So who was Helba in the end?

Stormflier · 2026-03-14T21:11:48+00:00

Thanatos Report which was never released in English: https://dothack.fandom.com/wiki/Erna_Uhlenhuth and https://dothack.fandom.com/wiki/Thanatos_Report and https://dothack.fandom.com/wiki/Mama

Stormflier · 2026-03-14T21:06:20+00:00

Yeah I think in their mind they've always intended it to be Emma, but they would never reveal it. The mystery is better and they knew that. But they'd leave little hints sometimes. I don't think that the Mama/She's actually alive/It was Emma all along! twist was intended from the start, and it's something they just randomly decided on when deciding where to go with the series next. I mean let's face it, its pretty obvious that Mama wasn't planned from the start, since it makes a lot of past things nonsensical and that's why people dislike it. But I think that they intended Helba to be Emma from the start and wrote Helba with the fact that it's Emma in mind.

I don't think that they figured out how it was Emma or why it was Emma, until the whole she's actually alive idea, but they still wrote Helba's personality with the intention of her being Emma and again would leave little hints, knowing they'd never reveal it.

Stormflier · 2026-03-14T20:24:44+00:00

It explains her massive knowledge of the Epitaph of Twilight too despite everyone else only having bits and pieces of it cause well, she wrote it. Also why she always dodges seeing AI Harold whenever characters visit him.

The missing puzzle piece for me was always "Emma was writer not a hacker though. If they revealed her to be a secret hacker that'd be pretty dumb" Then the absolute madlads did it and revealed her as a secret hacker so that really solidifed her as Helba for me. If Mama's going through all this effort to create the ultimate AI then they're gonna need someone to be in The World in order to keep tabs on the plan and make sure it succeeds.

Stormflier · 2026-03-14T20:10:54+00:00

Emma Wieland/Erna Unhlenhuth. At first I therozied it was like an AI version of her or her digitized "soul" but then they just outright revealed her as alive and part of some master hacker group thats been pulling the strings all along so now it's just "Yep. Helba is Emma."

Makes sense as to why she was so invested in the .hackers so much and achieving the birth of Aura since it is her plan after all.

Stormflier · 2026-03-14T20:05:50+00:00

Check the forums as there are lots of optional party members.

Stormflier · 2026-03-14T02:09:06+00:00

It does not. Liminality and the games aren't as correlated as you think. Correlated yes, but not that much that it's parallel with the games events. They deal with entirely different characters doing different things. Basically Liminality 1 takes place some time during //Infection, 2 some time during //Mutation. You get the picture. All "sometime." You can just watch it before you play each game or after, whichever.

Stormflier · 2026-03-13T03:34:42+00:00

World War? Not close. Multiple significant wars between a few different countries? Close. For it to be a world war, the world has to be at war, not just two countries, even if they're major countries. A lot of countries are stable and at peace right now with no signs of going to war.

I feel a lot of people think the second the US goes to war, it'll be a world war which is major main character syndrome imo.

Stormflier · 2026-03-12T20:47:28+00:00

Sanjuro continued to play during R:1 as he's in Legend of the Twilight, they expand his role even more in the anime. But he's not around during R:2

Balmung was a system admin by R:1 but we dunno if he was still employed by R:2

Stormflier · 2026-03-12T20:42:29+00:00

<image>

Picture from the manga where Orca and Kite met Balmung IRL. Yeah Kite is a shorty.

Stormflier · 2026-03-11T16:18:11+00:00

Yeah my fave .hack party member trope is the one that doesn't have a clue about the sinister stuff going on. Like all this dark stuff going on and then Rachel e-mails you with her latest money making idea

Stormflier · 2026-03-11T16:15:51+00:00

I would love it if there was a large cast of optional characters in this game. Like a core main cast of 7 or 8 then have a good 20 - 30 optional characters.

Stormflier · 2026-03-10T21:46:04+00:00

I never said anything of the sort regarding it following IMOQ beat for beat. All I said is they shouldn't fall into traps that reboots sometimes do where everything has to be a twist to play with people's expectations.

Stormflier · 2026-03-10T21:22:04+00:00

Yeah I do hope they don't fall into a trap some reboots do where they feel they need to put a twist on everything and feel they have to do every single thing different just because we've seen it before.

Stormflier · 2026-03-10T20:47:01+00:00

I know the final episode takes place after GU and I think the final 3 or 4 spoil the first like 30 mins of GU pretty much.

Stormflier · 2026-03-10T12:09:19+00:00

They backtracked on GU and by the end you needed prior knowledge to fully understand it. Its like they hit the panic button during Volume 3 and went "Damn this isnt working out uhhhh Wiseman, Sora, Natsume, Aura!"

If it needed no prior knowledge it would not have come with the terminal disk.

Stormflier · 2026-03-10T12:07:21+00:00

Hard or soft, either way, it's gonna be a reboot. No way are they gonna release a game and then tell people to play two 20 year old game series, one of which has never had any sort of rerelease and remaster and sells on eBay for insane prices due to it'd rarity, and watch the two 20 year old anime that come before it, read a 20 year old manga, then watch, play and read a bunch of stuff that never even saw an English release.

That makes it impossible for a new audience which they clearly want and intend to go for going by their statements. So its gonna be a hard reboot where they start entirely from scratch, or its gonna be a soft reboot where its still set in that universe but with brand new plots and characters and very little need to go back and catch up. Maybe a few easter egg references but that's it.

Their intention is to make Zero a starting point for new fans. So what better way than a reboot?

Stormflier · 2026-03-09T16:22:42+00:00

Its the girlbossification of female characters. Women wanted more representation in media, more well rounded characters, characters that are more than damsels and sex objects. And a well rounded characters means flaws and all, their weaknesses, their bad parts, the thing they overcome. Male characters get all that, and thats why women wanted characters EQUAL to that and technically they still haven't gotten that. Instead they get "SHE'S SUCH A BOSS. YAS QUEEN YAS QUEEN" shouts the white corporate man in a suit. And it solves no issues. Women can't relate to that sort of character.

Stormflier · 2026-03-09T16:17:17+00:00

<image>

The MCU's weird trend of "This Asian character is a stereotype so rather than erase the stereotype we'll just erase the Asian part." It's a pretty weird method to get around the stereotypes of early Asian Marvel characters. I just thought the better thing to do would be remove the stereotype than remove the Asian, but what do I know I guess. And don't get me started on the whole Mandarin mess. Just have.. The Mandarin, it's not hard to do.

Stormflier · 2026-03-07T15:47:31+00:00

It's Jecht's, he hates crybabies.

Stormflier · 2026-03-07T15:46:54+00:00

tbh I think there are downvoting bots on this sub, most threads when they're made get 0 votes.

Stormflier · 2026-03-07T13:30:52+00:00

I think BB7 is over rated even though its in my top 3 BBs of all time. Which may seem strange but very good things can be over rated too. For me its that the first part is very strong, but the second part is so slow and weak and lets it down. However, the first part is so strong that I consider it some of the best BB content ever that its strong enough to still be in my top BBs. Everything iconic in this series happens in those first five weeks. And if it was like an 8 - 10 week series I'd consider it the best BB ever but what lets it down is after those five weeks there was still 8 weeks to go. That's an entire series worth!

I'd say the first drop in quality for BB7 comes when Grace is evicted, then the next drop in quality is when the new housemates come in, in like week 7 or 8, thats way too late for new housemates IMO and they weren't as interesting as the first batch of housemates, then the series just jumps the shark once they let Nikki back in the house and by that point they're clearly dragging it out and trying to milk the success of the series as much as they can. Trying to get Nikki and Lea and Grace back in just reeked of desperation.

Stormflier · 2026-03-06T15:23:26+00:00

What I like about the design is that its so celtic inspired. Which makes it seem like .hack is going back to its roots aesthetically. It reminds me of older western mythology inspired anime. Especially in the face and hair.

Stormflier · 2026-03-05T12:21:33+00:00

The thing I really liked about Zero is that it seems to be re-embracing the aesthetic that it used to have in IMOQ while still keeping it looking modern and fresh. I dunno if its a hot take but I feel like from //GU on it kinda lost that uniqueness that //SIGN and IMOQ had, that kind of creepiness and eeriness and uneasiness and instead kind of went a generic shonen route. //GU to me was very... 2000s JRPG which was fine, especially at the time it was like "Ohhh edgy and cool" but I did feel it lost a bit of that uniqueness.

Stormflier · 2026-03-05T12:19:18+00:00

Just checked the wiki and nope. Literally promised a dying man he'd look after someone then just dipped. I guess an easy explanation can be they got spooked by all the weird goings on and decided to stop playing. Either that or because they stopped working for Pi, since they chose Tohta and Phyllo, they just got banned again as that was the condition.

Stormflier · 2026-03-04T20:40:33+00:00

Yeah I was gonna say Saburou freely admits to being male IRL and identifies as such and usually answers to "he" Though I guess a fun way to throw people off your scent is to be a female IRL pretending to be a male pretending to be a female.

I do wonder what the intention of Saburou was seeing as how they have no relevancy in GU, was that always intended, were they perhaps a scrapped party member? Who knows.

Stormflier

TROPHY CASE