I preferred the plan from horizon zero dawn which is another game with a dilemma of the end of the world.

[@kasp7674]

I don't get why Devola and Popola didn't just fuse Weiss and Noir together on their own. Did they really have to persuade Nier.

[@jeavii]

I feel like we are all missing an important part to all of this which is that the project was doomed save humanity because even if the souls of all the humans were put back through the project. Humanity would only have one generation of life because the replicant bodies cannot reproduce.

[@ohyaization]

YES! Finally someone that sees the same thing I'm seeing this comment is under rated

[@ZeroBagger]

You made a very shitty day at work just a little easier, and for that I thank you. Great vid as always, Brando.

[@choodle9729]

Great video, you're very good at explaining things to my small brain 🙏

[@kanosukiLexe]

My dude up here actually says good things about breath of fire 4. Love that game and doesn't seem like anyone remembers the series

[@EA-jp5gp]

Amazing video

[@HarpoonTheWhaler]

Hey man I know I'm kinda late with this. Did you get all this info from the game? Or are there books that fill in the blanks too? If so I'd really love to read this stuff myself! Great video

[@hamielhonel3200]

This game is a fucking MASTERPIECE

[@timurkral3781]

Thank you

[@averagesoul8256]

indeed

[@timurkral3781]

@@averagesoul8256 I am your fucking God!

[@averagesoul8256]

@@timurkral3781 yoko taro is

[@timurkral3781]

@@averagesoul8256 your mummy

[@damienlifemusic935]

Omg pls do more lore on Nier Love all ur videos Brando👍👍👍👍

[@cielghoul2034]

Gestaltisierung means more like giving something form

[@goodsocksproductions9397]

I will look forward to the next video!

[@JabamiLain]

What if we have been looking at the timeline all wrong ? For example, what if there are actually two Cathedral Cities (although the city is said to be on the Iberian Peninsula, in the original game, it's located outside the map, beyond clouds) because the timeline is actually this: -Drakengard 3 (routes C and E); -Tokyo, 2003; -Nier; -Nier Automata (route C); -Drakengard 1. What if Brother One and his cult were the ones who came up with project Gestalt ? What if he's the reason the Gestalts became violent before the Shadowlord was thought of ? What if the Seeds are actually Emil's clones, that are harvested by the androids to be turned into angels/Watchers, with those who disobey being twisted into dragonhood ? What if the elves are actually of the same stuff Adam and Eve are made of ? Machines in android form. What if there were humans left ? What if Brother One hid them to start anew, should Gestalt fail ? Leading the Red eyed androids to decide they need to be exterminated ? What if that's why he was exiled from the church ? Because his red eyes were too similar to that of androids, meaning he could turn humans into bloodthirsty creatures too, the same way androids were ?

[@ohyaization]

Your cooking, however, red eyed androids, are androids that get infected with the logic virus. A virus put in place by the machine network. However android Number 9 (not 9S) put a backdoor system in and repurposed the logic virus so that it will automatically happen after a set period of time to start fresh with another batch of newer, better androids (project YoRHa). It was put in effect so androids wouldn't discover the truth about humanities extinction. I like where your head is at with Brother one. He could be Red eye himself, as brother one was the source of the red eye disease and could still be alive since we don't know how long intoners can live. The flower works like necromancy so he could absolutely be alive..... You sir got my brain turning

[@ohyaization]

Also, the reason brother 1 was exiled from the church was the second woman chosen to be the goddess seal was 1's former aid, many questioned it, and it caused a civil war to break out and he was exiled by the end. Despite this he went on to have family with a woman named Rosa, and he joined the cult high command later. But that is all that's really mentioned about him. Dang this is a juicy find

[@lukehighwalker8932]

Damn those secret of mana sounds hit different

[@pedro4464]

I swear to YoRHa, I've watched at least 7 videos explaining this specific plot point and only now I get it! I think...

[@justsomeslimewithoutalife8500]

So technically we the player had doomed humanity

[@thatgoshdarnblep2726]

This story is just too sad man😔

[@mohamedhersi7203]

I could be wrong but I remember reading somewhere that even after Gestalt Nier's death, humanity managed to linger on for a couple hundred more years but since replicants can't procreate how is that possible? Does that mean some gestalts were successful in rejoining with with their replicants

[@a.b.s.anonymousbastardofso9459]

There were a few cases where they were successful in uniting. But these cases were very rare.

[@ThBrando]

There are more Devola and Popola units than just the two in Replicant (For example the ones in Automata)

[@burlypenguin]

Love the work. Don't know if you care but the play order of NieR lore has ep 1 and 2 swapped

[@SlowMonoxide]

I think two really significant components of Devola and Popola utterly botching the situation with the two Niers is the heavy implication throughout the game that 1.) they have also begun to see at least rNier (if not all replicants probably, they do seem way less sympathetic to the others) and perhaps rYonah as actual people in their own right rather than just mindless placeholder clones, and 2.) that the twins also seem to feel guilty about stringing OGNier along for a thousand years, to the point that perhaps they felt they owed him some noninterference. They had a ton of points along the way in which they could have easily steered things in a myriad of different directions, and it seems very intentional that they just sort of pampered rNier by spinning him some righteous fairytale narrative to support his quest for his sister, and also gave rise to a situation where OGNier can get a sort of forced closure via being defeated by "himself"/his actual sister. They couldn't outright just abandon the project they knew full well had extremely small chances of success, but they absolutely gave the Niers every opportunity to screw everything up for emotional fulfillment.

[@Dharengo]

Since we play the game from the perspective of the Replicant, I cannot say that he did a bad thing. Neither he nor anyone else ever asked to be sacrifices for this flimsy scheme. Of course he’d choose to put his family (which includes Kainé at this point) first. I do not blame him at all.

[@OscarFowler]

Even more,t he replicants have no information about any of this. They're the least to blame for what happened. Not only were they simply defending themselves from what they (rightly) saw as an invasion, but they knew nothing about the true nature of those invaders and didn't have the history/science/background to truly understand any of it even if someone started explaining it to them. Once things started going wrong (maybe when the replicants started gaining sentience), it was really on either the androids, or, more correctly, the humans/gestalts to come up with a plan for reconciliation. They could have at least made an attempt to explain to some replicants what was happening so they could make a (better) informed decision.

[@Dharengo]

@@OscarFowler yeah but we knew what we were doing when we killed the Shadowlord. I’m saying I can’t view that as a bad thing either even if it does doom humanity.

[@fearnach]

@@OscarFowler Agreed, project Gestalt might have succeeded if the androids or Gestalts informed the replicants about it. I’m pretty sure at least a few of them would have been willing to cooperate, enough to revive human civilization.

[@OscarFowler]

@@Dharengo Nier (replicant) had just started to get a clue about the reality of the Shadowlord, but he knew nothing of the greater implications. He learned (just moments earlier) that the Shadowlord was somehow trying to save his own sister, but pretty much nothing else. Given his character as presented throughout the game, I'm sure replicant Nier would've given up his life and/or spared the Shadowlord if he knew the alternative was to doom both humanity and all of his kin.

[@Dharengo]

@@OscarFowler He knew that shades were humans. And why would he sacrifice himself AND his family for the sake of something vague like ‘humanity’? Why would _anyone_ willingly do that? It makes no sense. Do you not care for yourself or your family?

[@Liakopoulos123]

Here waiting for the government to anounce that the covid pandemic is out of hand and the only viable solution is to use project gestalt xD

[@kermitwithamustache3885]

Ah yes that time the worlds greatest scientists got a little too obsessed with Kingdom Hearts

[@johnrhogan2908]

WCS's symptoms sound veerryy familiar. Where have I heard those symptoms before.....

[@ryanprentice]

Thanks, this story is insane and very confusing.

[@SaltyCalhoun]

Hey, this actually answered most of my questions. But now I wonder, why couldn't Gestalts immediately go back into Replicant bodies? Like, why'd Shadelord have to wait to put his Yonah in Rep Yonah? What was the 1,000+ year wait for? Why couldn't the WPC 1,000+ years ago be like, "Oh you want the Replicant bodies for you and Yonah, Mr. Shadelord? Okay here ya go, now fuse the books" And make it a done deal? Wait, couldn't they just explain to Shadelord that fusing the books would auto-fuse Replicant with Gestalt? Wouldn't that solve his problems? Or does Replicanr + Gestalt fusion not cure the Black Scrawl anyway? Why didn't Devola and Popola separate Wiess from Rep Nier immediately if they knew he was incredibly important to saving humanity? I'm still confused...

[@Malign_Amara]

Most of it boils down to the fact that the Replicants and Androids needed that one thousand years to remove all of the maso from the world, or else when Project Gestalt was completed and the souls were restored to their bodies, the maso could still afflict some with White Chlorination, and the threat of the Legion would begin anew.

[@jasonsending865]

I'm a little confused about what relapse is. Are they just relapsing into a violent state?

[@FelipeOrlandi207]

Wait. How can Yonah be afflicted by the Black Scrawl in the beginning of the game if her and Nier ware from the general population? I thought only replicants could be affected by the disease, but they were human at the time. Am I missing something?

[@joaolima9622]

Touching Grimoire Noir forced Yonah to go Gestalt, just like the other ones Nier just faced.

[@lunascomments3024]

yonah immediately relapses by touching grimoir noar.

[@Stephen_Ito]

@@lunascomments3024 but then how yonah wasnt affected by WCS then ?

[@lunascomments3024]

@@Stephen_Ito white chlorination syndrome and relapsing from black scrawl are different thing. do you really read the story?

[@keylogram_3146]

@@lunascomments3024 my question is similar to his. If touching the book is the same as a replicant getting the black scrawl then it doesn’t make sense because the black scrawl is a result of a gestalt wanting to unite with their assigned replicant host but yonah in the intro is human already

[@grilledlettuce4028]

Got ending d yesterday this is perfect timing

[@sotheofdaein]

god i want a nier game set during the legion war, i feel like itd be so cool

[@notBrie]

The way Gestalt gets pronounced kills me every time.

[@lBorosDavidl]

I wonder... The gestalts were made from maso right? We (at least I) haven't seen how the legion looked like yet...What if the shades look exacly like them? And that's the reason they go out of control eventually

[@pi1448]

Legion members are just humans with red eyes. Like in Drakengard, where the humans under the Watchers' influence have regular bodies and red eyes (@4:44 there is a scene from Drakengard)

[@lBorosDavidl]

@@pi1448 But then why would red eye be called red eye if all of them has red eyes?

[@pi1448]

It's just a convention to refer to an, otherwise, unnamed entity. They all have red eyes, but the leader is called Red Eye and the rest is Legion.