The Truth Behind Xenoblade 3's Husks

I do think animals leave corpses behind in canon. Both because of meat and other item drops and there being a monster corpses in some places. Them fading away is likely just for game purposes

How seasonally accurate and romantic.

A simpler example which proves that citizens will always fade away, while also accounting for Matthew's idiocy: Masha's ascension quest revolves entirely around a couple who want to leave behind something when they die, during battle or not. Should be prove enough!

This reminds me that we never actually see Shania disappear when it happens the first time. She did transition into the flame clock cycle while still being born with a body from the city so maybe there are special rules for that. Or maybe it just happened off screen with a very big delay because she somehow had to be recreated by Origin later when becoming Moebius.

the reproduction between universes thing can probably be explained by the fact that all races on both universes are technically human all races were created by klaus (or galea) who created life probably using former humans as a template and we know in altrest all races besides nopon were considered human i know on the xenoblade 1 side zanza and meyneth didnt have memories as there time as humans but with ontos there the template could easily be pulled from there connection to the conduit on 2s side

12:39 I have my doubts about Triton being a Citizen. He says when he became Moebius, he realized that one human life would always feel too short. I feel like City lifespans are of the length that people have a reasonable shot at being satisfied with the time they were given on earth, but that doesn’t necessarily mean Triton believes that. There’s also the fact that he became Moebius to keep beating up huge monsters. Were he a Lost Number, he’d have more important things to do than fight monsters for fun and risk the City’s exposure.

Eagerly anticipating the XC3 Art Book Breakdown video 👀👏

We also know Mobius feed off the lifeforce as we see in a cutscene when two colonies are fighting and the winning Mobius "Drinks" the excess life force and K also forcibly drinks Life energy from the flame clock to heal himself.

I need that "Social commentary" part as a GIF, great video

22:00 sorry, but no. Crys and M didn’t invent off-seeing: they invented HoCos. In that scene, Crys just casually already has a flute on him. This means the position of off-seer always existed in the Moebius status quo. It’d be incredibly strange for a regular commander to have a beautifully designed Keves-themed musical instrument for no reason.

I never put two and two together that being assimilated into Origin means they died and were recorded. I mean, I did, but it being explained in the way you did it made me fully realize it. Which then makes me think up a theory about Aionios' history. I bet the Keves/Agnus war didn't start immediately when Aionios was created. Everybody from both worlds were possibly still alive when time stopped and were not assimilated into Origin, and waged war against the Moebius to take back control of Origin. People kept getting killed in this war and assimilated into Origin, and some were used to recruit into the Moebius' ranks in order to turn the tide more and more into their favor, until eventually Melia was captured. This dealt a major blow to the "Original Ones" as she was a major key to Origin's capabilities. Many retreated, hoping to just live a life of peace, Nia eventually hid herself away, and Moebius used Melia in order to create the nations of Keves and Agnus and use the vast numbers of people they collected from the war to repurpose them into a vicious never-ending cycle of war in order to feed and sustain the Moebius. A group of the Original Ones who still had the will to fight Moebius (simply because of how skilled and powerful they were) named themselves the Liberators and vowed to free as many people from the cycle as possible.

Yeah husks are definitely by Moebius design and just another form of psychological warfare/torture. As you said, motivating revenge & also just another way of tearing these soldiers down mentally. Seeing a field of husks after a huge battle is not only going to spark thoughts of revenge, it's going to increase solidarity amongst soldiers by making them want to fight for one another (which sadly in reality means doing Moebius's dirty work). And while someone discovering their own husk is probably not something they planned for, it sure does a number on poor Eunie.

21:06 there are husks at the foot of the Great Sword that Monica points out during the City tour that may have been there since FR at LEAST. The Great Sword Affinity Scene has A reference a recent battle there, and while it would be weird for there to be no conflict for 1000 years in the spot where the 2 Castles glare at each other (or maybe that spot just isn’t strategic since Keves and Agnus don’t do naval combat), I could definitely see husks lasting that long. (Then again, Agnus probably sends troops past the Great Sword to attack Keves Castle without fear of retaliation.)

8:34 we see aftrr shania dies her body doent turn into light but this could be a side effect of being put into the flane clock system as she shows a keves iris during the jail montage

The new artbook for 3 is gonna be cooking.

I wanted to bring up that both in XC1 and XC2, everyone/thing is made up of Ether. When they die, they are returned to Ether. The light motes off of husks reminds me of the monsters turning to ether. In XC2, Vandham has time to gather a core crystal before the creature disintegrates, as well creatures eat other creatures for sustenance. It's been a while since I played the games, but I think they never mention ether, even though ether and lite motes are visually same/similar. Food for thought

When you started talking about how Origin might 'prioritise' the souls of City children to be born in the new world, it made me think that that might also be a reason as to why Noah and Mio were reincarnated. Maybe Moebius's control was essentially "being able to command Origin to place a bunch of souls into bodies", and Noah and Mio somehow had an affinity with Origin that allowed their souls to be accessed again even after they should have been removed. Also being reincarnated in a completely different body sounds interesting. Kinda reminds me of the Chimera Ant arc in HunterXHunter

18:09 monster/animal deaths could just be a way of showing that it had died as in xc1 when a monster dieds they turn into a chest which gives items in xc2 they fade into light based off the element that killed them but there are also corpses that are part of the over world like in xc2 where thera or voiffs i think eating a armu body and similar woth the titan enimies in xc2 but also the remains of torna and morytha still having bodies post death at the end of xc we see some remains of the bionis and even go to the shoulder in fc

I think the actual reason that people from Keves and Agnus can have children is because of how sentient life came to be in each of those universes - in Alrest, it developed from the remnants of human DNA in the Core Crystals, and in the other world, it was created by Zanza, who knew enough about humans to create exact duplicates of them in the Homs (plus, being Klaus, he was at least familiar with the concepts that led to the Architect creating the Core Crystals themselves). Basically, because of the way that Core Crystals work, a Kevesi human having children with an Agnian is no less likely than a human in Alrest having children with a Blade - which, thanks to Glimmer and Mio, we already know has been done.

22:43 hmmm…when Crys asks to send off the guy, B protests that that would lose his life from circulation. It may be that someone has to become a husk for their soul to be returned to the parts of Origin Z has access to. If someone dies solely by running out of life juice, their soul is probably archived in a part of Origin where Moebius can’t retrieve it, hence the urgency of executing them at their HoCo. It’s implied that M gave flute HoCos Z’s stamp of approval because she knew it would bleed Moebius dry, slowly whittling down the maximum number of combatants in the war and reducing the amount of energy the war produces for the purpose of maintaining the Endless Now. This does beg the question of why Z didn’t restore HoCos to their maximum efficiency since he has unlimited surveillance all the time or punish M for sabotaging him.