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Karifean's Blog of Visual Novels

999 First Ending - Speculation Time!

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So I just got my first ending in 999. What happened was (SPOILER)Clover went a little mad and killed Santa, Seven, June and then Junpei with an axe. Oh joy.

I won't tag spoilers from here on.

I definitely enjoy the way this game is shaping up, because it feels as if the big mystery of the game - "Who is Zero?" - is a genuine mystery you can reason out before it's revealed to you. In other words, a fair challenge to the reader. And so, to let the veterans enjoy watching me stupidly flail about, I feel like posting my first speculations.

Let's look this over with the relevant parts of Knox's Ten Commandments. In Dlanor's manner of speech of course.

Knox's 1st: It is forbidden for the culprit to be anyone not mentioned in the early part of the STORY!!

The characters have already mentioned it several times; "Zero is one of us". If Zero turns out to be a random person who hasn't even been indicated to exist at all up to this point, this mystery would fall apart. So to even begin to try to reason out who Zero is, this possibility needs to be denied upfront.

In other words, one of the nine main characters has to be Zero. Why not just eight? Well one of my first theories was that the man with Number 9 actually faked his death. Nobody saw him die, everyone only vaguely looked at the corpse, it could have been prepared in advance. However, I consider the possibility that #9 is Zero to be quite unlikely. After all one of the base rules of the game is that the bracelets may only be removed upon leaving the ship or upon death, and there has been no indication of there being more than one of every bracelet type.

Knox's 3rd: It is forbidden for hidden passages to EXIST!!

Naturally this does not refer to any sort of hidden passageway that had foreshadowing. I have not studied the map, for instance, so if there is an indication of a secret passage somewhere on there it'd fly right over my head. But the essence of the commandment is that there mustn't be any random extra passageways, in other words the one among us who is Zero does NOT have any extra leeway in his movements. They are bound to the same rules of the RED and DEAD as everyone else is.

Knox's 4th: It is forbidden for unknown drugs or hard to understand scientific devices to be USED!!

Well this only goes so far in this particular game because it loves its clever scientific devices, but so far nothing in particular would've violated this commandment. Basically it means I'm not gonna assume Zero has an obscure drug or machine that allows them to freely control another person's actions or anything like that. Anything like that that does exist has already been thoroughly explained. The RED, DEAD and Bracelet are a good example.

Knox's 7th: It is forbidden for the detective to be the CULPRIT!!

This one is a bit hard to swallow right away, but combined with this next commandment it becomes clear as day...

Knox's 8th: It is forbidden for the case to be resolved with clues that are not PRESENTED!!

The very heart of the ten commandments. The true solution MUST be foreshadowed with clues. They can mislead, they can imply, but the truth must always be there.

There has been no foreshadowing whatsoever that Junpei could conceivably be Zero. Nothing like superconvenient headaches that make him switch personalities, no unreliable narration as far as I can tell, he seems to be a pretty genuine detective, and his thoughts are narrated plainly. For this reason I won't pursue my initial thought of that Junpei might be Zero any further. By this point at least there would have to have been SOME indication. It's possible that I just missed it, in which case I'll feel like an idiot by the end of it, but for now I'll go with that.

Now the 8th commandment is important in many other ways as well. There hasn't been any indication that any of the other characters are not affected by the bracelet restrictions. Therefore the restrictions are final for everyone, including Zero themselves. The existence of any additional bracelets beyond the 10 we know is also questionable. I won't call it impossible, but I won't consider the possibility either. Because the mystery falls apart if I do.

This also means that at any time that Junpei had 'full supervision' over any of the characters that they CANNOT have done anything without our knowledge, unless it was foreshadowed like Clover staying back to get the axe and bracelet at the end there.

But before I forget, let's quickly go over the last two commandments as well.

Knox's 9th: It is permitted for observers to let their own conclusions and interpretations be HEARD!!

Meaning it's perfectly legit to have any second-hand information we get through any of the other characters be faulty, either by being an outright falsehood, or just misinterpretation or clouded by subjectivity. Of course this goes hand-in-hand with Knox's 8th, so characters can't just lie for no reason either. But all this commandment really means for me is to be weary of what I only 'heard' and did not truly witness through the Junpei himself. For instance anything happening to any of the teams I'm not in myself is a total black box.

It's pretty obvious, really. But important nonetheless.

Knox's 10th: It is forbidden for a character to disguise themselves as another without any CLUES!!

Duh. But basically since there has been NO foreshadowing whatsoever on any of the characters believably disguising themselves as anyone else in the group, I'm gonna take their appearances at face value. No Lotus-disguising-herself-as-Clover tricks or any BS like that.

Well that's the commandments for you. What do I gather from this? First off, let me inspect the most obvious, dubious point in the game in more detail.

Snake's Murder

First question: Was Snake really dead?
For me this is a clear YES because Junpei himself went there, confirmed his corpse and there was no indication at all that he could have been mistaking another corpse for Snake's. So yeah, Snake died. Time Paradox.

Second question: Did the murder really occur as described?
There seems to be a clear consensus on the time of the murder, which is between splitting up and reconvening in the big hospital room. However we did not discover Snake's body until way later on, after we'd gone through two of the numbered doors. It's even possible that he wasn't even dead until the group entered Door 3. However, this leads us to another problem: the modus operandi. From what we can tell, Snake died due to his bomb exploding, which can only happen if you go through a numbered door without using the DEAD afterwards. It's also noteworthy that none of the characters claimed to have heard an explosion, which means that nobody (except the culprit) was in the vicinity when it occurred. On top of that, if Snake hadn't been dead when he went missing, where could he have possibly hidden himself?

The original theory seems the most likely. Someone forced Snake through Door 3 when everyone was split up. However I will probably go back and look at the map once more just to see if there's no other conceivable way for him to end up in that shower room.

Third question: Who killed Snake?
Clover seemed pretty set on Santa and Seven being the culprits, seeing as how they are the only group that could have unlocked Door 3 (2 + 3 + 7 = 12 --> 1 + 2 = 3). For the sake of solvability I will assume the least possible amount of culprits, so considering four or five people opening the door is out of the question.

However what instantly springs to mind is, of course, the possibility Clover blatantly overlooked: 2 + 1 + 9. In other words, Snake, Ace and the bracelet of the dead 9th man. This would even make a solo culprit possible. But first things first: the 9 bracelet. I went through the first door with Snake and Seven, and the bracelet was still there when we did, so only one of those two could have taken it. Seven especially I remember going back, potentially retrieving the bracelet at that point. Snake is blind, but it's certainly not unthinkable that he'd get the bracelet. It's very useful to have, of course, allowing access to doors that would normally be impossible to open in certain constellations (thanks Clover for foreshadowing that with the 0 bracelet).

So do I suspect Ace? Yes, yes I do. He has a bit of a manipulative aura about himself. He was the one who wanted to go through Door 1 where we ended up finding the axe and 0 bracelet. He didn't take the 0 bracelet himself even though I definitely consider him smart enough to consider its usefulness. It's even conceivable that once he saw he was going there with Clover of all people that he'd just leave her to grab the axe and bracelet herself to let the rest of the scenario play out as it did. Also, right at the end there he wanted to talk to Lotus and never came back which just screams suspicious. He also had a long time alone while everyone but him was occupied with the two numbered doors in the hospital room, which would have given him ample time to do, well, anything if he had previously hidden one of the key cards or keys and never said anything about it. In fact, let's go to the last big point. We've discussed the Whodunnit, the Howdunnit, which leaves...

Fourth question: Why was Snake killed?

A big mystery for sure. Let me first follow up on what I just said; it's possible Ace killed him to deliberately set up the situation where he could remain behind and do whatever he wanted. Hell maybe he didn't even take the risk and kill him through the numbered door at first; it's possible he killed him somewhere else and used the free time he had to set up the whole crime scene in the shower room. No one said anything against making the small bomb explode even when the person is already dead, right? Or if that doesn't work, he could've also just incapacitated Snake before. So many possibilities, but point being it's perfectly conceivable for him to have orchestrated this whole thing TO BE LEFT ALONE.

But just thinking in Ace = Zero isn't gonna be enough. Let's consider some alternate possibilites. Let's go nuts and consider the final combination of bracelets that could have killed Snake in Door 3, which is 2 + 4 + 6. Snake, Clover and June. This would be truly insane, huh? But it's not impossible either. I didn't really consider it enough to make more points for or against it, so I'll just remember it in the back of my head.

There's one more to consider of course, and that is the previous theory of 2 + 3 + 7. Snake, Santa and Seven. It's all too easy to dismiss theories when they're brought up by 'evil' characters, or if they claim it to be the only solution but you can think of an alternative. It's very possible for Santa and Seven to be the culprits. I'll keep it in mind as well.

Of course if Ace isn't the culprit the question of the Whydunnit becomes much more difficult to answer. But it could be something as simple as to get their hands on the 9 bracelet, or because he found out something he shouldn't, or hell even because Snake is Zero himself! Wouldn't that be crazy? Well that one I consider very unlikely at best.

So much for Snake's murder. Are there any other things to consider? Of course! Firstly, what is Zero's motive for doing all this? Surely it's not just because he's insane and got too much free time on his hands. Well it's possible, but even so Zero must be having a goal in mind with this game. And if it's just testing the others to see if they can win the game. On that note, two key players come to mind: Ace and Seven. They both seem to be very well-versed in how ships work, and history regarding them. I haven't been in a room with many of the other characters yet, though, so I can't say much after all.

There is, of course, the questionability of the purpose of the riddles. Is it just to make the time limit more of a stress point? Well sure, if you cut out all the puzzles the whole nonary game would fall apart, as even if Zero were to cut down the time limit to 1 hour to make up for it, it wouldn't have nearly the same effect on the people. So it's very plausible that the riddles and exit-the-room-scenarios are there for the sake of creating the nonary game's very atmosphere.

The question of whether Zero is a single person or a group is difficult to answer, but I hope it's a single person. That doesn't mean they can't have any accomplices, but if there are any, I hope they're not actual culprits. I dunno, just personal preference. I won't feel cheated if Zero is a group after all.

That's about it for my speculations for now. Jeez that suddenly became a long post. I wonder if anyone's actually gonna bother to read this, but either way I'll enjoy looking back at it when I'm done. TL;DR I suspect Ace above all others. We'll see how the next playthrough affects things. It's rare to have all the pieces of the puzzle with only the first playthrough, after all, but if you never take the time to attempt to solve it, you'll be at the resolution before you know it. Of course these speculations are grounded on the belief that solving it is possible, and that it's possible NOW. I can only hope that's the case, but even if it's not, that's fine. I tried.

Finally it's possible that Zero's identity isn't really a fair mystery after all, in which case I'll look back on this post as a gigantic waste of time. That would be disappointing. But well even if he turns out to not be one of the nine people, or there is some plot twist that allows for a solution I wouldn't have even begun to think of, that's probably fine with me. It'd just mean I'd only enjoy it as a story rather than a mystery.

I saw "Enforced Playing Order" as a tag for this game on VNDB. I'm assuming this means I need to go through all individual endings before I can reach the final route?

Comments

  1. Pumpkin's Avatar
    I didn't read this because I actually have it for my DS, but I haven't played it yet. I am not good at puzzle games
  2. Karifean's Avatar
    I was just warned that Knox *is not necessarily effective* in 999 (and also VLR especially), so I'll try to be a bit more flexible in my thinking.
  3. Fynn's Avatar
    That ending was my first as well. It was pretty radical My mom played this game too and she lost it with this one.
  4. Shauna's Avatar
    Yeah, there are some requirements for getting "true end". I don't remember if I found them myself or if I made sure I picked the right options after getting all the other endings.