ataraxia wrote:It seems to be a trend of the Third Season to explain absolutely nothing that's going on.
Almost everything conceivable was explained. There are a few things with Quantum that are fuzzy, possibly because like Roots it decided to disagree with established canon in some places.
Reign wrote:What was the dull grey area in Quantum
The digital bastille, as Reiko Saeki explained in .hack//Quantum.
Reign wrote:How does the Virus Bug from Quantum and the movie fit into Mama's plans... at all? if I understand right the goal is to Real Digitalize people using Aura, like they almost did in Link, but what on earth does the virus have to do with that? How did the events of the movie connect at all to that?
For Quantum, see below. As David Steinberg explained in the movie, the virus in the movie was created by ALTIMIT to spur the adoption of Sophia System Security. By unleashing an advanced virus on the world, they created a demand to install Sophia. Sophia is a mass-produced version of Aura, created from her remaining data within the fragments of the Akashic Records after Link (spurring Durga Fida Sharma to resign as CEO and contact David about it). Since Aura was capable of Real Digitalizing humanity, the spread of Sophia was probably part of a new plan for doing that. That might be how they were able to do it in Versus, although it's never said. They're still filling in details about that part of the story, though, with the manga and bullet.
Mama's membership includes the chairwomen of the board of directors of ALTIMIT and their subsidiary CyberConnect. ALTIMIT also purchased a gigantic consumer electronics manufacturer called Unigos, which they renamed ALGOS. All these parts and their international branches work together to further Mama's plans, whether they know it or not.
Reign wrote:Who gave Hermit his stick that could delete stuff and why was his consciousness in The World?
The black stick and digital bastille were developed by PFW (Psychopathology und das Forschungsinstitut der virtuellen Wirklichkeit), Ryuji Sogabe's research institution (the legitimate face of Schicksal). PFW was funded by Durga Fida Sharma and CC Corp, and presumably led to his rise as CEO. Along with the Schicksal PCs, PFW explored the creation of various new technologies. They also had a hand in creating ALTIMIT's virus bugs, which possess the same data modification abilities as the black stick.
They never explain why Hermit was given the stick, it's left open-ended. It's possible it was just his dad trying to help him live a life, or it's possible that, as with Geist, Mama wanted to sit back and watch an incident unfold in order to form their own plans. Letting these technologies loose helps them gauge NAB response, effectiveness as a way to eliminate human activity, etc. Again, it's Quantum. They randomly changed Amagi's entire goal and Ovan's recovery. Every time Reiko spoke a retcon came out. Unfortunately it's the weakest link in the season.
Reign wrote:what was up with Eri becoming a "pseudo-Sophia", and why was the Sophia in Quantum black and evil instead of an anti-virus like the ones in the movie?
According to .hack//T.E., that Sophia was a prison guard (and a first-generation model, while the ones in the movie are second generation), and players attacked by Sophia become trapped within the game. Reiko mentioned that the organization involved was experimenting with a way to control Lost Ones.
Reign wrote:Who sent Sora her copy of the game and created her character?
Makoto-san (An ALGOS Corp. internal-use Server Robo that Sora's dad gave her—which might mean something) downloaded the game for her because she asked about, and provided the Kite PC with a really evasive explanation. In the manga it's shown that Aura gave the Kite PC to her.
Reign wrote:The leader of Mama claimed they created and named Aura, but... that's bull. Aura was created to be the daughter Harald Hoerwick never had, wasn't she? Is this a retcon?
It's not a retcon per se, they're not changing anything established—in the same way that Tri-Edge's identity didn't change anything established—but they are creating a bunch of new details. Emma was a member of Mama and they might have been more involved than anyone ever knew. Specifically, in Sogabe's report at the beginning of Thanatos Report,
there's one brunette leader of Mama who "assumed another identity in Germany" between the exact years that Harald met Emma and Emma died. The 3rd Season is still ongoing, so this will almost certainly be addressed, but right now it remains to be seen whether Dominique was just totally nuts or whether there's more truth to what she said.
Ruusu wrote:Harald was probably working for Mama, possibly indirectly without even knowing it himself.
It was almost certainly indirectly, I don't think Harald knew what he was doing, but by virtue of making the mindchild of a crazy cultist it was the same as if Aura was made to order.
Sources: .hack//Quantum, Dothack: SORA, Dothack: Sekai no Mukou, New Testament, .hack//T.E., Thanatos Report, .hack//Link.
Some of the Quantum stuff might be addressed in the Quantum background book, but that thing costs more than Quantum so I don't have it.
Any other questions?