Face of Emma Wielant? [SPOILERTASTIC]

[Kuukai]

Thanatos is pretty intense though, it makes me wonder if Emma Wielant actually did die in an accident, given that she was part of mama. Can you guys imagine if she never died to begin with, and is actually the one pulling the strings? What a twist that would be. lol

Uh... guys?


I was translating all the Thanatos Report cruft on mama for the wiki and I noticed this:

Erna Uhlenhuth
Thought to be a leader of mama. From 1996 to 2004, there are signs that she hid in Germany and operated under a false name.

Harald met Emma Wielant in 1996 and she died in 2004. Her name's not even that different. The timeframe doesn't fit any of the other things that happen in Germany. (e.g. .hack//Epitaph of the Twilight, Fluegel's wife, etc.)

Now it's not necessarily her I guess, although it's looking pretty likely. Maybe Erna just somehow influenced the situation. But Dominique did say "we named her Aura," and that might be starting to make sense.

Also the ages more or less match up, since this picture seems to have been taken in the 80s or 90s (Dominique, the leader, is ancient by 2025).

[Kazetrigger]

Emma was born in 1972, so that picture would have to be taken in the 90s when she's in her twenties. In 2025, Emma would be 53. Dominique would be much older, so it's possible that this is Emma, but her death would have had to be a cover-up. Interesting speculation, but until we have more, we can't say much.

Though the first names have a certain similar ring, their last names are very different. Hard to say, but I almost wish it were Emma just so we can get a good surprise out of it.

[Kuukai]

ウーレンフート vs ウィーラント, it's pretty close in my opinion.

Also notice how they stand:


Erna is the closest to Dominique, and they're flanked by the founders of ALTIMIT and CC Corporation respectively. The other two are just government moles. It suggests she was pretty dang important in the organization.

If this information was in Fluegel's report, maybe this will show up in bullet...

[(Phantom) Thief]

: There is no such thing as a coincidence!!! Good Job. I am starting to wonder who the dead are now.

[Coldbird]

Brainfart! X-x
This is sick if its the truth.

[VirusCoreS]

Now it's not necessarily her I guess, although it's looking pretty likely. Maybe Erna just somehow influenced the situation. But Dominique did say "we named her Aura," and that might be starting to make sense.

Oh Morgana! O.o
I agree with (Phantom)Thief, there is no such thing as coincidence in .hack.!

[Tsuki-44]

Whoa! Hmm....yeah, if she used her death as a cover up, then why did she choose to "die" on the day her and Harold were going to meet up? thats what i really want to know. Is there some sort of meaning there? if i remember correctly from Liminality, they were going to meet up at the top of a hill, but that very same day Emma got into an accident, and later died from it. they also mentioned that Harold waited on that hill for a long time, but she never came.

[Kuukai]

.hack//Archives_05 has confirmed that "Emma" is a persona created by Erna, who was the first to come up with the plan to "digitalize" humanity. It was decided they would need an immensely powerful AI to oversee such a task, so Sibyl Green established ALTIMIT to perform research in this area and provide funding for their operations, while Erna made contact with Harald, a brilliant AI programmer, while at a seminar as "Emma." She began to guide his thoughts in the direction we see.

So, Emma is still alive. And could meet Aura. Which is kind of epic.

[Lindz]

Archives delivers! That's really crazy and just one more reason to feel bad for Harald. Poor guy was totally being used and unknowingly in love with a fake ;_;

Also I guess that explains the "we named her Aura" thing huh? It'll be great if they get to meet... just one more reason ta hope the series continues!

[Kuukai]

I'm pretty proud of calling this two years ago.

It also clarifies that Dominique was a member of the French resistance movement in WWII and a humanist and pacifist afterwards. (She is oooold). It's interesting to see how the individual members play their part.

[Lindz]

It's interesting to see how the individual members play their part.

Sure but its bothersome that this is how such infos being released. Haseo's player is one thing but Tanaka and now this? With as closely knit as the 3rd seasons supposedly supposed ta be it didn't do much ta setup stuff like this? Link coulda at least done something ta squeeze out some more info on Harald to better prepare us for this. Next games gotta take place in the real world cause clearly not all mysteries/key players can be uncovered in a game!

[SSJScygoku]

^_^ that was a great call Sherlock Kuukai lol I take it that information was under the Secrets section or the following page? And this is rather major information that hasn't even made it into the series (well besides from what you posted above), hopefully Bullet or the new game (whenever that is) will have all this included.

xD next thing you know they'll have illustrations of this information in the new .hack artbooks lol

[Kuukai]

This mainly comes from the MaMa timeline in the book. The material with Link did tell us that Emma was a "member," but this is definitely a further revelation.

I think it works slightly better than G.U., because unlike Haseo being Sora, this revelation is actually reflected in other places (like the above screenshot). Thanatos and bullet actually tie to this backstory, and I believe MaMa's activity in Quantum is explained somewhere in this book too. Even Link has something of a teaser of all this. Haseo being Sora was just a random fact detached from the rest of the .hack reality.

Unfortunately, it does make the series so opaque that only a few hardcore fans are still following what's going on. Which is a shame because Link, for all its faults as a game, does an amazing job getting newbies up to speed and spares basically no detail. But then it's followed by a tangled web of short game/anime installments and infobooks and webcasts that are much less accessible.

[Lindz]

Unfortunately, it does make the series so opaque that only a few hardcore fans are still following what's going on. Which is a shame because Link, for all its faults as a game, does an amazing job getting newbies up to speed and spares basically no detail.

You're one of the peeps translating it but I still question this! Harald popped up 2, maybe 3 times in all of Link and the whole IMOQ era was super short an never really seemingly delved into the Harald/Emma stuff, not even the Liminality scenario did! They're like two of the most important characters in the series so if you're gonna "bring back" one of 'em alil more foreshadowing in the main game woulda been nice! EoT even preceeded Link an didn't even get a "real" nod.


btw never be an adult male in the .hack universe or you're highly likely to get burned (see: albireo, harald, tokuoka, jun, jyotaro, ovan, david) x.x

[Kuukai]

Harald didn't physically pop up too much in the actual story either (twice in SIGN, once in the games, one line in Liminality, and once in Roots? He only has a couple dozen lines of dialogue in all of .hack), but in Link as well as the original he's discussed at length by the involved characters. He's certainly not left out. Death Grunty is left out if I remember correctly, but not much else is. That's about where the cut-off is for significance. Link explores Morganna as a character more, since her motivation is pretty important too. But in any case it builds the background of the entire series in a way where newbies can become aware of just about everything, from anti-existences to vagrant AIs.

It really wouldn't have made sense to put Emma or Lara directly into Link, since they never play The World. But they're both talked about, and they place a hook for more of a potential Lara story in the future.

[(Phantom) Thief]

.hack//Archives_05 has confirmed that "Emma" is a persona created by Erna, who was the first to come up with the plan to "digitalize" humanity. It was decided they would need an immensely powerful AI to oversee such a task, so Sibyl Green established ALTIMIT to perform research in this area and provide funding for their operations, while Erna made contact with Harald, a brilliant AI programmer, while at a seminar as "Emma." She began to guide his thoughts in the direction we see.

So, Emma is still alive. And could meet Aura. Which is kind of epic.

I missed out on this a while back. And this well, that makes the series even more interesting. (Taking all crazy bets Revival of the Helba = Emma theory. Actually according to Wikipedia .hack//Analysis states Helba is a mother of some sort. But would someone check on that for me I've been wanting see if its true for a long time.) Also what else was in volume 5?

[Kuukai]

I don't think Analysis (or anything) says Helba was a mother (or even a woman), maybe they're thinking of Kaede? The association being that Kaede lost her child and uses Zelkova/Keyaki to fill that void, and Zelkova/Keyaki was probably Spoke originally, who was Helba's pupil. The Spoke thing really strengthened the theory that Helba left Netslum to an AI. Helba said Spoke would grow and branch out like a great tree and protect The World, and in G.U. Keyaki has founded Moon Tree.

[(Phantom) Thief]

That makes since. I haven't finished the story so I'll read about it once I translate it on my own. Still though with all this information it seems like there are few blank points the series could go over if the company wanted to bring the series back. Although right now I think New World is doing an amazing job so far. Personally I would like to see something like some sort of LR: Final Fantasy XII/Dragon on Dragoon 3/Nier (Any of them really)/Persona 5 combo.

[Lindz]

I find it hard to think of Zelkova as an AI. One of his idle dialogues in Mac Anu is along the lines of "I remember the time when I was a newbie starting out in this town.". I can't pretend to know how AI's think of themselves, and know that this series is known for really advanced ones, but that line really came off as something a real person/player would say. Was Zelkova in Link the "real" one? If so I guess that would cement him as an AI above any other source.

[(Phantom) Thief]

I find it hard to think of Zelkova as an AI. One of his idle dialogues in Mac Anu is along the lines of "I remember the time when I was a newbie starting out in this town.". I can't pretend to know how AI's think of themselves, and know that this series is known for really advanced ones, but that line really came off as something a real person/player would say. Was Zelkova in Link the "real" one? If so I guess that would cement him as an AI above any other source.

Link... is complicated. Each of the Twilight Knights are AI made from the Akashic Records which are the binary data and log data are the of The World.

If Zelkova was originally an AI. It would be the same as me asking if Mia, Zefie, Cubia and Azure Flame Knight that appeared during Link were the original characters theselves, a copy of their data stored within game or combination of both like with Aura, which is even further complicated by the idea that the Twilights Knights are also Aura's memories based on and using the Akashic Records as well.

However if Zelkova was once a real person then His Link Counterpart would be like BlackRose, Haseo or Atoli who are able to talk about and engage in virtual offline events as if they were occuring offline. Even though they were created from a mix of Aura's memories and or copies slash potions of that offline person's original character data. Which works differently than the Wandering AI that appeared during .hack//Quarantine. (And that's without all the other shenanigans that were happening at the time.) However it's also like asking is Sora (A.I.) Haseo/Ryou.

In the end, however, The Twilight Knights "return" to the Akaskic Records so that data finds its way to the same place anyway.