A few consideration about Gunnms themes and what's going on

[MrFaber]

I was rethinking about Last Order's finale and there were issues bugging me.

I always felt that the main theme of the whole Gunnm opera was the search for the meaning of personal identity or self consciousness and the nature of what a person is.

It recurs all the time.

In the early pages we face an easy question: Is a cyborg a person? And the answer is easy as well: Yes, it might have a mechanical body, yet it has a flesh and blood brain, so, no matter how much of his body is prosthetic, it will always be a person with a mechanical body.

Then things get trickier. Salemites, who think they are the only true persons because they are biological, actually have brainchips, so, are they stil persons, if their minds are so artificial that melchizedec even designed them and their flesh and blood bodies are lab products?

Then it get pretty messy. Alita Replicas, which have the same mechanical bodies as Alita's and which have Alita's brainchips just like salemites have their own brainchips, are the same person of Alita? Are they their own individuals?

And again, when a Salemite has his brain replaced, stays the same person in the process? Or is the original person the brain in the incubator, while the brainchip in the biological body starts a whole new person?

And then, are nano-rebuilt Novas all the same person? Is each of them a person of his own, and the person who actually was Nova is long time dead? Since the original Nova has been killed by Roscoe and his brainchips have been destroied (see Porta-Nova, who claimed to be a totally different individual), Super-Nova is the first nano-rebuilt nova and Flan-Nova is a subsequent nano-rebuild, now, who the hell is Nova? Is there even any Nova at all? Ora are they all Nova?


Now, why this long introduction? Because Alita. The one and whole cyber-woman Alita, get blown up by Nova (the original one) in the 8th volume of the original serie. Nullified the original finale, her brain is karmatronically rebuild by Nova, and it is still the original Alita's brain.

But then Nova produces a new Alita's brainchip and gives a body to it, while Alita's brain is secured in the P-Box.

The Alita with a brand new brainchip and the imaginos body has a dream about her childwood on Mars then wake up and Last Order begins.

But, who's the main character of Alita Last Order?

Is it actually Alita, since Alita's brain is just a lagguage carried uselessly around for the whole narration? Isn't the Imaginos Body Alita just another Alita Replica like Sechs and 11 and 12, and, for what we concern, 2 and 4 who get slain "in camera" or the other 7 replicas we never hear about? And then, doesn't Imaginos Body Alita deserve to be considered a person of her own?

And at the end, when a fully flesh and blood Pinocchio-Alita is bioprinted upon her original brain, isn't HER the original Alita with yet another brand new body? So, was she never present in the Alita Last Order story? Did her story end with the original serie and, finally, came to an end when she is reunited with Figure 4?

Then, who is the story about now? Is it even Alita's Story anymore? Why is Imaginos Body Alita pursuing Actual Alita's past, while Actual Alita is housewifing on Earth? Isn't Actual Alita even concerned any longer about her lost past? Shouldn't Erika want to meet Actual Alita as her long time lost friend instead of an Androic Replica?

Has the quantum link between Melkizedec, Alita's original brain, Fata Morgana and Imaginos Body Alita's brain chip, any role in this?

Can we sort this big mess?

[youngred]

Interesting commentary! I would like to add my own thoughts to this.

Computer chip-Alita and human brain-Alita should both be considered people. They have separate identities formed from the differences in their experiences, memories, and personalities. I consider computer chip-Alita to be the main character from Volume 1 of Last Order to Mars Chronicle. Meanwhile, human brain-Alita is main character of Battle Angel Alita who is reborn in the final volume of Last Order.

The main difference between computer chip-Alita and the Alita Replicas is that she remembers her past as Yoko, along with much of the knowledge and experience of her martial art. This is what makes her unique, and important enough to be the main character.

To address your question about Erika, I think that Erika does not know about human Alita. If she does know, then I wonder who she would consider to be more of a replica: human-Alita or chip-Alita?

To explain, consider this chart:

Yoko
|
Alita (human)
|
other ARs, Sechs, Alita(chip)

Human Alita has the same brain as Yoko, but few of her memories. For one, her knowledge of Panzer Kunst is only fragments of all that Yoko mastered. In this sense, she is somewhat like an incomplete memory-replica of Yoko. It is debatable if she is the same person as Yoko.

Chip Alita does not have the brain, or any other body parts of the original Yoko. In this sense, she is a physical replica of Yoko. On the other hand, she has more of Yoko's memories than any other replica, and is the only one to have proclaimed that she is both Alita and Yoko. It is debatable if she is the same person as Yoko.

Sechs and the other ARs have neither the brain nor the memories of the original Yoko. I would argue that, even if Sechs were to regain the memories of Yoko, his personality is so different from Yoko that he is still not the same person as Yoko. (But even this is debatable too!)

So, if Erika knows or discovers the other Alita, I wonder who she would be more interested in? Yoko's brain, who does not remember who Erika is; or Yoko's memories, copied into a very advanced robot?

[HumanRage]

That's the whole point of the show, have the reader question and maybe prepare himself for what will happen in the future... the whole point of science fiction :

Individual science fiction stories may seem as trivial as ever to the blinder critics and philosophers of today - but the core of science fiction, its essence has become crucial to our salvation if we are to be saved at all.

Isaac Asimov

Posing the right questions, and proposing answers. Like when Payne (or Nova ? i don't remember that one) comments on solid-state Gally* "declaring her humanity" despise being all mechanics.

The way Nova deals with his own immortality and aliases is quite straightforward, and can teach us a lot.
- He basically created his own alternate way of immortality, yet not prolonging his own lifespan. Well, i guess supernova used Mathuselah techs right away so now that one is the real deal, no aging AND regeneration out of thin air.
- His aliases are perfect "snapshot" of his brainchip, hence perfect copies of his individual at one precise time. But as soon as the chip boot up, they became their own individual, with separate memories and courses of action from that point on. Yet, if their immediate interests can vary, they still are in unison when it comes to stirring the pot and cooking the universe.
- They all acknowledge each other without a single twitch, discuss between themselves, try to take each other out in a very casual, "normal" way, like we used to see Nova, from any time period, talk and act with anyone and about anything coming his way.

... And i'm pretty much along these lines myself. Each Alias is a new individual, sharing a past with the other copies, yet all unique. The only truthful "owner" or "leader" of this pack would only be the original flesh body who got the original genetic code, and if inexistant, the one with the uninterrupted timeline since birthtime of that original.

Under that logic, that makes the Deus Ex Machina Gally (the one en route to Mars to investigate Frau X) actually... Yoko who learned back humanity while recovering from an amnesia due to sudden deorbitation and subsequent lithobraking.
The "housewife Gally" is the "end of first Gunnm series" Gally, the one who wanted to settle far from battles. She will be able to live what "post-Gally Yoko" knows she will never be allowed to have, being an agent for the Greater Good or so it seems.

That's all pretty straigthforward to my eyes ^^


*btw guys, you can't say Salemites and call her Alita. It's Tiphares and Alita, or Salem and Gally

[MrFaber]

In italian version is Salem and Alita But i could live with Salem and Gally.

[Kazu-kun]

And again, when a Salemite has his brain replaced, stays the same person in the process? Or is the original person the brain in the incubator, while the brainchip in the biological body starts a whole new person?

This isn't messy at all. The consciousness is part of the brain. So when someone's brain is replaced with brainchip, a new person is born, because it has a different consciousness from that of the original brain. The original consciousness still exists in the original brain. The brainchip's consciousness is pretty similar to the original because it's a copy, but it's still a separate thing from the original.

And then, are nano-rebuilt Novas all the same person? Is each of them a person of his own, and the person who actually was Nova is long time dead? Since the original Nova has been killed by Roscoe and his brainchips have been destroied (see Porta-Nova, who claimed to be a totally different individual), Super-Nova is the first nano-rebuilt nova and Flan-Nova is a subsequent nano-rebuild, now, who the hell is Nova? Is there even any Nova at all? Ora are they all Nova?

They are all Nova, but different Nova. If you're question is what happened with the original, I assume his brain was collected like everyone else's in Salem.

Now, why this long introduction? Because Alita. The one and whole cyber-woman Alita, get blown up by Nova (the original one) in the 8th volume of the original serie. Nullified the original finale, her brain is karmatronically rebuild by Nova, and it is still the original Alita's brain.

But then Nova produces a new Alita's brainchip and gives a body to it, while Alita's brain is secured in the P-Box.

The Alita with a brand new brainchip and the imaginos body has a dream about her childwood on Mars then wake up and Last Order begins.

But, who's the main character of Alita Last Order?

An android with Yoko's memories. The real Yuko was the protagonist of the first series, and at the end of Last Orders she was given a human body and now is living with Figur or whatever he's called.

Although this Alita is an android, she identifies herself as "human". You could say she's deceiving herself, but I think what Alita is thinking when saying "human" is more like "human condition" rather than "human being." For example, the word "humanity" means either the general population of human beings or the compendium of moral values attributed to human beings. So, when android Alita declares she's "human," she's based this assertion in the fact that her actions are humane. She's not a crazy psycho. She's a good person, therefore she's human.

On the other hand, even actual human beings, biological humans, can lose their humanity. When they go crazy and lose their reason. When they let negative emotions like greed take other, etc.

As far as Alita is concerned, what really make a human, is their actions. Whether your actions are humane, that's what matters.

[Martin]

Last Order is post 'singularity' ... chip = brain

This was alluded to in the original series as the ideas were contrasted. In Last Order, we learn that super individualist Zekka chose to have his brain replaced with a brain bio chip. It stands to reason that he pulled the plug on his old flesh brain.

[Kazu-kun]

Last Order is post 'singularity' ... chip = brain

This was alluded to in the original series as the ideas were contrasted. In Last Order, we learn that super individualist Zekka chose to have his brain replaced with a brain bio chip. It stands to reason that he pulled the plug on his old flesh brain.

This doesn't change the fact that brainchip Zekka and biological brain Zekka are different persons. Brainchip Zekka is a new Zekka, different from the original Zekka. He has the memories from the original, but he doesn't share his consciousness.

This is plenty clear with Alita. We have two of them, alive and conscious, at this point, but they are different individuals. Each have their own consciousness, their own "soul" so to speak.

If brainchip Zekka pulled the plug on the old biological Zekka, he basically killed him, because the original Zekka was his own person, different from brainchip Zekka.