"A long, long time ago, thousands of years ago, humanity perished."
"As for the cause of their demise, there were many, but the most direct cause was disease."
"A disease called White Chlorination Syndrome infected humanity. To survive, humans initiated the Gestalt Project."
"The so-called Gestalt Project was a plan to extract human souls, put them into slumber for preservation, wait for the disaster to pass, and then place them into pre-prepared vessels, i.e., Replicants, for revival."
"To ensure that someone could awaken and return human souls to the Replicants after it was safe, a semi-permanent robot named Android was selected as the Replicant manager. Many things happened while human souls were in slumber. Most fatally, the Replicants, who originally had no souls or consciousness, developed their own consciousness, a conscious personality unrelated to the original human souls."
"They continuously purified the world and established their own civilization. Then, after the world was purified, the original human souls, the Gestalts, awakened. The Gestalts wanted to return to the Replicants' bodies, but the Replicants, who already had self-awareness, regarded them as monsters trying to usurp their bodies. Thus, the war between the Gestalts and Replicants began."
"The final war concluded when Gestalt Nier, the last hope of the Gestalts, was defeated by his Replicant, Replicant Nier. From then on, the original humans completely vanished, and the Replicants took control of this world."
"But what the Replicants didn't know was that although White Chlorination Syndrome had been eradicated, if their corresponding Gestalt died, the Replicant would contract another terminal illness, Black Scrawl. Thus, the Replicants also perished. At this point, humanity in this world was completely extinct."
"Only the Androids, the so-called artificial humans and machines, survived."
"When the Androids were created, they had a core directive: to protect humanity. But humanity no longer existed, not even the Replicants. So how could they protect anyone?"
"Therefore, Android tried to revive humanity but failed. To give the Androids a reason to continue operating, Android fabricated a huge lie: the Human Council."
"Since there were no humans left, it pretended that humans still existed. It established a lunar server on the moon, disguised as the Human Council, and sent messages to all camps on Earth, telling all Androids that humanity was not extinct."
"And then, ironically, aliens invaded. With their arrival, Earth stopped rotating."
"The aliens wanted to destroy the Earth's natives and occupy Earth, but they didn't know that humanity had long been extinct. They didn't even know who their enemy was. So, to invade Earth, they created a robot army called machine lifeforms and issued only one command: defeat the enemy."
"Machine lifeforms also possessed intelligence. They continuously learned and evolved. Perhaps due to the influence of former human souls, they quickly occupied Earth and even deemed their creators, the aliens, as enemies. Thus, the aliens on Earth also perished."
"After Android saw that there were machine lifeforms on Earth, and they were enemies, it issued the Earth Reclamation Operation in the name of the Human Council. It also created Black Boxes from the machine lifeforms' cores, initiated the YoRHa Project, built a space fortress called the Bunker in space, created YoRHa Units far beyond the current Android technological level, and gave the YoRHa Units the command to reclaim Earth for humanity."
"And this is the time period we are currently in. As I said before, all of this is born to be destroyed. The establishment of the YoRHa Units is for them to be destroyed. Once Android collects enough combat data from the YoRHa Units and machine lifeforms, it will open the backdoor left on the Bunker and destroy the entire YoRHa Project."
"This is the truth of this world. The YoRHa Units, from the moment they were created, were born to be destroyed. Their existence is merely to collect combat data for the lunar server. The reason their cores are made from machine lifeform cores is that Android, from the very beginning, did not view them as companions, but as tools that could be sacrificed at any time."
Jumping from history thousands of years ago to the present, Takatsuki recounted the truth of this world as he knew it to Mei. However, what he spoke of was only the plot from Nier to the present. He had heard people say that he hadn't played the games before Nier, such as Drakengard, or rather, he had only heard others discuss games before NieR: Automata.
So, his knowledge was only partial.
He had heard that gods existed in this world, but these elements were not present when he played NieR: Automata. Some said that Automata was already a post-destruction world, so those beings were nowhere to be seen.
Mei covered her mouth after listening: "How… how can this be? This is too cruel."
"Takatsuki, do you think our world… will become like this?"
Mei said with some trepidation. She had never imagined what the end of the world would be like, but now, she saw it. Even without seeing the moment of destruction, this appearance, a thousand years after destruction, was unforgettable.
After all, even the planet had stopped rotating.
"Don't worry, with me here, I won't let things develop to that point."
"Then, this world…"
Before Mei could finish her sentence, both of them suddenly sensed something and looked at the empty space beside the dining table.
A figure descended from the sky and landed on the ground.
A figure with long white hair, blue eyes, wearing a black bodysuit and carrying a greatsword.
"Who's there!"
Mei looked warily at the woman who had suddenly appeared.
The woman didn't look at Mei but instead looked in Takatsuki's direction and asked.
"What you just said, is it true?"
Looking at the woman in front of him, who was no different from a human, Takatsuki thought for a moment and understood her identity.
"It's true. You should understand, Commander, those unreasonable orders, and the support that will never arrive, it's like an order to abandon all of you as pawns, A2."
A2 looked at Takatsuki: "You, how do you know my name?"
"What are you, exactly?"
Takatsuki smiled at A2's question.
"Humans."