Intro
The long un-logged Season 7. Denounced as 'too crazy to be worth logging', and often just abandoned, even by the playerbase. It only came to mind because events in it became relevant to a far distant game, that is, the Orionis campaign. So, I dug into it, wondering. What had I missed, or, was it really just a terrible waste of time? When I began, it had some pretty discouraging signs. The APN was long winded and boring to explain. The Quester Manifesto was a borderline fascist document that I would never have in the game today. And then all the sessions became repetitive slogs against groups of similar enemies, over and over again.But over time I came to see there was some information buried in here that had been ignored. Clues as to why players went rogue. Information about what could have been done better. And, accidentally, the blueprint for CONFRONTATION began here. So there was a lot more to see than I had expected. And I hope in reading this... you, too, can see that there is some information to find within the craziness. After all, there is a thin line between genius and insanity... and sometimes, the insanity loops backwards into something interesting.
But most of the time it's kinda tedious and annoying, so don't hesitate to skip around like I did!
Oh yeah, I'm supposed to reflect on how old I and SSQ are and stuff, since I keep repetitively doing that with every summary I do. Well, there comes a point where you get too old to be concerned with that, and that is now, so, there you go, I fulfilled that quotient. Onwards!
Plot Analysis
The Full Summary Of The SeasonI went to make a plot analysis just by typing it in here, but ultimately decided against it. I wrote better material while logging logs or re-reading them. So I've stitched that together to create a new, avant-garde, better plot analysis. Note I may seem to be speaking to you, the reader, more directly in this -- that is just a byproduct of the process that made it.
Though before we begin, I need to describe some things both in and out of the Season.
APN: Alliance of Planet Nintendus, specifically the governmental/military forces who are pro-Quester and run by Ivan Robotnik out of Eisnaught.
Nintendus: The main planet that the game takes place on. Not to be confused with any real world companies, because it's actually the future of Earth... well, Neo-Earth... well technically something else altogether, but that only occurs long past this season. Don't think too hard on it, it can give one a headache.
Eisnaught: A giant blue city of skyscrapers and futuristic stuff that spontaneously arose out of the ruins of Kuja's controlled Nintendus-world. (Note: We won't get in-depth on Kuja in this summary.)
Ganondorf: The King of the Gerudo, who despite gaining the Triforce of Power, retained human form. Thus he isn't really canon to anything you would expect.
Bowser: The King of the Koopa Troop, who lost his interest in the entire Mushroom Kingdom thing and appears to now mostly study obscure legal maneuvers to seize 'government owned land' he believes he is entitled to. Pretty much same case as Ganondorf, you could say he has nothing to do with any Bowser you might be familiar with.
SIMBER: An AI who was a blue shade, a man of non-important appearance, who guarded The Stadium that The Questers worked in.
Gunicard E-Light / Gaia Defense Station: A giant space station equipped with nukes that ostensibly served Ivan Robotnik but instead constantly went haywire. As a result, it caused more nuclear near-disasters than it ever would have prevented otherwise.
Ivan Robotnik: Uncle to Ivo Robotnik, the leader of Eisnaught and genius creator of many things, mostly governmental rather than robotic.
IIF: Ivan's Investigation Force, a group that went rogue and betrayed Ivan to instead work for Ivo Robotnik. Metal Man and the Questers then destroyed most of them with extreme prejudice, leaving only those who quit the group alive.
Ivo Robotnik: The Robotnik you might recognize from games such as Sonic Adventure 1 and 2; aka 'Eggman', however this Ivo is not particularly who he says he is. It's never clarified but the actual Ivo Robotnik was trapped in the X-Zone long ago in SSQ past, and therefore this person could not have any reason to exist. He has that person's memories but not their intelligence or mannerisms. Ergo, he is a quite effective duplicate, clone, or robot, but definitely not the real article. Stranger still, he was present in Season 6, where he had recruited Questers from the past to help steal Time Stones, and then... well it gets pretty complex, let's get to that later (or perhaps one should read the really long full summary of this season).
Shadow the Hedgehog: A triple agent who served Ivan Robotnik as leader of the IIF, then Ivo Robotnik, then The Fury and the Astral Realm as he worked to accelerate the 'cycle.' Also incredibly edgy, you could say this one is rather close to the one you see in the eponymous game. Sort of. Not as many swear words though.
Phantom Lords: Beings created based off of a 'cycle' that occurs continually, each cycle erases and rebuilds the entire planet. The Void was created by a prior one and the current 'Cycle' plots to create The Fury, who emerges, but incomplete. A concept you will see be forgotten by SSQ and fade away.
Astral Realm: The weird often completely lit-up or heavenly like realm that the beings of the Phantom Lords inhabit. Of course, there are cities here even though there are very few actual Phantom Lords, leading to speculation about Astral Beings we don't have time to go in to here. Yet another concept that vanishes and is forgotten even by the GM, after this era of seasons.
X-Zone: The weird often all-shadowy or unknown realm of chaos. It doesn't show up directly but was a place in the past where The Void came from and the original Ivo Robotnik was exiled to.
The Void: A being of chaos who destroyed Nintendus and countless other dimensions, including the one the original Ivo Robotnik came from's world. (He tends to also represent grammatically anarchic statements.) Inexplicably after Season 6, he 'combined' with Metal Man and helped lead the Questers.
The Fury: Evil Phantom Lord who was being 'created' to erase the Questers and Nintendus, he was not completed due to The Void meddling in this season. Variously pretended to be Ivo Robotnik, Julian Sawyer, and possessed an APN Employee who had gone rogue.
The Businessman: A Phantom Lord who was obviously created in a cycle much prior to The Void or The Fury. My own speculation is he was created in the cycle that ended Earth and created Neo-Earth. (As we already know Neo-Earth -> Nintendus was a Neo-Earthian / Solarian war, but he resembles a normal human in a business suit and we know that there was an Earth -> Neo-Earth calamity that destroyed Earth.) He makes deals, most of them awful and Faustian and magical in nature. His actions indirectly destroyed the world far away known as 'Star City', but we won't go into that until a different summary.
Metal Man: A being who claimed to be Illian MacGregor but obviously wasn't him, given away by the fact he didn't outright kill Aetos or Charles for betraying him. Rather gentle compared with how Illian behaved in Seasons 4-6, where he forced Charles to work for him and made it clear anyone who crossed him would die immediately. This kinder, gentler Metal occasionally gives way to differently chaotic violent impulses created by The Void, who he for some strange reason merged with. He also claimed to be Neo-Earthian.
Neo-Earth: The planet that is claimed to be the predecessor to Nintendus. To be exact, the series of planets went this way: Earth (destroyed in some sort of WWIII between the Three Powers) -> Neo-Earth (destroyed in a war between Neo-Earthians and Solarians) -> Nintendus 1.0 (destroyed by the emergence of The Void and later also Kuja becoming dictator) -> Nintendus 2.0 (The world of this Season.)
Solarians, Fake: The Solarians who emerged early on, summoned by Kuja, to kill the Questers. They were puppets who resembled real Solarians and may have even had their names, but were instead probably Genome bodies programmed to do specific roles and ONLY do Kuja's bidding.
Solarians, Real: None seen so far except as corpses or as Rathos Lell (or presumably Illian, but not likely due to Deep Lore not gone into here). These beings fought a war and died, trying to slay the Neo-Earthians.
Rathos Lell: The leader of the Slaughterer (a huge White Elephant class Solarian ship), he fought to destroy the Neo-Earthians until a blue laser killed his ship. Then he escaped years later thanks to the Questers, and became...
Metroid Rathos: A Metroid-Rathos Lell hybrid who used a prototype project from a Space Pirate ship to give himself a phazon-infused body. Sadly, this also marked a downhill trend where all plots to do with this character became rather stupid.
Phazon: Evil mutagenic chemical inspired by the one from Metroid Prime series which despite being name-dropped a lot didn't really have much reason to be included in this Season at all. (Especially since it had entirely different properties from the one people might expect -- what the heck?)
Illian MacGregor: A Solarian who pretended to be Metal Man in order to kill the 'fake Solarian' Kuja, neither he nor the one he destroyed are in this season.
Xavier Ridgecrest: An Erastian. What's an Erastian? Well I'll tell you in a later game's Summary (see: CONFRONTATION). But the most important part is the 'Metal Man' in this game is technically Xavier... amnesiac, so he didn't remember his name, and he had Illian's memories overlaid atop his own. So incredibly confusing, right? But at least I've mentioned it here.
Revenant Ruvyn: Fallen Quester who was revived to be Kuja's Commander, who then died again and was resurrected and possessed by Kuja's spirit fragments, who tried and failed to revive Kuja to prevent a 'Time Catastrophe' that only Kuja could have prevented (but he couldn't ultimately do it) and then ultimately died permanently.
CAL: Challenge Arena League. A battle meant to distribute some random AK-47s and extra cash Julian didn't need anymore, at the expense of forcing everyone to brutally kill eachother in an arena over and over again for his entertainment. When it wasn't brutal, it was also boring. Ultimately forgotten.
??? AKA Sephiroth: Hanging plot thread from the past of SSQ, technically Sephiroth was summoned to aid 'The Thirteen Gentlemen' of a past plot. All you need to know is he was really angry about The Planet and had no clue what else to do, and was some sort of spirit-form that flit about like a shadow, not really having a major role.
Mages Council: A group of Mages meant to prevent the Cycles of the Phantom Lords from repeating. Summoned most likely at Ivan's behest, but quickly went rogue just like the IIF. Unlike the IIF, they continued policing Nintendus, but in a heavy-handed way that involved destroying people's houses and being gaslighting jerks. They did not trust the Questers because The Void was a Phantom Lord.
Starting off, we discuss the three main outliers of this season. Julian, Charles, and Aetos. They did not participate in the main plot, preferring to create their own. Therefore, it is meaningless to try to integrate what they did with the main plot, and must be discussed separately. I will not repeat my past descriptions of who they are / how they came to be beyond what occurs in this season (or is relevant in future/past seasons); it is more concise to let what they did speak for itself.
With regards to Julian Sawyer, it was as follows. Season 7 was not actually planned to be a story on how your source of wisdom changes who you are, but it became one. Julian opted to ignore all others after seeing the violent success of The Void at ruling alongside "Metal" as a less destructive but still menacing Illian-like. (Illian being the violent imposter leader of Season 6 who had replaced 'Metal'/Xavier as leader while pretending to be him.) The CAL (Challenge Arena League, established by Julian putting up some random coins and garbage he had on hand as a reward if people fight according to his terms) similarly creating this logic that one merely needed to fight their way to the top to demand respect rather than being someone who treated anyone with respect. It fizzled after it became clear it was more of a chance to be cruel to eachother than to seriously determine who was the best at anything.
And in the end, the CAL was just there to humor Julian's player. He had no real interest in the actual plot of this Season, so it would have been better to just let him take the whole season off rather than waste time on yet another boring set of PvP matches.
When he DID participate in the season, Julian was still somewhat of a blank slate at the time character-wise, and the... shaky, chaotic and at times avoidant behavior of the Early-Xavier Metal crossed with The Void made for inconsistent and weak leadership. Julian learned his 'leadership' in SSQ^2 from precisely this behavior. But he shoulda realized that was a failure. This season was all about how Metal's actions were basically not leadership at all.
I was trying to show how one 'should' do things and then failing, but in a way that made the failures realistic. For example, the point where the Season 7 version of Metal crushes Charles' fist in reaction to being attacked by him. Julian was doing a warped, even more useless version of that. Season 7 was a sort of transitional era between ultra-violence Illian and modern Xavier, thus 'Neo-Earthian Xavier' who had an identity crisis of behaving sometimes like Illian, sometimes like classic Metal Man, sometimes like Xavier, and sometimes literally just summoning The Void and letting him do it instead.
Encountering 'Metal' was dangerous: it was a roll of the dice as to who or what responded to any interaction. Some people would bully him, only for the same people to nearly die later on for saying one awkward thing out of turn. Then, perhaps a max mushroom would be applied, as it was with Charles. All to then hide what had just happened. There was this brutal Invincible or The Boys-esque logic at work. That's what made this Metal so dangerous and unpredictable. And in turn, what influenced Julian's mercurial behavior later on.
Was Metal violent? Was he not? Was it actually The Void? People felt safe trying to kill him only to discover they picked the wrong day. Charles tried to murder him over supposedly leaking a dark secret. It's just it being the Stadium with SIMBER there, there was no need to actually lift a finger. One could have asked SIMBER to literally remove gravity from Charles and have him harmlessly swing at air. And just have Metal go, "I am disappointed in you, Charles, we are only supposed to kill eachother in Melee Matches." Or perhaps "And you rejected that perfectly good chance to do so earlier to do this. If I have offended, so be it, but keep it in the ring.'
Of course, Julian spent most of the season away, possibly because this Season had a very hostile edge to it. But as you can see, Charles did not spend so much time away from it, so he even invaded the discussion I made about Julian. So we pivot to him and his 'influence' (or lack thereof) on this Season.
Charles / Locos / Maester was at one time a potential Quester leader, "friend" to Metal and considered at times somewhat visionary, but early on drank poisonous purple Mega Mack (from that level in Sonic 2) and went insane, and it went downhill from there. He always had strange side stories where he did things that usually didn't do much of anything valuable. The main trick to them is they always seemed like they were building up to an actual purpose... then the time would come and none would be given.
In the old days, this was also how I GMed, but as the years went on, it grew increasingly old that he refused to ever pick any purpose for the things that happened. That is, while also claiming they were of dire importance. He only cared if he could ruin others' days. And he did -- that is, the day of anyone who wanted a consistent plot for SSQ.
Charles was variously cured and uncured over and over again until his post-death Maester form admitted he did whatever he felt like and that incident with him being poisoned had only lasted about a few days. Since his Unsent form had no body to be poisoned, so. If it had been the poison, he would have been cured!
Charles did a lot of things on the side in this Season, but they won't be relevant until Season 8. Other than dancing groovily and creating clones of himself during the Time Catastrophe Event, which, while funny, contributed nothing to the actual plot. The other things I will go into depth as a prelude to Season 8's summary. After all, this summary is already way too long. Irrelevant plot details can be saved for when they actually become relevant. Continuing the themes I mention here though, this was all to humor Charles' player... and just like with Julian, that was a total waste of time.
As for Aetos, a telling moment occurs around Chapter 297. That was when the death warrant for Charles and Aetos both were signed. Since The Void was merged with 'Metal', and ultimately The Void took care of Aetos in order to avoid the fact Metal didn't want to get 'his' hands dirty, while he had no problem dealing with Charles. And of course, The Void was right there, due to being merged with Metal.
So The Void could have confronted Aetos and went "If I consider him worthwhile enough to share my existence with, then why would you reject him? You considered my wisdom the only truth in Season 6, yet you desert me now?" It could have been inverted entirely with The Void noting that he knew best and Aetos should continue to support him by supporting the Questers, even noting "The Questers have spent this time attacking all authority figures without mercy. Why are you upset?" And if he brought up the APN The Void could have laughed and went "THEY JUST GOT THROUGH LITERALLY KILLING THE APN'S ONLY INDEPENDENT INVESTIGATIVE BRANCH!"
But Aetos didn't aid The Void so much as use him as an excuse to do whatever he felt like. In response to a later log when Aetos goes on about how he should be exempt from 9/10 of the Manifesto, the simplest thing to ask is "Why is Aetos special?" Indeed, it was within Metal's rights to just warp him home. Why shouldn't he? While Aribar claimed Aetos was of critical importance, that was factually wrong. Aetos only ever caused problems. If he had never joined the Questers, they would have been better off for it. (To name a few things Aetos has done: Aided The Void, alerted Kuja to the Questers' presence in Season 6, and allied with Ivo Robotnik in this Season.)
The weirdest part is that Metal had no problem ignoring Aribar's qualms about reviving Neo-Earth, yet listened when it came to Aetos. Seriously, there was no point in listening. Aetos certainly didn't listen to anyone. The other Questers wouldn't have most likely wanted him to be revived either. And Metal could go, "See? It's not fair to the other Questers. Forget about me, THEY don't want him either." Instead, Aetos would live on... and never really accomplish anything other than annoying people enough they wanted to kill him, multiple times.
Aetos primarily just caused chaos. He picked a fight with Shadow just because he wanted to cause problems, he tried to aid Ivo solely to cause problems, and he made up stuff about how he wanted to protect the environment in order to cause even more problems.
This all is why the plot couldn't really develop too far in this Season. I incorrectly chose humor the people who were mostly there to cause problems, so I never thought deeply enough on my actual plot to make it coalesce into something interesting. Remember: you may wish to please everyone, but actually attempting to do it... is direly foolish. Especially if some of those people don't care about you and solely take a transactional approach to interpersonal interactions.
Moving on to the actual main plot... Season 7's main plot is the political implications of a world with functional governance handling the potential advantages and threats of metahuman / superhumans running around. It wasn't a season about Ivo Robotnik, but rather about the way a functional planet's governments handle this situation. Ivo Robotnik more or less was a means to continually stress test the system. The real value of reading anything about it is pointing out the accidentally insightful results of this interaction, as the Ivo Robotnik plot has been superseded by later plots in SSQ history.
This plot would have been much more coherent if the threads were done in sequence instead of alternating. The few times they go back-to-back with the same story it is much more understandable. It would have helped if I had a recap of the story thread, as I'm not the only one with many A-plots and B-plots going at once, it's just this would be where the all too important 'here are some scenes we should remind you of BEFORE THIS SESSION EVEN BEGINS' would have gone.
E.G. every Mages Council thread does indeed build up to a concept that they aren't just crazy people but intentionally gaslighting the Questers to try to throw them off from their true mission knowing the Questers have a Phantom Lord amongst them (and thus, count strictly as a 'foe' to their plans.) Similarly, the IIF is not a mystery if you string together all the Gunicard and APN missions to get the idea that the Questers were hired at the last moment and not actually expected to be useful by Ivan. (He instead had planned to protect the planet without them, expecting them to be too traumatized to resume combat after the war with Kuja.)
Or in the case of the Neo-Earth + Metroid Rathos + Rand, there was a coherent thread about issues of immortality and how different people handled it, and the danger that old literally toxic stuff poses to the new. Similarly, Tingle with the Keyblade + the weird Sephiroth things are a continuation of a much older plot involving the Sword of Darkness and how Nintendus is haunted by evil.
Then the most boring plot (that also intersects the IIF and then thankfully ends) is that Ganondorf and Bowser are mad they aren't the main bad guys and so do a bunch of random annoying things as a desperate cry for help.
Oh, and Nintendus Ivo Robotnik's shadow, robot clone or time-displaced alternate (it's never actually explained) is out to get revenge on the Questers and the world for letting the actual person rot in the X-Zone, utilizing the Time Stones (I believe the original plan would have been to free himself, but things go awry and he pulls an Eggrobo, deciding he IS the real Eggman)
...And then also yet again there's the plot about the Phantom Lords and how things went awry because The Void was supposed to die and clear the way for The Fury, and because The Void is there everything went to hell. This is a separate plot from the Mages Council per se because the Mages Council interact on a strictly need to know basis while The Void as a Phantom Lord member as well as The Businessman spill the tea endlessly and The Fury eventually gets ganked due to them both hating him.
So if you read it in order, it makes zero sense because the crossover between these is incidental. Ivo hates Phantom Lords, but only because they're 'in the way.' Mages Council is strangely unconcerned about anything other than their specific threat which they don't do much about because they don't get proper screen time doing their actual jobs most of the time. The Phantom Lords are disconnected from everything else because they only show up in order to cause battles with certain Questers. And most importantly, Neo-Earth, Gunicard and Metroid Rathos mostly just like to screw with people rather than coherently interact with anything properly. (I'm still a bit sour past me never used the giant blue laser of doom to blow up the Moon or the Gravity Egg!)
Conclusion: SSQ 1's Book 2's earlier seasons were not probably as bad as hyped up to be, as they were just... done in a way to be hard to decipher. Ironically, it was my early attempts at a unified plot that sucked the most, because they contained everything and nothing. I think the memories were just clouded by the most ridiculous things like Saturn Coffee overshadowing and being over-remembered when in reality Season 7 was pretty serious most of the time.
Some people who pretended to be 'masters of game mastering' back then liked to gaslight me into thinking I couldn't really do serious plots so they could do their own. They made me confuse the lesser mistakes I made in this Season for being greater than they really were. The actual mistake was to waste time handling ICly what was an OOC issue.
As the three characters I mentioned earlier (Aetos, Charles, and Julian) were... the main people doing things outside of the plot, and also the main group causing trouble. If I imagine Season 7 without those characters, I think it would have made a lot more sense. My full summary goes to pains to ignore 90% of what that group did when it wasn't the main plot, and even the times when it WAS the main plot... it wasn't very good. And this is primarily because their plots were closed. Nobody else could interfere, nobody else could comment, if you had anything happen to you, it was pre-determined or set by them. It was not up to the standards of what the game was supposed to be, and should have never happened inside of the season.
Of course the most ridiculous part being... I don't believe the PEOPLE behind these characters are incapable of doing things well, nor do I think they're bad people. This is an important distinction that past me couldn't make. Then in the... non-interfered-with Season 7, AKA the latter part (because ultimately I got fed up and ignored what they were doing for the latter half of the season, mostly)... It made for a far, far better experience for the others, who, we have to remember, it was at their expense whenever people were wasting time to talk about how cool their specific character was. (Of course I will also include myself in that one, given the Neo-Earthians said they were the ultimate tough guys, then did NOTHING against Ivo when he attacked!)
As for the swearing, it was pretty simple. Normally swearing was banned, but everyone in the game became older and older, and the plots became more edgy and destructive. So it was agreed to drop the ban. The result? Alas, many childish people having their characters swear endlessly. I should have phased in swearing slowly instead.
A loose end to be noted, too: I solved the Eldorado plot hole by having Wolfman attack and eventually defeat Eldorado, who then canonically died, but had no effect on the Wolfman there, when the lies about him being Wolfman would suggest Wolfman should have died from destroying his 'past' self.
Also on the Cycles: The Void technically failed to stop the cycle because the Cycle he was erroneously seeing was beyond even him. It was not a Phantom Lord Cycle but a Time Cop cycle. The Phantom Lords were enemies of the Time Cops and trying to escape the Time Cop Cycle, but couldn't because they were beings controlled by the Time Cops' shenanigans...
The weirdest part is Sephiroth is a major part of it who never is named on screen. He probably had some important role in my head, but I never delivered on it, so ultimately he was just a distraction who shouldn't have been included.
This whole Season was a discussion with myself. What is the value of power? Can anyone make an effective government? Are nukes nothing more than a problem? Does any of the old SSQ stuff deserve to be remembered? And what makes Robotnik tick, anyways? Very avant-garde, in an accidental fashion. In trying to emulate a traditional plot but run by someone who thought very differently, it became a deconstructed view.
"Well, these parts do go together, but they've been separated to explore their individuality for some reason..."
Thus, on a meta level, it was not telling the story to tell the story, but rather, to understand how stories were made and the individual compartments.
Also, CONFRONTATION could have happened yet even earlier. Illian was big friends with the Solarians and Sardis Mongul, while Xavier had these Neo-Earthians, and the two were hated enemies who you keep seeing in ruins with corpses of eachother after epic battles occurred over Nintendus. So the SSQ 1 CONFRONTATION would be Sardis Mongul's Solarian fleet vs. the Neo-Earthian cities.
Unlike the more conventional-ish war between Erastians and Solarians, it would be a weird case where the Neo-Earthians were borderline Protoss-like vs. the less advanced but deadly Solarians. Thus huge amounts of Solarians fighting en masse against outnumbered but insanely overpowered Neo-Earthian settlements. The Neo-Earthians looked at the Solarian Machine as an easy weapon to replicate and successfully replicated it without the defects in their systems. They had a fully operational one they used until it ran out of power attacking Solarians. And apparently they also had planet destroying flesh-eating nanites and mass teleporters that could send enemy armies directly into the sun. The 'war' was unending numbers of Solarians trying to exhaust these horrifying superweapons with sheer numbers.
The entire reason the Neo-Earthians eventually were destroyed was they became incredibly blase` about using these weapons, reducing all the land around them to magenta sand. With no ability to really generate food, water, or anything else past a point, the entire planet at one point being reduced to nothing but that sort of dust, they went into stasis. They specced so heavily into weapons there was nothing else left.
The Neo-Earthians ruled over the extreme north of the planet, which may be due to the rest of the planet already being so destroyed even Neo-Earthians couldn't live on it. I presume that horrific 'light side' of Nintendus (mentioned in the weird plot of Charles') was also a different area that Neo-Earthians had basically annihilated. As due to weird results, the Light Side of Nintendus had abnormal gravity and abnormal sunlight, probably no atmosphere at all. So dangerous was it that even Nintendians, Ivo Robotnik and even Kuja ignored it.
Instead of using the Neo-Earthians after revealing their super death laser... the plot became a weird deconstruction of "OH NO THE ENEMY IS POWERFUL WHAT WILL WE DOOOO?" Ramsey becomes The Fury. Metal says they must somehow contain him, but he is so powerful nobody can easily do that. Metal turns into The Void and begins throwing random objects at him. The other Questers decide to also throw random objects at him. The Fury gets KO'd because so many objects keep hitting him. It's like that Speedrun where the final boss gets bodied by that village. Literally the entire game just goes "I've had it up to here with all powerful demigods!"
As I point out weird plot holes / events, another strange one is Ivo... Ivo gloated about his new battle station: The Gravity Egg! When the Time Stones were shattered, the heat energy was used to power the Gravity Egg, thus causing it to retain all the power of the destroyed stones. Aribar explained thermodynamics to Ivo, but Ivo noted he had plenty of batteries. Digi wondered if he had a million AA batteries, and so do I, because how on Nintendus would he store enough power to replace the Time Stones after the heat went away?
Yeah. Ivo apparently only cared about the heat energy instead, for some bizarre reason.
Then there's the case of that 'Trevor' AI thing, which also showed up with Charles' weird side thing. Perhaps because he was mostly terrorizing Charles, the APN didn't yet consider it the largest problem, until it was rather late and Metal was busy handling it.
And another plot hole I realized. Late in the Season, Ivo is trying to 'combine' The Moon with Nintendus to make a larger planet. (Yes, it makes as much sense as it sounds.) If the Nintendus Moon hit the Light Side, the Light Side was so destructive, it might actually have destroyed the moon. Similarly, the Gravity egg could only protect the Moon while it was near the Gravity egg; but without any functional Gravity Weapon (the same Weapon that was so powerful even Neo-Earthian ships were unable to get near the Gravity egg)... It should be a sitting duck.
Once again, the Neo-Earthian blue laser could have just solved the plot, but didn't. Or for that matter, to go into some Deep Lore, Neglected Mario Characters was A Thing, so Bill the Extra Guy could have just Extra Moved the Moon. (If that makes no sense... I've already explained a lot, uh, don't worry about it.) In this less plot holey version of Season 7, you might even see an alternate ending where Ivo tries to kill The Businessman and technically the Questers have to stop it solely because it's the only way to help ensure Nintendus isn't destroyed by the fallout. Ivo would once again not care about collateral damage and go "I don't care that this person is holding Nintendus together with his 'deals', he crossed the line! I will rebuild Nintendus in my image anyways!" And probably WOULD steal a Neo-Earthian superweapon, or capture 'Rand', or work with Metroid Rathos... anything to get at the person who ruined his plan.
Oh, and that moon thing? It was resolved by not talking about it anymore. Nobody put the moon back in place. It literally just got left there in the weird twilight zone where it was almost falling into Nintendus' atmosphere. Ivo blew up the Gravity Egg using the last energy it had to contain The Fury and didn't move the moon like he said he would. And mysteriously stopped talking about The Moon when he attacked on Turion. Remember: The plot claimed they had to defeat Ivo to stop The Moon from illogically crashing. Then he said he was on their side, but HE needed Gunicard's power to stop it. Then he took Gunicard's power, and used it to trap The Fury and escape while blowing up the Gravity Egg, and DID NOT do anything to the moon.
And of course, it is canon that the moon gets involved, quite extensively. Multiple moons, thanks to Charles. Turion means technically we indirectly referenced at least four moons.
Also the main thing that is learned is Everyone is Crazy. Even Aribar! He had no reason to revive Aetos yet he did. Even if he did, the route he went was insane. The Void working with Metal was crazy even by The Void's standards. Meanwhile, we see Wolfman pouring beer on a frozen in time Sky High, in case we thought Wolfman was gonna be sane. He also is seen talking to a door that lacks any intelligence or microphones. Gibby eats poisonous control panels and goes mad trying to hit Ivo. The less time dedicated to Aetos, Charles, Julian, and Xavier's insanity, the better.
Dragoshi's part involves saying the word 'looper' a lot, swearing, summoning a hole in reality to do with Walruses, and *swears in Draconic* Also choking people with his tail. There WAS some political discussion... but it all resolved in a such a way to instead make it look like a bunch of lunatics. Can't particularly take Aetos' case too seriously when they literally gave some wine to a drunkard who then became a God and shot lightning into his grave to insta-revive him. Or Shadow helping create 'the cycle' even though it would mean Nintendus would be destroyed -- including him. Similarly, the Neo-Earthians destroyed the threatening nature of most non-galactic threats.
Ivo Robotnik fooled the Questers time and time again. Literal holes in reality were made that damaged other realms and caused future grief for Dragoshi and Metal. Questers from Season 6 warped into this future and aided Ivo who then in turn had actually had all the Time Stones from the beginning, fooling the Questers ever more. The AI that was supposed to protect the world, Gunicard, also fooled the Questers for good measure. As did Bowser, Ganondorf, Aetos, Charles Magellean, Revenant Ruvyn, Julian, Sky High, Aribar, the Neo-Earthians, Metal Man, The Businessman, The Void, The Ninja, and probably several others I didn't remember to name here.
Speaking of Fools, there was the Ninja, who was much like a certain character in Soul Eater. A wacky Ninja who kept announcing his presence to the enemy and using 'honor' with said incredibly dishonorable Ivo Robotnik. He also had a lot of puns to make. A minor presence in the season, but an interesting one nonetheless. It was through his wackiness that the Moon ended up permanently stuck on the edge of Nintendus (at least until Season 13 when The Book ended the world. Barring me finding something in Season 8 or 9, of course!) At least he wasn't as annoying as he was in some other Seasons.
In the end, it was the inflection point. The transition from classic SSQ to modern SSQ. It defined what/who Xavier would be; and it also was the first major season where the troublemakers were considered troublemakers instead of just allowed to make a mess (or banned OOCly and ignored). It is a colossal amount of baggage, but the reward for looking at it... is to get a good idea at a glance what SSQ is, was, or would be.
Wordle
The concept of Wordle is now dead and buried. No one will understand what program I used to make this image. But imagine if you will, a program that took word counts and showed it prettily on the screen. Now you know.
For this one, I decided to just make the image as large as I could, in case future monitors are really huge. Anyways, the contents of this ginormous thing are as follows: Metal, The Void, Gibby, Aetos, Charles, Gunicard E-Light, Dragoshi, Julian, Ivo Robotnik, Aribar Wolf, Digi, Kuja (guess Ruvyn couldn't stop talking about him), Trigger, The Wraith, Gumbo the Goomba, to name a few. Oh, and Rathos Lell, the least relevant plot person ever.
Even rarely seen characters are visible in this new and improved mega-block of text. But some other concepts we see are Smash Dexes, Questers, evil, good (good has far more presence than evil in this case), computers, fires, destruction, people going 'damn', coins, power, walls, the concept of people (I need to remove that word, it shows up every time), ships, Egg (blame Ivo Robotnik for that one), Turion, space, energy, 'NOW', APN, Nintendus, the X-Zone, flying, buildings, death, that annoying IIF group, SIMBER, swords, technology, Solarians, missions, elevators, the CAL, god(s), Time Stones, councils... problems... you get the idea. It's all there.
Pretty much most of what is in the summary does show up in here, which is kind of rare. Normally the Wordle makes me look like a fool. What people actually talk about usually differs so much that it's a different world to talk about. But I don't feel quite so foolish given Charles, Aetos, and Julian are all big time parts of the discussion in the word count for this season. They overshadow the discussion about planets, space, power... basically control. The entire season was all about a battle for planets and machines, and mastery over time. The Questers themselves were front and center, with only Ivo really being able to rival them for attention.
I already went over to an extreme degree these concepts in the plot analysis so that should be good enough.
Top 10% of the Season
33 logs. 3.3, so 3 to pick, maybe an extra one if I want. What should I pick though? Probably not those boring early chapters... kinda hard to tell which is 'best', though, as technically they're all pretty wacky.Number 3: Chapter 307: Gravity Egg Part III: Furious Fakeout
A general potpourri of bizarreness. Gibby eats a control panel made out of poisoned chocolate. There's another control panel made out of cardboard. Wolfman tries to talk a lifeless door into opening. A mirror randomly shatters for no reason. Ivo Robotnik's scheme to combine the moon with Nintendus backfires so badly he allies with a Quester (The Ninja) to try to salvage the operation. Then The Fury attacks for seemingly no reason other than his belief that the Moon destroying Nintendus would complete 'The Cycle' and make him whole! Then that just goes away and everyone forgot the Moon, leaving it perilously close to the surface for the rest of SSQ 1!
Yeah. This is pretty much status quo for this season, but this log is good at giving you all of it at once so you don't have to read 30+ chapters to get the general flavor. Still, main downside is there isn't much else to this session, so it may be quite lively, but it doesn't leave much else behind other than bizarreness.
Number 2: Chapter 296: The Time Calamity, Part 2: Wrath of the Eggman
THE infamous session, the one where Charles leaps into a portal and his clones dance to Smooth Criminal while Julian tries and fails to kill them all with a baseball bat. The Time Stones are blown up, the 'Time Disaster' occurs (but somehow fails to destroy the world), the events in here end up also becoming the foundation of a later plot in which the Questers are blamed (correctly) for causing time distortions to destroy Star City.
Then there's an evil gravestone that summons Sephiroth for no reason even though it said it was Zio's tombstone! Also Julian says the obvious and notes 'Why are we standing in this graveyard?' Oh, speaking of that, Ivo technically wins. He wanted the Time Stones destroyed and he blew up the Questers so bad The Businessman had to resurrect them, and the whole visit to the graveyard helped make it all the more obvious that technically they had lost.
However, it is limited to just those things, so I can't say it's the best chapter of this season. The peak occurs rather early and then it starts to level off pretty quickly.
Number 1: Chapter 294: The IIF Conspiracy
This was one of the few times everyone got to play a relevant role. Even Julian! That's right, it IS possible for him to be a part of the plot. Just rather rare.
Anyways, the IIF has framed Julian utilizing Bowser / Ganondorf as patsies to pretend that Julian was 'attacking' them in an incident best described as 'farcical' and fake. Somehow this turns into the IIF using this false trial they have set up to try to justify destroying all the Questers. Despite all of the aces up their sleeves, the IIF fail to understand the lawyering ability of the evil murderer ex-Quester Phantom, who is clearly Chaotic Evil, not Chaotic Stupid, and therefore has no problem figuring out all the loopholes in the legal system.
In the classic stopped clock phenomenon, these also happen to be the actual problems with the IIF's logic, and the judge pretty much agrees. We see the first and possibly only time that the legal system functions in Book 2 SSQ 1 plots. And that's not counting the other aspect, in which the IIF horrifically underestimates the firepower of those who defeated Kuja's army, and also are shown to have allied with Ivo -- a very unreliable partner. All in all, it works as a good example of how bureaucratic evil can be rather foolish and inept. And as a bonus, it helps explain who The Wraith is at the end. Also The Wraith is more interesting to see drunk than sober... much like it's more interesting to see Julian actually talking instead of violently killing foes.
Oh, and unlike most organizations, the IIF actually attacks Quester HQ, a first in a long time, since before them it was Kuja way back in Season 4 that bothered to do that (I guess Kales trying to conquer the ruins of Quester HQ in Season 5 might count? But not really? Even he didn't know where he was.) As much as indirect stuff can be neat, it gets old over time, especially all these foes who claim to want to beat the Questers but never try to destroy the place they heal and regenerate at.
Cast Listing
While this is more of a symbolic thing (given the automatic, often properly updated Cast page I have) it still can provide a source of funny quotes!Chapter 277
Digifanatic - Quester - *Times for the guy have been very interesting since Kuja and The Void's defeats. He has since made a stop to Earth and his home area for a few days, where he was warmly welcomed by his friends and family (considering Metal let him get away with that). More than happily, he has finally gotten himself a computer again in his room (not owning one during S6 for not wanting to use Kuja-endorsed products, of course), but more on that later* "Well, time to go..."
Trigger - Quester - "Good thing the ESRB isn't here."
Kuja's Ghost - Past Enemy - "You have always been under my control... everything you have done is my will... now bow to it, or die!"
Aribar - Quester - "...I can get you the nuke, but on one condition."
Gibby - Quester - "...And -this- is chocolate. And -I- am hungry!"
Star Steel - Past Quester - "Let's kill him already."
Ivan Robotnik - APN Leader - "He's lost it, for sure... that moon will cause far more damage than it will add land... And even if it does crash... it's poised to hit mostly deserted areas. What COULD he be really planning? I've seen a variety of fake plans... none of which, no matter how enthusiastically followed, wind up being executed in full. It must be something really important..."
Metal Man - Quester Leader - "Damn, man, this isn't any TIME for your properness #(!&. We're all going to DIE if we sit back and ask if it's right or not."
SIMBER - Quester Ally - "Will the lowly shyguy destroy Julian's ankle?"
Julian Sawyer - Quester - "...So what back-asswards draw we get that Sky gets chosen to be the God? Who's he runnin' 'gainst, Danish Dan?"
Charles Magellean - Rogue Quester - "Oooookay... where are we gonna find a plastic baggie big enough to put this in?"
Dragoshi - Quester - "...If only we had two walruses!"
Wolfman - Quester / Former Quester Leader - "I was hoping the beer would purify him or something. I didn't want to get shocked."
Toad - Toad Town Resident - *Points off to the East* "You can just take the warp pipe."
Another Toad - Port Destiny Resident - "Not very far. Just north of here."
Eldstar - Leader of the Star Spirits - "...The years and years of which it was missing cannot quite be repaired so easily... it is safe now, but it is but an inanimate carbon rod for reasons unknown to us... Perhaps work to bring hope into this world is required."
Aetos - Rogue Quester - "Rule number three: Aetos will not participate in any activities that may cause harm to the planet of Nintendus."
Mr. Saturn - Saturn Valley Resident - "FrEe CoFfEe fOr AlL! bOiNg!"
Chapter 278
Talon - Lon Lon Ranch Resident - "Why, it's nice to see all of you ever since... how long has it been?"
Smash Dex - Quester Tool - "...Strange. No Quester has talked to thin air before."
Ganondorf - King of the Gerudo - "How dare you listen to my laughter so closely... I'd slash you in two if I hadn't already activated Robotnik's targeting sensor on Gibby."
The Wraith - Quester - "Terrorists? PAH! Look who's callin' da kettle black! Shaddup, and go BYE BYE! BYYYYYE BYYYE!"
Kamui - Quester? - *Turns around, looking towards Digi tilting his head to the side. He then brings his left hand up, motioning the same old odd sign language* [I am Kamui.]
Ganondorf 2 - Stupidest Thing I Came Up In This Entire Season - "Fools! You have triggered my rune. Even though that ranch will be safe from my encroaches... you will be unable to die to me in contact as you wish!"
Dr. Light - Quester Ally - "...This is unexpected. It appears the warp system has been picking up hitch-hikers in need of thrills and fighting from across the multiverse."
Chapter 279
Garrick Fy`aar - Quester - "Ahh, nothing like a good Ball Peen, huh?"
Peddler - Toad Town Resident - *Quirks a brow* "Then you either just entered the road or have been walking from Lon Lon ranch, which is actually worse. The milk trade is rather busy there."
??? - Gunicard Scientist - "I will have to live here for now. I hope you don't mind?"
??? #2 - Kuja Infantry Revivalist - "The Kuja Infantry have been scattered, but we will rise up again."
??2 - Kuja Infantry Revivalist - "We must coordinate our people to rebuild what was once Kuja's for ourselves; even if our God is dead... we deserve it."
Monk1 - Temple of Time Resident - "We are the order of the Triforce. We ensure it is to never be stolen again. What brings you to this most holy place?"
Chapter 280
Bob, Lord of Electric Death - Charles' Ally - "...Gajoob? Bloogah? Zaquad? Do you understand that?"
Gerald Robotnik? - Charles' Memory - "You stare too hard, Locos."
Kales Brando? - Charles' Memory - "You must let him loose... it is your only hope. Otherwise you shall just die a short and worthless existance here."
Valhalla Computer - Charles' Computer - "Welcome back, Aetos. Is there anything I can do for you?"
Guy - Port Destiny Civillian - "Are you the Q-q-q-q-questers?"
Nadra Liah - Mages Council Member - "Hah. If I were around, Kuja would have died twenty times before you ever came back!"
Dr. Mario - Quester "Ally" - *Gets a saw, a hammer, and an electric probe* "This will-a take a while-a."'
Announcer - Nefarious Secret Announcing Mr. Saturn - "Curses! Foiled again!..."
Fan/Crowd - Stadium Audience - "Oohhhh!! Scary!!"
Chapter 281
E Li Three - Metal Temple Resident - "Well, that's nice. Drink any odd liquids recently?"
Syaoran - Quester? - "What the hell... I was at home... training... and now I'm where ever this is."
Chapter 282
The Businessman - Phantom Lord - "That will cost you an arm, Aetos. A leg if you want to do it whenever you want. I can throw in your firstborn child for the ability to detect lies through walls."
F.A.Y.T.H. - Charles' Ally - "...It appears our attempt to stop Kuja failed. Most of my excess power was lost in the attempt. What remains is enough to maintain our base and continue exploration of this moon."
Ricky Koopa - Charles' Ally - "We can always bum a ride off of the Quester's own teleporter."
Sky High - Quester "Ally" / God of Turion - *Wanders in on the arena* "Wow... this looks like a fight here!"
Chapter 283
Spear - Aetos' Tool - "Beep. Gorons live in that mountain. Beep. It is also the site of ruins of the former Quester Hunters. Nothing of interest."
Saria - Sage of the Forest - "...I never quite met him, but he came in and destroyed the harmony of the forest long ago."
Kappa - Gerald Robotnik Tool - "Unit Kappa activated. Scanning surroundings... unknown hostile detected. Must find Gerald Robotnik. Must find Gerald Robotnik."
Alexia - Quester - "I, uh, kinda popped in at Shooting Star Summit. Still don't know how."
Chapter 284
VG - Quester / Former Quester Leader - "Just like old times, right Wolfman?"
Lashiec - Charles' Memory - *Appears before Charles, like all the others.* "The right thing? Hah! You're clearly out of your mind."
Ivo Robotnik - Eggman Empire Leader - *PA* "Trying to break into my base, aren't you? I'll make you regret this!"
The Void - Quester "Ally" / Phantom Lord - *Picks up a piece of paper and draws a large circle... then makes it into a hoop... and divides it into 10 sections. He writes strange glyphs on the first and second.* "This is a portion of the infinitely repeating history of everything."
Chapter 286
Infantry1 - Kuja Infantry Revivalist - "We are Kuja's orphans."
Revenant Ruvyn - Kuja Commander Revivalist - "Only Kuja... could defeat Time itself."
Chapter 287
Jin Tetrad - Mages Council Member - "Well, I had some difficulties. A time traveling jerk stole it with the assistance of a Quester."
Tirk Tovnic - Mages Council Leader - "And stop eating people's houses, Jin... that's just rude!"
Blue-robed figure - Charles' Ally - "Where is he? Where is the half-Lunarian?"
Chapter 289
Professor Oak - Quester Ally - *Wanders in* "...You keep on calling me when there are other scientists. Why?"
Trevor - Charles' "Ally" - "Naturally, we wondered what happened to it. All we could find were references to some sort of destructive event. Mostly computer systems complaining of all non-shaded things being obliterated by light... a few months after what is listed as 'The loudest explosion ever made'."
Chapter 290
Lakithomas - Quester Ally - "Here you guys go."
Gumbo - Quester "Ally" / CAL BATTLER - "Why did I... sign up for this tournament... argh..."
Mark - Garrick's Tool - "Sir! It's fried beyond belief! No one can use it! All it can do... is send that message!"
Compromised Ivo Robotnik Computer - The Void's Tool - "...It is not a trap. The Void himself told SIMBER to write it in my databanks."
Chapter 291
Mutated Shyguy - Quester Ally / CAL BATTLER - "..."
Chapter 292
Rand - Insane Immortal Neo-Earthian - *Mimics SIMBER by pinching his noise* "I am a loser computer Garrick uses for help. Danger, danger. Garrick is unable to think for himself."
Chapter 293
Bowser - King of the Koopa Troop / IIF Informant - "But... now that he's dead... he's been unlawfully executed!"
Chapter 294
Nova - Quester Ally - *Comms* "Yes, Garrick?"
Mr. Game and Watch - Quester Ally - "Beep boop beep." *Tosses a barrel to Garrick.*
Agent Sykes - IIF Agent - "We have visual contact with an enemy unit sir. Will neutralize and take the base. Out."
Agent Barnes - IIF Agent - "State your purpose coming to this IIF secured area, sir!"
Jeff Maxwell - Quester Ally - "They're trying to get into the garage too!"
Judge - APN Ajudicator - "We are currently waiting for the defense lawyer..."
Phantom - Quester "Ally" / Fallen Quester - *Blows out the fire on his machineguns* "...I sure hope there aren't many more of those left alive. If it wasn't for me continually shooting him the whole time, he'd still be hurling exploding objects at you."
Agent Larry - IIF Agent - "I, Agent Larry, have come here to PROVE this man is a threat to all nations and not worthy of living."
Agent James - IIF Agent - "Sir! Our guns! They're useless!"
Agent Yan - IIF Agent - "Ahhhhhhhh!!!" *Statics-out.*
Shadow - IIF Leader - "You are all attempting to undo something the good Doctor so neatly put together for you."
Chapter 295
Windmill Man - Kakariko Town Resident - "...I believe I should hate them now. They tracked dirt all over my floor! Arrrrghh!!!! " *Kicks wall angrily.*
Cucco Lady - Kakariko Town Resident - "...It's that man from my nightmares! ...But how?"
Cucco Man - Kakariko Town Resident - "It's for the better the darkness left."
Man - Kakariko Town Resident - "But... what of the being you released?"
Chapter 297
Metroid Rathos - False Solarian-Metroid Chimeric Abomination - "The Space Pirates made a mistake when they attempted to intercept me and use me to improve their specimen."
Chapter 298
Operator - Gunicard Mechanism - "The button you have pressed, 'Utterly annihilate Nintendus', is not available at this time. Please try again."
Tingle - False "Fairy" - "I'll get you all! For the map, I will kill all of you, strange non-fairies! KOOLOO LUMPAH!!!!"
Mortal Kombat Announcer - Nether-realm Tournament Announcer - "FINISH HIM... NOT THE FOUNTAIN!!!"
Sumner - Other Game's Announcer - "Oh keep quiet Shao Kang!"
Mr. Saturn - Saturn Valley Resident - "BoInG! YoU tHaNk I dO!"
Chapter 299
Receptionist - Silph Co Member - "...It's 100 floors, sir. And he's at the top."
Techie - Silph Co Tech Support Division Member - "What?"
Techie2 - Silph Co Tech Support Division Member - "Who let him in?"
George - Silph Co Tech Support Division Member - *Picks up phone* "...What? You set your computer on fire?"
Erin Kareen - Mages Council Member - "Yes... waves of pure chaos... from JULIAN!"
Chapter 300
Man1 - Phantom Realm Resident - "...How the heck did they get here?"
Man2 - Phantom Realm Resident - "...Something up."
Eldorado - Thirteen Gentleman Member - "My mask is gold, unlike your wit. What other reason is there?"
Zio - Thirteen Gentleman Member - "You... cannot lead us."
Evil SIMBER - Phantasm of The Void's Old Ally - "Kill. Crush."
Chapter 301
Mr. Infantryman - Kuja Infantryman Revivalist - "I survived Kuja, and I'll survive you." *CHA-CHIK.*
Dead Ganondorf - Phantasm of Past Foe - "Haven't... you... killed... us... enough?"
Supersoldier / Last Survivor - Kuja Supersoldier Revivalist - "I bring... the pain of a trillion dead souls seeking VENGEANCE!"
Alys - Ghost of a Past Quester - "And Aribar... you STILL have a slow swing!"
Chapter 302
Azure - Quester - "Conflict does not have to be the means of solving this problem."
Neo-Earthian Computer - Neo-Earthian Tool - "You appear to not grasp that Neo-Earth was after Earth."
Neo-Earthian President - Neo-Earthian Leader - "The enemy has been vanquished... at a high cost. The entire planet."
Captain Ramsey - Rogue APN Member - "I'll BURN YOU INTO CINDERS!!!!"
The Fury - Phantom Lord - "You... you... cheaters..."
Chapter 304
Elder - Turion Resident - "Welcome back to Turion. Have you come for... the dark one? I have scarcely seen a being so maleovent since Kales."
Chapter 305
Left Gargoyle - Phantom Realm Hallucination - "Eee! What do we haev heer? A boonch of questars?"
Right Gargoyle - Phantom Realm Hallucination - "One is wrong... the other is reeght!"
Kairah Mardeneigh - Neo-Earthian Hologram - "You are viewing a hologram from the last surviving Neo-Earth civilization. I am Kairah Mardeneigh, grand scientist of the few remaining intelligent beings here. It is this video in which I begin an experiment to create the most powerful weapon ever made."
Chapter 306
The Ninja - Quester - "I have faith in you, Mr. Robotnik."
Chapter 308
Goron - Death Mountain Resident - "Errr... okay... red tunics and beer..."
Conclusion
Sometimes I forget to make these. But in this case, my conclusion is very succinct. Season 7 was not as bad as I thought it was, but it certainly wasn't perfect either. It just goes to show what may have been thought to be terrible (due to it no longer being 'in fashion' to have earnest / non-edgelord stories at the time) was really just an end of an era kind of thing. And as such, became seen as worse than it really was.Of course, this is also closing the book on the oldest outstanding logs I haven't logged yet. Slowly, the old world has no new information to show us. It is perhaps a slow farewell, as there are only two more seasons left of content for the following characters: Charles, Julian and Aetos. While they were a pain in the neck, it is always somewhat disconcerting to observe how fast it can go from "Here is this player who was here for literally YEARS" to "Wow, not even a trace left of anything to do with them now."
I can only hope these summaries help make things a little bit memorable than they would be otherwise. With that note... onwards, to Seasons 8 and 9!