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.

Keropoyo

•  Musical frog

Musical frog

In 'Disaster Utopia' Keropoyo is being strangely annoying by playing completely unfitting high energy beach music to Miyao, while he is doom scrolling the news.

This brings up the possibility that the BGM we hear is actually diagetic to the story, as in it's actually playing for Miyao through his Selcom on a background app like an A3W version of spotify. This might sound ridiculous, but there is actually more proof that this is true.

After beating the game a Music room is unlocked with all the tracks from the game you can listen to,  Keropoyo is also there, and you're even able to uninstall him.

I believe Keropoyo is used by Miyao's handler to manipulate his mood and worldview by showing him information that fits a narrative they want Miyao to believe. There are many instances where Keropoyo bombards Miyao with bad news to bring him down. The way this fits into this theory is that Music is a powerful method of manipulation.

Music acts as a powerful tool for mental manipulation by bypassing conscious reasoning to directly influence emotions, physiology, and behavior and is commonly used in marketing as well as propaganda.

It can tint experiences and memories and completely recontextualize them, for example playing a happy song over something would make you associate whatever is happening with that emotion, contrarily playing a sad song over something would make you see whatever is happening as sad.

One example of this is when the subject of getting rid of the physical body is brought up and this very hopeful and tranquil music is playing:

While the narrator talks about how amazing having no body would be,

This is a prime example of emotional manipulation through music. To double the impact right after this keropoyo plays some curated news segments of people being awful and the factory world vision is played for Miyao again, this time reframed as a hopeful positive future for humanity.

The last bit of evidence is hidden in Rethabile using one of <Miyao's triggers>

PIECES - trigger word

There are two instances where Rethabile uses miyao's trigger word: <PIECES>, using this trigger word causes the music in the game to abruptly cut to silence and Miyao to blank out.

<music cuts> 

<Music cuts, Miyao is startled>

This is completely intentional as there is written instruction from the game's director in the game files to stop the BGM as soo as Rethabile uses the word 'pieces'

Pause BGM when Rethabile uses the word "Piece"

Miyao showing such a reaction means that this word is one of his programmed triggers, as this Miyao we see is a program, there is also proof that the music playing is diagetic to the story, as in it's actually playing for Miyao <post>, it cutting out means that there has been a glitch in his selcom.

Rethabile accidentally discovered one of Miyao's triggers during the first scene and the second time she has used it on purpose for some reason. You can see the complete change in her attitude between the two scenes. 

I. We are more than game pieces in a war -> II. We are nothing more than game pieces

It's a complete 180 switch, and as Toujirou says, As soon as you acknowledge you're just a piece, it's all over for you.

Miyao's attitude also changes throughout the story, at first he believes that he is the main character but as time goes on he accepts that he is nothing but a piece.

Another instance is when Miyao uses the word game pieces, regaining some of his hope and believing he still has agency, to move differently than he is ordered to, as soon as he says the word pieces, Rethabile appears.

She is here to talk about Cyril with him who might have some clue leading to the mastermind, which makes Miyao hopeful, but as we know Cyril gets killed and the evidence blown up, this causes Miyao to accept that he is just a piece.

Three kings

• Rain ceremony
• Sprite similarities

Rain ceremony

-Addendum to the two witnesses post

[6] These have power to shut heaven, that it rain not in the days of their prophecy

There is no rain in A3W,

Both in Higurashi and Umineko rain is heavily featured, between the scenes of Rena standing in the rain and Rokkenjima always being traped in a typhoon, but in Cionia there is never any rain shown at any point in the story.

It makes sense because every aspect of the environment has been completely altered by the 8ms, the global temperature everywhere was set to around 15-25°C and the four seasons stopped existing, there is also no snow or rain anywhere, so it's completely possible that humanity has replaced the natural water cycle with a artificial one, making it not rain for people's comfort.

But there is also another reason for this, it's because the gauntlet would be absolutely useless during rain.

The first reason why is the Rejection shield, it's set to automatically deflect obstacles and weapons coming your way, Gauntlet knights can fly at the speed of sound so 1,235 km/h, at this speed at lazily flying beetle would have the force of a gunshot on you, the rejection shield is set to protect against this by default.

Using the rejection shield uses up a lot of energy, a few times is enough to go into free fall, so the gauntlet knights are advised to not use it often, but what if you had millions of falling obstacles like rain drops pummeling you? Your Rejection shield would get turned on and off instantly draining your energy.

You can set the shields sensitivity to a lower level to ignore this but Gauntlet knights travel without a vehicle so going through the rain at this speed would absolutely not be safe, a single rain drop wouldn't be enough to kill you but heavy rain would feel like being sandblasted by high-velocity water jets. Death by a thousand cuts.

Even going at a slower speed it would be difficult for you to keep your concentration and see anything.

The second reason is the reaper's eye, rain could possibly distort the signal from the 8ms making it harder to get readings. 

This is why rain has been removed from A3W so that gauntlet technology could work. If you got it to rain during combat gauntlet knights would be made obsolete. For example using a rain ceremony.

Lilja's true character

From data fragment 15 we know that Lilja is is faking her entire personality in order to get closer to koshka as a part of the pandora replication process. She acts in a way similar to koshka and picks up her interests such as wanyadora (which she hates) to have more conversation topics with her, she even makes forced meows at the end of her sentences. 

It's implied that Lilja is being spared the death penalty for the crime of accidentally killing her instructor in exchange for spying on Koshka. To be exact, being the clay girl, who is supposed to be molded into the pandora's box. Because of this her real personality and interests are forced out of her.

What kind of person is the real Lilja? There is a scene by the end of the story where she lets her true character show through. Suring a battle where lots of inexperienced gauntlet knight adepts are put on the front lines Lilja shows great concern for them and gives them advice to keep them alive. While koshka does not care and tells them to die if they want to. 

Lilja is forced to imitate koshka's character at all times, so she is forced to play a nihilistic asshole who does not care about life and she does this for most of phase 1. Which is why it's so strange for her to be this caring about people in this scene. Koshka notices this and gets upset

Chloe picks up on this change in character and asks her who is she really, Lilja completely breaks character and she even stops meowing at this point, she just speaks normally

The true Lilja is not nihilistic like Koshka, she cares about protecting others, this slip showing her true character exposes her as a spy to the rest of her team and is the reason for why she is attacked by Chloe in the final Battle

--Prophecy--

MIYAO prophesizes that Miyao will kill Lingji and Koshka who will be exploded by guided missiles, but we only saw the first part of the prophecy be fulfilled. Miyao killed Lingji, however Koshka wasn't killed by the end of phase 1. Or was she? 

First you have to ask what constitutes someone being 'Koshka', in Umineko we saw how much room for interpretation and tricks there is with human names and identity. First of all we need to establish that Koshka is not a real name but something more like a pseudonym that she has, since it's not a Russian name but the word for cat. Most people we know have a full first and last name but she does not:

• Miyao Mitake
• Gunhild Gustaffson
• Chloe Ironside
• Lilja Viljakainen

but she is just Koshka - the cat

So what does it mean to be Koshka, if you assume that idenitity = body, remember that there exists a whole stock of 4d printed Koshka body spares, that her brain is regularly switched out of. Her brain is the only unique thing that cannot be replicated, therefore koshka doesn't have to necessarily look like the koshka we saw in phase 1, if her brain is copied into a different body. She can even look like Lilja.

The Lilja we saw get shocked by Chloevil was not actually Lilja but Koshka inside Lilja's body, because Lilja as Clay girl has successfully managed to copy Koshka's brain, remember how MIYAO said that koshka will die.

She will be exploded by missiles, and that's exactly how we see Lilja die. Hit by missiles she was unable to avoid because of Chloe's electric shock. This way the entire prophecy has already been acted out in phase 1.

Agricultural plant accident

In Chapter 18: God's Scenario, Suparna conducts an attack on a ABN agricultural plant in retribution for the Erbil L5 for which the ABN was blamed, the plant was unmanned and the members of the team take great care not to hit any civilians. However, reports come in right after that apparently there were 40 kindergartners on a school trip on the ground who were caught up in the bombing.

Rukhshana is in complete denial as she checked very carefully before attacking and Sujatha dismisses it as enemy propaganda. 

However in a later scene during an inquiry Suparna gets chastised by officers for causing civilian deaths in the attack on the plant, proving that it actually did happen,

So what actually happened? Even though Rukhshana and Sujatha have checked over and over again to make sure nobody was there, people were actually there, so have they made a mistake? Or perhaps they could not 'see' no matter how much they looked because the targets were hidden from them. It seems likely considering that the COU has special technology that makes things disappear from view of the Reaper's eye. 

Only two gauntlet knights that we know possess the ability to hide things from the view of the 8ms, and both of them are from the COU. Those are Momotake and Rukhshana, 

Momotake's Ability; 8ms stealth, allows him to hide himself and his allies from the view of the reapers eye, with the data provided by Aysha. We actually see this technology being used by Baibao when they were fighting against Grave Mole. In this scene Chloe is very confused because she is not able to see Baibao, even though they are in her range, almost as if they were invisible.

"Even though they should be close enough, i can't see them"

Rukhshana also has the ability : 8ms concealment, which allows her to disappear from view.

That's both of the ace COU teams that have a member who can make things invisible, what's more is that this ability doesn't appear anywhere else outside the COU. This is because invisibility is COU's Wisdom.

Wisdom 18721205, a golden triakis icosahedron is a wisdom named after the date of the disappearance of the crew of the Mary celeste, and it is also used to make Mario disappear, therefore the power of this wisdom is to make things disappear by hiding them from observation. The final piece of evidence is that the front face of the golden triakis icosahedron appears in the flag of the COU:

Triakis Icosahedron facing the camera

Wisdom are secret technology that each faction possesses to give them an edge in the war and COU's secret technology in invisibility, the ability to hide yourself and other things from the view of the reaper's eye.

Suparna checked the plant very carefully and they were unable to see anything, however people were there, that's because they were hidden from the view using wisdom 18721205.

Also Seshat who is the Egyptian Goddess of Wisdom amongst other things also has this ability, (Ghost)

The left arm

We know that the Miyao we see in phase 1 is not the real Mitake Miyao but a program made to resemble him, the real Miyao is already dead at the start of the game. The Replica Miyao is a murder program made to bring war and destroy the world.

We see the vision of Miyao's corpse split in two, with only the <left> half of his body remaining.

A perfect corpse examination, confirming identity and making death certain, 'No human could survive with his head destroyed'.

We know Miyao is dead and we also have seen his death, he is the child who died during the filming of the propaganda video in the prologue.

Miyao's sleeve and gauntlet

What happened is most likely that Miyao opened his rejection shield only halfway through, protecting half of his body - the left half which is the half that has the gauntlet on.

And.. the half that has the selcom on -- the left upper arm to be exact

The Selcom can store everything as data, even memories and knowledge, this is the key to how Miyao  program was created. Talking with himself, Miyao argues that he is Miyao because he has the memories of Miyao, however as he says having memories doesn't mean that they are yours.

Miyao program was created from the memories stored on the real Miyao's selcom, the Data fragments are some of these memories. However the selcom must be put into someone else in order to work.

"We are one flesh", because Jayden has implanted himself with Miyao's <left> arm.