Warmongering frog

[13] And I saw three unclean spirits like frogs come out of the mouth of the dragon, and out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet.

[14] For they are the spirits of devils, working miracles, which go forth unto the kings of the earth and of the whole world, to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty.

The unclean spirits looking like frogs must be none other than Keropoyo, the only frog we see in Ciconia.

These evil spirits will go out into the world and manipulate people into engaging in war by performing signs.

All throughout phase 1, Miyao slowly loses his faith in humanity after seeing news stories of people being awful and turning towards war, however, it's Keropoyo who decides which news stories to show him.

Keropoyo is a social media algorithm, curating news stories to put on Miyao's feed, he is also personalized for each user, showing them things that are of interest to them specifically. The problem is that these social media algorithms prioritize engagement metrics.

 

Take for example the social media platform Twitter, it strongly pushes content that is divisive, rage-inducing, and negative, that's because this is the content that gets the most engagement out of the user.

It pushes things that are likely to make you feel rage because that's what people interact with the most.

Miyao is very anti war and cares about world peace, therefore the algorithm pushes things that attack these values.

Because of Keropoyo, each user lives in a personalized information bubble, that reaffirms any given narrative. For example the narrative that a fourth world war is about to start, the algorithm will push any social media posts that fit into this story, be it, rage bait, misinformation, things taken out of context or comments from any of the other billions of people.

Because there is an infinite amount of information, you can find infinite amount of 'proof' to elevate a narrative. A huge majority of the news Miyao sees is war, death, terrorism, hate crimes, people and politicians being awful and wanting war -> therefore he assumes that the percentage of those people represented online is the same as in the real world, making the mistake of not realizing that this data sample is biased.

This slowly causes Miyao to become nihilistic towards humanity, which peaks in the chapter 'Disaster Utopia'. Miyao has a dream of creating a large scale disaster just to make people work together and stop hating each other, then as he wakes up covered in sweat, Keropoyo already has curated news articles waiting for him.

Then he plays super annoying happy beach music while showing him horrible news.

In this <post> I discuss how Keropoyo uses music to manipulate Miyao's emotion.

Instead of playing sad miserable music meant to induce hopelessness and anxiety, this time it's cheery, energetic music contrasting with the bad news, this time the intended emotion out of Miyao is Ridicule and Dissonance.

Miyao accepts that there is no secret mastermind stirring things behind the scenes, rather that humanity is inherently weak and evil.

Aside from manipulating the news to make Miyao nihilistic towards humanity, he also Hides news from him that might not fit the narrative.

Keropoyo interrupts a news segment with a strategically placed ad.

--Hyperreality--

[14] For they are the spirits of devils, working miracles, which go forth unto the kings of the earth and of the whole world, to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty.

How does Keropoyo gather people for war? To understand that you have to understand the concept of Hyperreality.

It means that a false or altered image, will eventually become more real that the real thing it is based on, becoming the standard for truth because people proceed on the notion that the false image is real.

This means that a pretend warfare online, made up of fake news and misinformation, will eventually become real warfare, if enough people proceed on the assumption that it is real, especially people with power, like politicians and gauntlet knights.

--Control--

[13] And I saw three unclean spirits like frogs come out of the mouth of the dragon, and out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet.

Mouth of the Dragon -> Jestress

Mouth of the Beast -> Seshat

Mouth of the False prophet -> Toujirou

Those are the three people who control keropoyo to hijack Miyao's perception and manipulate him, to use him as a piece.

Seshat

Seshat has a special connection with Keropoyo that is different from a normal user - poyo relationship.

He is able to perform much more complex operations thatn a regular keropoyo and refers to Seshat as his master

She might have just jailbroke her keropoyo to talk to her like this but also consider that the actual Egyptian Goddess Seshat is depicted with a frog sitting on her measuring rod.

Keropoyo also reports to someone called 'the mistress' and Seshat is famously known as The mistress of the house of books.

Keropoyo serves Seshat in a way that's different from anyone else. She could even possibly be his creator.

Jestress

Jestress' mask terminal is connected to Miyao's selcom <post> as she always knows what Miyao was doing and what's happening in the public bath. She could possibly have some control over Keropoyo.

Toujirou

Toujirou as Miyao's father could have access to Miyao's Selcom and able to adjust his Keropoyo. As we already saw he has access to Miyao's gauntlet so it's not far fetched.

Toujirou throughout phase 1 wants Miyao to lose faith in humanity by telling him there is no conspiracy and everything is just because people are a faulty product. This is what Keropoyo accomplishes so it was probably also him who adjusted Miyao's algorithm to show him bad news.

Toujirou

• It will be on the news soon
• The frog

Jestress' mask + News comment

Jestress' Mask is actually a wearable terminal of an unknown purpose, she has it with her at all times, except for the final scene, suggesting it's probably a part of her virtual avatar rather than an actual physical object.

The function of it is unknown however what it's probably used for is surveillance. Jestress is always monitoring and aware of everything that is happening in the world and inside Miyao's chivalric order.

Furthermore the symbol on the mask is the Eye of providence, A symbol that represents that God sees all, God's omniscience and watchfulness.

However Jestress' eye is inverted, pointing down instead of upward. Representing an inversion of the symbol, making it Satanic instead of Godly.

Most likely this means that her mask is used to observe and collect information. As she knows that Toujirou has met with Miyao recently, which suggests that her mask is connected to Miyao's selcom. 

Toujirou telling Miyao to turn off his Selcom was probably done to hide something from her observation.

Jestress would be aware of them meeting but would lose her sight after the Selcom got turned off.

Strange Comment

In the same conversation Jestress asks how did the meeting go:

Jestress: "How did the meeting with your son go?"

Toujirou: "It will be on the news soon"

Defense Minister Yunoki of the AOU Japanese government has been rushed to the hospital poyo!

His condition is unknown; everything about this is unknown keeerokero!

The Prime Minister's office is apparently scrambling to appoint his successor poyo!

Implying that the meeting between him and Miyao is why this minister is in the hospital right now.

Toujirou did something to Miyao during their talk, which caused Miyao to blank out, for what seemed to be a long time.

The implication being that while Miyao was out he went to kill Defense minister Yunoki.

But it's strange, we know that the real Miyao is dead and the Miyao we see is a program installed on the selcom, but in that case, whose selcom is the program installed on?

Observer

In phase 1 Miyao undergoes several visions of another MIYAO telling him about his future and the horrible things he will do. However it's doubtful if the person who receives these visions is really even Miyao. The text box never specifies that the speaker in these scenes is Miyao, it's simply blank, while blue MIYAO is the one who is named Miyao.

MIYAO speaking

Person responding is unnamed

What's more is that this person speaking with MIYAO does not identify himself with the piece Miyao as he refers to him in the third person.

"Across from us, Lingji is installing Wanyadora with Miyao's refferral id"

instead of

"Across from us, Lingji is installing Wanyadora with *MY* refferral id"

The person is referring to Miyao as someone else than himself, This is also true in the original Japanese script of the game.

Another thing that I found strange when I first read Ciconia, is that Miyao NEVER acknowledges any of the MIYAO visions, outside of the visions themselves. He is told that his existence will lead to the end of the world and the death of his close friends but he never thinks about any of that at all, there is no moment when he thinks about how he is going to kill Lingji and Koshka. It's like those moments are not happening for him.

The biggest instance of this is when MIYAO activates the murder program and he says that once he does this Miyao will become a completely different person set only on killing his target.

He does this and then Miyao is shown the horrifying factory world vision, followed by an instruction to kill someone.

Yet when we next see Miyao there is no noticeable change in his personality from the last time, he doesn't seem like his values changed at all since he still tries to maintain peace with the help of his chivalric order and not talking about murdering someone. Once again it's as if Miyao has not experienced those visions.

The final piece of evidence that proves they are not the same is the second MIYAO encounter in the public bath, which happens AFTER Miyao leaves the virtual room.

Nobody is in the Virtual room

Yet MIYAO still appears and talks with 'Miyao'.

Then what does this all mean:

• This person both identifies as Miyao Mitake but also doesn't identify with the Miyao we see, referring to him in 3rd person
• And their consciousness is separate from him as they are still present when Miyao is away.

So this person is Miyao yet isn't, he shares Miyao's consciousness and doesn't at the same time.

The answer to this is the fact that the background image used in MIYAO visions is called:

Meta.png

Proving that the MIYAO scenes are taking place in a Meta space outside the gameboard.

Therefore the Miyao speaking with MIYAO, is Player Miyao, looking down on the Piece Miyao, which explains why they are separate, yet the same entity and why Player Miyao is able to observe the entire gameboard instead of being limited to his Piece's point of view.

It's the same as Battler looking down on Piece Battler in Umineko.

In other words it's a conflict between the target of the murder program and the murder program which is the higher world Miyao whose consciousness is split into two : Miyao and Blue MIYAO who is his inner conscience, Blue MIYAO's goal is to get Miyao to terminate his own piece and disappear.

According to blue MIYAO's theory, once Miyao is terminated peace will return to the world. All of the disasters, war and death is because of the existance of piece Miyao, so Player Miyao makes deal with Blue MIYAO:

"If it will become undeniable that i was created for an evil purpose regardless of my intent, i will disappear"

So when Miyao fulfills the prophecy of killing Lingji by being manipulated by his father it becomes clear that it was true, he got undeniable proof that he is a murder program.

Right after this the truce is announced and the factions stop war with each other, the story ends.

The story ended because Miyao upheld his promise to erase himself once it became apparent that he was created for evil. As he was the point of view observing the entire gameboard, without him there's no observer and we cannot see anything anymore.

Epilogue

Seshat visits someone in Vier's lab, who is going to use the hatch to put themselves in cryogenic sleep for a thousand years. This person is without a doubt Miyao. 

[7] And when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison,

Sixth sense, Piece identity

Exactly one ace gauntlet knight from each faction possesses a 'sixth sense', which is called a supernatural ability as it defies analysis and is subconscious even to the user.

AOU: Koshka

COU: Lingji

ABN: Fatma

ACR: Gannet

Those abilities are called a sixth sense because they defy any analysis and they are treated like a supernatural power, because of this each faction has a team of scientists researching the brain of it's user. 

Their brains are the 'mystery' that each faction tries to solve.

The most obvious example is Koshka, the pandora. An entire team of scientists is monitoring her at all times and running experiments on her brain in order to find out her secret to do something very important. In other word solving Koshka's mystery is the AOU's victory condition.

Koshka is the only hope they have, so if koshka is killed the AOU loses by default. Therefore she can be likened to the King piece.

The Chessboard

Each faction has six ace gauntlet knights, six is also the number of the types of pieces in chess, these are:

• King 
• Queen
• Rook
• Bishop
• Knight
• Pawn

Each character represents a type of a piece in this four way game of chess and we can identify who is who. 

The king is the Pandora, a gauntlet knight with a unique brain structure that cannot be replicated and therefore is not replaceable, losing this piece means loss for the player. The kings (Pandora) of each faction are:

AOU: Koshka

COU: Lingji

ABN: Fatma

ACR: Gannet

The Queen is the most powerful piece on the board, that can still be sacrificed without losing the game, therefore a gauntlet knight who exhibits the most amount of power but does not posses an uncopiable brain structure, These are:

AOU: Miyao, The AOU gauntlet knight who has the highest P3 measurements in the entire world.

COU: Momotake, Not the highest P3 in the COU (Lingji) but because of the immense power he can unleash with his finishing move, Dimension slice, which can cut through any physical thing and hide it in seperate dimensions. No other gauntlet knight has the power to do this.

ABN: Naima, The highest P3 level in the ABN which sometimes can apparently exceed Miyao's

ACR: Rethabile, Highest P3 level in the ACR

The Rook is a long range piece, especially powerful in the endgame, it's second to the queen in value and power and forms the most powerful combo with the queen (5):

AOU: Jayden. Jayden's P3 is second to Miyao and they form and immensely powerful duo together launching joint saturation attacks 

COU: Andry, He has an Aptitude for long distance attacks while staying back from a far.

ABN: Stanisław, Heavy artillery aptitude for attacks with long range missiles.

ACR: Marianna, P3 level second to Rethabile and talented at controlling long range missiles.

The Bishop is a long range piece that is less valuable and powerful than the rook (in spite of also being a long range piece), because they color bound in a white or black square and cannot change it. These are gauntlet knights who are very powerful but face disadvantages that block their power.

AOU: Chloe, Her P3 level is massive, but only when she is flying alone and dips when she flies with others, making her less versatile than Jayden

COU: Sujatha, She has high P3 but also has a flaw that makes her P3 level very unstable when she is under a particular kind of stress.

ABN: Naomi, Naomi has received brain damage as a result of her mental optimization training which raised her P3 significantly.

ACR: Abdou, His P3 levels are very unstable.

The Knight is a piece that specializes at close range fights and defending other pieces.

AOU: Gunhild, Member of Warcat with a defensive role for supporting Jayden and Miyao.

COU: Rukhshana, She is not a good attacker but an exceptional defender, using her rejection shield to shield her allies.

ABN: Stephania, due to her ability for ally coordination and not for attacking

ACR: Ishak, Specializes in close range fights.

The Pawn is the weakest piece with no special advantages, usually used to create barriers and to be sacrificed for other more meaningful pieces. However they are useful thanks to their number and versatility.

AOU: Lilja, Lilja's skills are the lowest rated in the AOU with a 'A' grade for her Air power control which takes too long of a time to deploy and 'B' for 'Jack of all traits, master of none' she is versatile and can use any kind of weapon but does not excel at any of them. Her role is to protect and stay close to the king, Koshka.

COU: Aysha, Aysha has has no talent for fighting as a gauntlet knight but she has exceptional talent for observing the battlefield and collecting data she relies onto Lingji and Momotake.

ABN: Leah, She is more prized for her skills of singing and dancing for the internet than being a soldier

ACR: Noor, Noor has a low P3 but she makes it higher through constant self adjustment, she can command swarms of drones (which are very easy for gauntlet knight to shoot down) to stall and create barriers. 

The pawn is the most insignificant piece but it's the only piece that can be promoted to a queen by reaching the other side of the chessboard.

So at the end the board situation for the four factions is like this

AOU:

KING: KOSHKA
QUEEN: MIYAO
ROOK: JAYDEN

BISHOP: CHLOE
KINGHT: GUNHILD

PAWN: LILJA

COU:

KING: LINGJI
QUEEN: MOMOTAKE
ROOK: ANDRY

BISHOP: SUJATHA
KINGHT: RUKHSHANA

PAWN: AYSHA

ABN:

KING: FATMA
QUEEN: NAIMA
ROOK: STANISŁAW

BISHOP: NAOMI
KINGHT: STEPHANIA

PAWN: LEAH

ACR:

KING: GANNET
QUEEN: RETHABILE
ROOK: MARIANNA

BISHOP: ABDOU
KINGHT: ISHAK

PAWN: NOOR

God's Angels

The blue gauntlet knight girls are guards in the underground lab, they do not speak or show any emotion and are more like living statues than humans, they protect wisdom and keep the scientists in the lab from leaving by any means.

Their designs are very detailed and specific for background characters, that's because they are characters we already saw in phase 1 in another form, their identities are:

• Noor
• Koshka
• Rethabile
• Lingji
• Leah

Noor

Lingji

Leah

Rethabile

Koshka

The gauntlet girls resemble humans but are no longer human, the key to that is what Toujirou had said: 

"Once you stop thinking and debating you are not even a human anymore"

They are a result of what happened to the Gauntlet knights who have given up on the responsibility of critical thinking and decided to follow orders without questions, becoming like an automata that is not conscious but simply obeys. 

These beings are Angels which obey the will of God, The objective of the 'God' in Ciconia is to destroy the physical body and bring forth the factory world, the factory world itself represents the end of human civilization by the refusal to think critically, it is to accept that the human world cannot be saved and leaving fate to God, -- becoming passive.

Therefore the requirements to becoming a blue gauntlet knight are:

• Reject the responsibility of critical thinking - accepting being a piece
• Accept the factory world is the only possible future

We can pinpoint how exactly each of them has given up on thinking:

--Noor--

Noor is a character who constantly avoids making decisions and leaves the responsibility of thinking to others, such as Rethabile.

As a captain of her team she chooses to be passive and simply carry out the orders that her superiors gave her without thinking or following her conscience, she even tells Rethabile that they should leave fate in the hands of God.

--Rethabile--

Throughout most of phase 1 Rethabile is actively using her critical thinking to question orders and agreeing with Miyao's ideal of causing missions to fail that don't align with her own values. This makes her humane.

However somewhere in the latter part of the story her attitude completely changes and she accepts that she is just a piece that cannot do anything of her own volition. 

--Leah--

Leah is part of Yeladot Shavit, which is one of the most fanatical and obedient to the government kettes, from the very beginning she has been passive and simply following the orders of her superiors, no matter how brutal and heartless they were. The final scene we see of her is when she (despite hesitating), chooses to follow an order to shoot down one of her allies.

--Koshka--

Koshka throughout all of phase 1 has rejected authority and decided to do what she feels like instead of following orders, this is true up to the very end, when she ignores the order to shoot. 

However she still stops thinking and accepts that she is just a piece, and that the only way a piece can strike back at the player is by throwing away it's cage of flesh -- to commit suicide.

She has given up on thinking about how to save the world and decided to simply exit the gameboard.

--Lingji--

We don't see the exact moment that Lingji has given up on thinking and became a piece but we can see from the last scene that her transformation into a blue girl has already begun as she is wearing the same golden gauntlet as they are.

We don't know what Lingji is talking about in this scene or what she is trying to accomplish but Miyao desperately wants to get through to her. Keropoyo tells him that her shield is on a whole different level.

Similar to Umineko magical fights, the fights between gauntlet knights can be interpreted as debates, in this case the rejection shield symbolizes the ability to reject the information given to you by your opponent. Lingji's shield being on a whole different level means that she has stopped thinking and even considering Miyao's words. She has become a fanatic that no information can get through to.

Furthermore the Golden gauntlet represents Dogma, a set absolutely certain belief that is accepted as true even without thinking.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The last thing that should be considered is that all of the blue gauntlet knights are women, even though there are also male gauntlet knights that have abandoned critical thinking and became inhumane, however all the gauntlet knights in Vier's lab are women. And they are also hypersexualized, naked with big breasts and a small waist, all looking the exact same except for the head like like a doll, which does not even show eyes. In a almost fetishistic way they are stripped of anything that isn't the subject of the sexual urge, they do not speak or have any personality which makes them as sexual pieces of furniture. 

You might think this is just down to Ryukishi's personal taste, who is not shy of sexualizing his female characters, putting them in skin tight costumes with frills and such. However there is one thing in the story which points to this sexualization being an actual plot point. That is the statue of Venus de milo with drawers, that Vier and Toujirou visit.

The Venus de milo with Drawers is a sculpture by Salvador Dali, who is quoted all throughout phase 1, in an essay he explains the statue as:

“absolutely useless … and created wholly for the purpose of materializing in a fetishistic way, with maximum tangible reality, ideas and fantasies of a delirious character.”

A woman with drawers is a living piece of furniture.

On the fourth twilight, gouge the head and kill.

On the fifth twilight, gouge the chest and kill.

On the sixth twilight, gouge the stomach and kill.

On the seventh twilight, gouge the knee and kill.

On the eighth twilight, gouge the leg and kill.