Sage Harpuia, aerial fighter, de facto leader of the Guardians and commander Neo Arcadia’s Strong Air Battalion. Later as Model H (seen in the second picture merged with Aeolus, and in Biometal form in picture 3). He is a strong, very cool customer with a noble air.
I originally had the theory that the Guardians were surviving Robot Masters from the Classic era after Inti Creates made some RMs that were obvious references to them in MM9, which was made after the Zero series. I found out though that they were created from fragments of X’s soul, so my current theory is that Light at least built certain armours for X to use based on the designs of those Robot Masters and possibly containing some of their programming to aid X in using them.
For example, Tornado Man from MM9 bears a striking resemblance to Harpuia, and was built by Light himself. Using the principles of the Rush Adaptors, Light made augmentations for X to find and use. In this case, the Falcon Armor (fifth picture) has the most similarities with Harpuia himself. The Armor theory is not very strong, but combined with the Copy Ability synthesis I mentioned in my previous post, I think it could be made to work.
So part of Tornado Man’s programming (and possibly other wind-based RMs) was installed in the Falcon Armor parts, and possibly other parts as well (like other air-dashing parts). It seems like a stretch, but this is the only way I can explain Harpuia looking so much like Tornado Man!
So this whole Rockman series is mainly about the principles of characters’ designs echoing backward and forward in the timeline, so even if the lore doesn’t quite hold the other similarities are evident.
Part of this is the notion of the Copy Ability crystallisation process at X’s death. Throughout the Classic and X series, Rock and X gain many different abilities, but they can all be categorised into several broad groups. These then reflect on the Robot Masters and Mavericks that held them, but that would take way too long. Suffice it to say that the categories of copied weapons that find their ultimate expression in Sage Harpuia are Electric and Air/Wind. He also corresponds to the Falcon Armor, more or less.
aqueousablution liked this
miloscat posted this