Influence of aliens in Earthbound
Jun. 2nd, 2019 10:29 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dmxratedWhy hasn't anything of the weird monsters and alien invasion leaked to the rest of the world? And wouldn't the characters be curious about why it hasn't?
-part of Chelle's latest feedback on Starbound, chapter 7.
For reasons I can understand, seeing how she's never played Earthbound and is not likely to, she seems to be thinking along the lines of Mars Attacks! or something, where Earth in its entirety does find itself in a full-blown war pretty quickly. While Mother 3 is similar enough, much more to the point about the Pigmask Army and its influence on the Nowhere Islands, that is not what I'm aiming for here. In Earthbound, not everyone is under any sort of attack by Giygas' forces or even says anything about them. Tomato even refers to the first title screen as "the most out-of-place screen in the game" (although it could easily represent the future from which Buzz Buzz hails instead). (This is also the reason why I've been sharing my playthrough of the game with Mom, slow as that's been going lately.)
So, let's break that all down:
Onett:
One certain alien appears the very night it begins, but only in an attempt to eliminate Ness and Buzz Buzz. It is after that battle, though, that Buzz Buzz warns Ness about how violent people and animals are becoming courtesy of Giygas' influence. That establishes Giygas responsible for any animals that attacked Ness and Pokey beforehand and continue to attack Ness the next morning, but those remain in the northern half of Onett that isn't so populated as south into town. (Earthbound Zero does not directly establish people or animals that attack you to have anything to do w/ Giygas, except for at Podunk Zoo; implicitly, they could just as easily be violent on their own.)
Down south, one NPC in the library mentions having seen some UFOs, while another in the town hall complains about the aforementioned animals running amok. However, the town's main problem is with a youth gang known as the Sharks, who have nothing to do with Giygas. (There are some police officers guarding the path to Twoson, but that, again, has nothing to do with any alien activity.)
Twoson and Happy Happy Village:
The main problem here revolves around a cult that had abducted a famed psychic girl named Paula, the second protagonist of the game. Said cult, the Happy Happyists, formed under Giygas' influence via the Mani Mani statue that was unearthed earlier in Onett by Lier X. Agerate before winding up in the hands of Carpainter, but the only actual aliens involved directly in this part of the game are patrolling Peaceful Rest Valley. Most other enemies remain in the less populated parts of town, and are not talked much about either by the general population.
There are also ghosts inside the traffic tunnel to Threed, which at least one NPC does refer to, but those pertain mostly to the next chapter, and are only in place to keep you from heading there earlier than you're supposed to. The Runaway Five already knows about them, as established when one of them mentions their tour bus being too loud for them (compared to traffic buses) while offering you a ride after you help fulfill their contract at Chaos Theater.
Threed, Winters, and Saturn Valley:
Half this entire chapter actually does revolve around a full-blown attack, that being the zombie plague courtesy of Master Belch north behind Grapefruit Falls. Apple Kid back in Twoson knows about this, established when he has a Mach Pizza deliveryman bring some zombie paper that he invented to Ness and his party. (That said, the ghosts and zombies found in Earthbound Zero's cemetery and Rosemary Manor were not established to have anything to do w/ any aliens, and that certainly wouldn't be the case either w/ those inside or surrounding Osohe Castle in Mother 3, which doesn't involve any aliens to begin with.)
Things are relatively peaceful in Winters. No one in Snow Wood Boarding House or the nearby drugstore knows much about what's going on in the outside world, and there is a club south from there dedicated to spotting the legendary monster Tessie, although one of its members does mention "something evil" going on that would make the local wildlife violent. There is also an NPC near Stonehenge who tells you about the UFOs that come to visit there, but that's about it over there.
Saturn Valley is established to be under attack by Master Belch, despite a general lack of enemies within the village, with two Mr. Saturns chained to mind a fly honey production line somewhere inside his nearby factory. Another tells you that their population has been dwindling lately.
Dusty Dunes Desert and Fourside:
And, things are relatively peaceful again for the most part. Not much is going on in the desert, just a traffic jam (due to a herd of buffalo, and which is eventually solved), five giant moles infesting a gold mine, who are not established to have any relation to the aliens, and a visit to an underground cave complex inhabited by monkeys and a wise old man.
The most prominent thing going on in Fourside revolves around the Mani Mani statue having made its way there into the hands of Geldegarde Monotoli. Even though Master Belch predicts that the city will suffer from this as a result, we don't actually see much of said results, even though certain individual NPCs do complain about what they themselves have suffered as a result. The only actual alien who appears is the one who abducts Paula inside the local department store.
And so on...
Until later in the game, there simply is not that much talk about any aliens, even though there are some who roam Scaraba and the caves beneath Tenda Village. Most talk in Summers is about the Kraken, not necessarily alien-related, Dalaam is simply where Poo hails from to meet Ness and his party after completing a trial, a return to Fourside mostly involves getting a celebrity's autograph and investigating a monster sighting in the sewers, Scaraba is mostly about finding the Hawk Eye inside a pyramid and exploring/meeting Dungeon Man, and Deep Darkness and the Lost Underworld are mostly exploration and contending with the local wildlife and vegetation. The aliens become briefly prominent again between those last two areas during a full-blown attack on Winters, and then again for an attack on Onett while Apple Kid and Dr. Andonuts work on the Phase Distorter in Saturn Valley in order to help the mains reach Giygas himself once and for all. It's like barely anyone in most of those places seem to be aware at all of Giygas or his invasion.
-----
The same holds generally true for Earthbound Zero; some things are directly related to the aliens, from the attacks on Ninten's house and the zoo, to the offscreen mass abduction of the adults in Youngtown, to Teddy, whose parents were killed by the aliens. Other events, such as at the cemetery, Merrysville, two different factories, and Snowman, do not involve aliens in any way plot-related, even though they do appear simply as enemies in such places as Yucca Desert and the swamp. Nor is everything established to be working for them, unlike by Buzz Buzz in Earthbound.
My point here is to answer Chelle's question about why things are so much more peaceful where the party in Starbound currently is than back in Japan. Why isn't there such widespread paranoia as one would expect in those two games? For all they or even readers would know, those kinds of things could have begun unfolding during the events of the anime.
-part of Chelle's latest feedback on Starbound, chapter 7.
For reasons I can understand, seeing how she's never played Earthbound and is not likely to, she seems to be thinking along the lines of Mars Attacks! or something, where Earth in its entirety does find itself in a full-blown war pretty quickly. While Mother 3 is similar enough, much more to the point about the Pigmask Army and its influence on the Nowhere Islands, that is not what I'm aiming for here. In Earthbound, not everyone is under any sort of attack by Giygas' forces or even says anything about them. Tomato even refers to the first title screen as "the most out-of-place screen in the game" (although it could easily represent the future from which Buzz Buzz hails instead). (This is also the reason why I've been sharing my playthrough of the game with Mom, slow as that's been going lately.)
So, let's break that all down:
Onett:
One certain alien appears the very night it begins, but only in an attempt to eliminate Ness and Buzz Buzz. It is after that battle, though, that Buzz Buzz warns Ness about how violent people and animals are becoming courtesy of Giygas' influence. That establishes Giygas responsible for any animals that attacked Ness and Pokey beforehand and continue to attack Ness the next morning, but those remain in the northern half of Onett that isn't so populated as south into town. (Earthbound Zero does not directly establish people or animals that attack you to have anything to do w/ Giygas, except for at Podunk Zoo; implicitly, they could just as easily be violent on their own.)
Down south, one NPC in the library mentions having seen some UFOs, while another in the town hall complains about the aforementioned animals running amok. However, the town's main problem is with a youth gang known as the Sharks, who have nothing to do with Giygas. (There are some police officers guarding the path to Twoson, but that, again, has nothing to do with any alien activity.)
Twoson and Happy Happy Village:
The main problem here revolves around a cult that had abducted a famed psychic girl named Paula, the second protagonist of the game. Said cult, the Happy Happyists, formed under Giygas' influence via the Mani Mani statue that was unearthed earlier in Onett by Lier X. Agerate before winding up in the hands of Carpainter, but the only actual aliens involved directly in this part of the game are patrolling Peaceful Rest Valley. Most other enemies remain in the less populated parts of town, and are not talked much about either by the general population.
There are also ghosts inside the traffic tunnel to Threed, which at least one NPC does refer to, but those pertain mostly to the next chapter, and are only in place to keep you from heading there earlier than you're supposed to. The Runaway Five already knows about them, as established when one of them mentions their tour bus being too loud for them (compared to traffic buses) while offering you a ride after you help fulfill their contract at Chaos Theater.
Threed, Winters, and Saturn Valley:
Half this entire chapter actually does revolve around a full-blown attack, that being the zombie plague courtesy of Master Belch north behind Grapefruit Falls. Apple Kid back in Twoson knows about this, established when he has a Mach Pizza deliveryman bring some zombie paper that he invented to Ness and his party. (That said, the ghosts and zombies found in Earthbound Zero's cemetery and Rosemary Manor were not established to have anything to do w/ any aliens, and that certainly wouldn't be the case either w/ those inside or surrounding Osohe Castle in Mother 3, which doesn't involve any aliens to begin with.)
Things are relatively peaceful in Winters. No one in Snow Wood Boarding House or the nearby drugstore knows much about what's going on in the outside world, and there is a club south from there dedicated to spotting the legendary monster Tessie, although one of its members does mention "something evil" going on that would make the local wildlife violent. There is also an NPC near Stonehenge who tells you about the UFOs that come to visit there, but that's about it over there.
Saturn Valley is established to be under attack by Master Belch, despite a general lack of enemies within the village, with two Mr. Saturns chained to mind a fly honey production line somewhere inside his nearby factory. Another tells you that their population has been dwindling lately.
Dusty Dunes Desert and Fourside:
And, things are relatively peaceful again for the most part. Not much is going on in the desert, just a traffic jam (due to a herd of buffalo, and which is eventually solved), five giant moles infesting a gold mine, who are not established to have any relation to the aliens, and a visit to an underground cave complex inhabited by monkeys and a wise old man.
The most prominent thing going on in Fourside revolves around the Mani Mani statue having made its way there into the hands of Geldegarde Monotoli. Even though Master Belch predicts that the city will suffer from this as a result, we don't actually see much of said results, even though certain individual NPCs do complain about what they themselves have suffered as a result. The only actual alien who appears is the one who abducts Paula inside the local department store.
And so on...
Until later in the game, there simply is not that much talk about any aliens, even though there are some who roam Scaraba and the caves beneath Tenda Village. Most talk in Summers is about the Kraken, not necessarily alien-related, Dalaam is simply where Poo hails from to meet Ness and his party after completing a trial, a return to Fourside mostly involves getting a celebrity's autograph and investigating a monster sighting in the sewers, Scaraba is mostly about finding the Hawk Eye inside a pyramid and exploring/meeting Dungeon Man, and Deep Darkness and the Lost Underworld are mostly exploration and contending with the local wildlife and vegetation. The aliens become briefly prominent again between those last two areas during a full-blown attack on Winters, and then again for an attack on Onett while Apple Kid and Dr. Andonuts work on the Phase Distorter in Saturn Valley in order to help the mains reach Giygas himself once and for all. It's like barely anyone in most of those places seem to be aware at all of Giygas or his invasion.
-----
The same holds generally true for Earthbound Zero; some things are directly related to the aliens, from the attacks on Ninten's house and the zoo, to the offscreen mass abduction of the adults in Youngtown, to Teddy, whose parents were killed by the aliens. Other events, such as at the cemetery, Merrysville, two different factories, and Snowman, do not involve aliens in any way plot-related, even though they do appear simply as enemies in such places as Yucca Desert and the swamp. Nor is everything established to be working for them, unlike by Buzz Buzz in Earthbound.
My point here is to answer Chelle's question about why things are so much more peaceful where the party in Starbound currently is than back in Japan. Why isn't there such widespread paranoia as one would expect in those two games? For all they or even readers would know, those kinds of things could have begun unfolding during the events of the anime.